God’s Dominion

I haven’t done anything on here for a few days, mainly because I’ve been relaxing and trying to get better.  I didn’t even bother to get up on Saturday.  Well, today I added a few spring photos to my site.  I tried to add the videos, but for some reason it didn’t work.  I may need to do a little work to the files before I can add them to the site.  Bummer.  If anybody wants the videos, let me know and I’ll burn them to a CD and mail them to you.

Anyway, today was a bit of a mixed bag of a day.  Started badly as traffic was a mess on the way to work.  I was stopped by a train (I hate freight trains) and the traffic conspiracy continued as the intersection of 22 and Old McHenry, which normally flows freely, now backs up a mile (I measured with my odometer) both in the evening and in the morning.  They apparently did that by adjusting the timing of the lights so that it is green for Old McHenry for about 20-30 seconds, then green for 22 for about 3 minutes (I’m not exaggerating, either).

On the bright side, I’m considering getting out of my current contract to get one that pays better closer to home.  Everything is in place: I have somebody to replace me who will cost SAI less and I have found the higher-paying closer contract.  The only thing now is that I have to talk to my manager and Robert Half (the company I’m currently contracted through) to make sure everybody approves.  I plan to at least talk to my manager tomorrow.  I don’t want either them or Robert Half to think I’m running away or that I’m the type to take off any time I find a better deal.  Pray for me.  Laterz!

I’ve uploaded the videos from the retreat and a few backyard spring pictures.  I haven’t actually put them on the site yet, but they’re on the server.  Why do I bother to mention it, you ask?  I just wanted to point out that the 15 videos I uploaded are about 1 gigabyte in size.  My entire website is 1.5 gigbytes.  That means the 15 videos are twice the size of all my postings, my message boards, and photos.  Crazy, huh?  Laterz!

Somehow, I knew this question would come up.  Webster’s defines caltrops as, “a device with four metal points so arranged that when any three are on the ground the fourth projects upward as a hazard to the hooves of horses or to pneumatic tires”.  Basically, they’re those little spikey metal things you see them throw under the tires of cars in movies to pop the tires.  Hope that helps.  Laterz!

Earlier today, I received an email that ended with:

When Jesus died on the cross; he was thinking of you!
If you are one of the 93 % who will stand up for him forward this w/ the title, “I’m in the 93%”.  Would you believe 7% of people won’t forward this?

Just a little while ago, I received one that ended with:

When Jesus died on the cross he was thinking of you, the Elect!
If you are one of the 7% who will stand up for him, forward this with the title ‘I am one of the 7%’.
93% of people won’t forward this.

I love statistics, don’t you?  Laterz!

I no longer have a fever, but I still feel lousy.  I’m at work, but working an abbreviated day.  I need the money.  I guess I should go get myself medical insurance.  I haven’t had any in years.  My throat feels like I swallowed a handful of caltrops.  Hopefully, I can get through the day and get paid.  Pray for me.  Laterz!

Now I have a cold.   I have a sore throat and a fever.  I think the trip, exhaustion, and change in temperature lowered my tolerance.  When I got back to work, a few people were sick.  Then, my brother was sick.  I knew it was just a matter of time.  Keep me in your prayers.  Laterz!

I added a few more captions.  Not sure if I’ll add them to all of them.  Some of them are just portraits and since I’m not going to put up any names for the safety of the youth, the captions wouldn’t add too much.  I have taken a few pictures of my backyard (and Pepper) that I’m going to add to my spring section of the photos.  I’m also going to take a few indoor shots of the house.  I didn’t realize I didn’t have any.  I’m just going to take the common areas, though.

I was quite pleased to get a comment from one of the youth (hey, Chase!) and hopefully I’ll get some more.  It’s always nice to hear from people you invest in as it somehow makes it seem more worthwhile.  I love you all and hope to see you again soon!  I may even come visit before Retreat ‘08.  Laterz!

Well, I know of at least one new person who has come on here to look at the retreat pictures, which is pretty cool.  We’ll see if there’s more.   Anyway, it was really good to go out there and see everybody.  Quite a few of the youth got much more excited than I expected when they saw me.  I guess it wasn’t common knowledge that I would be there and they were surprised.  When I went through the list of boys in my cabin and didn’t recognize most of the names, I remember thinking how it was unusual for me not to know just about everybody.  This was my eighth retreat.  I had the sixth grade cabin, so it was everybody’s first time at the retreat.  The teaching this year was on meekness.  I thought the lessons were good, but perhaps a little long for the sixth graders (can’t comment on the other grades as I was in the sixth grade class).  Normally, Saturday night is a long one for me as many of the boys opt to discuss either something from the lesson or some issue they may be dealing with in their life.  This year, they pretty much went straight to bed.  Oh, well.  I had a pretty good group of boys, though.  They didn’t give me any trouble and I didn’t even have to force them to go to bed as they all tired out pretty quickly.
I’m hoping to return next year, but we’ll see what God has in store.  Returning home this year was difficult.  They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I think it’s seeing them again that’s difficult.  Once I got to see everybody again (and see how much they’ve all grown in a year), it was hard to say goodbye again.  I handed out my contact info to everybody in sight, but I don’t honestly expect any to contact me.  When I moved here in the first place, I did the same and only one person contacted me (Tre, you don’t count since you called me just as much after I moved as you did before).  Hopefully at least a few of them shoot me an email or something.  Well, that’s all for now.  I still haven’t uploaded the videos.  I have to go through and watch them (a few of them are over five minutes long) and see which ones I’d like to upload.  I’ll also be adding captions from time to time.  Laterz!

I’ve added some captions to some of the pics and reordered them.  I’ll keep adding more captions and will soon add the videos.  Oh, and yes…that is snow in those pictures.  We awoke on Sunday to some snow.  It was interesting to talk to some of the boys who had either never seen it or hadn’t seen it in years.  Of course, I saw it a few days earlier when my flight was delayed 2 1/2 hours thanks to the snow storm that dumped like six inches of wet snow on us.  Laterz!

I have uploaded the pics I took from the retreat.  For whatever reason, it uploaded the pics backwards so the first pictures I took are at the end.  Anyway, there currently aren’t any videos or captions.  I will be adding both of those soon.  The videos are quite large and may take awhile to upload.  There are like 100 pictures, so the captions might take awhile, too.  I probably won’t add captions to all of them.  I think I’ll probably not put in any names for safety reasons.  If I end up password protecting the album, I’ll go back and add the names.  I just need to find a password where I can put a hint in that nobody can figure out, but everybody who knows me will know.  Anyway, I’ll fill you in on the retreat later.  Probably this weekend as I’m still tired and have a lot to say.  I’ll try to keep it as short as possible, I promise.   Laterz!