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 . . .

Boy Andy, I thought I was a little out of the times. Stacy's Mom has been out for a year or so. But it is a great song, cause it just makes you want to jam right along with it (sort of like Semi-Charmed Life (inside joke for those of you not in the "inner circle")). Julie really likes it when I substitute her name into the song in place of Stacy.

Anywho, hopefully this week I'll be back on top with my posts. Last week was pretty hectic with my dad being in the hospital with kidney stones that just magically disappeared, and me being Batman and all (isn't it funny how I make references to things some of you people reading don't even have a clue about). This past weekend I had the part of the year, though from the sounds of it, it may be just the month as everyone had so much fun, they want to do it again. Honestly, nothing really beats swimming at 3AM, dancing in front of the TV for hours, and then being super dehydrated the next morning, then wake up and head to a ball game. A great time was had by all, and hopefully, more people will be able to make it next time. You know who you all are . . .

Now I would consider myself a pretty brave guy. There's not much I fear in life. Occasionally the near miss of a deer in my car will get my heart going, but it calms down shortly after that. But, if you want to scare the absolute CRAP out of yourself and not sleep for days, I would suggest seeing the Exorcist, The Beginning. It's out in theaters now. The first 30 minutes or so, I was hanging in there, very calm, the usual me. Then, I just couldn't take it any more. I was squirming in my seat, hiding my eyes (only during the really gory parts, I just don't like that) and wondering how in the HECK I was going to drive home in the dark. But I did make it. Now all I need to do is somehow turn the lightswitch off before I get into bed tonight...and tomorrow night...and the night after that...

Well, it's been an eventful few days. I spent the weekend down in Annapolis. Bought some snowboard stuff for the upcoming season, and chalked up another round at Dave & Buster's. I'll tell you what, I own that pyramid sling coin game. I bet I can win at least 500 tickets per 7 coins. What can I say? To quote a great friend of mine, "You [referring to me] are Batman!"

So my first official league volleyball game is this Thursday. And after watching May and Walsh school the Brazilians in Beach Volleyball, I am all siked up! I'm on a different team for leagues on Sunday, but that league doesn't start until September, which if you aren't keeping track, is approaching rather quickly.

So not much else to tell right now. Life has been pretty hectic lately, but should calm down here shortly. I am declaring this weekend the official Barley House Party 2004! Hopefully this will become an annual (or maybe even an e) occurrence. More to come on this event later . . .

So I was listening to the local radio while driving to work the other day, and I heard a familiar voice that I couldn't quite name. After the guy was done talking and the DJ's were talking to him, I found out it was none other than John Tesh! And since it was a local station (out of Bedford, PA I believe) that means John Tesh was in Bedford, PA! He might as well have been knocking at my front door! This rates up there with Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan coming to play in Altoona. Suddenly just outside The Cove is the place for stars, even if they are nearly 7 feet tall or have a grey pony tail down to their back.

So today I was coding as usual when the phone rang, and suddenly, a plant was down. This is where I step up to save the day one more time. However, this plant had loaded to go out NOW and their computer was d-e-d, dead! They were quickly getting trucks lined up waiting to load. So I grabbed the PC and made a mad dash to the van. I jumped in and took off like a bat out of Hades. Now, luckily this plant isn't too far away with a normal driving time of 20 minutes or so. Unfortunately the fastest way there is thru Snake Creek Road. Obviously if the creek is like a snake, then so is the road, and I needed to make some serious time! So I was driving like it was the final stage of Grand Turismo 3. I'm breaking before the turns and accelerating thru, except I'm in a huge utility van. I'm flying past tractors and mail trucks while drawers are opening and closing all over the place in the back. Dale Earnhardt would have been proud. I made super time in less than 15 minutes, and had the plant up and running in about 30 minutes since the phone call. I'll tell you what, if only all plant fixes were that exciting . . .

And yet another volleyball invitation comes in tonight. This one is for playing in a beach tournament down at Rehobeth Beach, Delaware. I accepted the invitation and look forward to a fun weekend in September. By the way, I'm waiting for 1230 to roll around . . .

Finally the U.S. has stepped up the competition a little bit! It was a close in by the US basketball team against Greece. The game Sunday was just ugly and I felt bad for Tim Duncan who is by far their best player, and can do hardly anything with the ball. He's always guarded by two men and as soon as he gets the ball he's fouled. You'd think the other players would be able to do a little better, but when you can shoot a jump shot for beans, and you're playing international style, you might as well just hang up your hat now, because plowing thru the middle of the court to slam the ball and show off on the rim just ain't gonna happen.

I'm debating whether to stay up until 1230 tonight to watch the Men's Volleyball match against The Netherlands. We all know I will, so let's just end that conversation right there.

And finally, is there any commercial on anymore that does not have Lance Armstrong it? About the only one I know of is that CapriSun commercial on MTV with the slow grandma and the kid that is either a dude or dudette. Frankly the fact that they air that commercial every other time is more annoying than seeing Lance in every other one.

Son of a biscuit!!! I thought this year was going to be it! This year was supposed to be the summer of no bee stings! But, just like old times, Fate looked down upon me and just laughed his keester off! I was practicing my basketball skills (which are mostly non-existent,) last evening in my driveway. I noticed a yellow jacket or two flying around the net after I was shooting for 10 minutes or so. Now, there have been nests in the basketball unit before, and I figured this year wasn't going to be different. So I just kept on playing. Well, it wasn't more than two layups later that one drills my right in my elbow. GAHHHH!! The little twirp even had the nerve to fly away without giving me the cold satisfaction of watching him die a painful death like it should have! Last year I got stung directing traffic for camp. The year before that, I was tying my shoelace before Ultimate and one landed on my little finger. Before that, it was at the basketball net again, I jumped right into one flying by. Before that I accidentally stepped on one. With no shoes on! Before that I was mowing the lawn and mowed right over a hole, that was a nest. Hornets all over my legs! I ran like the dickens! And this year was going to be it! Well, so much for that! It's a good thing I'm not allergic. A little inch and rash and swelling never hurt anyone . . . Unless they were allergic . . .

Wow, just when life throws a left hook, it follows it up with a right jab, a very unexpected move. From here on out, it is anyone's guess as to what could possibly happen next. Will it bring me crashing down, or could it present me with an opportunity that I could have never before imagined? I'm only left to ponder and dream up scenarios that will probably never happen. Whatever lies ahead, it's nice to know there will always be someone walking with me or even carrying me along the way . . .

Well, another week has gone by and still I have not discovered the mysterious secretes of the crystal skulls. Not that I have been searching though. Some interesting events occurred last week that I cannot talk about yet, but the details will come soon. Finally I got to play some good volleyball tonight. Though I was Mr. Popular out there tonight it seems. I got picked up for two different leagues in the area. Count 'em, one, two! Turns out a few people think I'm good. One is at league at the park where I've been playing on Sundays. Supposedly, the team that drafted me has won the last 3 years, so I guess they think I'm good. Who doesn't want to play on the winning team? As long as I get some free t-shirts out of it! The other league is on Thursdays out at some high school across from Liecty's Flee Market. Not that you know where that is (well, some of you might) but I'm told that team is good as well. Let's hope I don't disappoint, and let's hope the offers to play in other leagues keep coming. Watch out 2012 Olympics! The great volleyball players are older fellows. Karch Kiraly is like 44 and could beat the crap out of any Olympic team at Greece. Too bad he didn't want to play. The man is only 6'2" and has a 44" vertical jump. Michael Jordan can't even match that! And Karch is a white boy! I bet he can't dance though . . .

Funny sometimes how we try so hard to make other people happy and pick them up, we sometimes sacrifice our own happiness. Then when we have our own swing at happiness we end up hurting those we tried so hard not too. Is happiness just a balancing act that we all accommodate. We all take our turn at the bottom and then at the top, only to just keep doing it over and over? Pain is something we all go thru and without it, we wouldn't be able to lessen the pain of other's. No one ever said life was going to be easy. Sometimes we just have to take the punches life throws at us in order to move on to the next match . . .

Well, I must say, the opening ceremony of the 28th Modern Olympiad did not disappoint! And also, having the Olympics on 24.7 could just be the best thing NBC ever did. Today I got to watch the USA women's soccer team defeat Brazil, USA women's beach volleyball team A beat Norway, USA women's indoor volleyball lose to China, and a sport called Synchronized Diving that just about impressed the crap out of me! I must say, for someone that doesn't watch TV, I will be watching a heck of a lot these next few weeks. Maybe someday I'll get to witness these games close up.

Some of you have inquired about the missing pictures on my blog. Particularly the one of me with my tongue hanging out. Well, Messiah College finally decided to shut my college webpage down which contained all my beautiful pictures and homepage. This means no more pictures until I can find another free web server to put the stuff on. I am currently accepting donations and free offers . . .