Salad

My recipe for a "man salad":

romaine lettuce

grilled squash, zucchini, and cucumber

roma tomatoes

onions

baby corn

bacon

Heck yes!

My style.

So, this pretty much sums up my style, in the immortal words of Strong Bad:

Opening Rhino… Rhino Feeder...
Huh? {shakes head}
I was dreaming about… muffins.
I wake up every morning
feeling awesome,
even though I slept on the remote again last night.
Ow!

Time to tear up another day.
The Strong Bad freaking way!
Like an imploding star,
like a burning car,
my style shines so bright!

Please, stop trying,
To handle my style.
'Cause you can’t,
No you can’t!
uhn
Handle my style.

Seriously,
quit trying,
to handle my style.

Unless you’re a lady.
then you’re cordially invited
To have a giant slice of my style!!! [edit] Closing So you see people,
that's why you can't,
no you can't, uhn,
handle my style,
because it's hot,
so please allow 10 to 15 minutes for it to properly cool before you try to handle my style!!!

Church is awesome!

This morning I woke up (after sleeping in an hour) not feeling good, which is a problem because I ride my bike to church. I prayed about it, and figured God would get me to church if He wanted me to go (which with God is highly likely). I ate breakfast and got ready, got on my bike and started riding. Something I should say to preface what is coming up: the ride to church is a pretty straight shot of road with a bunch of hills starting out and I have been riding my bike all summer, so my muscles can take the strain. Back to my story... as I turned out of the great city of Upland, the wind smacked me in the face... literally, my bike actually swerved off the road into the gravel on the side, which is dangerous (gravel doesn't bode well with a hybrid urban bike that has relatively skinny tires; tends to make you fall). Fortunately I didn't fall, but I was faced with (I checked this on the internet) constant 18 mph winds buffeting me, along with gusts that went to 27 mph. This sucked a lot, and by the time I got to church I was crawling along (for me) at what I guess to be 10 mph (I usually go about 18 to church, as an average), and was all but hyperventilating. I have never breathed so hard and fast after a bike ride.

Now to the good part. I got to church with plenty of time to stretch, and the wind helped me to evaporate the mass amounts of sweat. I got coffee, nice columbian stuff. The sermon was about us needing to stop only "consuming" the Word and start teaching it to others as well. Afterwards, the church had a cookout (Exit 59, for those of you who know the region) and I met some really cool people. And finally, when I rode home that 18 mph wind + gusts was at my back and I think my average speed was around 23 mph...ahhhhh, nice and relaxing.

Needless to say, God is cool, and still would be if the wind was in my face coming back and it was raining. He takes such good care of me, even when it doesn't look that way.

Go, Go, Power Rangers!

Just so you know, I watched Power Rangers The Movie today with Colgan! 'Twas hilarious.

Talked to my cousin Joela today as well. We are trying to help each other with grammar.

Voluntary lunges (Update!)

So, just for fun, I want to see how far I can do lunges. My goal is to get to Taylor from my apartment (probably 1.5 miles), but I am pretty confident I won't make it that far. On a completely related note, I think I am going to buy some protein.

Uptade: I didn't get very far at all, just over the bridge by my apartment...sad. However, I did end up running to within a half mile of Taylor from there, so I think I made up for it.

The man upstairs

Just wanted to say that the man upstairs really knows what he is doing.

Concrete

I poured concrete yesterday for the radiation retaining wall around the particle accelerator. Nice upper body workout. Daniel also came up yesterday and we watched Pokemon 3! Wow, that was a funny movie. For those of you who know pokemon, there were only 2 (i think) evolved pokemon in the entire movie that fought.

Anyways, I also read up on a whole bunch of powertools yesterday in order to know the slight differences, like an impact driver and an impact wrench, they look the same but operate differently. That operating difference is the difference between drilling a screw, and hammering a screw, good thing to know. Also, my professor calls drills "screw guns". I had never heard that term before, so I looked it up, and they are not the same. A screw gun is made for drywall and looks like a drill but without a chuck (has a "nose" instead), and some can even auto-feed screws from a clip ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw_gun ).

Saturday

I really relaxed today, it was nice. The highlight was most definitely sitting in a rocking chair at Colgan's reading through Ruth...ahhhhh.

Pies and fighter planes

The strawberry festival(?) in Upland was the 13th (if you can really call it a festival, twas very small), so I bought 2 quarts of strawberries. Now, I like to make pies, therefore it was within reason for me to make 2 pies out of the 2 quarts of fresh strawberries that I had just acquired. I decided to make a straight up 2 crust (wow, the number two comes up a lot...) strawberry pie and give it to the Colgans because I hang out at their house all the time, eat their food, and use their washing machine. I also made a strawberries and cream pie for myself, my roomate, and whoever we wanted to share it with. Long story short: they were/are delicious, and the crust (the hardest part by far) came out perfect with, I am convinced, a huge amount of help from God. I decided to glaze the crust with some of the left over heavy whipping cream I had; not whipped cream mind you, they are very different.

And to explain the "fighter planes" part of the title, I have been playing "Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X." It is a really fun game that I got FOR FREE from the Dungeon (they came with something or other and no one wanted them). Extremely fun game.

Ahhhhhh (a sigh of contentedness)

I had a great day today. God once again blew my mind with his love for me, don't ask me how (honestly, I was just minding my own business, and BAM it hit me: God loves me more than I could ever know). Maybe it was because I was truly at rest today and I could hear his still, small voice. Maybe it was the love that passes between people in a small town, the kindness shown to a stranger that is oft not found anywhere else. Maybe it was the beautiful weather and the sun's rays peeking through the clouds (not the sun, just the rays...beautiful...). Whatever it was, the passion that God showed me today of his love for me and everything else actually made me cry. It was so powerful, so huge, so all encompassing.

Often times I get busy in my day-to-day life (I know, "#@$%@#$%, not another one of these speeches!") and forget to just relax and really enjoy God's creation and his very real presence. I am dumbfounded every time He shows me something like this; it just overpowers me.

During the summer we often try so hard to relax that we never really do. Do yourself a favor and spend one hour by yourself doing something truly relaxing in nature. For me it was riding my bike, looking at the scenery, and thinking. You know what it is for you, so do it and listen to God.

Yet another post tonight

If you read my blog (how else would you be seeing this? I don't know...), you should check out my friend's blog

http://denaje.blogspot.com/

An odd finding

I just finished Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" tonight. Shakespeare uses the word "wench" a lot in reference to women, even in a good sense, so I decided to make sure I was interpreting the word correctly. Here is what I found (Oxford Dictionary):

wench |wen ch |noun archaic or humorousa girl or young woman.• archaic a prostitute.

To my surprise the definition that I always thought of was the archaic one. For some reason society has made this word take on its older meaning rather than its more prominent (I say "prominent" describing the first, real definition above) and correct (?) definition.

Needless to say I will not be using this word in my everyday vocabulary, but it is interesting to see how we choose definitions; mainly the more detrimental ones (example: "ass").

Bad habit

Just noticed that I have a horrible habit. If a webpage is loading slowly (like a movie is buffering) I will open up a new tab to load while the old one is loading. While this new tab loads, I open another one...this continues until I have about 7 tabs....bleah.

Current happenings

We got the water pump at my professor's house working today! I did the wiring and some other little stuff and well, now it works. Currently it is pumping water into his lake to fill it up. Other than that we are starting to make headway on his dock, putting up the bracers and crossbeams.

Back at the college I am pouring concrete for the walls in the accelerator room and my weak upper body is getting a workout...yay! Okay, so its not all that weak, but compared to my legs that get a constant workout from riding to work, church, and anywhere else I need to go, my upper body is shriveled up.

Its great to get home from work physically exhausted, take a shower, then a nap, have a late dinner, and know that you did good work.

Lets see, what happened today?

1) I found out that the accelerator needs more inputs/outputs than we have available.

2) Began completely restructuring my control program, effectively wiping out a ton of my work. However its all good because I now know how to use Labview and do things quicker and this will make my program a lot more efficient and user friendly.

3) Colgan came over my house! We watched "Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie", laughed hysterically, played a little Burnout Revenge, and did dishes (I need to wash them more often...). I also made steak and broccoli for the two of us, 'twas delish.

Work

I did work for my professor today on his property. 'Twas a lot of fun, cut down trees, cleared some brush and got some wiring ready for a well pump. While I was clearing the brush I happened upon a thin tree which was to be cut down, so I cut about 3/4 of the way through the trunk, set down my chainsaw, then put as much force into hitting the tree over. It was right then, as I threw my palm against the side of the tree with all my force, that I realized that this tree is a thorn tree. How did I come to realize this? Well, as my palm hit the tree I felt a great pain in my hand, right at the first knuckle of my middle finger. When I pulled my hand away I saw a 1 inch thorn right where my hand was...yeah, the bugger went all the way to the bone...yeah, it hurts like crap (sorry mom). Since I don't have an inch of skin between the outside world and said knuckle, I think the thorn hit my bone, then curved (it was a "somewhat" malleable thorn) to the left (looking at my palm) around my knuckle. Needless to say, my hand hurts with quite the dull pain whenever I move my middle finger. Luckily it was a clean stab, so I don't think it will get infected; just hurt like heck.

Beauty

As I was putting my shoes on this morning I looked at my messenger bag and noticed an inch worm. I ended up staring at it for about 3 minutes in amazement. God's creation is incredibly beautiful, and for the life of me I cannot understand how people can see all the intricacies of it all and still think it came from a pool of slime (I don't blame Darwin because to my understanding he did not "invent" evolution to that extent, but micro-evolution. Correct me if I am wrong, please).

On another note, my mom came up to visit this weekend and her car broke down yesterday. Bleah. So now she probably needs a new car as this was her summer to buy a new one anyways (by "new" I mean used), and this is a particularly expensive repair (we think). So please pray for that one.

Growing up

I woke up yesterday at 7:00 to enjoy the morning and leave time for me to sip my coffee and read the news before I leave my apartment (in Indiana) for my full-time (summer) job. As I brushed by teeth, I looked into the mirror and realized: I am an adult now, and will never be a child again.

Its not too profound a though, I realize, but it hit me like a ton of bricks. Gone of the days of blissful ignorance and no responsibility. Now I must make a living, pay my debts, wake myself up on time, and take care of the house. It all makes sense, now, how my mom ran the house. All the things she did that irritated me (like always telling me to wash the dishes and clean my room) I now do out of necessity.

I don't quite know how to process this stuff yet without coming to a sad realization and stopping there, so I will mull this over for a few days.

YAY!

My internets are up!

Jorbs and stuff

First of all, my internet at my apartment is still having problems.

Secondly, I am finally starting to understand this new coding language! I am making actual progress, not just fooling around with the program. So far I am programming the safety program (it monitors critical sensors, like the klystron temperature) and currently have a working temperature monitor and a door sensor!!

Etherblurgs!

My etherblurgs get turned on today! More posts to come as I have time to type them.