Anne. In Atlanta. Would have loved to be in THAT Sunday school on project day.

Wow. Where has Neil been? I have been out--out in Atlanta at a Youth worker conference.

Here is our trip:
We left on Tuesday, drove to Cumming, GA where Anne's parents live. It was an uneventful , nice trip. We stayed there all Wednesday and half of Thursday. We played ping-pong and had a good time. We left early Thursday to get to the hotel and get to our first sessions (8-hour special sessions broken into 2 chunks of 4 hours each). As we were merging onto the interstate, a 3 foot piece of the transmission LITERALLY fell out of a dumptruck about 3 cars ahead of me. I could not see anything because of those cars and I hit it dead center. It must of swung around, because it took a slice out of the driver front tire sidewall. The spare was a skinny 14" (same as other tires)--so we got to a tire place with no problem (with help from Anne's mom). We got to Campbell tire (which had fantastic employees and service) just in time to order the exact same tire as was sliced (one that I would not think that many places would have). After a nice lunch, we were back on the road, only an hour and a half late to the sessions. I still have to inspect the rest of the damage--the tranny debris also hit the catalytic converter and banged up the towhook. Oh yeah, the dumptruck company said to send them a fax of the cost and they would cut us a check immediately. Yay.

The sessions were really useful and very inspirational. I also learned a lot about presentation (which will be nice for school) and a ton of relationship-building stuff, which I really needed for the youth. I could go on about this, but there is too much to blog.

We had a great time. We took the camcorder and journaled it. I made a short edited video--if you are one of the 3 people who might be interested in seeing it, let me know. Yes, I took out most of the boring parts.

It was a great experience. I have been to 4 kinds of conferences, and this one was the most genuine I have seen. It had the least "fake-y corporate-y" feel, even though it had all the stage show that is expected of a 6,000 person conference. What a fun and sincere group. 6,000+ people who work with youth. It was nice to see a group that was both really inspired by God AND not afraid to use whoopie cushions. The message has freed the rust that I had allowed to form around my life. I have a new perspective on faith (as a moving journey, not a box that you put yourself into) the whole Bible (literalism is shunned--there is a lot that has changed here) and the behavior that I should expect out of youth (I no longer care about this at all). I had allowed myself to get focused on little stuff--those little things that make you anxious. I had ignored the church youth who are having problems (i.e. all of them).

We took a short trip to Anne's parents on Sunday to eat Thanksgiving food. We got in a small 4-car fender-bender "pileup," all with responsible, small Japanese cars with good bumpers. The guy who hit us broke his bumper in half, and out hood had very very SLIGHT damage. Everyone else was just fine with no damage whatsoever. Of course, there were no injuries whatsoever. We drove away after talking with everyone and after I looked over their cars. They were all cool, young, and didn't freak out. No police report. I hope we don't get a letter in the mail... It was one of those heavy traffic + rain + some idiot coming to a dead stop situations. Brakes lock, timing is bad, and the territory is unfamiliar. We got out of it well. That is all that is important.

The conference ended well, and I had a million thoughts and I cannot write them all here. It was a time to reprioritize and get real with our own lives and those around us. We are ready to do this.

To enable us to better put ourselves in the field with the youth and to allow ourselves to LIVE this as a priority, we are moving to Perrysburg. Yes, this is new news. We decided it 2 days ago and solidified it yesterday. It seems really obvious now that this is the right thing to do. Luckily our lease is month-to-month now and we have apts in P-burg all ready for us. Anyone want to help us move...?

More later...including two THREE-WHEELED cars (converted from 4) that we passed on the way home, as well as lots of other fun stuff.

Data, jobs, and links

I think Casey is hiding his head. Or wiping away sweat. I see that the last two pictures are of the same person, but I cannot decide if they are both Bob or both Brady. I guess that is a problem with covering your face for pictures.

Although I haven't finished collecting data yet, I have gotten enough data to see that the results will be interesting. I am getting an effect that I am very surprised by. It is nice to know that the experiment is so easy that people can have no problem doing it--the task is being run correctly. This is as opposed to the other experiment I am running, which subjects have trouble understanding and the results of which are going to be less clean.

I am expanding my job search to include the really really cool jobs outside of the area (and the state, but still in the eastern US). It is simply too difficult to turn down some of these extremely cool jobs. It is all coming down to the wire, though. It is necessary that I get this figured out soon (well, within a month--that is frighteningly soon to me).

TWO LINKS
By the way, publicradiofan is an awesome site.
This page links to a bunch of friends' blogs.

Bob and his beautiful hand.

I got the stupid computer burning stuff worked out. I had no idea that there was a master and slave position on an 80 lead IDE cable. Now I know. If there was ever a case for giving a user feedback, then this would be it. Why is the system made in such a way as to make the burners HALFWAY work, in a way that makes the user think that they are defective?

It was my brother's birthday yesterday, so we had a decent little time with that. And I got to see my grandma. I miss seeing her.

The big question is whether I should consider moving away from the area for some really neat job opportunities, or limit myself to the Toledo area. This is a really difficult question to answer. But the possibilities are rolling in. It is hard to think of moving, but it is also hard to turn down some of the excellent positions that exist elsewhere. I wish the good jobs around Toledo would hurry up and get back to me and give me a reason to stay here.

Anyway, we are going to church now.

Brady, saying hi. On the good side, this style of picture-taking completely eliminates the problem of red-eye...

I woke up and thought I would do the blog now because I don't know when else I will have time. I am running a lot of subjects today. Yesterday was even a fairly successful day of running subjects! This is wonderful and surprising because it was veterans' day.

I went to a Toledo webdesign meetup yesterday. It was fairly neat. There were some interesting people there and I highly encourage my geeky friends who are reading this to accompany me to the next one on Dec 9th. It was a lot of sitting around and discussing our mutual IT-related concerns. Then we were given a guided tour through a CRM suite that one of the attendees installs professionally. It was a pretty neato piece of software (it was called "goldmine"). It is a nice group, and not only is it good for social networking but it is also good practice in speaking to that paradigm. I need that practice because I am blinded by the fact that all of my friends are geeky enough to be in a completely different paradigm. It is almost like talking to a different kind of geek. I mean that in the affectionate, non-offensive sense of "geek," of course.

In other news, Anne is re-discovering the joys of crocheting. She is a madwoman--she has gone through 2 scanes in two days.

Jannelle adds to the "hiding behind stuff" theme--at Thai kitchen, I think.

I really want a new camera. A small one with a very fast shutter lag speed, so people don't have time to cover their faces. I went out to test some yesterday and I think I like the Sony W1. If it weren't for it taking stupid expensive memory sticks, (and being kind of expensive itself) it would be nearly perfect. Perhaps it is best to wait for X-mas.

Good news. I am running a ton of subjects this week, including a lot of subjects on my final dissertation experiment. I wish there were something more exciting to write about, but it is cold and dull here.

Check out THAT face. eh..heh...oh, sorry. Nate hates getting his picture taken even more than Sal does.

Today was okay. It is weird not having Anne around. She is with the Zoar HS girls at fall retreat. It sounds like they are having a really good and useful time. She left me with nothing to do. I have been wandering around aimlessly.

Sal and I did some hardcore DDRing last night, and I even worked on some advanced techniques (like proper crossovers).

I went shopping (for the first time in a long time) today. The apple orchard is in its last week, unfortunately. It is hard to top the "right off the tree" orchard fruit. Also, I put up a small page with links to people I know who have blogs. I fixed the computer (had to move IDE connections around and use an old version of the burning software). I wrote some songs. I read some stuff and went to Grounds for Thought coffeehouse. I know the staff well enough but only a few other people I know came in, so it was kind of unsocial. Then I went back to Casey's. I WAS going to go see Ben Folds tonight, but his stupid respiratory system has a stupid infection. I should sleep but I have no aim for when to sleep when Anne is not around.

Sure, Saranga. There is this picture. Does this make you happy?

Sal commented: "Don't you have any pictures of me with my mouth closed? Also it would be cool if my feet were blurry like racecar."

Man, I hate my stupid computer now. Or it hates me. It won't burn stuff well and I have no idea why. I changed too much hardware and software at once. Man, I wonder if I am experienced enough to Sarangaify my own computer.

Sarangaifcation 1. [v] the act of corrupting a computer by simply looking at it or doing something unrelated to its cause of failure (e.g. turning on the monitor and causing a harddrive to fail; moving the mouse and causing a blue screen).

DDR fundamentalism

Mmmm... DDR. I kind of have a hankering to play it. Unfortunately, Casey and Saranga are so good at it that they make me feel pathetic.

I finally finished with my dissertation experiment. I really like the way it turned out. It was my first REALLY involved Visual Basic code writing. It took me about 15 hours. But it works.

The political aftermath has left me (and all of my friends, apparently) with this awful feeling. I feel a sense of dread, as I read that Bush is going to run up our national credit card and "fulfill his mandate."

I also have been hearing a strong backlash against "fundamental," "evangelical," or "born-again" Christianity. This is a problem, because I am a Christian, but I don't support the people who these terms are supposed to represent. It is a trouble to my church as well. It really hurts.
I am stuck between the label of being in the "reality-based" movement and the label of "Christian." This stinks because they are quite compatible.
I need to start a "reality-based Christianity" movement. You know, full of compassionate, science-minded Christians who do not allow themselves to be taken advantage of by this "fundamental" or "conservative" idealism. The type who believe that Jesus was not in a Pharisee-guided, politically-minded gang. The kind who know that he cares equally and wholly for everybody. The kind who could DDR a fundamentalist's pants off.

I didn't vote for...

If everyone had seen this sign, we may have elected our first Mad president. (After all, voters ignored enough figurative "Don't vote for Bush" signs.)
Of course, the presidential election was a let-down. It was a lousy, dirty election between two non-ideal candidates and--holy cow--one of them won. I am sad that the one who won is the one who has been demonized by the world. Now, what does the world think of us? We had the opportunity to kick the demon out of office, and we CHOSE to throw him back into power.

I am really disappointed in our Ohio system. Blackwell and the slow court system REALLY screwed up and screwed over some people. I hope Blackwell's office has to pay a lot of damages to whomever did not vote but wanted to vote. I think that $10,000 per non-received absentee ballot would ensure that they get delivered next time.

If you are a politician, don't ask me to vote for you. I voted for NO ONE and NOTHING that won (I think), with the exception of the two Republicans who I think do a good job and a mental health support levy. And one gas utililty initiative that was logical to vote for. Oh yeah, and the coroner who was running uncontested (I figure that anyone who wants that job should get it!).

Overall, I am disappointed at the fact that Ohio has reinforced a one-party system--federal and state--judges, congress, and executives. Doesn't anyone think that this is a bad idea? (Of course, all "defining marriage" amendments passed, so I guess we really like bad ideas...)

Life goes on, I guess. I worry for my friends who had a lot of emotion tied to the results. Time to get on with life. Life is busy enough now without getting frustrated about this stuff...

This is from the Kerry rally last night. It was incredible how many people were willing to wait in the cold rain for 2 hours to simply listen to a speaker because the inside of the hangar was LONG PAST full, with a half mile line when it was locked by the SS. Keep in mind that all of these people never even got to see the show. They were content to sit outside and pass their cheers on from outside the hangar. Wow.

Truth be told, it was pretty lousy as a physical experience because there was a lot of waiting and we were in line from the ticket time forward without being admitted. The worthwhileness was from the social experience. They were nice people.

In the words of my non-political barber: "I don't care as much about who wins as I do about the margin being big enough for people to accept the results." I also hate the idea contested registrations and poor recounts can throw a person in or out of office...and I also hope that people remember the judges and local officers who are consistent with their political persuasion, because these positions play a bigger part in determining election outcomes than ever before.

Anne already voted (I am heading out now). She said that the 4 poor old Catholic women who are running our polling place are overwhelmed. My neighbor Tessie is one of the poll workers. I will bring them some bottled water and a cheesetray (we were given a HUGE cheese tray after Lutherfest).

Incidentally, the Toledo radio station "97.5 Da Juice" (run for/by black community) is a neat election coverage station. It gives you a different perspective. And you get to hear about all the crap problems that the urban black community has to deal with. Some of the better gimmicks are: "Republicans vote today--Democrats vote on Wednesday," "flyers stating that they cannot vote for various reasons," "Sending them to the wrong polling place," etc.

Like I said, I hope for a margin so these things will not have changed an election outcome. Tonight should be a fun time of staring at results at the Brown/Galloway residence.

Stupid political junk

We are seeing stupid politicians tonight! Kerry is doing his final stop at Toledo Express Airport tonight at 11:30.
I cannot believe we (Randy, Ruth Jannelle, Casey, Anne, and I) are actually going, but we are. It should be a silly, fun time.

Global voting is scary. It is hard to ignore, though.
This book looks to be VERY exciting, judging by its comments. I cannot wait to see how it ends (funny).
This book is the next on my political/psychological reading list.
Barney is one bad gangsta (lots of naughty language).
(links from se4n.org and memepool.com)

I hope to take some silly pictures tonight and have a good social time.
We are voting early tomorrow (assuming we get home before 2am).