Happy blue years.

The end of the year. A time to reflect. What have I accomplished this year? Maybe I'll ask, what have you accomplished this year?
This year finds me a little wiser. I feel like I am in a better place. Last new years I found myself still searching for my identity-- trying to find it in acceptance or friends or acquaintences or strangers. It looks pathetic from here, but surely it was part of the plan. Part of what has led me here. What is leading me on.
This year I want to keep my emphasis on how well God knows me. Knows in the biblical sense... Which sounds kinda funny until you consider the words " I never knew you..." spoken to those who certianly thought they knew God. And I am told that the "know" used here is like the intimate way to descibe how a man "knows" a woman. Its like God is saying "I never had any intimate knowledge of you!" or "you are not my bride" perhaps. This will be my focus into the new year. I leave you with a verse that hit me yesterday in a way to pierce me deeply.
I Peter 1:13-16
13 Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance,
15 but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior;
16 because it is written, "YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY."

Fishing trip: Delayed

So its 5AM. Im up because i thought I was going on a early morning fishing trip. I was excited at the prospect of being on the water at 7am and perhaps catching the sun coming up. However, the trip was delayed without my knowledge so instead I will have to settle for some hardees breakfast with my dad and us two workin on the bike.

Catwoman: Girl-power has never been so heavy handed.

Catwoman might just be the worst movie that has ever been made. Don't believe me? Check Rotten Tomatoes. I mean really. This movie had and uncountably infinite set of plot holes even under the suspension of disbelief. Anyhow, I had never seen it, and hopefully you haven't either unless there was an understanding that you were going to watch the worst movie ever made perhaps for the unintentional humor. Let me sum it up for you. The movie starts out in a narrative as if cat woman will be telling you her story thoughout the movie, but no. No more naritive after the first seen where she tells you she's been killed. A woman who is sweet and submissive is killed for little to no reason and brought back to life by a cat. She then becomes super sexy (aka she begins to act sexualy assertive) which involves knowing how to play basketball (which was really just a dance routine aparently meant to creep school kids out) and dancing a dance routine at a night club with a whip. Where did she get the whip? She probably found it next to the motorcycle helmet that magically appears on her head after she steals a motorcycle. Oh yeah, she steals a lot of stuff too. Not the least of which was 90 minutes of my life that i'll never reclaim. The villian? a woman too... Whose power comes from beauty creme. (I wish i were making this up) Imagine if the writers for "the Hulk" and "Hellboy" were too expensive so instead of having a second rate writer, you hired some teenage girls to write and film a movie and then you had the writers from Maxim as your editing crew. That might be something like what produced Catwoman. So who has seen it and who wants to now?

Christmas Wishes Fulfilled!

At least the material ones. I got the bible the DVD and the darth vader toy that I asked for. I finally figured that it pays to have a short list. You can get something you want perhaps and not get a bunch of stuff you don't care for. Now i will share with you all! Click the Pic for a short video!

My Grandma

Its not everyday that you get to have a dinner alone with your 92 year old grandmother. And Oh the things that you might learn. Tonight, my other family had pre-arranged dinner plans and so I got to go have dinner with my grandmother. She is a strong woman, I will tell you that up front. I have come to find out that when my mother was 13 years old, my grandfather was shot and killed in his barber shop. The circumstances as I understand them seem mysterious, but it was ruled a suicide. My grandmother found him alive and the doctors told her that they could keep his vitals going, but he was not be able to tell them anything and he died soon thereafter. He aparently drank more than his share at times. My grandma said that he would bring home bottles of alcohol, and she would pour them down the sink. (she said she used to say that she had the cleanest drain in town) My grandmother was also previously married before my grandfather to a guy who cheated on her and so she divorced him. And actually it was her brother that made sure that she wasn't with some cheatin' guy. My grandmother seems to remember things as far back as her own childhood. She rememberd seeing her father die and feeling like she saw, or knew when his soul left the body. Now fast forward to a few years back when she moved here to Suffolk, VA. Aparently someone snuck into our house (its not hard because not all the doors were locked at the time) and went into her room and she woke up and saw this person rear back and punch her in the face! I couldn't believe it! She must have been in her late 80's at the time! And she said that as she saw the assailent, she prayed that he wouldn't hit her in the eye and she said she felt like God intervened somehow and softend the blow.
Anyways, I love my grandma and I pray that the Lord takes her peacfully when He does it. You might think- and to me it seems weird in retrospect, thought not so much at the time- that it would be wierd talking about death and stuff with my 92 year old grandmother, but it wasn't. It was facinating to find out about some of my darker family history. I would encourage you all to get over whatever qualms about death or old people that you have and go talk to your grandparents if you can. Not that you should ask them about death and depressing stuff, but just talk to them and let them talk about whatever they want to talk about. Peace everyone, and have a Merry Christmas!

Tacky

Well, Chuck said he liked this kinda stuff and I found some for him.



These were the ones that turned out the best I thought. The pictures are links to bigger versions of the picture. In other news, I am nearly done with Christmas shopping. But I will share with you my shopping adventure of today. I decided last night what gift would be excellent for a family member (because I had seen it and was talking about it) but this was when we (my friend Cory and I) were on our way home. No matter, I thought, it was a popular book (the gift idea) and I should be able to find it anywere... anywhere besides suffolk which is void of bookstores. So I will go to the closest mall (in Chesapeake). They have... 3 small bookstores in the mall. No Borders or Books a Million or Barnes and Noble, but the book stores should suffice. No. The book was all sold out there. No matter, thought I. There is a Books a Million (BAM!) just up 664... across the monitor merrimack bridge tunnel in Hampton. A 10-15 minute drive tops. They don't have it either. Well, i've no choice it seems but to go on to Patrick Henry mall- the mall I was at yesterday- (one of the furthest away malls from where I live) and get a copy of the book that I saw in the same store I saw it in the day before. This is an additional 10 minutes from BAM. I got there just in time and reached for the last remaining copy of this book( on earth aparently) * at the same time as a poor old homeless disabled person who had been saving up all year to buy this bookfor her dying child, to fulfill the wishes of her parents who died a year ago today. Then I bought the book and went home.

*asterisked sections may not have actually happened

Oil Change.

So today I changed the oil and oil filter in my car. Its probably like putting a band-aid on a dead person. So here's a question. How do you people say oil? do you say "oy-ull" or "oll" like in "toll"? I think i grew up saying the former, and have begun to say the later. I know that my friend Tim say "oll". So there's the poll question of the year... which do you say?

Anyway, Being home is kinda nice. I am begining to have theological discussions with my family which is cool. Its something that has not happend before now to my knowledge. This morning we even had a brief bible study. Its kinda neat because this seems more normal for the people at my home church in Chapel Hill, but this is new for me. I like it, and I want to have something regular like this when I have a family of my own. And I don't want to wait until my children are in their mid twenties.

I haven't taken any pictures yet, but Chuck you just wait. I saw some houses today that are just what you are looking for. I had a thought of taking my camera all around town and capturing the essence of Suffolk (something I still might do) but for right now, im not going to do a whole lot of driving around while my car is un-inspected.

In still other news, my scooter is on the mend. My dad has been slaving away at it for some time now, and just yesterday while we were looking at it together we had a breakthrough. I noticed that there was nothing coming out of the exhaust and that this was strange because when the bike worked lots of crap came out of the exhaust... not to mention it was so cold that i could see my breath... so we checked and sure enough, something was clogging the exhaust pretty substantially. When we removed it the bike actually started right up! It idled for a few seconds and then shut itself off. Theres no telling if the problems with the bike are much more numerous or what, but we are definately closer to being done. I think we are waiting for a gas valve or something to come in. either way, I am pumped to think that when i get back to school I will be back in scooter-buisness. That thing is so awesome for short commutes.
All right. thats all for now.
Merry Christmas everybody, and dont forget to say "oil".

the day off.

So today I was supposed to be going to the home of my parents ("Home" for me is Carrboro) for Christmas break.

Supposed to...

Last night I opened a letter addressed to me from the University Cashier's Office. I have gotten many such letters over the course of my UNC college career. It is typicaly beause the Physics department pays for my tuition, however they do not pay the tuition in as timely a fashion as the cashier's office would like. This letter, however, was different. This letter informed me that my registration for the spring 2006 semester had been cancelled. This was, of course, quite a shock to me.
I have come to believe that the fault lies with me and not my department. It would appear that I have a charge on my account due to student health services for some immunizations I got last summer. However, I wasn't prepared for the threats to be real this time because of all the "wolf" crying that has gone on in the past. Also, the reasons were never outlined in the letters. They all non-descriptly say "Contact the University Cashier's Office".

Im sure that this doesn't make sense to anyone else. "Why didn't you just call them?" you'll say. Well, ultimatly I did. Despite getting the letters every semester. Despite finding out that most of my colleagues got similar letters. Ultimatly I finally did call them to find out what the deal was. I suppose the other curious thing is that I don't remeber getting a bill from student health services. Anyway, Now I am still at school waiting for their lunch break to be over so that I can contact the UCO and try to get this straightend out.

I hope to take advantage of the extra time I have here.

Merry Christmas yall.

What to talk about today?

Right now I am so bored that I can't think straight. I'd love to get lunch with people, but no one is around. At least the usual people aren't around... and I'm too (something) to ask other people whom i normally don't get lunch with to get lunch.
Guess I'll go eat worms?

Dancing

So I have tried to select the best of my dance final photos to upload. I haven't finished yet, but if you click the link to the left to go to my flickr account you can see some of them.

My goodness

So this weekend I went to faifax VA to see my Good buddy Jamesey Reed. I took a panoramic photo of all of us at the table in all of our 360 degrees of glory, and lo and behold, I can bring that experience to you!
Please pay no attention to Jimmy's phantom arm/menu. I am still new at this. Also, you will want to navigate this picture by clicking and draging up/down/left/right on the screen. This is so awesome that many of you will not think that it is, but it is.

All I want for Christmas...

and I wouldn't mind a few other things I guess.

Its that time of year again.

The time of year for christmas dinosaurs. I made a bunch of christmas cookies ans this was perhaps the best one. Unfortunatly, I saved over the other pictures of cookies.
Fortunatly I have a new months worth of space on my flikr account and so I have some new photos up there. I just got some new ones today of my dance final. I may put some of those up there.

In other news, I am going out of town this weekend to see my good friend Jimmy on his birthday, and I will get to see carbom and grover too. Grover better be there anyway. He and his three babies.

Enjoy the pics!

Certainly Insert Certainty.

Certainty is: Something that is clearly established or assured; The fact, quality, or state of being certain.
At least that is what the online dictionary says it is. Certainty has special meaning for physicists. Well Uncertainty does anyway. A good scientist always knows how uncertain his results are; and his results are always uncertain. This can really mess with your philosophy of life. There is even an "uncertainty principle" which means, if it is true, (and we feel pretty certain that it is) that there is a limit to the certainty you can have on certain measurements. If your uncertainty on the measurement of the velocity of a particle is thus, then the certainty to which you can measure the position of that particle is determined.
Anyway, without getting too physics-y I am speaking of a more general certainty. A certainty which comes from the confirmation of a suspicion from some authoritative source. Like thinking you know how your mouthwash kills germs and then having someone who works for listerine tell you that in fact the alcohol in Listerine kills most of the germs.
There is a certain satisfaction that comes from knowledge gained in this way. I am apreciative of this kind of knowledge because it seems to lack the uncertainty that plauges the world of science. It gives one a sense of relief to have all of the possibilities reduced to only one. As if for a while you have no idea if reality is A, B or C, and then an Authority tells you that, of course, its A. In the science world it is often like" reality is between 1 and 2" which leaves an infinite number of possiblities. More often it becomes like" reality is between 1.000000001 and 1.000000002" - which, while still leaving an infinite number of possiblities leaves you feeling a touch more certain.
I say all this to say that I prefer the A B and C type. The type that doesn't need you to find the next digit of precision. The type where, once discoverd, gives you the reality for sure. For Certain. Even if you wanted the answer to be B, knowing for sure that it is A allows you to move on to a new question. And so I move on.