My LASIK Experience Part 2

The Disclaimer

    Warning this post contains plain talk about medical stuff.  If you're the sort that get's a little green at medical talk, well you probably want to skip past "The Technicals" and "The Procedure"

 The Technicals

   First off, though I call it LASIK, I technically had INTRALASIK surgery.  The difference being that with traditional LASIK they use a metal blade to cut a flap in your corneal epithelium (the top layer of your cornea) and with IntraLASIK they use a laser to to the cutting.  The idea is that by using a laser they are able to more precisely gauge the depth of the cut to precisely cut just deep enough into your eye to only get the fast healing corneal epithelium and not nick the corneal stroma (the slower healing, middle layer of the cornea).  The end result being happier eyes that heal faster (Of course, I have nothing to compare it to, so I'll have to take their word on this one).

 The Lead-in

     I didn't mention it previously, but I had to wear glasses for at least 5 days prior to the initial exam and leading up to the surgery.  Normally, that would be no problem, but some time ago my glasses lost a spring in one of its arms, so I spent the week with it constantly having to be repositioned and sitting lopped sided on my face.
     The day before the actual procedure, they have you blast your eyes with some steroids (Prednisone) and an antibiotic (zymax) along with some general gentle scrubbing of the eyelids to get them as healthy as possible for the actual procedure.
     Once I arrived at the Dr. Tylock's office I signed in and had a short wait in the lobby before being brought back to an exam room where they took my glasses, gave me a Valium, and had me watch a video on what to do post-op in terms of eye drops (your eyes will practically being swimming for a week with all the medicine and tear drops they have you putting in them!).  The nurse came back and explained it all again after the video and made a joke about me probably not remembering this conversation.  I guess most people are fairly loopy at this point from the Valium; I was not.
     In fact, through the whole thing I was *extremely* alert.  I was told wonderful stories by my friends and family who had this procedure done that you'll be off in la la land just doing whatever you're told to do.  For most people, this is very true.  For me, and my grandma Ruby, I think we went from a 10 on the anxiety scale down to a 9.5, maybe even a 9.
     Thankfully, the hardest, and most painful, part of the procedure was the almost 2 hour wait time from this point until I actually went into surgery!  As an ADHD guy it was literally a painfully boring experience.  You're lead into a room where you can hear the sound of the lasers, so that when it's you're turn you're not freaked out (as someone who was completely alert, I can confidently say I didn't even notice the sound lasers during the procedure, I had other things occupying my attention), and told to sit there with your eyes closed.  No TV with the news on, no radio, just waiting.
     I tried to strike up a conversation with the people around me "Anyone up for a game of eye spy?" I would ask, and there would be dead silence.  "So what are y'all in here for?" I would say; more dead silence.  I finally caught a guy before the Valium knocked him out and found out that he was a welder, I started to tell him that one of my father-in-laws used to be a welder, but he was out by then.
     It should be noted that my wait times were slightly inflated as they were running behind schedule, but since most people nap through the whole thing, it's not that big an issue!

The Procedure

     When it was finally my time, I was brought into a very cold room and given a nice blanket.  They did one more cleaning of my eyes with what I assume was a saline solution or some iodine (I remember being asked at one point if I was allergic to it, so surely it must have been used at *some* point, but it might have been in the exam stage), and it was my turn under the laser.
      While most places, I'm told, have two separate chairs, one for the cutting of the flap to expose the corneal stroma so they can shape it with the laser, and one for the actual shaping with the laser.  Dr. Tylock had a single bed which rotated you to the two different devices.
     Now remember I was fully alert at this point.  They gave me some numbing drops for my eyes, and then used a spring device to hold my eye open and, I suspect, to keep my eye from moving.  Then came the unnerving part.  Though I couldn't feel anything but pressure, they placed something over my eye at this point that was largely uncomfortable.  Yes, that's right the worse part of the actual procedure was only "largely uncomfortable." I rank routine dentist visits as worse than "largely uncomfortable"!
     At this point I'm sure my corneal epithelium was cut, but I didn't feel it, and I was largely focused on this uncomfortable pressure caused by whatever they placed over my eye so I didn't notice any sounds, but 20 seconds of this tops and they were done with my right eye and another 20 seconds and they were done with my left.
     Then the bed rotated me over to the cool laser (the one that would shape my eye) and used another spring to keep my eye open.  At this point they used a little tool to gentle fold back the flap they had just made in my corneal epithelium and everything went blurry.  I thought I knew what blurry was being as near sighted as I am, but this was a whole new level of blurry.  Everything literally lost shape and definition.  Mind you none of this was painful, but it was certainly fascinating.  After this they turned on the laser for 15 seconds and you smelled something burning.
    At the dentists office, when they pull that drill out and shove it on your teeth and you smell something burning you go "wow, that's my tooth they're doing their best to set on fire" and you're right.  When you smell something burning at LASIK, don't panic!  It's not your eye, you're only smelling ozone created by the laser.
    Dr. Tylock then cleaned off the flap to make sure he wasn't slapping any nasty bacteria on my eye, gently laid the flap down, repeated the procedure on my other eye and that was it!

The Aftermath

     I had really bad near sighted vision (-5.75 in both eyes, it's worse than many of the people I know, but not the absolute worst I've ever heard of), so from the very moment I stood up I had a marked improvement.  As in I could see.  Not 20/20 level or anything but close.  It was absolutely amazing.  At this point Dr. Tylock took the time to make sure the flap was lying down the way it should, and answered any questions I had for him.  Then it was another 30 minutes of waiting with my eyes shut to make sure everything was healing nicely and I was released to Amy's care.
     Now I have to do those tear substitute drops you buy at the store every 20 minutes for the next week and every couple of hours after to keep everything healing like it's supposed to, plus I have to do the Prednisone every 2 hours for the next 6 days (and 2 a day for the next 6 days after that), plus the Zymax 3 times a day for 4 days.  So like I said earlier, you're eyes feel like they're swimming in water for a long time.
    But it's so worth it.  I wake up in the middle of the night and look out through these funny little goggles I have to wear when I sleep for the first few days (they don't want you rubbing you're eyes in your sleep and messing with that flap), and I can see everything in the room (I have very good night vision).  No more do I see non existent shapes or fumble for my glasses.
    Of course, I have to go to the DMV in the morning and get my Driver's license changed to reflect the fact that I no longer need corrective lenses or else they'll give me a ticket, but that's a small price to pay for vision which the day after the surgery was hovering just shy of 20/15, and will get better as the swelling goes down (and my eyes stop being water logged with all these tears I have to drop in them!)
    So long story short, Lasik is extremely worthwhile, and Dr. Tylock is definitely someone I will recommend to family and friends!


As a side note, I went to the DMV this morning and was a little disappointing that they  had me read such an easy line for my eye test.  I had to resist the urge to say "come on, couldn't we try something a little more challenging?"

My LASIK Experience Part 2

My LASIK Experience Part 1

Making the Choice

      I have been thinking about doing Lasik for many years now.  Ever since I was in the third grade I've needed corrective lenses.  Well actually, when I was in the third grade I thought glasses were the coolest thing ever and lied on my eye exam so I would get them (I did feel guilty about that later and confessed, but I fear the damage was already done and while I would have eventually needed glasses anyways, I had hastened the time table!). 
    Since then, my eye sight has been getting progressively worse, but I didn't mind too much.  I had to use glasses or contacts to see no matter what, so it didn't matter if my eye sight was negative 2.75 or negative 5.75 (which is where it's at now).  What I do care about is I tend to wake up in the middle of the night feeling slightly confused and not being able to see tends to freak me out in these instances.  For a long time I wore night and day contacts and that was blissful!  30 days of uninterrupted vision.  Unfortunately, a couple years ago I went to a doctor by a place of previous employment who was lack luster.  They were trying to market themselves at rich trendy people (which is a double strikeout for me), while providing sub quality merchandise.  It was a miserable year for my eyes as the contacts just never seemed to fit quite right.
    Thus, for the past 2 to 3 years I have been unable to wear my night and day contacts.  This year, I finally decided that it was time to get serious about checking out Lasik.  My eye sight was stable and I had the choice of either shelling out for contacts year after year, or make an upfront investment for hopefully 20ish years of not needing glasses (well after 15ish years I'll have to start getting reading glasses I'm sure, but such is the fate of age).
    It was time to bust out google.

 Choosing a Doctor

    The first couple of places I contacted where places I had heard advertised on the radio.  People like Key-Whitman, Kleiman/Evangelista, and Boothe.  Key-Whitman was good, but they require you to come back every year for an eye exam that won't be covered by your vision insurance in order to keep their "lifetime warranty" on your eyes.  Kleiman/Evangelista were good, but too expensive (in the over 3K range), Boothe... well not many people had anything bad to say about the surgery itself, but everyone did say he was a bit of a jerk and when things did go wrong he would avoid you and send you to someone else.  He was very much in it for getting people in and out and gone.
    After a bit of google searching, I found two more options South Western Medical Center (which I ended up not contacting so can't provide any information on) and Dr. Tylock.  After a pleasant talk with one of their finance people, I decided to come in for a "free" exam.  Free in the Lasik industry, for the record, means $150.  They get away with calling it free because if you decide to get Lasik from them, then the cost of the exam is applied to the cost of the surgery. Of course, that means that if you don't want it from them then you're out $150.  It seems underhanded to me, but everyone I called had this exact same setup, so at least it was underhanded across the board!

The Exam

     The exam was a rather quick affair.  I came in and waited for a bit, was taken to a back waiting area and then in quick succession had some photos of my eyes taken, had an eye exam to confirm my prescription, had my pupils dilated, some bright lights to check out the insides of my now dilated eyes, another eye exam, my eyes number, and a cell sample taken from the surface of them.  Then I was charged for the exam, set up a time for the surgery, was given a pair of sunglasses and Amy drove me home.
     Funny story about them dilating my eyes.  The guy said, "Okay, we're going to put these drops in your eyes and they will burn a little" at which point he came in to put the drops in my eyes.  I stopped him and said "Wait, if they're going to burn, why are we putting them in my eyes?"
     He looked a little shocked at this, like "no one has ever asked me this before, they just let me do it".  What he actually said was "We need to dilate your eyes".  Now call me crazy, but that's not actually an explanation.  That is telling me what the burning drops do, but not telling me why we need to do them.  I could tell I was really messing with his flow though and let him do it.  For the record, my eyes burn worse when I get a bit of shampoo in them.  I also found out later, from another guy, that the reason for it was the dilated pupils let them see the inside of my eye better.
     Another one of these moments happened when a doctor said "Okay we're going to put these drops in your eye that will numb them".  Why on earth they would immediately start to move after saying these things without waiting for confirmation from the patient is beyond me.  I stopped this guy again and asked "Why are we numbing my eyes?  Are you going to be poking them?"  There was an uncomfortable silence that yelled "yes" Before he gave a noncommittal answer. 
     Later when he brought the poking stick out and moved towards me without so much as a how-do-you-do? I stopped  him again and said "what is this now?"  I tell you, questions really catch these guys off guard!  I finally did get a straight answer though.  The poky stick was actually a swab stick and it was to take a sample of the cells on the surface of my eye in much the same way as a doctor swabs your tonsils to check for tonsillitis. 

The Aftertaste

    All things said, the exam was a very pleasant experience.  Despite them being floored by me asking a question, they were extremely friendly, they were clearly paying attention to how I was feeling the whole time and it was obvious that had I been freaking out they would have taken the time to work with me rather than strapping down my wrists and moving this along.  At the end of it, we talked to a guy to schedule my Lasik (which is today in a couple hours!) and he was very nice.  There were no high pressure gimmicks, no pressure to get it done.  The most he did was when I was trying to decide if I could do this today, he said, "if you like, you can schedule it for today and then call us to cancel it if you change your mind".  To follow up on this they actually called me yesterday to confirm that today was going to work out and just to make sure we didn't need to change things.
     Having dealt with very push salesmen in the past (and even at some of the Lasik places I called), I was extremely impressed with their professionalism.  Rather than say I felt I was at a car lot, I felt like I was at a doctors office where he was saying "this is an optional procedure, we can schedule it if you want it, but it's ultimately up to you"

Hopefully in a couple days I can write how the surgery itself went and hopeful it will have been as pleasant as the exam.

My LASIK Experience Part 1

Does Anyone Else Hear the Sound of Water?

This Super Bowl weekend brought the following things:

1) An embarrassment to Jerry Jones as his ultra elitist stadium failed to have enough seating for everyone he sold tickets to (not to mention all the sound, and operations issues)

2) An embarrassment to Texas as our power grid couldn’t handle the influx of people and cold weather at the same time

3) The sound of rushing water and an impromptu lake forming out in my garage

That’s right, when the weather finally warmed up on Sunday, Amy and I were shocked to find that a pipe in our garage burst.  Fortunately, it was not attached to the water heater, but rather it led to a faucet in the backyard.  I had placed one of those nifty faucet covers over it, but apparently it just wasn’t enough to protect this poor little guy.

When we finally discovered the leak it had accumulated about 2-3 inches of water in our garage.  Thankfully, our garage is a step or two lower than the rest of our home so the only thing that got wet was some concrete floors.  After turning off the water to the house and sweeping the water out of the garage I discovered some interesting things.

The first was that the previous owner of this home clearly experienced this problem as there was replacement piece of drywall covering the exact location where the pipe had burst.

The second was a reconfirmation that the previous owner of this house, was not the handiest of men.  That or he always got his repairs done by the lowest bidder, which in this neighborhood is about 10 minutes east, you’ll find a group of very handy, hardworking men who will work dirt cheap all standing outside a gas station starting at 6 AM, and then bought sub-par parts for them to work with.

Here’s a picture of the pipe that burst. 

Now I’d like to point out that the shiny silver pipe in the wall is the faucet I purchased to replace this broken pipe and faucet.  I had to cut off the pipe at the elbow and sweat on a new piece (thanks again Mr. Pait for teaching me how to do that!).  Here’s a picture of the burst  pipe after the fact.

If you can’t tell, that pipe is paper thin, it’s really not the kind of pipe you should use in a location that is going to have to endure cold temperatures, but you could probably get away with it if you at least put some insulation around it.  It only costs 2 bucks for a six foot long section of copper pipe insulation, come on!

Regardless, in its place, I’m putting an anti-freeze faucet.  The concept with this faucet is that every time you turn the faucet off, it empties the pipe behind the faucet preventing the pipe from bursting from the cold (If you don’t quite get it, just google “Anti-freeze faucet)

Unfortunately, since I had to cut off some of the pipe, things didn’t quiet connect.  So I just brought the faucet inside the garage for a little bit until I have a Saturday when I can solder on a little extension.

The final thing Amy and I did this weekend was to take the mantel off the fireplace.  We have our TV there and the mantel is just in the way.  We were hoping to place it higher on the brick, but it turned out that rather than being attached via mason screws, they had actually replaced a layer of brick with wood and nailed into the wood.  So we decided just to put it into the attic until we leave the home or we decide we want it back.

We also decided that we wanted to prevent our cat from crawling into the fireplace, but didn’t want to shell out the bucks for a some sliding glass doors in front of it.  Amy mom’s had the excellent suggestion of putting Plexi-glass to cover the opening, a trip to Home Depot later and here’s the results!

(For those interested, other fun home projects Amy and I have done include putting lights in the attic, putting on a water heater blanket, and if the weather get’s warm and dry enough for us to finish it, rain gutters)

Does Anyone Else Hear the Sound of Water?

Married!

Yay - we got married and it is almost our 1 month anniversary!

Married!

Well, that was Quite the Adventure wasn’t it? Hmm?

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

James 1:2 – 4 (Emphasis Added)

Amy and I had a lesson in perseverance yesterday night. We had gone out to Spaghetti Warehouse to celebrate Patrick’s birthday and on the way back to their house Amy and I decided that we would stop by the home we our buying (oh yeah, I guess I should mention Amy and I are buying a home) and see if any of the repair work to some outside issue had started yet.

About a week ago, one of the fence panels fell down. This was not a surprise to me, I had walked the fence and found that the post it was attached to was the only one that needed to be replaced, and I have replaced quite a few fence posts so I was not overly concerned by it. What was concerning is the fact that the fallen panel was completely detached from both posts as if someone had been walking over it. We also noticed that some kind of sheet had been placed over the windows in the backyard.

Hoping that it was the construction guy who is going to replace all the air ducts, we decided to take a quick peek through a window. As we approached, however, we found that the storm window had been completely removed and glass was covering the backyard. Moreover, taking a peek in the window revealed garbage on the counters, several holes punched in a wall, and garbage in the fireplace.

Our future home had been vandalized.

We walked the perimeter and finding the front door unlocked, ventured inside. We found paint on the carpet, paint on the wood floors, someone had written, in paint, on one of the closet doors, and worse of all, the garage was just completely trashed. It looks as if they had taken turns throwing a paint can at a wall, painting obscenities and racial epithets all over the garage floor, walls, and door. Additionally, it appeared that they had been bathing and showing there.

Seeing the garage was devastating to Amy, and infuriating to me. I admit that I am guilty of sneaking into an unoccupied home when I was a child and chilling there. But the amount of senseless destruction… it boggles the mind. There is simply no rhyme or reason why someone would write some of the words they did in an empty garage or punch holes in the walls.

We made very certain that we changed nothing from how we found it and left. We called up our realtor and informed him of what had happened. He promised to call the seller’s realtor and find out whatever he could. About 10 minutes later we got a call back from him and found out that the police had actually caught 2 of the individuals involved in the vandalism. They know that there are two others and the 2 who were caught are informing the police who the remaining two are.

We also got some more good news today. The seller was already aware of the break in and has a contractor out there getting an estimate and starting repairs this week as soon as the police’s investigation is finished and work is allowed to resume on the house. Other points of God’s provision in this include:

• We have extensive photographic records of the condition of the house before the vandalism by ourselves, the seller’s agent, the inspectors (2 of them), and the appraiser was there just before this happened!
• The seller is already committed to fixing these issues (we are praying that the parents of the individuals who committed this crime are held responsible for the bill and not the seller. The seller has been real nice to us during this process and we really hope he isn’t burdened by this)
• The closing date should remain unchanged
• The seller is fixing the fallen fence panel for us now too (originally I was just going to do it)
• The police are going to be keeping an eye out on our house until we move in to make sure this does not happen again.

I’d like to take a moment and put some of our friends’ fears to rest who have responded to this story with extreme concern about the safety of the neighborhood. This is actually a very nice neighborhood. Every time I’ve gone by I’ve seen plenty of people out in their yards, there aren’t bars on the windows, and even the kids who walk past us on their way home from school have been friendly and well dressed (with one or two exceptions, but hey, if you saw some of my pictures from that age you’d be surprised too).

The simple truth of the matter is that this place has been empty for the past 4 months, the backyard was wide open for anyone to traipse into, and… it was spring break when it happened. I’d be hard pressed to find a neighborhood in which something didn’t happen to a home in similar circumstances.

And, just so you know, Amy and I are not worried about the safety of the neighborhood and we are still closing on the house on schedule. Letting a couple kids who got stupid rowdy keep us from closing on this amazing home would be beyond idiotic and painfully short-sighted!

Thanks for all your prayers!

Matthew and Amy

Well, that was Quite the Adventure wasn’t it? Hmm?

Closing a chapter in my life

Matthew is a much better writer than I am. I am glad he has been able to write out all that has happened. Let me just say that I would not have made it through without Matthew in this situation. He was there for me when I thought all was lost. He was the brains behind all the emails which required extreme detail. He was the laughter behind the agony. He was the distractions behind the worry. He was the good listener for 9 solid days of stress. He was the logical one when I was distraught and confused. He was the generous one when I wanted justice to be served to her. He was the polite one when I wanted to yell at her for her wrong doings to me. He was the consistent one when I was in shambles. He was the rock when I needed him. Thank you for all you did for me during this stressful time Matthew. Although he was getting a little grumpy towards day 7 out of 9 ;) Thanks for hanging in there through it all!

Also thanks to all of you, who gave me advice, prayed for me and let me cry on your shoulder or had to listen to my complaints. Please continue to pray that she lets by gones be by gones and does not try to collect any additional dues from me as I have been stuck with a large sum of fees because of her. Lets close this bizarre and unfair chapter in my life!

Closing a chapter in my life

My AWESOME Richardson Adventure

Today was an amazing awesome and exciting day. Though to understand the significance of today, we must go back in time just a little. Right around 2 weeks ago, Amy’s roommate decided to make a chore chart without talking to Amy about it first. An action which Amy and I both felt was a little like treating Amy like a 5 year old (we totally had a chore chart when I was a kid, doing enough chores got you stuff. I think I got a NES game for doing it once, and the chore chart Amy’s roommate made came complete with color coding and daily reminders). Obviously, Amy (and myself) were slightly offended at this action, but no one ever talked about it.

Enter today. Amy has noticed that items that belong to the roommate are slowly, but steadily, disappearing. When Amy tried to talk to her roommate the night before she got a very cold shoulder, and when we woke up this morning we found two EXTREMELY interesting things. The first was her roommate had deleted all of us off facebook. Just BAM! Gone. The second thing was her roommate had posted a craigslist add looking for someone she could move in with.

Okay, so obviously this girl has been majorly offended but rather than talking to Amy rationally and maturely, she’s going around and subversively making plans to just leave (and by extension leave Amy stuck with the bill). Well, this concerns Amy and I, and so we spend most the day attempting to contact her roommate via various methods. After about 4 hours of intermittent attempts, Amy finally gets a text message that says, “What do you want.” (note the period and not a question mark). Amy responds that she feels like she needs to talk with her roommate over the phone and not via texting. We get no response.

Finally, Amy asks me to just come over because she feels that her roommate will not be returning that evening and we want to watch the premiere of the new season of “The Office”. Shortly after I arrive (around 5ish), we finally get a very long e-mail from her roommate, not a call, just an e-mail. The gist was the roommate felt that Amy wasn’t pulling her fair share of the work around the apartment.

Now I must take a break to make a very quick side note that this apartment boarders on immaculate. Both Amy and her roommate are diligent to put away the dishes they dirty and keep the common area relatively clean. In fact, Amy is extra diligent to leave nothing of her own in the main area for prolonged periods of time out of respect. The worst you could find in that room are a couple cat toys of the roommate.

Amy again pursues peace with this kid and replies that she would love to talk with her roommate, and the roommate promises to be home early.

So Amy and I head off for free Chick-fil-a night (time is now about 5:45) where we have an awesome time. On the way out of the parking lot, we notice that there’s a lady with her car stalled out in the middle of the road. I go ahead and hop out and offer to push her car into the next parking lot (just a little down the road). I get a couple steps (slow steps, it was a VERY heavy car) and two other young men come and join me (thank goodness!). The three of us get it pushed into the parking lot and Amy and I head out.

We still got an hour and a half-ish before “The Office” comes on, and we’re expecting her roommate to get home shortly after she gets off at 6-o’clock. So we put on Wall-E and chill out.

Her roommate doesn’t show up. No sooner had "The Office" turned on then her roommate walks into the apartment (8-o’clock on the dot, way to get home early). Amy is initially turned down when she attempts to talk to her roommate, so I hide out in Amy’s room and Amy tries again. With me out of there, the roommate starts to pack-up all her dishes and silverware while Amy tries to talk with her. Amy says she can clean more and the roommate (quite angrily) replies, “Well, I guess that’s okay for now.” But the conversation doesn’t really end, Amy tries to figure out what’s going on, but the roommate refuses to actually talk. Instead she just keeps packing her stuff and giving non-committal answers.

Finally, Amy comes back into her room and begins to sob. Nothing is getting solved, it’s just escalating. I go out into the room with Amy and politely confront her roommate. I tell her that we all need to talk and try and get this peacefully resolved. To which I’m angrily told it’s doesn’t concern me.

Now of course this is completely false. For starters, this is my girlfriend we’re talking about, and further, I kinda have some long term plans with this Amy of mine, her roommate is giving every indication of splitting leaving Amy with some sever finical repercussions. The kind that can damage a credit report at a time when it really needs to be spotless. I politely tell her as much at which point she turns off in a huff, stomps into her room, slams the door in locks it shut! What are we, teenagers?!

So I begin talking to the roommate through the door. I say we really need to discuss this, that some feelings were majorly hurt and Amy wants to reconcile with her roommate. I explain that we understand that the roommate believed she was being communicative by making a chore chart, but it wasn’t true communication.

Dead silence from the room. Okay, so reconciliation is a no go, time to switch gears a little. At this point I politely explain that we really need to get it resolved because the two of them entered a contractual agreement whereby both individuals are finically obligated to the apartment. That means that if one of them leaves, and the other can not pay the full amount of the rent, then they both get evicted and it goes on BOTH credit reports.

This finally causes a huge eruption, where the roommate yells out, “Who said I’m leaving! What makes you think I’m leaving!” Though I didn’t respond to her taunt, the answer is the craigslist ad and all the packing, just an off hand thought. Regardless, I continue to try to politely reason with her and finally tell her that this isn’t how two Christian people should treat one another, that we need to reach a peaceful solution. At this point she storms out of her room with her purse. I make sure I’m not in her way, nor do I attempt to stop her. Amy and I really are attempting to open dialogue and don’t want anything misinterpreted. She storms down the stairs and opens the door. She turns around and screams “You’re not my F****** father!” slams the door, locks it and heads off. Nice.

It doesn’t end there however! Amy, at this point, is way scared. Her roommate has gone off her rocker. She’s adamantly refused our every attempt of peaceful dialogue and has begun to demonstrate acts of aggression (though fortunately, it's been limited to verbal and physical only to doors), and I’m trying to calm her down. Shortly there after, the roommate returns talking on the phone (being prompted by someone with what to say). She tells me that she wants me out, that her name is on the lease and if I make her fell threatened or uncomfortable then I have to leave.

I ask her if I have threatened her in anyway. She’s quick to respond no. I calmly and quietly let her know that Amy is also on the lease, that I am her invited guest and she needs me right now, I’m not about to leave and legally she cannot make me. She threatens to call the cops and I politely respond “You are welcome to do so.”

So she leaves again. Amy is freaking out that the cops are gonna come and sure enough, 15 minutes later we hear sirens. Humorously, however, it turns out to be an ambulance and fire truck, something happened to someone else in the apartment building next to us.

Amy and I sit down for devotions and another 15 minutes pass. There’s a knock at the door and who is it but the friendly Richardson Police. We go ahead an invite them in and explain what’s all going on. The two of them inform us that they cannot legally make me leave. Moreover, as the conversation progresses and they learn the why this argument began, the more they begin to laugh. Amy goes off with one of the police men to talk with her roommate outside while me and the other chat it up inside.

The two of us hit it off quiet nicely and more and more his jaw drops to hear about the happenings of this argument. It ends with him basically telling me that this is ridiculous, and it’s clear that he has found this whole thing to be a humorous waste of time and the roommate was crazy for calling it in.

Amy comes back in at this point and I let the officer know that we had been packing and were actually just waiting to talk with them before we left. We didn’t want the roommate calling them and then them not hearing our side of what happened. If she was going to blow all of this to an absolutely ridiculous proportion just to avoid talking with Amy, then we weren’t going to let it get us in trouble.

So Amy finished packing and as she’s coming downstairs, one of the officers runs up to her and says, “You know you don’t have to go, right?” AWESOME! The officer was completely on our side, they were really wonderful guys. I shook their hands and thank them for coming out. Amy joked with them and apologize they were brought out on something so stupid. “You know… women!” Amy told them as we left. The two of the laughed and one commented that he had two girls of his own.

Meanwhile, Amy parted pleasantly with her roommate. She asked if she was moving out, to which the other replied “Well, I pretty much have to now don’t I!” To which Amy, cool as a cucumber, replied, “I’m sorry it went down like this.”

While both Amy and I recognize that her roommate brought this down on her self (she consistently refused to talk with Amy and instead chose methods such as chore charts, secret craigslist postings, and one sentence quips as she ran out the door so no one could respond, then she continued to defend her grossly inappropriate, and un-Christ-like attitude to the point that she called the cops at a point where Amy and I were quietly watching TV in her room, sorry but she built this house of cards with her own hands one piece at a time), we don’t harbor her any ill will. We find it tragic that her roommate so consistently choose the path of immaturity, but that’s life. We’re trying to make sure that the roommate can get out of the lease as quickly as possible since she has non-stop made it clear that she she no longer wants to live there anymore. And we’re praying that matures past this self-destructing attitude that is, quiet frankly, inappropriate for a 22 year old.

And that’s my incredibly AWESOME Richardson Adventure!

My AWESOME Richardson Adventure

Shogi Boards, Stories, Fish Tanks, and Certifications.

  So, long time no update.  Which is kinda strange since I was in the middle of a story and a project, but I hit a wall for both of them.

With the story, I realized that while I had wanted to make a book for nieces/nephews etc., I had just introduced the main character who had just graduated college and was going to get a job.  It makes for a bad kid’s story when they can’t identify with the main character.  Rewriting it so that the main character is more around the right age won’t be too hard, but it will take some time to make sure the story still goes when I want to.  I actually know how the story will end and the climatic…er.. well climax of the story.  Being patient long enough to get there, however, is the hard part for me.

With the Shogi board I hit a major problem.  The method of getting the images onto the pieces themselves have proven… not good.  No matter which method I tried, the images wouldn’t really stick to the wood, and what little image did remain, would make the area around it impossible to stain.  And seeing as how this is supposed to be a log budget project, I’ve been having problems deciding where to go.

Then it hit me: Card stock paper!  I’m going to print the images onto a piece of cardstock then I’ll use an exacto-knife to cut out the shapes I need.  It’s much sturdier than regular paper and won’t rip on me.  Then I can use the cut outs like stencil paper and paint the images I want onto the shogi pieces.  It will apply paint only for the images and allow me to apply a nice stain once it dries.  Perfect!

As for the fish tank, it seems that everyone forgot to mention that you’re only supposed to start off with a couple fish to get the bacteria in the tank going.  Putting so many fish in at once caused my tank to go into shock. So far the following fish have died:

1 blue guppy x 2 (I replaced him and his replacement died, then I learned that I should hold off on buying replacements until the tank settles)

2 Neons

1 yellow guppy

2 Mollies

Making for a total of 7 dead fish (since the blue guppy’s replacement died).  The fancy tail guppy has survived and seems to love to show off for me (though he looks a little aged from the survival).  A single neon, both algae eaters, and the catfish have also survived.  My last trip to PetSmart revealed that my water had FINALLY balanced out from the initial damage so many fish had caused and I have to go ahead to start getting my fish back, SLOWLY.  I think I’ll start off with 2 guppies then work on the mollies and neons in another couple weeks (or month)

Also for those who didn’t hear, I passed my Network+ Certification a month ago and am now working on my CCNA.

Shogi Boards, Stories, Fish Tanks, and Certifications.

April Fool’s Day Joke? (no, no it wasn’t)

So, a lot of people have been wondering if me leaving DBU was one giant April Fool’s Day Joke. The short answer is no. It wasn’t a joke, I have left DBU for good.

For those who wonder why, here’s the brief answer. I have never gotten along well with DBU (as those close to me will readily testify). I went there with high hopes of a Christian College and those hopes were quickly dashed by immature dorm students, unprofessional administrations, and mandatory, pep-talk “chapels”.

My zeal for the school was further deteriorated with the realization that the head of my (Computer Science) department was an aged, old woman who’s degree was in biology. Additionally, what momentum I had to get through school was worn down by a degree plan which forbade summer or winter classes. Indeed, the course descriptions usually had the phrase “offered in spring semesters of odd numbered years”.

But there was a bright spot in all this. A young woman by the name of Amy showed up on the scene and I found a renewed desire to remain at this school that was perfect for the liberal arts, but not so much for the sciences.

Due to her refreshing presence I attempted to stick it out at DBU despite her pleas that I transfer to a college that was more reputable for a Comp Sci major. My parents, sister, and maybe even Jessica (who went to DBU with Amy, Emily, and myself) also all wondered why I didn’t just go somewhere else.

However, this semester brought to my attention that I might have been ignoring several warning signs God had placed in my path back when I was trying to get back into UTD. Back then every class I tried to take just went horribly wrong. It wasn’t until I pursued DBU that things started going right.

But, with each passing semester here, it has become harder and harder to get registered for my classes. This past semester was the worst of all and I actually had to sit down with the dean of my college TWICE in order to get permission to take one of my classes.

I tried to fit an 18 hour course load with a 15 hour a week job. While that normally shouldn’t have proved difficult, the reality of the hours the classes and work took resulted in me having almost no time to study or do homework. I stubbornly tried to shove through, and after finding that (surprise) things were going horribly here at midterms, I realized it was time to stop fighting for something God obviously didn’t want me pursuing and walk away with my nice GPA while it was till above a 3.0.

Future plans included getting a job, maybe taking some courses designed to get me some (additional) computer certifications first (or after I get a job, we’ll see how it goes), and researching some colleges/degree options that will fit my personality.

My brother Andrew was much the same way. We don’t do well in traditional college settings, but give us a self motivated class and we blaze through it in no time flat!

And for anyone who doesn’t yet believe me that this isn’t some elaborate joke:

Edit: As a quick side note I would like to point out that despite all the things I genuinely loathed about DBU, I had a great respect for the teachers and faculty. While it is true that an aged woman with a biology is in charge of the Computer (and other math and natural science departments), she has a DOCTORATE in biology and she is a very sweet and caring aged woman who did a lot of nice things for me (like employing me in the computer science lab). While I can't stand DBU for myself, it is a great school for others full of helpful and kind professors. When I left I talked to each of my teachers to let them know I was leaving and each took the time to pray with me (as did the affore mentioned aged woman)

April Fool’s Day Joke? (no, no it wasn’t)

Wow, 4 updates in a row?

I know, I bet you’re all wishing Amy would come back (or at least you will by the time you get to the end of this post which somehow became a lot more political than it was meant to be)! But I have two things to mention today.  The first is I had an interesting experience today in the computer lab I work in.  A young black lady came in for some help (I use the word black because I find the term African-American to be offensive for 3rd+ generation black people.  The term almost implies as if they are somehow less American than I am, that they are first African, and then American.  The phrase also implies that only black people live there which is equally false.  So now that you know why I use the word “black” instead of “African-American” I hope you won’t find it offensive).  And I notice that she’s wearing this shirt that has a dramatic picture of Obama and Martin Luther King.

I must admit I was stuck with the irony of the shirt.  As I’ve mentioned before (or at least as I think I have) I have a great deal of respect for MLK and the fact that he desired genuine equality for all people regardless of skin color.  That he desired a future where his children and my children would not be judge based on the color of their skin, and as a victim of racism, I find his ideals inspiring.

So it is that I find the fact that anyone would commend the election of 2008 as shinning beacon of race neutrality ironic at best, and hypocritical at worse.

According to CNN 95% of Black people in America voted for Obama.  While historically Black people have voted Democratic ever since President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and no Republican supported the measure, 95% is still an unprecedented high since 1968.

More than that, further research has shown that while white voters remained stagnant and with only a slight sway in favor of Obama, all other racial groups made a radical transition, one that would supersede natural political transition from one group to another following the end of an unpopular election. 

Additionally, polling said racial groups revels a complete lack of knowledge in what policies Obama actually stood for.  When a policy McCain supported was attributed to Obama they would adamantly support it and when a policy Obama was support was attributed to McCain they would say something like “that’s exactly why I couldn’t vote for him!”

This election was painfully racist!  Which is why I find it ironic/hypocritical of people to pair up Obama with MLK.  Honestly, I think MLK would be heart broken to see people throw away their votes because of the color of a man’s skin.

I must again state the fact that while I have no problem with a black person being President, I am not a supporter of Obama largely in part to his stance on abortion and his appropriation of tax payers money to support non-essential things to low income families such as digital TV tuners and abortion as well as a great deal of his other policies.  See that?  That’s judging based on policies not race ;)

The second thing that happened today was as I was leaving the kitchen and heading for my room my eyes fell on a curious little panel on the wall about 7 feet up.  On the bottom it read “Fire Alarm Device Do Not Paint”.  While that alone is kinda interesting what really caught my eye was this:

Maybe you’ll notice what I did from a different angel.

That’s dust.  A LOT of dust.  So much dust that if this were any kind of detection unit, it would be useless.  But you have to admit it matches EVERY LAST AIR VENT in the apartment

I’m not sure what that stuff is, but it doesn’t come off when you dust it.  Look at the whole picture:

   How… how does an air vent even get like this?  Is my health at risk?

Wow, 4 updates in a row?

Big boys just have bigger toys

The past few weeks I have been in the midst of a hard debate with myself.  I have long loved bike riding, just a year or so ago I would go on 20 mile bike rides for the fun of it.  Up here at DBU, however, there aren’t really what you could call safe bike routes.  So I’ve been searching for a nice bike rack that I could put on my car and get back into the habit of bike riding.

The only problem here is that the bike rack I really wanted would cost $500 just for the bare bones.  The basic gist of the idea is that I have no runners on the roof of my car.  Runner, of course, meaning those things that you see on mini-vans.  But this awesome company named Thule makes runners to install on cars without actually ripping up your roof to do it!  They just cost the afore mentioned $500.  Then it would cost another $100 for the bike adapter so I could carry around the bike on the runners I just bought.  So that idea was a no go.

The second option was a hitch mount.  Only, again I have no hitch on my car.  I could get it installed but that would put me right back up in to the $300 range and then another $100 for the bike rack.

The final solution is what is called a trunk rack.  It uses cords that attach to your trunk to keep it from swaying around.  It’s a great idea, and some are as cheep as $40.  The downside to this being that it usually causes paint damage to your trunk!  I finally decided that this was, however, the only viable method and bought a bell 2 bike rack from Wal-Mart.  It took me 10 minutes to set it up the first time and I realized, “Wow, that’s horrible.”

It was a cheep design, it lacked the straps necessary to prevent horizontal movement on the trunk, and it looked kind gaudy.  Plus, it lacked proper fasteners to secure the bike in such a manner that the bike wouldn’t hit the bumper of my car all the time.  I realized quite quickly that I could use this bike rack, but that it would demolish my trunk in the mean time.

Fortunately, earlier today, Amy and I had stopped by this wonderful (albeit slightly inflated prices) bike shop called Bicycles Inc.  A nice older gentleman showed me the pros and cons of the different trunk racks and after hearing the price tag, I politely turn him down.

Having set up the Wal-Mart bike rack, however, I quickly removed it, and sped with all haste back to the bike shop before it closed.  I arrived with mere minutes to spare, purchased the bike rack (which while being worth it still pained me to pay). 

It’s a Saris Bones 2-bike model.  It was a little difficult to set up the first time, but that was mainly because I was unfamiliar with trunk bike racks in the first place.  Once everything was in place, I tried to give it a little jiggle and was EXTREMELY satisfied when not only did it not move an inch, but it actually caused me to jiggle the car! 

Here are some pictures I took after driving it back to DBU.  You can see in the bottom picture that it doesn’t look like there’s a lot of room for a second bike to be placed without bumping the bumper, but I’m not sure if that’s reality or just a trick of the photograph. 

Ironically, After all the work I did getting this set up and making sure my bike was in shape, I forgot my helmet!  Oh well, I played some ultimate Frisbee for the first time since I got a grade 2 sprain of my ankle (playing ultimate Frisbee a year ago) and needless to say, my leg muscles aren’t too happy with me right now.  It didn’t really help anything that it was about 30-40 degrees outside from what weather.com says, but it was a blast none the less!  I look forward to getting to drive out to some bike trails in the area and start biking again!

Big boys just have bigger toys

Graduations, End of Semesters, and an Old Bed

This past week my girlfriend graduated from college with Bachelor's degree in Communication with a minor in Psychology. I'm way proud of her! Here's a picture of her and her sister at her graduation. Congratulations Amy!



Today I was faced with daunting task of getting my room assembled. Each semester I am forced to remove all my possessions from the room at my school, and find some manner of temporary abode for them in my room. Fortunately, my mother had some spare boxes and I was able to store much of it in an unused corner of the garage.

But I get ahead of myself. Before I could even think about what I was going to do with all the junk that was filling up most of my car, I first had to make space for it in my room by getting it cleaned up. As I began the first round of cleanings, I had an awesome idea. Earlier, my mom had mentioned that since the frame for my bed was broken, I should just use the frame that my Grandfather Bennett had made for me when I was 8 months old (By 6 months, I had made it quiet clear to my mother that I would not stand being in a crib).

It should have been easy, right? I take the pieces out of the garage, dust them off, put them together and I'm done. 30 minutes top. I have come to adopt a new moto in life when it comes to projects: "The easier a project should be, the more time it's going to take". Things started out bad when my shoulder informed me that I had slept on it wrong and was going to make life unbearably painful the more I tried to use it. But I was determined to get this done, so I muscle through the pain and attempt to do this two person project by myself.

Fortunately, my mom came to the rescue with an extra pair of hands and a pair of Aleeve tablets. We managed to get the frame together when I realized that the box frame (the thing that the matress sits on) was too large to fit in the frame my granddad made. Oh well, that's no big problem, for as long as I can remember, we've always just used a piece of plywood with this bed and it's worked fantastically.

After a short debate with my mom about how wide I should get the plywood cut, I run off to Lowe's to procure my item. As I'm walking in, I decide that my mom was probably right about erring on the side of caution with the width of the board and decide to get it cut to the exact width of the frame. A short time later I leave with my cut plywood (which cost me an extra 5 dollars since someone had mislabled a section of plywood), arrived home, and carried the wood upstairs. With mom's help we set the plywood in place only to find it was an inch to wide. Oops.

Thankfully, mom is used to dealing with frustrated Bennett men, and we quickly cut off an inch of the wood and fit in back into place with no problems. I hope that this bed will continue to last me for another 24 years and my kids will get to enjoy the bed that their great-grandpa made for their dad. All in all, it goes quite nicely with my wood shelves, the Benny's Place sign, and the bookcase, the desk, the floor... my room is very woodsy. Here's picture of the bed.


The washcloths are there to keep the metal bolts from damaging the mattress, and the suitcase is only there because I'm going to use it tomorrow to go see my best friend (who isn't Amy ;) ) in our annual Christmas time get together.

Oh, and after we finally got everything worked out with the bed (7:30) I was able to get my stuff in from my car and got done around 10:30. It was a very profitable day which started at 11:30 with me heading out to do the last of my Christmas shopping!

Graduations, End of Semesters, and an Old Bed

PS2 don't you know you're obsolete?

The following is an e-mail I sent to my mom.

Subject: And right before finals

Message:

Dear Mom:

Love Matt

The true joke of the matter being that mom my is absolutely terrified of what video games do to my life and I knew it. So when I bought this, I made sure no to buy a power cable or cable to attach it to the TV (okay, so I didn't buy those because I already had them, but that's besides the point). All I really lack is a memory card so I can save my game.

But here's where the problem came up. After doing some research I learned 2 things. 1) I really want to buy a network adapter for the PS2 just so I can install a hard drive (I'm not joking you have to buy a network adapter to install a hard drive) so I can save my discs to the hard drive. 2) The price for ANY PS2 item (with the possible exception of the games) has remained at a static price across the board. No matter where you go, everyone sales the same 5 items for the single price of $30 (or more for some items).

It quiet astounded me. I mean, these aren't even the new items, these are the used by 20 different people over the course of its 8 year life-span. You'd think that I'd get a little discount for it being used at least. It seems doubly weird when you consider that the PS2 hardware is now completely outdated with the advent of the PS3. If anything for the PS2 was going to stay locked at a certain price, it should be the games (which are both awesome and playable on the PS3) instead of the hardware (which while being cool for the PS2 is largely useless for the PS3).

Equally fascinating is if you go to eBay and search for these items, they are being bought up at tremendous rates. The more one tries to bid for an item lately the more some guy with the name m**3 comes in and bids higher (which is another weird thing, what's up with the letter double * number names on eBay?) a LOT higher.

Oh well, little by little I get this set up by the time school it out for winter! Current titles: Kingdom Hearts and Ico (Ico may be more universally recognized as the first part to a recent release; Shadow of the Colossus)

Edit: I just learned that the ** thing on eBay is part of their ID masking service so people don't know what your name is if you win the item by being a complete jerk. AWESOME.

PS2 don't you know you're obsolete?

And to think that I saw it on Matlock Street

I saw quiet the interesting event take place yesterday as I drove to my dad's office. As I approached an intersection, in the dedicated right turn lane, a little fender bender happened. It was nothing major, the pickup in the rear thought the car in the front should keep going through the red light and tail ended him a little. From what I could tell there was no major damage.

So a black guy get out of the truck in back and a white guy gets out of the car in front and they begin to exchange insurance information as just about any two young preppy males of my age group would, by shoving each other. Of course this isn't anything unusual to me and with the light being green and all I start to drive past them.

Right as I get next to them (I was in the lane immediately adjacent to them) the white guy decides that shoving isn't cutting it for him and proceeds to punch the black man. And, just like Pringles slogan says, once he popped (him on in the face) he just couldn't stop. The black guy tried quiet useless to punch the white guy back, but was immediately overwhelmed and the white guy proceeded to beat him to the ground between the cars, then stood over him and continued to beat down on this black guy.

At this point I'm just barely through the intersection. I can tell this white guy isn't gonna stop till the black guy is dead in all likelihood and drive down to the next light to pull a U-turn and get back there, hopefully with enough time to scare the white guy away with the black guy still breathing. By the time I get there, the white guy has already sped off in his car, and the black guy is getting helped by several (I saw at least 10) store employees who had run out to his defense.

Behold the fruit of a generation of idiots. In all honesty, I wouldn't have been surprised at all the see the white guy be one of the people who live across the hall from me at my Baptist College. They're always going on swearing sprees about how horrible this school is and how they hate everyone it. Maybe if their parents had loved them enough to discipline them. Anyone know the charges the white guy would be facing (other than a bogus hate crime charge that the news would try to stick to him of course)?

And as a side note? I think Grandma and I are the only people who semi-regularly update their blogs. I wonder what's going on with the rest of my family. Daniel knows I can't very well just call them ;)

And to think that I saw it on Matlock Street

The interesting month of November

First of all, I have not forgotten about following up the music post. I just have not had sufficient time to sit down and coherently write out my reasoning as it is based on Biblical fact (that's worth taking time for). I assure you, it is forthcoming.

I find it interesting how events in our lives seem to gravitate towards a specific month. Almost as if every year, around the same time, we decide to get back into trouble. Of course, the simple fact of the matter is that since there are only 12 months, if something is going to go wrong in a year, there's an 8.3% chance it will land in any given month. And since usually more than one thing of noteworthiness happens in any given year, the act of reflecting back on specific months gives the illusion of any one month being, "a bad-luck month".

Regardless, November, while not being a bad-luck month, is certainly a month of happenings in my life. So it is, with my birthday rapidly approaching, that I find myself looking back over my Novembers.

As I just mentioned, November is my birth month, but disregarding that, the first thing of noteworthiness (for today at any rate) that occurred in November took place 6 years ago. I had a very good friend of the time who I admittedly held some romantic interest in. Well, not really, but I certainly interpreted them as such. It was a time of darkness in my life when I despaired of living. My friend moved off to college and I kept in regular contact with her. One night she mentioned how it seemed I lived each day simply to make it to the next. I was struck by this truth and could not deny the only reason I woke up in the mornings was because I had not yet died. I spent the whole night contemplating how I was living my life in relation to how the bible instructed I should be living it and came to the conclusion that it was time for a change.

I also realized at this time that the only feelings I had for her were strictly friendly, but having shut out everyone so firmly since Mark's death I called it love. Freed from the burden of this false label, I decided to take a trip up to her school to tell her how a simple statement had turned my life around. She was thrilled I was coming to her college and expressed a hope that I would attend school there so we could hang out more, she further went on to mention how I always seemed to called at just the right time to cheer her up.

When I got there, however, things took a sudden sour turn. While playing a game of 8 ball, with a man no one knew, he calmly told me my friend was dating this guy, and left. When I asked her about it, she told me it was none of my business, and that we were no longer friends. It is perhaps the single greatest regret of my life that our friendship was lost over a simple lack of communication.

November was also the month my cousin committed suicide. An event that reminded me how to cry and kept me from visiting another friend over Thanksgiving; a fact that I was never really forgiven for.

November was the time that I had to leave Countryside for a while a couple years back as a member of the church began spreading lies about me to her friends and family to cover her own sin. She never did come clean about it although all was forgiven long ago.

Though it was not in November, I started dating Amy very close to November, and though it will embarrass her greatly for me to say so, it was in November when I first kissed her ;)

And while it was also not in November, I would like to mention (while being reflective and what-not) that it was not too long ago that the 1 year anniversary of my grandfather's death rolled by. I will forever lament that my children will never get to know their great-grandfather and see all the amazing things he built for us while they were fresh and taken care of.

It was also the 1 year anniversary of learning my dad has cancer. It has been an amazing year of learning for my parents and myself as we come to help one another out and learn how to live with this disease. My stance has not changed one bit from the first moment I learned the news. I still wholly believe that God will push the cancer into remission and even if He does not, cancer is not what will end my father's life. My dad getting cancer did not catch God by surprise, it did not shorten the numbers of his days. From the very beginning, God and God alone was going to be the One to call my father home. It may be a little morbid to talk about how I think my dad is going to die (especially when I word it like that), but as I already stated, I have complete faith that God has control my father's body, and while it may be hard for the moment, there is a point to the suffering, the least of which was allowing me to serve their needs this summer time.

Yes, November is quite the interesting month.

The interesting month of November

Why am I up at 1 AM?

A couple weeks ago, maybe a month, I woke in the morning to an odd clicking noise. Now, when I say morning I actually mean about 4 AM. I try to ignore it at first, but as the clicking continues I wake up enough to realize that there is something bug-like in my room. Needless to say, this distressed me. I have enough trouble waking up almost nightly thinking there's some giant bug crawling down my wall without there actually being any bugs in my room. But I do muster up the courage to hunt down this bug that will undoubtedly rush my face when I find it only to find it is in this stationary holder I have. It's kinda like....


...that only less sissy... and full of calculators, earphones, and hands-free sets. I dump it out and squish it dead, then promptly sleep until a decent time to wake up say... 9:00 AM.

Regardless, my bug woes continued tonight as this huge bug flies out of nowhere (literally, it just popped up out of nowhere on my ceiling) and lands on the ceiling. The time is 11:45-ish, I was about to climb into bed. Well I grab a shoe with which to strike it down and begin my advance only to realize that I had grab the shoe for my left foot but I wanted to put it on my right hand, it just wasn't gonna work. So I turned around, swapped out shoes, and in the 4 seconds it took me to accomplish this task the thing disappears.

But it's not like I can just go to sleep, ya know? There's a huge bug somewhere in my room. I know I'm gonna wake up with that sucker on my face and I'll never sleep again. So instead of doing what a rational person would do (just go to sleep), I turn out the light in my room, turn on the light in the hall and sit down with a book on my bug stake out. I'm just waiting for this bug to become attracted by the light and wonder out of my room. Now, in all honesty, I don't care if I actually succeed in killing it once it is out of my room. I count it as a full victory if I merely get it out of my room!

Sadly, it was resolute in staying concealed in my room and after... an hour and 15 minutes, several different attempts to change the conditions in the room to get it out of its hiding spot and back onto the ceiling (fan on, fan off, lights on, lights off) I'm beginning to consider just calling it quits and sleeping in the hallway... or my sister's room, why didn't that occur to me until just now? (my sister is not here tonight, for the record which is why her room would have been an option) Regardless, just as I'm about to pack it up I hear an all too familiar, "click". Yes, that giant ol' bug that had rushed me had been another click beetle. And while I did consider it extremely odd that two click beetles would invade my room so close to one another (and leave the rest of the house completely alone?) what was truly perplexing to me is that I once again found it in



that.

Why am I up at 1 AM?

Hitch Hiking Addendum

As a point of mild interest, I should not that the week following my nighttime hitch hiking adventure, two people were murdered on the street next to my college and several others have begun to be stalked as they drive down the road. I admittedly find the latter stories suspect as I go to a school in the middle of absolutely nowhere so the fact that if someone actually ends up behind you on that long, one lane road, odds are they're gonna be going the same place you are.

These recent events are especially of interest to myself as a few semester ago I was verbally abused by some of my fellow DBU students for voicing the opinion that female students should get to park up top and the male students should park down below and hike back to the dorms. One person in particular almost cussed me out and called me an idiot for thinking the school might be unsafe. Well guess what? It's not! HA! DBU is located on all sides by low-income and high-crime areas (not saying those two always go hand and hand, just that they do in this particular instance). A wimpy, easily bypassed fence is not gonna keep them out if and when they decide that a particular girl looks especially inviting. Though feminist may take offense at my stance that the women on campus should get that added protection of parking up top, the fact of the matter is that in this fallen world, women are more likely to be singled out for assault then men.

Not that it matters since DBU will do what they want to when they want to without consideration of us :p (how you liking that nature trail to that new chapel commuter students?) Oh, one last tid bit, I currently live in the only dorm who's front door doesn't lock and hasn't for over a year now. Is fixing a lock really that much out of budget? Maybe if you stopped siphoning all our money to the town homes you'd actually be able to afford some basic repairs to us lowly dorm students.

Hitch Hiking Addendum

Shaved head, hot lips, and hitch hiking fiascos

Okay, first off hot lips is not referring to my kissing ability, just a funny story that happened to me today. Also, sorry for never finishing the story, I'll do that in the next couple days here.

So first the hitch hiking fiasco. On my way back to DBU after a wonderful spring break, I arrived at the intersection next to my school at around 2 hours after the sun had set. I sat behind this car who's blinker was on to turn left, but they weren't moving despite there being no oncoming traffic keeping me stuck behind them wanting to turn right on this little two lane road. Suddenly, this hand pops out of their window and waves me past them indicating something is amiss. Being the good ol' Texan boy I am, I pull up next to them and roll down the window to inquire if they need a hand.
Now, as I've mentioned I'm returning from spring break and the car is filled to the gills with my stuff PLUS a very nice couch in the bed of the truck that I had purchased from Craig's list for $25. The guy in the call asks if I can drive him down to a gas station. I have no problem with this and agree expecting one person to jump in and have me drive them to the closest gas station. Instead, however, two guys hope out and climb into the truck. These two guys were, in a word, gangsters. They explained that they were headed to a show to perform in a contest as rappers. I had picked up a couple of rapper gangsters. No worries, I'll drive them down the nicely light highway, stop at a well attended gas station, and return them to their vehicle.
Such was not to be the case. They ask me to go down this road that might best be described as desolate. After a minute or two I stumble across their two gangster rapper buddies who hope into the bed of the pickup with the couch. It gets better. The road hits a detour and I go from desolate to beyond desolate as I enter dirty Dallas. I finally arrive at a gas station, let them get some gas, and hop on the highway rather than drive back down nowheresville. Some good came from this situation that could have been extremely bad, however, I did share the gospel with them a little. They politely listened and promptly dismissed it, but at least they got to hear it.

They say that pride comes before fall, but no one ever mentions that pride comes also before hot lips. After my Chinese class today, a friend of mine stops me on my way into the dorm and claims to have a challenge for me. He tells me that in the take out box in his hands are several pieces of chicken that are incredibly hot. He warns me not to get too close to the box as he opens it least the smell makes my eyes water. Well, with such a challenge I reached in the box without hesitation the moment it was wide enough to get my hand in and took a big old bite from a piece of chicken! I told him it wasn't too bad as I took another bite. His friend stood awed by my tongue of steel and told me that he found it so spicy that he hadn't been able to take a full bite and his voice had been cracking ever since. I laughed and proudly declared I was from San Antonio and such a piece of chicken was merely slightly spicy.
Meanwhile, in my mind the words "SHUT UP! SHUT UP! STOP TALKING AND LET ME PUT OUT THE FIRE THAT IS NOW MY MOUTH!" were racing through my mind. But upon hearing such praise from this guy I never met I just finished off my chicken wing with a final bite and proudly deposited the remains in the closest garbage can. I calmly walked to my dorm room and ripped the door off my fridge as I scrambled for water. Unfortunately, the water had frozen in the back of my fridge and I grabbed a slim fast praying that the milk like properties it contained would sooth the fire and brimstone off my tongue. It did nothing to assuage my torment. Yes, TORMENT. I have never felt such burning agony in my mouth before. Not even when I had that bad habanero pepper. Frantically I scoured my roommates desk looking for the loaf of bread he had pilfered from the cafeteria. At LAST I found the bread and with a single slice erased all suffering from my lips and mouth. Pride surely comes before hot lips.

Finally, and of most notable interest. I have entered into an arrangement to raise money for a friend's missionary trip this summer. The deal is for each week I stay a certain way people promise to pay a certain amount of money. So, I chose to shave my head. And each week I keep it shaved hopefully people will pledge to support me. Here's some before and after shots.

A full head of hair

Buzz Cut!

A close shave!

The final product!

Shaved head, hot lips, and hitch hiking fiascos