Still Alive! (..barely..)

So...lots has happened. But who has time to explain it all? Not me!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here's about 28,000 concerning this year's flood.

I can't wait until I get a real webserver instead of this GeoCities crap. No database and no scripting language make Michael something something...

Now I know how the guys over at HSR have got to feel. Man is it a nuisance sticking to such a schedule!

So why so early? Well, because of the rafting trip I was drained all week. I finally found some free time to catch up on some sleep: from 5 pm to 10 pm tonight. Yeah. I can't fall asleep now. And I'm sure this update is helping matters.

Well at the very least I can get some reading done. Stopped for a while (don't know why, really), but I think I want to start again. I need to make some time for that – it is oh so important.

Been having the strangest dreams lately. The one I dreamt I got pulled over by a co-worker (who isn't even a cop) and said he had to pull me over because he had someone watching him. I really couldn't blame him as I ran straight through a red light. I had another one tonight, easily remembered as it was a telemarketer who woke me from my slumber. Tonight I dreamt I was late for work, and for some reason the president of the company was mad at me because I didn't tell him the server (see picture above) was down (even though it wasn't). The funny thing was, I believed for a while I was truly late for work: when the phone call woke me up, I looked at the clock, and it read 7:30. This time of year, especially with the blinds down, the outside looks the same in the pm as it does in the am at around 7:30. I leapt out of bed looking to put my shoes on when I realized that they already were. From there it was simply a matter of groggy deduction until I realized I had a full twelve hours of time before work. Hooray! Back to bed...

Man, these entries are getting stranger and stranger. Almost like a stream of consciousness tonight.

Oh yeah, for those of you who were wondering, the Bible study on James held this past Monday was a complete success. Email me if you want details.

So I might be switching my site to another site temporarily. As it turns out, I'm getting sick of seeing all of this junk in HTML code. I want to be able to write in some sort of scripting language, along with a fully functional database system. I just get sick of having to write it one way on my machine and then throw it online in another format. So keep your eyes peeled for a possible bookmark change.

Well, back to reading...

That's right, folks. There was a power outage from sometime last week to two days later that day. The best part was waking up at quarter to two in the morning as a result of the power being turned back on. The gas alarm went off like a siren and wasted no time in making me jump seven feet in the air – which, for any of you who have seen my apartment, is more than enough for me to hit my head on the ceiling.

Apparently, there was some sort of downed transformer of something or other. Guess which parts of the world it affected? A small part of Milford, namely, only a few blocks. Yeah. Guess who was on one of 'em.

Despite the broken promise I had made to an employer to get a web page or three up by the next day (and then another broken promise the following day), I had a reawakening. I spent all sorts of time reading and studying. I finished a book, and am now, only a half of a week away from the incident, half-way through another one. I sat on the porch while people walked by and looked at the commotion, silently reading by the blaring lights of the trucks. When the trucks left, and the power was still out, I found a small push-light to read by until I fell asleep. It was incredible.

God is doing amazing things in my life. I have found someone (finally) to disciple me! In a few weeks he'll be able to commit some time to doing it. I guess it's understandable, considering I'm finishing up my freelancing and he's still got a newborn to take care of, not to mention his lovely wife Vanessa (which should be a dead-giveaway to who it is by now). I got the message after coming home from the wedding last weekend (why I didn't write about it then I don't know), and after hearing his response on the answering machine I was literally jumping up and down (taking care not to hit my head on the ceiling).

What's more, my study on James starts this coming Monday. So far I have invited four or five people (I'm losing track), with two more still to ask. I even invited one of the people I had played basketball with last Thursday night. How amazing it is that the words we say and the actions we do have such an impact. I was talking with him after the game, and he started laughing at what I said. After asking what was so funny, he just remarked that I must be some sort of computer guy, because I use all these big fancy words. I told him that it had nothing to do with it, that I just like to read and study a lot. Of course, he asked what I studied, and I said I studied the Bible regularly. I found out that he was a professing Christian, and so naturally I boldly invited him out to the study. He said he'd try and make it, and seemed genuine about it. Now, whether or not he actually comes is beside the point (although, it'd certainly be nice). What matters is that when I allowed God to use me, He did for His glory. How cool is that?

To wrap things up, things are better than they have been in a long time for me. I'm growing so much as of late, and I'm looking forward to what the Lord has in store for me. Some things, of course, still weigh heavily on my heart, but I know that the Lord will give me victory over grief, and point my path in His direction, not mine.

Until next week, I pray that the Lord blesses my feet. My new shoes worked great, but between work, laundry, and basketball tonight, I am pooped.

For as much as I like AIM and think it makes a great answering machine service, it is really annoying when I forget to turn my away message on, which has been happening more and more lately. Like tonight, for instance: I passed out at around seven or eight o'clock (I can't remember, I was too tired – for details see below), and because I didn't turn on the away message, I was awoken at around eleven to a sharp, loud, "DE-TE-LOOT!" of an IM window popping up. As I struggled to drag myself off of the couch upon which I passed out on, I got to the keyboard, barely read the somewhat fuzzy-looking screen, and managed to push out "Sleepy. Going to bed. Goodnight." and place an away message up.

But by then it was too late. I was already beginning to wake up. I guess it's sorta' good, seeing as I needed to take my medication for the night still, and so I walked to the bathroom, got a drink of water, and downed the three pills. Walking back, I knew I was up for good, and so here I am, doing the things I had scheduled for earlier: paying my bills, doing some work, reading some scripture. I even had time, as you can see, to put in a good word here on the site.

As for what I've been up to, I got to witness and be a part of one of the most wonderful things this weekend — my best friend's wedding. David & Sarah Matchette (pronounced David MATCH-it and Sarah ma-CHET) are finally married. What a great witness it was for people to see what the true meaning of a marriage is all about.

I must say, though, that for taking a "vacation" day to go participate, it didn't feel like much of a vacation at all. I was all but spent by the time I returned Sunday afternoon.

So what was my spot in the wedding? I got the honor of reading of reading two passages from Psalms. My hands, the day of the wedding all up until the reading in front of over a hundred people, were shaking so hard that I almost dropped my Bible. Thank goodness I was reading from my PDA (hidden secretively between the pages of my Bible), so that I wouldn't lose my place and I didn't have to worry about being able to understand the context of the words. Best of all, the Lord took care of everything, just as I asked Him to, so even with all of my preparation, all of my technology, all of my nervousness, it was still Him speaking.

On a completely unrelated topic, does anyone know how they can keep making these so darn funny? I swear, it's like they get better every time.

So yeah, I've decided to make this a regular thing, updating my web site. Why? I don't really know. I doubt I'll be able to look back on this and remember much of anything, and the stuff that I do want to remember I don't want to put online anyways (no offense to you guys), so I'm at a loss as to why this thing exists at all.

At least, that's how I started this entry about an hour ago. Since then, I've realized that there are things in my life that can be blogged and retrieved later on to see how I've grown. At this point, I know that some parts of television are true – you can get a little life's lesson within the timespan of one episode.

But unfortunately, I am getting tired, and so that will have to be the life's lesson for this week. How's my life going otherwise? Splendid, and even more so thanks to many things that occured this weekend. I find more and more that I am growing stronger by the day, and the struggles that I used to find impossible are now only mostly improbable. It is a slow walk to recovery, but I am satisfied that the Lord (and Tom, and Dave...) is there with me.

OK, so there's little or no content. Sue me.

I never promised I would always update this thing with cool stuff with every single update, so just keep your pants on until I can get some sort of content maintenance underway – otherwise I'll be trying to backtrack when I got all this junk for weeks a few months down the road, not to mention forcing a download of tons of entries every time the page is viewed.

Again, for the layman: I need to finish preparing the house before the family can move in. Good advice, if you ask me.

At any rate, I'm off to bed. I'm not pulling another five o'clocker just to get stuff done; three a.m. is enough for me.

So here we are! I spiffed up the site with a little bit of free time on my hands so it doesn't look like crap anymore. Of course, it's still not a real site yet...maybe I'll start making a blog of stuff I wanna' write down so I can look back and laugh someday (but I'm not gonna' call it a diary!).

I'm thinking I should invest in the $25/year and actually purchase some web space. The 15mb Blue Ridge is giving me is nothing to write home about, but it'd be nice to have a little more. What's really irking me is the fact that I can't write any PHP code online – so for all of the web pages that I want to post, I have to write the code locally, then run it and save the html page it generates, and upload that as an html file. What a pain in the neck!

(for the uninitiated, a short translation is a it's lot of unnecessary extra work)

Oh yeah, I remembered a great site I used to visit at college. I particularly like the 96kbs streaming Deep House station, but there's others, ranging from dj mixes and trance/techno all the way to modern jazz and classical. Best of all? It's 100% cheap as free. Just make sure you've got a high-speed connection – unless, of course, you enjoy listening to choppy 3-second long segments of music every 7 seconds.

Yeah, that poem is no longer here. You can't view it. But if you wanna' check something else out that's really cool, try going here.