along the journey

Meet Baltimores Mayor- Martin O’Malley- of O’Malley’s March

Hi Kayla! Thanks for visiting my webpage!

We had a really busy Saturday. We woke up and had breakfast at the Golden Coral! It was an inspirational breakfast- for our churches Media Team. Amy and I both are a part of. We went, with full stomaches, to Best Buy to look for cheap DVD’s. Then we went to Toy’s R Us. I’ve not been inside a toy’s r us in a while, but this one was recently (I imagine) remodled from the last time I was in one. The traffic flow throughout the store was very natural… if not frustratingly so. You walk in, and a path takes you from the entrance to the exit, passing all of the various sections of toys…. that were kind of lumped in little islands off of the main path. And the islands were not seperated unconnected. No, they were interconnected, typical boy hobby stuff like legos and such, just sort of blended into girl hobby stuff like barbies, and dolls. It was very neat and not nearly as frustrating as walking up and down aisle after aisle…. grocery stores should be like this. In the mall there is also this store that sells imported and used console games- PSX, PS2, N64, Gameboy…. they had all the Dance Dance Revolution Imports… as well as the Konami DDR Bundle with the dance mat. It was $79. Amy mentioned she wanted to get that for me for my birthday. I’d really like it, but $79 seems pretty expensive, especially considering for around $40 on ebay- with two dance pads. I think however that I want a kite. She wants to get me something despite how much I’ve protested. I’d like a new kite for the kite festival which is on the 23rd of March. I’d like this Adrenaline- in the purple color. Or this Bandit.

Saturday evening, it was our groups turn to make dinner for the Winter Relief Shelter that was being hosted at our church this weekend. The Winter Relief Shelter is hosted at different churches throughout the winter….. providing rooms to sleep, two meals a day, breakfast and dinner, and transportation to showers and other shelters. I’m sure there is more to it. We had a great time, Caleb enjoyed meeting the men, and hanging out with his new buddies, Madison and Cody- who are both younger than him. I’ll have pictures in a bit.

Yesterday we just lounged around the house. Relaxed, slept, cleaned, watched tv, played on the computer. We didn’t even go to church! Mostly cause none of us were feeling well. Caleb has been pretty fussy lately.

Speaking of Caleb, he’s just about crawling, he lifts himself up on all fours and then plops down in a forward motion. He’s not yet figured out that he can move withot plopping. Sometimes it looks like he’s got it, but then later he’s forgot. I’m not understanding this infant development… once he learns it I’d think he doesn’t need to relearn. It seems so simple.

Looks like there might be hope regarding the money order disaster. I’ve handed over the pieces of it to what I imagine is an intermediary- he told me he wasn’t the one who gave it to us, so I believe him. He mentioned he’d take care of it. I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but I trust him.

Last night during our “life group” I really started to feel a sense of responsibility and dedication. I think that it finally clicked that the group is what I make it. Not sure what that means, or why it’s happening the way it is. I felt like I needed to take more of an active role in the outside activity of our group, no so much the discussion, meeting times, but the things that make friendships grow and relationships form. Perhaps it was the realization that I feel pretty much alone in this world. We have very few friends. The friends we do have we see very frequently. In fact, one is even moving in with us. She’s pretty much the only regular friend.

The first weekend in March is the Patriot Games at the Showplace Arena in Upper Marlboro, MD. We’ve been invited to sell programs for the event. It’s a 3 day event, begining on Friday. They’ll give the church $1 for every program sold. This is a big deal. I’m pretty excited about helping out with it. I hope that Amy feels well that weekend so that I can participate, I’d love for her to go, but I dont’ think that’s going to happen.

We’ve been talking to the church/coordinator regarding starting a Teen Bible Quiz team at the church again. I was on ALC’s first TBQ team. We were pretty good, we went to the regional tournament more than once. Anyway, Amy and I met through bible quiz and still have wonderful memories and a desire to be involved with it. Apparently the youth pastor feels like the TBQ coaches should also be active members of the youth leadership. I have mixed feelings regarding this. I really don’t think that it’s necessary, I’m also not the one God has given a vision for the youth to. I also don’t have a problem being a youth leader. I really feel that Amy and I need more church involvement. We both come from a background where we’d attend church at least 3 different days out of the week…. and on Sunday twice. Since attending the Vineyard we’ve not gone to more than two services a week, and when we did go to the second service- it was very infrequent. ALC has gone to a more “vineyard” type weekly schedule, where midweek services are held in the cell groups. So we go Sunday morning, then have life group on Tuesdays. We could manage another evening at church. Doing Bible Quiz would also make us be at church every Sunday at 8 instead of just every other Sunday. Amy and I would have to figure out what to do regarding the Media Team. No big deal, just working things out.

If you’ve never read “OUR STORY”- it’s over here.

I was walking down the hall today and past a coworker who greeted me by name, and behind me a guy interrupted me, asked if I was Dean. Said, yup! It was Derek from the Scoop. This is the first DC Blogger I have met in person. Wish I could say that I was fimiliar with his blog, but I’m not. When I first joined the list, we corresponded a bit, he works on the house side. So he was just making the trip from the house to the Union Station- and he took the trains that connect all the buildings, I imagine. It was pretty cool, it’s also pretty crazy to meet someone randomly in this vast maze of hallways and staffers. We didn’t chat for long, we both had destinations, but perhaps we’ll meet again. Someday, somewhere.

Well today has been a generally stange day. I must be in a bad mood or something. I read a great review of Know Theatre Tribes most recent production. It made me cry. I wish that I were still apart of them! I called Jay to congratulate him. I know he misses me! Then I start thinking about the fact that our money order that we had failed to deposit was washed away in the washing machine, only little bits and pieces left, and how we have to pay rent by Friday…. and how my parents are in town but have too much stuff to deal with that they won’t get to spend much time with us. And then I got an email from a friend mentioning that Darin’s car has been impounded (Darin is in Ohio, he let this friend borrow the car), and that it’ll cost at least $75 to get out, that neither he, nor we, nor Darin really have the money to get it out! And that I have to call mom and dad to give them this news…. and how they are upset at the whole situation….. It’s only 12:30!

7 ways to protect your home pc

I was caught today downloading an MP3 from my home server to my work computer! Ack! How embarassing. I can justify it- rather my impression of the rather lax network security environment. There are people here doing exactly the same thing on a regular basis- I don’t know if anyone has said anything to them or not. But I got a phone call shortly after the file transfer finished. I’m glad that I wasn’t downloading a bunch of stuff!

DSL at home is working now. It’s great. You may occasionaly see us on the webcam. I’ve also got a file server and web server running on my computer. The bandwidth isn’t anything impressive- I may have been spoiled with Road Runner, but it’s definately better than 56K-dialup, that rarely connected at more than 40. But of course there’s some out there who only can get a 28k connection out of their 56k modem.

My Aunt Mary had surgery on her back sometime on Friday. We went to see her last night. She looks really awful. She was talking out of her head and was very confused. It’s so sad to see someone in her condition. Her husband has been dead almost 20 years, her son died last year and now she’s in the hospital. I keep thinking that she may just decide that it’s not worth fighting! But she’s fought a lot- Brain Tumor, Spinal Menengitis….. and I’m sure other stuff too! It really scares me. I’m not sure how upset to be.