Open House

We had a successful Open House for our friends on Sunday. The weather was beautiful, so we opened the French doors to our patio and let people mill in and out. The majority of the people chose to go outdoors. Our patio and grass were filled, and the numerous little kids ran all over the hill. A few ladies contributed to the goodies filling our dining table. I kept making batches of punch. In the end, we counted 120 people in attendance, but we may have missed a few.

I had an interesting conversation with David last week. I asked him, "So, how do you view your life in the next few years? Say, two, three, five, ten years from now?"

His face lit up, and he immediately replied, "Well. I figure that if I can do five gigs a week ~ not that I could really get five a week, but IF I did ~ I could make $60,000 a year. Then (as he indicated the kitchen table spread with computers) I could have my own business doing web design or something like that and earn even more. If I have my own business, then I could take time whenever I want to do gigs."

It looks like he has a life plan in place...

Snoooooooooooze...

A whole new meaning to "The Snooze"...



I guess the movie got a bit boring?

My head is spinning! I currently have so many projects going simultaneously that I had to start a notebook for each one. For several months, I have been selling books on two online sales sites. One is an auction (which has ending dates that I need to monitor), while on the other site the books just sit until they are sold. Most of the time, a potential buyer emails questions, so we have email going back and forth. When I sell something, I have to watch for notification of the payment from Paypal, then pack and ship. Usually I build my own box from flattened boxes I scrounge at Costco. When a book sells from one site, I have to delete it from the other site. The extra cash is nice, but I really have to stay on top of email.

Next week, we are hosting an Open House for some friends going to Slovakia (I think I mentioned before). We have invited the entire church. Who knows how many will show up? So we are preparing for approx 100. Hope we have enough food!

David's band is having a fundraising concert in August. Actually, two concerts on the same day. Because time is so tight, and they will be there about 14 hours straight, the governing board decided to feed the whole crew on site rather than send everyone out to get their own lunch and dinner. Guess who was recruited to plan, organize, serve, and clean up the meals? The first thing I did was recruit Chuck as my first committee member. It will be a challenge to serve 60 people two meals out of a pocket-size kitchen while spending practically nothing.

I just finished David's photo album for scouts. It ended up being more pages then I planned, but I included a lot of mementos in it. Next I hope to begin Heather's and Jared's wedding album. It's the one for us, not them. Heather already has her own album. I plan to begin with their engagement, and go through the gift opening. It will be fat!

Now that Greta has a job, I have to run her back and forth on the days she works. Most of the days she works are not the days she goes to school, so I have lots of extra driving now. Although Greta gets a ride to school with another student, I pick her up after school~ during rush hour.

College Preview

This past weekend (Thursday - Saturday), I went to Covenant College with my youth director and a few kids from the youth group, for the annual "Preview Weekend" that we take to visit the college.

I had been there many, many times before, since Heather graduated from Covenant, so I knew what the campus was like. The main reason for going was to be able to sit in on a few classes. I sat in on 3 classes:

Operating Systems (Computer Science)
Organic Chemistry
Christian Doctrine II

The computer class was small; only 2 students in the class. I actually understood a little bit of what they were talking about; which I guess is a good thing!

The Organic Chemistry class went right over my head. The moment he said the first big word (I forget what it was), I knew I wouldn't have a clue about the rest of the class.

Christian Doctrine II was rather interesting. It was by far the largest class. Since we were only sitting in on one class, and they were reviewing stuff from previous classes, I didn't understand most of it. But I really liked the professor.

Most of all, I liked the small campus. With only 1,000 students (which still seems like a lot), it seems like its a much more personal college.

Web Server

Disclaimer: The following post may go over your head if you are not a computer person. I assume no responsibility for any confusion this post may cause you. ;-)

In late December, a friend of mine gave me an old computer he was about to throw out. I couldn't really think of much use for it, until I thought about installing Linux (a free, open-source alternative to Windows or Mac). I downloaded Fedora Core 6 (the version of Linux I decided to try out), and got it all working on the computer.

Thinking about what I could do with it, I decided to turn the computer into a small server. After getting Apache and PHP with MySQL and an FTP server installed, I tried sticking a page up on the server, and it worked! Well, it only worked inside our home network with all the computers.

After looking around a bit, I found some services that let you have a subdomain with a dynamic IP address.

Fast forward a month, lots of hours researching, and lots of editing some PHP pages, and I can now host pretty much anything thrown at me. Including whole iTunes music libraries, and have it streamed right to any internet-connected computer, thus freeing up a few gigs on your hard drive.

I also built a database driven site for a sign-up service for our church. For a long time the elders had to call or email each other to decide who got what job in serving communion on communion Sundays. After tinkering a bit with PHP and MySQL, I made a sign up sheet for them, so now all they have to do is go to that website, and enter their name where they want to sign up! Its actually quite fun building all the pages and getting everything to work!

So, that's been my project for the past few months...

Groundhog Day

I'm cheap. I don't like to pay to rent movies. We often don't like to buy movies. So we check out movies from our local public library. I've been intrigued by the title of this movie for some time since my birthday is on Ground Hog's Day. So, I decided to check out the movie.

I don't recommend movies to people any more. The reason is that some people have been shocked by movies that I've said I liked. I remember one couple recommended one certain movie, and when we saw it, we were a little surprised at the loose life style of the people in the movie considering this family was a pillar in the church. Well, considering what that family seemed to tolerate, we said we like another movie, which they saw and reported back how shocked they were that we'd like that movie (which was tamer than the other movie). So -- these comments I am making are in no way an endorsement of the movie by me or the management of this blog.

In my younger days, I used to watch Saturday Night Live. Bill Murray was one of the regulars in that irreverent comedy program. So, seeing he was in the movie, I figured I had an idea of the type of comic content this movie could have.

The main characters of the movie are Phil Connors (Bill Murray), his producer Rita, and a cameraman Larry. Phil is a weatherman at a fictional TV station in Pittsburgh. Phil is a pompous mediocre snob who has to go to Punxsutawney to cover the annual Ground Hog's Day celebration. Phil, Rita, and Larry go to Punxsutawney and cover the event, but get stuck in the town because of a blizzard. Phil wakes up the next morning, discovering it is February 2nd all over again. In fact, he keeps waking up each morning with it being February 2nd for a long time -- the movie director says this goes on for ten years.

Phil, played by Bill Murray, goes through all sorts of possibilities on how to play with this being stuck in time. Phil discovers his actions have no consequences, and so he seduces women, robs bank trucks, even allows himself to get caught by police -- but each morning the same thing happens, he wakes up at 6 am at his Bed and Breakfast on Ground Hog's Day again. Life gets to be unbearable for Phil, and he even commits suicide in various ways, only to wake up again at 6 am. Phil finally pours out his heart to Rita and her advice helps him to find a goal to his life as being a benefactor to others. He cannot have the people, in one day, fulfill his needs, but he can learn each day about others around him and even learn subjects, such as jazz piano playing, French, and ice sculpting. In becoming a benefactor, saving people's lives around him and helping others with difficulties, and in self learning, people come to love Phil in just that one day span of February 2nd. Phil even loves Rita in self-sacrificial ways, and Rita returns his love -- and then Phil wakes up and its February 3rd. Phil has become a more complete human.

Do I recommend this movie? No. As I said, movies often contain elements that completely interferes with others enjoying the movie. There are elements within the movie that I would not recommend for children. Some elements of the movie might be uncomfortable for others. Normally I recommend reading the reviews of movies at screenit.com. However, Groundhod Day is not in the reviewed movies.

Did I like the movie? Yes; it grew on me, after thinking about it for a couple of days. The movie points out the value of living a life devoted in love to others, and how satisfying that is. It's not a perfect movie, but I enjoyed it. I also liked it because it plays with some philosophical issues, such as time, that I think are interesting. (In fact, Jared is discussing some interesting thoughts on time in his blog). But don't see the movie because I liked it.

Working Girl

Friday was my first day at my job. Yes, Greta has entered the wonderful world of retail.

I had applied at Sweet Spirit, the Christian bookstore Heather once worked at, but after my interview, I was told my schedule did not fit what they needed. Several weeks later, and three girls quiting, my help would be greatly appreciated.

I learned how to work a cash register, answer the phone (which I do not enjoy), and how to find books. I helped one customer find a book that we were not sure if the store carried (and I didn't know how to look up in invetory yet). By the end of the day, I was cold, hungry, and achy, but I am looking forward to going back next week.