Rememberances

"I'll show you what I know,
and you can tell me if you think I'm getting better on the drums
I'll leave the front unlocked 'cause I can't hear the doorbell" -They Might Be Giants

Sharon's away in Madison, WI this week at the Project NEXT conference, so it's only Asher and me at home this week. That's okay; I'm in the middle of what would normally be a really obnoxious period at work in that I need to fire something off, wait an hour, tweak it and try again, but is actually ideal for this (I can basically work "around the clock" because I don't feel any other obligations, but I can be available to watch/play with Asher about 50 minutes out of every hour.)

One of the inevitabilities of moving to a rural city is changing your cell phone plan to whatever company actually has reception there. For us this means leaving a family plan we shared with our friend Trilisa (and her family) and getting new phones of our own with Verizon Wireless. The new phones part is nice; we get bumped from sharing a probably five year old phone to a new LG Chocolate for free (yes, there's the 2yr commitment, but unless we're gonna just drop cell phones all together, we'll stick, because only Verizon has service here - yay monopolies.)

Of course, the problem is everything costs extra. USB cable? Extra. microSD card? Extra. Oh, the USB cable isn't available at that store in Grove City unless you buy the "Music Kit" (extra headphones, CD, and other stuff I don't need.) I understand the purposes of these bundles, and frankly I'm astonished that this is all I have to put up with to get them to subsidize the phone for me, but it's still a little obnoxious. It also chafes a little just because I did win a programming contest at Jump recently that would've bought me a new iPhone, but I got something else as a prize because, again, no AT&T in Grove City, only Verizon.

Enough complaining, though. We're really liking it here; the house is about 90% unpacked at this point and our cat Sonya has found her way around enough to come lay on the keyboard and mouse while I'm trying to work. It really has become home. Hopefully with the coming of home we'll have more happy stories about Asher to put up (and those promised pictures) and less of my silly ranting.

On a different note, LinkedIn's little "People You May Know" app handed me something interesting today: a couple of names associated with the Chicago Recording Company. That's the place I basically begged to try to get a unpaid internship shortly after Asher was born. There's nowhere in my LinkedIn profile that could've had that information, so I was pretty shocked. It's a period of my life associated with a bit of pain (dreams dying do that to a person) and to be reminded of it by something I can't easily explain was quite odd. (For the record, the person in question was Mark Bartels, who was my contact at CRC. Mark, should you ever stumble across this I hope things are going well there at CRC.) It reminds me, though, of a number of things I'd like to do that I'm becoming more certain I'll never get the chance to do.

Musically speaking, though, it was nice to hang out with a couple of families late last week before Sharon left. Both of the other fathers present play guitar (and help with worship at the aforementioned Fellowship Community Church) and they brought their instruments and encouraged me to bring mine, so maybe I will be able to play/contribute here. I never rationally doubted, but I did doubt irrationally, and this is definitely an answer to prayer.

As for church stuff, though, my thoughts and prayers are with our old church in Chicago which is rapidly entering a new phase under new leadership: our good friend Joe Lam. Joe, God bless you, brother, and know that we pray God will bless that church under your hand for his glory; we have no doubt in His ability to lead or your ability to follow.

Oh, and why the quote? I'm gonna try to get the drums set up while Sharon is gone so she's surprised when she gets back — tee hee.

Zen and the Art of Dremel Usage

"Rich is on the radio
and I think we ought to take it slow
Arizona's caught me by surprise" -Andrew Peterson

This is one of those blog posts where I whine about having no proverbial shoes, even though I know there are people with no proverbial feet (or actual feet, too, which is even worse.) Sorry.

Some of my time this week has been spent trying to fix up our home theater here. This involved mounting a TV on a fireplace (super hard brick, sore muscles, and one dull masonry drill bit) and running ethernet cable through a wall (from basement to 1st floor, not too bad). But now we have to actually cut into the built-in bookshelves on either side of the fireplace to run cables. I've poked and prodded and drilled and sweated and broken a Dremel bit trying to cut the holes, but I think I've finally gotten the cabling done to the TV.

The strange thing about the Dremel is that you have to be really patient. It spins at 10,000 RPM (or something like that) so it can cut almost anything if you have the right tool, but it cuts by grinding, which means it has to grind away the entire part you want to cut. If you push (like you do with a saw) you just end up pulling the bit out and have to start over (or, if you really crank the bit in so it doesn't pull out, you end up breaking it because things aren't really meant to bend when they're spinning at 10,000 RPM.)

Also, it's probably the messiest tool ever designed by man (since you're grinding away the wood, super fine wood dust goes everywhere) so I've been getting wood dust all in my hair and stuff, which makes you itch, which makes you want to hurry, which is the wrong thing to do when you're trying to Dremel.

(Note to self: Look up if it is correct to use Dremel as a verb.)

Asher had his first playdate here in Grove City today, which is good news. It was with nice people we met at Fellowship Community Church. That leads into the visiting churches discussion (it's very frustrating to visit churches when you really want to knit yourself into a community because they only meet once a week, and you don't want to start going to "all the other stuff" because you don't want to give people the idea that you're committing to their ministry when you're still looking around) which I guess I'll save for another blog entry.

To end on a high note, though (and make sense of the above quote, which comes from a song Sharon and I heard on the radio - fittingly, as it turns out - while driving up to the Poconos to see her sister) God is continuing to surprise me by Grove City. There's a lot of turmoil and angst that goes along with moving, but there's a quiet, surprising divine grace that God pours through this place in its beauty and slowness and kind people. It feels good to find ourselves becoming family in a new place; to realize again the weight of glory that lies hidden behind the thousands upon thousands of tiny distractions we let overwhelm our earthly senses when we've stayed in one place so long we are no longer surprised.

Grove City, PA and all of thee above

"I'm walking on a tight rope (dare you die)
without a net suspended below me to
catch me, if i may fall.
acrobats, they run across
they're doing flips / wave off the cost.
man, they look so grand.
they're lifting me across this abyss by the
grip of one hand." -Seven Head Division

Well, we're officially here, having already spent one weekend in the new house and already visited one church (Fellowship Community Church, if you want to know), but what really makes it feel like home are telemarketers.

Already today I've gotten three (yes, three) telemarketer calls to a brand new phone number that we've barely given out. How do they do it? They aren't just cold calling; all three have known our new address (411 Shady Drive, as Sharon has already posted) and both our names. I only have one explanation:

Our blog is the most popular web stop for people in the telemarketing industry.

So, welcome to our new readers. Hope you enjoy the visit.

One of the things I needed to do in preparation for moving was to sort through old accounts for things, and I finally got my rice alumni email forwarding fixed. Turns out many people have been asking to be my friend on Facebook, a site I created an account on when it was all the rage and then promptly forgot about. For all of you who might happen here (now that I've accepted your friend invitations): I'm sorry. Although, I bet, you're not terribly surprised.

We promise pictures of the new house soon, but right now they'd be difficult to take, since there aren't too many spaces with more than five feet between boxes. Man we have a lot of stuff. Probably too much.