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I think you are supposed to come back from vacation feeling refreshed… right? I haven’t been this wiped out in a while.

Fate was working against my vacation the entire time. When making arrangements to get to and from the airport, I discovered that my return flight was wrong and had to get that fixed. Friday, I lost my itinerary at a gas station and had to call to get my confirmation number again (wait time was supposed to be 11 minutes so I figured I could just be away from my desk for a few… definitely waited 24). At about the time I was supposed to leave for the airport an accident involving a semi closed down I-40… at the airport… We found another way to get there, but a torrential rain started (fortunately we left an hour and a half before my flight). At the airport, going through security, they tell me I can’t have my shampoo, hair gel, tooth paste or shaving gel in my carry on (they were singularly and cumulatively over the limit of 3 fl. oz…. then again not much isn’t…) so I had to go back to check in, reorganize my bags since I had electronics in both carry ons and go through security again. After finally getting to the gate I discovered I’d also left my sun glasses at the check in counter… I gave those up as a loss to the Fates. Of course I would have had time since my flight was delayed for 2 and a half hours because of storms. The flight out was interesting to say the least. There was a minimum of 3 times that the plane hit an air pocket and fell a few hundred feet… yay…

Saturday was a lot of fun. The experiences of the night before and the lack of sleep gave me an annoyed demeanor, but we still had a lot of fun at the Renaissance Fair. (Pictures of me in a kilt will be on facebook sometime soon… maybe.) There was only one little bump: Matthew started throwing some fits later in the afternoon. It turns out though that he was up late the night before (since he had just come back from Hawaii) and up early the next day (to drive to my Dad’s) so I guess it is surprising that he really lasted to 5pm without throwing fits.

Sunday was nice. I spent the day with Theresa shopping around for new sandals (didn’t find any that I liked completely). We had dinner with my mom and Tim picked me up around 8. I spent most of Sunday night reformatting my computer and installing about 40GB of applications and such… not fun, but it had to be done (XP 64but just has too many compatibility problems). I figured we would leave around noon Monday, or at least early aftenoon. Turned out that Tim told everyone 4pm and we didn’t leave until 5:30. The drive to Dallas was interesting. On the way from Cinci to Louisville, Tim missed the 71/75 (it was a single lane split so not hard to miss), but we didn’t notice until we were too far south to really do anything so we caught 64W adding another hour and a half or so to the drive. We then had to do a little hunting for a friend of Mike’s in Louisville (not much, the directions were just a bit ambiguous). The drive was mostly ok after that, but as we crossed into Texas we got hit with a number of rainstorms slowing us down and stopping us from time to time getting us to Dallas about 2 hours later than we had to be there (for setup since 4 of us volunteered this year).

The actual convention was a lot of fun… and I think for the first year, no one got severely pissed off at anyone for the entire trip. I won’t go into the full details, because they’re boring to type out, but one big annoyance and something that was a lot of fun. The annoyance: While we were there, there were 2 volunteer prize drawings… both times Tim, Matt, and Steve won something and I did not even though I had more “points” than all 3 of them (I was really pissed after the 2nd drawing for like 4 hours). The something fun: Saturday night, a series of events unfolded that allowed me to somehow become something of a point man in an investigation to find a stolen PSP. We found the kid, confiscated anything he didn’t check in with, made him give back all of the free stuff had had gotten while there (including the shirt he was wearing), and blacklisted him from everything Quakcon (Given that I’m sure a number of other cons check our lists/forums, he is probably blacklisted from most of the big cons in America). I even had the person satisfaction of escorting the teen out the doors (cameras ablaze). The kid has been nicknamed “PSP Kid” and there are many pictures and photoshops of him around the internet. Less than 30 minutes after the event, there was even a wiki article about him created (which has since been removed).

The drive home sucked. Simply put, I was awake for the better part of 36 hours including the drive and my flight to NC (I did take a short nap at Theresa’s before the flight)… I really feel like I’ve been given a horse tranquilizer at the moment…

Thats enough for now… I’ll see what I can do about pictures.

I can only imagine

“Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel,
Will I dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still,
Will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I fall,
Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all”

The last 4 weeks have gone by remarkably fast (save a few days), especially this last week. I’m quite impressed with how quickly this summer seems to be going. Despite the fact that I don’t have many people to go out and have fun with I seem to be enjoying my summer more than I’ve enjoyed any so far in college. Don’t get me wrong, I miss everyone back home a lot, but it is actually really nice to be somewhere far away completely on my own working at a company that I like doing things that I enjoy. Tara will be devastated, but I could actually see moving down on a less temporary basis (but that is at least a year off and there is a lot I have to think about and do before that can happen).

“Umm… a moment of your time please…”

What does it take for people to truly understand themselves? I (not so silently and not often to myself) chuckle when ever someone comes to a major life “realization”. Thats not to say I think people can’t realize something about their lives… but so often this realization comes from them “thinking about *it* a lot and [they] just figured some things out.” I’m certainly not one to doubt the power of the mind but can you really figure out who you are just by thinking about it? Your thoughts, your wants, your dreams are controlled by who you want to be as much as who you are so where is that realization really coming from? There is an episode in the TV show firefly that presents the theory that you can only see who you really are in moments of pure pain and terror… I think I’m doing to dull that a bit and say that people are only themselves in moments in which they have no control… in those moments you can figure out who you are… otherwise I really think you are only figuring out who you want to be (which is as self defeating as it is obvious).

So who am I? I’ll let you all know the next time I’m in a torture chamber… Actually, I think this is the hardest thing a person can learn and I highly doubt anyone before the age of 40 or 50 can really have a grasp on the idea (despite the experience anyone *thinks* they have). More than that… I think this is a calling God has for all of us. Christ knew all of our hearts long before we were here and He knows the people we are and will become but I think it is just as important for us to know ourselves… otherwise how can we be true Christians? There is path that God wants us on. Some may walk it on the outside but it is infinitely more important to walk it with your thoughts and wants. Those who don’t do the latter are the worst kind of “Christian”… no matter how hard they try they’ll always teach the wrong lessons to others.

North Carolina isn’t really getting better. I’d love to go out with some of the other interns but for the most part they all have room mates themselves and have their own lives. My landlord invited me over to his house on the 4th to have dinner with his family. That was actually nice… and mildly surprising. He invited me over because he knew I’m living alone and he has 2 sons that are 19 and 23(?) and thought I’d be interested in doing something with them. Turns out they’re a very Christian family and go to a converted Baptist church called Journey. As far as I was able to ask the church is based in scripture and is said to be pretty progressive which is nice considering the churches I’ve found are what you would envision a southern Baptist church to be… not exactly a frightful thing but I’m truly turned off by over the top evangelism. So I might go check this church out on Sunday… may be a little difficult since Theresa will be around (and the last time I took her to church she wasn’t exactly thrilled).

[Ha… Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus Take the Wheel” just came up on my playlist.]

I have a prayer request from everyone. My grandfather has been sent back to the ICU for a third time. They managed to clean out the pneumonia the first time and the viral the second, but now one of the micro valves that was inserted a number of years ago because of a staff infection is failing. I can’t get any updates on his condition because his wife has told the hospital that no information is to be given to anyone but her (the hospital denies having him as a patient when we call) so I don’t even know what to pray for today. Of course I want him to stay with us, but I don’t know what kind of life he’ll be able to have if he ever gets out (he has been there since April) and as much as I love him and want him here I can’t ask to have him live in pain. So I guess we just pray for God’s plan to take its course?

Well, thats enough for now. I have to get back to work.

God has a sense of humor…

You just have to look hard for it. I’ve observed a few things in the last weeks… vengeance is not always devoid of mercy, hypocrisy is fully of irony, and change in people can seldom be forced (but God willing it does happen).

I’m not sure when it happened, and it wasn’t me that even noticed it, but I’ve let go of something that bothered me for too long.

This weekend was the most boring I’ve had in a very long time. Sadly, I’ve also been in pain the whole time. Not at all sure what happened, but I think I may have strained my right lower back severely. I haven’t been able to find a position I’m comfortable in for 3 days. I took a 1000mg of ibuprofen today. That made the pain less acute and reduced the swelling… I’m hoping it starts to get better otherwise I’ll have to go to the doctor’s office.