Ultra-Sound

According to the ultra sound people the due date is August 2nd.

Baby Update

Well, today was our first doctor's visit for this pregnancy. All went well. Officially, unofficially the due date is August 5th, 2007. We go in next Tuesday for our first ultra sound and will have a clearer picture of when the due date is. That's all for now.

The News

If you haven't read Delilah's blog, we are pregnant again. Wahoo.

Fairly Flabbergasted Friday

Today is Fairly Flabbergasted Friday. On Sunday we went with our great friends to get our Christmas tree from Galehouse, it was a fun time but it was weird cutting a Christmas tree down in short sleeves. On to the pictures..........

Elise was trying really hard to cut the tree with me.
She was getting right in the middle of it all.

Our tree with out decorations. (Obviously)

After the tree was decorated I went out to get some Taco Bell, when I came back I found Delilah laying on the floor with her foot and hands up trying to hold the tree up so it wouldn't fall. Apparently she was trying to move the tree on her own and it started to fall. She said she had been like that for a few seconds. She yelled for me to help but I couldn't resist taking a picture of the whole situation.

I was in the basement with Jude doing laundry while Delilah was at her pottery class; we heard a thump and Jude asked me what it was. I told him it was probably Molly jumping of the counter or something. When we went upstairs to take Jude to bed we found the tree on the floor in the living room. As Jude was helping me clean up the mess, he said, "dad, the tree was beautiful, but now it's not." I told him that mommy will make it beautiful again. And she did.

BCS update

We are entering the last weekend of college football before the Bowl games begin. If you are a Michigan fan like me, you have to be hoping for 2 things to happen. (1) UCLA must be USC and (2) Arkansas must be Florida. If USC loses and Florida wins I think Florida will leapfrog over Michigan for the #2 spot in the BCS rankings. I do not think there is much chance of both happening. How is a 10-2 teams ranked 5th in the standings? There are 7 teams playing this weekend. 2 of those games have teams ranked in the top 15, which could have implications of them not playing in a BCS bowl games if they should lose.

1. Ohio State (12-0) - idle
2. USC (10-1) vs. UCLA (6-5)
3. Michigan (11-1) - idle
4. Florida (11-1) vs. Arkansas (10-2)
5. LSU (10-2) - idle
6. Louisville (10-1) vs. Connecticut (4-7)
7. Wisconsin (11-1) - idle
8. Boise State (12-0) - idle
9. Arkansas (10-2) vs. Florida (11-1)
10. Notre Dame (10-2) - idle
11. Auburn (10-2) - idle
12. Oklahoma (10-2) vs. Nebraska (9-3)
13. Rutgers (10-1) vs. West Virginia (9-2)
14. Virginia Tech (10-2) - idle
15. West Virginia (9-2) vs. Rutgers (10-1)
    

How Safe is Myspace?

I use to have a myspace account. Not familiar with myspace then the article below is a must read. The original concept of myspace was fantastic. But since then it has grown to form a mind of its own. When you go on myspace it doesn't take long for to see or read things you wished you haven't seen. This is the reason why I have cancelled my myspace account. Because of recent activities I have decided to copy and paste the following article on to my blog. This is a great article for parents and children to read. This article can be found on Plugged In Online and was written by Tom Neven.

The World Wide Web gets its name from its sense of all-encompassing connectivity. But the word web has another, less-friendly meaning, too, as in trap. And a lot of Internet users—be they kids, teens or grandparents—aren't applying that connotation to today's world of virtual gathering spots such as Xanga, PureRave and, to mix metaphors, the Web's 60-million pound social gorilla, MySpace.

A Multimillion-Member Public Forum
Myspace.com was founded in 2003 by Tom Anderson, whose primary motivation was to provide a means for independent musicians to gain fans and publicity. Since then, the interactive Web community has grown to more than 60 million user profiles.

Even though there's nothing to prevent an individual from creating multiple online profiles as long as each has a unique e-mail address, that's still a gargantuan number. And according to MySpace, the site adds nearly 85,000 profiles a day—about 2.5 million a month. (Users spend a mind-blowing average of one hour and 40 minutes a day on the site.)

Clearly, this is a new social phenomenon. Businessweek reports, "Although [online] networks are still in their infancy, experts think they're already creating new forms of social behavior that blur the distinctions between online and real-world interactions. ... Increasingly, America's middle- and upper-class youth use social networks as virtual community centers, a place to go and sit for a while (sometimes hours)." When Plugged In Online posted a poll asking about readers' relationships with MySpace, nearly 10,000 responded within a week. While just over 20 percent said they'd never heard of it, better than 60 percent said they themselves or a friend already had a page on MySpace.

Who, exactly, has a page on MySpace? And what do they do with it once they have it? The site requires users to be at least 14 years old, although founder Anderson admits there's no way they can check all registrations, never mind that anyone can lie about such information. A user creates a profile that can include as much or as little as she wants. She can post photos, a "life quote," the name of her school, the results of a personality quiz and a listing of favorite music, movies and TV shows. The site also allows users to create a Web log (blog, in Internet-speak) and to communicate with each other either through e-mail or by instant messenger (IM).

Scrutinizing the Spiders of MySpace
MySpace has a few built-in safeguards. Most, though, appear feeble in the shadow of its sheer size. In an attempt to monitor the nearly 2 million photos uploaded by users every day, "flaggers" manually view images and delete any that violate the site's no-nudity policy. But they know their limitations, as evidenced by this disclaimer in fine print: "Information provided by other myspace.com members (for instance, in their profile) may contain inaccurate, inappropriate or offensive material, products or services and myspace.com assumes no responsibility or liability for this material."

So, for example, MySpace takes no responsibility for Darin, a 21-year-old who recently popped up as one of the "Cool New People" who were being introduced to other users. Darin's profile opens with several f-words, features a provocative photo and discusses his "porn star name." The background wallpaper shows a woman clad only in lacy bra and panties. Those aren't the worst photos on the site, either. Not by a long shot.

Another stab at safety involves the site's commitment to never providing a user's last name, address or phone number. Also, users can set up their profiles so that before outsiders can view their page, they must be explicitly invited to become an online "friend" (a word you'll see over and over again on myspace.com). Still, some "residents"—many of them teens—volunteer far too much information about themselves. They'll list their hometown, school name and church name. They might post several photos of themselves, sometimes with classmates and friends, thus providing a smart predator lots of clues. And predators have become a serious issue on MySpace.

At least one fatal crime has been linked to the Web portal; a 14-year-old New Jersey girl was allegedly murdered by a man in his 20s whom she met on the site. And a federal grand jury in Connecticut has indicted two men whom prosecutors allege used myspace.com to set up sexual encounters with girls who were 11 and 14 years old. Connecticut's attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, is crusading for tighter rules and more supervision of Internet gathering spots, MySpace chief among them.

Unwelcome Neighbors
On the lips of teens everywhere right now, of course, is the assertion, "But I don't post too much of my personal information. I just use MySpace to meet my friends." Assuming that's true for a moment, MySpace still presents problems. Big ones. For every "Christian Singles" group, there are literally thousands named "Touch Me, Tease Me" or "Make-Out Whores" or "Gay California Boyz."

Added to that concern is Playboy magazine's announcement that it intends to publish a "Girls of MySpace" photo feature. Julia Angwin writes for the Associated Press, "The site has so many explicit pictures that Playboy Enterprises Inc. has launched a casting call for a ... nude pictorial for an upcoming issue of its magazine." Michael Sprouse, senior vice president of marketing at Playboy, told the AP, "We've done a lot of these types of castings, and this is by far the best response we've gotten to date."

According to MediaPost Publications, the pornography giant established its own MySpace page promoting its search for models, and has purchased advertising on the site.

In response to those who are concerned that the upcoming feature promotes pornography to teens, a MySpace spokeswoman insists that the majority of the site's users are 18 or older. But online marketing expert Pete Blackshaw, of the firm Intelliseek, doesn't agree. "We're in an environment where half of all teens have created blogs or personal home pages. Venues such as MySpace have fueled those percentages. MySpace is deeply woven into teen culture—that is without question."

A Teen's Dream; a Parent's Nightmare
What is MySpace: good, bad or ugly? Actually, all three. As with so much else in the world, Internet sites such as myspace.com mix everything up in one pot before it's served. Some parents, then, will choose to ban these congregation sites altogether. And they'd be in good company doing so. "It's a parent's worst nightmare to have a young person on this Web site dispensing all kinds of information," says Blumenthal. Fellow Connecticut public servant Bill McKenna, who is a police sergeant investigating a spate of MySpace-related sexual assaults on seven 12- to 16-year-old girls, adds, "It's a predator's dream come true, this Web site."

Others will allow teens access provided that they adhere to strict rules and fully understand the need for caution. But as more and more sleaze is slathered onto the site, and as more horror stories emerge from its depths, that's getting harder and harder to do. I'm a dad myself. My 16-year-old daughter has a MySpace profile set so that only her friends can access her page or communicate with her, and she knows not to engage anyone she doesn't recognize. Many of her Christian friends also host pages. (Indeed, despite being woefully outnumbered, the various Christian groups on MySpace boast hundreds of thousands of members.)

Still, we may have to rethink our membership, since even the most vigilant user can so easily stumble across unsavory—and unsafe—content.

Back to the Basics

If you have counted all my posts then you would have know that this is my 100th post. For those of who don't care to count to 100, or maybe can't count that high, this is my 100th post.

Most of my posting has been random. I don't have a theme I go by. If it's on my mind when I sit down to write, I'll probably end up writing about it. I have tried to keep people annomous when I write about them, even if it's on a positive note. Of course when it comes to family all gloves are off. (Most of the time)

I don't consider myself a great writer. As I sit here to do this post I have already re-written it several times because I don't like how it sounds.

So much goes on in my head, that I'm not really sure how to get it out so that is sounds good. Delilah can attest to that. I actually drive her crazy by not saying a whole lot. It's not that I don't have anything to say, it's that I am not really sure how to say it so that it makes sense. Ok, enough randomly.

If you have been following Delilah's blog you know that we have decided to attend another church. We both felt it was time to move on. It was a tough decision for us to make. One that we have been struggling with for 1 1/2 years. Although we very much loved the people at our old church and enjoyed being able to serve there we decided it was time for us to move on and serve at another church. We are enjoying our new church we are attending and hope that God will use us in a powerful way.

Recently Delilah added this cool new feature to her blog it is called Stat Counter. It's pretty neat. It offers a lot of information about who visits your blog. It tracks a how many pages they have looked at and other various stuff. I just enjoy seeing how people get to my blog and where they are from. It's pretty neat stuff. I have decided to use Stat Tracker and Site Meter at the same time. The only reason I really use it, is because I just enjoy seeing where or how people get to my blog. So keep on visiting and don't worry, I'm not going to track you down or anything like that.

Peace.

The Lost Deer

This is the second weekend I have been hunting. The first time I went hunting was when we came to WV for Jude's birthday. Now it is Thanksgiving weekend and I decided to go hunting with Tim Wednesday night. That night I saw about 8 deer while walking back to the spot I wanted to stay at. It is hard to be quiet when you are walking on leaves. None-the-less, I would walk a couple of yards and stop and take a look around. When I was getting close to spot I wanted to stake out, I spooked a couple of deer. I saw a deer on the ridge above me and I saw two deer across the hollow going up another ridge. They apprently caught my sent and took off. After staying at my spot for a while I decided it was time for me to head back to the house, by this time it was 5:15 and the sun was starting to set. As I was walking back to the house on the "big" ridge I was doing my take a couple of steps and stop and took a look around routine. I was doing this for about 5 minutes before I came up on a "large" deer. All I could see of the deer was its hind quarters. There were two trees blocking its head and the majority of the neck from my view. Which was a greet advantage to me because this meant the deer couldn't see me and since the breeze was blowing from the deer to me it also meant it couldn't smell me. At this point I was trying be as quiet and carefu as I could not spook it. I watched as the deer's neck would move up and down and then stay still for a little bit as it tried to figure out where the leaf crunching was coming from. I was able to get about 15-20 yards from the deer. Finally the deer took a couple of steps going from my right to left poking it's head out from behind the tree. The doe never saw me. I decided to take a shot of it. I had "buck" fever. Or should I say "doe" fever. When I took a shot the deer was still walking. I know you're suppose to wait to take a shot until the deer is standing still, but I couldn't wait. I aimed for the "kill" zone. The area that is above the back of the front leg in the chest. I sighted the area in, trying to lead it just a little bit. I pulled the trigger and let the arrow take flight. The doe jumped and ran about 10 yards and stood there trying to figure out what had just happened. It quietly walked off, I was trying to keep my eye on it as I followed behind but it slowly disappeared into the forest. I walked over to retrieve my arrow to continue my journey back to the house figuring my first shot at a deer was a miss. When I got to the spot where the deer was standing I found some blood on the ground and when I retrieved the arrow there was blood and hair on the shaft of it. I assumed that the arrow just grazed the deer because there wasn't a lot of blood on the ground. I tried tracking the blood but was only able to track it for about 15 yards as the evening sky was getting darker and it was tougher to distinguish blood on the colored leaves on the ground.

With my adrenaline racing, I ran back to house which was only about 150 yards away. I was "yelling" I shot a deer and need a light. Now, you would think people living in the woods would have a decent flashlight. But not the Miller's. Anyways, Tim, Kellen, and myself went back to woods to try and track the deer. We decided would head down towards the creek in the hallow. By the time we got to the creek it was dark out and we decided we would try in the morning. As I laid in bed that night, the scene kept running through my mind. I kept seeing the deer taking a step then me taking a shot at it. If only I would have made a little noise to get the deer to stand still. Ugh!!!

Thanksgiving morning I headed out hunting again. As I walked back to the spot I enjoy I kept my eyes open for my "lost" deer. I saw three deer that morning. I decided to head back up to the big ridge and try to track my deer again. I got to the spot where the deer was standing when I hit it. I was able to track the blood pretty good. I did lose it a couple of times and had to really look hard to find the trail again. My heart started racing when I found larger amounts of blood on the ground. I started thinking, maybe I actually got a decent shot off. The trail took me down to the left side of the ridge and it followed the ridge and the crossed over the logging road and went down the right side of the ridge towards the skinny ridge. I saw white object laying next to a log about 30 yards down from the logging road. I heart skipped a beat and I continued to follow the trail until I ended up at the white spot laying next to the log. The doe seemed a lot smaller than what I remember it being. I was slightly disappointed that it wasn't larger than it was. Feeling proud but yet disappointed, I walked back to the house to get Tim since I haven't had any experience field dressing a deer.

My "LARGE" Doe

Tim & I Doing the Traditional Bring a Deer for Thanksgiving Dinner

Obviously

Obviously no one really cares about the BCS and my theory on how it is faulty considering there was a record 35 visitors to my blog yesterday and no one left a comment. I guess my visitors don't care about college football.

Jimmy Johnson won the Nextel Cup this year. I don't care that he won. Actually I didn't follow NASCAR very closely this year. It was because Ryan Newman did not have a great season. He finished 18th and 979 points behind 11th place finisher Tony Stewart. It's hard to watch your guy not finish well race after race after race. My props off to Jimmy Johnson and Hendrick Motor Sports even though I don't like Hendrick Motorsports at all. I kept hoping that Jeff Gordon and Jimmy Johnson would wreck each other during races. That would have been funny.

The BCS is flawed

Yes, the BCS is flawed. It should not determine who plays in the national championship. Lets take a look at the top 15 in the BCS standings as of November 20, 2006.

1. Ohio State (12-0)
   
2. Michigan (11-1) - lost to Ohio State who is 12-0
3. USC (9-1) - lost to Oregon State who is currently 7-4
4. Florida (10-1) - lost to Auburn who is 10-2
   
5. Notre Dame (10-1) - lost to Michigan who is 11-1
   
6. Arkansas (10-1) - lost to USC who is 9-1
   
7. West Virginia (9-1) - lost to Louisville who is 9-1
   
8. Wisconsin (11-1) - lost to Michigan who is 11-1
   
9. Louisville (9-1) - lost to Rutgers who is 9-1
   
10. LSU (9-2) - lost to Auburn who is 10-2 and Florida who is 10-1
    
11. Boise State (11-0) - Boise who?
    
12. Auburn (10-2) - lost to Arkansas who is 10-1 and Georgia who is 7-4
    
13. Texas (9-2) -lost to Ohio State who is 12-0 and Kansas State who is 7-5
    
14. Rutgers (9-1) - lost to Cincinnati who is 6-5
    
15. Oklahoma (9-2) - lost to Oregon who is 7-4 and Texas who is 9-2
    

There are other factors that figure into BCS standing such as strength of schedule, the Harris Poll, USA Today Poll and the AP Poll.

There are a couple of key games left to play that will help sort some of it out or possibly make it a little more confusing.

1. Ohio State is packing their bags for Arizona
   
2. Michigan is in a holding pattern to find out where they are heading
3. USC still has Notre Dame (10-1) and UCLA (6-5) to go through
4. Florida still has Florida State (6-5)
5. Notre Dame has USC (9-1)
6. Arkansas still has LSU (9-2)
   
7. West Virginia still has South Florida (7-4) and Rutgers (9-1)
   
8. Wisconsin is waiting to see what bowl they will be playing
   
9. Louisville still has Pittsburg (6-5) and Connecticut (4-6)
   
10. LSU still has Arkansas (10-1)
    
11. Boise State still has Nevada (8-3)
    
12. Auburn is waiting for the BCS to sort itself out
    
13. Texas still has Texas A&M (8-3)
    
14. Rutgers still has Syracuse (4 -7) and West Virginia (9-1)
    
15. Oklahoma still has Oklahoma State (6-5)

Some of the teams still have to play a conference championship game. At this point not one teams deserves to play in the championship game with Ohio State over the next team. Because of who they lost to or who they lost and who that team lost to. For example: WV lost to Louisville who lost to Rutger who lost to Cincinnati. Cincinnati is a 6-5 team. Notre Dame lost to Michigan do they deserve to play in the Championship game if they beat USC? Likewise, I don't think that Michigan should play Ohio State again (even though I am a Michigan fan) because the best Michigan would do is end up being co-champions with Ohio State if they should beat them. There are many variable with the BCS system.

I think the best system to use would be like this. There should be a 4 team playoff. The top 4 BSC teams would play in 2 bowl games. If they win the first game, they get to play in the championship game, if they lose the first game they get to play for third place in the second game. The way the BCS is now, Ohio State definitely deserves to play for the championship, the question (at this point) who should Ohio State play? Michigan? USC? Florida? Notre Dame? This picture will hopefully clear itself during the next 2-3 weeks.

Hmm

Well, I was going to try to a complete overhaul on my blog's appearance. I wanted to change the colors and format. The problem is, that I really haven't found a "free" format that I like. So for the time being I will make minor changes. Hopefully I will be able to tweak it a little bit at a time to my liking. Peace

Under Construction

Pardon my mess. This blog is currently under construction

Great Wife Almighty!!

A good woman is hard to find,
and worth far more than diamonds.
Her husband trusts her without reserve,
and never has reason to regret it.
Never spiteful, she treats him generously
all her life long.
She shops around for the best yarns and cottons,
and enjoys knitting and sewing.
She's like a trading ship that sails to faraway places
and brings back exotic surprises.
She's up before dawn, preparing breakfast
for her family and organizing her day.
She looks over a field and buys it,
then, with money she's put aside, plants a garden.
First thing in the morning, she dresses for work,
rolls up her sleeves, eager to get started.
She senses the worth of her work,
is in no hurry to call it quits for the day.
She's skilled in the crafts of home and hearth,
diligent in homemaking.
She's quick to assist anyone in need,
reaches out to help the poor.
She doesn't worry about her family when it snows;
their winter clothes are all mended and ready to wear.
She makes her own clothing,
and dresses in colorful linens and silks.
Her husband is greatly respected
when he deliberates with the city fathers.
She designs gowns and sells them,
brings the sweaters she knits to the dress shops.
Her clothes are well-made and elegant,
and she always faces tomorrow with a smile.
When she speaks she has something worthwhile to say,
and she always says it kindly.
She keeps an eye on everyone in her household,
and keeps them all busy and productive.
Her children respect and bless her;
her husband joins in with words of praise:
"Many women have done wonderful things,
but you've outclassed them all!"
Charm can mislead and beauty soon fades.
The woman to be admired and praised
is the woman who lives in the Fear-of-God.
Give her everything she deserves!
Festoon her life with praises!
Proverbs 31:10-31 The Message

I have a great wife. I don't always treat her like she deserves to be treated. A lot of times I am selfish in my actions and thoughts but she keeps treating me with all her love. We are going through a rough time in our marriage right now. It is all from my doing. I started taking her for granted and did not put forth the effort and energy to make things right. Now I am putting forth the effort. It is much harder now than what it should have been. I have a great wife. She is a great mother and my best friend. She is always looking for the deals and ways to stretch the dollar. If you have seen me recently you also know that she is a great cook. This post does not do justice of how great of a wife I have.
With love.

Silly question

Why is when you use the word blog in your post that blogger.com's spell check doesn't recognize that as an actual word?

All the above

Things are going great. I love my job and love being in power plants. I am feeling more comfortable being in power plants and what is going on and what needs to take place. I thought I was going to have an opportunity to climb into a boiler today. (The unit is in an outage, which means it's not in operation which means there is no fire) Understand? Good. Unfortunately I was not able to get into the boiler, nobody was. Oh well. I've been at a few power plants over the past 2 weeks. I was at one in Michigan, Toledo and PA. I was at the same one in PA today and am planning on going back to it next week for a light off to test some scanner equipment. I can't wait. Wa Hoo. It's great when you look forward to going into work. Now, I'm not saying that I don't want to be around my family. I love being around my family, even if my boy is throwing his patented fits. If you gotta work, why not enjoy going into work? I am blessed to have this job. Yeah.

Peace out-
Later
Rock on
Let's blow this joint (an old school saying for me) (to bad none of my old school friends read my blog)

Studio 60

Ok, I heard back from Nate. He said so far he has a role in each episode. He also said that he has a significant role in episode 8 "Las Vevas Days, Part II" I can not wait until I see him in bigger roles.

Jake in Trees

I was watching the new show "Men in Trees" last night. It is a pretty good show to watch. Nothing to horrible yet. Anyways.... last night her fans thought she had died because she did not show up for some appearances, it turns out that she is in Alaska. Well.... I am not dead. I have not abandoned my blog.

Studio 60 - a funny show that my friend Nate Torrence is in. Actually I don't know of he is my friend or not anymore. We went to church and youth group together. Went on a missions trip to Guatemala together. When he and his wife moved to LA and went out and visited them and was actually at their little studio apartment. I've e-mailed him a few times but never get a response. Maybe he thinks I am trying to hang on to his coat tails or something like that. I'm not. I'm just trying to remain his friend and be supportive of him. He has come a long way from Berlin, Ohio to LA. A major accomplishment. Go Nate.

-later
-peace out
-see you on the flip side

Guatemalan Prisons

Prisons in Guatemala are not the same as the ones in the United States, at least the one I visited. When you walk into the prison you have your passport with you. Prison officials take your passport, look it over and then put a stamp on your hand saying that you are a visitor so that you can be let back out of the prison. Not to bad. Except they keep your passport.... and if your stamp wears off your hand you could possibly spend time in the prison while everything gets straightened out. So you walk in the prison following a guard carrying a sawed-off shot gun. You follow him into a room that they probably use to serve meals in or something that one side is open to the "outside" which is the courtyard in the middle of the prison. So everyone gets situated and we talk to our interpreter a little. I look around and our guard has disappeared. So we are with about 45 or so prisoners with no guard with us. Fun. I look across the court yard and spot two guards standing in the corners on top of the fence holding their shotguns. Great. Like they can make it over to this room in time if something breaks out. And I am the one who is suppose to be talking in front of these guys. Now, what is the last thing you think a prisoner wants to hear from a greengo? Hmm, you might have guessed it right. They don't want to hear that they are a guilty prisoner. Guess what. That is what I told them they were. I compared them to the prisoners on the cross next to Jesus. I asked which one they wanted to be. The one that died not acknowledging Christ or the one that accepted Christ during his last hour(s) on Earth.

Imagine this

Imagine you have 2 children. You have a 9 year old boy and a 6 year old girl. The boy becomes very jealous of his little sister for various reason. The boy starts being abusive to her. It finally communalates into the girls being murdered by her brother.
As a parent you are waken up by your son saying that his sister is dead and he has admitted to killing her. What would you do? I think as a parent you would do everything in the world to protect your son. It would be a double edged sword, hard to swallow isn't it?

Is it possible this could have happened in the Ramsey household that terrible night/morning on December 25-26, 1996? Colorado has a law which states a child under 10 years old cannot be held accountable for murder. So in the law's eyes in Colorado, it would be like JonBenet was never murdered. Protecting the privacy and the interest of the child which committed the act supercedes any wrong doing by the family.

Blogsvertise!?!?!

Blogsvertise. What is it? Blogsvertise is a new and unique way companies attempting to tap into the blogging sub-culture of America. Think of the possibilities you can have as a blogger. You are e-mailed assignments to complete. You in turn have about a week to complete these assignments. No I'm not talking about school work type of assignments. You actually look at a web site and then write a review tying in three (3) links to the url in your blog. Like what I am doing with this post. You don't have to be supportive of the product either, your allowed to write a negative review. You get to pretend you are a book or movie critic. But wait, there is more. You can actually make money doing this. You will make at least $10 per assignment possibly more once you get settled in and Blogsvertise likes what they see on your blog. So how about it? Go ahead and sign up for it at Blogsvertise, it's free, no it's better than free you get paid for blogging.

Searching for JonBenet

It's amazing how quickly a story can drop from the headlines. I had to actually search for JonBenet news. It wasn't on the front page on websites. It looks like John Mark Karr got what he wanted. His 15 minutes in the spotlight. It is sad how by him saying a few simple words can garnish so much attention. It also allows a little peak into society. Society still has a curiosity for the JonBenet case. Who dunit? My personal opinion is that someone from the inside had something to do with her death. I'm not saying they killed her but they know more than what has been said.
John Mark Karr had an outstanding warrant for child pornography. He needed to be arrested. But my question is, why couldn't they have taken DNA samples long before trotting him off to Boulder like a circus show.
My theory -- I blabbed about being there when JonBenet was killed so he wouldn't be in the general population of prison when he was sent there for child pornography. What do you think?

-later

June 12th 1996 (Day 5)

We are fasting today so that the Lord will forgive us for our sins against Guatemala. The first school we went to was a private Christian school. I felt like we were there for the glory of God. The students were really into what we were doing. We had an alter call, but no one stood up. Then we asked everyone that had Christ in their heart to stand up. Only three people stood up. But it was ? (word wasn't clearly written) because we did it to the glory of God.
We went to a little kids school next. I didn't feel that I was doing anything for the glory of God. We handed out bracelets to the children. I didn't know whether or not they understood our skits. I hope that they did.
In the afternoon we to a prison. Everyone was so scared when we first went in. I was so scared, I wasn't so sure why I volunteered to talk. I was scared. When I said "Hola," I felt at peace. I shared the story of the crucifixion mainly the part of the robbers also being crucified with Jesus. I felt great after the talk and wasn't nervous about anything. About ten people came up and gave their life to Jesus.
After supper I had a chance to observe wrestling. All of them were quick and good. I wrestled a guy who was 2nd or 3rd at nationals. I had a few take-downs. He was stronger than an ox. I had a fun time overall. It was good for me to relax and get some strenuous physical exercise.
Tonight is the last night for us in Chimaltenago.

I will explain in more detail about this Guatemala prison during my next post.

Things I Thought I'd Never Do, Before Having Kids

Well, I might as well as join the band wagon on thoughts of things I wouldn't do before having kids.

This will probably be a short list.

1. I never thought that I would let my child sleep in my bed with me.
2. I never thought I would intinctively catch barf in my hand. (This happened several times, once was while I was eating dinner, I simply wiped my hand off with a napkin and continued on with dinner not missing a beat)
3. I never thought I wouldn't have a college degree before having kids.
4. Never thought that having kids would interfere with my sex life. ;-) ha ha ha ha

I guess that is basically it. Told you it wouldn't be much. I don't think guys think a whole lot about kids before they are married.

Maine or Bust!!!

BUST!!!
We were going to head to Maine in October for a nice little vacation with the family. We choose Maine because we loved it there the last time we went and we were going to have some inexpensive housing. The company I work for in Hudson owns a house in Maine for the employees to use. It turns out that they will be re-roofing it and rebuilding the chimney from the ground up during October. So we are on to Plan C. We are thinking about the OBX but have not firmly decided on it yet. We are going to look at some other possibilities also. That is all the update I have for now. Check ya later.

Kids, Gas & Cars

Know what...............?
You know what I would like to do? (I have't even told Delilah about this) I would like to get rid of our car and van and replace them with hybrids. I already know what I want to replace them with. I was thinking about the Saturn VUE or the Ford Escape. They offer a little more room than a sedan which we need since we have 2 kids and are "trying", "practicing", "not stopping", "using the prayer method", or whatever you would like to call it for a 3rd child.
The downside about replacing the vehicles is that the new vehicles would cost around 45k. That's a lot of change for our shallow pockets and since we don't own a house I don't think this would be the best way to spend our money. Maybe we could start with the van, it IS a gas guzzler.
Guatemala..........
I hope you are all enjoying a walk back in time with my journalings about Guatemala. I went on a missions trip to Guatemala the summer after graduating from high school. I found this journal when we were moving and thought it would be something of interest to hopefully a few people out there in blog world.
On to other subjects......
Geocaching.........
The family and I went Geocaching on Sunday. It was great. I hadn't been able to go for a long time. I've got the itch to go again. I'm planning to do a whole day of geocaching later this month. I just need to find a baby sitter for Elise, it's a little difficult at this point to have her go. Jude loves it. He always says "are we going caching?"
-later-

June 11th, 1996 (Day 4)

The Jose Mesa family have been so good to me and Erik. They try to make us feel at home. This morning Jose played the English version of the Carmen tape. It made me feel happy to know that they accept us for who we are. I wish we could do the same in America too. In the states we say we love you, but in the Guatemala they show they love us, but don't say it as often.
The first school we went to was fun. The children had a good time. Some of them listened well. While others did not listen at all. It gets frustrating at times, but if I so my skits for the glory of God everything will turn out all right. The next school was in the town. It was a small school. We had very little space to hare our dramas.
We then went to a private school to share our dramas. (We first went to the private school then we went to the public school in town.) Everything went great at the private school. I believe we got the message of the gospel across. After we went to the public school we went back to the private school to share with the high school age kids. It seemed like nobody's heart was fully into sharing the message of Christ. I was trying my best to put my full heart into it, but it didn't seem right. Ryan stopped everything after the box skit and told them we have sinned against God and Guatemala.
We had a heart to heart experience at the church full of prayers. Prayers of forgiveness and prayers for strength.
My prayers has been answered. I haven't felt like God has used me to touch anybody in Guatemala. The family Mike is staying with, the father is the coach of a local wrestling team. I pray that I will be able to share the gospel using wrestling terms. I hope I know what to say in front of the wrestlers. I can't wait. Praise the Lord.

June 10th, 1996 (Day 3)

Yesterday (Sunday) we went to Mike's church for praise and worship. It was very comforting to see that people of different tongues can praise the Lord in the same way. Then we went to Zone 4. The most poverty stricken part of Guatemala City. A drama team from the church also joined us. We started by doing skits on a little train platform. After an hour and a half we broke into a North group and a South group. The drama team also broke into 2 groups. We walked down the tracks until we found an area big enough to perform our skits we did this 3 times before heading back to meet the rest of the groups. We had lunch at a pizza place called Vesuvius. It was one of the best pizzas I have tasted for a while.
We went back to the orphanage and rested. The children at the orphanage are so special. They don't care how you look, they don't really care if you can't speak Spanish.
Today we moved to Chimaltenango about an hour and half away by bus. We went to 2 public schools
At the first school we went to had a huge courtyard and we performed several songs and dramas. We didn't have a chance to talk to the kids.
The next school was great. We started walking up the street and all these kids started running away from us. As we reached the school the children started to swarm us. We went inside to a big lobby there we performed our dramas and sang to songs. As we were leaving, the children just swarmed me. It felt great, like I was some famous person. It feels so good to have the children and teachers accept us like they did. It has been a real blessing from God.
This afternoon we ended up at a church camp, but we had planned to go to an orphanage. It turns out that the director for that camp is also our host family. He also knows some English, which really helps Eric and I out a lot. Jose said he had a little house. But the house is nice size for a three person family.
The people show their love for us so much. They are so courteous to us. We don't deserve anything but they really do care for us.
Tonight we had a powerful prayer time. There were a lot of tears shed. Some happy, others sad. But I felt that we all bonded together more.

Need a laugh?

Are you a hairy type of guy? Do you know a hairy type of guy? Chances are you are one or you know one. If you need a laugh I have a website for you. MAKE SURE YOUR CHILDREN ARE NOT PRESENT WHEN YOU CHECK OUT THE WEBSITE!!! It's just a little potty humor. This website is actually run by Norelco. It is for the Philips Bodygroom click here.

Hope you enjoy the laugh, make sure you click on the Main Menu button in the lower left corner of the screen for more options.

June 8th, 1996

Lord, thank you for such a safe trip to Guatemala. The plane to Houston was great. Also from Houston to Guatemala City. Thank you, no delays in departure times. The children here are so precious. They always seem happy, even though they don't have parents. They appreciate what they have. I think that we all can learn from how the children are happy even though they don't have everything they want. They are just content with what they have.
I pray tomorrow will go smooth. That we have no rain and cool weather. I hope that the children will be open to what we have to offer them, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Protect us from harm Lord. I have faith that no one will be threatened or injured tomorrow.
I'm thankful that we have a place to stay and a roof over our heads. And people to prepare the meals for us. Let us be rested and in a good mind set for tomorrow.

Happy Birthday to Me

Another year has passed and I am now 29. One year closer to the big 3-0. Birthdays are a funny thing. When we were kids it was a great big deal to have a birthday. Let's look at some milestones for our birthdays. When you turn 13 that is the first milestone we reach. We always want to be a teenager, but midway through our teenage years we don't want to be a teen anymore. 18. When we turn 18 it is yet another milestone because we are "officially" an adult. I use that term officially an adult very loosely because most people do not have an adult mindset at the age 18. Aww, 21, this might be the best birthday of all. It is the first time we can "legally" drink alcohol in the United States. Enough said. Then we hit 30 and by societies standard by the age 30 we are suppose to be married. Our next milestone is when we turn 50 "over the hill". Over the hill to what? Then a select few of us our lucky enough to reach the final milestone of 100. Can you imagine being born in 1906 an witnessing all the change which has taken place during the last 100 years?
Peace out and stay cool today.

I need pants

Aww, a great sunny afternoon the best time to spend time playing softball. I love playing softball. I think I may have mentioned this in a previous post. When I play I don't hold back, I am very agressive out on the field. If I think I can make a diving or sliding catch, I will attempt it. Sunday I made two pretty good catches, (I don't want to really talk about the ball I let roll between my legs. The second good catch I made, I dove head first and nabbed the ball inches off the ground, that catch didn't hurt. My first catch hurt and still hurts. I made a sliding catch and now my lower right leg has a 2*6 inch raw area on it. It looks like a real bad carpet burn. I have come to realization that I either must not be very aggresive in the outfield (yeah right) or I must buy some baseball pants to protect my legs a little better. The reason I am saying this is because I am heading to a power plant Tuesday night. And will be there until probably 6 in the morning on Wednesday. I sore is tender as it is, I can't imagine what all the heat will make it feel like. I will have to tough it.

Later from the one who forgets his age.

Hell

This week I visited hell. Yes you guessed right, I was at a power plant. This particular unit has 8 corners on each level. Now you might ask how can a unit have 8 corners. Good question. There is a super heat side and a reheat side. It is actually like 2 boilers together, if that makes sense. I was up on the "C" deck and it was hot. There was little air movement and the temp was around 130. We were up on the deck for several hours. I drank 4 32 oz bottles of fluid and was still very thirsty when we left. I get to visit hell again next week. Except this time I will be working during the night and it should be a little cooler. Now, don't get me wrong here. I enjoy going to power plants. It is a great learning experience for me. I actually get to see how our products work in their environment. Besides, it's a great incentive to keep me focused on my faith as not to end up in eternal hell.

PK

This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend a Promise Keepers event. It was a great time with great speakers and most importantly great worship. Worship is so important to me. Worship allows for an emotional connection to take place between God and myself. I haven't experienced great worship like I did at PK for a long time.

While at PK God revitalized a desire I have had for 8 years, in my heart which was pushed to the back burner. I have had a desire to open a non-threatening Christian youth center to reach out to teens from middle school through high school. I would like have x-boxes, pool tables, a computer area for kids to do homework on, tutors, good Christian rock/hip hop/rap music blaring through out the area.

While praying and doing a little research on this idea I came across a great website. The Mill - Youth Stop, which is in Toledo, Ohio, is an organization I would like to model the youth center after that I open up. Except I would like to call it: IGNITION - Sparking the Soul. You can view The Mill website here.

-More Later

Jude's Toe

Tonight I decided I would go out to the garage and continue to build my shelves. I took Jude and Elise with me since Delilah was still at work. Elise was doing great, I put her in her little bike thing and she was having a great time trying to motor around. Jude instantly jumped on his John Deere tractor and started driving around the driveway. I thought this is great, both kids are occupied and I might be able to get the front part of the shelf finished. I place two 2*4's on the ground and was walking back into the garage to grab the tape measure and pencil to make some measurements. It wasn't long before I heard the clunk, clunk sound of the 2*4 being dropped then waaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh. I knew right away what happened. Jude had dropped the 2*4 on his right big toe. It almost immediately turned black. I will not be surprised if it eventually falls off. While holding Jude I hurried to put the toys and my stuff into the garage and then grabbed Elise and carried the both of them inside. Jude wanted a band aid for his toe. So he got one. Most of the night he was whining about his toe and had to hobble around with his toe not touching the ground.
I felt so bad for him. I know it has to hurt. Maybe next time he will think twice about picking up a 2*4. Hopefully it will be better tomorrow.

Aww Power Plants

I work for a company whose business it is, is to solve problems which power plants run into. I was at a power plant on Thursday in southern Ohio. I was there for the WHOLE day. We arrived at about 10:45 am and did not leave until about 12:45 am Friday morning. I didn't get home until almost 3 in the morning. Luckily I work for a great boss and he gave me Friday off. Now don't think I am complaining here, I'm NOT. I had great time of learning about the boiler front. It was a great learning experiene for me. This particular boiler has 6 elevatitions of 8 lighters. Needless to say it is a good size unit. I was able to observe setting up oil guns and spark rods. I actually was able to set one elevation's spark rods and oil guns at the correct length. There is a lot that goes into lighting off a boiler. Pretty much it comes down to have the correct oil and air pressure to produce the best flame. (There is more to it than just that, that was my simple explanation to it.)

The fire that is lit is like no other fire I have ever seen in my life. It is intense. Bright. Not as bright as looking into the sun on a clear day, but none the less it is bright.

I can't wait until my next opportunity to head back to a power plant.

-later from the "pink house"

Religous Leaders

16Jesus answered, "My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me. 17If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. 18He who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself, but he who works for the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him.
John 7:16-18 NIV

In my Bible under the application section to verses it states the following:

Those who attempt to know God's will and do it will know intuitively that Jesus was telling the truth about himself. Have you ever listened to religous speakers and wondered if they were telling the truth? Test them: (1) their words should agree with, not controdrict, the Bible; (2) their words should point to God and his will, not to themselves.

Settling In

We've been in our new house since Saturday and we are getting things put away and making it comfortable fairly quick. Thanks in part to all the great help we had on Saturday. Our house seems so much bigger since we have a usable basement now. We have put our office into the basement and their is also a full bath that I have adopted for my own.
Onto other things........
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Later-
....from the "pink house"

Tired

This week is going so slow and it's only Tuesday night. We have been pushing ourselves pretty tough since the 15th. We have been working hard until about 10:30 at night. Trying to get everything packed up and cleaned up is a pain in the be-hind. I've made 3 full trailer trips already and the trailer is almost half full again. It seems like a never ending process of packing loading and unloading then unpacking when we get over to the "Pink House" Needless to say we have put in some long days when including work hours, but Thursday will be a relaxing day because we are heading to the Aeros game courtesy of Control Systems. Can't wait.
That's all for now.

Later-

The First Trip

Last night we made our first trip of moving some stuff into the "pink house". I forgot how much I hate moving. It really does stink. I feel like we were just getting everything unpacked from out first move. I wish we were filthy rich so we could just give most of our stuff away then buy new stuff for the new house. I think that would be so much easier. I'm not sure how we are going to do it. We would like to be completely moved into our new house by June 24th. Will it happen? I guess you will have to wait and see what transpires over the next week.

-later

Figured I should probably post again

Things are getting busy around here. It seems like we add more and more to our plate and keep going back for seconds. The job is still going great. I'm suppose to head to a power plant on Thursday, I can't wait. Softball is also going well. I can't believe how out of shape I have allowed myself to get. I get tired just chasing a fly ball down in the outfield. Whew. I forgot how much fun I had playing. I'm glad I've gotten another chance to play once again.
Jude is in WV, this is the first time he spent away from us, other than when I was in the hospital or when Delilah was in the hospital birthing Elise. I hear he is doing well there. I'm glad he is having fun. I do miss him, but it nice to have a little break from his whining. But none the less I still love him. He loves it WV, he's always outside playing when we go to visit. He is due to return back to us on Wednesday afternoon. He will probably be upset to come home. :-(
Well all is going well here, can wait until we can start moving. Yippee

Later-

We're Moving (Wahoo)

We made it official today. We are moving to a new house. When I'm in the new house I feel so much more relaxed. It is a quiet neighborhood street, much quieter than the busy street we live on now. When we pay July's rent we can start moving our stuff in. It will be nice to be able to move our stuff in at a little at a time. It will be nice not to have to hear our landlord walking in and out and opening the garage door when she goes to her inlaw suite. Our new landlords are super nice. We know a lot of the same people it's pretty crazy, she actually worked at the girls Safe Landing, that is where Delilah worked at one time and I worked at the boys shelter. There is much more to say but I will probably let Delilah discuss them later on.

Moving on up

This week I have had the privilege of moving my desk into an actual office space at work. I moved into a 19*19 room and my boss has a separate office that takes up 14*10 of the room. So I am basically right outside of his door. It's all great though because my desk is separate from the rest of the office and I have some privacy now. We painted the room Wednesday and Thursday. It looks really good. It seems everyone is really impressed with my work ethic and how quick I have caught on to things. I am usually able to learn things pretty quick and have also had a good work ethic. I have never had a bad or close to a bad review in all my time working. I was told I will get a raise either in July or August, just depends on the timing. I hope it is July we can use the extra cash flow.
In September I will be going to Maine for a week long business trip with the rest of the sales team. Wahhoo. Lobster here I come. Other than that everything is going really well, are front yard was even mowed today (because I mowed it) now we will be able to see Elise a lot easier.

Where to begin

Wow, I am already tired this week and it's only Tuesday evening. The weekend went really well. The kids were great for the most part. Jude loves the outdoors, I really need to spend more time with him in the woods and doing outdoorsy type of things. Elise did well, mamaw took care of the majority of the time. I was able to do alot of work which needed to be done to the van, we estimated it would probably cost around $1500 at a repair shop for everything we did. Many thanks to my dad and Tim.
Well.... at work I have talked to several customers. It went pretty good. But I feel like I am feeling around in the dark at this point. Luckily there weren't any big questions asked for me to not answer.
um yeah I started this post on Tuesday night and now it is Wednesday night.

Donations Accepted

This may be an odd post to everyone, but I figured what the heck it couldn't hurt. I have found a house that would be perfect for us, unfortunately it is a little out of our price range, ok a lot out of price range. You can view the house at darrowroad.com If we bought this house I could definitely have a dog. So with out further ado donations will be accepted at my pay pal account jakery1@hotmail.com

I'm hoping someone like Bill Gates will come across this blog and think, "oh they sound like good people let me give them .00001% of my net worth. ;-)

-Later All-

Oh yeah - I'm heading to WV with the kids this weekend. Should be fun.

Jude had a farm and on this farm he had............

So...... today while Delilah was taking her insurance classes I decided to take the kids with me to plant flowers on my grandparents grave in good ole Fredericksburg. But before we got to the cemetery we had a couple of stops to make. Our first stop was at Cedar Lane Farms, my old, old place of employment. It is a wholesale green house. Jude enjoyed looking at all the flowers, he is really into flowers. I also had a chance to chat with my old boss Tom M. It was nice to catch up and see how things were going. After the greenhouse we traveled down the road to Fredericksburg for lunch at Lem's Pizza. I got a sub and Jude and split it while Elise downed a jar of spaghetti. I decided to take a drive around the town we drove past my old elementary school and the baseball field. They have really made improvements on the baseball field, it looks really nice. I decided to drive around the "detour" and drive past my old house. It happened they were having a garage sale so I decided to stop in and chat a little bit. A little but turned into about a hour. It was fun to talk about all the changes my parents made to the property. They seem like really nice people and I believe they will really take care of the property. They have already done a lot to spruce it up. After a visit at the old house we went to the cemetery to plant the flowers. When we finished planting the flowers I decided to stop by to see an old family friend. We stayed for almost 2 hours. Jude loved being their. They live on a farm and have cows. I D & J might turn out to be Jude and Elise's adopted grand-parents. Jude really warmed upto J, she read him 4 or 5 books and did not want to leave. While driving home Jude wanted to go back and visit. I'm sure we will go back to visit sometime soon. While on this day trip Jude decided he wants a horsey, since we were in Amish country and all.
So while driving home from small group tonight Jude asks if he can have a horse. I asked Jude where he would keep the horse. Reply- In our back yard, and we can put the cage in the dirt. I told Jude we need to have a farm to have a horse. Instead of saying anything about the farm he goes on to ask about having cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals he wants for the farm. The kids loves animals.

-More later-

Learning new things

So far at work I have used tools that I have never used or rarely used in the past. Most everything that we sell is fabricated in our shop (including most of the parts and pieces which are used in the fabrication process. Today I used an orbital welder. I've used a pipe cutter and put threads on the pipe. I have used the lathe to to cut off threads on screws. I used the drill press a lot last week to mill flats on a part. Yesterday I was volunteer to run the tow motor to get a fan down from the loft. Mind you this tow motor was borrowed from a shop three buildings down from ours. I have run a tow motor when I worked at a green house about 8 years ago. They must have thought since I had some experience running a tow motor a long time ago. It was tight where I was running the tow motor.
Needless to say I am really enjoying this job. I talked to my first customer yesterday. It wasn't to horrible. If I must say I think it went really well.
-More to come-

The Chase

You know in the movies the will sometimes show a scene of a dog running after a vehicle? Well, that was Lady. Since we didn't have her fenced in she had free reign. When we left (usually to go to Wooster) she would take off down the road after the van. I'm not really how far she went, I can't imagine any further than the square. She would be barking and running after the van. It was quite a sight to see. I'm suprised she never got hit by a car doing that.

Coming out of retirement

I have decided to come out my softball retirement. It has been a long time since I have played. I have realized I am not as quick as I use to be. I am way out of shape. I was shagging flyballs today and after about 5 of them I was sucking for some air.
The team is a co-ed team which is always fun to play on. Today I was trying to catch a pop-up I had to run it down. I reached out and grabbed it just off the ground. My glove got caught on the ground I rolled over and hurt my left ribs or bruised a muscle in that region. So I am a little sore tonight due to the fact that I am so out of shape.
-More later-

More about the J-O-B

I work for Control Systems Company. We make ignitors for power plants. My official title is: Sales Assistant and Shop Assistant. Yes, I have two jobs wrapped up into one. It's not bad though. I will enjoy the flexibility that come with the position and this seems to be a perfect fit for as I can get bored with doing routine jobs. This will allow anough variation in my schedule to keep me interested in what I am doing. When needed I will be working in the shop or when needed I will be working in the office, I have a feeling I will gain more responsibilities in the office then first inticipated. The first 3 days I have been doing just that. I have split my time pretty equally between the 2 areas. In the shop I have been milling flats on pieces of that are used on spark plugs. While in the office I have been learning about Peachtree and Gold Mine, two programs which are used extensively with our sales.
-More to follow later this week-

Porcupine

My family took a vacation to Colorado during the summer one year. I can't recall if it was before or after my 4th grade year. I do recall that we left after Steph's volleyball camp, and everyone was tired. Some where in Indiana our van some how ended up driving on two wheels. But this is another story for another time for another person to write about. (Hint, hint) We eventually made it to Colorado and Lady did really well. We all decided to go on a hike one day and we took Lady with us. At one point during the hike she wandered off from us while we were eating our lunch. When she came back she had porcupine quills in her snout. Dad pulled them all out when we got back to camp spot. Poor girl, it was not a fun experience for her.

First Day on the J-O-B

My first day at my new job has come to an end. All went well. I spent about 2 hours in the shop and 1 1/2 hours at the doctors office waiting to pee in a cup. I am really excited about this new job. I have two major things which I need to work on for this job. 1) I need to be more assertive, 2) I need to speak up. Unfortunately my laid back personality is more of a detriment for me. It will change over time.

Seeing things

While at Akron General Hospital I was on some major strong drugs. I don't know what they were called or anything. All I really do remember is seeing things on the wall and trying to hand imaginary objects to people. I would be staring at the wall in my room and would see all kinds of objects and different colors. I remember seeing elephants, and other zoo animals. I would blink my eyes and I would see something new on the wall. Delilah said that I was trying to hand her things that weren't really there. She also said I kept on playing with the buttons on the hospital bed and kept on pushing the nurse button. Serves them right, I hope it bothered them to no end by me pushing the nurse button since they put me some crazy drugs.
I remember a nurse came into my room to draw some blood out of my right arm. She got the first vile or 2 ok, but it took her forever to draw the last one. She kept poking me in a new spot to try to get more blood. I was becomeing very frustrated with her.
My left arm always have an IV hooked up to it. My veins are still sore. Does anyone know if they will return back to normal? When I rub my right arm I do not feel any veins, but when I rub my left arm I can feel my veins and it actually hurts to touch them. Is this normal?
I have been trying to take it easy this week. Is it possible for a Miller to take is easy? I doubt it. I have been trying to help out as much as possible to keep/get the house back up to par. I've been mainly focusing on laundary. I fell asleep last night from 3-5:30 and Delilah actually yelled at me. (Because she wasn't feeling good and Elise was sick) She said if this was how it was going to be (meaning draining myself during the day) she would have taken this week off also. Oh the fun.
I don't think I'm meant to be a stay at home dad. I get side tracked doing other things and don't get the important things finished. I haven't worked since April 5th. It has been a total of 20 days since I worked. I won't work again until May 1st, 5 more days. I am looking forward to it.
In a previous post I had mentioned about the possibility of us moving to the Atlanta area. At this point it seems that transition will not happen. Which we are fine with. We always enjoy looking at the possibilities that come before us.
I must get going - if you read this and have a blog please post on your blog - you know who you are, I miss reading what's going on in your life. Don't be a blog abandoner.

-Later-

Equal Education for All

Hmm, where to begin. It's been a while since I last mentioned anything about good ole Lady.

During late summer of my 6th grade at Fredericksburg Elementary, Lady decided she wanted to go to school. Now she never followed me to school or anything like that. So, I'm not sure how she decided to come into the school building. Anyways, it was in the afternoon probably 1-2 hours before school let out. Lady had decided to come into the school building, the second grade classroom actually to cool off. Someone came up to my class to inform me that my dog was in the building. How they knew it was my dog is beyond me. I guess she was a very popular dog. Anyways, I walked down to the second grade classroom to get her back outside. She did not want to go back outside, she was enjoying her attention from all the students and the fresh water she had received to try and cool down.

She eventually went outside and everyone returned to what they were suppose to be doing while taking care of Lady.

-What a smart dog-

Getting back to it

I have this whole week off. My new boss, Bill, wants me to be 100% before returning back to work. (He also mentioned that other employees were concerned about me having viral meningitis and catching something from me) I have to be honest and say that I am not 100% yet, I'm probably about 90%. I still have a headache every once in a while. Today Elise is sick so I have been tending to her.

-More later-

Da food is da bomb

While at the Cleveland Clinic, I realized for the first time that hospital food doesn't have to be disgusting. Every morning you would have the opportunity to pick out the next days meals. It was good stuff. For breakfast your were able to pick out anything from cereal, omelets, potatoes, milk, and juice. It was like going to a restaurant and looking at a menu.
One evening I had pasta with a stew over top of it. It was really good and the food was actually hot when it got to you.
My dad mentioned that each floor had it's own kitchen. Very impressive.
Five stars on the food.

Not your normal hospital

The Cleveland Clinic Foundation is not your normal run of the mill hospital. I'm talking about first class with a capital "C". Because of this I have decided to dedicate the next several posts about the the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Don't worry, Tuesday's are still reserved for Lady.

The first thing you notice when you walk through the doors of the Cleveland Clinic is the utmost respect everyone is treated. This respect resonates through the clinic; the custiodial crew, door-men, dietary aides, nurse aides, nurses, and doctors.

While at the Cleveland Clinic my room was located on the 8th floor of the "G" wing. I'm not sure how many wings there are but I think it went through "M". Every morning a young man would buff the floors. Now I'm not just talking about the main aisle but actually your room floor. He would politely ask if you minded him buffing your floor. (It was kind of noisey) He would take most of the furniture out of the room and then continue on with buffing the floor. Needless to say the floors were spotless and sparked in the sun.

As many of you know I was at one time a custodian at a local school district, I hadn't seem floors this clean in a long time. I can almost guarantee the hospital custodians made less than half what school custodians make.

Needless to say the Cleveland Clinic was a(re) very clean building(s). I was very impressed with the cleanliness.

More to come tomorrow.

An Open Thank You to All

This has been the most sick I've been for a long time. The last time I went to the hospital was when I had my appendix removed (I think I was in the hospital for like 2 or 3 days) back on New Year's Day 1998 or 1999.
I don't know all the medical terminology the doctor's spoke the past week. That is really Delilah's area, and hopefully she will post some of that on her blog sometime this week.
Delilah has mentioned names of people over the past week which have sacrificed their time and energy to help our family during our time of need. I will mention a few people but the list is not inclusive of all who prayed and gave their time. First off I would like to thank my family (mom, dad, sister, bro-in law, bro) for taking time out of their hectic schedule for coming up to Akron to help care for my family, next I would like to thank Delilah's parents for coming all the way from TN to help out too. Thanks to all from Fallscreek for you support to Delilah, your prayers definitely went a long way to help us. This was definitely what church was all about... supporting one another when another is down. Thank you so much.
When I got home yesterday, Jude sat on my lap for about 10 minutes. I actually thought I was going to have to pry him off of me to get a drink. I could tell he really missed me. I know I missed him and Elise. It seems that Elise grew so much of the last 9 days. She started to walk, which she was so close to doing when I went into the hospital. She didn't seem to be so surprises or happy to see me when I got home, must be an age thing.
The doctor's from CCF told me I needed to take it easy for about a week and build my strength up. The problem with this is I'm not really sure how to take it easy, I have a list of things in my mind which I want to accomplish... must be the Miller in me. I imagine I will start my new job April 24th. I am excited about the new possibilities it will bring.
IT FEELS GREAT TO BE HOME

9 Days Later

I am FINALLY home. It has been a long trek which started at Akron General Medical Center, which moved to the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and now I am back home. You will have to read Delilah's blog for all the details. All I basically remember is this....
April 10th....
*11:00 pm - headed to AGMC after a week of high fevers and some seriuously powerful dry heaves.
April 11th....
*Early morning sometime - admitted into AGMC
April 12th - April 16th......
*These days were pretty much a blur I do remember seeing a couple people, it felt like I fell asleep Tuesday morning and woke up the next Monday morning which wasn't really the case you will have to read Delilah's blog for the details if she decides to post them.
April 17th....
*2:00 or 3:00 pm finally enroute to the CCF.
April 19th....
*9:30 am - discharged from CCF
*10:45 am - arrived home.......FINALLY

Feeling Better

I'm finally starting to feel more like myself this afternoon. I went to the doctor yesterday afternoon and had a fever of 104.1 They checked my nose, throat, and ears and said everything was clear. But the doctor said that I had "something" big working in my chest. He said there wasn't anything that jumped out except something was working. So he sent me home with samples of Biaxin. He said to take it as a preventative to getting pneumonia. So I will take it, no problem with me. Hopefully I will be 100% tomorrow.

Sick

The sick bug finally hit me. I actually felt it coming on earlier in the week. But it his me like a train Wednesday night / Thurday morning. I woke up around 3 in the morning and took my temp it read 103.6. I went ahead and called off work right then (I was suppose to work days Thursday and didn't want to get up at 5 to call off). So I slept almost the whole day Thursday. I slept until 10 went back to sleep 15 minutes later, got up up at 12:30 went back to sleep 15 minutes later, got up at 4 went back to sleep 15 minutes later then got up at 9 and have been up since then. This is the most I have ever slept in a 24 hour period. I went ahead and called off for Friday also, I think this sickness deserves a full two days rest.

She wants to be a mail courier

Now Lady wasn't just any ordinary dog. She was very smart....
One time during a hot summer day, Lady decided she was going to head down to the post office and lay inside to stay cool.
I'm not sure how she got in, I can only imagine she snuck in after some one else walked through the door. I guess she didn't want to come out either. So they just let her be.

A Great Dog

Lady was the best dog a person could have. My earliest memories about Lady come from when I was in third grade although we had her long before I was in the third grade. She was a little black and white dog, and a mix of something or other, basically a mutt. Lady was one of those dogs that was an indoor/outside dog. Since she had free reign of the house and the yard she had many routines which she did most everyday. In the house she had a favorite place where she would lay and take her naps. We lived in a two story house the stairs were in the front of the house and there was a small landing after two steps before turning right to go up the rest of the stairs. There is a window at the landing and Lady would always take her naps with her head on the window sill looking out the window. I would be able to go up and down the stairs and she would just lift her head up to see who it was and then put her head down to continue her nap.
In the summer time there would be this worn path around the house. We didn't really know what it was from. One day we saw Lady doing "laps" around the house. She had other various trails going from here to there and there to here.

Lady

Delilah's various topic series have been a real hit. Soooo, I have decided to follow suit and do a series. This series will be a short lived series and the posts won't be very long because my stories come from about 20 years ago. They will be about my beloved dog I had named Lady. Tomorrow will be my first post on Lady and I will post stories about Lady every Tuesday there-after. I hope you enjoy them.

WV

Our short, short trip to WV went really good. We arrived to the property around 12:30. Everyone was asleep but were soon awakened. Jude and Elise did really well traveling. They both slept at least half of the trip. Jude was asking many questions as we were leaving Stow, mainly to attempt to stay awake.
When we got to my parents house, the kids did not want to go to bed. Jude stayed up for a while but Elise went to sleep fairly well in a "new" bed.
Saturday was our only full day. We spent the majority of the day playing a card game called Garbage, it's a fun game that takes forever to play. The day had various weather moving through. It was cold the whole day but it snowed, was sunny, cloudy, and hailed at one point or another.
Sunday we went to church with the family. After church Steph had a baby shower and Delilah attended. I took Kellen and Jude geocaching. They both really had a fun time despite the chilly temperture and periodic rain. We were geocaching at Wine Cellar Park in Dunbar, WV. It is a neat little park with old wine cellars on the property. I was hoping to find all 3 caches on the property but since we all got a little sidetracked with the wine cellars we only attempted to find 1 and we found it. Both Kellen and Jude were excited about the find.
The trip back home went well also. Both children slept over half the way, they woke up almost an hour before we got home. All in all the trip went really well. It was a lot of work for only one full day of visiting.

Whirlwind of Activity

Today was suppose to be a simple day. The kids wake-up, we all get dressed, get something to eat, get in the van, goto Sam's Club, get gas, come back home, and then go to work at 12:30. Let's see it is 10:20, Jude - still in pj's, Elise - still in pj's and taking a nap now, Delilah - still in pj's, and me - dressed but no breakfast yet. The phone has been in use non stop since 8:45. Delilah is trying to get some last minute stuff done for work and find a baby sitter for the next two weeks because I will be working days. Yessss.
I only have 14 more working days until my new job at Control Systems. Very excited and a little nervous. We have to find a baby sitter for the rest of the school year because Delilah will still be working.
Welcome to the Miller way of life.

Feeling Numb

Last night I worked at the middle school until 11:15. I now have to go into an elementary school and be there by 6:30 am. I don't not like working these kind of hours back to back. At least I knew about this two days in advance. It is must better than waking up to a phone call at 6 in the morning to hear I need to go to a school to work.
I feel so numb this morning that I almost want to puke. Speaking of puke. Last night at the middle school, there was a mother/daughter dance from one of the elementary (actually the one I'm going to this morning). One of the girls puked in the cafeteria. Russ and I had to clean it up even though it was not in our area. The reason being was because the person working in that area had left for dinner. So being the professional custodians we are we cleaned up the mess instead of leaving it for her when she got back (some people would have just left it because it wasn't in their area). Before the dance I was checking the bathrooms on the first floor. Now part of our job with bathrooms is to throw away the feminine product bags. This task is not usually a problem. Except for tonight. All three containers were overflowing. The were used products on the floor of all three stalls. Mind you, I checked these boxes 1 hour after school let out. It's hard telling how long they had been overflowing. I can only surmise that they have been this since about lunch time. Which is sad because this means that the 2 day custodians were not doing their job. Hmmm.

More to follow, I must leave for my wonderful day of work as a custodian.

And, if you are ever at a school and a restroom is not clean, don't feel bad about going to the office about it.

Did you know?

I was doing a short devotional today and I was suppose to read Matthew 18:11-14. The problem here is that my Bible which is a NIV does not have a Matthew 18:11. I thought this might have been a typo so I went online to Bible Gateway and typed in Matthew 18:11 for the NIV. There was no verse which came up. There is a Matthew 18:10 and a Matthew 18:12. How ironic. I recall from some years ago that the NIV "skipped" a verse. I had forgotten about it until now. I decided to do a little research to see what English Bibles did not have this verse. Here are my results: The Message, NIV, NLT, ESV, CEV, NIRV, & NIVUK. I thought this was interesting. Does anyone have any ideas why this is so? I plan on researching it further to find out why.

X-boxing, yet another xcuse

I apologize to those of you who read my blog I haven't been writing as often as I want. I have been fairly busy with different things. Church, teaching the Milestone class, small group, men's group, work, and family to name a few. Oh yeah and X-box. I have been on a real X-box kick recently. This goes in phases. I can go months with out playing it but once in a while I will play it every night for an hour or so for a couple of weeks. I usually play the same game during my "must" play phase. I am hooked on NCAA Football 2003. I love playing that game, I realize it is 3 years old but I still love it. When we use to have the Playstation I loved playing NCAA Football 1998 (I think). For some reason I just love playing this football game. So I am in the middle of one of those phases right now.
But I have been pretty busy the last week with all that I have mentioned before. I am so bored with work right now. Do you realize how hard it is to get excited to go into work to CLEAN. Oh it's so much fun to clean up after students who could care less if they made a mess or not or teachers that don't hold the students responsible for cleaning up after themselves, I won't even get into coaches. Seriously though it is almost impossible to get excited about going into work.
I can't wait for the day (lets say daytime) to come when I can start a new job whatever it might be.

An Amazing Wife

Delilah did an amazing thing during the past week. She showed me how to temporarily fix a head light that was out on the Corolla. I came home from work one evening and told her that I needed to get a new light. She said let me show a tip to fix it. She dragged me out of the house and preceded to start beating on the head lamp. I was like what are you doing? She insisted that it works. She pounded on it one last time and what do you know it turned on. But the fix didn't last long. I replaced the light last night. Anyways, she is an amazing woman that is able to do many amazing things.

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The Battle

I gave my resume to the church today for consideration of the youth pastor/christian ed director position. It's been a long road traveled. Delilah and I have had many discussions over the last 3-4 years about being a youth pastor. God has been tugging at me to jump into it. I have been reluctant to follow his lead. Why are we so reluctant at times. This has been a long process. I feel like I have been in arguments with Him. But it's not really worth trying to argue with God, is it? You never seem to win. So this on going battle came to a head two weeks ago. The pastor announced the church was going to hire a youth pastor. First thought was great.... this will really be good for the church. My second thought was uh oh........ this is the door I have been praying God will open for me. So the last two weeks the battle raged on with God and myself, He won. I talked to Delilah and others close to me about applying. Everyone seemed to be supportive of God on the situation. So I took the big first step in submitting my resume for the position. Stay tuned for more.

On being a Christian

Yes, I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N as the old Sunday School song goes. But being a Christian does not mean I am perfect. I don't try to act like I am perfect. I go through the same struggles that everyone else goes through. At certian points of my life I have struggled with depression, suicide, sex, self-esteem, etc, etc, etc. When I walk through the church doors I don't try to be fake, like everything is honkerdorry (sp?). Let's be honest, life IS hard, it's difficult, and life is not a grand time at the beach. One of things that is different from a non-christian and a christian is that a christian has Christ helping to carry the load. Remember the poem "Footprints in the Sand"? Christ desires an intimate and personal relationship with you. As with any relationship it takes time to grow and mature. We can not go about it alone. The Christian faith is about community and relationships with other believers.