So Much To Blog...

Greetings, Readers.

You know how the saying will end. I don't have to tell you. Okay, so I will anyway. "So much to blog, so little time." (...and energy) My schedule has been thrown left and right the past couple weeks with the return of my wife and daughter, and having to run up a couple states north for a weekend, and now I have a six-day work week ahead due to various complications that have plagued the store lately. More days at work means less energy at home, of course, and therefore less energy (or will) to blog.

Also, I've misplaced my notepad. So, for the sake of preservation, (and a little spoiler for y'allz) I'm going to jot down here a few things on my mental "To Blog" list. Some you may already know, but most I'm sure you'll love speculating about. Since I've had much time now to mull some of these over, you'd better get ready to strap your seat belts on, because there will likely be long and bumpy rides ahead in some of these topics.

1.) My Take on the Election (in response to Debi's post)
2.) Pro-Life vs. Pro-Death (or) What the Bible Says About the Death Penalty.
3.) Worhsipping With the Angels (or) My Vision of Heaven (I'm halfway-hoping to get a Sunday off to do this one. I really find myself in the mood to write it just after church, but with no time to do it and still be able to sleep before work.)
4.) The "Gay Issue" in America. (Probably going to be covered mostly in #1, but may make a separate post to further elaborate.)

The first one is going to be tough to get through. A *lot* of issues are going to be addressed, and probably still some more research is needed on my part. I may end up keeping it in the "Draft" stage for awhile, working on it as I get the chance. I'll not just be addressing my opinion on the election in general, but also my thorough opinions on a majority of the issues regarding this year's election.

The second will also probably take awhile, although not nearly as long as the first. It's just going to take a bit of digging through The Word for awhile for the proper references.

The third topic, I'll likely be able to do in one clean shot when I do write it, as most of it is coming straight from my soul, with little to no outside references required.

The last topic - as mentioned - will mostly be covered in my discussion of the election issues, but I may do some more Bible-digging to be able to cover it more thoroughly in a post of its own.

All topics mentioned here (as with all my posts) will be fully open for comment, question, or correction. If any comment comes up appearing as inflamatory, however, (which I trust it won't, since you're such a great group of people) I will delete it and re-direct correspondence on the topic to personal e-mail. (If I wish to continue it at all after that point.)

I just wanted to get this all up here so you know that I'm not entirely neglecting this blog. I do think of things to write about often, I just rarely get to writing them. Hopefully, I'll be able to trim up this list soon.

Blog ya later.

- Iszi

Augh!

Greetings, Readers.

*sigh*

Debi, I was going to reply to your comment in a post today, but Firefox crashed while I was trying to load a PDF file in another window in efforts to further research the topic. I had done much work already in writing the post, yet barely even scratched the surface of what I was wanting to say, and now have not the energy to return and do it all over again just now.

Hopefully tomorrow I will fare better. The thoughts should remain fresh enough, as many of them have been running through my mind for the past month, and still do even after the election. I typically prefer to keep my conversational topics steered away from politics, but I feel there's a need for me to get some of this out this time.

So, until tomorrow...

Good Night.

- Iszi

[EDIT]
Fixed the link, Debi. Sorry about that. See what I mean about this dawggone keyboard?

Anyway, I'm hoping to squeeze my post in tomorrow, or sometime over the weekend. Now, however, it's bedtime. I'd only really logged on to check my e-mail and thought I'd swing by and fix this while it was in front of me. In short, the reason for that is primarily due to a prolonged night at work, but I'll not go into it here now.

Blog ya later.

- Iszi

I'm back again... -ish.

Greetings, Readers.

Long time no see, eh? Almost two weeks now? I can explain.

First thing that threw me out of whack was the return of my wife and daughter. Of course, one might think it would make me so happy and I would just love to blog all about my feelings and how my wife and daughter had changed while they were gone. Part of the problem with that is so much has changed that I've just needed some of this time to adjust to it.

My wife has a new pair of glasses and new haircut now. A small thing by most measures, but a change that has so unexpectedly brought out more of her natural beauty to me upon her return. (either that, or maybe the 6 weeks of sexual deprivation has something to do with it - I guess I'll never know for sure ;-) )

The really big change, however, has been with my daughter. She's walking now! Everywhere! All the time! And she's eating solids! I don't mean baby-solids either, although she does have those from time to time still. I mean true solids. Just about anything we eat, chop it up into smaller pieces and she'll have it. So, a lot of my time has been spent getting reacquainted with my "new" wife and daugther.

Sleep schedule also has a bit to do with it. I requested Saturday-Sunday off for the weekend that Jami and Tiffani-Anne came back, so that I could spend time with them right away. I had originally wanted to take a full week of vacation pay out of the bank, but we didn't have enough people to be able to cover me. So, for Saturday and Sunday, I swapped over to a "day-dweller's" schedule, to optimize my time available with my family. Then on Monday, I had to re-adjust so that I could work while still going to cell group that night. By Tuesday, I was so thrown off that I had to call off from The Living Room, in order to catch some extra Z's and be able to work that night. So, none of that helped at all.

Then comes this weekend. I've been going along fine, since I got re-adjusted to my "usual" 3rd-shift schedule. But right before bedtime on Friday (about 1400) I got a call from my mom. I have grandparents in South Carolina, and my grandmother up there had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Since nobody was sure how things would turn out from this, Grandma wanted to make sure she got to see all the family as soon as she could. Mom couldn't afford to take any extra time off, but she did have Sunday-Monday off on her regular schedule, so she made plans to drive up after work Saturday, stay all of Sunday, and drive back Monday afternoon.

I called my job to let them know the situation, and that I would need Saturday-Sunday-Monday off for the family emergency. No one there was happy about it at all. (My manager is still running with no days off most weeks, 12 hours a day, and would have to cover if no one else would, and she'd just had a new hire pull a no-call no-show on the shift that was running at the time I called. The third-shift worker that had to cover Saturday has kept a relatively consistent Friday-Saturday off schedule for the past 16 years, and always throws a fit when it is disrupted. The other lady that had to cover Monday (I had Sunday and Tuesday off on this week, oddly enough.) wasn't happy due to her medical conditions which are supposed to limit her workload. (Monday nights are truck nights and she has a bad back.) The bottom line in the latter case was that my co-worker seemed to believe that I was lying just to get out of working a truck night. But I'll not go further into that ugly bit of workplace politics right now.

So, I've spent half the weekend on the road, and the other half in South Carolina, seeing family I haven't seen in over 5 years. Grandma seemed to be doing well enough Monday morning that the doctor was expecting to release her from the hospital today. I will be posting some pictures of the visit, along with more pictures from Jami and Tiffani-Anne's stay in Illinois, later on as they come in and as time allows.

Another thing that has slightly hampered my drive to post is this keyboard situation. I'm still running off the old backup keyboard I dug out from the closet in the hall, and the "B" button and spacebar are pretty finicky to work with. Half the time, I have to double-tap the spacebar to get one space out of it, or smack the "B" key a few times to get it to punch something out. Also, the springs on this keyboard are more tense than most, making typing more arduous than usual. It actually disrupts the flow of my typing so much that I constantly am having to backspace over errors that typically I shouldn't be making. So, I'm pretty sure I know where a small piece of my tax return will be going next year, if this isn't fixed by then.

So, there you have it. A brief, and somewhat abridged, update on my life from the past two weeks. Also thanks to Butterfly for the e-card, reminding me that there are people watching me out here that do care.

Oh, I also read a good book by Kenneth E. Hagin, reccommended to me by my brother, while I was on the road. The book is called "The Believer's Authority". Paperback versions can be found for $5 or less, depending on where you look. It only took about an hour or two for me to get through it, but it holds powerful information on how Christians can (and should) take authority against the Devil, in ways that most don't even realize are open to us! Maybe I'll post more on that later, but for the time being, I have to go and eat the good food that my wife has prepared for our dinner, and then get ready to go to The Living Room, and work afterwards.

See y'allz later.

- Iszi

Not Voting

Greetings, Readers.

You read the title right. I have officially decided not to vote this year. Why? Because I'm tired of the constant political mud-slinging I've seen all year, and for me to vote would be to say that I fully support a mud-slinger, regardless of which side I choose to vote for.

All year, ads have been running for both candidates pointing out one screwup or another, thoroughly outlining all the ugly sides of the opposite candidate, and then showing one brief moment of the advertising candidate's "good side", with a voice-over by that candidate saying "I am [Joe Candidate], and I approved this message." Why can't we just once have a presidential candidate who will run their entire campaign based solely on their own merits, without targeting the other's downfalls over and over again? Would that candidate win the election? In this world, it would seem, probably not. But if he were to stick to his advertised (Christian) morals in his policies and campaign, and not lay down wave after wave of personal attacks against the credibility or value of the other candidate, then he most certainly would have my vote behind him.

Since I am also now a father in this election year, I begin to wonder, "What is this teaching our children?" I mean this seriously. Imagine if the candidates for the position of class president in their High School were to run their campaigns this way. I don't even want to imagine the defamatory, slanderous posters there would be seen around that school's campus, or the hateful advertisements that might be run during the morning announcemnts. But then, of course, I'm sure the principal of the school would have something to say about such things. Surely they would not want to allow their children to advertise themselves that way. And yet, who's to argue against those children when, season after season, we see grown, "mature" adults acting the same way for virtually the same reason?

So, what would I say if I was asked who I would vote for? I honestly don't know. I mean, who do I want to vote for - a war-monger or a flip-flopper? Either way, I'd be voting for one person slinging mud against the other, with me being one in the middle catching the crossfire.

- Iszi

Blown Away

Greetings, Readers.

I just got done staying up all night with a thought in my head that has just blown me away. Okay, so that's not the only thing that kept me awake. I had work, too. But the whole time, my mind kept wandering back to this one idea.

What if Jesus wrote an autobiography?

Seriously, what would it be like? To read about the days of Jesus' life, from his own perspective? Okay, so we have the Gospels that tell us all about what he did, but it's all second- and third-party information. In some cases, it's only a man's translation of what God's Holy Spirit has revealed to him. And, while I do fully believe the Holy Spirit is a power to be reckoned, whenever you add a human into *any* project, whether divinely inspired or not, there's always a margin for error or mis-interpretation. Especially when you consider that the Bible that we read has already gone through a few different translators before our eyes even get to see it.

So, consider that Jesus Christ himself were to write an autobiography, and write - individually - a copy in every language of the world, so that he would not have to rely on fault-prone human translators to spread it around. What would it be like to read such a book?

A couple questions that come to my mind first are:

1. When would it start? Since Jesus is part of the Holy Trinity, He is fully God, and therefore has existed alongside the Father and the Holy Spirit for all eternity to date, and to come, even before the Creation of Earth, and likely before Time was even created. So, at what point would He start His autobiography?

1a. Would He start it at the beginning (if there is such an applicable concept) of events in Heaven? Would we, through His eyes, get a glimpse of how Heaven existed when all was in perfect harmony for a time? Would we then be able to see what Jesus saw when Satan and his angels were cast out from Heaven, and understand the feelings and emotions Jesus must have experienced when those events took place?

1b. Or, would He choose to start where the Bible starts, with the Creation of the Earth? Then, we would enter into a universe devoid of any existence, and witness how God created the stars and heavenly bodies, and chose one of those bodies to be a workplace for Him to create all known forms of life, including those made in His image. We would be with Jesus, and feel the heartbreak He must have felt in the events leading to the fall of man. We would be with Him to watch such Biblical events as the Great Flood, the Exodus, the downfall of Sodom and Gemorrah, and more. All these events we have read about, but we can only begin to imagine what it was like to witness - and likely even have a hand in - these events unfolding, from on high. We can't even begin to dream of what went through Jesus' divine consciousness, as He saw again and again how mankind turned from the Father, and as a result was punished time and time again.

1c. Would He maybe wait just a little while, until it was decided that He would be sent down to be the once-and-for-all perfect sacrifice and salvation for mankind's waywardness? Then, we would start by meeting the Old Testament prophets as Jesus did, and possibly even see what it was that made God choose the select few who foretold of Jesus' ministry, hundreds of years in advance. Perhaps we would even get to know them more like God knew them, better than any man on earth would have.

1d. Would He just simply start with His birth? That would be the way most humans could relate, by following the path of His "natural" life on earth. Might He actually begin writing of this path with the night of His birth? Or would He choose to wait awhile, until such an age that humans naturally begin to collect memories, so that we might relate better?

1e. Or would He maybe just start with His ministry, with the day that he was baptized by John the Baptist? This would be, by most measures, the most pertinent turning point in His life, and therefore probably the latest time that anyone would expect such a being to begin writing his life story.

2. Then, one must wonder when the autobiography would end? Being a divine entity, Jesus has existed and will exist for all time, longer than the Earth or humankind ever has or ever will exist.

2a. The earliest time one might expect this book to end would be with Jesus' Ascension into Heaven, after His Resurrection. While this may only (at the very least) cover the time period already documented in the Gospels, we would still have the unique priviledge of experiencing now-familiar events from a never-before-seen perspective.

2b. Or, Jesus might just decide to follow through a little further and show us how it was as he influenced the lives and ministries of his Disciples and Apostles. We would get to see Jesus' meeting with Saul on the road to Damascus, along with other earthly appearances He made after ascending to Heaven.

2c. Possibly, he might come fully up to speed to the current day. This would allow us to follow His perspective through all of currently known history, seeing and feeling what He saw and felt as various wars were fought, new lands were found, and other revolutions changed the course of history. We'd get to know His feelings on the current status of the world and His church. Then again, might we not want to? It's possible that He is not very much happy with His church as it is now. After all, a sadly large portion of the Christian church is very much asleep in regards of accomplishing any tasks that are of Heavenly importance.

2d. Maybe Jesus would come up to the current day and further. Perhaps he might jump into the future and show us more of what the end of the world would be like. Without revealing too many unknown secrets, He could still give us a very unique perspective on the things that would happen as the events described in the book of Revelation unfold. And, what is most important to me and been very much the driving force of this dream (for lack of a better term), it would also give us a look into His heart as He watches humankind punished once more, for the last time. We would delight with Him as he takes His children up to Heaven to be with Him and the Father and the Holy Spirit forever. Then, we would watch as God creates Heaven and Earth anew, in such glory as has never been seen or imagined by mankind.

These are the thoughts that have been driving through my mind all night. What if Jesus did write an autobiography? It would be an amazing read, I can garuntee you that for sure. It would definitely rock the world - for both the secular and Christians alike. And I can almost definitely assure you that it would completely revolutionize the Church, and the way she looks at things.

The very concept of such a thing has absolutely blown me away like nothing else.

- Iszi

Sudden Realization

Greetings, Viewers.

I just came to the realization that, since I started living together with my wife, I can't think of any pictures that have been taken with me in them that can successfully be cropped to include me entirely without her. Okay, so there's a couple from our wedding (dad wanted a shot with my grandfather, himself, me, and my daughter - to show the generations), and then some from my dad's wedding (since she wasn't in the wedding party), but aside from those pictures, the few pictures that exist of me after January of 2002 all include her.

And, of course, none of these exist on my hard drive. At least, not that I can think of. Maybe I should do some digging to find out, or request them e-mailed to me from my father.

This was just a thought that crossed my mind as I was trying to find a picture of me to replace the picture of Ewean McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi, in Star Wars - Episode II, that currently covers as my profile pic.

In fact, now that I think of it, I don't think there are any "recent" pictures of me at all that don't include some friends or family. I guess there is some deeper meaning behind this, but I'm running out of time to come up with it. I just thought I should toss this up before I scrambled off to work and forgot about it.

Maybe I'll edit this post later, or make a complementary post after I get home or something.

- Iszi

Abbott and Costello

Greetings, Readers.

I've always known there was this famous comedy pair out there named "Abbott and Costello". Their skits and movies have apparently impressed enough of America that many know their names, even though they may not have heard or seen a single one of their works. (i.e.: Someone like me.)

Yesterday evening, while staying at my grandparents' house, I had the pleasure of watching their production of Jack and the Beanstalk on DVD. In this production, Lou Costello plays Jack - a "professional babysitter" - who falls asleep while the child he is watching reads him the classic story of Jack and the Beanstalk. The rest of the movie is a dream sequence in which the story is played out with Lou Costello as Jack (of course), and Bud Abbott (who plays Jack's "manager", Mr Dinkel, outside of the dream sequence) as Mr. Dinkelpuss, the butcher to whom Jack sells his cow. Although the picture quality (even after being put on DVD) leaves much to be desired by today's standards, the story is nevertheless still timeless and well played out by all the actors involved.

Then, this morning after breakfast, my grandfather introduced me to one of the radio shows done by Abbot and Costello, called "Who's on First". If the rest of their productions have near the quality of humor as this one, then I can definitely see why their names are now so commonly heard of. The web link above has a text script, and audio and video files of the comedy skit. It may be a bit tricky to follow by audio or video, as there's a lot of quick talking, but those are definitely the best ways to enjoy the production. Go ahead and download one, then sit back and laugh a few minutes today. It's good for your blood pressure. :-)

- Iszi

I Should Probably Say Something

Greetings, Readers.

I guess I should probably say something about the recent death of Christopher Reeve. Everyone else is, at least. Not that it's a bad thing or anything - I'm just not typically one to talk about deaths of others that do not personally affect me, often.

One thing I must mention though, is that I find it sad that he is only remembered in most of his obituaries as "the star of Superman". I mean, sure he did a great job in all of the Superman movies, and he definitely created a face and character for Superman that most recent-day spin-offs of the series try to imitate, but that's not all he did as an actor.

I'm no film and movie guru, but I do know that most "big name hero" actors (i.e.: James Bond actors Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan, Star Trek actor William Shatner, Star Trek: The Next Generation actor Patrick Stewart, Spider-Man actor Tobey Maguire, just to name a few) don't have just one movie or one series that's all they do in their acting career. I mean, sure there's the one that really get's their name on the map. Or maybe not the one that's the first to put them out there, but still the one that most people will recognize. Yet, that's not the only movie or series that completely should define the actor. There's plenty other movies in which every actor has performed very well, outside of their most-recognized role, and few ever get much recognition for those movies when they're being referred to, unless they don't have one of those "defining roles" as the aforementioned actors do.

As I ramble on about this, I must admit that I've still not seen every other movie Mr. Reeve has acted in. In fact, I've only seen one outside of the Superman series. It is one that I believe he deserves just as much credit and mention for as any of his Superman roles. In my opinion, it was a very great film, with a well-played part by Christopher Reeve. It is called Somewhere In Time. In short, it is about a playwrite who meets an older woman that turns out to be an "old flame" of his, that he's not yet had. This sparks a short series of events that leads him to be obsessed with this woman, whom we later find was a turn-of-the-century actress, and decides that he absolutely must meet her again. In probably one of the most unique ways that I've seen yet, (using self-hypnosis) he travels back in time to meet her and they fall in love, although much to the disapproval of her manager whom also has an eye on her. The rest of the movie, I will not spoil. Go see it for yourself. Chances are, a local library has a copy you can check out, if all else fails.

Anyway, it's now a couple days after I started this post, and I'm picking up from the middle, so I've halfway lost the train of thought I was originally running on. I've also got some other things that I've jotted down in the meantime, that I wanted to post about, so I'll cut this one off here. I think I've said most of what I wanted to say, even if the thought line seems somewhat incomplete.

- Iszi

Delightfully Dreary

Greetings, Readers.

This morning's weather has been, by most measures, quite miserable so far. The sky has been mostly overcast, with only a few patches of sky showing through the clouds, which have been steadily letting down a light drizzle of rain upon our heads.

I'm lovin' it.

I don't know why, since I typically don't like riding my bike in the rain, but today I'm just loving every minute of this weather. The air is cool, there's a light breeze running about, there's the fresh smell that accompanies the rain, and the dark blues and grays in the sky are absolutely magnificent. (I love it when blues and grays blend just right.) The rain is really barely there, and entirely tolerable. In fact, it's somewhat conforting. Since there's only a light drizzle coming down on me, and no noise coming from above, I know these clouds are not signs of some horrid thunderstorm on its way that I need to avoid. So, I can just carry on and enjoy the weather.

So, today has been quite a delightfully dreary day for me so far. That is, if you measure the day from dawn to dusk. Running the other way around, (as I usually refer to it) I think I can describe my night about the same. It was delightful in the sense that it went by quickly and easily, yet dreary because it was filled with extra detail cleaning chores (scrubbing the front sidewalk and parking spaces, pulling out the frozen drink machines and mopping behind them, hands-and-knees cleaning under counters) to prepare for today's inspection. So, while the tasks dealt with overnight were not overly enjoyable, the night went by quickly and shortly and I got out before daybreak, even. It also helped that my co-worker pretty much left me to deal with my own work almost entirely for the larger part of the night.

Altogether then, I think I'm pretty happy right now with the way the past 10 hours have gone. I might post some more thoughts and ramblings later, but right now I need to go do some laundry and stuff in preparation for a night to be spent at my grandparents' house. (Something I've not done in several years, and have always enjoyed, even through my most recent ages.) I've barely walked in the door and gotten my feet out of my soaked-through socks (soaked from hosing down the lot, not the rain) before I came to post this. I wanted to get these thoughts out before I lost them, though.

So, with that all said, I'll talk to you later.

- Iszi

Anyone Else Having Problems?

I just recently downloaded and installed the latest release of Mozilla Firefox, to try to get myself away from the Internet Explorer hook. It's a beautiful browser, and I love all the features that it's offered, but I've been having problems viewing this blog properly. After the Archives section in the sidebar, there should be a Links section, followed by a Blogger button and a couple other icons. However, in Firefox, all I see is some text that is supposed to be commented out in the HTML code of the template. Anyone else using Firefox that's having this problem? Any slick coders wanna take a shot at it?

- Iszi

[EDIT]
Seems some good person at Blogger was able to fix the problem for me. The site looks nice and pretty now in Firefox, as it always has in IE. Thanks, Blogger!

Fasting - A Lesson In Resisting Temptation

Greetings, Readers.

As I have mentioned before, since my wife has been gone I have been slammed with a wave of temptation towards acts that easier for me to resist when she is here. I won't sugar-coat this, now. It comes right down to porn and masturbation. It's something that I had let run rampant in my life long before I got married, and for some time after. At one point, for several months recently, I had full control over these desires and was able to steer clear of everything. But the past (three, now?) weeks have been harsh.

I've been sexually deprived, and could not rest in the reassurance that relief may be available within a few short hours, or days depending on how our moods and schedules worked out. No, relief is still several weeks away. Also, there's fewer people in the house for me to have to worry about being "caught". So, for the first two weeks of this abscence period, I found myself succumbing to the temptations, although every time I would beat myself up over it (not physically, mind you) afterwards. I hate the compulsion that leads me to these things, and yet I had not the strength to consistently resist it.

Then something came to my mind. I don't know how or why, but I had another compulsion coming forward now. This one, however, was not of Satan and sin. This was the re-arising of a desire to do something that had helped me feel spiritually free in the past. I wanted to fast. Now, when most people consider fasting, they think it means going off of food for a few days or so. Some people do this kind of fasting as a regular practise and exercise of their Spirit. For me, however, that is just not an option. I'm 6 feet tall on a thin frame, weighing in at 129 pounds. I can't afford to go without food for much more than 12 hours (and that's sleeping), let alone a whole day.

So for me, as well as many others, fasting has a slightly different meaning. Instead of going without food for days on end, they'll choose to avoid some other compulsory behavior or desire that they have. It may be food-related, or not. Some may fast off of chocolate, some might stay away from the TV or computer. There's all kinds of ways to fast, as long as it is something that you have to constantly consciously make your mind up not to do.

What, then, am I fasting away from? After reading the first part of this post, you may assume porn and masturbation. But that's not something to be fasted from, that's something to be avoided altogether regardless. Yet, at the same time that is obviously my end goal, right? So, my fasting is targeted towards assisting me in that. In a sense, it's a temporary aversion from one thing, to accompany and aid in the permanent aversion of another. When I fast, for the second time now, I'm fasting off caffeine and other forms of artificially made stimulants. I used to be big-time hooked on Mountain Dew Code Red. I used to drink between one and two liters of Code Red throughout each work shift, occasionally downing a SoBe Adrenaline Rush in low-energy emergencies (i.e.: working a shift after already having been up for 24+ hours).

Some had said I was addicted to the stuff, which I may have been. One day, at the last Men's Encounter that I attended, Pastor Rob saw me walking down a hallway with a 1-liter Mountain Dew Code Red in tow, as I almost always had one by my side during those days. He said "I'm going to pray that you get delivered from that this weekend." In the middle of the Saturday of that Encounter, (Encounters start Friday nights, and run to Sunday morning) my three-liter supply for the weekend had run dry, and the hotel's convenience store didn't carry any. So, I decided to take Rob's word as a challenge. I got some lemonade to help my praising voice last the days, and that's all I had to drink for the rest of the Encounter. For a month afterwards, I stayed off all drink-based caffeine (couldn't keep entirely away from the caffeine that naturally comes in chocolate) by supplementing my liter-sized Code Reds with liter-sized Aquafina, proving that drinking Code Red was no longer an addiction, but a choice of habit.

After that month, I slowly started to slip back into keeping a regular supply of Code Red handy as I used to. Once in awhile, I'd go for the water instead, but Code Red was again my habitual choice. So now, to accompany my re-establishment of abstinence from sexual sin, I am once again fasting off caffeine and artificial stimulants (i.e.: the aforementioned SoBe Adrenaline Rush). The closest I have come to breaking this so far has been one relatively small dose of Ginseng the other night, upon the insistence of one of my concerned co-workers. Since it is a natural herbal supplement, I do not consider this a breakage, but also am not going to be making it a habit.

Through this period of fasting now, (which has lasted a week and a day today) I have come to realize what the real purpose behind fasting is. Most will say it is to help weaken your flesh, in order to allow the Spirit to strengthen within you better. While I agree with that, I also believe there's a psychological aspect to it that can actually aid those struggling with sin.

As stated before, fasting is abstaining from any activity or indulgence which you would habitually do, and have to make a conscious and willful decision on a regular basis not to do. Now, what is sin? Willful disobedience to God. That means that every time you sin, you are taking that opportunity to make a conscious decision to follow the desires that lead you towards that sin. That also means that every time you are presented with that opportunity, there's also the choice available that leads away from sin. The conscious decision to follow God's will and not succumb to Satan's wishes for your life.

Given that parralel, one can gather that not only is fasting a strengthening of the Spirit, commonly in preparation for prayer or some heavy trials. It's also training to resist sinful temptations. I can't imagine what it must be like to have to constantly resist one of the most primal natural urges and bodily needs - to eat. That has got to be the ultimate training grounds for one to learn to resist any form of sinful urge. Especially for those that fast for days on end like that.

So, I've decided now that I will continue this period of fasting until my wife returns. After that, you can bet Code Red will be back at my side, although once in awhile substituted with a liter of Aquafina. But I do not by any means intend for the end of my fasting to be the end of my resistence to these sins that have plagued my life for so long.

- Iszi

Photoblog Is Up!

Greetings, Readers.

I've now established my photoblog, entitled "My World In Pictures". This is where I'll be posting all my pictures, when I have them to post. Right now there's just a handful of my wife and daughter, and one of my wife and I, but there surely will be more to come so stay tuned!

- Iszi

Pictures... Lots of 'em!

Greetings, Readers!

As most of you by now know, my wife and daughter are currently visiting family in Illinois. The other day, my mother-in-law fished out some batteries for her digital camera, and the picture flow hasn't stopped since. Since I also have a good bunch of pictures on my computer, (if not my wife's) I thought you might enjoy getting to know me a bit more through those. So I'll shortly be setting up another blog that will be strictly for the pictures, so as not to clutter this one up. I'll post a link when it's up.

- Iszi

Cool Coincidences

Greetings, Readers.

Yeah, I know, this is a lot of posting for one day for me, but there seems to be a small handful of things I have to talk about, most of which don't really fit together. So, here's this post. Kind of a small thing really, but I just thought it would be interesting to share.

Yesterday was Sunday, of course. So, of course I wasn't able to post this then, as Sundays don't typically work well as posting days for me. (Read about it here.) In any case, I did go to church yesterday, as usual. A couple interesting things just sort of lined up during my time there that I'd like to share.

First, on the way to church, my sister asked me to help her cram for the test we were expected to have in School of Leaders that morning. Part of the test (we thought) was expected to include several memory verses that we were supposed to have gotten throughout the course of the semester. I personally slacked a lot on that part of the class, as apparently did my sister. So, while we were in the car, I took out my School of Leaders book and started calling out verses for my sister to remember. Near the end of the list, I came across one that I had expected her to know easily, as it is one of the primary scripture verses to remember in the Christian faith - particularly more so in our church, as this is what the church's vision is based on. So, I told her "Here's an easy one - Matthew 28:19." She didn't know it. Of course, there's many verses in the Bible that one may recognize without knowing offhand the scripture reference for it, so I tried another approach. "C'mon, it's the Great Commission! You've got to know that one!" Still, she was clueless. So, I told her:

Matthew 28:19
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Then, it took her a good couple minutes going through it to remember the whole verse verbatim. Shortly after, we got to church and went up to take our tests. At the end of the test, Pastor Rob announced a few bonus questions. The last question was "What scripture is known as The Great Commission?" My sister is so toasted if she got that one wrong!

Another interesting coincidence where I was able to help someone in church that day, without originally anticipating that I would be helping them, occurred in the entryway to the church after class. I was mingling around there, waiting for the next service to start, when I ran across one of the guys in my cell group (whom we are calling JF) with his wife. After a minute of talking with JF, my cell group leader's wife came over and started talking to JF's wife. During that conversation, I heard my cell group leader's wife mention something about being self-conscious of her "coffee breath". During that moment, I happened to have my hands in my pocket, and my fingers ran across a sample packet of Orbit gum that had come along with a sandwich I had had at work for dinner. I usually keep a pack or two of Trident White with me for after-dinner chewing, so I'd just tucked the Orbit away and not thought much about it. Figuring the last thing a pregnant woman needs to worry about is her "coffee breath", I pulled out the sample gum and offered it to my cell group leader's wife, who graciously accepted it and immedately opened the package and started chewing the gum.

So, let's recap.

1. I have my favorite sandwich for dinner at work, which just happens to currently include a sample of breath-freshening chewing gum.

2. On the way to church, I give my sister a hard time, like the loving big brother that I am, for not recognizing a key Christian memory verse.

3. The aforementioned memory verse pops up as a bonus question on our test later, and my sister gets to nail it!

4. I end up being able to give the aforementioned piece of gum to a pregnant woman in need.

Isn't it amazing how God can just line things up for you to do without you realizing it?

Very Un-Patriotic (BMW)

Greetings, Readers.

I don't plan on making a follow-up post here for every post I make on BMW, but this particular issue nagged at me bad, and I wanted to make sure some people at least knew it was posted. The post contains a word or two of profanity, but is not littered with it, as that's not my style. (Unless you really get me cheesed, in which case I won't be referring to that kind of post on here.) So, if you wish to view my rant on one of the most un-patriotic things I have ever seen, feel free to follow the link.

- Iszi

Wake Up and Smell the Foliage!

Greetings, Readers.

As I have said before, some things are more easily noticed when using a slower mode of transportation. (Refer to my "When Life Slows Down... Finally" post.) Today, it was an interesting smell that just brought peace to my mind. I got out of work a bit earlier than usual, just as the sun was coming up. So, as the sun came up and warmed the earth, the morning dew began to evaporate off of the grass and trees around me as I rode. As the dew evaporated, it carried with it the various smells of the plants that it was on. At some point in my bike ride home, I came across an area where the scent was so strong, it was almost like a perfume although the smell itself was distinctly natural. It actually made me just close my eyes and enjoy the smells around me for a minute as I rode. (Being careful to make sure I wasn't on a collision course with anything beforehand, of course.)

Somehow, this particular smell reminded me of a time in my youth when the world was still somewhat blissful. Particularly, it reminded me of one summer I spent at San Pedro's Summer Scripture Camp. It was sometime during my middle school years, and my grandparents (who are Catholic - hence, the Catholic-oriented camp) thought I would enjoy going to a summer retreat as a birthday present. (Mark on your calendars, people: June 17th - Coincidentally also the date I started this blog, and the day that my wife and I started considering ourselves as a "couple" before we got married.) It was a great time there, just being relatively away from everything and everyone. Sure, there were plenty of other people there, but no one that I knew. It was also in a pretty woodsy area, so for the most part everything was quiet and peaceful. Like I said, it was a time of bliss, when I had little to nothing in particular to be concerned of, and everything was just quiet and - dare I say - perfect in the immediate environment. One of a few times in my past life that I wish I could just go back and spend the rest of my future in.

So, what about you? Try this: Wake up early one morning, or stay up late one night (depending on what your sleep schedule is like) and take a walk or bike ride around some area near your house that you know, starting just as the sun is beginning to come over the horizon. Give yourself a chance to experience all the smells that are in that environment as they come up to you. Then, write about them and (if anything) what they remind you of.

This should be interesting.

- Iszi

No Trespassing

Greetings, Readers.

Short one here. Just something that kind of popped in my head as I passed by a small body of water on my way home today. I've actually seen the phenomenon that brought forth this thought twice now, in two different locations.

So, someone please tell me, what does the Florida Department of Transportation want so badly that's in retention ponds? Two times now, in two different places, I've ridden past these weird retention ponds. Both of them are fenced off, and on the fences are signs saying "NO TRESPASSING - DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION". What's up with that?

- Iszi

Notepad

Greetings, Readers.

Just thought I'd forewarn you that I've started carrying a notepad and pen with me now, wherever I go. Among other occasional purposes, its main function is to document blog article ideas as I come up with them. See, there's been several times where I get home and log on, and know that I've thought of something to blog about overnight at work, but can't for the life of me remember what. So, I've got this notepad now, and it's already got a good several items in it. A few for this blog, and a few for my other blog. So, I've got some writing to do now, and my posts should be more regular as I spend my blogging days trying to catch up with the notepad, rather than trying to stew up something to blog about out of thin air.

Hope you enjoy.

- Iszi

What I Want To Write?

Greetings, Readers.

I find myself in the middle of a deep rut of boredom and emptiness. Something has told me I should write, and write about my feelings, but I don't really know what to write, nor am I sure I know my feelings. Or maybe I do know them, but don't understand them. Maybe I'm just afraid of what they are.

A good part of my life, I think I have been hiding from my feelings, my true emotions. What made me want to do this? I can only guess it has to do with my experiences in school, since the 3rd grade until probably about the 10th. My days were constantly filled with bullies, jeers, and insults during that time. At times I would shoot insults back, but would only get worse ones in return, with my own having been entirely ineffective. Other times, I would be too tired of the failed retaliation attempts to even bother. At those times, I would turn away sullenly and try to move on, but was still left feeling very stung.

Through this time, I was always taught that ignoring the bully would make him go away. Why are we taught this? Most people seem to think (as true or untrue as it may be) that childhood bullies pick on other kids because they're looking for attention. So, the obvious counter to this would be to not give them the response and attention that they're looking for. This, theoretically, would show the bully that this method (or target) for getting attention does not work, and so (supposedly) they should move on to trying another method (or target).

However, for one to completely be able to ignore a bully, one must also be able to put aside or ignore the feelings brought on by that bully's words and actions. Not only are a bully's words and actions often personally hurtful, they are many times publicly humiliating to their target. The feelings brought from this are anguish, inferiority, shame, worthlessness, rage, and - when everyone else seems to be on the side of the bully, or otherwise neutral - isolation.

So, how to ignore one's feelings, then? It's not easy at first. For awhile, you have to grit your teeth at whatever hits you. Eventually though, you get used to it. It even becomes second-nature to you. They say your feelings become "bottled up" at this point. In my experience, it seems more that you've become immune to them. Even if there is some bottle to break, when it is broken the ground that it is broken on is hardened to the point that it does not absorb the bottles contents.

For some reason, that almost doesn't even make sense to me. Pardon if I ramble a bit, but I've now decided I should probably just spill out whatever comes to mind the way it comes this time. So, I'll not be re-writing any of this as I go.

Perhaps there's actually stages to the dulling of emotions. The first would be where you have to focus yourself on ignoring them - the "gritting your teeth" phase. The second is where you ignore them subconsciously without trying anymore - the "bottling up" phase. Then, there's a point where you just don't feel them at all - the "hardened ground" phase.

So, now I've found myself in that "hardened ground" phase. I think I've been here for quite awhile now. Several years, at least. What are the symptoms of this? For one, it's not too easy to make me really laugh. I mean honestly laugh uncontrollably. Outside of that laughter, there's not much that makes me really smile from the heart. And the hardest thing to get me to do is cry. Surprisingly enough, the last thing that made me cry was something that most guys might think is just a little thing that only a woman would cry over.

That was a year ago now, plus a few weeks or so. During the planning of our marriage ceremony, there were all kinds of snags in having to deal with other people's schedules and locations. Part of the difficulty was due to lack of funds to be able to pay for a neutral location that would be central to everyone else's position. Schedule difficulty was because it had to be done while my wife's mother and grandmother were down, (since they were paying for the paperwork) and both my parents had plans that overlapped this time. Eventually, I was able to talk all the major parties (the in-laws, my parents, and the person conducting the ceremony) into a date and time that (albeit in some cases barely) lined up with everyone's schedules.

In searching for a location, there were only a few available, none of which were in the family-politically-neutral category. The one we had to settle on was a neighbor of my mom's, whom I'd known since I was 12 at least. Meanwhile, I got a letter from the only local aunt and uncle that I had on my father's side, saying that they and their children (3 of them, the youngest probably now 13) would not be attending because they did not agree with the way we were doing things. I don't recall the exact wording, but the reasons were pretty much based on religion. I don't think they liked the fact that we were getting married after already having a child, but what was probably the bigger problem was that we weren't getting married by a minister in a church. In either case, those situations were both due to the financial situation we were in at the time. (And still are in, pretty much.)

So, that did kind of hurt, but it was somewhat to be expected, so I tried to keep it aside and not let it bother me. What did hurt, however, was when I talked to my father about the when's and where's of the wedding. He told me that he and his wife would not be able to attend there, for personal reasons. That hurt bad. In fact, it's probably the only time since childhood that I can recall going to my mother (and that was an hour-long drive that my wife made just for me - for those who don't know, I don't drive and my mom's house is an hour away.) for emotional support, and actually crying on her shoulder.

In the end, we moved the wedding to my mom's house and everything went okay. It's quite funny in a way, what's coming across my mind now. The most recent time that I have felt genuinely hurt (albeit I didn't literally cry over it), was a few months ago, and also involved my father and a wedding.

This time, it was his wedding. If I've already posted on this, I apologize for the redundancy, and I'll try to keep it as brief as possible. Originally, when my dad e-mailed me to tell me that he and his fiancee were (finally) getting married, he said that he had wanted me and my brother to both be best men. However, in a later IM conversation, he said that he wanted my brother to be best man since he would be in uniform. My father was formerly in the Navy, and recently retired from the United States Air Force Reserves, and my brother is recently enlisted in the USMC. So, since they both were going to be in uniform, (the wedding was not a military ceremony, but it was on Armed Forces Day, so all veteran attendees were asked to appear in uniform) I could understand if he wanted my (note) younger brother to be the one directly at his side, with me standing next to my brother, but to say that my brother was to be the sole Best Man, essentially relegating me to a lower position in the ceremony, just because I could not be in uniform, pissed me off.

However, that wasn't the only factor to my hurt. See, this also opened up an old wound. All my life, my dream had been to enlist in the Air Force, and go to school to work on the computer networks there. All my life I'd wanted to serve in the armed forces like my dad and granfathers. When my interests and skills developed so strongly in computers and technology, the Air Force seemed the best and only way to go. Also, I had a predisposition towards that branch, since that was where my father served most of his time. If I've ever had a "lifelong dream" that was it.

So, when I was 18, I went to the recruiter's station. Next step from there was the ASVAB test, which I passed with flying colors. So then, I was in a position to choose any career the Air Force had to offer that didn't require perfect eyesight. (I'm supposed to wear prescription glasses 24/7, but currently don't know where they've run to. Fortunately, I can see well enough to function without them, but not pass a military optometrist's inspection.) So now, on to the MEPS. The only thing that could have held me from passing through here (I thought) was that I could come up underweight. If that had been the case, a little bit of working out and chowing down could have fixed it easily. Okay, so there was also this little curve in my spine, but it had never impaired me before, nor did I ever feel any pain from it, so it should pass muster, right? Wrong. The biggest lasting heart-break of my life was the day that I was told the curvature in my spine was too great to be acceptable for military entrance.

So, now I was being told that because I couldn't wear the uniform that I wanted to wear so badly with all my heart, I couldn't stand as my father's Best Man at his wedding. Not only that, but in my place was my younger brother. Not a best friend of my father's or one of my uncles, but my younger brother! Perhaps it's wrong of me, but with all things otherwise being equal in regards to personal relationship, when a father has to choose between sons for a particular important role in his life, isn't the eldest typically given precedence?

It came to the point that I couldn't let the hurt go unanswered. I calmly confronted my father with my feelings on the issue, and he tried to smooth things out, making it look like a misunderstanding or something, but all the talk didn't make things feel too much better. Furthermore, when the wedding came around, and then the reception, I was constantly hearing my brother being introduced, and referred to as, "My son, the Marine," by my father. At some points, I would be introduced as "My son, Jacob," but in my mind I kept hearing "My son, the convenience store clerk." What else was I supposed to think?

So enough with the past, what am I feeling now? I guess I've dropped into something of an empty stupor. Empty because my wife and daughter are hundreds of miles away, and stupor because there's not really much to do right now. Okay, so there's a good deal of stuff to do, but nothing I want to do. Nothing that I could look forward to doing even if I did do whatever else needed to be done. So therefore I am left here doing nothing, in a state of utter boredom and depression.

Oh, look! Another blog has updated. My wrists are starting to cramp up from all this typing anyway, so I'll wrap it up for now.

- Iszi

Furcadia

Greetings, Readers.

Just thought I'd post about a game I've come across recently, that I'm now "flirting" with a bit, called Furcadia. It's essentially a place that you can go to and let your imagination go. In a sense, it could be calld an MMORPG, but there's no consistent plot in the world to play in. Basically, what it is is a world made up of several (somewhat) distinct areas where your character can go to interact with other characters, or to browse and enter into "dreams".

Dreams are worlds within the world of Furcadia. Some of them (I'm guessing) were pre-designed with Furcadia, while the majority of them are user designed and uploaded. Inside these dreams, you can do just everything you could do in the outside world, but in a different environment. Some dreams are created specifically for some form of entertainment. (i.e.: Some are devoted to board games.) Some are created to be an open house to hang out in. Some will let you build your own house inside their lands. Many dreams are dedicated to role-playing, each with their own environment, theme, and rules. I've found dreams dedicated to Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Lord of The Rings, for example. I even found one designed to be like Pokemon.

In most of the Furcadian world (Including any non-dream world, and most dream worlds) your character is displayed as a walking animal. There are Canine, Feline, Rodent, and Equine avatars, as well as a couple others. For a fee, you can even have wings, or be a Dragon, Gryphon, Eagle, or Phoenix. While most of these animals are naturally quadrupeds, in Furcadia they walk bipedal and are proportioned slightly more like humans.

There seems to be quite a few friendly people in Furcadia, as well as some not too pleasant. There's actually a whole section of the world specifically for "R-Rated" dreams and interactions, but I have yet to have any mentionable problems with anyone outside this area.

So, feel free to come join me. Download and registration is on the web link above. A reccomended tool for this game is Furnarchy, which allows you to keep a buddy list of people you meet in Furcadia, (the game does not yet have this feature integrated) and also comes with some other useful tools. If you're looking for me on there, my screen name is the same as here, "Iszi". If you want to try to contact me when you log on, you can type "/Iszi " to whisper to me if I'm on.

I might post a screenshot or two later on. Meanwhile come on out and have some fun.

- Iszi

Something Wrong With Me?

Greetings, Readers.

I've been up since 2200 Monday night and it is now almost 0500 Wednesday morning, and I still probably have an hour or so to go before I'll be ready to crash, although I probably should do so sooner.

Part of my sleep problems come from a naturally erratic sleep pattern, helped by a somewhat unregular schedule of daily activities throughout the week, as I have described in this post on my new blog. (Don't worry, that post is clean. Feel free to view if you want to get a rough idea of my schedule throughout a typical week.)

However, I'm starting to wonder if there's not some other reason for all of this. As I have mentioned in previous posts, my marriage hasn't been the most stable as of late, and there's also the added stress of having to keep a baby in a house that shouldn't have one to start with, (something I'll probably rant on more in detail on BMW later) on top of maintaining myself in one of the least sought-after jobs there is on the market. Now add to this the recent subtraction of my wife and daughter from the picture for a month.

Originally, when it was proposed that they go up there for a month, my first thought was "Yes, finally some peace and quiet around here." While proving to be accurate so far, I hadn't anticipated how much that "peace and quiet" would actually get to me at some points. I truly do miss my wife and daughter more than I probably had imagined I would. Always having considered myself a pretty emotionally stable guy, I guess I kinda just figured it would be a small change I'd adapt to and move on through as if it were nothing. Friday night, the last night they were here, was when it actually started to hit me while I was at work. Saturday morning I saw them off, and then took a long bus ride home and landed straight in bed. That was some good, quality, quiet-time sleep right there... once the phone stopped ringing.

When I awoke, though, something in my heart just felt things were wrong in the house. I couldn't hear the TV on in the living room. Half the lights in the house weren't on. No one was in the chair in front of my wife's computer, and the playpen was empty save for a few left-behind toys. That night I worked with a much-weakened feeling spirit. I honestly came close to having a case of the sniffles a few times when I thought about how I was really missing them, and how I should probably have taken Friday night off to spend with them. Then tonight, when I came in to go on the computer about an hour ago, something was also just as much out of place. The light in my room was on, and the bed and crib were empty. No light snoring or rustling as my wife sleeps or my baby rolls over in her crib. Just nothing.

So yeah, this is all bothering me a good bit. I miss my wife coming to drag me out of bed when I'm starting to cut close on time for work. Heck, the nursery at TLR was short-handed tonight, and all I could think of for it was her. And yet she says our marriage needed this time apart. I dunno.

What also bothers me is what I keep hearing from people at work. Last time I checked (probably a year ago or so by now) I stood about 6 feet tall, and fluctuated weight between 130-135 pounds. My complexion has always been rather light, particularly owing to my nocturnal nature, and I've never (since after babyhood) been said to have an ounce of fat tissue on my body. Well, in the time that I've been at this particular store, (3 or 4 months now) several of my co-workers, and even a couple customers have been expressing concern that I've been losing weight badly, and I'm looking pretty pale. The weight part I can tell a little by the way some pants are fitting me. Complexion I notice little difference in except I'm just now starting to tan from some of these bike rides.

In any case, some of these ladies are seriously concerned almost to a maternal degree, if not more so. And now I'm starting to feel it physically, since I'm riding my bike more. But honestly, if I ate the way that I know I could, there wouldn't hardly be money left over for my wife or daughter to eat after rent and tithe are taken out of the paycheck. So now, with everyone but me starting to worry about me, I'm starting to get a little concerned myself. What the heck is wrong with me here?

- Iszi

BMW Is Up

Okay, got the foundation laid down for BMW - Blog, Moan, and Whine. Not much there yet, but I will be posting some stuff later on. Feel free to add to your favorites or whatever. I'd prefer it not linked though. If you want to link to me, please link here. I'll add a link to BMW in my sidebar later on.

- Iszi

Talking Back

Greetings, Readers. And particularly Butterfly and Debi. :-)

I noticed a couple comments on my previous post, and thought I'd compile my responses into a new one, since they started to become a little lengthy. (Then again, when was I ever known to be brief?) So, here we go.

Butterfly - My mom's roof is all tarped up last I knew, and they're going to need it totally re-done, which falls just under their deductible on their insurance, so they're going to have to shell out full price from their own pocket. Over at my house, we've still got the damage we had before with the siding, but the real ugly parts have been boarded up. And that's about it. My aunt has never been too hasty about taking care of non-vital repairs. (i.e.: Anything short of full loss of power, water, or phone service, or damage to kitchen or multimedia appliances, or air conditioning.)

As far as riding my bike to work, it has its times. On the way to work isn't much enjoyable, since it's in the middle of our hot and humid Florida nights, and there's always the pressure to get to work on time. But, on the way home, when the weather is about as cool as it's ever going to be during the day, and I don't have to particularly worry about getting anywhere at any certain time, it's rather nice. Distance is a little over 3 miles, and I usually cover it in about 30 minutes on the way there, and sometimes as short as 20 minutes on the way home. (A lot more uphill going to work than from, if Florida can be considered to have "hills".) Like I said before, it's nothing I've not done on a regular basis in the past, it's just been awhile. Also, my self-maintenance level isn't where it used to be either. (A couple co-workers of mine have told me that in the past 3 or 4 months that they've known me, I've lost a good bit of weight. Starting from 6' 0" and 135 lbs. at last check, that's not a good thing.)

Probably the most riding I've ever done was one trip home from another job, when I'd missed the bus on a particularly nice day. It would have been an hour to wait for the next bus, and the weather was nice, so I decided to go crazy and ride my bike all the way. Why crazy? Because (now that I look it up) the trip was about 23 miles from work to home. And that would be if you're taking the Interstate, which of course I wouldn't be doing on bike. So, with all the detours, (plus a few long-sustained wrong turns) my ride was probably more like 36 miles or so, and took about 3 hours. If I got back into the shape I was then, I think I'd do it again sometime just for the fun.

Meanwhile, in my current shape, my body screams for mercy every night. This truly brings me to the awareness of how not well my body actually is. I used to be able to do this kind of ride to and from a job, (or double the distance, to and from school) and do my work in between, and not physically feel bad at all coming home. Not a good change at all.

Debi - Thank you for your prayers, they are always appreciated, and particularly now they are hitting directly on my current needs. Strength is a rather obvious one, given my recent change in travel mode. Wisdom is also going to be needed to get me through just handing the mess of thoughts in my mind right now. There's so much that I can feel that I'm thinking right now that I don't clearly know what I am actually thinking. Also, with my wife and baby away, many temptations have - and more will - come into play that normally don't have as much strength against me when my wife and daughter are here. So, the battle of flesh vs. Spirit rages on harder.

As far as me going up to Illinois to see her while she's there, that's pretty much out of the question. It's financially un-feasable to start with (her mother's paying for her trip as it is), and even if we did have the money to get me there and back, we couldn't afford for me to have the time off work. So, nice idea, but it just can't happen. :-( The peace and quiet around here is nice though, when I'm sleeping. When I'm awake and I notice it, however, it does bother me occasionally. Fortunately I have a handful of good friends and family members that will drag me out of the house as they see necessary to keep me "alive".

In other news - I'm considering starting another blog. There's a lot of times that I just want to totally vent my frustrations, but that's not what I intended to have this blog for. So, I'm thinking about making a separate one just for when I want to gripe about various things. That way people that like to keep up with this journal here can do so without having to see my "ugly side" if they don't want to. However, it may behoove anyone wanting to truly know me - all of me - to go ahead and read both. I will warn that, if things get really nasty some days, there may end up some occasional "colorful metaphors" on that blog, (For which I'm considering the title: "Blog, Moan, and Whine") although I will try to refrain from their usage in general. The separation of the blogs should also help keep any remotely harsh language further off this one. Yeah, I know it's not good of a "Christian" to swear, and it's something I'd like to say I'm working on, but when it comes to venting - for me - those rules just end up out the window sometimes. Hopefully some day I will be able to say I'm entirely free from it, but meanwhile you have been warned. I'll post when the new blog is up.

- Iszi

Yeah, I'm Alive... Unngh!

Greetings, Readers.

So much to write, so little energy. So, I guess that's about all I'm going to get to say here. The week's been long and trying, and now to end (if you consider Saturday/Sunday to be the weekend) it, I had to say goodbye to my wife and baby for a month or so. They've gone up north to visit my in-laws, while I stay home to keep making money. Meanwhile, since a.) She's the one between us with the driver's license, and b.) Our transmission just went out, most of my traveling to and fro has been done through leg-power. Either walking, or biking, with the occasional relief of a bus ride in between. It's not like I've not been through this before, or never had to cover these distances in this manner before. It's just been awhile. So all my muscles want to do now is grunt and stiffen up and never do another thing for the rest of the night... or week... or life. There's a lot more that's gone on that I'd like to cover. Also some psuedo-philosophical things I would like to ramble on about, but half of those have been forgotten in the time that it's taken me to get to doing this, and the other half I just don't have energy for. It's time for sleep. Further proof of how tired I am, here. I'm too lazy to break this into paragraphs or care about whether or not it's even remotely punctuated properly. Although I'm sure my punctuation has never been perfect to start with. Wait, that was just a fragmented sentence, wasn't it? Ah, screw grammar, good night.

- Iszi

Posting About... I Forget What

Well, I had something in mind last night (Or was it the night before? Or maybe the daytime today?) that I had wanted to kinda just toss up in this little spot of mine, but I entirely forgot what it was. So, I guess I'm just posting about my own forgetfulness. Bummer, I guess.

Oh, and I guess to follow everyone else's fashion I should probably post something about yesterday having been 9/11. Sounds pretty apathetic, doesn't it? Although it may not be not the greatest thing for me to say (or be) on the subject, but that's kinda how I feel. Don't quite know how to (or if I can) explain why, but that's the way it is. For some reason, for the past three years, whenever 9/11 has rolled around all I could think of is "Oh yay, everyone's going to get all sappy-sobby, and the nation will probably be keeping their eyes peeled for copycat criminals or something like that."

This is not to say that I'm not understanding of what happened on that day, or the loss of life, or damage to a handful of the most significant buildings in the hub of the big-business capitol of America. It's just that I've never quite seemed to have the emotional pull from it that everyone else has. Maybe it's something to do with the fact that for most of my life (and still often times now) my emotions have been largely supressed. Even when I'm angry beyond measure inside, I rarely express - or even feel - it.

Maybe it also has to do with my memory of the day, and the week to follow. Yeah, I'm going to psycho-analyze myself a little here. Might wanna step back, it could get ugly.

In middle-to-late August of '01, I'd flown to Illinois to see my wife (fiancee at the time) and meet her family, with the intent of staying for about a month. If I recall, this would have had me there for a few weeks or so ahead of her birthday (9/13), plus another week or two. So, having already been there awhile and overcome any sense of jet-lag there may have been, at zero-whatever-hundred hours it whas when the first crash hit the news, we were doing what any sensible young adults would be doing after staying awake past 2 in the morning: sleeping. In fact, knowing myself, I probably hadn't gotten to bed until more like 4 or 6, while she (being the more sensible one) was an hour or two ahead of me. So I'd only had a couple hours of sleep on a very hard double-size mattress (which really didn't fit the both of us together real well) at my grandmother-in-law's (yeah, called 'em the "in-laws" long before the paperwork was ever done) house, when her mother yells out "Get up, get up! We're at war!"

So, what was my first thought? "Damnit Mom, the sun's still in the east, let me go back to sleep!" Of course I had enough sense not to actually say that... I think. In any case, I did at some point (probably a half-hour later) drag myself out of bed just in time to see a couple replays of the disaster. And while the whole "Do you realize how many people there were in that plane/those buildings? thought process was somewhere in the back of my mind, the front of my mind could only say "Wow... that is some pretty cool demolition." when the towers went down. Seriously, if you were to take that out of real life history, and put it in a movie, what would the response from (probably) 90% of Americans be? In fact, if I'm not mistaken, I'd heard that after 9/11 the release of MIB II was delayed because the original storyline consisted of blowing up the twin towers. Kind of a bummer since I know those would have been some great effects! Heck, I wonder what they would have done to ID4 (Independence Day) if the Empire State Building or the White House had just been blown up while the film was nearing completion?

Not long after this moment of the experience did we get a phone call telling us to haul it to the gas station and fill up since prices were changing while people waited in line. So, there's another good chunk of that day with my fiancee and her family blown. (Gas lines were worse there at that time than I've ever seen them down here during the preparation and recovery days surrounding Charley or Frances.) Then, the day after, I get told that my stay was going to be cut short. Since I was on a "buddy pass" through a cousin-in-law, I was ordered to make my return flight in 3 days or my ticket would be cancelled. And yet, aside from the barely noticable military presence, security at the airport was still a laughable joke.

So, what were my feelings on 9/11 at the time? All I can remember is being tired, cranky, and pissed off that hours (and later weeks) were taken away from time with family that I had barely gotten to know just because of some lunatics a thousand miles away that got a little pissed off at us for no particular reason. And I wanted to sleep. Bad. Or at least be able to zone out and let my body pretend it was sleeping while my mind occupied itself with something of lesser concern. Oh, and the job market absolutely sucked when I got home. (I had been unemployed during my vacation, with no job yet reserved for my return.)

So, apathetic? Yes I am. Do I feel bad about it? Probably should. Then again, when you almost don't know your feelings, it's hard to know if you really do feel bad about something in a deeper sense like that. So, what do I know that I feel? Not much except that America needs to suck it up and move on. Roll with the punches. Dust yourselves off and get back up and running again. Seriously, people, you act like this is the most catastrophic event that could have taken place within such a short time span. Maybe it ranks up there a little bit, but open your eyes to the really big stuff that's happened in the past. Like Hiroshima. Yeah, Pearl Harbor was pretty bad, but what about Nagasaki, too? The world is never going to be at peace, and throwing more crap at each other and whining about it forever isn't going to make things any better. So cry your river, build a bridge, and get over it.

I should correct myself on that. The world will be (for the most part) at peace for some time in the future before its end. But when that time comes, the end will also be near. Read the book of Revelation if you don't know what I'm talking about.

- Iszi

By Invitation Only

Greetings, Readers.

Well, today seemed rather productive albeit stressful. First task was to run over to my grandparents' house to assess any roof damage and assist with any immediately necessary repairs. They lost a few pieces of shingles, but other than that most of it looked fine. The only heavy duty work needed was to take down a tree limb that was rubbing against the edge of the roof and would likely start to casue damage if another heavy storm came through.

After that, Grandma made us (my sister was with me) some lunch and entertained us with details and pictures from their trip to Italy several years ago. Then we headed back to my mother's house to help put up another tarp that would cover the entire roof over the garage. (Where most of the leakage is.)

So, what does all this have to do with the title of my post tonight? The title comes from a newspaper article I had read while waiting at the table for lunch at Grandma's. The article was in the Life & Times section of The Orlando Sentinel, and was entitled "A chosen few". The article is about what appears to be a very exclusivistic singles club in th Orlando area, "By Invitation Only". This company is so proud of their exclusivism, it appears, that their company name is in big, fancy letters on the "welcome mat" of their front porch. (And it's not a small mat either.) The club proclaims itself to be only for the "elite", the "upper eschelon", the "culturally sophisticated". The minimum income required to join this club is an advertised $50K per year, with an "unofficial line" drawn specially for men, at $100K.

Sound like somewhere you might not be able to get into? Hear some quotes from the owner, Nancy Kenyon, and you might be glad that you can't. In response to why this company was created with such high standards: "The lower socioeconomic class is doing fine. They can meet in Laundromats." Ex-cuse me? What mouthful-of-a-term was that? "lower socioeconomic class?" Since when did my salary or lack thereof determine my value to society, or my character as a human being? Furthermore, if everyone were to get paid according to the amount of blood, sweat, and tears (put shortly: physical labor) poured into their work, the pay ladder would be turned upside-down, with the bottom-level employees making thousands more than the ones in the office who currently earn their paycheck almost solely because of their ranking in the company.

To contrast the statement that the "LSC" (for short - in this blog, not the article or actual quotes) could essentially meet in the sewers for all she cares (Just my take on the quote - again, not anything actually stated.), she says that "[The upper eschelon] is not meeting, mating and procreating ... It's having a detrimental effect on our country ... Our upper eschelon is going to get smaller. The gifted classes are going to get smaller. There may not even be gifted classes." Okay, now I wasn't born into the "upper eschelon" myself, but I most certainly could have qualified (and did, in many respects) for gifted classes when I was in school. And I can tell you for almost absolute sure that my mother's and father's combined incomes (even when dad had two jobs) didn't likely ever hit the minimum required income level for men in the club.

I doubt it would surprise you to know that although she would not disclose the amount of the membership fee, she could be quoted as saying "I always want my suit to cost more than the membership fee." while wearing such a suit that retails for $1K at least.

I find it quite funny that, even with the exclusivistic nature of this club, one of its members could be quoted as saying the club includes "People from all walks of life..." Then again, let's look at the examples he gives, "... lawyers, a couple of real estate agents, some jewelry store owners." and the man himself is a construction superintendent - just about the only person who might remotely allow that list to be classified as "all walks of life", in my humble opinion.

Betty Wilson, one of the ladies working at the club, can be quoted as saying she likes to take her members to the "type of places where run-of-the-mill people wouldn't feel comfortable." Last I checked, even the not-so "culturally sophisticated" person still would enjoy having a nice glass of wine served to them among friends sitting in cushy chairs around a table with a live string ensemble playing in the background.

Further, Wilson is quoted as saying "Didn't your mother or grandmother ever tell you that birds of a feather flock together? You don't see the eagles playing with the buzzards. We are eagles, the movers and shakers and doers and winners." I wonder how that made the interviewer, whom I'm sure doesn't net $100K/yr (which, if I'm not mistaken comes just a couple bucks short of $50/hr) feel. I mean, how would you like it if you were trying to do someone a favor (I'm guessing) by giving their club a little publicity in one of the most read publications circulated in a densely populated area, and that person - during the interview - called you a buzzard to your face? Think of what a buzzard is. It ain't pretty for one, and all it does is eat after the other animals, many times after flies have already started having their turn at the carcass.

The writer ends the article with probably one of, if not the most appalling comments from Mrs. Kenyon that there are in the article: "When someone our age..." (It would seem most of the club members are in their middle-age years) "...doesn't have that much of an income, there's a reason. They're unmotivated, they have a low IQ, or they don't make good decisions." For myself, (albeit I don't yet fit that age category) I may fit the last of those three. I have plenty of motivation to look at when I wake up every day. Just turn to my left and there's my wife, look over her into the crib and my one year old baby is looking back. I have to make sure both are maintained alive and well, and reasonably happy. I think that's a good bit of motivation. IQ? Again, I could have easily qualified for several gifted classes back in my school daze. In almost any given class that I did take, I skipped most classwork and homework but could still ace any given test. In some classes, I even literally sleeped through all the class and still passed the tests. So, bad decisions? Yeah, probably. I've chosen to slack a good bit throughout my life, but everyone does make mistakes. Who is anyone to hold one's mistakes against them for the rest of their life, and use that mistake as cause to tell them whom they may or may not hang out with?

If I may be so bold, I think the author of that article was trying to portray his brutally honest personal opinion of this club and its owners, operators, and members, without actually overstepping his journalistic, objectivistic boundaries. So, Mr. Mark K Matthews, I'll say it loud and proud for you in my own opinion and words: These people are a bunch of self-centered snobs whose class deserves to die for lack of a place of intermingling for breeding purposes. Quite frankly, I'd rather mate with a "vietnam veteran" living off the side of the road, than to shake hands with one who would endorse such a club's ideal.

Okay, so maybe that was a little to the extreme. But I hope my point has gotten across there.

And yet, we still haven't hit the part of this that disgusts me the most. According to the latest tally of the club's 1000+ members, most of them are claiming to be Christian! Okay, so Jesus did feast with the lawyers and tax collectors, but I seriously didn't think he meant for them to just go and continue feasing solely among themselves in His name! It would almost be like if I were to get up on a pulpit to preach about living as a "rich poor man", knowing full well I'll shortly be driving home from church in a brand-new, paid-for-in-full-with-cash Jaguar XK8, and can't remember the last day in my life that I honestly could claim to be penniless. This isn't to say that Christians shouldn't ever be rich. The Bible does say that God has plans to prosper us, but I highly doubt he meant for that prosperity to give us reason for shunning the "LSC".

Just further proof of how screwed up life can get when people are paid more for working less, I guess.

- Iszi


Update - The Orlando Sentinel has moved the article referred to in this post, into its archives. Typically, these archives are only accessed by paying a subscription fee to the Sentinel's website. Fortunately, Google has yet to remove the article from its own search archives, so I was able to pull up a cached copy in a Google search. The full text of the article is below:

A chosen few
By Invitation Only isn't for everybody, which is just the point. The club aims to be a place where the elite can meet, mingle and mate.

By Mark K. Matthews | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted September 6, 2004

Chances are, you can't join By Invitation Only. Look at the name, people, it means exclusive. Top-notch. Se-lect.

First, let's talk salary. How much do you make a year? Minimum wage? Ha! Go away, and don't track mud on the carpet. $30,000? Nope, sorry. $40,000? Close, but not there yet.

To get in, organizers say, club hopefuls must make 50 big ones. Minimum. And that's just for the women. The unofficial line on men is even more, ringing in at a clean $100,000.

Founder Nancy Kenyon says there's a reason, nay, a mission, for the posturing. It is to help preserve what she calls "the upper echelon."

"The lower socioeconomic class is doing fine. They can meet in Laundromats," says Kenyon, who chats over a fruity drink inside society headquarters, a pink house in College Park. But the upper echelon, she says, "is not meeting, mating and procreating."

A big problem.

"It's having a detrimental effect on our country," says Kenyon, 55. "Our leaders are not going to be there. Our upper echelon is going to get smaller. The gifted classes are going to get smaller. There may not even be gifted classes."

Hence, By Invitation Only -- Kenyon's solution to the love problems of Central Florida's elite singles. Based out of a quaint home she says is one of the oldest in the College Park neighborhood, the group matches members of the upper crust on the down low.

Discretion guaranteed.

"We are just careful," says Betty Wilson, who runs the day-to-day business of the club. At the top of her priorities, Wilson says, is to ensure members -- which Kenyon says include politicians and judges -- can mingle and "not worry about it showing up in the headlines."

For that reason, the membership roll is confidential. Party locations are kept hush-hush. Even the cost of joining By Invitation Only is kept in the shadows -- although Kenyon will drop a single hint.

"I always want my suit to cost more than the membership fee," she says, wearing a light-colored St. John ensemble that retails for at least $1,000. "Very high-end."

Still, there are a few secrets Kenyon will reveal. Founded in 1991, she says the club now boasts more than 1,000 society singles. By her count, most are white, Christian and Republican. Many are divorced; most are middle-aged. Some, Kenyon says, hold positions of power, especially in the business community. Go-getters. CEOs.

"People from all walks of life, we have lawyers, a couple of real estate agents, some jewelry store owners," says Ted Langford, 47, a construction superintendent and the only member of the club who agreed to speak on the subject. "It's quite a big circle."

To get into the club, it helps to know someone on the inside. Candidates with a sponsor are required to endure only one interview; those without must pass two. Still, to help increase membership, the club recently has taken to advertising in the newspaper -- salary requirement included.

Once accepted, membership has its privileges. There's dinner, dance and theater. Private beach parties in New Smyrna Beach. Cocktails at the posh Citrus Club, which touts itself on its Web site as a haven for "people of distinction who appreciate the special amenities of a place of privilege."

"Our group, we feel, is culturally sophisticated," says Wilson, who joined By Invitation Only in 2000 and became director a year later. Called one of the more popular members of the group, Wilson -- who would not reveal her age -- says she tries to take her charges to the "type of places where run-of-the-mill people wouldn't feel comfortable."

"Didn't your mother or grandmother tell you birds of a feather flock together?" Wilson asks. "You don't see the eagles playing with the buzzards. We are eagles, the movers and shakers and doers and winners."

But there are some secrets Kenyon would rather not reveal.

In 1989, when Kenyon ran an Altamonte Springs group called Perfect Match Introductions, she settled out of court with a competitor -- her former employer, in fact -- called Compatible Introductions, which alleged she stole materials and ideas from them. The settlement cost Kenyon at least $28,500, county court records show. Asked about the dispute, Kenyon said, "It was just silly."

Kenyon also has been sued by clients upset with the service. These also were settled, but she says the problems weren't because of the "quality of the service" but rather the clients' expectations. "Now if anyone complains in the field, we just give them their money back," she says.

Even the salary requirement has been questioned.

"Fifty thousand a year? That can't be right," says Langford, who serves as one of 12 "ambassadors" in the group, a role destined to help new members get acquainted. "We have some teachers. That [figure] can't be right."

So why advertise a salary minimum? Valerie Patterson, president of a singles service called Dinner Dates, says a club such as By Invitation Only would use that to "convey that's it's an elite crowd."

Kenyon insists the only reason she instituted the requirement was because her members wanted it.

And beside, she adds, "When someone our age doesn't have that much of an income, there's a reason. They're unmotivated. They have a low IQ. Or they don't make good decisions."

Mark K. Matthews can be reached

at mmatthews@orlandosentinel.com

or 407-420-5164.

Prepare, Recover, Repeat.

Greetings, Readers.

Well, this has probably been simultaneously the easiest hurricane I've ridden out, and yet the hardest one I will have to recover from. Or rather, the hardest one I will have to recover from until Ivan gets here.

Charley left little to no damage to the house that I live in, but my mother's house got pretty roughed up along the edges. Particularly, there's several spots in the roof that had shingles tore up and off, so there were a few leaks in the ceiling to deal with and some spots to tarp over on the roof. At work, I'd had to lose a day because the hurricane was coming through, and that was reflected very harshly on my paycheck. Also, the air conditioning was out when I came back for about two days, along with just about any other equipment required to keep anything cold. So, not only were we sweating up a storm to get things done, but we were having to clean up messes from melted ice cream and chocolate, and exploding pizza boxes. (The frozen food display freezer was actually stuck in a perpetual de-frost cycle to the point that it was actually cooking some of the frozen pizzas in there.) Also, when all the replacement product came in, it wasn't a small shipment by any measure. And the employees are the ones that have to put it up, typically on third shift. (Yeah, that means me.)

So, no sooner do we recover from that hurricane than do we have to prepare for this one. That meant getting another load of huge shipments in at work to cover for the increase there would be in sales. (Surprisingly, after Charley, the drink product we ran out of most was beer.) And it would also mean having to board/tape up the houses and make sure the tarps are extra secure on the roofs.

Fortunately, for the most part in this area, it seems that Frances was kind to most of the debris that was still left lying on the side of most neighborhood roads. However, she was not kind to the roofs on, and soil around, our houses. My mother's house (where I am writing this from currently) has more leaks in the roof than I want to count, and reports from my aunt's house (where I typically reside, which is made of wood) are that the outside walls are so saturated that most of the siding is now worthless, and some parts are even damaged to the point that insulation can be seen. As far as work goes, the power has been out since my manager checked on it Monday morning, so there's yet to be any forecast on when we'll be re-opening (or when I'll be able to start making money again). I may just end up having to fish around other stores for hours to work. Probably should have gotten a jump-start on that already, but there's other things around here to take care of before I would like to go in for any unscheduled time. Hopefully, if necessary, I can claim some of the missed hours as sick pay.

And now I'm left wondering, what's the point of all this clean-up again? I mean we're only expecting the next storm to come through in four or five days! The worst of this for me is that everything's coming just as I'd started to build some resolve to get out and find a better place to earn money from. So why go out looking when you're going to be incommunicado for so many days in the near future, and - for that matter - don't even know if the place that you'll be looking into will still be standing or operating after the next storm?

I feel like the character in a common "dumb blonde" joke:

Why do blondes take forever in the shower?
Because the shampoo directions say "Lather, rinse, repeat".

So, why is life never going to be back to normal around here?

Prepare, Recover, Repeat.

- Iszi

Another Month Gone

Been just short of 3 months ago that I started this blog now, eh? Moves quick when you're not paying as much attention as you orignally intended, I guess. This month also will mark my daughter's first birthday (the 4th) and my wife's and my first wedding anniversary (the 14th - really ought to find a freebie calendar to attach here, anyone know one?). Here's sure proof that my daughter is a born-and-bred Floridian now: She's to having her first birthday on the day of her second hurricane experience, with another hurricane still likely to come in a week or so. Not many out-of-staters could claim to that I bet.

There's a good bit of stuff I've been itching to blog about off and on lately, but couldn't get my lazy tail around to doing until now, and even now isn't the greatest time considering I've just (a few hours ago - yeah, did the day shift like an idiot) gotten off work and have a likely-to-be very long day ahead of me thanks to a "gal" named Frances.

What I would like to get out here are a couple shouts to some blogs I recently started keeping up with, some of whose authors I'm in the process of getting to know. I'll be adding these to the Links section soon, if they're not already there:

The Crazy Woman and Heart, Soul, and Humor are both written by a nice Christian lady named Debi, whom I've gotten to know a little bit through her blog and a few e-mails back and forth. This is one of the first blogs I stumbled across in the Blogger Dashboard, and albeit I'm not typically one for political discussion (sorry Debi), it's managed to keep my interest still.

Prison Pete is written by an anonymous Editor who relays the letters sent from his friend "Pete" who is currently in a medium-security Federal prison awaiting release sometime this month from punishment for an unspecified crime (the guy does have right to keep some things private) for which he possibly faces further time in a NY State prison upon release. For more specifics visit the link above, regarding the Editor, or just visit the blog link and dive right in. Pete's really an intriguing person once you get to know him a bit (through his blog). Ran into this one when it became a "Blog of Note" on Blogger, and been keeping up with it since.

Being Jennifer Garrett is written by one of the editors at Blogger. (Yep, you guessed it, Jennifer Garrett.) Basically just her little dumpzone of thoughts on whatever suits her mind at the time. I don't recall how I stumbled across this one, but it's been pretty interesting to watch and you'll find I'm even specifically mentioned in one of her posts! (Pays to "Do the Dew", eh?)

Butterfly is written by a young lady who refers to herself simply as (what else) butterfly. Ran across her comments on another user's blog I was surfing and started watching her blog probably a week ago. Whenever we get a chance to synch up online, I'll probably be helping her learn a little bit (what little I know) about this thing we love to call "blogging".

Semi_Automagic is written by an EMT/Embedded Systems Specialist who goes by the name of David. Just caught onto it while bouncing around the Blogger navbar, and (since he was online when I posted a comment to one of his entries) started chatting with him via e-mail last night. Seems like a pretty cool guy, and he linked back to me, so I'll be returning the favor here.

Anyway, that's all for now. By the way, I'm currently blogging from my mother's house using my box with some spare peripherals dragged out from a box that was lying around. Originally just brought the tower for the sake of keeping it out of a house that probably wouldn't be weathering the storm well, but then my brother said the word LAN Party and I couldn't keep it unhooked for long from there.

So, see y'allz after the storm, then!

- Iszi

In the Valley of the Green Glass Doors, there are hurricanes but no thunderstorms or tornados.