I put a new address on the same old loneliness, but I’m alright with that. I’m not expecting to grow old and die here, but it’s not a bad place to pass the time.

Obviously, the biggest improvement to the apartment scenery today is the appearance of cable TV and internet. The weather also worked to our benefit. The cable guy set it up to be regular cable instead of basic and because it’s about negative two degrees (Fahrenheit) he didn’t want to go back outside to switch it. So we get about forty channels extra for free. Score.

I ended up getting all of my stuff moved in here by Saturday morning with the help of my parents. It’s taken several days, but now I’ve got almost everything unpacked and in its new-proper position. All that’s left to put in place is everything on the bookshelf and a few miscellaneous things I need to find a place for. I may utilize our porch storage space to hide away a few unsightly boxes.

I’m living on the floor again though. I haven’t gone out and bought a bed yet for purely financial reasons, and I talked my parents into loaning me one of their twin beds from the Dungeon. Nothing holding it up though. I did this in college for a while, and I stopped when it got too cold. Fortunately, it’s not as drafty here as it was in my dorm room. And I’m only on the second floor.

I wrote some more on my story yesterday. It’s starting to be a bit more difficult deciding where to take it next and I wonder what it will develop into, but I’m enjoying it. Thanks for the feedback I got from those of you who sent some (aka Tyler).

Anyway, I should probably go… uh… surf the net some more. I need to convince my body to sleep before work tonight, too. And Luebbe is getting here at 5PM, so…. later.

Categories: Life
Tags: family, internet, Luebbe, TV

I returned from Nebraska yesterday evening. I had a great time while I was there. I saw over a dozen of my college friends through such activities as the co-consumption of coffee, devouring of food, watching of movies, playing of videogames (Burnout 3 is sweet), playing card games, and much discussion. Do to the great amount of verbal interaction, ridiculous statements, and funny moments, I got many new quotes to put in the database so you should be seeing a few new ones mixed in randomly as the QOTD (or as I select them for the QOTD).

Changing my setting for just a few days by being with old friends in my old town gave me a different perspective about some of the things going on in my life. It helped me realize how bitter I am about some of the events in my life from the last year and show me they aren’t worth being bitter over. I really enjoyed having some people speak to me truthfully about what they see in my life and taking a real interest in how things go.

Luebbe provided plenty of deep conversation. I had a nice breakfast with Erika and him at a bagel shop playing horrible, football-themed, song parodies. It was good hanging out with people who’re okay with being honest with each other and with themselves most of the time.

The hard part about being back home now is going to be living like I have been while having these fresh memories of what friendship can be. Can the friendships I have here develop into such deep ones? I hope so.

Thanks to all of you who I saw while I was in town, many thanks to my gracious host for the weekend, and I hope y’all keep on keeping it real. We only get one shot at life; don’t waste it lying to yourself about who you are or who you want to be.

Categories: Friends, Life
Tags: Erika, Luebbe, Nebraska, videogames

It’s incredible how much more important the whole concept of communication becomes when you’re in a dating relationship. The thing relationships and communication have in common is a requirement that two people be involved. One person says something and the other person listens.

I reread a large part of Joshua Harris’s book “Boy Meets Girl” today (during work — we couldn’t develop film because our machine was broken), and one of the chapters focuses on communication, rather than kissing, being the primary use of lips in a relationship (he’s all into the courtship terminology, but it applies all the same to any sort of boyfriend/girlfriend relationship).

So, the question is, what did I learn? I could recite the five principles he outlined, but I’ll tell you in a different form. This also includes other personal thoughts that may or may not be included or intended in what Harris says in the book.

To communicate affectively, one most realize that communication stems from what’s going on inside the heart. If bitterness and hatred exists within the heart, it’s gonna jump up and make itself known through the things a person says. If selfishness has its ugly grip holding tightly to the heart and sucking the life out of a person, then the person’s gonna have trouble being unselfish in words and actions.

In order to communicate, it’s necessary to listen. You can’t always talk. Note, however, that you cannot always listen. Sometimes talking must occur. Sometimes to let somebody know what’s really going on, you gotta be honest about who you are and tell ‘em what you’re thinking. Even tell them what you’re feeling — as frightening as that may be. It’s easy to be dishonest when you’re not talking about what’s really going on in your life by hiding on the inside. (I’m not saying tell everybody everything ’cause that’d just be stupid — it talks about that in Proverbs somewhere — I’m just saying sometimes people gotta open up and let others know what’s going on!)

Communication isn’t happening if there’s never any conflict. If you’re communicating what’s really going on to another person there’ll be conflict sometimes and it’s okay! You gotta learn from it, work through it, see what’s there, and address the _real_ problems instead of pretending they don’t exist.

Motive matters. Right things, right reasons, that whole concept. If It might be a great technique to speak with the tongues of men and angels, but if it’s being done for the wrong reasons it’ll end up hurting both people more in the long run than stuttering truthfulness.

Luebbe and Cora, this one’s for you! Guard your heart. Hmm… we’ve had this discussion before, I think. You know what I mean. Yeah, you know. You know!

Ok, sorry for the sidetrack. Mostly, I’m just typing this out to let y’all know what’s running around up in my head as I’m still trying to figure out what it’s telling me.

Categories: Books, Religious
Tags: communication, Cora, dating, Joshua Harris, Luebbe

Luebbe, you can ignore this post. Just kidding. Maybe you’ll get something out of it, too. Ha. I wish comments worked ’cause I wanna know what you’ll say. Just send me an email instead.

The potentially good news is that the weblog may be recovered shortly. DJC, the head tech guy for f2o (go get paid hosting, these people rule) is digging around this weekend and may be able to find me a recent backup of my database from which I can recover the lost data.

So that’s good.

In other news, mostly just been working and that kind of thing. I’ve worked about 15 hours total over the last three days. I’m getting the hang of how things go there in the Kodak photo lab at Target (pronounce Target like the French. It’s more entertaining that way.) I need to remember to bring my verses or a small Bible to work with me though so that when things are backed up and I’m waiting for a huge digital order to go through I can do something between customers and dealing with orders. Probably won’t be an issue too much next week as I’ll likely be working busier hours. I’m scheduled for 36 hours.

So that’s good.

“I’m not a perfect peeersssoon.” Hoobastank. I hate to admit it, but I do like some popular songs.

So that’s… news. Or not.

My dad’s 50 today. So that’s good news. I think. I’d have to ask.

Oh, my friend Chris from Colorado Springs is talking about getting me an interview at the company he works for. Not a bad idea methinks. It’d be doing computer stuff which isn’t exactly what I learned about in college, but from what he tells me I think I know enough for now and I can study hard about networks and stuff and do a good job there. I’ll have to learn a lot, but that’ll be true for any job I get. Hoping to look into that more next week and maybe get an interview scheduled.

So that’s good news. And that’s all the news for now. Like I said, I’ll hopefully get the weblog resurrected soon. When it is, there’s a few things in the archives I’ll be nuking such as photos since I’ve got those in the Photo Gallery now, but everything else should be back up. Anyway, catch you fine people later.

And seriously, people, those of you who have weblogs: post something! I don’t have my own weblog so I look to yours for solace, and what do I find? Three day old posts! =) Actually, you’re probably all busy so it’s all good.

Or is it?

Categories: Life, Work
Tags: family, Luebbe

I can almost imagine a bird flying towards you, Mr. Luebbe. * ahem *

In any case, I haven’t even picked up my book today. However, I read several chapters yesterday and watched a couple hours of TV. TV is not a habbit I’m glad to have begun refrequenting after avoiding it for most of college other than vacations to home. I do enjoy Seinfeld, Friends, and Law & Order (all three varieties), though. Perhaps I should not. Whatever.

I did begin working more on one of my papers today. I checked out about six books from the library regarding Biblical arguments for and against slavery. Interesting stuff, but I haven’t found any single argument I entirely agree with. I’m hoping to find more good stuff in the books I haven’t gotten to look through yet. I have a feeling though that it boils down to what it does so often: people using the Bible to support their own beliefs even if they have to misconstrue it and yank it out of context to do so. How else could you advocate such a base thing as American slavery? Slavery isn’t outright condemned in the Bible, but supporting such a modern system ignores so many of Jesus’ teachings regarding treatment of other people.

It appears I haven’t posted anything in the last five days. A quick catchup may be in order.

Friday was Senior Nav Nite meaning that any senior who graduated in December, or will this upcoming May or August goes up front and gets to hear what people think about them. I found it encouraging to hear many of the things people said and knowing that I’ve got friends here who care about me and who see God working in my life despite all the sin.

Yo, Steve! Thanks for giving props to this site. It’d give you a hug if it could, but you’ll have to settle for returned props, a’ight? You da man!

Saturday myself and others went up to 4L’s house and chilled for a long, long time. Myself and Jesse didn’t drive back to Lincoln till 4AM. Needless to say, I was tired on Sunday. I made it to church anyway though.

I have to turn in my papers for Globalization on Thursday. I need to write ten more pages for that class and polish up the other twenty I’ve written. On Friday my 15 page paper on Christianity and Slavery is due. Needless to say, I can’t wait to make it through Friday and I hope I get everything done alright.

Oh, and some good news. I only have five finals! One got cancelled — my professor is unprepared or something of the sort. I’m not sure what he’s grading us on, but I think he’ll have to go easy ’cause he hasn’t given us many assignments. I’d complain, but I figure a woman like Cora must’ve already talked to him and told him why it’s not fair and how he can best make it up to the class. Unfair assumption? Perhaps. If he’s not clear on Thursday though with his plans, I will “confront” him.

So, the five finals for next week: two Wednesday, two Thursday, one Friday. Then I move out on Saturday for the last time ever! It’s almost sad being nearly done with my room in Pound. Three years I’ve lived there now. But no more!

FOR SALE: One wood-framed couch with brown cushions. *$10* Willing to negotiate. I’ve got other goods for sale, but they’ve already got buyers or potential buyers.

Gone so soon… what will you do without me? Oh, well, I suppose I’ll still be _here_ if not in Lincoln.

Categories: Friends, Life
Tags: 4L, college, Luebbe, Navigators, slavery, TV