realizations in a fabric store

i took a friend to a fabric store yesterday and realized a few things while i was there. i don't understand the concept of browsing at all. if i go to a store, i know exactly what i need. what's the point of going if i don't know what i'm getting? i'm sure if i went to a store i enjoy without knowing this, much too much money would be spent. so is that the difference? is it just that i would spend too much? or maybe it's the sheer fact that i don't enjoy shopping that much...

after browsing, my friend showed me the pattern books and told me what to look for. i realized that i can't picture these patterns with different fabric. i can see the clothes in the book on an individual, but any more than that is too much for my brain.

i had many more observations to write about here, but can't remember them now...go figure :)

interesting websites i've found lately

tips on being a slacker

the 1st antispam day

animated mr. bean

chocolate!!

make bart say anything

meteorite hits a printer

glow-in-the-dark toilet seat

tons of easter eggs

optical illusions

the museum of unworkable devices

design a virtual apartment

roommate-less and network speed

for the first time since i've lived at home, i am roommate-less. jenelle left yesterday for home until fall. my roommate of the last 1.5 years straight is also gone, but thankfully only for a few weeks. she went to malaysia on a missions trip, so she'll return with lots of wonderful stories. so until june, it's just lisa and i in our suite, but she's not around too much... it's wierd having 1/2 the furniture empty in here - it feels like i've just moved into a new room and my roommate hasn't arrived yet...

at work, we're in the process of moving users to the recently-purchased cisco switch. most of this needs to be done after 5.00, so they don't lose their data. (overtime for me!!!) only 8 users were moved over as of this morning and all day they were raving about how fast everything was. and right now the servers are running on 100 mb, but next week we're putting in 1 gb cards! it's going to be really nice!!!!

random stuff

everytime i go home i realize that i could never endure city traffic on a daily basis. somehow between my trips to nebraska, i forget this.

a random quote that i heard on one of the afternoon radio shows:
if you tell God you'll do the things you can for Him, He'll do what He can for you. (loosely qtd) --joyce meyer

on my drive to NE this weekend, i thought alot about the fact that i speed frequently. i don't do it excessively - often just 5 over the speed limit, but nonetheless, i am breaking the law. as a christian, shouldn't i hold myself to a high enough standard to obey all the laws of the land? on the way home through oklahoma city, traffic was going 10 mph over the speed limit. i would have been a major hazard if i had obeyed the law. so what's the right thing to do in that situation - obey the law like a good citizen or go with the flow? on a slightly different note, my thirst for adrenaline sometimes takes over while i'm driving. it's alot more fun to speed, weaving in and out of traffic, than to just go with the flow. the sad truth is that i am glad i don't have anything on the exterior of my car that signifies my christianity. that way when i get caught up in the energy of city driving, it doesn't hurt my witness. i hate how that sounds, but it's true. what i should do is put a christian bumper sticker or some other symbol on my car and try to obey the law more often...we'll see i guess.

sorry for not blogging much lately - i won't even give any excuses...
 
this summer i'm working at dana corporation in longview. all this plant does is make truck frames for GM.  450 employees and millions of dollars put into the plant - all for truck frames.  it's really fascinating to walk onto the plant floor and watch the robots do their thing.  right now, they're still trying to get everything working.
 
they have one guy in their IT department and i help him out.  he's a really great guy and treats me wonderfully.  my bosses at IT treated me really well also - i never had any complaints, but it doesn't compare to this.  i wish i could describe it.  he is not a christian, but he's one of the nicest guys i know.  he cusses but is really careful about not doing it around me.  he is also really open with me - he has talked about his past some and is always giving me good advice about things he's learned the hard way - finishing my degree, getting certified, not smoking, treating people well, learning how to take care of myself, the list goes on and on...and i've only worked for him for 1.5 weeks.

today i did 2 loads of laundry without detergent. it wasn't until i had put 1 of the loads in the dryer that i realized this. so basically i wasted $1.50 that i didn't need to spend...grrr

i'll let salam's words speak for themselves:

"War sucks big time. Don’t let yourself ever be talked into having one waged in the name of your freedom. Somehow when the bombs start dropping or you hear the sound of machine guns at the end of your street you don’t think about your “imminent liberation” anymore."

~written on 4/2

"I wish the Iraqi and the American governments would stop saying they are doing this for the people."

~written on 3/27

"You wake up to the sound of bombardment; you brush your teeth to the rhythm of the anti-aircraft rat-tat-tats. Then there is the attack which is timed exactly with our lunch time. Dishes are fun to do while you think about the possibility of the big window in front of you being smashed by the falling tons of explosives and so on. The first two days we would hurry inside and listen with worry, now you just sigh look up to the sky, curse, and do whatever you have to do. This of course is only because we live relatively far from where the action is these days; we only seriously worry about two stupid anti-aircraft guns a couple of hundred meters away. Having heard form the people who live close to “targets” we can thank whatever gods or accidents that made us live where we do now."

"One more word by Americans on TV about “humanitarian aid” will make me kill my television. They have the audacity to turn us to beggars while we will have to pay for the research and development of the weapons they are field-testing on us and they do as if they are helping us with their “humanitarian aid”. Excuse me, but it would help much more if you would stop dropping those million dollars per bomb on us, in is cheaper for us in the long run."


thank God the war is over!!!

life would be so much simpler if i didn't love my friends so much...

finals are over! i think the semester ended pretty well. in one of my classes, i needed a 1.5% to keep a B and it was impossible to get an A...i love taking finals like that! i think i did all right in circuits 2 - i didn't know everything, but i was still happy with how i felt afterwards. i have no idea how prophets went, but i can never tell how i did after those tests, so i don't mind. instrumentation and measurements were ok and you know how ticked i was after king's final (see post below)...

the last two days were wonderful, even tho i was extremely bored. there wasn't homework to worry about and it wasn't even because i was procrastinating. my room was all packed up for moving today (we had to check out on friday...don't ask me why), so i couldn't even read a book or something. we ended up watching a bunch of movies and sleeping!

we never made it in to talk to dr. anderson - there was just too much to do. i'm hoping to send him an email about it. we'll see i guess.