Preparing for All Hallow's Eve

Tomorrow is Halloween. The one day a year where it is perfectly acceptable to dress like a freak. It is also become on of the major holidays at our house. We have almost as many Halloween decorations as we do Christmas decorations (ok, not even close, but it does come in second place in deco department). The decorations go up as early as September, and will probably stay up until the week before Thanksgiving.

One of the most important parts of Halloween is the carving of pumpkins. That ritual usually takes place five or six days before Halloween, but we have been really busy this year. We got our pumpkins from the Garden Orchard at the beginning of this month. They have the biggest, best pumpkins and they are so cheap. Since they arrived at our home, they have been residing on the back porch so they didn’t get stolen or smashed. Now, the night before the ghouls and ghosts arrive, we are set to carve.

Can I tell you something about big pumpkins? They are a pain to carve! The one benefit is that you never have a problem fitting your hand inside to scrape the guts out, but the walls are so thick that it’s close to impossible to make them easy to carve. Of course it doesn’t help that I always pick the most difficult pattern to carve. I think is has something to do with being manly. Those small intricate patterns are such a pain! But I love doing them. I will admit, I have become more lax in my carving. I used to make sure every line was perfect and that there were no straggling bits of inside showing. Now, not so much. Get it done, and make it look presentable, but perfection is not necessary. The pattern I used this year took about 45 minutes to carve (not counting gutting time). In the past it would have taken me at least twice that. But is still looks awesome.

Rob and Cat's Pumpkins

A Closer Look at Rob's Work of Art

"Igor's Brew"

Well, hopefully we have a quite devil’s night (I don’t want to have to clean up any rotten eggs). No, I’m not dressing up tomorrow, not because I don’t want too, I just don’t have a costume (plus I can’t wear one to work) but Cat is (some sort of circus act I think).

Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween!

God, Late Nights and Racquetball

One Hope – an interfaith meeting to promote unity among the various Christian organizations on campus.
One Hope – the chance that I might get sick and die and not have to go to One Hope.

Why would I think that way? Well for starters, I’m Catholic. Contrary to popular belief, that does not make me better than everybody else, it makes me scared. What is often deemed by other religious groups as Catholic arrogance, I believe, is really Catholic fear. Fear of being persecuted, of being made fun of. Fear of having to go outside my comfortable little traditional Catholic prayer box.

Fear is a tough thing to overcome. But this is a group promoting unity to all Christians, and we were invited and even asked to present, so the persecution factor is out. I am not usually prone to being stuck inside the box. I am a very outside the box kind of person, especially when it comes to church. But praise and worship music is one thing I have never gotten the knack for. Loud, mediocre bands’ singing songs with impossible melodies (and 400 different harmonies) just doesn’t do it for me. I knew that a big part of this event would be P&W. I knew I would have to suffer.

Let me tell you, I still don’t like P&W, especially after almost two hours of it. However, I did have a great time at One Hope and I came away with an awesome attitude. The message of the evening was definitely one of UNITY. The first “teaching” was right on. I never thought I’d hear an evangelical say that we got evangelism wrong, but he did. He said that evangelism isn’t about bringing people to church, like so many are trying to do. It’s about bringing church, God, to the people, where they are. Bringing Christ into your everyday environment and your everyday actions! Now that isn’t new to me, I’ve been taught that for years (Cursillo and Youth Encounter teach that), but to hear someone else say it, someone outside the Catholic church, was AWESOME.

The second “teaching” was even better. Bishop Sample was asked to speak on “The Body of Christ”. He wasn’t given any direction, just that topic, and he hit it out of the park. He talked about all of us being the “Body of Christ” and that we need to strive for unity. But within that body, we are all different. No one is more important than anybody else. Everyone has a duty to fulfill and a mission to accomplish in the church. We may all be one, but we are all different and we need to respect the diversity that comes as part of our unity. He was very moving, and even got some “Amen’s” from the crowd (at least 7 that I heard). I have never been more proud to be a Catholic, to be a Christian, than I was that night (even if I did have to sing for two hours).

………………..

After One Hope, one of our students asked Cat when the party started at our house. Had that question been asked of me, I would have laughed and made some smartass comment about that student not being on the guest list, but Cat, my dear Cat, thought that might be fun. Let’s have six students over our house at 11pm (which is already past our bedtime). She told them to give us a half hour to run to the store and by some goodies. So we did, and by 10:40 we were at home waiting for them to show up, trying not to fall asleep. Trying to figure out what in God’s name made her think this was a good idea (not that its all her fault, because she did ask me if it was ok). 11:00 rolls around and pizza and movies arrive, with students in tow. Wow, it really is going to be a late night.

I must tell you, I really did have a good time. Wait I sense a theme. Things I do reluctantly and then enjoy in the end. We had pizza, cheese and crackers, chocolate, chips and dip, pop, and fun. We watched “What about Bob” which is one of my favorite movies. I thought everyone on the planet had seen this film, but there, in my living room, were three people who hadn’t! We watched, we laughed (at the movie and at the reactions of those poor souls who had never experienced the comic genius of Bill Murray and Richard Dryfus). Shortly after 1am we shoed the last person out the door, cleaned up and hit the sack about 2am (WAY PAST MY 10:30 BEDTIME). To make matters worse, I had agreed to teach Kaitlyn how to play racquetball at 8am, just six hours from then.

……………

7:00 am, the alarm goes off. Normally I wouldn’t roll out of bed until 7:50 to make it to the PEIF for 8, but I had some things to do (not that I enjoyed getting only 5 hours of sleep). I decided that I need some wind pants, because it is starting to get too cold to ride my bike to the PEIF in shorts. Plus, I didn’t have any racquetballs. So, off to Wal-Mart I went. Once I got home I had to rummage in the dark to find my PEIF pass and not wake up Cat, who for what may be the first time ever, got to sleep in later than me.

Once at the PEIF we went to the desk to get a court. The girl looked at us like we were nuts. Who plays racquetball at 8 am on a Saturday? Apparently us. Kaitlyn had never played before, so I gave her the basic rules and we just started hitting the ball around. I haven’t played in more than 7 years, and in that time I had totally forgotten how much work it is to play this game. After 5 minutes I could barely breathe! At about 20 minutes we took a break, got some water, and some fresh air (those courts get kinda stuffy!). Then back in to hit the ball some more. We were having a lot of fun (I know I was, and I assume Kaitlyn was because she kept giggling, thought that my have been more because of how ridiculous I looked playing racquetball). Before we knew it, it was 9:00 and we had to run off to meet everyone for our regular Saturday workout. NOBODY SHOWED. It turns out that we got dissed by everyone. There are like 8 of us who work out and not one of the others showed up! We decided that we didn’t want this to be a waste of time, so we went to work on our abs. I hate ab workouts! I HATE THEM! But, they are good for me, and I really do need them!

...............

Again, that theme comes back to haunt me, things I do reluctantly and then enjoy in the end. Must be God trying to tell me something. Like, you’re a lazy, antisocial bum who needs to lighten up and get a life! Or something like that.

Shouldn't you be doing your homework?

My life is back to normal!  Or as normal as I can be.  I got my project done and my final taken.  I did well.  I know that I got a 92% on my final, and assuming I get an A on my project (which I’m told is hard NOT to do) then I will be getting a big fat 4.0 in my networking class!!!!!  One class down one to go (for this semester at least).

            Going back to school isn’t as hard as I thought it would be.  Studying and homework do take time away from the things and people I love, but that sacrifice is one that I am willing to make.  I will admit that I screwed up royally when I had my first shot at college.  Skipping class seems like a harmless thing, but all too soon you seem to have missed most of the semester and you end up dropping the class, or worse yet, flunking because you managed to not only ignore class but the drop date as well!!  This is the first college class that I have taken that I didn’t skip a single day.  I made it to every class, even when I didn’t want to go.  Wisdom seems to have come to a bit more in my old age!

            So, if you are reading this and you should be studying, GET BACK TO WORK.  Even though going back to school isn’t as hard as I thought, it sure would have been easier to do it right the first time!  That’s all the parenting I’ll do for now.

The End of the World

Today is officially the end of the world (at least until Thursday afternoon)!  Let me tell you why…

I am taking a class that only meets for half a semester.  From day one my instructor has been saying that our final exam and project are due on the last day of class.  The date he specified, Thursday, October 19, 2006.  That seems appropriate.  We have a 16 week semester and the 19^th is 8 weeks in, half way.  So for five and a half weeks we have been hearing “Don’t forget, your project is due on the 19^th.  Remember, the exam is on the 19^th.”  Even after years of schooling, you tend to think that the professor knows what he/she is talking about.  Apparently not!  Last Tuesday, a student walks into class, has a semi private conversation with the prof at the front of the room, and sits down.  The following statement occurs…

“Excuse me, I need your attention.  It seems we have a small development.  I don’t think you need that extra week to finish this ridiculous project I assigned you.  I’m going to make it due next Thursday instead of the week after.  I think I’ll make the exam that day too.  Why you ask?  I’ve been intentionally lying to you, leading you to believe that our class lasted a week longer than it actually does just to screw with your heads.  I know that none of you have lives, so you will devote yourself to my class, this measly two credit class that you have to do six credit worth of work for, in only half a semester, well actually 44% of a semester.  Good luck.”

Of course that wasn’t really how it went, but he did admit he miscalculated and we really did have one less week than we’d been told.  He told us he would work out the details of how to handle the project and exam and let us know two days later at our next class session.  I had no hope that the exam would be any other time than on the 12^th.  After that a new session started and we couldn’t just take the exam with them all sitting there.  I did however think that he might allow us to turn our projects in on the 19^th like we’d been told.  It seemed like the fair thing to do.  He screwed up.  He misinformed us.  Yeah, none of the 27 people in the class caught it for 5 weeks, but he’s the prof, he should know better.  It was the only just thing to do.  So two days later we were informed that EVERYTHING was happening on the 12^th.  No extension, no leeway, no justice! 

So, I spent Thursday night working on my homework until 2:00am.  I got up early on Friday because we were leaving at 10:00am to go on retreat for the weekend.  This meant rest, relaxation, prayer, no homework, no computer, STRESS, TURMOIL, PANIC.  That was going to be three days I now needed to make up for the 7 that were wrenched from my life!  I didn’t let that stop me though.  I had a wonderful retreat and I only thought about that damn project once, and then only for a fleeting moment.  But now I’m home.  Now the work begins.  I will spend the next four nights trying to cram 11 nights worth of work into them.  All the while, I need to be alert and with it during the day so that I can go to work and do my job, the job that pays for my class, the job that I can’t do homework at.  So I’ll stay up until midnight or later and ignore my wife.  I’ll be sleep deprived and cranky with my coworkers (they may not notice the difference).  I’ll become addicted to coffee and Mountain Dew, and relive the heyday of my college days 10 years ago.  I don’t think I’ll make it.  Yeah, I’ll get the project done, but I’m too damn old to pull all-nighters.  My body, my mind, my spirit can’t take it.  It will take me three weeks to recuperate.  Yes I truly believe that I will need 21 days to make up for the next 4 days of hell.  I know, you have all done it before and will do it again, I have too!  But I’ve got 9 to 12 years on you guys and a 30 year old is not designed for that kind of punishment!

To take a cue from my friend Ryan, I’m at CONDITION ONE.  If I survive, I’ll see you all on Friday!  If not, you can come visit me in the psych ward sometime next week, I might be ready for visitors by then!