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!

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

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.

No post since last month...

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?

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!

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!