Category Archives: life

low-grade blues

My normal body temperature is 97.6 degrees. As I type this, my temperature is 98.8 and rising. I’ve had a scratchy throat all day long.

What, were you worried I’d done badly on a test or something? 😉

So, I’m just laying back in my recliner, hoping that it’ll be a 24-hour thing. I haven’t heard of anything going around recently, but who knows? I’d like to be better tomorrow; I am doing a devotional for the youth at my church tomorrow evening, if I’m up to it. So prayers would be nice.

the night of 1000 words

Here it is, my friends…the entry that will have you recalling the banner years of pressing on…where posts occurred every day, and sometimes more than once a day, and tended to be longer than just a couple of paragraphs. The entry so huge, it’s filed under four, count ’em, four, categories.

Do I sound enough like an NBC promo?

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school’s back in session

So we’re back in school again, and it’s been a pretty good week. I only have one class this summer term, but I also have an independent study. If all goes well, it could take me a long way toward my dissertation. This, of course, is A Good Thing ®.

Niceville was wonderful. I got to see a lot of Kelly’s hometown, and I added a couple of shades of tan to boot. 🙂 I also played a round of golf with her dad. I shot my best 9 and 18-hole scores. Updated the golf page to reflect it. (Yeah, the back 9 was pretty bad, eh?)

greetings from Niceville!

As I type this, I’m in Kelly’s parents’ house in Niceville, Florida! We spent the last couple of days in Birmingham, where I introduced her to Ricky and Tammy and my grandparents, and gave her the tour of the University of Alabama campus. I haven’t heard yet for sure that that’s where she’ll do her graduate work, but I’ll keep pressing…

Anyway, after a quick layover in Ozark, we came down here last night. We’ve braved some pretty nasty weather on this journey. Alabama is going through some of its worst weather in a long time right now, and we were right in the thick of it for some time. So yesterday, when we pulled into Ozark, and it was blue skies all around, it was a sight for sore eyes. (In my case now, literally…Kelly’s parents own two cats, and we’ve shown before that my eyes can’t take that too much).

Today on the itinerary, if the weather is good: either Big Kahuna’s (a water park in Destin), or failing that, the beach itself. I’ve left all further vacation arrangements to my sweetie. 🙂

Anti-me

As I type this, I am wearing a Hawaiian-type shirt. (I can’t actually say Hawaiian shirt, because Ricky and Tammy actually have those and could call me out on it.) I just got finished on working on a project that is due on Monday, and my part’s pretty much finished. Tonight, I’m giving up my goatee, sideburns, and hair for summer missions, so there’s a pretty good chance that I’m going to have a really awful looking ‘do for the next 24 hours.

Who am I, and where’s the real me?

I raced the law (and the law won)

With a nickname like the “cycle of death”, it had to happen eventually.

On my way to class just now, I was in a hurry. There is a four-way intersection on the way that I take that never has automobile traffic, so I just went through it like everyone does.

The cop had to call out twice for me to stop. D’oh!

Anyway, I have a ticket (my first one ever), but I can go to a bike safety school for an hour and a half and have it dismissed. This sounds a lot better than a $96 fine, so that’s the route I’m going to take.

So I now have my own story about the UPD Bike Patrol to go along with both of my Bama bike stories. Fun, fun, fun!

the end of an era

As of the time this actually is posted, I will have done something that I have not done before in seven years of college.

I will have missed a class.

The current weather in Gainesville is a thunderstorm, with winds blowing at 15 miles per hour. This is a pretty accurate statement. It also makes it mighty difficult to ride a bike anywhere, even to the bus stop a little less than a mile away.

I tried to be a good student. I set out on the bike. But there was one problem. My rainsuit’s pant part had ripped last semester, rendering it useless. I hadn’t replaced it, so all I had was a poncho.

When not only your pants, but your socks and underwear become soaked in a matter of seconds, you know that it’s time to give up the ghost.

So, for the first time ever, I will not be attending a class live. However, this class is taped by UF for the purposes of off-campus students, and made available to on-campus students as well via streaming video. So I won’t be missing any material, thankfully. But I will be missing my first class.

I just thought you’d all like to know that the streak is finally over.

thoughts on one month

Taking a little downtime after a hard day of writing and debugging code, I’ve stopped to think a little bit about what the past month (now a month and two days) has meant to me.

  • It’s been over a month, and I’m still in disbelief that she said yes.
  • Ever since I can remember, I’ve thought about how I would treat someone special in my life. I’ve tried to be that kind of guy throughout this month. I hope that I’ve succeeded, and I hope to continue to do so in the future. She deserves it.
  • I’ve found a great dance partner. Girl’s got rhythm.
  • It’s amazing how often the phrase “just looking at you” can be used as a response and never sound redundant.
  • I’m 5’9″, but I feel at least a foot taller when she takes my arm when we walk.
  • Sometimes it costs me twice as much what it would if I were alone to eat out. Sometimes it doesn’t cost me anything. And I’m perfectly happy either way.
  • I can’t wait for the day when we can have conversations with just our eyes.
  • She brings out things in me that I didn’t know were there.
  • Thus far, I’ve counted about ten different ways that she smiles, and three different ways that she laughs. I look forward to finding more of them.
  • I’ve told my friends down here that I’m a happy victim of God’s perfect timing. That may be the best way to put it.
  • And to sum up, she is simply wonderful. I know that she’s not perfect, just as she knows that I am not. But she is indeed wonderful.