So the first big presidential debate is tonight. I was looking forward to it until I realized I had a volleyball game tonight at the same time. Oh well, I guess Andy will just have to tell me all about it. I made up my mind anyway. Who wants a president who catches a football like my sister anyway?

Oh and by the way, if you haven't registered to vote, you've got a few more days. If you want to vote this presidential election, make sure you register by October 4th!

You know what I don't understand? We have all this medical technology these days; great stuff like artificial hearts, pace makers, robotic joints and limbs, even artificial eyes that can see! And no one has ever thought up the idea of a trap food door. Picture this if you will. You take a bite to eat of that delicious pie and as you swallow, you taste the delicious morsel sliding down your esophagus! Then, just after the tasting is over, you open the trap food door in your chest and out the food comes! Then, you take another bite and another and another for as long as you want and you never have to worry about eating junk and you can eat for as long as you want!! What isn't too like about this? Sure it may be a little messy, but you can eat all day long and never get full! I'm sorry, but I just don't understand why this isn't around yet. Maybe I'll give it a few more years before I go to the patent office and whip out the scalpel myself . . .

If Andy is mentally ill, then I might as well join the club. My legs hurt, and my back hurts, but I just keep playing volleyball! My knees have turned a nice permanent red and blue color and my right shoulder just doesn't feel good when I get out of bed, but does it all keep me from playing?! Heck no! Once a sport becomes a part of you and you can truly absorb yourself into it, you don't care if you win or lose, all you care about is playing and being the best you can possibly be, no matter what the cost. If that means you need to mentally ill, then so be it. There's a whole mess of us mentally ill people here in The Cove and it seems as though there's another down in North Carolina.

So another weekend has come and gone. I spent the majority of the time hanging out in Camp Hill with Kate. Though most of Saturday was still spent watching football on TV. I was highly disappointed with Penn State's performance. Once their second QB was knocked out, I figured the game was all but lost. And it sure was!

Yesterday I had a volleyball game and finished in time to watch to last 3 quarters of the Stillers game. Now the Stillers were playing in Miami. Why they didn't postpone this game is beyond me. Half the field was just complete mud that's to torrential downpoars and the baseball infield. Even with their nearly 100 yards of penalties and their rookie QB's first start, the Stillers still managed to pull some amazing crap out of their cracks! Hey, when you've got a room full of guys, pizza, wings, and one highly energized, talkative toddler, you're gonna have some interesting times!

I would have to agree with Janet on this one. Though uniforms do make it nice in that you don't have to wonder what to wear for the day, it is nice to be able to express who we are by what we wear. And for some people, if they feel the need to express themselves as a teenage hoochie, then, well, that's their problem. Though I do think limits should be placed on how short skirts can go. Obviously if a junior high girl were to lean over to pick up a dropped pencil, I really don't want to be getting a glimpse of her underwear.

And why shouldn't girls be able to wear pants? If that's what they want. But, you have to keep in mind, that back in the day pants were a man's clothing. To be okay with women wearing pants, then the same people should be okay with men wearing skirts. Frankly it's not my style, but if that's what some people feel like wearing, and if men and women are indeed equal, then people really don't have an excuse to say it's only okay to go one way.

Volleyball is tonight. We should play a good team so it should be lots of fun. Let's not forget, that not only am I Batman off the court, but on the court as well!

I'm pretty sure it's inevitable. Wherever Vikki goes, she must find a Chinese place to hang out at. Gosh, what's wrong with the American places? I know we don't have those China Specials or whatever they're called, but personally I think that's a good thing.

So I'm pretty sure I have caught up on all the sleep I missed this past weekend. Which is good. It was a real struggle to wake up Monday morning. Last night I kept waking up, which means I'm getting too much sleep. Another bad thing that makes it a pain to get myself out of bad. Oh well. I'm still "Proud to be Snooze Free!"

I saw on NBC Nightly News last night a clip about bloggers and how we spread the news. Mainly it was concerning that CBS Document Report fraud, but frankly it's true about all news. Even though we report news about ourselves that really nobody gives a hoot and holler about, we do talk about important issues at times and it's nice to generally get a non biased opinion about an issue. To actually hear what the average person thinks is great! I'm getting pretty fed up with the media telling me what the average person thinks.

I still don't really have anything to talk about. Sorry.

Wow, so I'm still a little on Cloud 9 from this past weekend. And I am insanely sore! Running pretty much just plain hurt today. Oh well. I really have nothing else to say right now. Maybe you should check back later . . .

Why do I even click on Roman's link anymore? I have no idea.

Anywho, this weekend was the big Mid-Atlantic Volleyball Tournament down at Rehoboth Beach, DE. Hurricane Ivan didn't scare us away in the least! I wound up leaving here at 315AM Friday morning, meeting up with some people at Sheetz, then getting down to our room around 930AM. First of all, let me say that I only knew 2 person that we were hanging out with there. The guy who invited me, Earl and Kerry. So at Sheetz I met Darla, Kristy, Bob, Tim and his wife (forgot her name). So we stopped at Micky D's just before the Bay Bridge and got some breakfast, then when we got to the beach, we started playing volleyball right away! These people here could live, eat and sleep volleyball if they had the chance. So could I for that matter. So we meet up with more new people once we're down there, Brad, Wendy, Stephanie, Eric and Rene. We played some vball with each other getting warmed up for the tournament on Saturday.

Friday night was the night to end all nights! Keep in mind, I know just about no one here and they are all quite outgoing and just freakin' hilarious! Some of the girls have a lot to drink and get up and start dancing on the bar at the Summer House (not a gay bar by the way). Drunk guy over there can't even keep his eyes open anymore and the one bartender is kissing anyone who puts their boobs in his face! I did get picked on some for not talking too much, but I started warming up to them all by Sunday and felt okay to talk some smack to them. Needless to say they were pretty gung-ho on corrupting the young pup from Messiah College. They didn't corrupt me by any means, but it was pretty cool to hang out with people completely different from my normal crowd. I even got to know one girl, Stephanie, pretty well. Too bad I was only 1 month younger than her making me the baby of the group. Oh well.

So needless to say, I got about 3 hours of sleep Thursday night and then maybe a good 5 on Friday before playing volleyball on Saturday. I played BB division with Earl and we didn't do too bad, but we could have done better. 4 and 8 was our record that day. The morning was pretty nice, but come the afternoon, the wind was blowing around 20 mph and pouring rain. Volleyball in that kind of weather just isn't volleyball. But it was fun. Earl's wife, Lanett decided to go shopping and made Earl and I walk a mile and a half back to our room from the beach with the chairs, bags and umbrella in the cold wind and rain. My arms were blue by the time we got to our room. But it was fun (on a quick side note, I just got the new DMB live album in the mail just now!).

Saturday night was another late one at the Summer House, but Stephanie and I were pretty tired so we left early. Since Sunday was the co-ed doubles tournament, and her first teammate pulled his hamstring on Saturday, Stephanie asked me to play with her on Sunday. So I had to get some kind of sleep so I didn't disappoint her, since I'm told she is quite the player! And she was. Unfortunately though Sunday was a beautiful day, the wind was around 20 mph the whole day so we couldn't really play anything that resembled volleyball. We played okay with a score of 5 and 5. It was fun though. By 300PM we needed some food since the guys that said they'd get us some around 100PM weren't back yet. We went to the Ram's Head to get some burgers and watch the end of the Stiller's game. Of course they lost. Why would I expect anything less?

All-in-all the weekend was an amazing time for me. I met a slew of great people who'd do just about anything for you and with you, and who just LOVE the game of volleyball. I even got myself into some more tournaments come Turkey Day. The best thing is all these people live around here so I'm sure I'll get to hang out with them again shortly. Some a little sooner than other's maybe . . . Anyway, I'm sure I left stuff out about this weekend, so if you have questions, e-mail me! The next beach tournament is in the spring and you will definitely find me there!!

The weekend started just a few hours ago! Well for me anyway. Tomorrow morning (around 400AM) I'm heading out for the Mid-Atlantic Volleyball Tournament in Rehoboth, DE. I'm pretty s(p)iked (just some volleyball puns!)! Though my beach skills don't quite match up with my indoor skills, I don't really care. The Boss let me take the day off and that's all I needed. Let's just hope that Crazy "I-lost-a-bomb-do-you-have-it?" Ivan keeps the rain a little further south.

Speaking of volleyball I've got a game tonight just outside The Cove. We are finally playing a descent team! I expect another 1-2-3 victory though. Although their one player is spectacular and has even been known to explode a volleyball upon spike contact, that is really all they have. I'll be blocking him most likely. Let's hope my fingers and hands hold out. The downside is, I'm not even joking about the exploding ball! The upside is I have seen him play and he hits low to the net, which means I can block him. I'll let you all know if I survive!

First of all, I want to give a big happy birthday to my boy Roman! Now you're old like me . . . until 3 months when I'll be super old!

Second of all . . . actually I don't really have anything else to say. Happy birthday big guy!

Click to view the giant picture!

So I found out last night that due to fossils found in 2003 in China, and other fossils found in China a few years before that, it has now become an accepted evolutionary fact that birds are the direct descendents of some dinosaurs. Of course, this didn't surprise me a whole lot as I thought that was pretty obvious 10 years ago! In case you didn't know, and I'm pretty sure none of you reader know, when I was but a boy I was obsessed with dinosaurs. Sort of ironic that they are still called dinosaurs as that name means "terrible lizard." There has been so much discovery in the dino-realm since I was a boy. Brontosaurus only existed as the head of one dinosaur and the body of another, some raptors were known to have feathers, and paleontologists even decided that an asteroid in fact did kill the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Now of course I realize I have readers out there that think all this evolution stuff is just garbage, and that's okay. We all have different views of the world around us. Who's to say what I believe is right anyway? But, it is interesting to me, so I will continue to study it and learn more.

So I got a little off the topic here. Back to dinosaurs. It's sort of neat seeing the evolution of information related to the ancient creatures. I remember watching videos and ready old encyclopedias about the dinosaurs in which the information then, would be completely incorrect. It's just weird thinking about what do we think we know now, that in 15 years we'll discover is just completely incorrect?

So supposedly someone forgot to give me the memo about not eating lunch today at 1200 PM. Ashley and I went down to the cafeteria at the usual time and there was no one there. We sort of cracked a joke about it and continued to get our food. So we were about half way thru the food way and Gary told us we couldn't eat then. "Didn't you read that notice?" he said. Ashley and I just sort of looked at other like he was kidding. I thought, "Well, I didn't get an email about it and no one said anything." Well it turns out the really high up people haven't realized that we have what is called an email server that can send an email announcement to everyone at The Workplace (all at the same time mind you) about any thing that needs to be announced. Like for instance not eating lunch from 1200 PM to 1230 PM due to a large external group eating lunch there. Apparently, other people found it more humorous to over hear Ashley and I discussing about going to lunch, then leave for lunch, and then laugh at us behind our backs. Why should I be nosing around the coffee pot looking for messages on paper about lunch when 1. I don't drink coffee every day, and 2. WE HAVE EMAIL FOR THAT KIND OF STUFF!!!

Today's weather forecast: This morning, fog early, then clearing skies towards late morning with a 100% chance of James, Alan and Age. That's right, this morning, me and two college buddies jumped out of an airplane! And let me tell you, it was incredible! The dude I was strapped to jumped out upside-down so we did a nice back flip out of the plane followed by a few spins. We jumped at 13,300 feet which gave us nearly a minute of free fall! Then spent about 5 minutes chuting down to the ground. I can't wait to do it again! And believe me, I will do it again, and then maybe again, and then again and again . . .

This week marked the one year anniversary that I started my job at The Workplace. I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. I've learned a lot in the last year, but the thing that gets me is that it doesn't feel like I've worked there a year. I guess that's what you want? I mean, if you've worked at your job for a year and it feels like ten years, then that isn't very good.

Tomorrow morning I'm heading out to Grove City, PA. What for you ask? Well, there comes a time in a man's life when he needs a little thrill and risk taking. What better way of doing that than jumping out of a plane with nothing more than a huge piece of fabric attached to your back that supposedly will slow the descent thru the air. That's right. I'm talking about sky diving! I'm heading out with two buddies from college. Frankly I think one of them will chicken out, but I guess I won't know that until I'm half way between the stratosphere and the earth!

Well, last night was supposed to be my good--night--sleep sleep. I was in bed by 945 and half asleep come 1015. Then, my Dad knocks on the door and says, "Sorry to wake you, but I need some help. The basement is getting water in it." Now, I really hate it when people overstay their welcome. But I really hate it when its storms by the name of Francis. Yeah yeah, I know was all welcoming for it yesterday, but this was NOT fun. I threw on some pants and stumbled downstairs. Now, our basement has only taken on water two times before and it was really just a trickle. A few water marks on the carpet, etc. And the one time was because we lost power and the sump pump wouldn't work. But this was different. By the time I got down there there were already a few water marks, but they were growing, and fast! Suddenly I realized how much stuff I had on the floor from building my arcade and what-not. So my dad and I frantically put stuff up on the furniture so it wouldn't get wet.

Well, That was all fine and dandy until we could watch the water steadily flowing into the sump pump hole and then suddenly just continue to back up. Yeah, we just stood there dumbfounded as the water rather quickly began to swell outside the hole. I could tell the pump was still working, but it just wasn't keeping up. Now, all the while it is raining outside like it's going out of style. I grab a flashlight and take off outside to where the water is pumped into the grass. There is a small grill over the discharge pipe to keep the mice from running up in it. But, the grill was clogged and the water was being forced out as high as 3 feet into the air. I get down on my hands and knees and unscrew the grill while water steadily flows around me and besieges my face. Suddenly the water is once again flowing, but it was too late. 30 minutes after the water had begun to come in, the basement looked like this:


I asked my dad, "So, how high can it get?" My father just shook his head in complete frustration and defeat and slowly looked at the ceiling. He didn't need to say anything at that point. I understood what was meant. We began hauling all the furniture from the basement upstairs. The 4x4's we put the arcade on was slowly drowning so we placed it on top of a 3 feet high desk. We brought up couches, TV's, computers, recliners, the bar was packed with stuff and our upstairs foyer filled. Keep in mind my dad and I are doing all of this in our boxes with water up to our ankles. Finally, 5 1/2 inches of rain and 2 hours later the rains slowed and the pump began to get a head of the rain. The water stopped flowing over the baseboard and began to slowly drain out. Tired, and utterly defeated by nature far out of our control, my dad and I made our way upstairs to bed.

The thing that really irked me was the fact that last night was my night for a good night sleep. Now I won't have another until next week sometime. I'll tell you what, if God didn't create irony, this world would sure be a dull place.

I guess TD Francis is chillin' out in The Cove for a few days. Apparently he heard about the great time had by all in this area and decided to check it out. Due to the rainy condition, I'll be down at Greencastle, Chambersburg, and then Shippensburg tomorrow to replace some PCs. Let's hope all goes well. My repitoi with PC replaces is probably 50% success, so I'm at least due for something I don;t expect tomorrow. Why can't it just be as simple as plug 'n play like they say? If we didn't have all of this network security update junk, things would go a lot smoother. Oh well. As long as I'm back for my volleyball game tomorrow.

Question of Day: Are the Tims ever going blog again?

What are some of the greatest things in life? I'll list a few.

• Getting to know people more who have been just a friend for quite some time
• Taking time to spend time with your family when you haven't spent time with them in a really long time
• Getting to know brand new people you've never met before with a different walk of life
• Being there where a friend just needs to talk, knowing that just by listening you are easing their burden
• Playing volleyball until you're body just aches all over, then playing more
• Just . . . Talking

What is the common denominator in all of this? People. It's what we are here to experience. We are here to have relationships with one another, to learn from one another, to help one another. Don't get so caught up in yourself and you're own life that you forget about all those other people out there. All of them . . .

Hurray! Thanks to some good advice and direction from a friend of a friend my picture is back up on the blog page! Also, if you've gotten tired or reading the same old thing over and over on my arcade blog, you're in luck. I just updated it and there are now, and will soon be more, pictures to view. HURRAY!!

Well, it was a nice long weekend break. Sadly, it will come to an end around 11:59PM tonight. But, the nice thing about long weekends is that you have a short work week after the weekend. So it's like a double bonus! Volleyball last night was fun as always. My parents even came out to see me play. It was the first time they have ever seen me play the sport, so that was pretty neat. I enjoyed having them there to watch.

This coming week should be a busy one. I'm hoping to get out of the office most of the week and replace a whole slew of PCs at the plants. My programming is sort of on hold right now as Ashley and I wait for a few meetings to take place so we can get a little more direction. Until then my time will be spent driving around and re-organizing older code to conform with upcoming company coding standards. What a pain! But oh well. I guess if The Company wants to make it more confusing, then that's their ordeal, not mine.

I played my second volleyball league game last night. It wasn't even fun really. I'm pretty sure I could have beat the team we played against just by myself. It could have easily been 3 games of 25-0 scores easy, but in order for us to have some fun and get to run a few plays, we would just mess up every 4th serve or so so we could at least make one full rotation before the next set. Oh well. I think we beat the two crappy teams now and some of the other opponents look to be formidable matches. I'm looking forward to them. I think we play a fairly good team next week. Here's to hoping for more talent.

By the way, does anyone else have this coming Monday off? Can I get a "Boo Yah!" in here?!

I'm not a big supporter for politics. Most people that know me, know about the pure communist island I want to live at where only smart, attractive people are allowed to live and there is no king, no president, no power, only truly equal people. The need for this island to be only inhabited by truly intelligent people (not those intelligent people that think they are smart and use their intelligence for evil) is so that we all understand how to live as a community and how to make the island work without crime or any politics. The need for the people to be attractive is mainly for my (shallow) sake. Grant it, some people think this is crazy talk (Christen), but it would truly be the greatest and most peaceful place on Earth.

But since it is most likely I will never come into the ownership of any island period, I'll just have to deal with the politics of life. The fact is we all have different beliefs and there will never be a candidate of any kind that will satisfy the beliefs of every single person affected by the candidate. So we all make a choice and live with the choices we make and other's make. We do it every day. I may choose to go to work, and my colleague may not. My choice and his choice causes me to do more work that day. It's just how life works. Most of the time the right choice is all relative. Just like time and space. But the right choice is always the choice you make because it's what you truly believe to be right, not what you want to be right. Just keep that in mind for the future choices you will be making the rest of your life.

Where are people going when they drive with their shirts off? Is there some big shirtless bash I didn't hear about? I know they aren't going to the grocery store or out to eat or anything like that. Do they get in the car, take their shirt off, then put it back on when they get out? Doesn't the ripped up leather one seater burn their back when they lean against it? Who do I go to to get the answers to all of these questions??

So does anyone else have something for me to fix? Today I fixed my garage door that has been having trouble closing for the past few weeks. Before this evening, the door would go down, then come right back up. Apparently there is a little switch that the chain mechanism triggers that tells the motor when to stop. The trigger was no longer triggering so after breaking it yet even more, I just cut some Plexiglas, and cleverly attached that to the broken trigger. Then I decided, like all good engineers should, to make the door work better. So instead of having the door come crashing to the ground, I decided to just have it ease its way the last few inches and gracefully rest on the ground. Should work great for another 23 years . . .