along the journey

Well I spent the last two days pretty much sick. Vomitting and other stomach ailments. I left work early on Monday and slept from the time I got home until early yesterday morning. I woke and still felt pretty bad, so I called out. Amy and Caleb and her brothers family were going to the zoo today, but I wasn’t going to do that…. I was sick and stayed home. While they were gone I fixed Jesse’s computer. I loaded Windows XP as well as some other applications and stuff, he desperately needed to have his computer wiped clean and started from scratch. He was very much happy- as was I. It’s always rewarding when computer projects actually go the way they’re planned.

The Planet Jesus event- God’s Energy, took place on Saturday night. I helped out Tronster and some of the other DJ’s set up. Here’s the pictures I took. I left early- around 10:30, just before Tronster wrapped up his set. There were only around 15 people there. Tronster said that there ended up being around 40. His pictures definately have quite a few more people in them than mine do. The next one scheduled is Synergy on May 24th. I can’t wait. Hopefully I can stay the whole time.

poor little fella, as Amy says. He woke up last night around 12:30 and as he was crying Amy was fixing him a bottle. By the time she got back to his room, he was laying down sleeping again. As he lay there she said it smelled funny so she looked and he was laying in his throw up. So she laid him on the changing table and changed his sheets. He just laid there. When she went to put him back in the crib he started throwing up again. This is when she called for me. I ran in and took him to the bathroom. Amy cleaned up and changed the sheets again. When we were ready to put him back to bed he started throwing up again. So we sat with him and rocked him. He eventually started dozing off. I took a towel and laid it on our bed between Amy and I, and he slept there the rest of the night. He didn’t throw up again, but it was just awful. This morning when he woke up he seemed fine.

On Wednesday I thought I might be having a heart attack or something. I woke up early Wed morning with bad back and chest pain. I couldn’t do anything to make it better. I slept on the floor. When I woke up for work I still had the pain and a really bad headache. I got to sleep until about 9:30 or so. When I finally got up the pain wasn’t so bad and was coming and going. I thought it was probably just bad indigestion. I called my doctor but they didn’t have a place to fit me in. She told me that if it got worse to go to the ER. So that’s what I did around 6:30 or so. When we got there there were probably 150 people or so. And a lot of them looked a lot worse than I felt. I signed in and then sat there for an hour, without anyone even talking to me to find out my symptoms. We left. When we got home Amy’s mom gave me some Zantec, I took it and went to bed.

Yesterday as I worked I didn’t have the chest pain again, but my back started hurting about 3:30 or so. It wasn’t unbearable. I took some tylenol. It hurt for a bit through the evening, we had chinese for dinnner and went to bed pretty early.

This morning when I got to work I went right to VCCProductions.com, and am currently watching the service from April 21st. It always makes me sad to watch them. The worship leader Robbie has a new album coming out. His sister, Katie, has had a few songs on Dawsons Creek, it’s pretty cool. I really miss that church.

Stacey wrote about how awful her housemates are. I have to admit, I am a pretty crappy housemate. Amy will be the first to tell you. It is true I have always just thought that if Stacey didn’t want to do something I asked her to help me with she’d say so. Amy kept telling me she wouldn’t, but I didn’t believe her. Anyway i’ve been less than respectful to her time and her position in our house and as soon as I read her entry I composed two emails. The first apologizing for taking advantage of her, the second to tell her that I appreciate all she’s done for us. It’s tough for me to realize how imposing I can be. Amy has always told me that I yell too much, but my defensive tone of voice is interepreted as yelling. Rather- when I’m being challenged, whether I’m right or wrong, I get defensive and I don’t know how to do anything differently. It’s something that Amy and Stacey and I have discussed on occasion without me making any decisions about how to change. So since there is a public shaming, I’m making a public apology- I’m sorry Stace!
I have received an email from her stating that things are cool, but I still wanted to make this effort.

In other news, Caleb is standing so much. He just decides to let go of whatever he’s holding on to. He’s also gotten to a point where he will not be still. The ladies in the nursery on Sunday aske me how we managed to change his diaper, they said it took to of them. The truth is, frequently, it takes two of us. When it’s just me I have to put my left elbow down on his chest to keep him from rolling with his chest and hold his right leg in my left hand to keep him from rolling with his legs and to acheive the perfect height to place the diaper under him.

I’ve never seen so many police in riot gear in my life. Police in riot gear on motorcycles, Police in riot gear on horseback, Police in riot gear on foot. You know it’s gonna be a good day when you get to work and your building is surrounded by police in riotgear. I was late for work again this morning. I’ve been late several mondays in a row. This morning I was all ready and out the door to find my car wouldn’t start. UgH! This is a car we’re borrowing from my Aunt while she’s visiting with my parents in Ohio.

i’m updating this to test out the wanderlust syndication thingee.

It was warmer in Baltimore yesterday, than in Florida. Speaking of Florida, my friend Dana, who lives in Florida, has recently opened her new website www.muddlepie.net. Go visit her!

The train station was a zoo last night. I got onto the platform and the sign that usually tells us what aisle to go to didn’t have a number on it. All these people were just kind of hovering around with no direction. I got as close to the trains as I could get, I didn’t want to not catch the train cause I didn’t know which one to get on. I saw the people coming from one aisle, where we our train is usually parked, up another one. I moved in that direction and then someone shouted, Express train to Baltimore on Track 9. I was in the right place. As I boarded the train there were no lights on except emergency lights and the air conditioner wasn’t on. I sat next to a lady and we joked about all these stinky people getting on a stinky train without air conditioner stinking it up. Soon the lights came on and we watched more and more people get on and just jam up the aisles. People were even riding between the trains, normally they won’t let you ride in there. When we got to BWI people did get off, but there were still 30-40 people in the aisle. I actually felt cold as I walked down the aisle to get off the train, to be greeted by the heat!

Amy made excellent Manicotti last night! It was delicious. I normally don’t like manicotti or stuffed shells because the filling is too much, there’s not enough noodle. I had that conversation the other day with Amy too, when she told me she bought the noodles. I must say again. It was excellent.

After dinner Caleb and I took a walk down the street to visit a childhood friend. Childhood friends are really common where we live now. Seeing as it’s the same house I lived in when I knew them. We talked to one of the guys down the road named Jerry. He’s got this big giant Bronco with huge tires that he happened to be shining. We talked about the kids we grew up with and what they were doing. A good deal of them are still in the neighborhood. We talked about all the old people that are still alive and yelling at kids as they ride their bikes up the street, and the old people that are no longer with us. Jerry and I went to St. Clements together, so he was pretty fimiliar with Fr. Steven Girard too! We had a good chuckle. Jerry drives a truck and still lives at home. I told him I saw this guy Joey yesterday. He said that Joey had just gotten out of jail. That he had thrown a dry ice bomb at some cops and it exploded and burnt the cops hands and caused him to go deaf. Same stuff we did as teens. Crazy city kid stuff. He mentioned that the neighborhood is in an upswing, that for a while it was really bad. I can’t see our neighborhood as being really bad, but I imagine even the suburbs can get that way.

Amy really wanted a snowball, so we headed out around 8:30, trying to get Caleb asleep and track down a snowball. We drove by 2 snowball stands, neither were open. It’s all Stacey’s fault. At dinner she was telling Amy that we drove past an open snowball stand the other day. We did. We didn’t stop, we were on our way to the dump. So Amy didn’t get a snowball, yesterday. She’ll have snowballs this summer, plenty of them, I have no doubt.

If this color scheme is too dark, please try the old kites! Yes dad, I brought the kites back sort of! They’re here. If you’re already viewing the kites, you can see the darkness here. This isn’t really how people implement skins, but this is the best way I’ve found for it. What do you think?

Some weekends, despite what your plans and if you actually acomplish them, are just so beautiful. My plans for this weekend were - play lasertag with Amy and Tronster and friends. Go to the Kinetic Sculputre Race sponsored by the American Visionary Arts Museum on Saturday. Walk around the Inner Harbor Saturday night, run cameras at church on Sunday. Rest.

I played Lasertag friday night, without Amy. It was a lot of fun, but I wished Amy was there. Saturday we ended up finishing up some yard work we started Easter Weekend! We had all these piles of stuff sitting around the yard. We borrowed my Step-Father-In-Laws truck and hauled off the old stove, and an old washing machine that was left in the yard, as well as boxes and boxes of trash that we’ve been waiting to get rid of. I ended up with two loads of trash I took to the dump. After a short nap I took the truck back. Came home and watched tv with Amy and Caleb. Fixed some chicken tacos- late- like 9:00 or so.

Yesterday we went to church early, we do that when we have to work the media team. It wasn’t our week. Because of Easter which technically was our week (every other week), but it was a “special schedule”, we didn’t realize, so last week was our week, but that’s when we went to the Eastern Shore to visit with Amy’s brother. So it wasnt’ our week, we were at church an hour early. So we sat through the first service and left! It was great to be leaving church at 10:30 when were normally just getting there. Anyway we went to Walmart and I got a ticket as we pulled right into the parking lot. A police officer with really nice lips (Amy noticed them too, it wasn’t just me ) motioned us over and neither of us had our seatbelts on. Anyway thats $25 we need to pay them! We ended up at home right around noon, ate our lunch and got to work. I mowed the lawn, back and front - it looked so much better. It’s been over a year and a half since I last mowed a lawn, when we lived with my sister. That lawn was probably 3 - 4 times the size of our lawn! It was nice to just spend 30 minutes mowing and be finished with it. I sprayed down the sides of the house, the dirt that poured off was amazing. I cleaned out most of the gutters, and fixed some of the shingles on the roof that were sort of broken. Amy scrubed down the front of the house as best as she could. And raked up several piles of trash. Our yard looks great, the house looks great. We had Amys parents over for dinner last night and enjoyed the company.

Caleb started to stand unsupported for longer than a split second. I mean intentionally standing. It was amazing.

I’ve been messing with the template to get it looking like the old look- dad said “I miss the kites.” So I thought I’d bring them back. Shouldn’t be too long.

So we had an appraisal last week, on Friday. This appraisal is required by FHA to secure an FHA loan. There were a few things that we have to fix. There’s a concrete stairwell from the driveway down to the basement, we have to put up a railling around it to prevent people from falling down into the stairwell while playing basketball or riding their bikes and stuff. We’ve got to put switch plate covers on all of the outlets- we had taken them all off when we were painting. We’ve got to get a roofing and termite inspection. We’ve also got to fix the outside of the house where water leaks into the house. The suggestion made by the appraiser was to pull up the sealant that’s currently between the house and the driveway and put new stuff in. I did that on last Saturday. Last night in the middle of a large downpour I went outside to check it. It appeared to be doing fine, so I checked the room where it tends to enter the house. It was wet. So I went outside and swept the water away from the house and wiped it up in the room. As I went to bed it was about as dry as we could get it. I had a dream that we opened up the wall in the room where it leaks and there was this river or waterfall flowing from the driveway down under the house. It was pretty crazy. I’m glad it was just a dream.