Strange Weather

I always thought Nevada was too mountainous for the threat of tornados to be taken seriously. Evidently, the National Weather Service disagrees.

"THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN RENO HAS ISSUED A* TORNADO WARNING FOR SOUTH CENTRAL CHURCHILL COUNTY IN WEST CENTRAL NEVADA...

EXTREME EAST CENTRAL LYON COUNTY IN WESTERN NEVADA... NORTHWESTERN MINERAL COUNTY IN WESTERN NEVADA...

* UNTIL 315 PM PDT* AT 238 PM PDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A TORNADO NEAR US 95 AT MINERAL-LYON CO LINE...OR 32 MILES SOUTH OF FALLON...

MOVING NORTHEAST AT 13 MPH.* THE TORNADO WILL BE NEAR... US 95 AT MINERAL-LYON CO LINE BY 305 PM PDT...

US 95 AT LYON-CHURCHILL CO LINE BY 315 PM PDT...THE STRONGEST ROTATION WAS LOCATED JUST NORTH OF SCHURZ AT 238 PM PDT. IN ADDITION TO THE TORNADO...

THIS STORM IS CAPABLE OF PRODUCING QUARTER SIZE HAIL AND DESTRUCTIVE STRAIGHT LINE WINDS. TRAVELERS ON US 95 ARE IN THE DIRECT PATH OF THIS STORM.THE SAFEST PLACE TO BE DURING A TORNADO IS IN A BASEMENT. GET UNDER A WORKBENCH OR OTHER PIECE OF STURDY FURNITURE. IF NO BASEMENT IS AVAILABLE..

.SEEK SHELTER ON THE LOWEST FLOOR OF THE BUILDING IN AN INTERIOR HALLWAY OR ROOM SUCH AS A CLOSET. USE BLANKETS OR PILLOWS TO COVER YOUR BODY AND ALWAYS STAY AWAY FROM WINDOWS.IF IN MOBILE HOMES OR VEHICLES...

EVACUATE THEM AND GET INSIDE A SUBSTANTIAL SHELTER. IF NO SHELTER IS AVAILABLE...

LIE FLAT IN THE NEAREST DITCH OR OTHER LOW SPOT AND COVER YOUR HEAD WITH YOUR HANDS. "

Remaining Balance

$0.00

(though I'll still have to pay off the interest for the current period when it gets applied)

On a lighter note

I pre-ordered the Lord of the Rings Online game (Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar). It's a MMO (Massively Multiplayer online) game, based around the Lord of the Rings. The advance screenshots are beautiful, and one of the great thigns to do in these games is, say, climb to the summit of Weathertop and watch the sun set. Or sit in the Prancing Pony and discuss life over a pint of ale. All the playable characters are the good guys - Men, Elves, Hobbits and Dwarves. And the game is heavily influenced by Tolkien geeks.

Best of all, if in the Beta (pre-release final trials - like a free demo) I decide that I really like the game, I can pay a one-time subscription fee and avoid the recurring monthly charges that are the true profit centers for such games. It ammounts to a 14-month advance subscription, but I am a casual enough player that it is the monthly drain that keeps me from such games - I tried the Star Wars game, but didn't play it enough each month to feel like it was worth it. But there are times I still think it would be fun to log on, hop over to Endor, and go sight-seeing.

One of those mornings

After going to bed hours earlier than normal last night to try and get up on time this morning, I overslept again.

As I was tying my shoe in the car before going in to work, my shoelace snapped.

Sometimes you get the feeling it's just going to be one of those days.

Random Thoughts

I'm now the Keybearer for Coram Deo. I feel like the ringbearer from Lord of the Rings, except that I want to hold it up, burst forth with my best evil laugh, and say "SUCKERS!" Not that the key to a plastics warehouse means much. I'd just get a kick out of it.

Basketball loss + Irish Car Bomb on empty stomach + hot french bread pizza with an unusual quantity of pepperoni = 2nd degree burns on my lip. I took a bite, some of the toppong stuck and pulled free from the pizza, landing right on the front of my lip. I spent the next 4 hours holding Otter Pops (still in package, of course) to the affected area. I fell asleep with two across my face to keep the burn cool.

The moon looked cool last night. I always enjoy a thin crescent. Bet you didn't bother to look. That makes it more cool - the feeling that I'm enjoying something most people are too busy to notice. I feel that way about watching the clouds as I lie in my car during lunch at work.

Hillary Clinton is running for president. Am I the only one who thinks that the run-up is starting so ridiculously early that some people will show up at their polling place this November and wonder why no one is letting them vote?

PBS-HD is beautiful. I watched a documentary last night about the relationship between the Fig Wasp and Fig Trees. I wished I hadn't missed the first half. But watching the worms crawl out of the egg-laying wasp as it was dying was stomach-turning. There was a big part of the story I was missing.

Look-Alike

I have now been compared to two celebrities that I can recall. Fred Savage, from his stint on The Wonder Years, and John Mayer. The latter, at least, according to my aunt (if I had no beard - though I was told repeatedly it looks handsome).

'Tis the Season

The trees behind the store across the street from my office window are hard to see through the blowing snow. The first snowflakes of the season caused drivers to creep along the roads well below typical speeds, and even the posted speed limit. And of course, the refrain "Congratulations, its the holidays and you're single" repeats endlessly in my head. It's the holiday season, which means snow (good) and the battalion of unpleasant memories I've managed to forge over the years with various women during this season (bad).

On the other hand, Dawson's daughter Macy started to cry when I tried to leave church last night, and told her to wait with her brother Noah (knowing that if I rushed home, I could catch the new episode of the Simpsons). I'm not sure a girl's ever cried on account of me leaving before (even if she is too young to talk), so I picked her up and held her until her parents were ready to go. She promptly cheered up, and put her head on my chest. We even sang a song in the parking lot, though "Do do do" will never win a Grammy for lyrical or musical creativity.

I suppose the lesson is to be thankful, and to appreciate things around you more than you mourn the things which are not around you.

Things To See In My Lifetime

And it happens right in my backyard. I can't believe I was thinking of going up to the Black Rock around this time and didn't...

Now I have to wait for next year. But it's worth the wait to see amateur rockets blasting into space.

The Wonderful World of Nasal Photography

Subtitle: Dave, the Amazing Aluminum Eater

I'm a fidgeter. I tend to tap my feet, twirl a pen, or in other ways move about pretty constantly. Last night, at the dinner we share at Coram Deo before beginning the church service, I was toying with the pull-tab on my can of Hansen's Fruit Juice when it broke off and fell into the can. "No worries," thought I. "It's metal, and will sink. I will be careful not to chug the whole can." I continued eating and conversing, and took a drink without thinking.

"That's strange. Soda isn't supposed to have lumps," I thought after I swallowed. I looked in the can. No more pull tab. It felt lodged in my throat, not blocking any airway, or even preventing eating. I ate some bread, hoping to cushion the metal's passage through my system.

The feeling never went away of the metal being stuck in my throat, and I slept little last night. Still feeling it in the morning, I called a Nurse Hotline with a local hospital to see if removing this would be an Urgent Care or Emergency Room procedure.

ER it is. I called my sister, off work from teaching this week, and asked for a ride. Two and a half hours and 4 x-rays later, the word came back: no tab was visible in my chest/throat, but an appointment was made for a specialist to take a look at my throat and make sure there was no serious damage and verify the x-ray.

"I'm Stacey Hudson (possibly Huston, I already forget). I know when you heard Stacey you were expecting a girl," the doctor said as he entered. He was very congenial, and explained what was going on as he did it. First came the nose spray, that didn't quite numb the nose and throat enough to prevent feeling the camera. Second came the revelation that I have a broken nose - an explanation of nosebleeds in a single nostril, the sinus infection I did not know I had, and the snoring that I didn;t always have. Third came the confirmation - no more metal in the throat, it must be happily winding it's way through my guts (or having already wound its way through).

So home I went, wondering when I could have busted my sniffer, surprised to learn I was sick, and with a prescription to make it better. I'd reccomend the doctor if anyone has ear, nose or throat issues. He explained everything as it went, made the process of having what seemed like a mile-long probe inserted through my nose as pleasant as such things can be, and left me feeling confident that I was to heal just fine.

More Confirmation of my Prowess

What's today's front page story in the local paper? "Some politicos think fuel prices are going down to help get certain candidates elected."

I can hardly believe this is even a story. But it is the result of a single line of thought I had when I first made my prediction: "Now that gas prices are coming down, how can people possibly think oil companies are setting the price and gouging customers? Are they suddenly less greedy? Well, I suppose one could argue that they started bringing gas prices down to help Republicans in the midterm elections."

Life Veers

Not Veers like the General who led the Imperial assaul on Hoth, but with the "suddenly twists and changes" denotation.

It's safe to say that the past year has been different from what I expected it to be. I'm not happy with the way everything's gone, but through it all I see myself growing and maybe even catching a glimpse of what might be called patience.

I left a church I had been at since I was a little, little boy - not because of any disagreements I had with the people or leadership there, but because I had felt for a while like it just wasn't the place for me to be and because upon attaining resolution (though not the sort I had hoped for) of my affections for a girl, that vague sense catalyzed into a certainty that the time had come for me to move on.

I cast my lot with a church that was/is just forming, led by a guy I had no real personal connection to, attended by people that are mostly strangers to me. There isn't a regularly-attending single girl in the group within a decade of my own age, but I am strangely at peace with that.

In fact, while I still have profound regrets about the way things have gone with a couple girls in particular over the last couple years - I don't find myself feeling almost desperate to hook up with someone. I threw all my eggs in a basket with no bottom, and at the very least have accepted a time to settle down, get refocused on what matters, and go from there.

I have gotten some advice from a friend about matters involving the fairer sex, and I appreciate them and hope he doesn't think I disregard it simply because I am slow to respond. I'm just in no great hurry (which is unusual beyond my ability to describe it). I don't know that I'd say I'm content just the way I am, but I am more at peace with being alone than I have been since I can remember. (The agreeable distraction of collegiate athletics may have something to do with this, too...)

I haven't any good idea why I have been on the path I have. The trials I am still coming through served to rip me apart and lay me out before God - naked, alone, without pretense. I was taken to the point of dumping my faith, but did not. Perhaps the rebuilding of me since then will be more firm than I was before. Perhaps one day I will be able to stand behind someone feeling utterly alone, and sympathize with them in the core of my being. Perhaps it was simply the experience of deeply-held falsehoods being torn out.

I know better the things that matter to me. Staying up late on Saturday night to watch SNL with my roommate when he gets off work matters to me. I don't want to let the routine of church push out my real life connection with men who know nothing of God but what they see in me. I don't want to allow speculation and hope for relationships become important enough that the fear of losing it prevents action in life. I don't want to say I'm great when I'm not.

I've got a serious decision to make. I want to be honest with myself in making it. I'd appreciate your prayers as I consider it. Because I also don't want "I'll pray about it" to be a phrase I use to say "I'll tell you later," but rather "I want to consult with Almighty God and see if this jives with his plan for me."

My Predictive Powers Confirmed

Oil prices are going down to try and manipulate the results of the November elections. This is the theory I expected somebody to put forward as the elections approached. Granted, most people that espose this theory are marginalized, but a story about it has finally popped up in a mainstream news story.

I'm so good, I scare myself.