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.

My favorite part of this article:

"Brown, a former Louisiana secretary of state and state senator, was the third consecutive Louisiana insurance commission to go to federal prison."

Boggles my mind.

Maybe I'm the onl yone who finds a periodic table of rejected elements funny.

Had my first successful googlewhack today: zygotic eschatology.

Well waddayaknow? Americas favorite libertarian columnist now has his own blog. Like I don't have enough to read now already.

I want to be the first at something, so how about this: a Joel Garver pool. When do you think he'll start blogging again. We could have one guess for next new entry on his blog site, and one for next comment on a theological/philosophical discussion on someone else's blog (so obviously this one doesn't count). If people sent in money and I sent him half the proceeds, maybe the financial inducement would be too much for his silence to bear? Or maybe he'll continue holding out to see how high the total will go? Who knows what the future holds? Place your wagers NOW, while it's still hot and the best dates are still open.

This is for Scott Cunningham. All others read at your own peril.

I've got a book on my shelf by Donald N McClosky. After I was married, my wife looked at it somewhat surprisedly and said, "why do you have a book by her?" Of course I had no idea what she was talking about, and I'm sure the rest of you don't either.

This probably isn't worth blogging about, but today I had my first job working for undergrads. I have no idea haw many gals were living in this house, but they said there were four pastors daughters living there. Quite impressive, no? They were very nice to me, and someone's boyfriend came over and recognized me from church and shook my hand. For me the best part of the house was the foosball table in the living room. Wish we had one of those. Brought back a lot of those college memories. Playing foosball every day after lunch, and sometimes after dinner. The piano itself was quite flat, and I would be surprised if they came up with the money to actually get it up to standard pitch. You never know though.

Don't know that there's too mmuch to talk about lately. Our cat set his tail on fire, even after I warned him verbally about using candles in the house. Kidneys aren't really causing ny pain, though I'm a bit anxious about getting that resolved. Great church service yesterday. About once a month I think about how fortunate I am to have such a great to (not to rub it in for any of you who are struggling with your own church in some way). Our pastor preached yet again another great sermon. And our SS class on what old folk...excuse me, what the more mature in our congregation have to teach us whippersnappers was very good again.

We also had our first team meeting about our upcoming Ukraine trip. We are very fortunate to have John Hamilton, who has planned about a million of these trips, both working with us and going with us. Most likely itinerary at this point is to go to Kiev for a week of teaching English (using the bible as a text) in June, with a couple of days for sight seeing somewhere else in Europe either before or after.

We spent some time on the net yesterday pricing flights to various cities. Looks like London is the cheapest way to go, but for just a bit more we can spend a couple of days in Stockholm. It'll be a group vote, but I think we may be able to convince the rest that Sweden in June is something to see.