There is a legend that tells of an old Caddo chief who lived near the Sabine River and had twin sons. When the sons grew to manhood and were ready to become leaders of their own tribes, the father sent one brother three days eastward toward the rising sun. The other brother was sent three days toward the setting sun.The twin who settled three days toward the setting sun was Nacogdoches. The other brother, Natchitoches, settled three days to the east in Louisiana.
I went with a Navy corpsman and friend, Jonathan Knotts, to the Washington D.C. Temple Visitors' Center for a fireside on Lincoln. It waws all good.
The events are listed here, but it seems incomplete at the moment.
Went to a cute lady's apartment this morning after being awake since 6:30! Went from there to play Ultimate Frisbee - a silly football-like game only with a frisbee. Fell in the mud.... Took a nap... watched a silly movie and I'll be going to go see yet another silly movie...
Got to get some pants on. It's cold outside!!!! (Well, for shorts.)
Looks like everyone got sick at my platz. Well, I feel I dodged the worst of it all. I just get a little stuffed up or congested. I hope it goes away completely by tomorrow.
I decided to get the abridged version of Dan Brown's book just in case I didn't like it. After about halfway through the first CD, I took off my headset.
I'm sure I'll finish the book. It seems kind of funny how judgmental I am at limes, and at others I am not.
Well, I guess someone has to be the odd ball. I play that position well.
I went back to finish my meal I didn't get to finish. I had too much fun talking...OK, I ordered a new meal but it was free. If you eat lunch at the bar, you can collect the waitresses signatures and get enough of them and you get a free lunch.
My thoughts reflected on my love life, or the lack thereof. I recognized how I could be perceived as obsessive when I got/get interested in someone.
Work, was work? I watched Dave this evening and did my laundry. What a fascinating life.
As I read this, I wondered if he was talking about me to some degree. I have had simular thoughts. There was a Star Trek Next Generation episoide that showed how Picard's agressive will to live got him the Captain's chair.
It was like a Wonderful life story. Picard was shown where he would have been had he chosen security when he was young. Picard was an engineer and he didn't like being ordered around and what not.
I guess so from this post. I guess I need to take back what I said about him.
I thought I already mentioned Toy Story 2 made me cry once. Recently, Monsters Inc. did. Before you think I'm a sissy, let me explain.
The first time I saw the show was with Ed's sister, who is married now. Wow, it has been a while.
I don't recall now my family went with us, but I remember walking out of the theater wishing I had a baby girl. The next best thing is a baby niece. It was only yesterday that I was "My cool".
When (in the movie) the door closed and was shredded, my niece told me she didn't want to grow up. I wondered if she remembered the fun times we had wrestling on the bed and if she knows we can not go back to those times. I assured her we would have lots more fun times in the future.
What a strange thing time is. I used to pose the question that if every clock in world, wrist watch, etc. are all different, what time is it?
A few weeks ago I looked around my Sunday school class and thought how I old I must be to everyone. I could recall back in the Center Ward in Utah, looking up the older crowd with some trepidation. The summer I joined the ward, I made a comment that I would be out of it by the coming January. Years later, I left… to another singles ward.
Feels like I have been here for years, but not even two. Time doesn’t heal all wounds. Time flys and yet some days it drags on. What time it is?
I liked this entry. I just added the RSS feed to my list; seems like an interesting site. I learned about it from Keith Brown's blog.
The Rhino case for my new toy made it fairly tough and durable but it was a pain to get it in and out. Unlike my old fairly durable toy, that snapped in and out of it's casing.
I took the new toy out of the Rhino case for a while. I thought it would be easier to hook up to the desktop that way. I noticed that I had little reason to sync up. I neglected to put it back in it's protective shell.
When I tried to pull up the scriptures on it the other day, the toy didn't come on line. For some reason I didn't feel remorseful at all. "Oh," I said. "I killed it." I tossed it carelessly back in the bag.
Last night I pluged it in to the wall to see if it was just out of power. The light came on immediately. There was some kind of memory error and it asked if it could reboot itself... like I had a choice?
Seems to be working fine. I still liked my older toy better.
It has been an eventful week. Not as interesting a story as one told in this movie, but still eventful.
Earlier in the month, I had signed up to feed the missionaries. Then I get am email saying they needed dinner appointments. I had them over, it was alright because one was a new guy or greeny as we called them. I forgot about this card thing they wanted me to put names on so they could follow up with me about them.
When I got the message they were coming over, I just assumed that they were just calling me on what I originally signed up for. Well, they can’t say they are hungry anymore! It was annoying to be instructed on how to do missionary work.
I just got back from lunch. I was with the most gorgeous woman I have ever had the privilege to be out with. I had a great time.
I'd love to see her again. Hopefully in the near future!
Another good peice of information. It's in Beta form, but it is cool. I like how you can hold down the right mouse button and scroll the map around without having to refresh the page...
Yesturday was quite relaxing, but it got really boring at times. I'm glad I have a place other than home to spend 8 hours a day at.
I went to fun group activity last night. I'm glad I went.
I also had a good talk with a friend about my obsessive behavior. We'll see what happens in the future.
Another reason I like this movie, is Maggie Nelson story. You'll have to watch Home Alone 2 before watching this one.
The bird lady is the same actress who plays Maggie the short-term, foster center caretaker..
I know it is all coincidencidental, but it makes a good story. I guess she moved from New York to California.
I did not go in to work today. I am pretty depressed and there is someone whom I do not care to see.
I'll know it does little good to dwell on all this, so l shall force myself to think again that great things will happen this year and this month.
In LA, this forced effort to be proactive, eventually became habitual. If it did nothing else, time seemed to accelerate and it was enjoyable.
The sooner I can get on the Disney cruise the better.
I’m a big looser, I know. I wasted so much time trying to make the perfect evening. I even altered the plan to give the others more time. I give them the time requersted and they took more. 30 minutes more!
I was hungry and very impatient. I could not get over harboring this resentment. When the dinner started, I was ready for it to end. I was nice, but I was not in the mood to host anymore. I know I should have tried harder to socialize. I’m glad I invited enough to carry on a conversation by themselves.
After everyone left and a couple curses or blasphemes, I shed a few tears. It was not a perfect evening at all. I was a complete ass.
Anyway, I like this movie. There is a line I often reflect upon. “You cannot go through life thinking everyone you meet will one day let you down.”
Everyone is too many to justify. The degree of the let down can be negligible. It seems that most people I have met, in some small way or another has let me down. I, probably, let them down too.
Taken from my father’s story.
When I first met Rosco, we would talk a lot on just about everything: life, the people back home and even religion. It had been my observation that a person gets closer to God when the going gets rough, and it was that way most of the time In Viet Nam. On one occasion Rosco had noticed that I was reading the Book of Mormon and of course asked me if I was a Mormon, I told him that I was and then asked him if he wanted to know about the church. He answered that he did and I was delighted to be able to do a little missionary work. His first question, which did not really surprise me, was about the Negro’ policy of the church. He seemed to believe In God and about what I had to tell him. I tried to answer his question as best I could and hoped that he was not offended. While talking with him you could feel the excitement over life that he had. If he could of had more time to hear all that I had to teach him, I know that he would have been baptized. But Rosco suddenly ran out of time.
One day we were out on another patrol. We had been finding signs of the VC all day, but we never made any actual contact. It was starting to get dark and we were ordered by the lieutenant with us to hold and maintain our position for the night. Our defenses were set up and the fox-holes dug. Everyone was a little on edge that night so no one slept.
Then without any warning it happened. The first rocket grenade hit. Its explosion set my ears to ringing. In a daze I jumped into the nearest fox-hole with the lieutenant. By this time rockets were hitting all around us. Flashes of blue, yellow and orange could be seen as the rockets went off, This along with the flares we were using to see the VC, was turning an already horrifying night into a world of eerie lights and sounds.
I looked around to see where Rosco was, There he was laying in a pool of blood about twenty yards from me. I was able to see by the light of the flares, that he was still alive, It turned out that he was one of the first to be wounded that night, and he had been unable to reach a fox-hole.
I don’t know why the lieutenant acted the way he did and I was somewhat surprised, but when I started to go out after Rosco, he pulled me back. “Don’t get yourself killed because of him,” he told me. “Besides, he’s probably already dead,” Angrily I pushed the lieutenant away and, started back out. As I was crawling along the ground, the others of our patrol left alive, gave me what-ever protection they could. Not sure at this point if Rosco was dead or alive I kept moving closer to him. The reddish-orange color of the tracer rounds seemed only inches from me.
After what seemed like hours, I at last reached Rosco, Climbing over the top of him, I looked into his eyes. Rosco was a strong man and not one to cry out in pain, but as I looked at him, tears were running down his cheeks. Looking up to see me, Rosco smiled. “I knew that if anyone would come out after me it would have been you,” he said. By now the VC had seen Rosco and I, and started to advance in our direction, “Oh be quiet,” I told him, “I can’t treat you here, it’s too dangerous.” “OK, Doc,” he answered, I started back with Rosco, pulling him along with me. It was a long hard twenty yards to move back, and somewhere during that time Rosco died. It wasn’t until I was once again in the fox-hole that I discovered what had happened. The lieutenant looked at Rosco, then at me, “See, I told you he wouldn’t be worth it” Choking back my own tears, I cradled Rosco’s head in my lap and said a silent prayer for both him and the lieutenant.
Waiting until morning when the fighting was all over and we had orders to pull back, I picked Rosco up in my arms and started back. It was hard to carry him. He was almost 200 pounds and I was only 130. Others offered to help me, but I refused. It was over a mile that I carried him, but I didn’t seem to get tired. When I arrived at the base, I took him over to graves registration. After cleaning the body and dressing it in clean clothes, I placed Rosco into the casket, The next day he was put on the plane which was to take him home. As the plane lifted off the end of the runway, I believe I could hear him say “No sweat, Doc, and Thanks,”
It's chilly out again. Too bad I couldn't sleep in longer. I thought I sleep in for a long time, but when I looked at the clock it was only 7.
I was going to go to another place for breakfast, but settled for McDonalds. Is there any wonder I have a gut?
I went running last night. It was unplanned. The more I thought about this one pretty boy and what not, the more upset I got. I finally ordered myself to run. It's pretty scary to run at top speed in the dark.
Anyway, I wanted to get some things ready before I left to help with the v-day dinner. I swear last year we did a pancake dinner thing for the sisters. I remember the millions of pancakes we made.
It was cold and windy this morning. I came early to eat breakfast at a different place then my "usual" at Dutch Touch. They weren't open yet!
I got my books and magazines back. I left a box at the house in Crystal City when I was thinking about moving. I never went back because I thought they were all jerks. OK, that was a rash judgment because I did not know all who lived there.
I'm glad my Mormon Doctrine book had my name inscribed on it. A friend, who lived at the house, found the box and returned it to me. I was glad to get that back too.
I was contemplating going to MHOP although the pancakes are rare anymore. I missed out when they came by for lunch. If I wasn't busy at the time, I would have taken a second lunch.
As I was talking to my heart throb last night, she reminded me of the ward Valentine dinner thing on Saturday. Sweet! I'm glad she is on top of things. I don't always check the slew of email from the wards out here.
I guess my toy would have reminded me. I forgot it this morning, so I had to listen to a conference session online. I know, it is real burden... kidding.
I liked this TV show when I was a kid. It didn’t take that long to realize why it didn’t last very long… Well, it didn’t seem like it had very many seasons.
It was a pretty good day so far. I had the missionaries over for dinner. A coworker brought up the problem he had with title Elder. Well, he thought it was somewhat demeaning to the title Sister.
It doesn’t look as if I will go to this concert tomorrow. I just wanted to buy the CD because I know the guy. At least, I’ll have a fun dinner party on Sunday.
Mardi Gras was yesterday and I didn’t even know! Not that I did anything for Fat Tuesday. I should have known something was up when Google had a new image up. I did click on it too but only quickly scanned the search results. Lunar calendar… Chinese New Year!
I wanted some orange chicken. I went to a place in Old Town because I didn’t want to go up to Pentagon City Mall for Panda Express. No orange chicken? Oh well, I got a fortune cookie.
When I heard about what someone was doing for Lent, that is when I realized what day it was. Let’s see if they can go without TV for 40 days! That means no 24, a couple extra hard drives for the TiVo – wait, if you are just going to record everything, why bother trying to “give it up”
I watched the game thinking I could always catch the broadcast on the Internet. I had tried several times. Today was the first time I have been able to listen to it.
I kind of bothered me that he addresses all the students. They seem like kids to me. Oh well, it is still good to get inspiration from an apostle of the Lord.
OK, I have never been there. I hope to go there one day.
Every picture I see from the beautiful state and that of Washington, encourages me to go there. I’ve tried to get my parents to go there several times… because for one, it was not Disney and I have never been there.
It’s not my reality; it’s a drug. When real life fails to take precedence over the “reality” of the images on the screen is where I draw the line. I was told rather rudely to be quite. A show was being watched and attention wanted to be spent.
I don’t give a damn who those people are but apparently they are more important than myself. Other SOBs will be on the boob tube, are they more important as well?
I must be worshiping the wrong deity.
I just ordered some flowers for my current heart throb. I sent them to her office because she will be out of town on the 14th.
The more I think about this post, the more I believe the sweater was actually a Christmas gift. Oh, I did know it was a Christmas gift. I need to read my own posts beforte I link to them.
Well, I guess it was a good gesture. At least this person knows who I am. I don’t believe I put my name on the flowers I sent to someone else last year. Yeah, I’m silly like that.
One of the books I am reading over is called Computer and Intrusion Forensics. I've been intereted in this, but only passively.
It put me to sleep last night, but I haven't been getting as much sleep as I usually do.
In light if the Guantanamo Bay junk and after viewing this movie – which I swear I’d seen the TV version before...(the best parts of the movie.) Anyway, I had make the correction to this story.
It seems unlikely Rosco was ordered to throw prisoners off the helicopter. Not saying it wasn’t ever done, but of course like the Doc will state that it was the South Vietnamese that did the throwing.
On a separate note, had I been in charge of recent events and assuming I didn’t blow up the Middle East entirely, I never would have taken them to Cuba. Had I let them board my boats, I would have dropped them off in the middle of the Atlantic.
The Super Bowl was good, in that it was a close game. I think the Eagles benefited quite a bit from sheer luck. The commercials were good for the most part. I thought the pre-game show was a lot better than the half time show.
I love the morning schedule for Church. My ride came late and I was hoping my “neighbors” were not waiting to give me a ride. After watching a movie in fast forward, I went on a long walk. I stopped off to find out my neighbor’s did not wait but they did think about me.
It was a great day for the most part. I was pretty angry for no reason on my walk. Part of it had to do it was a nice day everyone and their dog was out enjoying the nice weather too.
I just came home from a party. Look at the time of this post and you can tell I’m a real party animal. I didn’t stay long for a couple reasons, the main being there were a small handful on the guest list I did not want to see.
I was the first to arrive – which was good because I Home Teach the ladies there. They are all very attractive and great. The birthday girl got a pin (as a joke?) that asked for a spanking. I wonder if I was the only one brave enough to do it. Oh well, I guess I’ll never find out.
I stopped by the office to pick up my 5 piece Pyrex set. I want to get my name etched in like I did the large cake one I bought. I’m not sure why I never thought about font size when I wondered if my name would fit on the smaller dishes. When asked about it, I said just my initials would be great.
Anyway, I got home to find my roommate watching a movie via some projector. Cool, maybe that is how we are going to watch the game tomorrow!
I wish I could drive down and visit my nieces all the time I wanted. I “danced” with my six month old niece and I had fun with my three year old one.
I watched a movie, Freaky Friday, that was produced when I was born. When I was a kid I had the same “rubber stamped” ambitions any good Utah boy would have. “When I grow up…” It changed from occupation to occupation, but the following goals were there and no particular order.
Grow up, get an education (go to school, get a degree), go on a mission, get married, get that first job, have kids….
I never dreamt I would go on a mission, finish out my degree at UVSC, get that first job, lose that first job, spend a few years loafing so I felt, move to Virginia, and so on. My goals now seem to be… what shall I eat for dinner, what movie shall I watch, or what social activity should I go to. Marriage and all the others are still on the mind, but one desire seems to be to get back to enjoying time with my nieces.
I could use a visit to my nephews once and a while.
The day started out alright. I forced myself to get up early. I wanted to read up on some more stuff?
I went through a couple email messages. Each one was worse than the first in terms if good news. Can the day get any worse?
It is snowing again! I thought I was out of Utah. OK, it finally snowed there too. I mean the last couple years it has been very dry out West.
I like to read, but this is the second time I received the same monthly edition of MSDN magazine. I guess Microsoft is trying to make up for barrowed software. (Just kidding.)
February has proved to be very eventful so far. I just learned that a friend of mine is getting a new job. I guess I'll find out the details tomorrow.
I got asked for an ID when I picked up a plunger and some contact paper. They never had a problem, when I got all those gift cards last November.
On the bus ride home, I saw two cop cars driving onto the bike trail. What in the world is that all about?
I poured over the calendar this afternoon and started to note all the dates to look forward to this month. I rarely use a planner, but I started to jot down everything so I wouldn't forget.
Anyway, on the way home... I had decided to take this bike trail home. It was a rather nice day, and I didn't want to run 30 flights of stairs as I have done almost every day for the last week.
I get off the bus and start down the path. I hear a faint "hello". I look around and, of course, nobody is there. I hear more talking then I realize it was coming from my phone.
As I walk on after apologizing for the “prank”, a police squad car is coming down the path towards me. Occasionally this happens for some reason. I get out of the way only to spot yet another cop car behind him. There were six cars and two SUVs!
I walk on. I heard some ducks in the run off adjacent to the path. I notice one duck coming out of the brush; soon followed by another duck. And another... a couple baby ducks... and finally a big “Daddy” Duck. I watched them waddle off.
What a fun day it has been.