He Laughs

Campus pictures!

2010-04-26T15:14:00.000-04:00

So, I'm sure that everyone, at least those who have been reading this blog for a while, remembers the pictures that I put up a while back showing all the snow that was ubiquitous on campus. Well, I decided that I should get some more campus pictures up, ones that show what the place looks like without a universal white blanket. I'll be doing this kind of like a virtual tour of campus.

For starters, this is the main gate to get onto campus. This is pretty new... and very nice.

Here's Alexander Hall, the dining hall. Food ain't too bad. :P

Recently, several signs like these were put up around campus. I like how, if you zoom in, you can read the entire map to see what is where. If you really want to, you can actually use this to figure out where we are around campus. :D

Just slightly down from that sign. This area is right between the dining hall and Old Main.

This is Old Main from one angle. There will be more pictures later.

Walking down towards the dorms, we pass the library. Another picture of this later on.

College Hill RP Church, which is basically on the campus. It's a really great-looking building, both inside and out.

Memorial Hall. This is actually the dorm I'll be in next year. I'll be on the third floor... not sure if you can see the window or not. Haven't figured that out yet. :D

This is the lawn in front of McKee Hall, one of the women's dorms. I play frisbee right in here quite a bit.

Recently, someone (seriously, they don't know who) put up a rope swing in the middle of campus. This picture just turned out really well. The two people in it both really liked it.

Another view of McCartney Library. Right now, I'm actually in the wing off to the right side, the part that you can see in the picture.

This is Old Main, or at least part of it.

Another angle of Old Main.

This is the front of Old Main. This is actually kind of what you would see if you went to it after going through the main gate.

I had to crop this to get it right... but I really like the way it turned out.

This is the G, across the river from campus.

So I know... this picture is not the best for its construction, but I had to show something to illustrate where the G is. This is just a little bit down from the main gate.

And lastly, this is Barbato House. It's across the street from the main gate, and it's also where I tend to hang out a lot. Great people. Great house. :D

An Update

2010-04-22T01:05:00.000-04:00

Wow. The semester has really sped up. So has my schedule. There's a reason I haven't posted lately. A lot of it is that I've been busy. A lot has been that there hasn't been a ton to post about. However, it was really past time to update, so here ya go.

Since the last post, I had spring break, Easter break, and plenty of schoolwork. I've survived a weeklong game of Humans vs. Zombies on campus, made it through multiple tests, speeches, and projects, applied for jobs; recovered from an infected toenail, and most likely a lot of other stuff. :P

So, what I'm sure you might actually be interested in would be some pictures. Here ya go.

This is at Buttermilk Falls, about 3 miles north of Beaver Falls.

Me in the ravine.

More of the ravine. Yeah, I crossed over it there. :D

I gotta experiment with some different settings on my camera. :D

So here's a group of people that I went up to the G with. I'll get some pictures around campus in the next few days, so I can illustrate where the G is. Just so ya know, it's on the ridge on the other side of the Beaver River. It's just a big G. :P

Campus!

My dorm is the yellowish-like one on the right with a flat roof. The one where I'll be next semester is in the middle of the picture.

On the G. No idea why Jake is flashing "gang" signs.

This is what the G looks like up there. Seriously, it's a lot better from down below.

Me! :D

Switching gears entirely. This is at the Genevans' spring concert. The Genevans is the name for the choir here at Geneva. Hopefully, next year, I'll be in the Genevans.

Another concert picture. This is the jazz band playing "Winter Wonderland". Best one is the trumpet player with the jester hat. Some of you may recognize him.

The jazz band dressed normally.

Couple random pictures. I like how the hood is duct taped. :D

This is a doodle of a Bible and Humanities professor here at Geneva. He just got a tonsure... it's pretty amazing.

As requested

2010-03-02T01:04:00.000-05:00

Ode to an Airplane

I really liked how I was able to put it together to sound so simple, yet so meaningful. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Also with the full credit that I got for it. :D Now, I'm going to bed. Good night. Well, morning.

So that was an insane couple of weeks

2010-02-27T23:47:00.000-05:00

So the week before this one was crazy busy. I had four tests, two papers, and a love poem. The poem, in case anyone's curious, was a class assignment, and I wrote it to an airplane. I can even put it up here if anyone's interested.

Other than schoolwork, I haven't been up to a ton. I got to go to a few basketball games, including the regional semi-final (Geneva won). I've been trying to keep in shape by climbing a bit on the bouldering wall here on campus (pictures down below). There really has not been a ton going on other than that. Well, schoolwork too.

Here's me on part of the bouldering wall.

A friend of mine, Logan, negotiating another part of it.

Will working on this part. Although this particular wall leans forward, many of the holds are tiny, making it every bit as difficult as the other parts.

Kyle going up, and just about to swing around and transition to the wall behind him.

Will and Kyle looking at it. This part is very demanding - since it tilts back, most of your body weight is on your arms, making it very hard to stay on it very long.

Might as well show some pictures from one of the basketball games.

Nothing really to comment on.

The action is on the other side of the court now... I kind of wish I could come up with something useful to say about the picture.

I gotta admit I like this picture - if you zoom in, you can see the ball in the air. :D

So it wasn't just one snow day

2010-02-12T10:49:00.000-05:00

We had no classes from 3:30 Tuesday afternoon to night classes Thursday. Lots of free time. *Lots.* It gave me plenty of opportunity to relax, sleep in (until 11), play games, play in the snow, help dig out cars and sidewalks, and even get some schoolwork done.

Thankfully, we didn't get a ton more snow. It was around 6 inches on top of the 20-something we already had, so it was a big, but at least it wasn't another 20. I was talking with a man working with Physical Plant (the people that, among other things, handle snow removal), and he said they were running out of places to put it. I don't doubt it in the slightest - there are about a half dozen really massive snow piles around campus, with the biggest one being about 20 feet tall... maybe more. One nice thing with the snow was that Student Activities sponsored a building competition to see what people would come up with. Each dorm was supposed to get a team together and spend 2 hours building, and at the end, the dorm that won would get 15 free pizzas. Don't know who won, but it wasn't my dorm. :D I'll get some pictures of that stuff up before long.

Well, I have several blisters on my hands from having fun over the last several days. I spend 2 hours this week on the bouldering wall in the Pisgah office here at Geneva. Basically, bouldering is like a rock climbing wall, only you go horizontally, not vertically. You start on one part of the wall, and just work your way around. By "go horizontally" I'm meaning the direction you travel, not the orientation of your body. :D I'm planning on doing around 2 hours a week for a while, since I need to do something for working out. It seems to be pretty good for that. I'll make sure to get some pictures of that too. :D

So, the downside of having the break was that the work's been pushed over a little bit. After looking at my schedule for next week, I realized that I have a Bible test on Monday, a Communications test on Tuesday, a Business Communications test on Wednesday, and a Quantitative Analysis test on Thursday. I would appreciate a bit of prayer that I would do well and stay sane. Both are kind of important to me. :P

I have a humanities paper I need to write, so I'll get going. I'll hopefully update before too long with some more pictures.

More snow?

2010-02-09T15:05:00.000-05:00

Looks like we're gonna get hammered pretty hard. We've gotten at least an inch in the last 45 minutes, and the school has canceled all classes tomorrow. Guess I'll have more time to study for that Bible exam. I'll make sure to get some more pictures of the new snow. :D

Campus pictures from the snow

2010-02-08T12:32:00.001-05:00

So, this morning, after finishing up my three classes, including a test that I think went very well, I decided to go around campus with my camera and see if I could get some good shots of some of the buildings. Since some of my readers haven't been here before and those who have might not have seen how nice the campus looks with the amazing blanket of snow, I decided to post some of the pictures I took.

Part of Old Main, the oldest and mainest building on campus. Go figure, huh?

Northwood Hall. This is where most of my business classes are. It's named after Northwood, Ohio, which is where Geneva started. It's also about 3 miles from my house. :)

Another view of Old Main from a different side of the building.

The clock in roughly the middle of campus, with McKee Hall, a women's dorm, in the background.

The McCartney Library. Really nice-looking building. I spend a bit of time studying in there.

Ferncliffe House. This building is mostly used for offices.

Pearce Hall. Home sweet home for me - it's the freshman men's dorm.

Looking across the Beaver River valley to the hills on the other side.

This is looking down to the rugby field, at the snow mound I had pictures about before. I found out - the actual term for a snow structure like this is a "quinzee."

So, that's it for the snow for now. We're supposed to get several more inches in the next few days - assuming that happens, I'll definitely get some more pictures and put them up. Hope you enjoyed the virtual campus tour!

Video from yesterday

2010-02-07T23:49:00.003-05:00

This might work... for some reason, Blogger won't let me do their videos.

Edit: Got it working. Seems that Blogger automatically changed me over to the new editor, which doesn't support adding videos. The old one does. It maketh no sense. :P

SNOW SNOW SNOW!!!!!

2010-02-07T22:55:00.000-05:00

We got something around 20 inches... it's been amazing. Most of campus was out playing yesterday, except for those that had to clean it all off. I was outside for something like 5 or 6 hours, sledding, (attempting) snowball fighting, and taking pictures. Here are a few.

The main sledding hill.

Part of campus. You can see the partial tube we had gotten put in after many sled trips. :D

Looking up at the hill we were using.

Why she was snowboarding in shorts, I still don't understand.

After the sledding was over, I went back inside and studied for a while. Then, Jake called me to ask if I could come down to the rugby field to see something...

Down at the rugby field.

They made a snow mound! This thing is around 5 feet tall, about 12-14 feet long, and maybe 10 feet wide. It's pretty amazing.

Looking out from inside.

And here are the creators...

Another guy inside, to give some perspective.

And everyone inside. It looks this way mainly because of how warm it was in there - it was, I'm guessing, mid-40's in there. Compared to mid-20's outside. :D

Just as the other group was leaving, another group of people that I know were sledding down the hill to the rugby field. They loved the mound, so I took their picture inside.

That's it for now. Hopefully I'll be able to figure out how to use Blogger's video service (hint hint, anyone that does...) and I can put up a couple videos of people sledding.

So what do I do when I'm bored?

2010-01-29T19:58:00.000-05:00

Well, for one thing, I can sometimes head down to the first floor..

Here's the hallway... let's go into one of the rooms.

Hey! It's Jake, Logan, David, Josh, and Daniel! What're they up to?

SUPER SMASH BROTHERS!!!!!!

Scott's clearly thrilled. :D

Panda comes in - I think he's tired.

Logan didn't win...

Finally - the game's over. Jake won. So, this is one thing I can do for just having fun.. :D

A forgotten entity

2010-01-26T23:31:00.001-05:00

So, it's now the third week of classes for my second semester. Last post was the fourth week for my first semester. There's been a LOT of stuff going on since then.

I finished up last semester quite strong. Through the Lord helping me, I managed to get some excellent grades, something that made me pretty happy. I got through a couple of classes that were, at times, very challenging to me. Thankfully, I managed to maintain my sanity too.

Christmas break was pretty amazing. I got to spend a lot of time with various friends and family, unwind, relax, and read whatever I wanted to. I really enjoyed it. The best part was being at Belle Center for church. Even though I've plugged in very well with Eastvale RPC here at school, it still isn't home for me.

So, what am I up to now? Besides "Sweet Home Alabama" having just come onto Pandora, I just finished up reading Chapter 4 of Business and Professional Communication, a textbook for one of my 5 classes + 1 book discussion this semester. I have Business Communications, Communications (standard.. yeah, it helps having them both at the same time), Quantitative Analysis, Bible (New Testament), and Humanities. The book discussion is "The Jesus Way" by Eugene Peterson. I still haven't entirely formed an opinion on this book, but I know it's going to make me think, which is really why I decided to take the discussion. The classes are going well - there's a bit less of a workload than I was expecting. However, I have 8:00 classes three days a week, and that's been interesting getting used to.

The biggest thing that happened to me lately was being able to go to a conference in Indiana over Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend. It pretty much shook me to the core... it was just incredibly convicting. James Faris, the speaker, challenged the attendees to forsake the sins of their youth. I realized how much I still have to work on some these particular ones, and how much I really need Christ and others to help me with them, and not just go at them on my own. So, I'm now getting together with a couple close friends, Will and Jake, once a week to be spending time in mutual encouragement and prayer. We do meet more than once a week normally, but we have one time every week where we specifically set aside an hour or two to devotions and such. We also decided to start going on memorizing the Shorter Catechism. By the way, in case anyone wants to hear the talks, here they are.

In closing, one thing that I got for Christmas was a camera. As a result, I'll hopefully be able to start taking interesting pictures of things going on. For a taste, here's a few...

This is my new cousin, Moriah. My uncle and aunt adopted her... she is SUCH a sweetie! :)

These are Jake and Will. Great pic of them. :D They were both at TFY with me this summer.

This was at the conference.. everyone that was there that had been at TFY.

A picture I took last night. I need to get better at night pictures... I took about 15, and this was the only one that turned out nicely.

Lastly... I shaved my head last night. :D

OK, so I'm embarrassed

2009-09-24T12:33:00.006-04:00

I think I kind of forgot about the blog. I need to apologize to you, my faithful readers, and you, my readers that occasionally look and have seen this post for the last 3 weeks.

So, for starters, I mentioned in my last post about a Geneva football game. They won. :D

It's the fourth week of classes. I've had 3 different exams so far in 3 different classes. I know I did very well on one of them, but since one was about an hour and a half ago, and the other was yesterday, I don't know how I did. I'm guessing I did fine, but of course I don't know for certain.

I'm really having fun in most of the classes. They're intriguing. I don't necessarily agree with everything my professors say, or everything written in the textbooks, but whatever I hear/read, it makes me think. Think critically. Think carefully. I'm enjoying it. Too bad I couldn't just go to class and not have homework... :D

Oh well. The homework isn't bad. I've had a bit of writing, which is something I've never enjoyed. However, I'm getting better as I practice more. At least I have lots of opportunities for practice. :P

The food here isn't bad at all. A lot of the time, I eat at this place on campus called the Brig, mainly because their subs are stupendous. I get pretty much the same thing every time, and a couple of the workers are already able to make my sub mostly from memory. :D

Dorm life is certainly different than living at home. It's taken a bit of time to get used to, but I think I'm mostly adjusted by now. It's certainly great to have the sense of community that I do with the other guys on my floor. It gets a little "wild" at times, but oh well. Nothing bad, just wild. :P

A couple Saturdays ago, I went with a couple friends up to the G. Basically, this is a big white G on the ridgeline on the other side of the Beaver River from campus. We had to walk over, then walk up the hill. It was a more serious undertaking than we had thought... it took something like 3 hours total to do all of it. However, it was a great time. While up at the G, we got to see a bald eagle and what we think was its nest. That was incredible. After coming back down, we hit Pizza Joe's for supper, mainly because we got back late enough that the dining hall was closed, and since the Brig ain't open on the weekend, we had to eat somewhere. :P

The other two guys that climbed up with me. This is what the G consists of.

Campus from across the river.

Last weekend, my parents and brother came out for a few days. Rose Point RP church, where my mom grew up going to church at, celebrated their 175th anniversary, so we were there for that. It was a great time - getting to see lots of family and friends, celebrating the blessing of God over the lifetime of a faithful congregation, and getting a couple of really interesting pictures.

I know it's blurry, but I wanted to post this. :D

This is in a ravine behind the Rose Point church building. It's a gorgeous spot. Wish I had a better camera to do it justice. :P

Sunset from my Grandpa's house. I wish I had some way of getting the tree in there without the wires, but oh well. Still a great shot.

I think that's it about me. I do have a request for prayer, though. My grandmother is currently having some major health problems. She broke her neck on Tuesday, and is apparently having some heart problems too. So, if you see this, please be praying for her. I will remember to post an update on this. If I don't, send me an email, call me, or somehow let me know I need to do it. :P

Seeya later!

SDG

Things have gone so fast

2009-09-05T16:16:00.003-04:00

I can't believe that the first week of classes is already over. Things have gone so fast... wow.

Not really anything exciting going on. Later this evening, I'm meeting up with a bunch of friends and going to Geneva's opening football game here on campus. That should be fun.

Classes are going well. There's a bit of homework, but not too much. I'm keeping busy. :P

I'm really building up some good friends here. That was one thing I was concerned about, but thankfully it's not being much of a problem. My roommate (Josiah) and I are continuing to get along very well, which is always nice. The food isn't terrible... actually I enjoy it most of the time. There are lots of options here on campus, which makes things much better.

I think that's about it for now. I really can't come up with a ton more to post about. Seeya later!

The first two full days of college orientation

2009-08-27T22:41:00.004-04:00

This has really gone fast. So, I'm posting from my dorm room at Geneva. I'm really starting to feel like I fit in here. In fact, on the bus back from a trip to a huge park this evening, I remarked to the girl next to me, "Well, we're in Beaver Falls. About back home now." Didn't even think about that until a couple minutes later. That's most likely a good sign. :)

Yesterday morning wasn't pleasant. I woke up and wasn't feeling good... and a few minutes later ended up throwing up. After that I felt better, but I had slept badly, so I was tired all day. However, this morning, the schedule was a bit nicer, so I slept in until about 9. I didn't feel the best this morning, but it wasn't quite so bad. Mom and Dad are thinking that maybe I have some allergy problems, so I got some Triaminic today... hopefully that's going to help.

Another great thing here at school is that I'm really getting to know a bunch of people. My roommate and I are getting along great. My L&T (Learning and Transition) group is great. It's just fun walking to the other side of campus, and on the way there stopping to talk a few times with people I know. Fun times.

Last night, the entire freshman class went down to Pittsburgh for the evening. After wandering around for a while, and hanging out some at Station Square (really neat place - go there if you get the chance), we went on a boat cruise up both rivers. That was really fun in a lot of ways, especially getting the chance to check out the city at night. Milling around talking with people and meeting them was nice too. :)

Not really sure what else to put up here now. I played Ultimate Frisbee for about 2 hours straight this evening, so I really need to get a shower, and then most likely hit the sack. I'll try to keep updating. Seeya!

Interesting past couple of days...

2009-08-20T21:15:00.001-04:00

So yesterday was very interesting. All of us went down to Cincinnati for the day to take Grandmother to a doctor's appointment. We were there for quite a while, mainly because of visiting with some more family in the area. As well, the trip back home took longer since we stopped at a Bob Evan's for supper and the food took forever. However, the delays were definitely good. Since we were delayed, we were able to pull off at a rest stop along I-75 just below Piqua. We pulled over since my phone had gotten a text alert from the Weather Channel that Logan County was under a tornado warning. That always makes the adrenal glands work harder.

Turns out there weren't any tornadoes. We did get to see at least one wall cloud, with maybe another weaker one. The definite one was very well-formed. Quite an interesting sight... thankfully not a dangerous one for anyone. There was a lot of wind, rain, and hail though. The northern part of Logan County here didn't get so much as the southern part, but there was still plenty of rain. We got about 1.3 inches, which was great - we really needed it. The lightning also was really spectacular, especially since it was night before we got home finally.

The other big thing was that today was my driver's license test. I passed. :) I almost didn't on the maneuvering part of the test, but did try over again and the examiner passed me that time. The driving part was quite easy, and I did a good job on it. So, I have the license. The only problem is that the new licenses are... pink. Blargh. Oh well. :P

So, that's it for now. Tomorrow and Saturday are going to involve a lot of packing. This coming Lord's day is my last full day at home until I leave for college... wow, that's hard to believe.

Only 12 more days at home...

2009-08-12T23:19:00.003-04:00

Yep. By August 24, I will have left for school. This summer has gone by unbelievably fast. Sigh.

So, I went on a campout this last Monday and Tuesday. Our scout troop went to a local horse place, called Marmon Valley Farm. I was one of two guys belaying on the climbing wall for about 1 and a half hours. Since neither one of us was getting paid, both of us got to climb as well. That was lots of fun. After that, we hit a challenge course for a little while, before heading back to camp and then heading on home. However, the best part of the campout wasn't the climbing. It wasn't the challenge course. It wasn't even the pizza that a couple of the other guys and I ordered for supper on Monday evening (yeah, we ordered pizza on a scout campout). The best part had to be the 45 minutes spent on devotions Monday night.

During that time, we first started by concentrating on 1 Corinthians 16:13. "Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong." Basically, this breaks down into 4 parts very easily. Hopefully you've figured that much out already. We spent about 20 minutes thinking about this, mainly applications for it. Then, the man running the devotions asked Matt and me if we had anything to add. We ended up taking it the rest of the time. It was a great time. We were able to give some (I believe) good advice to the younger guys there. I know I said it already, but it really was great.

So, that was the campout. Except for one thing. We played ultimate frisbee on Monday night. 2 games. They were GREAT. It was tons of fun. Then, Tuesday night, I played again. That was at a going away party for one of my best friends, Andrew. He's leaving for California this next Monday, going to The Master's College. I'm going to Geneva, in Pennsylvania. Really far apart. The party was great - got to meet some more of Andrew's other friends, got to play ultimate, got to help out with a great bonfire, and got to talk a ton with lots of people. Just... it was a bummer to have to say goodbye to Andrew.

I guess that's it for now. Seeya later!

2009-08-07T23:17:00.002-04:00

Why I don't like cats...

2009-08-03T00:28:00.001-04:00

I really wanted to post this video. It's incredibly moving. It's also what I believe God has for me someday. The chance to save others' lives, even, if necessary, at the cost of my own.

What has been going on the last month...

2009-08-01T22:49:00.003-04:00

So, what have I been up to for the last month and few days since the last post? Well, the answer will be the rest of this post. Sit down, buckle up, maybe grab a cup of coffee, cause this is gonna be one long post.

Well, in my last post, I said that I was sick but maybe feeling a little better, and was going to be going to TFY the following Monday. Well, I left for TFY. I was feeling a little better for a little while. Then, things started going downhill. There was a cold and a GI bug floating around in the middle of everyone, and unfortunately I managed to get both of them. As well, whatever I had been sick with was still going on a bit, and also the antibiotics I was on were giving me some side effects. Put all these together, and I was one miserable guy. Despite that, however, I was having a great time when able to participate. Normally I couldn't do anything in the mornings, since I was having to sleep something like 10+ hours a day to keep moving any. I'd kind of struggle downstairs (4 stories of stairs) for lunch, and then not go back upstairs until bedtime. However, in the meantime, I was often able to make it to classes and such. So, that was how I lived until Friday.

On Friday, I went up, with 4 other kids from the group, to Rose Point PA. We were to stay there until a week from the next Monday. That night, I actually stayed with my Uncle Bob and Aunt Patty, since I wasn't in any shape really to be participating with the rest of the group. So, I stayed there until mid-afternoon the next day, at which time I rejoined the group. I was starting to feel better, or so I thought. The next couple days went downhill again, and I ended up having to go home on Monday. It half killed me (well, not literally, but you know what I mean) to have to leave those other 4 kids. Will and Scott and I had bonded together so quickly, to the point that we were insulting each other right and left, half-attacking each other, and otherwise being generally disagreeable the entire time, and absolutely LOVING it. :D I obviously wasn't behaving that way to Kim and Melanie, but we were still having fun together a lot too.

So, it was a huge disappointment to have to leave on Monday, but my parents and I thought it was the best thing to do. So, that Tuesday, I went to the doctor. He talked with me for 10 minutes or so during/after the exam, to try and maybe narrow down what this could be. I then had a couple of tubes of blood drawn, mostly to eliminate a bunch of things, including cancer. (By the way, the nurse half eliminated my arm too. When she pulled out the needle, her hand twitched. It hurt a ton) That (cancer) was eliminated. So were most of the other things, including mono, which is what the doctor thought was possibly what had knocked me out so bad. However, he also said that the test gives a bunch of false negatives, and, based on the symptoms, he's thinking that's what I've had. No idea if that is indeed the case, but we'll see.

Whatever happened, I'm actually mostly over it now. But more on that later. Since the time that I came home from TFY, I've been doing lots of stuff. Among other things, the weekend after coming home, I went back to PA with the rest of my family. A cousin of mine got married that Saturday. So, we went out for the wedding. It was a great chance to see some of Mom's side of the family that we don't get to see too often. Uncle Jack and Aunt Carol live in Baton Rouge, LA, and her daughter Liz, her husband Shawn, and their two kids live in Kansas... so, yeah, we don't get to see them terribly often. It was nice getting to. I also was able to hang out with Kim, Melanie, Scott, and Will again. That was great. Spent a lot of the Lord's Day talking with them. :) It was great.

So, since that weekend, what have I been up to? Well, besides recovering, I've mowed, practiced driving stuff, flown, and done lots of other things.

Mowing is pretty much the same. Thankfully, we've started having enough rain to keep the grass growing nicely. So, we haven't had any week yet without income from mowing. Had a few where we only mowed a couple or three yards, but still. :P Now, we're back to doing most all of them every week as usual. One mower's in the shop right now, since the self-propelled control cable snapped. A while back, the cable had snapped at one end, so I got some cable clamps and tightened it up. However, that didn't hold long, since that wasn't what it was designed for, so it happened again. Eventually, we ran out of cable. That's why it's in the shop.

As far as the driving, there hasn't been much of anything unusual except today. I did end spending about a half hour with Dad practicing for the Maneuverability test for the driver's license exam. Basically... well, it would be easier to show than explain. Lemme find a picture.

So there ya go. That's what I was doing. Each of the course markers is 20' away from each other on the sides of the box, and the distance between them on the ends is 9'. The "point" is 20' from the side of the box. So, yeah. I was doing that. I also washed the car and put Windex on all the glass surfaces. :D

As far as flying, I've done it twice since I came back. One time was just local and having some fun. A man right outside town finished restoring a 1943 aircraft, and he has his own grass strip out back of his house. So, I decided to buzz him. :D I didn't go too low, and was still legal the entire time. It was definitely fun though. :D

The other time was when I went north and took Mortons flying. The entire trip was incredibly fun. It would have been better if the runway hadn't had workers alongside it most of the time (delaying my arrival by at least 1 hour), and if the mixture control wire hadn't readjusted itself (delaying my departure by at least 1 hour.) Oh well. Small price to pay. It was great. The only thing that I wasn't expecting was having some amazing screams from the seat next to me at a couple different points (you know who you are.. :D both of you). So, that's that for flying.

As for lots of other things, well, I've been doing lots of other things. There's no way I could remember all of them. I can tell you that today, I walked to the post office and library; mowed a yard; washed a car and did some driving maneuvering stuff; ate a powdered sugar donut, a bunch of peanut butter and cheese crackers, saltines with cheddar cheese, a hot dog, some taco salad, ham slices, corn on the cob, rice-a-roni; played around on the computer, taken a shower, talked with friends on instant messenger, poked around on Facebook a little, and written a blog post. So, that's today. However, I'm sure I missed some things. Oh well. I could post something like that every day... or not. I'm hoping to get back into a posting habit again, especially before I leave for college. I'm leaving on the 25th of August. Seeya!

Way too long since a post

2009-06-27T21:18:00.002-04:00

Since the last post, I've been doing plenty of various stuff for church, flying, mowing, scouts, etc.

I'll tackle the flying part first. The checkride was scheduled for one day, but the examiner had to cancel, so it was rescheduled for later in the week. As of a week ago, I'm now a Multiengine-rated pilot, both private and instrument. The checkride itself went well overall, except for some muscle memories that I had formed that nearly had me bust the checkride. During training, we had often shut the engine off in-flight, relatively near the ground. However, on a checkride, if you actually turn off the engine anywhere less than 3000 feet above the ground, it's an automatic bust. Thankfully, the examiner spotted what I was doing and rather quickly let me know, in no uncertain terms, I wasn't allowed to do that. :D After I explained why I was going to do it, he was OK with it. Otherwise, everything went well.

As far as church goes, most of last week was spent at our Covfamikoi family conference. Basically, it's our presbytery conference. We were at the conference Monday through Friday. It was an incredible blessing in many ways. I learned so much about the Lord and about His church. The main speaker was Anthony Selvaggio. All of his talks were on various aspects of Proverbs. The lectures were challenging, in a good way. The fellowship with other believers was also really great. I ended up being in the college group, instead of the high school group. That, in itself, took a bit of adjusting to. Oh well.

Unfortunately, I've not been doing too much with Scouts. I've been doing other things. So, as a result, for the first time since 2004, I'm not going to Scout summer camp. That's a big bummer.

However, the reason I'm not going is a great one. I'll be in Pittsburgh, at our denomination's seminary, for a program called TFY - Theological Foundations for Youth. The plan is to be leaving early Monday morning by Greyhound. Hopefully, it will work out. The only potential problem is that I woke up this morning with some pretty good aches and pains, and also a strong headache. During the day, the aches and pains went away, the headache stayed, and a fever hopped on board. Right now, I'm not feeling too bad, but I don't know if it will stay that way. I need to simply trust the One who gave me this disease, whatever it is, and the One who can take it away. Please be praying that whatever I have will get shaken! Thanks!

Another day, another post, another improvement

2009-06-10T15:43:00.006-04:00

That plane is getting easier for me to fly. Today, with my 2-hour flight, I nailed it. Steve said I did really well. :)

Here it is, on the ground, with the canopy open.

Semi-side view.

Up the nose. :D

Wingtip view.

3/4 shot.

Here's the instrument panel. Relatively similar to the Star. Not complex at all, once you get used to it.

I'll leave you with this shot. This is with the engine intentionally shut off. If you look carefully, you can see the airport in the background. :D

Another quick post

2009-06-09T22:06:00.003-04:00

The training went much better today. The biggest thing was that I figured out a better position for the rudder pedals, which means a better angle for my legs, which means NO CRAMPING!!! :D

Also, I had the feel for the plane a lot better. I also knew what I was messing up on yesterday, and was able to consciously work on those problems. So, all in all, a good day for training.

I have one more intense day of training tomorrow, then some on Saturday. The plan is for the checkride/oral exam to take place on Monday. No written exam (ya!).

Edit: Here's a picture of 198TS, the plane I'm flying. Might get more pictures tomorrow. The picture's with my phone, so it's not the best. Oh well. :P

Quick notes... two of them

2009-06-08T21:48:00.003-04:00

The first one is that I started my multi training today. It went well, other than one thing. Steve, my instructor, warned me that the plane would require a lot more rudder input than anything I'd ever flown before. He wasn't kidding. For background information for anyone that might not know, the legs/feet are used to control the rudder. My right leg was cramping and even buckled a little bit at one point afterwards. After a while, it went back to being good again, but... yeah, I'd appreciate prayer that I'd figure out the ideal way to be using the rudder to get max performance and max comfort. :)

The other thing is that I got a new phone. (Thanks, Uncle Charlie!) If anyone's wanting the number, email me, get ahold of me on Facebook, or call my home phone number. If you can't do any of those, leave a comment, and I'll get it to you. I just don't wanna put it up on the blog for anyone and anybot to see. :D

Hopefully, I'll be able to use the phone camera to get some pictures of the plane that I'm flying tomorrow. We'll see. Seeya later!

So, it seems that I had forgotten to post for a while.

2009-06-07T22:25:00.003-04:00

Since the last time I'd posted, I've been working a lot on getting my computer back to a functional form again. It looks like I've been able to mostly. Thankfully.

There really hasn't been a lot going on lately. I've biked once (hoping to make it more before long), mowed a lot of yards, or rather quite a few several times over, and done some more driving practice. Hopefully, I'll be getting my license soon.

The two big things lately are both having to do with aviation. One was last night, at our Scout Council Awards dinner. The dinner itself was at a new museum in the county just south of us. While there, I got to sit in the cockpit of a DC-3, which was really neat. However, even better, I was then able to get in the cockpit of a Eurocopter Dauphin, which is a helicopter used by Miami Valley Hospital for their Careflight division. That was tons of fun. Also, at the dinner, I received the award of Tecumseh Council's Youth of the Year, which included a $100 savings bond. Not too bad. :P

I'm pretty excited about what I'm going to be starting tomorrow. Bright and early, I'm heading in to the airport and starting my multi-engine training. I'll be training in a Diamond Twin Star, serial #2. :D I'm really looking forward to the plane and the training. However, most all of my time this week will be taken up with the training. Monday-Wednesday will take up just under 30 hours spent at the airport. Then, we're leaving for Pennsylvania on Thursday, staying at Grandpa's house. Friday is the Preview Day for Geneva (including a few tests, I believe :( ), then we head home that night. I have a little bit of time on Saturday scheduled at the airport as well. Then, the plan is for me to take the multi checkride Monday morning, and then leave that afternoon and get back the following Friday. That time is at Covfamikoi, our presbytery family conference. So... I'm busy.

Hope to be able to update quickly a few times during the next few days, just to let anyone that reads it know how the training is going.

Edit: By the way, I really should include a picture of the Twin Star. Check out this for a picture of the aircraft itself (not the same one, but close enough.) Also, here's a semi-good picture of the cockpit.

Computer is back...

2009-05-22T18:25:00.001-04:00

But the data is not. Somehow, the hard drive fragged itself to the point that no data was recoverable. Thankfully, a bunch of my pictures and such are still on the desktop, but I still lost a lot of stuff. Also thankfully, the computer shop gave me a bit of a discount on the work, so I didn't end up paying as much as I thought I would.

Right now, next to me, I have sitting a small external hard drive. I'm going to do backups from now on...

Not the greatest news

2009-05-13T18:02:00.002-04:00

I was going to be putting up a normal post today, but it didn't work out. My computer has temporarily but effectively given up the ghost. Thankfully, the warranty was still in effect, or I'd be buying a brand-new hard drive out of pocket. Hopefully, the computer will be back up early next week. :)

My interactive post is over

2009-05-04T22:42:00.002-04:00

But if you wish to comment on it, you still may. Hey, if you wanna comment anywhere, do so. :D

Well, since last post, I've mowed yards, gotten sick, gotten better (mostly), gone to some friends' house for a movie and fighting on their trampoline ( :D ), gone to church twice, and been stung by a bee. There really hasn't been anything much exciting going on.

Tonight was the weekly meeting for my venture crew. Venturing is a program put on by BSA (Boy Scouts of America) for older kids (14-20) who would be interested in higher adventure. Unlike Boy Scout troops, Venture crews are co-ed. We have about 10 dedicated members right now, a few potentials, and a few people that come sometimes, and sometimes not. I'm not in any official leadership role, but I am unofficially assisting the Advisor, whose position is analogous to the Scoutmaster for a Boy Scout troop.

Tonight's meeting was the first that we've done according to an actual agenda... yay! :D Since we only formally started about a month and a half ago, things aren't totally fallen into place yet, but they're getting closer. We discussed the calendar for the crew, addressed a couple issues, and played this really challenging mind game. Not exactly high adventure yet, but we'll get there. :P

There really isn't a ton that's coming to mind to post about. So, with that, I'll get going. Bye!

An interactive post...

2009-04-24T10:40:00.003-04:00

Just this morning, Mom and I were discussing pop-tarts. Mainly, we were discussing disgusting ideas for pop-tarts. Such as tuna, or banana and mayonnaise. Anyone else have any ideas for what would make a horrible pop-tart? Leave your ideas in a comment... :D

I am sometimes greatly impressed with what people will do for fame...

2009-04-21T22:31:00.003-04:00

I'm not always favorably impressed. Check out this video, for example.

Well, the campout went quite well. The food was scrumptious (thanks, Sean!), the weather was perfect, and the company was excellent. I enjoy being in a Christian scout troop so much. Compared to what it could be, it's great. There was only one problem. The wood for the great campfire we made was... green. We didn't notice. Unfortunately, we also didn't quite have enough of little stuff in there, so that combination means the main campfire we made for the program with the entire camporee there... well, it flamed up spectacularly (partly thanks to the cordite we used :D) for a few minutes, then dyed back to smoking like crazy. It was particularly well-suited for sending smoke signals, had we so desired. We didn't desire. Oh well.

The checkride, as I mentioned in my previous post, went well. Thankfully, the oral exam was much easier than I had expected. I had been cramming like crazy for it. However, most of the stuff she (the examiner) asked me was a lot easier than the questions I had been covering. So, that was a blessing. Since she was satisfied with the knowledge I had, we went to the flying portion. That went well, other than two things. One was that she was having me do some rather complicated maneuvering with some of my main instruments failed, and I didn't level off at the correct altitude. The other was that Toledo Approach cleared us for the wrong instrument approach into the wrong airport, confusing us with another plane. Other than those two things, the flying portion went really well. I even greased the landing back at Bluffton. :D She was pretty happy with it, and so was I.

Well, that's about all of significance that happened lately, other than drowning a lot last night. :P My scout troop had a meeting at the local YMCA's swimming pool, where, among other things, some of the younger guys got some basic water rescue requirements done. They had to have someone for a "victim." The older guys volunteered. The younger guys started up a chant when I was being dragged back in: "Save the helpless Eagle Scout!" After that, I pretended to be in a slightly bad mood. :D They didn't buy it. Oh well.

Since I'm about to leave on a campout...

2009-04-17T16:43:00.000-04:00

I'll make this quick. Did want to let everyone know I'm happy because I'm now an FAA licensed Private Pilot with an Instrument Rating. :D

It did go really well. I'll update more tomorrow evening or the next day, depending on how tired I am. Thanks to all for praying and one for commenting. :)

Just a quick one.

2009-04-16T21:40:00.002-04:00

Having completed the planning for a cross-country trip to Rockford, IL, I've been taking a small break. The flight plan is not going to be flown tomorrow, since its main purpose is to simply verify that I know how to properly plan a flight. I have to study a little more tonight, maybe pack a little for a campout tomorrow, get a shower, finish getting ready for tomorrow... I think I'm going to stop this post now and get back to work. I'm getting up pretty early to get to the airport in time to be up at Bluffton, OH, by 9 AM for my checkride and oral exam. Please, if you see this, be praying that things will go well!

I'll keep my Bible, my money, and my guns. You keep the change.

2009-04-15T21:40:00.006-04:00

Having gone to the TEA Party in Columbus this evening, I managed to get a bunch of pictures of good signs. So, without further ado, here are some pictures.

This wasn't actually my sign. There was a woman going around with lots of signs, handing them out to anyone that wanted one. This was the best. :D

This is all four of us. The one that you might not recognize is my Aunt Sarah, Dad's next youngest sibling. That's about it for this post!

I really need to find a program that writes witty blog post titles.

2009-04-14T22:41:00.002-04:00

So, since I'm attempting to create a new trend for this blog and post more than 3 times per year... I'm going to post again. *gasp* :D

Not a ton has been going on since Friday. I've gone to a friend's house for a few hours, watching Flywheel (See this if you can. The acting isn't the best... but the movie itself is great), had a fairly routine day at church, gone to a Cub Scout meeting, a Venture Crew meeting, a Scout Troop meeting, and, finally, written a huge run-on sentence.

One thing of note did occur at church. Since I'm the one that normally handles the main recording stuff at church (sitting at the sound booth, running the sound system, running my laptop recording, etc.) I don't get to sit with anyone but the sound booth. However, the problem is that I'm going to college in around 4 months (!!!!!) and when I'm gone, I won't be coming back every week to handle the sound. However, thankfully, a couple young men have volunteered to assist, so I'll be instructing/teaching/assisting for a little while, and, then, hopefully turning it over to them.

Since there really isn't anything else going on, I'm going to sign out for now. I'm going to be taking my Instrument Rating checkride on Friday, and that includes both the flight portion and an oral exam from the lady doing the checkride. So, I have plenty of studying still to do for that. However, the study shouldn't have to be quite so intense as that for the written. Thanks to all who prayed for the written test, and please be praying for the oral/practical test. :D

Update

2009-04-10T17:35:00.003-04:00

I passed. I am exhausted, however. :D

I took something like 1 hour and 20 minutes on the test itself. Before the test I spent a while doing some review with my instructor. Then, he said I was ready, so I started. There were a few questions I knew I missed, and a couple that I'm not sure about. The end result was an 83%. I was expecting better, but, on the other hand, Steve (my instructor) was pretty happy with the result. So, I'm not too upset. :)

We ended up flying as well. We an approach into Dayton International, one into Dayton-Wright Brothers (south of town), and then back into Bellefontaine. During that time, we had some flight in IMC- Instrument Meteorological Conditions. In other words, more time flying in clouds. Was plenty of fun.

Right now, I only have to fly for 1.7 more hours. My checkride's scheduled for next Friday.

Since I've now updated all of you, I'm going to go get a couple hot dogs for supper. :)

A quick update

2009-04-09T18:38:00.003-04:00

Went in to the airport for a 4-hour ground session with my instructor today. Also found out I'm going to be having a very full day tomorrow. The plan is to go in at 8, ground work with Steve (my instructor) until 11. Then, at 11, I'm going to be taking the written test for the Instrument rating. Basically, this is a 60-question test that I have 2.5 hours for. However, I'm only planning on taking a maximum of 2 hours, since I'm flying at 1 until 3. So, a very full day. If anyone sees this before tomorrow, I would really appreciate prayer that everything would go well. :)

Well, I should put up a non-test post...

2009-04-08T09:52:00.001-04:00

So I will. There won't be a ton of time for an update, but I will be doing some.

Aviation has been taking up most of my life recently. I'm working on finishing up my Instrument Rating, which effectively allows me to fly in clouds/reduced visibility. Since having this rating would really make my flying a lot more useful for transportation, I'm looking forward to getting it. I'm also looking forward to getting done simply because the large amounts of study can be over. :D

Since I'm hopefully going to be taking the written test this week, I've been studying a ton for it. I recently bought a book that has approximately 400 pages of FAA test questions. It's interesting to go through it. Hopefully, it's also useful.

In the last month, I've learned a ton about flying. Working with an experienced pilot as my instructor is great, simply because he has so much time working in the system. I'm able to learn so much from him. About two weeks ago, for example, I got my first experience flying in IMC, instrument meteorological conditions. Otherwise, in this case, known as clouds. It was so much fun! Unfortunately, we were only able to stay in them about a half hour, since we started picking up a light amount of ice. When that starts happening, you really need to skedaddle outa there. Ice buildup can increase your drag and decrease your lift faster than you might think possible. The amount of ice we were picking up would have taken quite a while to do that, but, still, discretion is the better part of valor.

So, since that's it for the aviation, lemme bring you up to speed with Scouts. Not sure if I've mentioned this on my blog or not, but, since I turned 18 in January, I've been continuing to be active, right now with three different units. I'm officially an Assistant Cubmaster with Cub Scout Pack 51 here in Belle Center. Really enjoying it, too. I'm unofficially functioning like an Assistant Scoutmaster for my troop, but not officially. I am a registered Merit Badge counselor for a few things, though.

The new big thing with Scouts is that I've signed up with a new unit here in Logan County. I've joined what's called a Venture Crew. Basically, Venturing is a program for a little bit older youth, put on by BSA, designed to give teens a safe and fun environment to make new friends while trying out new outdoor adventures. It's for young men and young women ages 14-20. Since I'm leaving for college in August, I'm not going to be able to be active for long. However, since I have a lot of experience with Scouts in general, I joined up to be able to help get the crew started. So far, it's been plenty of fun, especially our first trip. It consisted of a 12-mile bike trip along a designated bike trail. Other than others being a little bit slower than I normally ride (14-16 MPH) it was great fun. The slowness didn't really bother me, but I teased a few people about it anyway. They teased back about something else, so we were even. :D

About the only other big exciting thing that happened recently is that I've been accepted to go this summer to a program called TFY. It stands for Theological Foundations for Youth. Basically, it's a 19-day program put on by our denomination at our seminary in Pittsburgh. During this program, everyone who goes will learn massive amounts about systematic theology, apologetics, evangelism, church history, etc. Effectively, it's a mini crash course in seminary. :D I'm looking forward to it a ton.

I believe that's about it for now. I'll do my best to remember to update more often. Instead of letting that be an empty promise/threat (however you want to take it), I'll attempt to fulfill it this time.

Testing Post

2009-03-30T15:58:00.001-04:00

I’m sorry for no posts for such a long period of time. Most of that time has been spent working on flying or accounting. Right now I’m taking a quick try at a new program that should help with making the posting take less time. I decided to try out Windows Live Writer, which means I can do all the formatting and everything like that on here, and when I’m done, it simply loads everything up. We’ll see. Let’s put up some random picture.

OK. Hope that worked. I hope to put up a little more substantial post later on. Until then, e-ya later!

Job 1:21

2009-03-01T23:46:00.001-05:00

I will put up more as a post in the next few days, since I've had several people asking me to. However, in the meantime, I really want you to see a video I just saw. A good friend sent it to me. Notice the title of the post here...

A Post

2009-01-31T22:51:00.006-05:00

For starters, the Mortons tagged me in a posting game. You have to go to your pictures folder, 5th file, 5th picture, blog about it, and tag 5 more people. The only problem with that is that I don't really have 5 friends that actively blog... I'll do the best I can. :D

This is the small flower garden by our front porch. I took this in early April 2007. That day was something along the lines of 75 degrees. 24 hours later, the temperature was around 35. The flowers were nice until then. Oh well. :)

The five people I will tag... Nathaniel, Josh, Sean, Milkdud (who probably won't do it anytime soon :P), and *drum roll* Mortons. Backtagging isn't against the rules! :D

Well, of late, I've been doing a good bit. Schoolwork has been taking a bit of my time. I recently finished the second chapter of the second college course. So far, this course has been a little more challenging than the last one, which isn't surprising. However, thankfully, I've been able to keep up with the work. The grades are staying quite satisfactory. :)

I've started a weekly job here in town. I'm cleaning the local barber shop every Thursday. I dust, clean the bathroom, sweep, and mop. It isn't too difficult and provides a little bit of income. :)

We had a lot of snow lately. Early this week, Mom and Dad and I went out to Pennsylvania to pick up Nathaniel. We stayed at Grandpa's house overnight, and got up early the next morning to head up to Cleveland for a couple checkups for Nathaniel. Thankfully, so far, it seems as if everything is continuing to heal right along schedule. His restrictions have been removed (no bending at the waist, no lifting more than 10 lbs.) So, we got him back to Geneva, then started on our way home.

We made it about 100 miles. It was dark, the roads were starting to have snow drift on them, and the wind was picking up. So, we stopped, booked a cheap (but generally clean, except for the bathtup) motel room, ate a delicious supper at Bob Evan's, headed back to the room, watched a program on the Weather Channel called "Why I Love Winter", which we weren't right then, and then drifted off to sleep. Don't try to diagram that sentence. When we got up in the morning, the car had 4-6 inches of snow on it, and there was tons in the parking lot.

I got out and brushed most of the snow off, and scraped the small amount of ice off the windshield and windows. Mom came out and helped with a bunch of it. Just as we finished, an older couple from Ontario came out of their room and the husband asked if he could borrow our brush to get the snow off a door of their car to get out their brush. I offered to do the door for him, and he said okay. Well, he and Dad got talking, so Mom and I hurried up and did the entire car. He was pleasantly surprised when he turned around after finishing talking with Dad and found his car about ready to go. :)

We finally made it the rest of the 115 miles. We holed up in a McDonald's for breakfast. stuck around in there until nearly lunchtime, then struggled about 15 miles down the road (in about 20-25 minutes) and stopped for lunch. The place we stopped for lunch had free Wi-Fi, so, using my laptop here, we tracked the weather. Since the back end of the storm wasn't far away, Mom and Dad decided to simply wait until the snow was past us to leave. After it passed us, we got going, and had a relatively uneventful trip home.

Since there was so much snow, there were large piles. Well, large piles of snow, young neighbor kids, and me mix pretty well. :D Several youngsters from across the street came across and wanted to have some fun. So, I made a tunnel. Unfortunately, even though they loved the tunnel, they wanted it bigger. So, I tried. It collapsed. So, I built a little snow cave. Later on, I built them a bigger and better tunnel across the street at their house. I do have some pictures.

I love this look.

Everyone smiling.

A different angle.

And one is starting to move.

The tunnel was right in there... you may be able to see some of it. However, most of what you can see is the cave.

Another tentative grin.

I think she likes it.

Another view.

I know he likes it. :D

And she's in.

And still in.

She makes a great subject. Too bad I didn't quite have the focus right.

And yours truly.

That's it for now. I had a big day today with a scout event, but it's getting late. So, I will put that in the next post. Hope everyone has a blessed Sabbath day tomorrow!

Oh my. I really have to remember to post more often.

2009-01-18T00:54:00.000-05:00

As is, unfortunately, often the case, I've been thinking a lot about posting and not doing it. So, here's the update.

Since my last post, I have (according to official standards) become an adult. I am now 18 and can legally do a lot more stuff on my own... such as buy ammunition. :D I haven't actually bought any yet but I'll get around to it eventually. :P Other than signing up for an adult library card at the Belle Center Library and getting out an R-rated miniseries (rated R for realistic war violence), I really haven't done anything much with my age. Well, I did register for Selective Service, but, God willing, that won't come into play at any point. The other big thing is that Mom and Dad are getting me a new Bible for my birthday. It's been ordered but not arrived yet. I'm really looking forward to it, since it's an NKJV (which I like a lot) and a study Bible, so there's a lot of other resources in there. :)

I've started back into school again. As before, I'm only doing one class with Clark State Community College. Thankfully, I can do everything online. That includes the homework, discussion questions, and even the quizzes. I just finished up everything for the first chapter today, and ended up doing quite well on it overall. :)

My time has been taken up some lately with looking around for a part-time job. My job at the airport wasn't available starting around the beginning of December, mainly because there simply isn't quite as much to do in the winter. So, I've been looking around for something. Unfortunately, there really isn't a ton around here for an 18-year-old guy that doesn't have any major technical skills and can only do part-time work. I would highly appreciate prayer that something would turn up soon! Until something does, I'm simply looking around and trusting God to provide.

Speaking of Him, I had the privilege of attending the presbytery Winter Conference from December 29-January 1. The conference was... well, I can't totally explain it. It was incredible. (Just about) everything there was the best I had ever had it for WC. Since this was my 5th year, it was my last, and I sure went out with a bang. Gordon Keddie, the pastor of the Southside Indianapolis, Indiana, RP Church, was the speaker. He gave four messages on Ecclesiastes. They were quite useful. It's not a book of the Bible that I'm very familiar with (or was), but it's one, like all the others, that is INCREDIBLY useful.

The one verse that particularly struck me was 11:1. "Cast your bread upon the waters, For you will find it after many days." The author of Ecclesiastes is saying here that we must have complete and total trust in God to work in our lives. We have to give our all to Him, and simply trust Him to keep us. That struck me, as a great-aunt of mine would say, right between the nose. I'm worrying too much and trying to do too much by myself, instead of giving it to God. Since WC, I've been trying to work on that a bunch. Spending more time with Him every day in His Word and prayer has also been a big emphasis. I learned so much about God and His Word there at WC. The time spent with about 10 other guys my age and a counselor, discussing the messages and other edifying topics helped tremendously. I came away from the conference feeling that I had matured a year spiritually. It was great. Thankfully, many of my other friends had the same experience, more or less. :)

One of the biggest parts that was a blessing was the chance to, with three other guys, witness to a young man on the last night. Please be praying for him, that he would come to Christ!

I haven't been doing much of any flying lately. Due to weather, lack of income, and being busy doing other things, it's kind of fallen by the wayside for now. Hopefully, that will be "taking off" again soon.

Thankfully, we're all staying warm. The weather is the coldest it's been around here since 1994. Last night, in north-central Ohio, a town got down to -28 Fahrenheit. That's actual temp. We had some snow, but it was light and fluffy enough that I cleared most of the sidewalks with the gas leafblower. THAT was fun! :D

Nathaniel is continuing to heal up very well. So far, there have been almost NO side effects/complications. He's to have the six-week checkup on the 27th.. I think. It's sometime around there. Hopefully, at that point, the only restrictions he has (no carrying anything over 10 pounds and no bending at the waist) will be lifted. The sutures were taken out successfully by our family doctor ten days after the surgery, and things seem to be healing up perfectly there. :)

I think that's about it for now. I really need to get to bed soon, so I'll do this, change the music, then head upstairs to bed. Good night everybody!

Lots of news

2008-12-26T12:10:00.003-05:00

To start with, as you have most likely seen on Nathaniel's blog, the surgery went really well. It was, by all preliminary indications, very successful. The doctors are hopeful that the surgery has taken care of all the epilepsy problems. It's quite possible that, after a few months, he'll be totally off the anti-seizure medication. Even if that doesn't turn out to be the case, it will almost certainly work to take a very low level of the medicine, a much lower dosage than what he's been on for a while.

Our entire experience up at the Cleveland Clinic was wonderful. The people there were simply amazing. Everyone seemed to be smiling all the time... everyone was willing to help you if you were lost or needed anything at all. It was great.

So, that's it for Cleveland. Let's update everyone (if anybody still reads this) on some other stuff.

I'm down near Kingston, OH, between Circleville and Chillicothe. It's south of Columbus, OH. The reason I'm down here is that I'm at my uncle and aunt's house for Christmas. Because of a few schedule conflicts, the big Christmas dinner and gift exchange is later today.

Our immediate family already gave each other stuff. So, what I've gotten so far is a Land's End microfleece jacket/shirt that is sooooooooo nice. It's a 1/4 zip that so far, I've worn about the whole time since I unwrapped it. I also got a nice book, and a Leatherman Micra multitool. The latter is a small thing... about 2 inches long and 1/2 inch wide. It has about 10 different tools in it. It's reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally nice. :D

So, that's my update for now. I'm going to a presbytery high-schoolers' winter conference next Monday, and getting back on Thursday. There probably won't be any more posts until after that. Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Update on Nathaniel

2008-12-16T23:45:00.002-05:00

We're all up in Cleveland tonight. The plan is to be in at the Cleveland Clinic by 1030 tomorrow for pre-surgery. Not exactly sure when the surgery itself will take place, but it will probably start before noon. It's supposed to take around 4 hours total. So... that's the latest. His blog, which is here, will have updates when we have them. I most likely won't be updating here much until everything is over. As always, prayer is appreciated.

The LORD's will be done!

New developments

2008-12-12T14:56:00.003-05:00

Well, I finally did something this morning that I could have done for something along the lines of the last two years and five months. I finally got my permit. I spent a few hours yesterday reading through the "Digest of Ohio Motor Vehicle Laws" and then went into the BMV this morning. After spending a little while filling out another temporary permit package, I went to take the test. I was anticipating it to be pretty easy.

It was. :D It took me around 5 minutes to answer 31 of the 40 questions. Only a 75% average was required to pass, and they stopped the test when I could no longer get below a 75. I ended up missing one question. Oh well. :P

I haven't actually used the permit yet. But, it is in my wallet, ready to get used soon (hopefully). So, that's been most of my morning.

In other news lately, Nathaniel is back home. All of us went out to Pennsylvania yesterday to pick him up, came back (same day) and went to a Scout event. Dad got a couple awards, which was nice. :) I ended up more or less babysitting 7 Cub scouts to keep them from going completely crazy. I nearly went totally crazy, but not quite. :D

The weather has not been cooperating of late, so my latest flying lessons have involved either ground lessons or else simulator time. I've been learning about instrument approaches, such as how to interpret the depictions of different kinds of approaches, learning to fly the different kinds, learning what to do when the weather still is too bad to complete the approach... that kind of thing. If you're curious, I have a couple links here for approaches into Bellefontaine. The first one is a GPS approach, or as the FAA calls it, an RNAV approach. It uses position information from geostationary satellites to figure out where the airplane is, and I use that information on a moving map display in the cockpit to shoot the approach.

The other kind of approach is a VOR approach, which uses a ground-based radio navigational aid for the approach. Basically, the instruments figure out what heading I am from the station, and I use the GPS to figure out how far away I am. Using that information, I can make the approach safely.

The other main kind of approach that I've been learning is the ILS: the Instrument Landing System. Not many small airports such as Bellefontaine have this kind of approach, since it's quite expensive to set up. I shot this ILS at Dayton the other day on the simulator. It uses two different components of a dedicated radio navigational aid on the ground to give me vertical and horizontal guidance down to the runway. It's very precise, so much so that special categories of the ILS approach are approved for flight down to the runway with zero visibility. It's a fun approach, since it's (most of the time) rather easy to do, and it's kind of hard to screw up. Approaches, so far, are pretty fun. Hopefully I still think that by the time I'm done with them. :D

Well, I think that's about the end of this post. I have a lot of stuff to do this evening, and I need to get going on it. Hopefully, it won't be quite so long until the next post. I'll be up in Cleveland almost all of next week, and I'm not sure if the internet up there will let me post on here. If I can, I will. If not, I won't. :P

I am still here

2008-12-12T00:16:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to let everyone know that I haven't forgotten about the blog or anything. I'm still here. Will most likely post tomorrow. Well... erm, today. Something.

These guys are either total geniuses (geniusi?) or total idiots!

2008-11-22T22:39:00.002-05:00

Leave your opinion in the comments.

Six days more!

2008-11-21T22:23:00.002-05:00

And it'll be my favorite holiday of the year. Thanksgiving is such a wonderful time. Far from being just the fabulous food (especially the pumpkin pie), the football (which is fun), or even the fellowship with family rarely seen (which really is great... especially when that fellowship includes playing Taboo), it's wonderful to take a day out to simply thank God for the blessings He has given us throughout the previous year. True, we do that (or should) on the first day of every week; the day that the Lord has set apart for a Sabbath unto Him. However, this just seems different in a way. Maybe it's that Thursdays normally aren't anything special for me. Maybe it's something else. I really don't know. It just is such an awesome (true sense of the word) blessing from God.

However, not everybody thinks this way. Like my mom, I do inwardly cringe when I hear people call it "Turkey Day" and only mean that. They're missing out on what it should be. A gift from God in which to be thankful for all that He's done. I realize that it isn't a day established by direct revelation of God. However, it seems clear to me that it should be recognized as His gift.

Well, changing subjects. Since last post, I've finished my first college class. The official grade isn't released yet, but I do know that the grade at the end of the course was 94.59 %. The professor was going to also drop the lowest quiz score in each category (each chapter had three quizzes--multiple choice, true and false, and final [normally just more problems than simply questions]), so this will probably help the score a little bit better. Accounting really isn't my favorite subject, so I'm glad to be 1/3 done with it! :) I've already enrolled for the next class, ACC 112 (instead of ACC 111) that will be done in the winter quarter.

I've also kept busy with work. Things have been going mostly well there, and, as ever, quite busy.

Last Saturday, I was able to go over to a friend's house and watch a movie with him and a couple of his younger siblings. We watched "We Were Soldiers" with Mel Gibson. As always, it makes me appreciate even more both those who served in our country's battles and those who had loved ones serving. Nobody watched expect me had seen it before, and everybody agreed it was a good movie, aside of course from the rather atrocious language. At least, however, in movies of this sort, the language is reflecting reality instead of being thrown in gratuitously to simply fit in with the mainstream. The violence, while graphic, is also at realistic levels. Overall, I'd recommend it to someone that would like to see a reasonably accurate portrayal of early Vietnam. It's not for younger children, though. Or for the particularly squeamish, either.

I also got to do something else pretty fun last week... last Thursday evening, I believe. The local homeschool group had a square dance, which I got to attend. It's a great way to get to know people, a great way to get (lots) of exercise, and a great way to have fun. The best dance is always the Virginia Real/Reel. Not sure which one... and I'm too tired to look it up right now. It's really a TON of fun. The Popcorn is also great, until when they start speeding it up. I don't have quite what it takes to keep going when they speed it up to at least 2 times the normal speed. :P

Well, I think that's all that I have for right now. I need to be getting up early enough tomorrow to eat, fix a lunch, and be in at work by 8:00. So, I'll be departing here. Hopefully this post is enough to last people for a while. :D

I'm trying to come up with a witty title, but I'm not having any success.

2008-11-11T23:21:00.008-05:00

I really found this observation interesting. On Monday of last week, I wore shorts to work. Tuesday too. Wednesday too. Then, by Saturday, I was wearing my winter coat outside. And gloves. And I was cold. I must live in Ohio.

I'm thinking of putting up a bunch of pictures. I don't have time for many, but I'll put in some. These are from different days at work. Some are pictures of airplanes, some are pictures of sunsets, and some are pictures of other things. :P

Me after flying a couple friends.

The Diamond Star. Sweet plane. :)

A King Air B200 that flew in. This was a charter aircraft from northern Ohio. I got a bunch of pictures. :DAnother view of it. In case you're wondering, the red thing on the prop... that's a prop lock. It keeps the prop from rotating in the wind while it's sitting on the ground. The other ends of the cable are secured around the exhaust pipes for the engine.Another view.Nose-on. This is one great-looking plane. :D

And, I had to get one with me in there.

An incredible sunset view shot alongside the King Air.
This is the Beech Duke. It flew up from Florida, non-stop. I've gotten to fill it up two times so far. :DA different view, this one from a little further away.It's a little smaller.

And more sunset. :)

Another great sunset picture.

A Columbia 300. REALLY fast airplane. I wouldn't mind one. :D

A Learjet 25. It flew up from Texas. Must have been a fun flight. I wouldn't mind going along. :)

A sunset on another night.

The Twin Star taking off. The Piper Arrow in the foreground. :D

Another view of the takeoff. Eclipse in the foreground.

Still getting up.

And finally, off it goes. Awesome airplane.

Well, that's it for now. I'm off to go to sleep. I hope some people really enjoyed the pictures. :)

Pray for our country!

2008-11-04T23:38:00.002-05:00

We need it.

I just couldn't resist posting this video

2008-10-29T10:56:00.002-04:00

This just cracked me up. Incredibly. Watch the whole thing. :D

I tried to come up with something like "I've been busy" but it just didn't seem to fit...

2008-10-23T18:30:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry. I'll try to do better.

I have been up to quite a lot. Let's start with school.

I'm doing just a light load of schoolwork this year. Since I'm planning on getting a business degree from Geneva, I decided to start on some school after all. Right now I'm near the end of the fifth chapter of the accounting course I'm taking online with Clark State Community College in Springfield. It's going well overall, except for occasional problems with the online server. :P

Work has picked up a lot for me. Since there was very little rain for quite a while, mowing had slowed down a lot. However, now that we've had some more rain, the business has returned. I'm also working 18 hours a week at the airport. I'm doing Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings 4-7, and also Saturdays 8-5. That's going really well. I enjoy the (most of) the work and the people there at the airport are great. I'm able to make a bit of money which is going towards my next topic.

Flying is starting back into learning again instead of recreation. I'm working on what's called the Instrument Rating, which allows me to fly in clouds, low visibility, or other similar situations. So far, it's been a lot of fun. Most of the time I learn pretty quickly, so that's good.

I haven't started driving yet. I really really really need to start sometime soon. Hopefully that'll work out soon.

Unfortunately, one thing that has been sacrificed with my increasing time at the airport is participation with my Boy Scout troop. I'm late for each of the meetings, since I work Tuesday nights. As well, since I'm working Saturdays, I can't really make it to campouts. That's about my only regret working at the airport, since I miss doing things with the troop. It's taken a bit of getting used to.

One thing that people will (hopefully) be interested in is what I got to do with a few other guys and a couple adults from the troop this August. We went out to Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania, which is in southwestern PA. There, all of us got to participate in two days of whitewater canoeing on the Middle Youghiogheny River. Those of us under 18 earned the Whitewater Merit Badge, while the adults enjoyed getting to watch us. :D They canoed all the time that we did... just they didn't take the adventurous routes like we did. They also had the record for the least capsizes, at three. My canoe partner and I wiped out four times, while the other two guys did about a dozen. We laughed at them a lot. :) Actually, whenever anybody wiped out, they were laughed at thoroughly. :D

I think that's it for now. I seriously will try to remember to post more often. I'm also going to change the music. If you have any questions, comments, or stupid jokes... go ahead and leave me a comment. I don't mind. Even stupid jokes. :D

2008-08-02T22:42:00.002-04:00

I think that safely qualified as my longest sabbatical ever. I'm back, now, though. :D

Just a quick post to get stuff up again. If you'd like to see the first photo album of RP International pics of mine on Facebook... click here.

Hope you like the music!

Great news!

2008-04-30T14:14:00.001-04:00

The National Merit Foundation wouldn't let me publicly announce this until today. However, now that it's the 30th, I can tell anybody.

As many of you had probably known, I'd gotten National Merit Finalist. We found out about 5 weeks ago that I'd made it into the next and final cut, Scholar. Not all scholars get any money, but they've given me $2500 to use for schooling. As you might imagine, I'm really happy with this. Praise the Lord for His blessings like this!

Too long

2008-04-29T22:17:00.003-04:00

Well, it has been too long. I'll summarize what's been going on in the past month and a half.

Church has been going quite well. We've been having some encouragements. We had a congregational meeting a few weeks ago. The congregation has been moving forward, and we enjoyed the benefit of a meeting that was wonderful due to the unanimity showed. A couple weeks ago, due to two families visiting the area, we had 66 people at church. That's the most that I remember having there in a long time. It was great. Hopefully, we'll soon be having that sort of attendance normally.

We're a bit behind in school, unfortunately. However, we're making steady progress on it. Hopefully, we can get done before too late into summer. :P

Flying has been going well. I'm working on getting checked out in the Star, a 4-seater. It's quite fun. Soon after getting the checkout in the plane, I'm hoping to take a bunch of friends up. :)

I'll finish up tomorrow with more. Night! :)

This would really be an interesting place to land.

2008-03-15T23:10:00.001-04:00

No post since last month...

2008-03-11T23:12:00.000-04:00

I'm posting again. Finally. :) Guess you figured that out without me telling you, though.

Currently, I am exhausted. Mostly, that's due to two things. 1) I got around 4 hours of sleep, I think. 2) After having something around 12-15 inches of snow, it was necessary to both shovel it and sled in it. I went with a couple of the neighbor kids (most of my readers know them) and their mom to a hill near here, where we spent about an hour sledding. After that, I helped shovel our sidewalk and then shovel out the van. I'm tired. :)

I flew a couple days ago. Hopefully, I'll get some pictures up here sooner or later, but I had a great time. I got 3.2 hours of cross-country time, and I'm now over 25 cross-country, and up to about 52 hours total time. I need 50 total cross-country hours to get my next rating, the instrument rating.

Well, speaking of flying on instruments, I almost had the chance to do that on Thursday. Nathaniel and I went flying down south of here, checking out the Ohio River. The weather was excellent down there. However, the closer we got to home, the worse it got. I was planning on going to Urbana airport, the next county south, but I wasn't too sure about it, so I played it safe and went to the Springfield airport, the next county south of Urbana. That airport is a bit better equipped than Bellefontaine, and I figured it would be all right. Well, after we got on the ground, I talked with a flight instructor (he's also the airport managing company owner) at Bellefontaine, and he told me to come on back, since the clouds and the visibility had gotten better. We headed on back, but I felt kinda weird--flying 500 feet above the ground, 500 feet below the clouds, and about 130 MPH. Only was able to see about 2 miles, too. :P

Oh well. It was legal. I gained a lot of experience--I now know I can fly in that kind of weather if I have to. I also now have some actual experience in having to make in-flight changes and adaptations. Hopefully, I won't have to do this kind of thing more often, but at least I know I can really do it now. That was kinda rambling. :P

School's been going well, but we're still behind. It's going to take us to the end of the year to catch up. Oh well. We'll get done.

Umm... I'm trying to think of something else.

BREAK

That was all last Saturday. Now it's Tuesday, and I'm realizing I forgot to finish the post. I'll update since then...

Letsee. No more flying since then. Done several tests for school, a couple of them pretty big, and they've all gone well. :) We're getting along.

Sabbath was excellent--most people there despite the weather. Sermons were great, the presbytery update was really good (getting to hear how other congregations in the presbytery are doing), and the dinner was tacos. Excellent day spent with the Lord and His people.

I just got back from our weekly scout troop meeting. The last 2 weeks' meetings were canceled because of weather, so this one had elements from 3 different meetings. A few interesting things--I've been elected the Senior Patrol Leader again (basically the guy that runs everything), which is mostly nice. I'll be training my assistant to take over my job by the end of my term.

That's about it for now. I'm going to find a bloopers video and post it.

It's been under a week--weird, ain't it?

2008-02-28T23:00:00.002-05:00

Well, this has been a very history-minded past few days. I found a book lying around called "Grant Comes East." Finding the title intriguing, I picked it up and started reading.

I'm starting to get into this alternate history more and more, and this is right up that alley. It's the second book in a series. As you might guess by what I've said, it's a "what if" of the Civil War. Basically, Lee won at Gettysburg and then also soundly defeated the Army of the Potomac (again) at Union Mills. This is all in the first book of the series, which I haven't read yet. Yeah, I read the second before the first. Oh well.

The book was really good, overall. Very little language, no sexual anything at all, and a fast-paced read. It mainly focuses on the leaders (mostly military, but some political)--Lee, Longstreet, and Stuart on the one side, Lincoln, Grant, and Sickle on the other. It does a very good job of showing Lee's faith, except at one point, at which he used obscenity to get the attention of his staff and get them focused. I was not happy at that point.

It's a very intriguing read. The situations were very plausible, at least based on my understanding. Several characters were rather interesting studies as well, especially Lee. Personally, I'd recommend this book to most people. I really need to read the first one, though. Thankfully, the library has it. :)

Because of all this, I decided to watch a movie tonight. One that I hadn't seen in years. Gods and Generals. At about 11, I was only halfway through it, so I decided I'd stop for the night. However, I'd already been impressed yet again by Jackson's character. He depended utterly on the Lord for strength and protection. As he said in response to a question from one of his staff officers as to why he was so calm in battle, he replied "Captain, my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me ... That is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave."

What a testimony for Christ. He sat on his horse, just watching the enemy troops advance, shot plowing up around him. I pray that, if indeed it is God's will for me to be in the Army after college, that I can be as strong a witness as he was.

Well, I'll quickly update you all on everything else going on recently. Church was quite good as normal. Please be praying, though, for more people. We would like to have more in the local area, and we really could use some more elders and deacons.

School's been all right. We're still behind, but we'll finish eventually. I don't remember if I'd said this before or not, but I've made Finalist in the National Merit Scholarship Competition. No money out of it (yet), but this means that, as long as I keep the grades up, I'll get free tuition at Geneva! :)

Shoveling has become a daily activity, or nearly so. The snow has been coming about once a day, putting down anywhere from two to five additional inches. It's been great for working out, at least. :)

Well, that's it for right now. I'm going to a Pinewood Derby on Saturday--Cub Scout event where they race wood cars (only the little ones--about six inches long). Should be fun. If I get the chance, I'll get pictures. Good night everyone!

Out of jail!

2008-02-23T21:53:00.002-05:00

Well, I'm out. It was an interesting experience...

Seriously, it was a visit for a merit badge for Scouts. I was there, touring, along with a couple of other guys from the troop, for about an hour. It was really an interesting experience. I'm rather glad that, unlike a few guys in there, I'm not so familiar with being in jail that I know the daily routine by heart. Some of them have been in there for several years, not having fresh air for a few months at a time. Phew. Sin is a horrible thing, ain't it?

Well, since then, I've been busy. Not busy enough to skip a blog post--I just wanted to keep you all hanging. :P

School's been going well. Since last week we did nothing, we've been trying to make a comeback. We've succeeded, mostly. I think we're on track for this week, so we only added another week to the behindness. Oh well. We'll get done eventually. I had one really good math test, and one not so good physics test. They averaged out. :P

I had the Merit Badge Trail Drive today. I assisted with the Aviation merit badge class, feeling kinda weird correcting the two adult counselors. They both had lots of experience with aircraft, but mainly on the ground, so they'd asked me to help correct any mistakes they made. I did so, but it felt strange. The other two classes (I was a mere participant in Energy and Radio, the other two classes) went well, and I had fun. Learned some things, too. :)

Well, I'd reserved a plane out at the airport for Monday morning, and had planned to have Milkdud go up with me. However, when I talked to him this morning, he didn't think it would work, so, since the weather today was so nice, we worked it out... He and I went up this evening/late afternoon. The weather was the nicest I'd had in about a month. Almost no winds, almost no clouds... it was wonderful. Hopefully, I'll have pictures sooner or later.

It's been a long day. Great day, but long. Good night everyone, and have a great Lord's Day!

2008-02-18T08:13:00.001-05:00

Going to jail this morning... I'll let everyone know what's going on when I get back.

We're back.

2008-02-15T12:14:00.002-05:00

As the title says...

Basically, Nathaniel had another seizure. It wasn't one of the major ones. He's doing fine now.

After the seizure occured, he went to a local hospital's emergency room for a while. After some testing, he was released. Other than the fact that he's in no immediate danger, that's about all we know. Hopefully, the neurologist will be able to shed some more light on the situation.

We got out there around 2000 on Saturday evening. After talking with Nathaniel a while, Mom and Dad went up to Rose Point (next county north) to stay with my grandpa, while I got to stay at Geneva. Since Nathaniel had permission to violate the fire code for a night, we got a spare mattress from the across-the-hall neighbor (who doesn't have a roommate) and I slept on that, in the middle of the floor. :)

That evening was really nice, since we got to hang out with some Indiana friends. Hansons from Southside were out. Actually, it was they who helped out a ton with Nathaniel--they'd noticed his having the seizure, and they took him out to the hospital, and even brought him back! Thanks!

Anyway, we got to hang out with them and Nathaniel's roommate, Luke Dinkledine, for a couple hours. It was really great.

Well, Sabbath was good (as normal). Since we were in PA, we all went to Eastvale RPC, Nathaniel's home congregation when he's at school. That was really good--everyone there is always great to talk to, and, more importantly, the service (since it was through Christ) was glorifying to God, and the sermon was quite edifying. That evening, since they don't have an evening service, we attended the Bible study, which was also quite excellent.

Sabbath night, I stayed across the hall from Nathaniel, since nobody wanted the fire code broken much. The guy whose room I stayed with is a pretty good friend, one that I've known for several months (through Nathaniel, of course), so we had a nice time. However, I woke up the next morning with... *drum roll*

THE FLU!!!!

Thankfully, it didn't hit too quickly. Mom and Dad also thought they had it, although lighter, so we decided to come home. The trip seemed to take forever, but we got back safely.

Tuesday was really bad for me. High fever and lots of acheing all day long. Not fun.

Yesterday, and continuing into today, I've been recovering. I still have this cough that's really annoying. However, it's had the benefit of getting me used to Robitussin. I really don't like that stuff, but it's getting more bearable.

That's our news. One last thing--I just did some flying on my flight simulator here on the computer. I flew a precision instrument approach into Dayton International Airport while in bad weather. Basically, without looking at anything but stuff on the instrument panels (except for the last little bit), I landed a plane. It was cool. Now, I wanna do some more practice of this in real life. :)

Good night all! Sorry this post is later than promised--flu slows you down a lot.

I was planning on posting today, but not about this...

2008-02-09T15:35:00.001-05:00

We had a call earlier from Nathaniel. Sounds like he's had another seizure, not quite as intense as a couple years ago. He's at Beaver Valley Medical Center right now getting some examinations. We're leaving in a few minutes for PA. We really have no clue if it's serious or not, but, just in case, we're going out. Please be in prayer for everyone involved--Nathaniel, us, the medical personnel, etc. I'll post more when 1) I know more and 2) I get the chance.

Christ is over all.

Hey, I'm posting!

2008-02-01T22:04:00.000-05:00

Weird, ain't it? :D

Alrighty. Things significant in the two weeks since the previous post...

Well, I've flown once. I picked up a guy from church and went up to Bowling Green. I picked up something around two hours cross-country time as Pilot in Command. I need to build up fifty total hours, and I'm sitting on around twenty. Not too bad.

I've also been working on getting checked out to rent the airport's Diamond Star. It's a four-seater, complete with what's called a "glass cockpit." The Eclipse, which I normally fly, has all the instruments in a standard dial format, sorta like a standard watch. Well, if the Eclipse is like a standard watch, the Star is a digital watch. Most all of the instrument panel is two ten-inch displays. It's pretty complex (until you figure it out), but it's really powerful. I was rather amazed the other day when I got to get in it and spend about ninety minutes just learning about it by pushing and pulling buttons. It's a bit more capable than anything I've ever used before. I can't wait to take the plane up. :)

Church has been going well. Nothing new really. The sermon series have been quite good. The psalm meditation last week was quite good. Christ is still blessing us. Please be praying, though, that we would have more people coming, both those who know Christ and those who don't.

I'm really not coming up with a ton of other stuff to be posting. I'll try to post more regularly. I know, I say that a bunch, but oh well...

Video of the post. Hold on a second. Gotta upload a video to Youtube, one that I've been needing to for a while.

OK. Nathaniel took a video of a landing when he and I flew a few weeks ago. Here's the video. It was a little bit gusty wind, so not the best landing. However, the plane survived, and he didn't mind the slightly bumpy landing. :) Here's the video.

2008-01-18T21:39:00.001-05:00

Logansville, a small village here in Logan County.
Flooding near Belle Center, which is in the upper part of the screen.
Ridgeway, also nearby.
West Mansfield, near here.
And lastly, Zanesfield, near here.

Two days after I got my license, Nathaniel and I went up around the county. Here are a few pictures from that.

Today, Bumpas and I flew around the county for about an hour. He had lots of fun, and I rather enjoyed it, too. :D When we were about ready to leave, though, the best part of the day happened...

A Columbus Police MD-500 (light helicopter) came in and shut down. I talked to the pilot, who let me get in and check it all out. Unfortunately, a ride wasn't possible, but it was still really fun. I knew how to operate a lot of the avionics, since they were the same as in the Eclipse! :)

School's been going well. I did quite well on a math test yesterday, and we're slowly but surely catching up.

While at the airport today, I found out some more about a possible next step for me in the flying career. I might well be getting a ground instructor license, certified to be teaching groundschool. This would be quite nice, since I could work a bunch more and get paid better. We'll see.

That's about it for right now. I'll try to post more frequently.

Finally

2008-01-14T20:53:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm doing it. Here it is.

Monday morning, I was quite anxious. I was afraid that the weather would not cooperate, and that I'd have to cancel. However, I called in to the weather briefer (it's a free service by phone) and got told that it would be doable during the day, but not all the time. Some of the day, it would be, but, during a few points, the clouds would drop enough that I couldn't. However, I went in to the airport anyway and finished the planning.

Winds started picking up, enough that they were gusting past the limits of the aircraft. Basically, the plane, when taking off, is only allowed to have so strong of a crosswind--any stronger, and I might not be able to keep it going straight down the runway. Worse, there'd be a chance that a freak gust could get under a wing and lift, flipping the plane. That would tend to ruin your day.

Well, the clouds lifted a ways and the winds dropped, just as I was about to get going. I was adjusting the rudder pedals when a cable snapped. Thankfully, it was just a cable for adjusting the pedals' position, not the actual cable to control the rudder. However, I had to wait for the cable to get replaced, and, by the time it was ready, the winds had picked up again.

Just about literally praying without ceasing, I taxiied down to the runway, did the pre-takeoff checklist, and sat there for a few minutes, figuring out the gust patterns. When I managed to do that, I got off the ground and headed north to Bluffton, where I'd be having the examination. On the way up there, I did a little bit of practice maneuvering. The most fun were a few practice stalls and a series of S-turns along a road.

Well, I got up there and had a couple things go wrong. First was I didn't totally follow the checklist, accidentally. As a result, mixture was not quite properly adjusted. Basically, this controls the fuel-to-air ratio, something not so important in a car as a plane, since the car stays at the same air density, or at least changes gradually. Anyway, I'd leaned the mixture, as I should have, but I'd forgotten to rich it all the way. As a result, when I landed (rough landing, too, because I caught a gust at exactly the wrong moment), the engine shut off. After about two seconds of near silence, I figured out what was wrong (yeah, it took me that long) and I realized why the propeller blades were quite visible.

Rather embarrassed and calling myself names, I restarted the engine and taxiied in. I was kind of nervous, thinking that the examiner would have seen all that fiasco, and would tell me to just skip it and go home. However, I got in there, and she was all smiles and happiness. I asked her if she'd seen the landing, and was told that coffee was more important than watching me land then, since she figured I could handle it. :) I figured this was a good thing, seeing that she wasn't going to be super tough.

Well, I started to explain what had happened. I said that the engine had shut off when I landed, so she quickly asked me why. I started to say that I hadn't re-adjusted the mixture when she cut me off to inform me that she had done the same exact thing countless times over the 70 (yes, seventy) years she had been flying, and not to worry about it until I do it three times in a row. :D

Time for the oral exam. Basically, I had to prove that I knew how to plan a cross-country trip, that I knew how to check to make sure the aircraft is legally (and safely) flyable, that I know all about the different airspace types, how to navigate, and the list went on and on... It was really fun, even though it lasted about ninety minutes.

After all of that, I got a few minutes' break to visit the facilities (known in the book, Cheaper by the Dozen, as "examining the rear tire." Also, I grabbed a few snacks.

Well, after the few minutes' hiatus, I went out and preflighted (not preflew) the plane. The examiner (whose birthday it also was, I'd forgotten to mention) got in, and off we went. Basically, we started out on the cross-country trip to see how well the planning would work out. After going to the first checkpoint, she had me divert to another airport, estimating it by just looking at the chart. In short, we flew off to there for a few minutes, then started the maneuvers I had to demonstrate. I had to do steep turns, climbing and descending turns, constant-rate and constant-airspeed ascents and descents, several different types of stalls, a few maneuvers with reference to the instruments only, turns around a point, engine-out (just throttle pulled back, not actually turning off the engine) glide and decision on where to forced-land it, S-turns along a road, and plenty of other things I'm not thinking of, probably. It was all fun, although a bit bumpy and a bunch windy.

We got back to the airport and did a few landings and trips around the traffic pattern, and then she told me to taxi back in. With a big smile on her face, she told me that she was never scared or really nervous even, so I'd passed. By this point, my grin greatly outdid hers. :D

While she was taking care of the paperwork, I made a couple quick phone calls--one to home and one to a guy from church who lives about 2 miles from the Bluffton airport. He'd never been up in a plane before, so by the time all of the paperwork was finished, he was there. We went up for about a half hour. All of the time and work and money I'd put into the lessons were worth it to see the look in his eyes as we lifted off. It was a blend of amazement and wonder and joy. :)

That's it for now. Expect pictures before too horrible long. Horribly.

PS: Sorry about the formatting. Blogger just doesn't seem to like me. Maybe if I used it more often I'd get better service. :P

Got it!

2008-01-07T17:26:00.000-05:00

More to follow later, but I have the license. :)

Where to begin...

2008-01-01T18:08:00.000-05:00

As the title says. Since the last post, I've only flown once (yesterday), but I've been to the presbytery high school winter conference, gotten a few Christmas presents, and done plenty of other stuff.

OK. I'll just sort of analyze the general things. First of all, anyone that can identify the aircraft recording correctly, leave a comment. Just tell what the name of the aircraft is. It shouldn't be too hard.

Alrighty. First, Winter Conference. Wow. It was, as I said a couple days ago, fun, useful, safe, and edifying. I met a lot of new friends and strengthened old friendships. The lectures/messages/sermons (whatever you want to call them) were given by Bob McCracken. The subject was "Living as an RP Christian." They were excellent.

I have plenty of pictures from WC, and I'll be putting them up on Facebook. In a later post (and I will make sure I do it) I'll put in a public link for getting to them. Everything at WC was great. I'm not really able to come up with anything bad. As normal, I didn't get much sleep, but I didn't stay up most of the night like normal, since the last night was a Friday.

OK. That's it for WC for now. I'll probably edit in a link or two here later.

*EDIT* First album is here. Hope everyone likes it.

Second album
Third album

Christmas was good. Everyone in Dad's family was there, including my grandmother and all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. Of course, now that I look at it, that would be everyone. Oh well. I ended up getting several nice things for presents. A new Air Maui hat came in from my uncle, since the old one didn't hold up the best. The same uncle gave me an iPAQ, a handheld computer that's really nice. Other than that, I got a new Victorinox knife and a 2Gb mp3 player from Mom and Dad, and cash from various people. Everything turned out nicely.

Yesterday I got to fly again for the first time in 13 days. The clouds were low enough at my destination that I had to slip in pretty low, but I was still legal. After hanging around the Defiance airport for a little while talking with Mortons and having them check out the plane, I left again. The closer I got to home, the higher the clouds got, until they were so high the plane couldn't get even close to them. Eventually, they pretty much disappeared, so I got to just have fun flying around the county quite high up (more than a mile), something I'd not been able to do in a long time due to the weather.

OK. Well, that's it for now. I'm off to put pictures on Facebook. Look for them here soon!

TOO LONG!!!!

2007-12-18T21:51:00.000-05:00

Sorry. Been busy. Bad excuse. I know.

Wednesday=not a ton. I'm really not remembering anything of great significance.

Thursday was pretty much the same.

Friday was different. I got a bunch of flying in this day. 3.1 hours, as a matter of fact. First, I headed off down to Dayton International Airport to take care of the three solo takeoffs and landings at a towered airport requirement for the private pilot's license requirement. I got back, and while I was planning out another flight, Mom and Dad got me a sub from Subway in Bellefontaine. After eating and finishing up the planning, it was off to Muncie, IN, which has another tower-controlled airport. A touch-and-go there, a touch-and-go at Bluffton, OH, and back home. I had a great time overall--no problems and fun flying. I learned a bunch, too.

One other really nice thing happened on Friday. Nathaniel was home! Only for about 45 minutes, but he was home. He, along with his roommate and a girl from Geneva, was going to Indiana for a week. He's been enjoying his time there so far, which is, of course, very good. :)

Saturday wasn't too active. Not a ton of stuff went on. We had a bunch of snow coming in, so I didn't fly in the morning like I was wanting to. I didn't fly at all, as a matter of fact.

Sabbath was a rather long day. We had the snow come in a lot and the winds were supposed to pick up a bunch, so we didn't have church at all. Somas from across the street came over in the evening, and we had a Psalm sing, and after supper, we all watched Chariots of Fire. As always, it was a very useful and enjoyable watch.

Monday wasn't a ton either. We headed into Bellefontaine for some stuff. School got done. That was about it.

I'm going to have to get to bed soon, so I'll finish this later. If anyone sees this before tomorrow morning, I'd appreciate prayer on something: I'm supposed to fly tomorrow, up to Defiance. Please pray that the weather would cooperate! It's looking iffy...

I'll finish the post soon.

I'm starting to slip...

2007-12-11T22:20:00.001-05:00

I'll have to stop this trend. As you've probably noticed, the music has changed. It's now music, I guess, but not the best. This is actually a group of people trying to do it. Wow.

OK. Friday wasn't too much of anything. That's about it for then.

Saturday was busy. We had a hike with the troop around the north side of Kiser [sic] Lake, about 20 miles south of Belle Center. Melting conditions left the ground slippery, leading to several highly interesting points for me. My boots have been worn nearly smooth on the bottoms, so I can't grip the best. Slick snow/mud combining with a slope made it possible for me to ski at a few points, not all of them intended points. :P A few of us had pepperoni rolls baked in a folding oven over a propane stove. We had to eat them a bit under-cooked, since we were running out of time, but they were still great. :)

After the hike, I headed off to the airport. We got there, and I realized I didn't have the logbook, so we went home. I grabbed the logbook and we headed off to the airport again. I preflighted the airplane and headed out. About a minute after takeoff, things started getting interesting. I was about to do some maneuvering, so I checked out the engine instruments, and during my scan noticed something was wrong. I did a more thorough scan and figured out that the oil pressure was quite low--the low end of green. As I watched it for a little while, it decreased further, so I let the guy on the ground at the airport know about it and came back quickly. It turns out that occasionally some bit of crud of some sort or the other gets in and starts blocking the oil lines. I only got .2 hours in, but the airport manager didn't charge me a cent since the plane had mechanical problems. I never panicked and my heart rate really didn't rise any, but, judging from the way I felt afterwards, I'm thinking that I had a bunch of adrenaline pumping through.

Later that evening, Belle Center had the horse-drawn wagon rides to look at the lights around town. I ended up going with a couple families from church. Even though it was slightly drizzling, the whole thing was pretty fun. After getting home, I collapsed and went to sleep before much longer.

Worship on Sabbath was edifying, but sparsely attended. The two families that live a good distance away were unable to come due to weather. As well, we weren't in the building we're normally in, since that congregation needed their building all day long. Sermons were excellent, class was useful, and fellowship, although more limited than normal, was up to its usual high standard. :)

Yesterday I basically finished up ground school for flying. I have a DVD course that I'd never gotten around to completing, so I did that yesterday. I need to do a review with an instructor and do a little more work on a couple subject areas, but overall I'm ready for the written, or knowledge, test administered by the FAA. That should be interesting. :)

Today we got a bunch of schoolwork done, along with some other stuff that was necessary. Mom and I got my application to Geneva finished and sent in, so that was a plus. We had a (pretty much) good troop meeting tonight. I'm getting kind of tired now, so I'm probably forgetting something, but right now it's nothing important, so it doesn't really matter. :)

I'm guessing that's about it. I'm going to try to find a video...

Cheerleader and Band bloopers. As long as nobody gets hurt, always good for a laugh.

It's been 3 days, not 2!

2007-12-06T22:20:00.000-05:00

I'm starting to slip... hope not! :)

Well, the past few days have been nice. I've been kept busy with school, but overall everything's gone well.

Tuesday I did have one bit of a problem. Around 1 in the afternoon, while doing some British literature, my neck gave out a resounding pop. After that until late that evening, my neck was hurting on and off a lot. For a while, I wasn't planning on going to the scout meeting that night, but a couple times of popping in an aspirin took care of the pain (mostly).

The meeting went quite well. We had talks on preparing for the hike this weekend, but the only one that I was present for was a presentation on proper packing and "ingredients" of a first aid kit. During the rest, I was off talking with several adult leaders on various and sundry topics, ranging from Air Force usage of handheld radios to rats' presence in Bellefontaine. Afterwards, we went outside for a few (emphasis on few) minutes of tag, during which time I managed to get a toe stepped on, resulting in that toe starting to bleed. It turned out being rather uncomfortable. :)

Wednesday was quite interesting. We had about 4-5 inches of snow overnight, and the roadcrews seemingly weren't quite ready for all of it. Mom and I made it to bowling in Bellefontaine, but not by much. We followed a car going 15-30 MPH about all the way into town, where the driver, at one turn, accidentally locked the brakes and slid nicely into a large snowbank. It was kind of funny, assuming you weren't in the car! :)

We were one of only about 4-5 families at bowling that morning. I bowled four games, and did well on two of them! :P Oh well. It was fun, even though I didn't do the best job at a few spots. I just couldn't get the ball to go down the middle consistently--it always went left or right, but hardly ever right down the middle.

Snow shoveling was in order after we got back from town. There wasn't a ton to be doing, since there wasn't a ton of snow. We shoveled four front sidewalks, two back sidewalks, two front porches, one back porch, and a partridge in a pear tree. Skip that last one. Anyway, the shoveling was the first of the season. It was kind of fun. By the time we get to about the 50th time, it will probably have lost some of its appeal! :)

Yesterday evening we had prayer meeting. Attendance was pretty much the usual, and everything else was pretty much average. The short meditation we always have was very good, so that was encouraging. :)

Today was great. I did a bit of school, including a Government test that I did very well on. However, the school wasn't the fun part, although it wasn't bad. Tonight, I got 2.6 hours flying, over half of which I did solely by reference to instruments. I renewed my solo endorsement, meaning I'm now OK to fly by myself again. As well, I finally got to do some VOR (radio) navigation, something that somehow had been overlooked for a while. It was pretty easy, enough that my very first time I was able to do a basic VOR approach for the airport, meaning that I used it to be getting most of the way to the ground. After my first lesson, I had a quick break while I microwaved some pizza and drank Mountain Dew. Yum. :)

Afterwards, I headed out with another instructor. We left Bellefontaine and flew on down to Dayton International Airport, where I got my first taste of operating in busy controlled airspace (Class C if you're interested) and of shooting ILS approaches. Basically, the controlled airspace here is that I'm having to talk to controllers to get approval to do pretty much anything. As well, the ILS is a precision radio approach that will get me almost all the way to the ground even in bad weather. It's precise enough that the bars on the instrument that gives me the approach information will noticeably move for as little movement as seven feet off course! It made it rather challenging, especially since I was referencing only the instruments and couldn't use my eyesight. Oh, had I mentioned this is all at night? It was great!

I think that's it for right now. I had a blast. I'm going up again on Saturday (assuming weather cooperates) so I think I'll be able to get a lot of time this week! :)

Have a good evenin'.

Keeping up with posting finally!!! :)

2007-12-03T22:28:00.000-05:00

Well, yesterday was interesting weather. The temperature was about 50º or higher most of the day. We had a few times of intense rain, one period strong enough that it almost looked like the storm at summer camp at one of the calmer parts! That's saying a lot. :)

One family wasn't able to make it yesterday, so that was a bummer. We had only one worship service as well as class, due to the Presbyterian church, whose building we use, needing it for longer than normal in the morning/afternoon and then a bunch in the evening. They had a children's Christmas pageant, and they needed to set up for it a lot. When we got there, the entire platform was covered with sheets and poofy cotton for snow. We grabbed a lectern from downstairs for Dad to use, and it seemed to work well. We also had communion yesterday, so we had to grab a table from another place to put the elements on. Overall, it was a blessed day.

Today's been fun. I did five school lessons, starting with an English review and then a test that I didn't do the best on, as I hadn't quite figured out when to use who and when to use whom. Don't bother commenting to tell me how. :) I also did some physics and math.

We went out on the town tonight, really living it up. After stopping at Rite-Aid quickly, we went to Kroger and Aldi. Then, we headed off to the gourmet Italian restaurant known as Fazoli's. Their pizza was especially scrumptious. Finally, for the highlight of the night, we visited the wonderful land of Walmart. I ended up getting a couple things for myself--a pair of 88% Merino Wool socks (very nice) and a new Hawaiian-style shirt, since mine is getting old. After this wild excitement, we came back home, where our across-the-driveway neighbor presented us with a plate of gingersnap cookies (of which I've already had six--they're wonderful.) While I'd been getting a lot of exercise walking around Walmart, I decided I needed more so I walked to the library, about 4 blocks away.

The walk was nice, even with the temperature being in the 20's. I got to the library and found a few good books and at least one not so good. I checked out a Clive Cussler book that's pretty new, and also got "Mere Christianity" by C. S. Lewis. As well, I got a DVD that I'm about to start in.

I think that's been about it. Just so you know, I was kinda exaggerating about it being a big night out on the town. It's not too big. It was kinda fun tho. :) Good night.

Unfortunately, no more flying...

2007-12-01T21:32:00.000-05:00

As the title says. I got some groundschool done, but both of the Eclipse's (trainer aircraft) are down for maintenance. Oh well. The weather near the end of the time when I was doing the lesson fell apart incredibly. We had a sleet squall. Quite interesting for the plane that was about 2 miles out, on approach for the runway. They were a bit nervous for a little while. It turned out all right, though.

Our Scout troop marched in the Christmas parade today in the county seat, Bellefontaine. Bumpas and I got to be the main color guard for the Scout section of the parade, holding a large American flag. It got kinda cold since we had to have uniforms showing (no coats.) As well, I wasn't wearing gloves, since I wanted to be able to hold the flagpole very securely. Everything worked out nicely, as I warmed up afterwards with a nice cup of hot chocolate. :)

Schoolwork yesterday was interesting. I did well on a pre-calc test, completed some physics, and finished up with British literature. Literature isn't my favorite, but this was interesting, reading some of the works of Sir Thomas More and then William Tyndale. More could have been such an asset, if he would have seen the truth. As it is, he was a horrible detriment to the progress of God's Word. Thankfully, the Lord has said that His Word will endure forever, and Tyndale was a tool to help that. I hadn't remembered this, but about 90% of the KJV is Tyndale's translation. This man lived only until his early 40's until he was publicly strangled as a heretic, but his contributions continue today.

I'm thinking that's it for right now. I'll try to keep up posting regularly.

Flying, Mowing, and School

2007-11-29T23:22:00.000-05:00

Well, that's what I've been up to. Tonight, for the first time in just shy of two weeks, I finally got to go up again. I finished up the night flying requirements for my license, and had a blast doing it at the same time. While en route from one airport to another, my instructor and I were heading with a nice strong wind, strong enough that the GPS said our groundspeed was 155 knots top speed. :D Fastest I've ever gone in an Eclipse. We did have a little trouble with one plane at another airport, since he hadn't announced his intentions over the radio, so we gave him a wide berth so we wouldn't have any risk of a "fender bender".

Flying at night again was fun. The weather was just about perfectly clear. We could see all over the place! It was pretty incredible, seeing the light displays some people put up. Wow. I think a few people spent a lot of money on lights. :D

School has been going well. We got a lot of work done yesterday and today, and we're starting to get caught up. Today was a math lesson, chapter review, and non-graded quizzes. Tomorrow's the chapter test. Great fun. Oh well. I also did English and physics a bit today. So far, the physics is ending up being quite fun (most of the time! :) Overall, it's been a good school year, except for the many interruptions for yardwork, flying, and a death in the family.

Yes, we mowed yesterday. No, we're not out of our minds. A yard had tons of leaves, and we didn't want to blow it all. Also, the grass was pretty tall and thick, so we just mowed it! It was kind of fun. We're thinking about mowing our yard here at home on Saturday, just to say we mowed grass in December! :D

Well, I think that's about it. I'm going to try to keep posting more often, so check back frequently. Good night.

Time for a new post

2007-11-27T21:41:00.000-05:00

As the title says.

OK. Letsee. Flying? Some. Yardwork? Some. School? A bit. Scouts? Plenty. Blogging? Not till now!

Church has been pretty much the same. A family from about 40 miles to the west has been coming a bit, which is quite nice. :) The adult and high schoolers class has started on a new book. It's "20 Controversies that Almost Killed a Church" by Richard Ganz. So far, it appears to be quite useful and edifying, but I've only been there for one lesson. I trust it'll be the same for the rest of the book! :) Other than that, there's nothing else new or unusual going on.

Yardwork has been interesting. Mom and I aren't remembering the last time that we had to work this late. We actually mowed a yard three days before Thanksgiving! Weird. Thankfully, the grass is practically done, and the leaves have pretty much totally fallen. I think we're done until the snow falls enough that it needs to be shoveled.

Flying has been interesting. I haven't gone up for about two weeks, mostly due to weather and having been gone in Pennsylvania for six days for Thanksgiving. However, I did have a great time on Friday the 16th. I got to do a long (I mean long) trip. After leaving Bellefontaine, I headed off for Delaware (OH) Municipal Airport, a little under 35 miles to the east. I landed, taxiied back to the runway, and took off again for Wood County Airport (Bowling Green), just over 70 miles north. I hung around Wood Co. for quite a while, even walking nearly a mile round trip to get "lunch" at Arby's. Lunch ended up being a group of eight very tasty mozzarella sticks and a large cup of Pepsi. Yum. I'd already had some Dew earlier, in case you're wondering why I had Pepsi and not Dew. Anyway, I ate and drank, then headed back for Bellefontaine. The total trip ended up being about 166 nautical miles, or 191 statute miles. Long trip! It was lotsa fun.

Now, I'm unfortunately having my solo endorsement running out on Friday, so after Thursday I can't fly by myself anymore until I go up with an instructor again. However, that won't be much of a problem, since I was needing to go up with an instructor soon again anyway. Hopefully, I'll be able to get back into the swing of things soon and get up in the air more regularly again, soon to be getting ready for the Private Pilot checkride. I'm also working on a home study DVD course to get ready for the written test, so I'm keeping busy.

Schoolwork is going well. Nothing new here.

Scouts--we've had a bunch of younger guys interested in our troop. There's a chance that we could have up to 9 (I think) 11-year-olds joining our troop at the same time. Wow. That just about made my heart skip when I said that. Heh. It would be a very interesting experience to get that many new boys at once. Oh well. We're in a Christmas parade this Saturday, then next weekend we're on a hike, most likely at Kiser [sic] Lake south of here a little ways.

Thanksgiving was very nice. We all got to spend four whole days and parts of two other days in PA. My grandpa, who'd broken a hip, is doing quite well, considering the circumstances. We got to see a bunch of family, eat plenty of simply delicious food, and participate in several crazy games of Taboo. Thanksgiving is great for the food, family, and fun, but it's best for showing us what God has blessed us with.

I think that's it for right now. I'll hopefully post more regularly, but I also realize how frightening it is that I say that almost every post. I'll close with a video. It shows the REAL way to enjoy classical music. Good night all!

It's been a while

2007-11-09T23:12:00.000-05:00

I never seem to remember to do this and have the drive to do it, unless I don't have access to the computer. Sigh.

Well, for starters, my grandma went to be with the Lord the day after the last post. She was indeed placing her trust in Christ, so she had every hope of deliverance, and we're confidant that now her suffering is over. As several friends of mine who've recently lost grandparents struggling with life can understand, it's very hard, but it's bittersweet. You hate to see them go, but, if they're in Christ, it's a great blessing to them to depart their life of sin, and be with their Lord, and be free of imperfection.

On happier thoughts, I surpassed my goal with popcorn sales for Scouts by nearly 200 dollars! :) As well, yardwork for the year is nearly over, so I have more time now to dedicate to school, flying, and other activities.

School: Everything's going very well. The Math and Physics are fun (for the most part), English and British Literature aren't too bad, and Government is actually quite easy. So far, I'm enjoying my senior year. Grades are good, and we're behind some, but, since we were out in Pennsylvania for a week when we weren't planning to be, that's kind of understandable.

Flying's been going great as well. I'm up to 20.7 hours, out of the 40 required. Tomorrow, God willing, I'm flying a pretty long distance: around 166 nautical miles. As long as the weather's good, I'll be flying this four-stop course as a requirement for my license. Boy, I'm looking forward to it. I sure hope God blesses me with clouds high enough and winds low enough! :) I think I'm still on track to be getting my license on my birthday, January 7. Yet again, weather seems to be the key factor. We'll see how it works out.

Church has been pretty much the same since the last post. The only major thing that's happened is that we've bought a TV/DVD player combo for use in the Adult Sabbath School class. Please keep praying for clear guidance for the Belle Center RP Church!

I'm going to sign off now. Hopefully I'll get back into posting more often. Before I go, I have one more thing, though. Any of you heard of Paul Potts? Well, watch this video, even if you have. He was a cell phone salesman who auditioned for Britain's Got Talent. Here is the video from that night.

Unexpected

2007-10-16T08:42:00.001-04:00

We're leaving shortly for Pennsylvania. My grandma's dying. Please be praying for my grandpa especially, as this is understandably very difficult for him. I'll update more when I know more.

ALMOST A MONTH!!

2007-10-07T21:05:00.000-04:00

GASP! I really need to do this more often. Sorry everyone.

Well. Letsee. What have I been doing lately? School for starters. That's been going well, although we're slightly behind. Other than that... aviation stuff, scout stuff (including, now, popcorn sales), and mowing. I'll add more to that list soon. However, for the time being, I'll have a section on each of these things.

First off, church. It wasn't on that list, but oh well. We've been doing well. Just in this last week, we received a large gift of money, and just today six people have passed examination for church membership. The LORD is blessing our congregation! Please, everyone that reads this, be praying that He will bless us more! Our town (of around 900 people) is largely composed of people that either never go to church, or are the seeds in the thorns. Belle Center RPCNA has been put in Belle Center for a reason, and that reason is assuredly known by God. Please pray that He would make it clear to us, and what His will for us in this area is.

OK. On to schoolwork. I'm doing a bunch of stuff. Main subjects are British Literature, Pre-Calculus, US Government, Physics, and English. As well, I'm doing advanced vocabulary, applied math (like currently, mathematics of insurance and accounting), and other things that I'm currently at 10:11 PM not remembering. I'm doing pretty well with it. The pre-calc is challenging--it's introducing plenty of new things that I take a little longer to wrap my brain around. However, everything's mostly been easy to understand (after reading it carefully two or three times :) Oh yeah, Mom's counting Aviation Sciences, which leads me nicely to the next topic.

Well. I've been having fun with flying. A lot of fun. I'm more and more convinced that God is wanting me to make a career of it.

I just got a new headset. I took this picture with my webcam about 2 minutes ago. Anyway, the headset's really nice. I've used it only once though. :( Brand new, it would be over three hundred, and I got it off of Ebay for around 240. :)

Since the last post, which was the solo video, I've soloed a couple more times. I've flown to Bowling Green, north of here about 67 nautical miles, twice. Once was with the instructor, and we didn't do much but land, taxi back to the start of the runway, and take off again and head for home. The second time, I went solo, and stayed at the airport for about 15 minutes, getting a couple small bags of Doritos and drinking a 20 oz. bottle of the Nectar of Life (it's not really that; just a fun title) Mountain Dew. I also later that day flew over a friend's house and, since I'd called his family before, they were out waving at me. I could see them, and waggled the wings a little bit at them before heading back to the airport. Anyway. Yesterday I flew out to Muncie, IN, with an instructor. A couple weeks ago, I went to Mansfield, OH, at night, with an instructor. Boy, it's been great.

Also, we went to a big airshow at Rickenbacker Airport in Columbus, OH. There were over 100 P-51's there. I've got a few pictures that I'll put up.

A skydiver opening with a huge American flag. Biplanes circled him, as you can see.

Big Beautiful Doll. A very famous P-51.

Hilarious sign. :)

Main upper armament on a WWII bomber (Avro Lancaster.) Twin .50's. Hehe.

Dad standing next to a P-38, another WWII fighter, and one of his favorites.

P-40.

F-22. This thing was amazing. I'm gonna try to find a video of it to put on this post.

US Army Special Forces exhibit included a bit of interesting weaponry, all of which I got to handle. :)

Memphis Belle, the most famous B-17 ever. Not the original. :(

A C-5 Galaxy. Absolutely humongous plane. Wow.

P-51 next to the Lancaster, right before both went up. A little Air Force vehicle designed to look like the F-22. Cute little thing. :)
A very famous P-51, and this is the original. Unfortunately, I didn't get to meet the original pilot, Chuck Yeager.
A racing P-51.

Lt. Col. Meyer seemed to have been busy.

Yet another famous P-51.

And, although not from the airshow, a funny self-portrait of me from a couple nights ago, using flash in a very dark room. No red-eye remover was used, as you can probably tell. :)

Scouts hasn't been too much lately. After leaving the airshow, we went straight to a Camporee, which is a campout for troops from 3 different counties, and we have competitions, etc. Well, our patrol placed 1st out of 13. As well, I was the main bugler, which was fun, and I ran the campfire program, which was really fun! :) I also got a Bronze Palm recently, which is a further award past Eagle, basically given for continued leadership and more merit badges. I'm also selling popcorn. If you're interested, gimme an email or phone call. I can probably sell you some. :)

Mowing is the same as usual.

I think I'm done. Here's a video of the F-22 demonstration. Good night!

F-22. Wow. Speaking as an aviator, although not a very experienced one, this plane just shouldn't be able to do some of these things. Period. Wow. No wonder this thing is so capable. Watch it.

Video

2007-09-08T22:05:00.000-04:00

Well, today I got the videos and pictures from the solo flight last week. I decided to try Windows Movie Maker to put everything together, and it came out really nicely! So nicely, I put it on YouTube, and now it's here for you to enjoy (hopefully! :) Here it is.

My last week

2007-09-03T11:12:00.001-04:00

This last week was one of the busier weeks of the summer. We had a good, although a bit busy, troop meeting on Tuesday, and a very productive popcorn sale on Saturday morning. I also ushered at a wedding on Friday evening, along with being at the rehearsal on Thursday. As well, I got in for a couple flight lessons, got my medical, and got to solo! :)

I know this ain't a very big post, but that's about all that I feel like doing right now. I might well do more later, but that'll remain to be seen. The other thing I'm changing is the music. I'm going to be linking to JFK Airport (New York City) Tower's streaming audio. So, if you're curious, that's what it is. Due to the formatting, I had to relocate it to the bottom of the page. Seeya later!

Only one life, 'twill soon be past; only what's done for Christ will last.

2007-08-27T20:49:00.001-04:00

This is one of main focuses of a book that I've been reading lately. The book is "don't waste your life" by john piper [sic]. I'm finding it very useful as it shows how to be focusing much more on Christ in everyday life. Also, it's strongly emphasizing the importance of making sure that the two main purposes of man (glorifying God and enjoying Him forever) are not as two purposes, but one united purpose with two facets. This book has really been a blessing in my life so far, and I'm only up to the third chapter! :P

OK. Other than that, what have I been doing lately? Well, I've been keeping quite busy. Let's see. I'll start out with my Eagle Scout Court of Honor.

The COH went quite well. I had an aunt and uncle come out from Pennsylvania for it, Grandmother came up from Cincinnati with another uncle of mine, and Colin McClintock from Elkhart RP came with his dad and younger brother. Since I don't get to see any of these people very often, it was really enjoyable! :) The ceremony went quite well, and the cake was delicious. I have some pictures, so let's go into those.

Mr. Stoner, who was our first scoutmaster. He was the ceremony's MC.

Dad presenting me with a US Flag flown over the US Capitol Building on the day that I made Eagle.

Dad talking and me grinning about something or the other. :)

Mom pinning the Eagle Medal on me. For those of you wonder, yes, she did use the backings on the pins! :)

Me putting the Mentor's Pin on Grandmother. I would have liked to have given it to Grumps (diagram that), but, since he passed away last December, Grandmother filled in.

Here was the scrumptious cake.

A picture of my project a few days before the ceremony.

Me with Mr. Morton, a man from church.

Several of Milkdud's family, who helped out a good bit with the ceremony. Thank you! :)

Me outside having fun waiting for people to come out so I can startle them.

OK. Well, that's if for the ceremony. By the way, the last three pictures were from the Mortons, while the others were all from Nathaniel, who, by the way, we took out to Geneva last weekend. As with the past two summers, it was really nice having him here, and I'm going to miss him a good bit. While out in Pennsylvania, we got to visit with my grandpa a bunch, and a little bit with my grandma, who isn't doing the best. Also, I'll bring this up now, since it's a good transition to my next topic. We had to go to Geneva, obviously, so we also went out to the Community College of Geneva College (CCBC), which is where I'll be doing my flight training in college. I found out that, if I come in with my Private Pilot's License, I'll automatically have 7 credits, and if I pass a $75 test, there's another 3 in. In addition, if I get my Instrument Rating, I have another 6, and 3 more possible with another $75 test. I could end up getting 19 credits with $150. :) However, that wouldn't count the money I'd already have spent here at home. :P

Another thing with this is that my parents are urging me to take a year off between high school graduation and going to college. I'm much more seriously considering this, especially since they've been more and more thinking it's a good idea. If I would end up taking a year off, it wouldn't be for just lazing around. God willing, I would be getting a job (hopefully at the airport), getting my instrument rating (assuming funding is possible), starting to drive (which actually is probably going to be more like this next spring/summer), and possibly getting a car.

Well, as you've probably gathered, I've been flying a bunch. As of today's lesson, I'm up to 7.4 hours and 37 landings. I'm going tomorrow to the Delaware County Airport to get my FAA Medical, and hopefully I'll be soloing this week--going up by myself, with no instructor on board.

Also, last weekend, we had an airshow at the local airport, where I'm learning. Boy, was it fun. I got to go up 3 times, but only once did I actually get to fly. That once made up for all the others. I got to fly what's called an SNJ, a WWII Navy advanced trainer. Other than the takeoff and landing, I got to fly most everything. It was amazing how easy to fly it was--almost easier than the plane I'm learning in! We got to do a bunch of stuff ranging from the normal items in the lessons to a couple basic aerobatic maneuvers. It was a blast!

I have a few pictures that I'm going to put up from the airshow, so here ya go.

Bellefontaine, the county seat.

A few houses out in the country. We tried to figure out where this is, but haven't succeeded yet.

Looking out into the countryside.

Me in the SNJ

Taxiing out to the runway.

After we got back and taxiing in. After looking at my expression, I think I had a good time! :D

Me afterwards with the pilot, who's certified as a flight instructor, so I got it in the logbook! :)

Lewistown, a local village.

The SNJ on the ground.

Later that evening with my across-the-street-neighbor, who I took up (not me flying) for his first flight.

Cockpit of a Cessna 172. These pictures (at least the previous one and on down to the last one) are from a borrowed camera, which was really a great camera!

SNJ in flight with a Cessna 172 in the background.

Grand Lake St. Mary's--about 35 miles from where the picture was taken.

Columbus skyscrapers--50 miles from the camera.

A picture of a local Honda plant, this particular one in charge of transmissions.

Indian Lake school complex.

Cool patterns in the fields.

Out into the countryside.

A video of the landing.

OK. Well, that's it for now. I'm gonna be getting to bed soon. Good night!

New record...

2007-08-02T21:52:00.000-04:00

for the longest time without posting. Sorry everybody. I keep forgetting to do anything with the blog. I'll give you the rundown for the last, ummm, three weeks.

Alrighty. We went to summer camp at Camp Birch, about an hour and a quarter south of Belle Center. Another troop from here in the county stayed in the same campsite with us, and for most of the time we functioned as one troop. A couple guys from our troop and about all of the other troop got down to Birch on the Lord's Day, July 15, while Dad, Nathaniel, Sean, Matt, and I all got there Monday. Boy, was it a blast. We had a great time. Except for a few minor things, our two troops got along really well. I completed only two merit badges, Archery and Weather, but I also completed COPE, the teambuilding thing that also has the high ropes course.

One highlight or downlight of the week, depending on your perspective (highlight sorta for me), was early Thursday morning. We had a doozy of a storm roll in. The lighting was more there than not, almost constant at times. In around 45 minutes of rain, we had just under two inches, which was annoying, because I ended up being out in the storm for much of it. Gore-Tex works almost all the time, but not totally in that amount of rain. Bumpas and I shared a tent, and I accidentally managed to get it pretty wet, so we spent about 0300-0700 in a couple other guys' tent. We stuffed four people in a two-person tent, but these aren't dome tents. They're what are called wall tents, nice big ones that can fit four guys. Also, there are cots, so there's space under them on the ground (no floor) for your gear. Anyway, the wind was the big thing with this storm. There were several gusts that really were strong, all of them being past 60 MPH. The last one was the only time I was really scared. It blew like I've never seen before. Dad and I agreed that it was easily 75 or more, and we've gotten National Weather Service training, so we sorta know how to judge the wind speed! :) I ended up leaning about 20º into it and almost walking forward to keep in the same spot. However, the worst part was that a few trees were rotating for a few seconds. That had me scared. Since I was the main junior leader, I was about to start yelling for evacuation, but the gust died down and the trees stopped swirling. Soon after that, the whole thing quieted down, and Bumpas and I finally got to bed. Phew.

We pulled out Saturday morning, even though a bunch of guys left Friday evening. Overall, the week was great. It was encouraging to meet a bunch of new friends, several of which are solid Christians. Also, Bumpas and I spent a couple hours witnessing to a guy from another troop--please be praying that he would come to see that what Christ says is true and that he must submit to the King.

OK. That's it for summer camp. We got back, and I collapsed. Almost literally. Sleep deprivation. It was fun. Really.

The week after wasn't much. No more flying lessons, just mowing and working on my Eagle Court of Honor, which is Saturday the 11th. Not much more.

Oh yeah. There was one little thing. I got to go to the Dayton Airshow with Dad and a bunch of guys from church. It was great. We got to see some really incredible performances, get in a bunch of nice aircraft, both planes and helos, and also several of us older guys got to get in the Virtual Army Experience, a shooter activity where we're in life-size Humvee models. Basically, each guy gets on a light machine gun position on the Humvee, and we use the LMG to take out (using lasers) enemies on the screen in front of the Humvee. The really cool thing was the model was able to move a bit, and had a great sound system, so we could tell when a close shot went by, and we really knew when an IED blew close to us because the whole thing would shake. Anyway, I came home with a neat mahogany Blackhawk model. This thing is pretty big--about 20" long.

The big highlight of the show was to be the USAF Thunderbirds. Unfortunately, we didn't get to watch them perform. The pilot right before them was in a maneuver that he didn't pull out of in time. He died within a few seconds of hitting the ground. Please also be in prayer for his wife, and also his 4-year-old son.

Lord's Day was edifying and enjoyable. We had about average attendance at church. The sermons were quite good. As well, we had dinner after the two services, and plenty of time to socialize, which is always nice. :)

After dinner, Mom and Dad left on a vacation! They're going with my Uncle Charlie and Aunt Debbie, who're having their 25 anniversary in a few weeks here, so since Mom and Dad had theirs a few weeks ago, they're having a mutual 25th vacation in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Nathaniel and I have been "baching/batching" it together. We've done well, keeping the house mostly clean, remembering to get the mail, washing the dishes, getting the yards mown, etc. Mom and Dad are supposed to get home tomorrow, and it'll be great to see them. It's nice (in a way) having them away, mostly because of staying up a little bit later, and partly because we proved we can get along without having them here. However, it's nicer having them back here. I've missed both of them this week, but at least I know they're coming back soon. Wonder how I'll do with leaving for college? :)

Alrighty. Tonight was special. I had a lesson for the first time in about three weeks, and it was a blast. I got in a total of seven landings, most of them touch-and-go, one at Urbana Airport, the next county south. Visibility wasn't the best, but it was still beautiful up there. Also, I handled almost all of the radio communications, which is a first. I only slightly goofed once with the radio, but it wasn't any big deal. Oh well. It was wonderful. My instructor, who by the way is new for me, since my old one's gone into Air National Guard OCS, was surprised that I don't quite have 5 hours yet--he said I handled the plane like I have 30-40 hours! That was nice to hear. It was great. Did I say that before? :)

Well, that's that. Hopefully it won't be so long next time. I've gotta go do the dishes now. Seeya later!

Covfamikoi

2007-07-15T22:05:00.000-04:00

"I've been challenged to be mentioning God more in my everyday life, like in casual conversation."

"I've been feeling as if God's been leading me to spend more time with Him in His Word and in prayer every day."

"I've been convicted that I need to be working more for Christ's Kingdom in my community by witnessing more."

These are a few things said by the high school kids at the campfire on the last evening of the conference. We had an edifying time of talking with the group of what God had shown us and used from the week to be applying to our lives. Almost everything of what people said applied to almost everyone there.

Covfamikoi (COVenanters Florida Alabama Michigan Indiana* Kentucky Ohio Illinois*) was a great success. *I'm not sure which is first or second of Indiana and Illinois. The speaker, Dr. Ken Smith, was very useful. His main topic was on "Culture: Keeping your Balance." He spoke throughout the week on what we should be doing to become World Christians. By this he meant that we should be in the world, but not of the world.

As well, we high schoolers had a discussion time that was very useful. James Faris, the pastor of our Southfield, Michigan church led a discussion time. Often, the time was split in about half. One half-hour or so would be discussion, and the other would be something else. For example, we had the speaker's son, also Ken Smith, talk about the importance of a Christian higher education, specifically Geneva College, the school where he's President at. :)

Covfamikoi wasn't just speakers and discussion, though. The high schoolers had several great games. One night, we played Capture the Flag (My team beat the other team, by the way :) and another night we had an activity with water balloon launchers. I'll explain that one more in-depth later. As well, we had great fellowship over meals, talking during free time, and talking late at night with old and new friends. I got to meet a lot of new people and also to strengthen a lot of old friendships.

Overall, this conference was one that God used to be strengthening my life. I've had problems before keeping regular on my Bible reading and personal prayer, and this conference has shown me more how I should be doing these things. Please pray for the conference attendees, that the things that God has shown them would be used to be furthering their walk with the Lord, and furthering His Kingdom.

Sorry about the formatting. Blogger's not cooperating and I don't feel like wrestling with it. By the way, the music is a bad recording of the conference psalm being sung by almost all the attendees, in case you're curious. Now, I'll not be posting for another week, since I'm going to summer camp in the morning. However, I'll hopefully have pictures of that. Eventually, I think I'll have pictures of Covfamikoi too. Good night!

Quick Post

2007-07-05T07:15:00.000-04:00

I've noticed I forgot to put up a post. Hopefully, I'll do that later today. Also, the format and everything was getting old, so I changed the template. :( Anyway, time to go get breakfast and get ready for groundschool.

2007-06-30T18:22:00.001-04:00

Back. Will put up more later.

Getting going

2007-06-27T23:10:00.000-04:00

Well, this will be a quick post. I need to go pack for a couple days in Pennsylvania, where we're attending a cousin's wedding. I won't be on IM or the blog until Saturday.

Also, I decided to change the music, since it's only one week until the Fourth of July! :) I always liked fireworks, but this doesn't have too many. It's long but it's good.

Good night.