I went to bed last night without setting an alarm. I think that was a really good idea–the only part of me that wants to sleep are my eyes; for once, I’m not physically tired upon awaking.

I wasn’t worried about waking up: I have south-facing windows high on a mountain. =)

Well, Rummy sez our boys are in there now. Hell, we have to be sure that we’ve had liaisons on the ground for some time.

Nam started out the same way: liaisons, bombing. Though Powell has his Doctrine, I’m not sure what it is here. To solve the problem of terrorists using Afghanistan as a home for training, a secular government that respects all groups in the country must be installed. We have to ask ourselves: are we in the business of nation-building? To be honest, I think we have to be.

If you wish to discuss this, head over to Perp.net. [I'll be honest: I meant to post this there, and I messed up and put it here. But I decided that, rather than closing it, I could leave it as cross-promotion.]

Do not judge. Do not flame. Just read. If you don’t know Noah’s story, you have to go through the link in the first line. It will probably make you squirm, but without the story, you won’t know … the rest of the story.

[And yes, Doug, I said that with the voice of Paul Harvey in my head.]

If you’re wondering why I haven’t written lately, it’s that I’m perpetually tired. Unfortunately, I’m not at the point that it’s going to get any better anytime soon. I’m dealing with some things that bother me and keep me up at night, but I have to deal with it on my own, and writing about it hasn’t helped. Oh well.

Other than that, I’m also insanely busy, too. Just all piling on at once.

The steam will eventually come off, the pressure will release … hopefully soon.

YES! Starting with next season’s tournament, College Hockey America’s champion will have a bid to the NCAA D-I hockey tournament. With UAH only graduating two players this season, I feel very good that we might see the Blue and White in the tournament next year.

Methinks I might buy tickets early, just in case … =)

Man, when I graduate from UAH, have a nice pretty job, and get ready to build myself a mean machine, I’m buying this case, or one like it, for that machine.

You know, The Exponent really is sticking itself in a dangerous spot by letting me write for them.

Personally, that’s one of the funnier pieces I think I’ve written.

Well, I’ve been busy at work today, and I got home late last night and had to drag myself from bed, so this is the first time I’ve even thought about posting here today. But hey, this is important enough to write about, so I will.

First off: that nasty storm that came through Huntsville last night? I was in it. On the Parkway. With 60 mph crosswinds. In a church van. No, that was not fun. Water was streaming over the roadway from the expansion joints in the overpasses. It was a perfect laminar boundary layer effect. I wish I’d had a camera so I could have taken photos to show Dr. Landrum. It was a geeky cool aerodynamics moment.

We took the youth group to one of those cornfield maze things last night. It stunk compared to the one we went to last year; I never even got halfway spooked, and the kids wouldn’t spook when I tried. -shrug- Oh well, it was a nice hour’s walk out in nature, which I needed after being stuck indoors all week being sick. The clues had to do with 4-H trivia; I’m scared to admit that I remember enough to have given decent answers to the questions, and I was never in 4-H. That’s what I get for growing up in East-Central Mississippi.

Before that, though, I just happened to be at church waiting for the kids when I walked by our assistant pastor’s office. Ron is, in a lot of ways, what I would aspire to be in the church if I felt like I could aspire to something and still follow God’s will: he’s pretty cool, he speaks well, the kids like him, he does crazy stuff, and he plays a mean guitar. But Ron’s Ron, and I’m me, so that won’t work, will it?

Anyway, I’d been wanting to talk to Ron for two weeks about the whole ministry thing. I’d even had an appointment with him … that he had to cancel on. We rescheduled, and then I had to cancel. It was as if we weren’t supposed to meet up, but last night, we did. He was in his office, working, but he has an open door policy. [From what he's said, his sleep pattern's about like mine, so he doesn't care.]

We got to lay some good groundwork. At this point, I just need someone to talk about it with here locally. When Paul and I get together, the subject dominates our conversation, but Paul lives over in Corinth, MS, two hours west of here. I need someone to talk about it with regularly that’s on the other side of what I’ll have to go through, and for whatever reason, Ron has been easy for me to approach.

It couldn’t be because his wife is from the same church I grew up in, could it? It’s the odd, eerie things that keep me at Aldersgate, where I have to drive 18 minutes to arrive at the door. There are four United Methodist congregations within five minutes of where I live: one further up Monte Sano [Monte Sano UMC], two downtown [First and Holmes Street], and one north of where I live [Epworth]. Yet I continue to drive to South Jesus, as Mom calls it.

There is something there for me, something that I haven’t quite found yet. I’m past worrying about being in the wrong place. I mean, I came to Huntsville for a bloody engineering degree, knowing what I knew four-plus years ago. I can’t explain it, other than to say that God uses our choices for our own good and for His plan, if we will follow.

Yes, that seems contradictory with Jeremiah 29:11, but I think I’ve discussed that elsewhere here. I’m saving that discussion for IM, whenever it goes live.

I have two words for Jason Allison upon reading that he’ll be playing for the Kings: BITE and ME.

Yech. Goodbye and good riddance, Allison.

I have to get back in the work/school groove. School is going to be pretty easy to re-acclimate myself to; I just missed Monday, really. But I missed a day and a half of work, and that’s just not cool.

The good thing is, the way school’s working out now, my Monday mornings come back to me at work now. I was having to take Monday’s to do classwork, since one of my instructors was usually a bit, ahem, slow to get us our assignments over the weekend. But now we’re in control of the class, and that deliverable is now someone else’s problem, so I can just write a short email and have my homework done on Sunday night.

Ahhhhhh, I’m blathering so I don’t have to go to work. Must … get … to … shower. There’s no guarantee that it will wake me up any more than it normally does, but at least it’s a step closer to being out the door and down the mountain …

A couple months ago, I bought myself a copy of The Natural on DVD. Now, being a baseball fan, you might think I’d seen it before. Unfortunately, today was my first viewing. I did some stuff in my room for a while, then ran out of steam. I decided to watch the story of Roy Hobbs this afternoon.

I can’t believe I’ve waited this long. This movie’s been out for 17 years. What have I been doing since I was six? =)

If you love baseball, and you’ve never seen Robert Redford play “the best that ever was”, get thee to a rentery and go find yourself a copy forthwith!

Well, I actually feel pretty good upon awakening this morning. Things seem to be returning to normal, although my chest cold from Sunday is back again. Ehhhh, such is life. At this point, it’s certainly not anything I can’t live with, but I don’t feel like I need to be around people, giving out the flu like it’s Halloween candy or something.

I hope Todd doesn’t think I’m pissed with him, hiding back here in my own little quarantine area. But Blake has already been exposed and lived, and I don’t want Todd feeling this crappy. Of course, he’s a civil servant, so who cares is he misses work, eh? =)

I think I’m going to voyage into town for some food. I need to go grocery shopping at some point today, and I really need to clean out my truck. It’s to the point that there’s room for me and little else. Gotta fix that, dangit. Dumpster time! =)

Okay, so I finally got finished reading Building Linux and OpenBSD Firewalls. I’m going to dink with my computers tomorrow and get them both going the way I want: Rufus as a Win2K box [and, eventually, I want him to be a dual-boot box, with hopes of ridding myself of Microsoft eventually], and Bocephus as an OpenBSD firewall.

I’m going to take my time with Bocephus, buttressing his RAM and adding scads of NIC’s until I can make him a real firewall for the house. Then I gotta work on a happy-dandy little computer for a Web server on the inside of the network.

I think I could dig this networking thing. Alas, I don’t have scads of time for it. But as I’m feeling better now and think I might be tomorrow as well, I will probably spend my day cursing at a CRT. How fun!

I’ll now return you to your regular Web-surfing.

I’m beginning to feel better, but I fear that I’m still virulent. I spoke with Blake [ding ding! Paging Dr. Weber!] when he came in from class, and flu is in the area. As he said, “Yeah, I actually think I had it last week, but I fought through it.” I figure I got it from him, fought the valiant fight, but gave in yesterday.

Oh well, fluids and vitamin C. My friends, my friends. Daytime TV sure as hell isn’t. Cartoon Network and CNN are my only saving graces right now, but I keep thinking through the delirium that Paula Zahn is now teamed up with either Tom or Jerry.

Foghorn Leghorn with Bill Hemmer. Why does that make me laugh so hard?

I think it’s back to bed for me. When I get up, it’s down the mountain, with great trepidation, for some Gatorade and vitamin C. I’m able to eat some, but I lose interest quickly. It’s not as if I don’t have energy stores to burn, but I might as well give myself some salt, too, in the effort to stay just a little bit hydrated.

I figure I’m staying away from TBE tomorrow in an attempt to get back in the swing by Wednesday. I could be making my way to class right now, but 1) I’d probably infect our entire design team and 2) I’d feel much worse and not want to come above water until Thursday.

I find myself staring stupidly at my CRT through the delirium, so I’m back to bed. I figure if I feel okay tomorrow, I can finish some of the projects around here I haven’t quite gotten a handle on yet.

… the name of the truck that hit me? I don’t know if this is the flu [feels forehead, can't tell if feverish], but I posted my last entry and sent a couple emails right before I climbed back in bed to feel horrid.

I woke up at 4:15. I never sleep that long without waking up at least once to check the clock.

The bitch of it all is this: I have a presentation and all due in class tomorrow. Dammit.

I think I’m either a broked down golf cart or have been hit by a perfectly good one. Either way, my symptoms lead me to think I might have influenza. At 5:15, I thought it was just a good old fashioned sinus headache, the kind of which I get once a week or so. But no, everything else hurts or does something else inappropriate.

God, I hope it’s not the flu. That would piss me the hell off. Hell, the thought of it already has. Worst is the sinus headache, medication for which I’d run out of last week. I couldn’t salve it with ibuprofen alone–I swear, I think a small colony of earthworms is in my sinuses–so I had to trudge down to the store. That trip was the longest two-mile truck drive in my life. I had to resist the urge to vomit out the window while my truck was moving.

Guh. I don’t know if any of this is making sense. If I wrote down what was in my head, the babble would scare you and me both. I think I’m going to crawl back in my hole and die now, thanks.

Midori may be expensive, but oh, she is my friend. The Broken Down Golf Cart needs her.

Happy Birthday to all you bloody people that have them this month. I can’t remember it all here in the haze of an early morning up on the mountain after a night of insanity and allergic reactions to Amy and Jeff’s catz.

And John, Welcome to Huntsville. You must come back for a return engagement, hopefully on a more permanent basis. Jobs can be found; the network is strong.

Heck, I’m being introspective, and the weekend’s not really half-over yet.

My dad will just have to deal with it; after much internal and external discussion–including a long discussion with Kat this morning on ICQ–I think I’m going to hold on to my 1995 Nissan pickup, Darlene, rather than buy a new vehicle. I can spend about $5,000 or so on the truck and get it really spiffed up, and the truck will run for about another 200,000 miles.

More money to put in the bank for the future, more money for computers. Yes, Kat, that makes me a true geek.

Okay, I have site logs. One of you reads this site from nmu.edu multiple times a day. I only know one person way out that way, and maybe it’s Heather, but maybe not. But whoever you are, would you de-lurk? -g- I just like to know who you are. =)

That goes for all of you regular-type readers. I know more people read than comment. It has to be that way. Of course, I know that many of my friends and roommates read IJSM, so they don’t need to de-lurk.

So hi, who are you? How are you?

I’m such a word geek, I play the word games at m-w.com.

“There is a prospect of a thrilling time ahead for you.”

Well, the sheer hell of last night’s hockey fury is that, on Sunday, I had no voice. [I keep thinking "today", but today's tomorrow, or today's yesterday, or something like that. Whatever. Time is an illusion; lunch doubly so.]

Anyway, my not having a voice is almost a crime. As most who know me can attest, I talk just a little bit. =) Being stuck in silence frankly sucks.

Oh well, it was worth yelling at Glassman. He deserved it for the crappy game he called. But let me tell you, trying to direct a choir without being able to speak above a whisper is about as fun as herding cats, ‘cept the cats scratch more than just your throat.

I had a friend who chose a new path the other day: to become a self-supported artist. What a daring choice: the world is fraught with those who choose such a path only to drown in a sea of debt. My friend’s case is different in many ways; but that’s not necessarily germane to the ensuing blather of thought that is running through my mind this morning. Let me conclude this thought by encouraging you to peer into the artistic mind of my friend, and perhaps even buy something. I know that one of my self-Christmas gifts will come from here.

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I must say, sipping on cognac, playing Scrabble with Aaron, Darcie, and Kathy, and listening to 311 while talking to Amy on ICQ made a nice ending to my evening.

I will pay when I arise to head to church in the morning, but it was fun nonetheless. =)

Around 11:00 a.m. or so–not really sure when, I heard Blake holler, “Geof, are you awake?” I only vaguely heard this, and my body left me completely unable to respond.

I’ve only been committed to vertical existence since, oh, fifteen or twenty minutes ago. I arose around 10:00 and was up for about thirty minutes–long enough to tame my stomach with a bit of nourishment–but I soon submitted again to the wiles of sleep.

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