20 Days....and counting

-

(that's less than three weeks for the mathematically uninclined)

Lego Kelly

-

Cate sent me a link to a crazy site that allows you to "picture yourself in plastic". I just want to share, for a moment, the dorkiness that I see myself as:



(Yes, it's pretty silly!)

God Speed Home!

-

Lilly has already begun a roughly 28+ hour process of coming from Germany back to her new home here in Texas. She is currently in Hamburg, waiting for her flight to Newark. (She has to wait another 7 hours or so)

Please be praying that the whole weather situation in Newark does not create a problem for her and that she will be able to make it easily onto her plane into Dallas tomorrow evening!!!

It looks like the temperatures are rising again and that the problem is slowly going away, but it's always good to pray about these things.

She has her Visa with her, and I told her to pack everything that she can not do without into her backpack. If they lose her bags again this time, I don't want her to be worrying for the next few weeks about whether or not her veil would get here in time for the wedding. (Her girl friends back in Germany paid for her to get a veil. That's so cool!)

So please be praying. I am...

"The best preparation for life's adventures, whether great or small, is prayer-paration. Many have pledged to us their prayers of faith. They are not wishing us "Good Luck" but "God Speed." In a Christian's vocabulary there are no such words as chance or accident, for our life is immortal until our life's work is done, and then we are ready for the last happy landing!"

- Julie Lake and Eugene Kellersberger - Doctor of the Happy Landings

"Lord, please bring her safely home to me!!"

Springtime in Texas

-

I just want to make a quick observation:

Today is March 15. The Spring season technically starts on March 20th. So why is it already so hot here!?! We have all the fans on in the office (Alan is too cheap for the A/C yet), and it is still hot and stuffy. It's been like this for the past 2 weeks or so.

Crazy Texas weather.

Esperanto vs. The Hurd

-

My friend Daniel did not know what Esperanto is.

I did not know what The Hurd is.

The greatest irony in our mutual lack of knowledge is the fact that the famous liberal, George Soros, is a native speaker of Esperanto and that Daniel, being a really big liberal, didn't realize this. (Of course, Daniel didn't know what Esperanto is!!)

Of almost equal irony is the fact that I, being the super nerd that I am, didn't know about the GNU Hurd. That is a pretty preposterous thing there. (Both what the GNU Hurd is and that I didn't know about it!!)

The strange truth is that they are both somewhat "artifical constructs" designed to be the "utopian" alternative for the real world alternatives.

If you put "Esperanto" and The "GNU Hurd" in a cage match, who would win?

"Bill O'Reilly is convinced that George Soros is the anti-christ"

- Daniel

YAY!!!

-

The victory is God's! Lilly has her Visa!! *I'm doing a little happy dance here, but you can't see that of course...*

Of course, now that all that is settled, we have discovered this:

The Permanent Resident Card (either unconditioned or conditioned) can be used to prove employment eligibility in the US when completing the Form I-9 for a new employer. It can also be used to apply for a Social Security Card and a state issued driver’s license. The card is valid for readmission to the United States if the trip was not greater than one year in length. If a trip will last longer than one year, a reentry permit is needed.

- taken from the USCIS page entitled "Now That You Are A Permanent Resident"

"God, where are you leading us?!?"

Congratulations to Dan & Diedra!!

-

Their wait is finally over! Tonight, Diedra gave birth to their first child. There's a post about it on their blog. So, head on over and check it out!

Funny FAQ moment of the day...

-

Q. I use Windows 95 with an ISA sound card and am having issues. Can you help ?

A. No. But you do need help.

- from the OpenWengo - WengoPhone Classic FAQ

The Second Amendment in D.C.

-

Interesting little tidbit from the news today:

The Second Amendment to the US Constitution provides: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." Senior Judge Laurence Silberman wrote for the majority:

...the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. That right existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution and was premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from abroad). In addition, the right to keep and bear arms had the important and salutary civic purpose of helping to preserve the citizen militia. The civic purpose was also a political expedient for the Federalists in the First Congress as it served, in part, to placate their Antifederalist opponents. The individual right facilitated militia service by ensuring that citizens would not be barred from keeping the arms they would need when called forth for militia duty. Despite the importance of the Second Amendment’s civic purpose, however, the activities it protects are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual’s enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued or intermittent enrollment in the militia.


- taken from Federal appeals court strikes down DC handgun ban by: Bernard Hibbitts at: JURIST Legal News & Research

Amazing Grace (The Movie)

-

Lilly and I went and saw this movie at the Angelika a week or so ago. It was really good. I found the trailor on youtube....

*** Another Visa Update! ***

-

This morning, Lilly went to the U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt for her Visa appointment. She was there about 2 hours, and everything went well. She should be recieving her Visa in the next 4-6 days. She'll be back here on the 19th of March.

This is amazingly great news!!

It is astounding how God has truly worked ALL of this out for us.

There are some potential complications with our overall plan for the next couple of years though. After we get married, we will need to "adjust" her status here. During that time, she is not allowed to leave the U.S. That can take anywhere from 2 months to 2 years!!! This could then affect our plans for her schooling in Germany, etc. However, we're praying that it all goes smoothly, and we're taking it one problem at a time. (hehe)

Now, I try not to use the same quote twice, or, at least, not twice within close proximity of its previous use. However, I must now quote something that I used only a few days ago! (I wanted to actually quote something from the book entitled "God's Smuggler" by Brother Andrew, but Dan has my copy... hehe And, I don't want to butcher the quote!)

How incomprehensible is the love of God! His ways are indeed past finding out.

- James Hudson Taylor

Illustration of Dorkiness

-

This is how dorky I can truly be:

Some pictures, an update, and a temporary loss...

-

Lilly left again this morning. This time, she is on her way back to Germany for a visit at the U.S. Consulate's office in Frankfurt. We are praying that all goes well. If it does, then, when she comes back in 2 weeks, she will have her Visa. YAY!

Her time here this time was much more "routine". I mean that in the sense that things were not quite as chaotic as they were over Christmas. We were able to do a lot of things for the wedding, and the invitations are now in the process of being distributed, as opposed to being finished.


The wedding invitations look pretty sweet!

** UPDATE **

They did finally find Lilly's bags. It took them about a week for the first one, and about 2 weeks or so for the second one.

We've got a mild delimna arising in the form of how to handle our wedding gifts. The problem is that we are planning to be moving from here to Germany in about 6 months. If not then, then about a year from now. This means that we would have to either throw out or ship any wedding presents we get. We don't want to have to ship anything, and our biggest need right now to help us in our married life is cash. We've got all sorts of expenses we're going to have to pay. My mom is handling the gift arrangements, but it's a little weird to be telling people that we are asking for money when possible. It's easier for my mom to go based off the very short list of items we have compiled. We're trying to figure out how to handle this in the best possible way because, frankly, we don't want people to spend a bunch of money on stuff we can't take with us. (Besides, just moving some of the stuff I already have will probably cost an arm and a leg....and that's not including the travel costs for Lilly and myself either!!!)

During the last week or so, there have been a couple of cool things that have happened during which I dug out my camera and took some pictures. (I'm having to use standard AA rechargable batteries right now because the charging station for my camera broke) Lilly's camera is used most of the time, but, ever since she started taking pictures of her trying on wedding dresses (over Christmas), I haven't been able to use the thing because she keeps not taking the pictures off! (And, of course, I can't (and I am fine with this) see her in her wedding dress before the wedding) There are plenty of pictures on there that we have both taken, but my access to them is rather sparse.

So, I want to share a few that I took with my camera.

Every time I renew my lease, they offer the chance for me to have a free carpet cleaning. This year (since Lilly will be moving in!) I took them up on it for the first time. It's a big hassle because I have to move a whole lot of wires, and pick up a whole lot of stuff.

Lilly was gracious enough to lend me a hand in this. And, looking back on it, I could (and would) not have done as good of a job alone. We picked up a lot of crap, and the guy was able to steam clean places I wouldn't of expected otherwise because of her help!


"Hey, I don't remember the carpet being this color!!!"


It looks pretty good, doesn't it?


We even picked up this table and put it on the couch. (That took care of about 90% of the wire problem!)


The floor was still damp when he left, so we didn't want to walk around in our shoes.


Rajah was weirded out by the whole event.

Then, this past Saturday, we went with my friend, Eric, out to a property that he has leased hunting privileges on out near Clarksville, TX. (That's north of Mt. Vernon, TX) He wanted us to help him move his deer blind. There are plenty of pictures, but most of them are on Lilly's camera! So, these are just the few that I was able to take before my batteries went dead. (The normal AA ones die pretty quick)


Eric and Lilly looking at the deer feeder.


The sun was a bit in Lilly's eyes.


We took my suburban out there. The front seat is getting pretty "tore up", eh?


I don't get outside of Dallas so much, but I love it when I do. All of the land out there was so pretty!

How incomprehensible is the love of God! His ways are indeed past finding out.

- James Hudson Taylor

One of the coolest stories I've read in awhile...

-

This bill doesn't really go far enough to curtail the rampant measures of the RIAA, etc., but it is the first light of hope for consumers rights on this front in a long time:
RIAA Opposes 'Fair Use' Bill

I hope it passes and is the first in a series of bills that, I hope, eventually nullify the evil DMCA.

"The fair use doctrine is threatened today as never before. Historically, the nation's copyright laws have reflected a carefully calibrated balanced between the rights of copyright owners and the rights of the users of copyrighted material. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act dramatically tilted the copyright balance toward complete copyright protection at the expense of the public's right to fair use."
- U.S. Representative, Rick Boucher