Tidbits

I am not sure what to post about today. So many little things have happened in the last week, which is how I came up with the title of this entry. About three weeks ago, one of my uncles offered to let me borrow an old 1989 Toyota pickup that he had just sitting around taking up space. In the words of Kelsey, it looks like I am "..driving a brown turd..". It is completely brown with a brown camper. Also, since it does not have any hubcaps, my uncle painted the wheels brown. Since I am Mexican, and therefore also brown, it gives the illusion of one turd driving another one. Other than that, the truck is great. Well, except that I have had to replace several of the parts just to keep it running. Oh yeah, and the speedometer cable is missing, so I don't know how fast I am going. Thankfully, it has a manual transmission, so I can guesstimate my speed quite well. Oh and the wipers stopped working yesterday. Also the starter solenoid needs to be replaced. Other than that, the truck is in great shape.

This past week my manager, a friend, and myself have been tearing off and installing new siding on a house for one of my clients. It has been both an interesting and frustrating experience for all three of us. I had the opportunity to witness first hand what it is like to always think you are right and everyone else is the jerk. I can understand the need to always be the one who is correct in order to elevate oneself above others, but it still saddens me when I see it in those from whom I expect so much more. What adds to this is the exasperation that I feel when I see someone act in what they deem to be a 'holy' way, look down on my music for being 'secular', and then immediately turn around and start arguing and yelling when they don't get their way right away. I truly hope that tomorrow when I go back to the project to finish it off everything goes much smoother.

Tomorrow I will add a couple of pictures of my turd vehicle. (^_^)

Shoes

I went to Academy to buy a pair of running shoes, as my Asics were at the end of their life. I don't make very much day by day, and so tend to wait to replace clothes until I absolutely have to. As I looked at the prices, which I at first thought were reasonable, I realized that, for many people, myself included, one pair of shoes was the same as a half day's worth of work, if not an entire day, for the more expensive ones.

Last week, while in class, we learned about how expensive it once was to own a pair of good sandals in the ancient near east. During the time of Amos, owning a pair of sandals was a sign of wealth, since they would have had to travel all the way to Damascus in order to obtain a custom made pair. Because of this, the poor had to make do with cheaply made foot-wear, while those in the lap of luxury were comfortable in their protected feet. I know that it seems ridiculous that we could ever reach such extremes between the upper of lower classes of people, but is that not what happens when it comes to food, another one of our basic necessities?

I wonder how long it will take before we begin to repeat ourselves yet again.

Ebay findings

I was looking at shoes on ebay on a whim and found this posting.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260692597923&_trksid=p1000005.m2000041#ht_500wt_1156

I thought the pictures of the owner slowly 'undressing' his feet to be particularly disturbing.

Weird Profile Post

Ok, so I got this comment about my profile on my other blog and it was such a ridiculous comment that I had to paste it here.

I love the bad grammar, the weird phrases, (compliments of the day to you) and how it ends with 'god bless'.

Anyways, here is the post:

HELLO
Compliments of the day to you.
I am grace by name I am single however how are you,hope you are fine I went through your profile and i read it and took intersest in it,if you don't mind i will love to know you much better , please i will like you to send me a mail on my private email (gracedesmond111@yahoo.fr) included,so that i will tell you all you needs to know about me and a picture of myself.i do believe distance and colour will not be a barear between us,hoping to read from you,thanks and God bless .a
Best Regard,
grace.

Take your son to work day.

Today was a fun day for Ezekiel and I. I had the opportunity to take him with me to work all day, which meant driving around 150 miles total for the day with him right next to me. Since my vehicle is a small Toyota pickup, he got to ride in the front in his car seat, which was a real treat, as he was able to look out the front window and point out things to me.

Here he is giving me a look and pointing at something.

Our first stop took us way down to Sugar Land, where he got to hang out with my mom while I did a roof/attic inspection. Everything was fine until I scraped off a chunk of finger off while climbing the roof.

Heading home with a new toy.

The only stressful part of today was having to do a quick exam review before my midterm on the Torah. It was absolutely nerve wracking! My mind was swirling with tidbits of information that I had memorized in anticipation of my test. Everything from verses I had memorized, to the various parts of a Suzerain/Vassal treaty, to even bits of the epic of Gilgamesh I had read for some reason. All in all, I was almost 86.3 percent sure that I would get a B at best, but then I ended up only missing one question. 

Hopefully for my final, which is over the rest of the Tanakh, I will do just as well, if not better. 

Also, hopefully tomorrow I will have something more entertaining to write about. I should, at least, since I will be heading to the 3rd ward of Houston to do a network/windows repair. I will make sure to take pictures.

Cemetery

Here are some pictures from our camping trip. One of my friends and I walked a trail and stumbled upon this old cemetery from the mid 1800's.

Danger!

My son, Ezekiel, is now 19 months old. This week, he has been quite proactive in trying to use his kiddie toilet that we bought him, which is great. So tonight, right after dinner, he decided that he needed to go to the restroom. I walked him over to the restroom and proceeded to remove his diaper. All of a sudden and without warning, I notice that he couldn't hold it in and there is this foul smelling poop oozing out of his butt.

I was horrified. Petrified. For all I knew there could have been a bomb coming out, or hot molten lava. Thankfully my wife came to the rescue with a clean diaper and baby wipes.

Fasting

My first day of fasting is drawing to a close.
I keep reminding myself that the first three days are the most difficult to try to motivate myself. The day itself went by slowly but without any trouble until an hour ago when I kept thinking of different food stuffs. At the moment my greatest worry is not that I will keep thinking about food, but that I will have a difficult time going to sleep tonight.

Hopefully the next several days will go by quickly.

Confusion

I started posting on www.nablopomo.com and decided that if I am going to blog, then I should at least have my own blog site and really dig into it.

One thing I really enjoy is when someone asks me to get something for them and then they get irritated when I can't find it, even though I have never seen said object. What follows is a real life example from just ten minutes ago:

Wife (Kelsey): Can you get me my Zofran?
Me: Sure.

I get up and look in the pantry but do not find anything even remotely labeled zofran (I'm not even sure about the spelling).

Me: Hey I don't think it's in here.
Kelsey: It's in there! I know it's in there, I just saw it the other day!

I keep looking but find nothing.

Me: Hey I don't see it?
At this point Kelsey gets increasingly agitated with my inability to find her medicine, then says, " It's just a small box............oh yeah and it doesn't say Zofran, it says some other word that I can't even remember!"

I shall now end my post with that comment.

Camping Trip 2

Night One

I just noticed that I left out the second half of what happened that first night at the camp site. After Ezekiel woke up yelling and I was able to pacify him with Blue's Clues, I had the sudden urge to go to the restroom. I think it was the combination of waking up so suddenly and the literally freezing temperature. Either way, I felt as though I were about to burst with pee and so made my way out of the tent and towards the restrooms. At least, I tried to make my way out. As soon as I tried to unzip the entrance to the tent, a bit of cloth became jammed in the zipper and locked me in.

At this point, my level of frustration escalated to the point where I cried out to God in frustration while frantically pulling at the zipper. As soon as I finished yelling the words, "Why God?! Why have you forsaken me?!!", the zipper became unstuck and I was liberated from my flimsy prison. I bolted out into the freezing night in just my shirt and my captain Morgan pajamas and ran as fast as I could to the restrooms. I ran as fast as my full bladder allowed. I think the only other time I moved faster was when my then six year old sister fell in the subway in London, the train was about to arrive, and I had to jump down to get her out. I was running so fast that if an old lady had been in front of me I would have shoved her out of the way with no regard to her safety just so I could make it in time to a toilet. I could feel my blood trying to pump into my legs to make them go faster. I was breathing in freezing ice cold air in large gulps like my life depended on it.

And I almost made it.

Camping Trip

Day One.

We have been members of the Vineyard Church of Conroe for exactly two years now. I am very thankful that we found this particular church, as it consists of a very relaxed atmosphere. This, of course, does not mean that we are not expected to mature as individuals, but there is no condemnation from any of the members or the leaders. This does mean though that almost all of the people there enjoy having a good time wherever they are.

Because of this we decided that this year we wanted to join in on the annual church-wide camping trip at Fort Parker State Park. I myself had never been camping, because when I was a kid I lived in Mexico, which was sort of like camping every day. Then when I was older I lived with my mom and stepfather, who is from Pakistan, and so tended to avoid any kind of activity that meant he would have to interact with nature. Thankfully, my wife, Kelsey, had gone camping many times with her family and knew exactly what to bring on the trip.

So we packed everything up on Friday, the 5th of November, and made the two or so hour drive north to the camp site. The drive up there was quite uneventful, and we arrived at the park just after sunset. Other than having a bit of trouble finding the camp site we were staying at, the park itself was easy to navigate around. We decided to go camping at the last possible moment and so we ended up sharing a camp site with an older couple and their grandkids. Since they were staying in their camper, it seemed like a good idea.

When we walked up to the site, there was an overabundance of food laid out on the picnic table as everyone had pooled their food together for a massive camp meal. This worked out quite nicely for us as we had no food prepared and were quite hungry by that point.

That night we set up the tent without any trouble and turned in to sleep. Everything was fine until some time around three in the morning, when we were awoken by Ezekiel (my 1 1/2 year old) screaming bloody murder. We could not figure out what was going on until I noticed that his inflatable mattress was almost completely deflated. After what seemed an eternity of yelling on his part, I was saved by the wonder of technology in the form of my droid phone. I pulled up an episode of Blue's Clues on my phone and instantly Ezekiel calmed down. Of course since it was thirty degrees in the tent, we ended up watching the same episode about thirty times before he was comfortable enough under the blankets to fall back asleep. Wearily, I let myself fall asleep along with him.