Ugh, yet more freezing rain. I wish that global warming thing would hurry. I've been too cold here. Maybe I can trick some environmentalists somehow into paying my enormous gas bill.

Tell me if this has happened to you. I got a couple of cards and letters in the mail from a company which had arranged to publish a class directory for my high school class. They wanted me to call and confirm my info. Knowing full well that they would want to try to sell me a copy, I still called them to mke sure my info was correct. Plus I might want to buy one, if the price wasn't too unreasonable. Say $20-$25. So I called them up. They already had most of my info, apart from my email. The they offered to sell me a copy, either hard bound or on CD for the low low price of just eighty bucks. When I balked on that, they said there was a special where I could get both the book and the CD for just $140. No? How about the soft cover version for $70? I have a feeling that no one in my class will be rich enough to ever see my info.

More lawsuit news. I like this one. It seems that Ohio State wanted (for once) to side with University of Michigan in it's pro-affirmative action stance, but was unable to file a brief because the state AG refused to file on their behalf. Since OSU is a public institution, all legal briefs must go through the AG's office. See story if you like.

Recovering from my lithotripsy yesterday. If you don't know what that is, don't ask. I'm doing well though. Just takes a while for the sedatives to run out of my system. Discovered that Alamance Regional is a VERY nice hospital. Everyone there treated me very well. The building looked brand spanking new. Looked a bit like SouthPoint Mall, actually. The only weird thing for me is that my urologist wants me to be inverted for a few hours a day now, which is to say my hips need to be higher than my head. Not quite sure how that will work. (I'm not even making this up.)

In response to Mark's comment below, I've put up the first quarter of my reading list on an Amazon list. The last six are ones in my stack which I haven't read yet, but in the interest of efficiency I thought I'd put them up now. If you have a title to submit to my quest, something you think I absolutely HAVE to read before the year's up, feel free to let me know. I always like recommendations anyhow.

We are having, officially, the most miserable winter weather I can remember. Right now it's raining ice from the sky. I knew we didn't want to attempt to drive to church this morning (more on that later), so I thought we would walk to a local church. We could see by looking out the window that the Weslesyan church was closed, as they are right accross the street. I thought it would be nice to try Mebane Presbyterian. We started walking the 8 blocks at about 10:40 , noticing that it was not only icy, but there was quite a wind blowing. On the way, we noticed the United Methodist church was closed, but continued on. Seeing no cars at the presby church, we decided to trek home. Although my wife has many wonderful skills, walking fast is not one of them, so it was about 11:25 by the time we got back home. I felt very much like a popsicle, which is to sy I would feel damp if i wasn't already frozen. The radio announcers have now been saying to stay off the freeway in our town, the one we would have driven on to go to our church, as it is littered with accidents and is down to one (out of four) lane.

I think I hadn't mentioned it here, but instead of having a New Year's resolution this year, I decided on a New Year's quest. My quest is to finish 100 books this year. So far I'm slightly ahead of schedule. I certainly have a lot of books I've been meaning to get to.

God needs your feedback.

Favorite roadsign:

I always notice a sign when we go through (ugh) Toledo. It says--

CATHOLIC WAR
VETERANS OF THE
USA HIGHWAY


This always leads me to ask myself a. when was the Catholic War, b. who fought in it, and c. how many of them were killed by the highway?

Sheesh, I've been working a lot lately. Kinda nice, but I'm tired now. Also it seems like half of my work is driving aroung in my car all over our beautiful state. Headed out to Goldsboro tomorrow, which is WAY far from here, as the kids would say.

I suppose it's just me, but I question the way we handle tragedies as a society. Everyone knows about the space shuttle disaster yesterday which killed seven astronauts. It was mentioned twice in our service this morning. But on the scale of almost 300 million people in this country, seven deaths doesn't seem like much. Certainly it means much to the coworkers, friends and families of those people, but when all is said and done, there will probably be more deaths, not to mention the dozens of injuries, from the plant explosion in Kinston, NC. Kinston is certainly much closer to our church than any NASA facility, yet it didn't get mentioned. I'm just puzzled, much as I was puzzled by those in our country who were quite shaken by the death of Princess Diana. Of course it's news and is worth mentioning and discussing, but really, what impact does this have on our lives?

Sorry to be so cold about this.

So if you haven't seen THE TWO TOWERS yet, no need to fret. It's all nicely summarized for us by our friend dave.