Christmas Photos and More

One of the reasons that I'm glad that I enjoy photography is that when we have insane Christmas seasons of immense activities, parties, dinners and such, I know that I'll have plenty of photographs:

The first set of photos is from Bev's annual Christmas party. The food was excellent and the company as well. The popular gift of the afternoon was most certainly Bev's hand-made slippers for everyone.

Bev's Christmas Pary

(click on picture to view album photos)


On Christmas day we opened presents and loaded up the car and headed to Waynesboro to visit with Ted and Carol. The food and company was also excellent there. Audrey found her new tent (complete with tunnel) and plasma car (see photo) to be a great diversion (I particularly enjoyed riding the plasma car with her).

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

(click on picture to view album photos)

Finally, after a hectic time of traveling and parties, we made plans to head to Bethany Beach to hang out with our friends Jamie and Amanda Biddison. We had a fun time baking and decorating cookies as well as relaxing with walks on the boardwalk and watching a LOT of television.

Delaware Post-Christmas Retreat

(click on picture to view album photos)

Whew! With all of that, I'm just about beat! Thankfully, it was a most enjoyable way to end the 2007 year and we look forward to whatever the Lord has in store for us in 2008. Happy New Year to you all!

I Love Impressions

On of my favorite types of comedy are impressionists. Here is a great clip of Frank Caliendo on David Letterman. He has to be one of the best impressionists I've ever seen. Take about 7 minutes and enjoy. He's really good:

Little Brother Comes To Visit

This past Saturday, my little brother Donovan and his wife Sharon came to visit us here in Lancaster. They made the trip down from New York City, where they live (Brooklyn). They brought us gifts, including a cool penguin hat for Audrey (which she loves). It was really cool seeing them. Check out a few photos below.

Donovan and Sharon Visit 2

What kind of Geek are you?

In one way or another, we're all hiding that "inner geek" inside of us. During my web browsing today, I found a poster that reminded me of just that fact. Go on over and check out the selection and see if you're on the list:

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=2086153791&size=o&context=set-72157601200807582

I'm not a Microsoft Hater, but...

This article is pretty funny.

Realism and the Pittsburgh Steelers

I like to consider myself a "realistic" football fan. Of course, I always want my team to win, and I always stand behind them. However, when it comes to haughtiness and bragging, there's usually nowhere to stand. Take this season, for example: The Steelers are 9-3 for the season. The media and the Steelers themselves are taking this to actually believe that the Pittsburgh Steelers actually belong in the same rankings as New England possibly Indianapolis. I'm sorry, but they are nowhere near the powerhouse that the Patriots are.

First off, their record has several flaws to it. One of those has to do with last year's pathetic post-superbowl season. Coming out of a superbowl that they barely won, the Steelers went on to disappoint with a lousy 8-8 season that didn't even get them a playoff game. The NFL naturally adjusts the schedule in the coming season to accommodate the "weaker" teams in the league. This year, the Steelers have been given a fluffy schedule against many other weaker teams (with maybe New England being an exception). Let's not forget that the Steelers have 3 losses against teams that barely have a chance at the playoffs this year. And in last weeks's game against the Bengals, Big Ben had issues throwing the ball because it was wet? Are you kidding me? Do they not practice in the rain? Somebody tell me how a professional QB in the NFL can't throw in the rain. Particularly when their team's home field isn't in a dome?

Now I've been reading reports all week at how the Steelers claim that they are going to upset the unbeaten Patriots and I can't help but laugh. Have they not reviewed their own past 3 games? Somebody needs to show them the tape, because if they play anything like they have been playing the past 3 weeks, then this game will be over by half-time.

And if the Steelers win? Well, good for them. However, its a lot easier to enjoy my team when they humble themselves and step down to reality, than when they start guaranteeing victories against teams that, at least this season, have it together way better than they do.

Hate folding Laundry?

Me too. That's why when I found this video on how to fold a T-shirt in about two seconds, I just had to share.



Fold a T-shirt in 2 seconds

OOHHHH YEEEAHHHH!!!

On a lighter note, I just read this post that made me a somewhat happy camper:

Gmail Adds AIM Support

Dealing with God's will

Today I read two different stories about babies. One of those being my wife's blog post about our 3 month old son Liam. Liam is a treasure to us. A blessing from God to a family without any merit to know him. He's a gift we cherish daily, and just the thought of his little grins, coos, and hand-motions makes me smile. I thank God for the safe pregnancy that my wife had, and for the safe labor as well. All of these were undeserved privileges. God has mercy on whom he will have mercy.

Then there was the other story. A woman who is involved in our school is pregnant with her second child. She is due this Spring. She and her husband have been dealing with the diagnosis of their unborn daughter, Janessa, who has severe developmental issues. These are not just mere deformities, but almost guaranteed fatal ones. Janessa's condition and prognosis is that, if she even survives pregnancy, that she will quickly die after birth. The severe situation of her health problems affects her brain's ability to enable her to perform any life functions. This is compounded by a heart condition that will inevitably cause congenital heart failure shortly after birth. The story ends with notes of praise, as they rejoice in the possibility of being able to meet their daughter before she dies.

I can't even fathom for a moment the sort of emotional torment that these people are going through, and yet they still find rays of sunshine in the news. As a parent of two healthy children, the second story is torture to me. And yet, I can't help to see that these people, who still choose to praise God for the little time that he could give them with their daughter, have chosen to accept God's will for them and their daughter in such a circumstance.

That second story humbles me greatly. It shows me how much I need to be thankful for, and how little faith and hope I really possess. Let me end this post with an inspirational excerpt from the letter :

So, needless to say, we have many things to think and pray about. We
are so thankful for the wonderful care we received at CHOP. We are
confident that what we were told is exactly what is wrong with
Janessa. We feel encouraged that we will probably get to meet our
little girl and share some time with her (that has been our biggest
desire since we learned of her condition). We also feel very sad that
we will lose her at some point in the future, and preparing for that
loss is hard to think about. We realize the importance of planning
for all possible outcomes: complete healing (should God choose to do
that), or losing our little girl (should God choose to do that). We
have no way of knowing what God's will is, and so we will just have to
wait and see what He does. We do know that He is able to do miracles,
and also that He sometimes chooses not to. We realize that in either
situation, it is a matter of bringing honor and glory to Him. We are
very glad we can have confidence in the fact that God is Good. He
loves us, and He desires for everyone to come to know Him. If God
chooses to let Janessa live, so that others can come to know Him
through her life- GREAT! If God chooses to let Janessa die, so that
others can come to know Him through her death- GREAT! The God we
serve doesn't change depending on our circumstances. He is the same-
yesterday, today and forever. Our lives are in His hands.

Forward Progress

Well, after experiencing such a huge letdown with printer incompatibilities, weird internet issues, and stupid user mistakes, I'm starting to settle down with this computer. Here are some further thoughts as of today:

1. After discovering that HP didn't make a Mac version of their driver for my computer, I found that there was a work-around on the web for downloading an older HP driver for a Mac-specific printer that did the job. It was quite a hassle to get working, but now it seems to work fine (albeit, quite slow). I guess that it was disappointing to learn that I couldn't just "plug and play" like I did for windows xp with this thing.

2. The weird internet slowness issues are seeming to subside for now. After doing some further research, I found that some people had trouble with their Macs on the internet because of older routers, etc. So, after plugging my Mac directly into the cable modem, things are now zipping along. So that makes two things that I own that didn't work well with the Mac. This does not impress me. Old hardware or not, Macs are supposed to be easy. If I weren't a geek, I'd be surfing on a PC by now, since I wouldn't have the patience to deal with this stuff.

3. I'm quite impressed at how quickly the Mac mini actually reboots. I've never owned a windows machine that booted like this. Its nice.

4. As much as I never used to like iTunes, I feel like I'm warming up to it. Overall, I'm not that all impressed with Apple's way of designing applications. I don't find that there are controls which would be intuitive for me. Most things are symbols and aren't even labeled (particularly in iTunes).

5. Stupid FedEx.

6. One of my favorite online utilities, Logmein.com works great with OSX, which now allows me to support our school servers from home (a HUGE plus).

Well, these are the extent of my thoughts for now. The hiccups have caused enough angst to keep me from posting photos of the "unboxing" (sorry, Dave).