I fixed up my old road bike this morning

Well, it's dad's actually. The front shifter cable rusted out so I replaced it with a cable from one of my scrap bikes, and I took the brake pads off of another bike because the brake pads that belong on it are in Indy somewhere. I got the rear shifter turned around and back in operation ~previously disabled by rust~ pretty easily and pumped the tires back up. I got them up to 60psi with my hand pump for an initial trip to the airport, and used Ross' electric pump to get the desired 90 psi after I got back. It sounds like a steam engine and has horrible dynamic instability in the front tire, but other than that, it is a great ride. I love road bikes. Charity out.

so I have something to write about

but I have no time to make my thoughts coherent, so I will postpone it until further notice. Church was great today. All of it. Yesterday Ross and I went to a fall fest at the Koss' farm. I'm going to bed now so I can finish fixing my bike in the morning.

I'm glad it's Saturday

Yesterday, disaster beyond my wildest imagination occurred. I was riding home from the airport and I guess I had a rush of adrenaline or something going past my crash site, because as I turned on to 26 I was peddling so hard that I sheared my pedal clean off of my bike. And not just the plastic pedal where it connects to the crank arm, but the chromed steel of the crank arm split right at the hub. So I guess I will spend today putting together an operational bike out of all the pieces I've collected over the years. This morning Rory and I ran to church and had a great workshop led by Pastor Long with the other guys. It was awesome. ~off to my bike shop~

Fun with food

I fried up some eggs for a egg and cheese sandwich (forgot to put my ham on) this morning, and made a few mental notes while I did it. Apparently eggs that are not in their carton like to roll. Towrds the floor. Also I do not think of bread with horrible profiling and demeaning terms like "moldy." I much more prefer something along the lines of "future cheesy bread." Ok thats all I have time for today folks. Ross expects me to get my laundry out of the living room or something unreasonable like that. :)

SOOO BUSY

I am really looking forward to the end of this semester so I can take a break. Yeah right Josh, you know you are going to work all break long.

Affirmative Action in Empoyment

I have a group project in my management course in which we will research and present this subject to the rest of the class. My part, as it now stands, is to research and write about two pages on the pros and cons of affirmative action and come to a conclusion about its future- is it a good or bad thing for America? I started out thinking tht AA was all bad -just another form of discrimintion- but while I was researching it I saw one instance where it might be okay. So I don't know. I probably pretty caloused because as a white male, it could be me getting srewed out of a job in a company with an AA program. So here is a chance for you to influence my thinking, education, and as I present this material- the thinking of my whole class. What do think about affirmative action- does its help of the women and minorities for whom it provides jobs, overcome the negative impacts of ongoing discrimination? Should it be completely replaced by Equal Oppurtunity Employmnt (law that you can't discriminate against anyone), or are there instances where AA is a good thing?

I froze up in class today

We were having a quiz over IFR definitions and facts, and I completely forgot the max holding speed above 10,000 feet. I had every other time and distance and speed, but I couldn't remember that one for the life of me. I put 265. I hope it's right. I was cool to have the whole afternoon free since my flight class is over. I wish I had a camera though, cause the clouds down at the airport today were simply stunning. Well I have an exam tomorrow and tow projects to work on so I'm gone. Grace out.

well

I had a temporary reprise from my coughing during services in church this morning. Twas blessed. Then since I was feeling better I went to the Fishers house for lunch and had a great time there. My cough then decided to go to evening worship with me even though he was quite unwelcome. Oh well, he heard a great sermon from Greame Hart. Can you cough when you are asleep? I hope not, cause I'm retreating to my bed now.

Send Orange Juice

I officially have a cold. :( But how can I complain? Especially when a good friend has been named the King of his university! Congrats to Josh Jones, with the story in his mom's blog. Today will be spent in cleaning up the house and studying massively. I also started work on coolifying my links. I'm sorry, I must be going now. Wanders off in a daze.

Today

I got up early studied and packed a lunch, wnet to my three hour block of classes, forgot my homework for my last class, took my mulit-engine checkride and I passed! um So cool! well Praise the Lord! if you don't know how it went by now, you will just have to ask me. Then I came home and sat in a chair and talked to my folks and Ross for a while. Twas a nice evening to spout strange ideas with Ross.

If ever there was a day to skip classes

It would be today. But I didn't, so I must be content to sit in my dripping wet jeans for four hours. My last review and systems exam over the seminole is this afternoon, then I have MIT and three classes and a checkride. Way to close for comfort.

Cool!

A ton of people from back home came up to visit Ross and myself this evening. Twas so very nice of them. We toured the park and a small area of the local landscape, and had a fire, and ate a ton of food, and good stuff like that. I'm so tired now I can't even think, so I'm going to bed. Goodnight y'all

No Buttercups

Well I went to the bottom of the quicksand, and didn't find any Buttercup, so I guess I will have to look somewhere besides Lafayette for her. On the 21st I will have three straight hours of class and then a checkride with Examiner Gross right after. Fortuntely class today didn't go as planned so I don't have a huge exam in the class block.

Quicksand

Ok, I'm going to whine a little so ignore my first couple sentances. These days it seems like the more I struggle to get my assingments done, the deeper I get buried with them. They are piling up faster than Californians driving in the fog. On the brighter side. It can only last for about seven more weeks. On the brghtest side, I got my last training flight before my multi-engine checkride today! Of course that means that I will have to cram a ton on top of my normal study and assignments this week. Say goodbye to going to bed before two Josh. With that said, I must be off to look for the bottom of the quicksand. Maybe I can push off and break free. Or he died.

I need somebody to save me from myself

or at least save me from my roommates. PLEASE. You can't see me but I'm groveling right now. While I was CORPS and listening to Roger Stevens (they totally rock!) my roommates were going to clean up the kitchen. Well on of themRossum... ....decided to open a jug of month old milk and splash it around. Brilliant. Even better, they decided to cover the resulting horrific stench by lighting off a ton of incense, burning candles AND lighting a cigar. Q: How do you cover a bad smell? A: Make it worse. If my stuff still smells like smoke next week, one of them might die in the night. Well my crane operator went on lunch.

Overwhelmed

I'm so buried in assignments right now. I have like three or four projects and two or three quizzes on Monday, plus some intense studying for a couple future exams. Unfortunately I am stuck here at the airport for another hour until I can register for classes for next semester. I only have 36 credits left to take before I graduate! Totally shocking. Next semester I will have no classes on campus. And I might have no Tuesday/Thursday classes, which would be ultimate for getting some work in up here. Ok so the three parts of memory are acquisition, storage, and recall. Acquisition is short-term, Storage is long-term, and Recall is the little crane that pulls it all out.

I so should have studied last night

but noooo I had to go to Bible study with Ross. I enjoyed it though. Good study over Romans 3. Now I have a ton of studying to do and projects to work on. I just got out of class where we had a chief pilot from United talk to us and answer our questions. It was really cool. But low and behold I must retire from mine post and get to work.
Charity Out

Well the weather in Lafayette has turned northeast,

so my flight slot yesterday was canceled. Which means I have no posibility of taking my checkride until sometime next week. I did get to stay home longer though! I probably stayed too long cause I got back to my house at 12 and then had to get up early for me 7:30 this morning.

Our company (Drown-proof Inc.) may soon be changing its name to something about suicide or die-proof Inc. with the release of its newest development: suicide-proof fingernail clippers!

Drown-proof Showers!

Some of us guys were talking and we thought up and developed a brilliant new shower, soon to be seen in mental hospitals near you. The drown-proof shower features state of the art technology with a grooved sloping floor designed specifically to whisk water to the five drain holes geometrically positioned for the ultimate draining experience. The drains are positioned so as to be unblockable unless the patient bring foreign objects with it. The grooves add anti-slip grip as a perk. The shower head was the hardest idea to develop. We flirted with low flow showers, and 5 second spurt heads that would prevent all but the most determined patients from drowning themselves. But in the end we decided to go with a multi-faucet design, hooked to a computerized randomizer so that the patient will have no idea where the next stream will come from. Test results will probably show that this shower is best used with depressive or bi-polar (manic-depressive) patients, and should be kept, at all costs, from schizophrenic or paranoid patients. Gentleness out.

Workin and Playin

This weekend has been great! I met a former basketball rival (almost archrival but not quite) who just started coming to church. He's pretty cool. Yesterday we had a slew of great sermons and a restful afternoon. Today I get to hang out all morning, and then head up to Sam's to get some money for rent. I need to post on something. Eric, can you remind me of my subject? I forgot.

dum de dum de dum......

I want a jeep. With off-road tires. I decided to come home right after my flight slot instead of going to manliness night (at green gables of all places) but traffic was HORRIBLE. Compound rush hour in Lafayette and max five mph on a stretch of 65 really gave me an inkling for off-raoding it down the median. If I had a truck I probably would have. well two hours later I'm finally at home and ready for a break. or work. whichever comes first. ok joy out.

Exactly one year ago

I was lying in St. Elisabeth's emergency room all by myself. I was strapped to a backboard and wondering if anyone knew where I was. I had tried calling home but only Caleb was there and I didn't tell him that I had just an hour earlier been hit by a car cause I didn't want to scare him. Now as I look back over the year, I am so grateful for God's hand of protection on me~ I didn't die, the bone surgon was amazing at putting my leg back together, and that was my last major break in the last year! I couldn't ride down airport road today though. On the way to the airport I rode through the soccer fields and on the way back I just walked. There were some weird noises over W.Lafayette last night. I think the aliens came. Even worse, I think the bugs got to Ross. He isn't quite the guy I thought I knew. And his skin seems to be hanging off of him like he's wearing it. Hmm. Maybe he is just overworked and underfed and needs a break to relax and eat in Nashville. Mrs. R, if you read this, you need to feed your son a lot over fall break. Force him to eat if you have to.
mercy out

Spiderman

I was riding to my 7:30 class this morning when I felt some movement on my arm. I looked down and and was supprised to see a spider pretending like a clingon. Well, I like to pretend like I'm a nice guy so I let him hang on and enjoy the ride. So it was all good. I wanted him to start building a web like I had one do once before. But, much to my disappointment, a little later I felt a sharp pain under my arm. I thought "THE LITTLE BUGGER JUST BIT ME!" Sure enough, when I looked down, there he was, hanging with his grubbly little fangs to my left bicept. "WELL OF ALL THE UNGRATEFUL LITTLE WRETCHES!" Here I was giving him a free ride and THIS is how he repays me? Right then and there I decided that I had had enough of him. So I smashed his guts and cast him aside like chaff before the wind. Spider bites hurt. A lot. I got to class and there was this huge welt on my arm. It's gone down quite a bit now, so I think I won't die, but if I act really strange, and you find bits of spiderweb in my room, you should probably stay away from me cause I will be attracting lots of goblins and octipi who will want to kill me and all my friends. OK I'm going to go climb on the walls now.
peace out

Cool Beans!

I'm so excited! When I went over to Jared's house for MIT this evening, I walked in and Charlie said Hi Josh without his mom even telling him too! (Charlie is almost one for those of you who don't know him) And he is totally starting to catch a football without help. Then Isabel started crawling farther than Jared had ever seen her go, so he was excited until he found out that she was attracted to my foot. well I better get to bed so I can be awake at 6:30 and still do ok as flight engineer and captain in the 727 sim.
grace out

Countdown to multi-engine

Here is my plan for the week:
tomorrow exam
wed 301 paper due
thurs mit paper due
fri exam and 300hw due and flight and go home
sat work and eat
sun worship
mon work and work
tue work and do my last training flight at purdue.
that's right folks! two flights and a test and I'll have a commercial insturment airplane multi-engine land certificate. (Lord willing that I pass my test) all that stuff means that I can charge people to fly them through clouds in an airplane (not helicopter, glider, or airship) that has more than one engine so long as the plane does not weigh more than 12.500 pounds or have jet engines.

Now I've probably gone and bored you all to death, but I'm really excited an I really need to revise my papers now.

long-suffering out

I heard something new at life chain today.

We got the usual go homes and hand signals, but one fellow hollered that we should protest the war instead. hmm... I don't know if he just thinks that men dying overseas for what they believe is right is worse than babies here dying when they didn't even sign up for a dangerous tour of duty, or if he hates Bush, or if he just wanted to give us a more constructive (in his mind) thing to do with our time. Anyway the sermon tonight was awesome and the college class this afternoon was insightful and Stacey didn't come up for fireside chat. I met Josh's parents tonight. Nice folks. Hi! Still need to post on heros and dilemmas and life and civil magistrates, but tha will probably have to wait until after my el hugeo examo on Tuesday.

It's 10:30

And I finally finished my rough draft for my 301 paper. I bought a bunch of food at payless today and I realized what an exciting life I live as I found myself exhilarated at spending under $20!!! Yeah, well I think it's exciting at least. Ross and I were working on our skills today~ bike skills, not numbchucks, anyway, he is way better than me cause he can do this totally cool bunny-hop, and I can only hold a manual for like 5 seconds. Well, I think I'll mosey off to bed so night yall.