We're engaged!!

As of Saturday, January 8, Sara and I are engaged. We'll be getting married in Buffalo, NY, on Saturday, August 6. And since I know you all want to hear the story, I asked Sara to write it out for me to put in (after all, it's always better from the girl's perspective. :)

It all started when Brent gave me a card with a print out of a ticket to the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, which was going to be my Christmas present. Thinking nothing of it, I looked forward to it, since I had never been to a symphony before. So, this past Saturday, we both dressed up (Brent was in a suit and I wore my old prom dress and cloak) and drove to Indy. When we were driving to the parking garage , I saw that the circle (the symphony was located at Hilbert Circle Theatre) had horse drawn carriage rides. Never having done one, I commented to Brent that it was something that I would like to do sometime. After saying something like, "Oh..ok. We'll see" we went to our seats and were treated to an amazing performance. I have never heard music until Saturday night.

Anyway, after it was over, Brent starts leading me away from the warm entrance to the theater that was connected to the parking garage, and towards the main circle. Curious, I asked him what was going on, and he said that he wanted to go for a walk. I really didn't want to, since I was going to freeze, but went along with it anyway. Much to my surprise, he led me to a horse drawn carriage and stated that he had reservations. Thankfully, there were blankets in the carriage that we were able to use, and the ride through downtown Indy was absolutely gorgeous (although we soon found out why they had a garbage bag strapped on the back of the horse. Stinky).

The driver let us off at the Canal, and we walked along the canal walk, just talking about random stuff. I had a suspicion that he was going to ask me, but I was confused, since he hadn't had time to buy a ring. After awhile, we were both getting cold and decided to back track to our car. We went to cross the nearest bridge, and I stopped at the top and asked to stay for a minute, mainly because it was a beautiful view. When I was done, I turned to go, but Brent wanted to stay for a few more minutes. Now, Brent has previously told me that he wouldn't tell a girl that he loved her unless he was going to ask her to marry him in the next breath. So, when he then told me that he loved me, I got a " oh my gosh" look on my face, and told myself not to cry. He then got down on one knee (He happened to kneel on the only dry part of the entire bridge) and asked me to marry him. I forgot exactly what I said, but I'm assuming that it meant yes. After a moment of hugging, we turned to cross the rest of the bridge and on the other side, unbeknownst to Brent, someone had earlier drawn a big heart in the snow. It was an amazing night that I will never forget...ever.

It was indeed a wonderful evening; one of the best in my life. :D

I am a Nerd King!

Just took this quiz, which was linked to from Ashley's blog. I'm happy with the results, although I would have preferred the term "geek."

Seeing old friends

It's always good to visit home. It's also always a bit strange, though, since I haven't lived here for more than a summer in almost 7 years. There aren't really that many friends that I've kept in touch with since high school, so I never really see anyone I used to know. Then again, you never know when you'll run into someone. On Thursday, my dad and I went to a place called Fry's Electronics. Absolutely amazing store. They have everything from electronic components, to computer parts, to household appliances. Oh, and did I mention the little restaurant in the middle? We were buying some more memory for my dad's new computer, and they have an interesting setup in the computer components department where the manager takes name of people who need help, then when a salesman is free, the call the name of the next person. Anyway, we were up there, and I thought the department manager looked awfully familiar. I looked at his name tag (they have their full name on them), and sure enough, it was Daniel Kruse, an old friend from elementary school. He still hangs out quite a bit with Jason Sharp, another of my closest elementary school friends. I hadn't seen either of them in years, so we all got together for a couple hours tonight. Turns out that they both got into computers, too. It's odd that the guys I hung out with in third grade ended up still having the same interests as me at 24. Had a great time tonight getting caught up and just chatting about life. It's always cool finding old friends and getting reacquainted.

Taylor Happenings

I've been reading a lot of different opinions lately on the mess at Taylor. I'm not going to go into any detail about it, just share my opinions. If you don't know what I'm talking about, read this article and this open letter from the president.

Most of the opinions I've read fall into one of two categories. Some people feel that this is an absolutely terrible event, and the worst behavior from students that Taylor has seen in years. Others are of the opinion that pranks like this happen regularly, and it's just the magnitude that's a big deal, and everyone is overreacting.

I seem to agree and disagree with parts of each. Yes, guys go streaking fairly regularly -- just not through the girls' hallways at 2am. Yes, people sneak into buildings after hours -- but they don't usually trash them. Yes, people don't always get along with campus safety -- but they don't moon them, taunt them, and kick and jump on the cruiser. And of course, every year some part of the nativity gets taken -- but the pieces are almost always recovered, and I've never heard of the sort of actually damage that I saw in the pictures.

I agree that this is somewhat of a tragedy, and that, as alumni and students, it should concern us. But I don't think that this concern should be limited to this isolated event. I believe that this points to a steady decline of behavior and attitudes at Taylor. Now, of course I wasn't around years ago to see what sort of pranks took place 30 years ago. However, I have been around to see a decrease in the respect that students have for authority, and for the LTC. No, the adminstration is not perfect. But the leaders at Taylor are still to be respected: 1 Peter 2:13 says "Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men." This does not mean that they cannot be questioned or held accountable, but that they are to be submitted to and respected.

The lack of disregard for the LTC also concerns me. Contrary to popular belief (note: sarcasm) the LTC cannot be summed up as "Don't drink, don't dance, don't smoke." Instead, the main point of the LTC is "Act like the Christian that you claim to be. Treat others with respect, and live your life according to the principles set out in the Bible." These "rules" are intended to foster a safe Christian community -- one of Taylor's most common promotional claims. The most blantant disregard for the LTC that I have seen is the huge amount of gossip on campus, and that's not just limited to students. Gossip, unlike drinking or smoking, is subtle and incredibly malignant. And yet no one ever seems to do anything about it; students can get expelled for drinking or dancing just once, yet chronic gossping is ignored, even accepted.

All that to say, I believe that this is just a manifestation of a deeper problem that has been creeping through Taylor for years now. In a sense, it's a good thing; people don't do anything about their problems until something hits hard and they're forced to deal with it. But at the same time, I do think it should grieve us that we, faculty, administration and students (former and current), have allowed Taylor's standards of acceptable actions to fall low enough to even allow something like this to happen.

OK, that's enough rambling for now. Not sure how lucid or cohesive it was, but there you have it. Comments? Disagreements?

Updated Contact Info

DSL stinks. OK, so it's fine for the basic stuff, like web browsing and chatting, but doesn't handle some of the more technical things I was wanting to do. <techie-talk>The default mode for the DSL modem is to pass its external IP Adress on to the local network, in this case, my SmoothWall firewall. But for some reason, this was causing a dropped connection every 5-10 minutes. So I set the modem up to use DHCP and assign an internal address to my firewall. This worked fine, until I tried to set up a couple of VPN tunnels. Because the firewall had an internal address and the modem didn't seem to pass the VPN packets, the VPN connection wouldn't work. Lose-lose situation.</techie-talk> So, two days before my 30 days were up, I cancelled my DSL. I ordered cable modem service instead, and it's been working great.

I've also cancelled my phone service, because I've discovered this great new service called Vonage. They do VOIP (Voice over Interent Protocol), and it's a lot better than POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service -- Yes, this is a real acronym). If you're interested, let me know and I'll be happy to tell you more about it and send you a referral.

My new phone number is 765-382-0437.

Hooray for DSL!

I now have DSL in my apartment, complete with Smoothwall firewall, Cisco switch, and 802.11g wireless. Makes for lots of fun, and it's nice to not be isolated when I'm at home.

In other news, I started my "new" job at New Horizons. It's been great so far; I'm getting to do work I enjoy, and it really is a great ministry. It's nice and flexible, and even has benefits. :)

I also now have some contact info:
159 W Joyce Ave. Apt K
PO Box 635
Upland, IN 46989
765-998-0448

Moving to Upland!

It's official: I've been offered and have accepted a full-time job at New Horizons Youth Ministries, doing IT work. This means that I'm moving back to Upland next Thursday, the 21st, and starting work on Nov. 1. I've also been approved to live in the Casa Patricia apartments, which I plan to do only until an apartment in Briarwood opens up.

I'm excited about coming back, but as always, it's sad to leave. I've enjoyed my time at HCJB, and will miss the people here, especially since there's so much knowledge here and amazing Christians to learn from. It's a very close community, and that's hard to find. I'll also miss the church I've been going to here, although I was never able to get fully involved because of my frequent commutes to Taylor.

Well, anyone in the area is welcome to help me out, or to just visit me. Feel free to stop by on Thursday afternoon... just look for the red pickup truck with a trailer.

Missing New York...

Well, I don't so much miss New York, per se... it's more that I really miss someone there. My visit with Sara and her family was wonderful, and I think I miss her more after spending so much time with her. I guess I got a bit spoiled. I was only there for a week, but we managed to get the most of it. We did two puzzles, saw Shakespeare in the Park, went to see Spiderman 2 (definitely a good movie) and Harry Potter 3 (on IMAX... that was cool. Spiderman seemed really small on a regular movie screen after that.). We also got to eat out at Olive Garden, took a bike ride, went to a Forth of July party, and got to see fireworks. Pretty packed for one week. We still had plenty of time to relax, talk, and just spend time together. Now I have to wait a month and a half until she comes back to Indiana again. :-( Don't know if I can wait that long, but I'll try. I hate being apart. :-(