jobbingalong

What's in the Box?

2011-08-23T22:25:00.004-04:00

Dear Readers,

I went to the trouble of reading through some of the instructions for GIMP. This photo editor is free, fairly useful, and can run on both Windows and Linux. And as far as I know it's legal for me to post my picture here.

I used a single image as a test-bed for all the tools and features I was learning. It turned out fairly...strange. Thus, to my untrained eye it looks "artsy."

TinkerTook

2011-08-17T22:42:00.011-04:00

Dear Readers,

The first sentence of this story is not mine. It was written by a friend and won a brief facebook like-off to be the sentence starter for a short story. Thanks to everybody who contributed their creativity to help me get some motivation. I finished this story more than a month ago, but my editor persistently argued that it needed more work (I confess this is an inside joke. No, I won't explain it). I'm finally ignoring her advice and posting it anyway. I claim sole responsibility for the bad parts.

This story is dedicated as a strange sort of late wedding present to the (insert favorite positive male adjective here) friend who wrote the first sentence and to his (insert your favorite positive female adjective here) new wife. I'm proud to be sort-of-related to you two, and I hope your stories and legacy will be much more weighty and wonderful than those of the characters in this story.

Four thousand, three hundred and twenty-seven hours, twelve minutes and eighteen seconds ago, Joseph ran into the girl of his dreams - literally. He did not have time to take in her auburn hair (flying behind her as she rounded the end of the aisle), the smile lines beneath and on top of her cheeks (currently doing their best to express complete horror) and the modest silver-link chain that held a gold wedding band around her neck (it was bouncing and jangling madly, somewhat like the several thousand pet toys that were crashing to the floor all around them). Instead, he caught a glimpse of his cat Athena daintily slipping between 50 pound bags of dog food just moments ahead of the floppy-eared blur of brown dog that seemed to gain its mobility through rapid sideways scrabbling of its paws and continual baying.

* * * * *

"That's how long it has been," Aden said through his laughter and the bewildered chuckles of the wedding party, "that's how long it has been since my godfather, Joseph Took, met the love of his life, Madelyn Tinker, and I have the video surveillance evidence to prove it!" He half-shouted the last bit, and, exchanging his watch for the projector remote, switched the slide show to the over-viewed, jerky, low resolution video of the carnage they had all come to know and love. The only thing that wasn't hurtling and colliding was the overlay of the date, August 18 of the previous year.

A woman, just enough younger than Aden to perhaps still be a girl, buried her head in her hands and groaned quietly.

Madelyn reached past one of the bridesmaids and patted her goddaughter-to-be on the shoulder, while addressing Aden. "Did you work that out? For exactly this second?"

"Well, about ten seconds ago now," Aden was almost crying with pleasure, and the entire room was aglow with sentimental congeniality. Even Joseph was rocking in his seat with a severe case of the chuckles. He was fifty-nine years old, and all of life was being rejuvenated around him.

* * * * *

Joseph leaned on his trowel, which itself leaned midget-like on the bench-top, and wondered just how long it had been now. Perhaps Aden would work it out for them at the dinner table that night. Five years, anyway. Five Augusts ago he had made a trip to Joe's Pet Sto' and left out his typical several-hour stop at the garden-store. He hadn't needed to make that stop, because he had decided to close the nursery he operated in his back yard. Then he had met Madelyn and forgotten everything else, and for five glorious, painful years they had continued to serve the plant lovers of their community. But time had rolled along, and this time they really were getting old.

Joseph sighed and examined the old wooden benches. He remembered like yesterday when he'd bought them, all businesslike, to replace their rotting predecessors. It was like the day before yesterday that he'd gotten those... but had Aden been born then? Probably. Had he been walking? Probably not. Did Aden and Adelaide have parents back then? Yes, yes they had, because, he remembered with a shock of old grief, Kevin had helped pick up the benches with his pickup trunk.

Joseph smelled the soil on his wrinkled hands, closed his eyes, and sighed deeply, feeling the ache building up in his back, ready to attack the moment he sat down in his easy chair in the den. Perhaps Madelyn would give him a back-rub if he promised to grill for dinner. Or had he already spent that promise? And would she ever dream of with-holding her love in order to secure promises from him (except in jest, of course), when she knew he wanted to grill for her, and take her car to the mechanic's, and repair the old fence where the teenagers had torn it up...?

Retirement with Madelyn. Enough time to keep the house and yard maintained, and watch Aden be the man he was now, and watch young men break their heart over Adelaide while she broke her heart over that foolish...juvenile...whatever his name was, Fred or Tom or Bill or something. And enough time to be sitting sipping lemonade and knowing the right answers when Aden came and asked whether or not he should take the big job on the other side of the city, and when Adelaide came and asked if Tom or Fred or Bill was a good enough man for her. He didn't know the right answers yet. He realized with a shock that the children would be surprised to know he didn't. That was silly of them; they ought to understand he was still a boy. But children didn't understand things like that; Joseph had learned through painful experience -- 14 year-old Aden raising his voice and shaking his head violently to hide the tears welling in his eyes, yelling "so you don't know what to say; I don't know what to do, and they're never going to speak to me again unless I figure it out!"

Joseph smelled the Earth, and wondered if Aden's friends had ever spoken to him again. How was it he didn't know? Had Aden not told him? Had it worked out so smoothly that there had been no need in Aden's mind to bind up the wound, that was itself the knowledge of a wound, in his godfather?

Athena, sleeping, tumbled off the back of the pansy bench and landed with a thump, a scrabble, and a yowl of lost dignity.

"All right there?" Silly old cat couldn't catch a mouse anymore to save her life. Maybe she would fall on top of them from here on out. She'd always been clever, unlike Clobber, Madelyn's dog, who, with the dubious exception of bringing his mistress and Athena's master together, first in the pet store, then in the damages settlement, and then in holy matrimony, had never done anything remotely clever his entire life. Aden sometimes introduced his godparents to his professors based on this idiosyncrasy in their mutual character. "Madelyn can't stand cats, and Joseph can't stand dogs, and it was their pets chasing each other that got them to meet."

Madelyn always showed off her smile lines and said something feisty but clearly in humor, and Joseph felt all his pomp slip away, and grinned like a kid in a candy store and shuffled whatever distance was between them and put his arm around her, and watched everyone look mildly embarrassed as they observed his unconcealable affection.

Joseph made himself put the spade back in the tool-chest at the front of the floral greenhouse, and walked outside. The last customer had wandered out early this afternoon. He began to put the padlock on, then left it and the others. If someone wanted his and Madelyn's plants so badly, they could have them without breaking the glass, as the teenagers had sometimes done.

Everything must go, the sign in front said. Everything would go soon, now, given away to Madelyn's ladies group, and perhaps some to the church on the corner, and they would have to carry out Aden's plan to "floralize" Adelaide's apartment as a surprise for her while she was on that ill-conceived beach trip with "her girlfriends." Joseph felt an urge to speak these thoughts to Madelyn, so she could listen with chirping comments, like a songbird, and then, when he was finished, smile at him until he made fun of himself for being grumpy at his godchildren's plans.

"Grump grump grump," he said, but without Madelyn there to smile at him so provokingly, he couldn't say it right, the way that made both his godchildren, at whatever age, stop what they were doing and laugh. Athena swished past his legs daintily just before he reached the back patio, a clear display of her regained dignity.

"That's just fine, then," Joseph observed to her, "I didn't even notice. And anyway, Madelyn told you all about how I fell down the Kellers' side steps last weekend, so we're even."

Inside were old wood floors thick-shiny with glaze, like the sheen on the ice rink at Forest Park, after the Zamboni went over it. The furniture was a hodge-podge of old and new. There were pieces from Kevin and Dorothy's place that still occasionally made his heart sting and put a look on his face that inevitably brought Madelyn to his side to lay her head on his chest and sigh with him.

Joseph sat down on the boot bench and pulled off his dirty tennis shoes. The sound of stripping Velcro in the cool quiet drowned out the tick of the grandfather clock from the adjacent dining room and brought old Clobber clobbering into the mudroom. Joseph pondered whether Clobber's entries were becoming more or less catastrophic as the dog went from old to antique. On the one hand, he was becoming even less capable of controlling his thick paws, and it was discovered at his last veterinary visit that he had managed to beg another ten pounds of excess food out of Madelyn (unlike Joseph, who had to meet the boys at Hardee's for breakfast in order to expand his potbelly). On the other hand, Clobber's top speed had diminished significantly, so much so that Joseph had time to think all these thoughts in a leisurely manner between the time that Clobber first spilled out of his bean-bag in the front window seat and the time when Clobber zipped through the propped screen door into the mudroom, lost control as he attempted to turn towards Joseph, over-corrected, and, as usual, slid sideways, legs splayed, nails sampling the glaze, into the pile of boots.

"A spare. Tough luck, Clobber," Joseph murmured disingenuously, indicating the one rubber rain-boot that remained erect, though teetering. Clobber was beginning the process of putting his paws back underneath his body when he noticed that Joseph's now-removed left shoe which was lying next to his nose, had stepped in something fascinating, and decided he was in an advantageous position after all.

"I love you, Madelyn," Joseph said, reminding himself, and, he liked to think, Clobber, why he put up with having his gardening shoes snuffled, licked, gnawed, and hidden on a regular basis.

“I love you too, Joseph,” said Madelyn's voice, and there was a laugh in it. Joseph turned and shook his head at his wife, who had followed Clobber and was standing at the screen door.

“Hello honey,” he said.

“Hey,” she replied. She leaned her shoulder on the door frame and rested her head on it while she grinned at him.

“My back is going to kill me.”

“I'll give you a back rub once the youngsters get here and take over the cooking,” she said, in that precise way she had. “That's it, then. The last day of TinkerTook Greenery and Floral.”

“That's it,” agreed Joseph, standing up with his flip flops on. “I'll grill,” he offered..

“Yes,” said Madelyn, missing his sacrificial tone, “we've got enough hamburger in the refrigerator, and I was thinking of making a bunch of cold salads. The garden gave us enough cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers to feed an army of vegetarians...”

Joseph watched a line of delicious cold salads marching out of Madelyn's imagination towards realization as he followed her through the little back-of-the stairs entry, glanced left to see she had already finished setting the dining table, and turned right into the kitchen. Athena, having attended to some business in the laundry room, reappeared next to her master and let him know with a brush to his ankle that he still belonged to her.

* * * * *

“Hey dad,” said Aden, two hours later, as he rounded the back of the house to where Joseph was standing on the patio grimacing at the hamburgers.

“Hello...son,” said Joseph, surprised by Aden's use of the familial name, usually reserved for particularly meaningful, emotional moments. Aden must figure closing the greenhouse was a big step for his god-father.

Which it was.

His thoughts on the matter were interrupted by “Joseph, this is Kayla Lunceford.”

“Oh,” Joseph shook hands with Kayla, who said,

“It's great to meet you, Mr. Took.”

“Well, it's good to meet you too. Madelyn told me Aden was bringing a friend, but I thought that meant someone as bad-looking as he is!” he waited for the laughter to subside, and added, more quietly, “Call me Joseph, Kayla.”

“Ok,” she said, “call me Kay,” and they were done with the awkward pleasantries and were free to leave their positions. Kayla went in through the back door, to the safety of Adelaide and to be introduced to Madelyn. Aden and Joseph embraced, and began to chat about the logistics of closing, interspersing comments on grilling technique, until the girls came out to say hello. Madelyn waved messy hands at Aden affectionately and disappeared back to the kitchen.

Adelaide said “Hi, Joseph,” with a gratuitous smile, and Joseph noticed a smile cross Aden's face, divined that it was due to the fact that Adelaide and Kayla were linked arm-in-arm, and applauded himself for how well he had learned from Madelyn how to “read people.”

“Hello, little 'laidy,” said Joseph, and relished her blush and quick glance at the ground. Kayla laughed without opening her mouth, and Adelaide whispered something to her that the men couldn't hear. Then Athena, sensing a kindred spirit, left her supervisor's post in the grass by the grill to be picked up by Adelaide.

“How are you, goddad?” asked Adelaide, leaning over to examine the uncooked burgers waiting their turn on the grill, her skinny, pale legs ramrod straight over her painted toes and flip-flops. Athena was dangling over heaven...

“All right, my dear. I hope once your godmother finishes whatever magic it is she's up to in the kitchen that you three will take over while I get a back-rub.”

“Sure. Right now I'm gonna show Kay the greenhouses. Hey,” she raised an eyebrow and, with difficulty, brushed her hair back behind her ears while still holding Athena, “Is it ok if we take stuff?”

“There's some flowers marked for Madelyn, but other than that...” Joseph motioned generously.

“'k. Thanks!” They strolled across the grass.

“How's work?” Joseph asked Aden, then checked himself. “Just the quick version now, or else you'll have to say it all again for Madelyn at the table.”

“Then the one-word summary?" Aden stroked his young beard. “Dull.”

“I look forward to hearing more over dinner,” Joseph tossed Aden a wide-eyed glance of mock fear.

“How's retirement?” asked Aden quietly, neglecting to leave the appropriate pause in the conversation before asking a serious question.

“So far so good,” joked Joseph, slapping a piping hot burger onto the tray.

Aden said nothing.

“I think back to before I met Madelyn a lot more, more than anytime since I've known her.”

“Because you were ready to close then?”

“I suppose. I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't met her. I wonder if that's going to happen now.”

Inside they heard Madelyn singing a melody with no discernible words.

* * * * *

“It's a good thing you're here,” Joseph said to Kayla, leaning towards her confidentially, unaware of the spot of mustard on his chin. “No family gathering is complete without a telling of The Story, but it's best if there's someone who hasn't heard it before.”

“Oh, Joseph,” fussed Madelyn, and, noticing the mustard, she attacked his face with her napkin.

Kayla smiled and glanced with raised eyebrows at Aden, across from her. He waggled his own eyebrows back.

“How they met,” Adelaide said to her in a low voice.

“Ooooh.”

“I came prepared,” said Aden, digging out his wallet, and, from it, a piece of paper.

“Really?” mocked Adelaide.

“Of course.” Aden, unphased, noted the paper and held up his watch.

“At the time of the tone,” he said in his deepest voice, “The time since Joseph and Madelyn met will be...forty-four thousand and ninety-six hours, thirty-two minutes and thirty seconds.”

“Wha-ha-ha-at?” laughed Kayla.

“Well, there's this nice place about a half an hour's drive from here, that both Madelyn and Joseph frequented,” Aden said.

“Joe's Pet Sto'” Adelaide explained emphatically.

“And, ah, let's say Clobber and Athena got a little excited when they saw each other.”

“Clobber has never chased anything...” Madelyn interjected.

“Athena is the most peaceful...” Joseph said at the same time. They eyed each other and Madelyn gestured with her fork and head for him to go on.

“Thank you, dear. You see, every other time I've had Athena around dogs, the only danger is that she'll try to climb onto my head to get away. This time, she claws at me. Well, I dropped her. And instead of hiding, she runs straight for the...dog,” Joseph self-censored any adjective that might have come to mind, “and runs past him so close I think he thought he had caught her.”

“You see, normally Clobber is content to strain a little and sniff at cats,” Madelyn took over, applying knife and fork to her hamburger while she talked. “So I don't pay too much attention. Well! The leash was out of my hands before I even saw that cat and I turned around to see Clobber running along the aisle, trying to jump up to the third shelf, where this white fluffy thing was zipping along, knocking off everything in sight, both of them were! So of course I ran after them.”

“I was running at something of an oblique angle,” said Joseph gruffly. “We, ah, didn't see each other.”

“Next thing I knew,” Madelyn was bouncing with laughter now, “I was lying on the ground, not sure where I was, and there was this man on top of me!”

“So,” Aden said, “Cats aren't supposed to knock stuff over, right? And Athena's like that, I mean, has she even broken anything?”

“Outside of that day? Not a darn thing,” answered Joseph.

“So, the only way to explain it is she was doing it on purpose,” Aden shrugged.

“Anyway, we would have just blushed and apologized and been on our separate ways...” said Madelyn.

“She would have blushed, not me,” Joseph told Kayla.

“If it hadn't been for where Athena lead him...”

“Where Clobber chased her,” Joseph told Kayla.

Kayla waited, eyes wide, a bite of potato salad forgotten on her fork.

“The fish section,” said Adelaide.

“Clobber is something of a canine bowling ball,” noted Joseph.

“Ah!” protested Madelyn, not having heard that one before.

“The damages,” Aden took up his role as numbers-keeper, “Amounted to five thousand, seven hundred and seventy-four dollars, and seventy-two cents.”

“That included several tanks, and, ah, their contents,” Joseph rearranged bits of bell pepper and onion on his plate.

“So Joseph and Madelyn have to go meet with all these lawyers to settle the damages, or else go to court!” Aden continued.

“And there,” Madelyn took over proudly, “I discovered a humble, thoughtful, friendly old gentleman, who was so loyal to his pet that he wouldn't budge an inch to recognize that it was his cat who was the root cause of the problem. He reminded me of Max, my first husband.”

“And there,” Joseph said, “Was this quiet, refined, yet feisty young woman who was so afraid of the trouble she was in, but wouldn't budge an inch over 'the facts' and 'justice'.”

“Young!” Madelyn laughed. The children just laughed.

“I've always thought the neighborly, informal approach is best,” said Joseph, “So, after the first meeting leaves the Pet Store lawyer about ready to take both of us to court, I suggest to this lady that we discuss the matter over coffee.”

“I was a little offended by his forwardness, as if he could bribe me out of a perfectly reasonable position by being so sweet and winning!”

“I wasn't trying to be winning, and I certainly wasn't sweet,” Joseph shook his head.

“And we got nowhere! He was so terribly stubborn and unreasonable.”

“I thought I was sweet and winning...”

“So then, he called me, can you imagine?”

“I thought maybe a second cup of coffee might help.”

“You were scared of going to court, dear,” Madelyn corrected almost apologetically. “Well, at that point I knew something was up. I told myself I would go and tell him exactly what I thought of him, and he would never try such antics again, and perhaps we would be taken to court, but there wasn't anything I could do about that. And, well,” Madelyn turned red and attended to her hamburger.

“That's all right dear, I'll finish,” Joseph said knowingly. “We tried to talk about the case, but there wasn't really anything to say that hadn't already been said, and then she told me what she thought of me, and after all the negative items, some of which you've already heard, she mentioned that it was truly despicable of me to attempt to use my masculine attraction to sway her opinion of the case. Now, Kayla, I don't know if Aden told you I was never truly in love before I knew Madelyn. What with being in the service, and then my business, well, there was never time and there was never the right person. So I was a bit unprepared to handle the feelings that I had begun to feel during our first coffee. And when Madelyn accused me of trying to work my wiles on her, all I heard was that she thought I was charming. I've never been a man to string things out. I don't remember the rest of that conversation, but I showed up on her doorstep the next day and explained how things were.” He chuckled. “Her face looked something like it does now.”

Madelyn's face was so red by this time that her smile lines were like folds in a dried red pepper.

“Oh!” she said, and hid her face in her napkin.

* * * * *

They and their young guests walked out to the sign at dusk.

TinkerTook Greenery and Flowers: Everything Must Go Sale.

They changed the last last line.

* * * * *

If you drive down Manchester road, the signs fly by in quick succession. If you bother trying to read them, it's hard to finish each before it passes:

Church of the Atonement: Service Times...

Flags and Other Assorted Stuff...

Joe's Bar: “Happy Hour” $1 beer...

Tinker Took Greenery and Flowers: We've Retired. Thank You...

Bank of Savings: Great CD Rate of 0.1 %...

McBurgers: New! Fruity Beverage with Caffeine...

Shopping Center: Chinese Food, Arts and Crafts, Bike Repair...

Unidentified Flying Anecdotes

2011-08-15T23:11:00.004-04:00

Arranged chronologically as they transpired, from the author's perspective, as he traveled from Chicago O'Hare to St Louis.

At a security checkpoint. A wisened TSA agent addresses the crowd as they queue for ID check
"When you get over here, please look for the shortest line and go to it. Don't all go stand in the longest line. People in Soviet Russia used to be forced to stand in line for bread and milk. Well, here in America Madison avenue has trained you to do it for a phone upgrade that you could get in ten days with no line at all!"
And, later,
"I'm sorry about the short lines. I promise it will never happen again."

Arriving at the moment of truth, where the author typically discovers which article of metallic or forbidden material he has forgotten to remove from his person, he, as usual, discovers he lacks the courage to opt-out of the microwave scanner. Plus, scanners are cool. In the long run, the TSA wastes more time on him than if he'd gone straight for the groping, since they go to the trouble of scanning him, asking him for the second time if he's left anything in his pockets, and then groping him anyway.
"So much for the short line," comments the gentleman following the author, but in a friendly manner.

Later, on the plane. The author is reading his book and secretly paying a lot of attention to the off-duty pilot seated next to him. Perhaps a conversation opening will lead to a chance to share the Gospel.
In the back, two attendants are preparing the beverage cart. Another arrives from the front, but addresses the pilot next to the author.
"Can I borrow you for a second?" she asks.
"Sure," he replies.
"Do you know how to fly this plane at all?" she inquires mildly.
"No."
As they begin to proceed up the aisle she points vaguely left, towards one of the engines.
"Can you hear that?"
The author notices that the plane has been banking left for a while now, or would listing be a better word? The author hopes that either an engine has gone out, thus, Adventure! or that the flight attendant just wanted to chat and thought it would be fun to scare some passengers, thus, Humor!
The author grins from ear to ear at both possibilities.
Shortly thereafter the pilot mentions that the seatbelt sign has been turned off. "Feel free to use the restrooms, but you really don't want to use the one at the front. It seems we've developed a little squeal in the door. The cabin's good; the pressure's good, it's just really loud..."

"Squeaky door?" the author asks the off-duty pilot when he returns from his quest to the front of the cabin.

As it turns out, the rubber seal sometimes gets pinched or folded in the space between door and fuselage, and vibrates at high frequency, sounding something like an alarm.

The author later disembarks, and tiredly heads towards the exit. Re-routed through the terminal in the name of renovation, the author notices music he likes playing overhead and smiles to himself. A harried gentleman with a viola case and a foreign accent asks which way to baggage. Seeing a sign with that word on it, the author helpfully points it out and sends the gentleman upstairs. Too late to call him back the author notices that the sign is for baggage check-in. So much for American helpfulness, or, at least, American directions.

Later, in the economy parking lot. Having been deposited without mishap next to Manvan, the author speaks soothing words to his neglected beast of burden and guides it to the gates. There he discovers a self-service credit card lane. The instructions instruct him to insert his parking slip into the slot. He does so. The instructions instruct him to insert his credit card. He balks. The ticket, after all, hasn't come back. Plus, what slot can talk to both slips and cards? Wearied into obedience, he inserts his card, which is rather perkily consumed by the multi-tasking slot. After a brief moment of terror, his card is returned to him unharmed. Willing to hope all things, he hits the receipt button, and is not disappointed. The slot returns his slip, upon which is now imprinted the receipt of payment! The author, overwhelmed by this tri-purpose feat of technology, is glad that in a few short minutes he will be home.

Just and the Justifier

2011-03-06T18:41:00.003-05:00

"The purpose of the cross is not to arouse pity in us, neither is it merely some general display of the love of God. Not at all! It is finally understood only in terms of the law. What was happening upon the cross was that out Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was enduring in His own holy body the penalty prescribed by the holy law of God for the sin of man. The law condemns sin, and the condemnation that it pronounces is death. 'The wages of sin is death.' The law pronounces that death must pass upon all who have sinned against God and broken His holy law. Christ says, 'Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.' One of the ways in which the law has to be fulfilled is that its punishment of sin must be carried out. This punishment is death, and that was why He died. The law must be fulfilled. God cannot put it on one side in any respect, and the punishment cannot be put on one side. God in forgiving us -- let us say so clearly -- does not do so by deciding not to exact the punishment that He has decreed. That would imply a contradiction of His holy nature. Whatever God says must be brought to pass. He does not go back upon Himself and upon what He says. He has said that sin has to be punished by death, and you and I can be forgiven only because the punishment has been thus exacted. In respect of its punishment of sin God's law has been fulfilled absolutely, because He has punished sin in the holy, spotless, blameless body of His own Son there upon the cross on Calvary's hill. Christ is fulfilling the law on the cross..."

~Martin Lloyd Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, Chapter 18: "Christ Fulfilling the Law and the Prophets".

"But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."

~Romans 3:21-26

"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

~Romans 6:23

Things I say. Other things, which are true.

2011-02-16T21:49:00.002-05:00

Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.

~Psalm 139:7-12. One of my favorite chapters.

Humor: for some reason this passage came to mind strongly today, which is my first day of grading labs as a TA.

Christus Natus Est

2010-12-24T22:17:00.001-05:00

Why was I told the Truth: that I have rebelled against my Creator, but there is forgiveness through Jesus Christ, and not a lie?
Why did I believe instead of rejecting that Truth?
Why did God choose to love me?
Why did He give up heaven to come live and die for me?
Why is the Truth at first worse than the worst horror story, and then better than the most profoundly, wildly joyful happy ending?
But Christ did come. God does love me. The Truth is better than we could have possibly imagined.
Merry Christmas.

Thanks

2010-11-25T09:17:00.002-05:00

"And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. As it is written,

'He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever.'

He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God. By their approval of this service, they will glorify God because of your submission flowing from your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others, while they long for you and pray for you, because of the surpassing grace of God upon you. Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!"

II Corinthians 9:8-15.

My New Eyes, and What I saw with Them

2010-06-08T09:59:00.005-04:00

Dear Readers,

I've been sorting through all my old junk and papers in my bedroom, and for several days was anticipating the discovery of an old manuscript of a short story that has been lost for several years. Yesterday I stumbled across it and typed it into digital format. I had surprisingly little to revise, and now I think it is good to share it with you. By genre I will describe it as thick Christian allegory, owing much to George MacDonald's style but doubtless not approaching the caliber of his work. I warn you that I had to read it twice before I, the author, was sure of everything I was saying! My apologies for leaning so much on your imagination and reading skills as interpreters of my prose, but I do rather like it the way it is. This story was hand-written on July 13, 2006.

Once upon a time, I, a young boy desiring great pleasure, wealth, love, and accomplishment, became aware of a set of eyes I had never opened. Voices spoke to me, and I wondered at my talking to myself.

“Dear me,” said a voice much like my own, “if you kept those eyes shut so tight you didn't know they were, there must be something terribly unpleasant outside the lids. There is much pleasure to be taken outside the eyes you've always used. Pity to scare yourself needlessly, spoiling that pleasure.

“And really, there's nothing to be afraid of, if you think about it. Nothing has ever harmed you from there, so why bother looking at it? It's probably just black, a figment of your imagination (or someone else's) anyway.”

“Yes,” I said (at least, I think it was I said it, and not the voice) “far too much going on here anyway; why take on these new eyes' burdens.”

For a while, I believed, and told myself I was satisfied, and my faith was strong.

And all was silent.

Then, in the blackness that these new eyes saw, came a voice I had only heard echoes of before. At first I thought it was a fire raging. Then, I believed it to be a song I had heard. Finally, I decided I must have a light head brought on by a slight fever. On I went with my work.

I think I know now what the voice said. At the time, I was convinced it was not a voice (and was only an evil but harmless one if it was). But, after a time of ignoring it, a great weight came upon me, as if the world were leaning on the closed lids of those new eyes. And, at the same time, I saw evil shadows silhouetted against the lids. Horrified, I tried to hide in my other eyes, but the voice became clear, and I heard it, even as the shadows deepened.

“My burden, is light,” said the voice.

“Light shines in the darkness.”

“Darkness is as light to me.”

“I am.”

“Open your eyes.”

“Help me,” I replied. “There are great shadows! They hurt me, and crush me! Make them go away!”

“Yes,” said my voice, “what horrid things. They will pass, though. Think not of their weight, but of your real eyes. You see enough shadows with them.”

“Satan, you are bound by His blood and the Father's will.”

“He is not covered by the blood,” retorted my voice, startling me.

“Oh?” cried the voice.

The light burst into a flame, and the voice into a chorus. As it sang, it gave a command.

“Open your eyes, newheart.”

I saw a world of light and darkness, the same as ours, in that aspect. Evil figures, some of them familiar, some of them demons, were before me, more, vague and impossible to identify, crested a dark hill before me. I realized that the only light came from just behind me. The sky was full of stars, yet they showed me not the world around. I knew that I would stand staring in horror at those before me forever.

“Yes, so sad to be stuck here,” said my voice.

I turned around, surprising myself, and met the source of the light.

He was glory.

He was love.

He was holy.

He was holy.

He was holy!

I fell and worshiped Him, and He did not stop me. I knew for sure then, that I had met God.

Great songs sounded about Him, but I believe I heard only a part of them. I knew then I must have not only new eyes, but new ears.

“Look in your right hand,” He said.

There I saw a short, light sword, of beautiful make, and I was glad of it.

“It is my sword. Learn always to wield it better. A beautiful truth! With this sword you can make dead men live. Let your arm never grow weary, for I am at your side to strengthen it.

“Why?” I dared ask, for He was so kind. “Why would you strengthen me?”

“Because I love you,” He said.

“The Father sent.”

“The Son came.”

“Lived.”

“Died!”

“Rose!”

And I have come to lead you to them, your Father. Your Brother, who died that you might come without your punishment or burden, and with new eyes, ears, heart.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“You are welcome,” He replied.

“Look on your left arm,” He said.

There was a shield, broad, round, and light.

“Many a blow it must stop before you reach the end of the road.”

“What is it?”

“Faith in Me.”

“Where did it come from? My faith is strong, and it is in itself.”

“I gave it to you.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“You are most welcome.

“These gifts are from above. Wear them always, use them well. See, what is that covers your chest?”

A great breastplate was there sturdily and perfectly fitted to my thin torso.

“It is Your Brother's righteousness.

“Later you will add to it, and believe this is your own, but all your righteousness is His. It will never let a blow through; wear it always. Look behind.”

Behind me I saw a pile of broken darts. The demons grimaced, the familiars beckoned.

“Who are those?” I asked, pointing out the familiars. “They stand in just the same places to these eyes as my pleasures to my old eyes.”

“Do you not know, then?”

“Oh, dear, are they really that ugly?”

“Need you delay to ask?” He whispered.

“I am sorry,” I said.

“You are forgiven.

“But why wait?”

“Oh, dear, how foolish I am.” I started off at once, and cut down one or two of the nearest with the sword. He followed beside, before, behind, and within me. He laid his loving hand on my shoulder, and I wept for the evil I had grown and raised.

“I say,” my voice interjected, “oughtn't you pay some attention to your old eyes now? Things may go to rot if your crusade takes all your attention.”

My voice caught me by the arm. It was one of the demons, and I had not struck it, for it spoke with my voice.

“Oh. Hi! Let go!” I said as it dragged me off the path.

“Look, how close I'm getting to those good pleasures,” said my voice. “He can't blame you for sampling what He's made available as you pass, since you're passing against your will.”

“Delicious,” I murmured through a mouthful of sin. Then I choked and coughed it out, along with part of myself. I felt full, but I think I had just coughed out the part of my stomach that was empty.

I was full but hollow.

I was reaching for more to stuff in the hollowness when the demon screamed and ran. Suddenly I heard His voice again.

“You are bound, leave him.”

“Oh, good job,” I applauded. “You chased him right away.”

I plopped down on the hot sail, and ate some more in the twilight.

“I was speaking to you,” He replied, repeating Himself till I finally took notice.

“Oh, I'm fine now, the grimacing one has fled.”

“Look above you, o man!”

I could not disobey. Above me were the stars, and I saw there was a pattern to them. Some were farther, some nearer. Some were brighter, some dimmer, with no relation to distance. Above me were a great many. Most seemed to be flowing away from the road, though a current or two was always slowing, turning, and going back. A few were moving parallel to the road, though far off it. At every moment, one or two of the whole would leap off to the horizon. A few burned still, and returned. Others, burning only on the fuel of their own flesh, expired in the dark there. I saw that those over the road marked it, moving steadily along, some faster, some slower. Some of the moving ones drifted off, but all those that stopped in the road began to drift to the horizon.

“Learn from these,” I heard Him call from the road, where He waited.

But I was very afraid. What if I, too, drifted to the horizon?

All I had were gifts. Nothing was my own! How weak and lonely I was. I wept.

“Do I see?” I asked. “Do I see with my new eyes, for it is almost dark?”

“You must see to know it.” He replied, after a time. I was afraid He would forget me, or, worse, I would forget Him.

“If I go on,” I asked myself (and my voice echoed, and the familiars beckoned, and the demons grimaced), “shall I ever make it, or only be found to be burning on my own flesh, and turn to smoke in the dark, or even at the very gates of my destination be turned away, and my Comforter leave me there to perish in my fire?”

“How is it you do not know of your helmet of salvation? I told you of it.”

“I...you did not tell me loud enough.”

“You ears were stopped up.”

“Still...”

“Peace.”

“My Lord, forgive me, for when you spoke I must have been listening to my false voice rather than yours. Can you forgive me?”

“Doubt no more,” said He who bled for me, and I desired Him in my heart, and longed to be with Him.

“Yet, how do I know it is on my head?” I asked, after looking around for it for a time.

“Ask the stars,” He said. He said something else, but I did not hear, because I was staring at a passing familiar.

“Ask the stars,” he repeated as I daydreamed after the sin, and this time with power.

“But, I can't see their helmets,” I protested. “Do you think they can see mine?”

“Ah, wisdom and foolishness mix. Well seen, son, and poorly thought and spoken. Think you I told you to ask for no reason?”

“Oh...” I thought for a good while. Yes, I supposed most of the stars that moved ahead, parallel to the path, and drifted to rather than from it for the most part, would be true. And, now that I listened to them, I could hear their songs. Most were beautiful, longing, hopeful, pained, brave, weak, delicate, dependent. These I loved, though their poorer qualities aggravated me. Some sang mockeries of them, and I turned from them in disgust; none of them were on the road, though some of them moved generally parallel to it.

Others sang to themselves, and the songs had no sound, being only to be seen by the stars. I gazed at these, as they desired, but could not believe them true.

Others followed close behind companion stars, singing echoes of their fellows. These it was hard to tell, for some of them sang, I thought, from their hearts, simply using their companions to keep them on tune. Others it seemed sang only from their skin, and it was a true, physical echo. I could not easily tell these by their songs.

However, as I watched them, most were eventually separated from their companions (this was because of the thick flow of stars over the road bumping and swaying and changing speed). Then, though their songs might falter, those singing from their hearts (or, rather, I wondered, was it God's heart?) either found a song of their own, or a new companion to sing with. Those singing from the skin might attach to a new companion, I saw, but often drifted away, and, if once they heard no song, burnt up quickly.

I loved all these imperfectly, and feared them, for I did not understand their glorious though tiny lights.

“Do you see me?” I called. “Am I wearing my helmet?”

“We see you,” answered many, “you are drifting out, not moving forward. You are in grave danger, but may yet persevere by His grace.”

I thought on this.

“Oh, God. They weren't much help.”

“I told you they alone would not be help,” He replied. I was surprised He was still there; His voice I barely remembered.

“Lord, I am sorry I did not speak or listen to you for so long. Will you forgive me?”

“Think you, my son, that I needed you, or was forced to save? How is it now you doubt My willingness? I have given you my Son,” said the Father, “His blood is your answer.”

“Well, what should I do?”

“Get back on the road, my Son.”

“How shall I know my helmet is on?” I asked, getting to my feet. Oh! They were tired. I began forward, and followed the stars, but it was easy to get lost in a current breaking off from the road, and I could not find the path.

“Follow the light, not the enlightened.”

I looked to the light, followed it, and drew near the road. But still I feared traveling it without my helm. The evil things were thickest there. I struck down a few easily as I walked, but those I saw ahead were deadly.

“How shall I be sure?”

“What?” I said after a moment, not understanding His words.

Then I saw a deadly figure ahead; corresponding with people and ideas in my old eyes. It came at me, scaring me dreadfully, for it was so enticing. It made me stand still while it hurled a great spear at me. The blow knocked me down, and I thought my new self was done for, and my light extinguished. How could I stand?

“Why are you crying?” asked a star. I looked around, a painful thing when flat on your back in armor, and saw the spear shattered at my feet.

“But it struck my head, and am I not dead?”

“Perhaps you were wearing a helmet,” He said gently.

“Oh. I wish you hadn't let him knock me down like that.”

“My dear one, it was I who planned his path. The test was for your good and my glory. Know you yourself better now?”

“Yes, Lord. I am sorry. And thank you.”

“You are forgiven. And anytime!”

“Now, to get up,” I thought.

I got to my feet slowly under my armor, and brushed myself off.

“How smart of me to think to get up, and do it all by myself,” I said, admiring my muscles.

My pride became material and clung to me like fat. Under the weight, the broken ground opened, swallowing me to my waist.

“Bother! How dirty my trousers will get! Help! Help!”

“While you are in this hole of discipline, my son, listen. I give you all-prayer, powerful as the trumpet when there are millions following its call. For through my Spirit and my Son I hear. I am power! And so you, my son, are safe.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, so you will see your foolishness and remove the weighty pride that has made you a plug in the ground, know that it was I gave you your strength, and what little wisdom it took to stand.

“Finally, I will help you with your helmet. My son, have you no hands? Can you not feel for it on your head?”

“Father, I am ashamed.”

As I apologized, I put down my sword to free my right hand. As soon as my fingers left it, my sight was broken. The stars became a whirlpool, with no order, the center of the pool hurling away those on the outside as it spun. The road, not far from me, twisted and forked, shooting off to join roads that led to the horizon, and all these roads intersected the hole I was in. I could feel and hear nothing and fear took me by the feet and began to pull me down. I screamed in panic, and no noise came.

“He cannot hear me, cannot hear me; cannot hear me!” I cried.

“Why don't you pick up your sword? Asked a star swirling in rapid circles at the center of the whirlpool.

“With it you give me glory, and I am pleased.”

I was so glad and happy. He speared fear with His love for me, of quality that led Christ to die. I was free. I sprang up and ran to His light. After so long, His arm was on me again, keeping me from running past Him. He was before, behind, beside, within. With my left hand, whose arm held the shield, I reached up and touched my helmet.

“I am sorry, Father.”

“I forgive you in Christ, son,” and “in Christ” did not get in the way, but made it perfect, and in the perfection I was jubilant.

I looked up, and saw the road marked by the stars. I began to advance on those waiting ahead. His light followed.

Spring Break Serial VII: In Which Almost All is Explained

2010-06-02T09:33:00.005-04:00

Benjamin marveled at Belian's people skills. With a serious face, a small grin, and a gentle touch of two steel electrodes together, the not-lord had inspired such confidence in the prisoners that they had gladly told him everything about themselves and their mission. They were not, as might have been expected, from some baron or minor liege-lord who had caught wind of the adventurer's plan to steal the spice and made a bid to get it for himself. No, the name that was given was that of the King Terryl of Lox.
"Why?" Belian asked quietly, and set a wet twig on fire with a spark from the two electrodes. The machine hummed and thumped behind them.
"Suppose he wanted the spice for 'imself," murmured one of the prisoners, rubbing at his burnt hands but casting nervous glances at the metal tips and the heavily bandaged jaw of one of his compatriots.
"But he had it!"
"She had it," said Benjamin. "I don't recall her putting any on his food. But why wouldn't she, though? Lokely told us she shared with her father's family."
"Aw heck." Belian looked at Benjamin. "She's probably headed back to the castle, you know.
"Yeah."
"The king wanted the spice for himself. Isn't that right?" he stood suddenly and leaned over the prisoner he'd been questioning, eyebrows knit, sparking a beat with the two electrodes in his hands.
"Y...y...yes," murmured the prisoner, trying to look anywhere but at Belian and the electrodes. "What was he going to do about the queen?"
"K...k...kill her."
"How?"
"D...d...don't know...hired someone."
"And how," asked Benjamin, "did he know to send you to track us?"
"One of your men squealed to us."
"For money?"
"Y...y..yes."
"Let's wake the others," said Benjamin. "We've got to get back to the castle before the queen. If we don't she's dead and who knows if we'll ever have a chance of getting the spice again."

Two hours later

Grizzly Bear was asleep behind Enoch, Belian and Benjamin flanked them on their own trotting horses; Enoch's men were spread thin in a wedge behind them. It was still dark and still raining, but the searchers were desperate, and the closer they came to the castle at Lox Summa, the better chance they had of intercepting the queen before she could re-enter that fortress, intended by her new husband to be her tomb. The inevitable occurred just as the lights of the city outskirts began to resolve themselves. A body of horsemen bearing the gold-flecked blue markings of Lord Lokely's hall swelled up out of the rain before them. Horns trumpeted, steel sang from sheaths, and the two parties found themselves intermingled, glowering at each other from their horses.

Spring Break Serial VI: Interlude

2010-03-12T23:48:00.004-05:00

The rain poured down around them with a steady hiss, mocking their attempts to hear which way the queen had ridden.
"How did she get loose?" asked Grizzly.
"Stuck the ropes in the fire, looks like," said Benjamin.
"No way," Belian shook his head. "That would hurt so much!"
"But the ropes are burnt."
"It doesn't matter," said Grizzly. "She got away."
"There's no way we can keep up with her by tracks; it's too dark," said Benjamin.
"And without the spice, the plan ends. Here. Sorry guys, I should have stuck around to keep an eye on things," Grizzly mourned.
"One of us should have," Belian looked around.
"Well, if we're not going after her, I'm going to get some sleep. Enoch climbed under one of the tarps they had spread across some trees.
"What about the prisoners?" asked Belian.
"They can wait," muttered Enoch.
"I'm going to talk to them now, " Belian disappeared into the dark. Grizzly faced Benjamin. He stretched out one hand to the side and looked at it.
"Sleep?" he stretched out the other, "or interrogating the prisoners?" he looked back and forth, then stopped on the hand representing sleep. "Ah!"
Benjamin chortled and walked away as Grizzly bedded down. He was curious what the prisoners would have to say. Some of Enoch's men were gathered around them already.

Spring Break Serial V: Artemisia Absinthium, Angelica

2010-03-11T07:55:00.007-05:00

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV

The cool, open evening drew in around them into a dark, taught night. Finally, squeezed beyond their ability to bear, the clouds opened and it was in a freezing rain that the travelers huddled. Some of Enoch's men were asleep, but the four friends and the queen were wide awake, hands stretched out underneath Enoch's shield, which now covered the fire.
"That's three dents," remarked Enoch merrily. "Not sure how many Trisha's armor turned. I think that last one would have made for a bad day, though. Thanks for the help, Belian."
"No problem; just sorry you didn't save any more for me."
"Looking for ways to advance your chivalrous standing?" Grizzly Bear teased in a shivering voice.
"Why not? Nothing else to do around here," Belian scooted closer to the fire.
"He thinks it would be great to tell somebody he's been knighted," Benjamin joked. "Oh, that's right, the French are all about chivalry, weren't they? I bet you're right; she'll really like that."
"Don't know what you're talking about," but Belian was almost smiling.
"It's been," said Grizzly, his voice sober now, "two years since we last thought we might really be able to get home."
"About time, huh?" laughed Enoch.
"It should work!" Benjamin gushed. "We've got the spice; it has to be the key. I just wonder exactly what we're going to do with it."
"Take it back to Chulsey and make burritos," Belian grumbled.
"I don't see what else we would do," replied Benjamin, "but that seems a little...unlikely, anyway."
"So, queen Chastagne," said Grizzly to the queen, who huddled silently between Belian and Benjamin, glowering daintily into the fire, "I'm awfully sorry about this. We're not exactly kidnappers...ok, ok, I guess we are...but we certainly aren't going to hurt you. It was just that you had seen us with the spice, and we couldn't have them knowing about it any earlier than possible. We'll be letting you go just as soon as we can."
Chastagne did not acknowledge him.
"About our conversation earlier," Enoch's voice never lost its merry edge. "I do know what you've done; a pretty good job of being a princess, I guess. You rule a lot of happy people. But why not share the spice with them? I don't buy all this 'just dues of rank' dung."
She turned a bitter face towards him, lower lip slightly twisted, "Read it."
"What?"
"Read the spice."
Grizzly took it from his sack, unwrapped it, and held it under the cauldron lid so that it was illuminated in the flickering orange light. Gold lettering shone, etched in the white ivory.
"That's not nutrition facts," said Belian.
Grizzly read aloud, slowly, as he made out the words:

"To he who does not have, having
To he who has, lacking.
Thus through not, much
Thus through much, emptiness.
So to the wise, peace to others,
So to the fool, justice."

"A riddle!" said Benjamin.
"Taste it," she said, "and..."
"Somebody's here," said Belian, jumping to his feet.
"What?"
"Listen." leaning away from the fire, they heard muffled gasps and a buzzing sound through the sound of falling rain.
"Wake up! Get'cher swords!" Belian darted over to Enoch's wounded man and took his sword while the others climbed to their feet, confused.
"Oh!" Benjamin's clouded expression cleared as he pulled on his sword-glove, "That's what you were doing while we set up camp.
"Yup. Good thing, huh?"
The watch slipped into the firelight. "Three or four. One of them is in pain. A strange sound I do not know.
"It's the generator," Belian explained to Enoch and Grizzly, "I stretched a wire around the camp and charged it. Perfect security system.
Putting pots over torches, the travelers slipped into the dark towards the source of the groanings, which had redoubled. Tossing the pots away, they found two men holding onto a humming metallic wire, twitching and moaning. The sounds of two others were fading away into the distance. The archers shot after them and there was a loud cry and a thump.
"That'uns mine, I should think," cried Chester Burley.
"Nonsense," slender Tomas murmured. "Twas my shaft or a weeks wages to you."
"Let's find out!"
"Careful! Step over the wire. Don't touch it." Belian ran off into the dark, "Got to shut down the generator."
A few moments later the buzzing stopped and the two men collapsed to the ground, gasping as if they had run a marathon, bright burns on their hands. "Mercy, mercy!" they gasped, as Enoch's men bound them.
"Wounded another," said Tomas, walking in front of Chester Burley, who had a man slung over his back and looked like someone who had just lost a week's pay on a bet.
"What does that make, five prisoners?" said Benjamin.
"Maybe these will be able to talk," said Grizzly.
"Heh," Enoch laughed, "it's not my fault that one put his jaw on my mace. I would have been glad to hit him somewhere else."
"Somehow I feel like you could have managed..." Grizzly shook his head and swung up his lute and sang as they walked back to the light of the campfire.

Enoch the Red, knocks 'em dead!
Enoch the Red, the Warrior!
Swings his mace, with a bushy red face!
Adventures like Tom Sawyer!
Got a toothache? Or a heartache?
He'll work on your jaw, or sweettalk...to y'all?

"...anyway," Grizzly chuckled to himself.
Belian was waiting for them in the camp. "She's gone; she took a horse," he said.
Where the queen had been there were only a few pieces of rope.
"She took the spice."

Spring Break Serial IV: How Enoch's Mace and Belian's Spear Meant Trouble

2010-03-10T22:15:00.004-05:00

Part I
Part II
Part III

Having driven the newlywed king almost to violent rage, and his queen to a rather enlivened state of argument, the travelers withdrew after breakfast to their chambers.
"Everything's set here," said Benjamin, rolling up some odd instruments in a leather pouch and tucking them into his shirt, "is the signal up?"
"Yep!" Belian withdrew his head from the window, "I think we're ready."
"Gentlemen!" Grizzly Bear held his lute straight out like a sword, "take up your weapons. We go to...uh..."
"To war!" rumbled Enoch mildly.
"War!" mimicked Belian.
"Or something," laughed Benjamin.

Noonday

"Warrior!" the soft voice of Queen Chastagne froze Enoch and Benjamin in their tracks as they walked surreptitiously down a side passage.
"Lady?" Enoch's voice sounded almost weak.
"I'm so glad I found you. Lokely speaks well on my behalf, but perhaps even he cannot entirely exonerate me. Your words lodged close to my conscience. Lokely assures me that the good I do well merits the advantages that the spice affords to me. Yet I hold a somewhat less exalted view of myself."
"Oh, well!" Enoch seemed torn. "Tell you what, let's get together sometime and...no, uh, let's say that maybe you should share the spice a little more, or just be nicer to the peasants." Benjamin had been edging down the passage away from the princess. Now Enoch began walking backwards as he spoke, still facing Chastagne but moving directly away from her.
"Done! It worked!" Belian burst into the passage by Benjamin, some sort of wrench in one hand, a fistful of mud in the other. "Oh," he said, seeing the queen.
"Ta-da!" Grizzly Bear danced his way into the passage, holding the spice in both hands, singing along with his rhythm. "I got the spice (oh yeah!) I got the spice..."
Then he saw the queen.
"What are you doing?" she asked harshly. Enoch glared at them.
"Sorry, miss Queen, but you'll have to wait until you catch us to share the spice!" In the time it took Chastagne to fill her lungs for a scream, Enoch had caught up to her and clamped a huge hand over her mouth.

Evening

A yard of wood appeared in the tree in front of Belian with a sizzle and a smack, so close in front of him that his chest snapped it in two as his mount rode under. The horse of the man next to him let out a terrific scream and bolted, struck by another arrow. Shouting out in surprise and command, the party turned their horses and galloped to the center of the cluster of trees they were passing. Grizzly Bear was the last to enter the relative safety, on foot, yelling madly, holding his lute behind him as some sort of shield. Two arrows narrowly missed him.
"How many? How many?" Enoch's voice drowned out the others.
"Five, I'll say," murmured slender Tomas, tying his bowstring with total disregard for the falling shafts.
"Naaoow," replied Chester Burley, shaking his head and his fat lips, "jus' four or I'll give me week's pay -- little though it be." He drew his bow taut, let out a "humph" and drew a shaft from his quiver.
"No time to talk about pay!" piped Belian from behind a tree, tightening his hat down "I need a weapon!"
"Why didn't you bring your own!?" Grizzly Bear shouted, jostling with a horse for cover beneath an oak.
Another horse screamed, struck by an arrow. After a few moments of thrashing, his rider let him go. They watched the horse thunder out through the cool evening air. Benjamin shivered.
"We've got to get out of here before they hit any more horses," he said, "we can still make a run for it right now, doubling up on a few, but if we wait any longer we'll have to leave our gear if we want to get very far."
"Just four. we can take'em." said Belian. Enoch's men murmured grim but rowdy agreement.
"They want us to run for it," said Enoch. "That's just what they want. If we bolt in the other direction we'll run straight into the other four. The scouts saw eight. These jokers could have hit us in the open, not right next to these trees. It's the perfect shield for a geta..."
This time it was a human scream, as one of Enoch's men rolled over, an arrow in his leg.
"Boss?" asked Tomas, peeking around his tree, "I've spotted one. Up in some branches in yonder oak, no less. Poor pigeon. Nasty place to be when the arrows fly!"
"Get him then!" Enoch urged. Tomas and his fellow bowman Chester leaned out and sighted.
"For'y-two yard?"
"Forty-five."
"Naaaoooow."
"Forty-four."
"'ere. I'll test it. Two branches a'bow 'im, the big'un. See if we can hi'it."
The two bows twanged.
"See, Fort'y-four."
"That what I said!"
"Fine. Let's get'im."
Again the bows twanged. Benjamin, peeking around his tree, had spotted the bowman they were sighting, a good ways off in a tree, clothing barely distinct because of the gray tree branches against the backdrop of the orange sunset. He saw no change.
"Did you get him?"
Tomas stared at him blankly. "We sighted it first."
"But he didn't fall."
"Sorry."
"Aye, what did you expect?" droned Charley. "for'im to throw i'self outta the tree after 'e was already dead? Don't see how you can expect so much out of him in that state!"
More bolts thwacked their way through the branches around them, burying themselves unnervingly close to their hiding spots.
"All right," Enoch said, and he pulled off his shirt.
"Here we go!" yelled Belian.
"Think I'll take my horse," said Enoch, "and go for them. Trisha here has enough armor, I think. And I," he heaved something out of his sack, "have a shield." It was a huge cauldron lid, with metal handles bolted to the inside. "Multi-purpose," he laughed. "Who's comin' with me?"
"I'll go if somebody gives me a weapon!" Belian was practically dancing, while still trying to stay protected behind a tree. One of Enoch's men handed him a light spear. "I'd better come behind you; I don't have a big enough pot."
"We'll keep them busy, boss!" said another of Enoch's men, stringing his shortbow.
"I'll stay in case the other four show up," Benjamin smirked, "and because I stink at riding."
"I'll stay back here and scare the living daylights out of them with my battle cry," said Grizzly Bear.
"Someday, Grizzly Bear," said Enoch as he mounted again, "I'll put you in front of me on my horse, put a battleaxe in your hands, gallop into the middle of a battle, and you will own!"
"Someday. Just not today!" replied Grizzly.
"Ha!" Enoch galloped out of the clearing. Four arrows zipped out from his men to keep the attacker's heads down. Belian sat astride his dancing horse.
"Come on, come on, come on..." he too galloped out of the clearing as Enoch neared the tree where they had seen one of the archers.
Grizzly, true to his word, walked out of the cover of the trees, played a strangely aggressive series of chords on his lute, and then leaned back with his arms stretched wide, screaming a weird, wild battle cry. Benjamin watched Enoch. The warrior was bent low over his mount, then suddenly rolled off and somehow landed on his feet running, dropping the wrappings from his great spiked mace. A human figure separated itself from a rock, bow in hand, and walked backwards, until Enoch caught up with it and struck it down. Another figure had jumped up behind Enoch and clearly loosed an arrow at him. Whether it struck or no, Enoch turned now to the second foe and charged him, his bellow audible to all in the grove. The archer pulled out a short blade, ducked the first swing of Enoch's mace, and rushed into the red warriors arms.
"Bad call!" yelled Grizzly Bear, shaking his head.
"Epic fail," laughed Benjamin.
Indeed, whatever transpired inside of Enoch's burly grasp, it was he and not the archer who turned away. A last man had popped up from the rocks, bow ready to shoot Enoch if he bested his man. But even as they watched the bow grow taught, Belian's mount eclipsed their view, and they saw Belian twirl his shaft in his hands before lofting it towards its target, who fell out of view, struck solidly by the spear.
"That was short," said Benjamin.
"What can you say?" Grizzly Bear turned back towards them, shrugging, palms up. "Don't mess with Enoch and Belian."
"How's the queen?" asked Benjamin of Enoch's men.
"She's fine," came the reply.
Benjamin and Grizzly re-entered the grove to see the queen lying against a tree, her court gowns muddied, her arms tied and mouth gagged.
"Good. Let's see about the other hurt, then, and keep a look out for the rest of those bandits!"

Spring Break Serial III: Cumin to the Castle

2010-03-09T08:33:00.005-05:00

Dear Readers,

Sorry for a long one; perhaps I should set a time limit. I'm getting excited about the story, but I don't know where all the threads are going yet. Just 4-5 more entries!

Part I
Part II

"Since the Spice War, Princess Chastagne has been sought after by many suitors," explained Lokely, as the two parties rode on together as one, the dark cloaks and rugged features of Enoch and Grizzly's woodsmen fading into the shadows in the light of Lokely's well-gilded, well-kept men-at-arms and horses.
"Many," murmured Grizzly Bear, mournfully plucking at his lute. Enoch chuckled, but said,
"Is that then your news, sir Herbert? That at last the princess is to be matched? To whom has the honor of the spice come?"
"Well you surmise, and well you ask the pertinent question, although I would that you give more thought to the worth of Chastagne in her person, not merely her dowry."
"No," Enoch replied casually, shaking his head with a laugh, "She let her people fight a war to bring back the spice for her own personal use. I can't think highly of her character."
"You would do well not to slight her;" Lokely turned to look at Enoch, his brow knit and his voice firm, "neither your knowledge of her nor mine ought to merit it."
"Well, we'll see," Enoch shrugged and laughed, mouth open in a big smile behind his bushy beard.
"So, fine," Grizzly broke in, "Enoch doesn't like the princess because she let thousands die fighting for her spice. But what about it? Has she found a man?"
"Indeed, and despite a dearth of higher rank in all the land of Glen-del, she has, I believe found one who may at least aspire to maintain her station, if not in fact advance it."
"A good guy, then," Grizzly smiled knowingly at Enoch.
"The king of Lox, Lord of Summa and Protector of Therra and Brynie," replied Lokely with some gusto. A murmur ran through Enoch's band.
"Oh," said Grizzly Bear. Enoch was silent.
"M'lord!" a pair of scouts thundered up, "the hill we seek is only a mile ahead. Two fellows are already upon it."
"Yes," Enoch said, in answer to Lokely's questioning glance, "that's them."
"Something more m'lord," piped the second scout, "we surprised a small band -- eight in number -- creeping through the bracken at the foot of the hill. When they laid eyes on us approaching, they flew back to tethered horses, hidden in a grove, and rode to the south."

"C'mon, we've got to cover it before they get here!" Belian danced about the now assembled contraption, tugging at the corners of the over-spread blanket. Benjamin laughed. "They wouldn't know what it is if we gave them the manuscripts."
"Still!" Belian grunted and mumbled as he adjusted the corners of the blanket, covering his master-work.
"This is why they'll never knight you, not-lord," said Benjamin. "Prince ColeCule was reaching for his knighting sword after the skirmish of river Tholley, when you started going on about automated alert systems to prevent an ambush like that from happening again," Benjamin's thin chest began to bounce with merriment.
Belian smiled broadly. "They would work, too. You wouldn't even have to post sentries!" the timbre of his voice wavered with disappointment.
"Here they come...speaking of not having sentries," Benjamin pointed. From the northeast, a band of perhaps thirty men broke from the trees and sped their horses towards them. The gold-flecked blue banner of Lokely rode next to the red and black pennant that unofficially marked Enoch the Red Warrior's party.

"So, Chastagne is marrying King Terryl of Lox? Benjamin boomed out the name in a stentorian voice, to the visible displeasure of lord Lokely.
"Aye," he replied emphatically, "and tomorrow, at that, if all goes as when I left the place. I dare say you should follow me there; the hospitality of the king and queen, would, no doubt, be extended to you."
"We mean no disrespect," Benjamin replied, "but why should we linger there? Our business in this place is as a meeting-point of convenience; we have business to attend." Turning slightly so Lokely couldn't see, he winked at Grizzly and Enoch, who smirked back.
"The spice has come to bide at Lox Summa," replied Lokely. "And I may perhaps not have the wisdom of Enoch in the ways of the world, but I dare say that if ever the fate of men was bound to an item of the dust, it was the four of you, and to the spice itself. Have you no curiosity?"
"Well, when you put it that way," Enoch and Grizzly spoke at the same moment.
"Anyway," mused Benjamin, "if the scouts really saw people trying to sneak up on us, we might do well to be in a safe place for a few days."
Belian, reclining against a tree, raised his cap from where it shaded his eyes.
"Let's do it! We'll need some way of carrying my package though..." he indicated the covered heap.
"We brought you a horse, Belian," Enoch cried merrily, "'twas Sleepy Bears, but he and she did not agree!"

Two Days later...

Castle Summa was a fortress. The city of Summa herself was a good twenty minute trek away, down a steep, jagged gash in the vertical protrusion of dirt and rock that served as foundation for the castle. So even the dungeon of Summa had windows, peeping out from a quarter, or three-quarters of the way down the mount. The four commoners were housed in a grand chamber only one or two floors underground, a place of no prestige but much comfort. Enoch's men had elected to remain in the city, where two of them were constantly on watch over Belian's package. It was only after a good night's rest after their arrival that they were summoned into the court of King Terryl of Lox and his new Queen Chastagne. Lokely, fresh from some no-doubt glamorous upper chamber, nodded curtly to them as they entered the court and took their places at board. They smiled at each other as bacon, pork, and lamb circled the table, accompanied by eggs, leeks, pies, and fresh bread, and the smiles faded into intense stares as the Queen, for the first time in Summa, took the white ivory cylinder with golden lettering from a bejewelled platter and, ever so carefully, dispensed a few sparkling beads of the Spice onto her breakfast. The silence that had fallen now shifted to a rising murmur of awe and joy, growing until the lords and ladies of Lox arose in cheer. When silence fell, Lokely remained standing and spoke for them.
"My lady, my lord. The courtiers of Lox no doubt embrace in their hearts and express in their cries what I, a nobleman of Mynolry have for years known well: we rejoice in the knowledge of your happiness, and the happiness that the spice will no doubt bring through you to the people now not only of Mynolry, but of Lox. To the queen Chastagne! May she long be her husband's crown and the joy of two lands!"
Even before the new round of cheers could die, the queen herself spoke, her mild tone barely audible. Instantly, the cheers died, and all ears were attentive.
"Yet," she repeated, "here are four travelers of your party, men of Mynolry, no doubt, who sit somber at your toast. Have they too tasted your joy; and yet are dour?"
"My lady," Lokely's voice was tight.
"No, Lokely," she said pleasantly, "bring them up, that they may speak for themselves."
"Hi, well," Enoch said, when the four were rather embarrassedly seated at the king and queen's own board. "We didn't cheer because..." Lokely's look of terror at the lack of formality in the address cut him off. He laughed freely, but said no more. Grizzly Bear spread his arms wide and, although in awkward tones, wound his words well. "My lady, we are travelers from a distant land, brought here by the spice itself at the intake of Chulsey three years hence. We have wandered since, citizens of no land, and of no great aquaintaince with any person of rank but sir Herbert here, to whom we owe the debt of our freedom (which he sometimes perhaps regrets undertaking)" here Grizzly could not help a laugh. Some of the tension fell from Lokely's face. "But our silence was not from a lack of joy for your glad day, but rather of wonder at the spice. Long has it been since we four have laid eyes on it; and we were taken up in wonder at it."
"You speak well, dark traveler," quoth the queen. The other three travelers covered their mouths with their hands and grunted while Grizzly Bear eyed first the queen, then his dark skin, then the queen again. "Tell me, then, how came the spice to bring you to Chulsey on that fateful day of our victory? Did not the thrice-cursed Bryn, Lord of Briston and Chulsey, maintain it under lock and key once he had unjustly claimed it from my house at the cost of much spilled blood?"
The travelers knew Lokely had, no doubt, told her their story long ago, but they repeated what had happened.
"So my war has led you to a merry adventure," she cried softly at the end of their tale.
"Yes," Enoch laughed slyly, "as many another."
"Lokely told me yester-eve of your disapproval for my war." Lokely coughed uncomfortably, but she shook her head without looking at him, "No, Lokely, I can read the meaning of your words, what'ere the face of them, and certainly after you have had your wine. We have known each other long enough I dare say." Grizzly Bear noted with some amusement the jealous glower that King Terryl tossed in Lokely's direction.
"Yes...queen..." leaning forward in earnest, " Maybe I'm wrong, but I've never thought it was kosher to start a war for your own personal happiness. If it had been so you could give the spice to your people, then fine, y'know? But if tales be true, you've never shaken one golden particle of it onto any platter but your own or your family's. And," he continued, "If you had done whatever you could to stop the war, then I wouldn't have anything against it either. But from what Sir Herbert has told us, you started it."
King Terryl was visibly enraged, hands working the table in indecision as to whether to call the guards or draw his sword on Enoch at that moment. Lokely, distressed but calm, spoke before anyone else.
"It was Bryn, former lord Briston, who started the war, not Chastagne, and it was by cunning deceit and blood-bathed treachery that he enacted his rebellion. No King of Mynolry would have let such defiance go unanswered; and if the king's daughter regained the just due of her rank, character, and conduct towards her people, who can say it was not just?"

Spring Break Serial II: The Passage of Thyme

2010-03-08T16:31:00.005-05:00

For Part I, which I hereby retroactively name "Burning Oil"" click here.

It was four, not three confused college students who stood before Lord Lokely shortly thereafter. The soldiers seemed most concerned about Enoch, another inhabitant of student apartment #1, who now stood smiling unsettlingly about him, tall, bulky, and bald with the exception of a circle of red hair running around the base of his skull. He had woken to find armed soldiers around him, and submissively accompanied the soldiers outside, limping on his bad knee. He hardly remembered those few moments before he truly woke up, when he had been grabbed roughly while his face was still pressed against the cold stone floor of the castle dungeon. So he hardly remembered why two of the soldiers were also limping. They watched him carefully. They were surprised when Lokely questioned the prisoners so gently, were greatly surprised by the incoherent answers, and were ultimately flabbergasted when, taking the spice from the prisoners and slipping it carefully into his saddle, Lokely waved his hand at the guards "set them at liberty!" then, to the squire beside him "ten gold pieces from my purse to each of them; it will not repay what I have taken from them, but it will see them a few days on the road."

Three years later...

The forest Kyn stretched out many arms to embrace the high hills of Lox Thera, leaving hilltop and glade in relief. The winter had been hard here; the robins searched with some desperation among the pale stalks of grass, sifting through husk and kernel and the occasional weed that still stood tall, somehow overlooked by the sheep. The hardwoods of Kyn watched on dispassionately, already having given all but their bones to the forest floor. The streams bore host to sheets of ice. The call of shepherds drifted from somewhere far off. The crags of Lox Summa jutted up in the distance, the crown of the hills. Benjamin, son of Dobb, rode through one of the clearings, one brown glove on the reins, another casually resting on his sword-hilt. But his trek was almost over. He could see his destination through the next grove -- four oaks, one of them blasted, atop an empty hill.
"I thought you'd like to see this," said Belian, dropping out of the lowest branches of one tree as Benjamin arrived, and, without ceremony, he whipped a huge blanket off a mis-shappen hulk that leaned next to one of the trees. "Finished it last week."
"Belian!" Benjamin beamed. "That's just what I needed." he unstrapped a heavy pack from his horse's haunches and carefully lay it down beside Belian's contraption. "do you think we can get them hooked together by sundown?"
"We'd better," said Belian grimly. "I can't imagine you aren't being followed."

"Play me another song, Sleepy Bear!" called out Enoch the Warrior from his charger, and he and his men laughed loudly.
"I like to call this one, The Ballad of the Lost Love of not-Lord Belian," replied Grizzly Bear from where he walked beside them with his lute. He had a strong dislike for the back of any animal his size or larger, and wasn't so happy to be surrounded by them either. But he sang well despite his lack of ease.

"Oh she, the fair, of the famousest hair,
(So fair, so fa-ir, to see)
Oh she did wonder, of what? I will share
Oh wonder of Belian did she
For Belian he left her, nobody knows why
Not even he could that tell
One day he fell through a hole in the sky
and ended up here in Glen-del.
For years he has missed her, His heart always true
He speaks to her memory by day
Will she ever see him? Or will that day rue
That he last from her wal-ked away."

The applause from the merry band was full and powerful.
"Talked about her day and night and anytime betwixt!" cried one man.
"Poor lad, not a day goes by he didn't make us all feel sorry for him," said another.
"Sorry for him?!" shouted Enoch. "Why, you are the ones he keeps up day and night to listen to him talk about her!"
Another round of laughter circled them men, this time led by Grizzly Bear and Enoch.

"When will the others get here?" asked Benjamin, applying the adhesive to the joint between two tubes, one from his and one from Belian's machine.
"Who, Grizzly Bear the Bold and Mighty of Voice and Enoch the Red Warrior?" Belian and Benjamin laughed.
"Yep, them."
"Not soon enough."

Belian's prediction was fated to be true. For although Enoch and his band were not an hour's ride away from the intersection of forest Kyn and Lox Thera, they would find their way blocked by another party, this of lordly leadership and fine livery and arms: Lord Lokely himself raised his visor and hailed them.
"I bring news of the Spice," he announced.

Spring Break Serial: Part 1

2010-03-06T23:31:00.003-05:00

Dear Readers,

Instead of the recent long silences, and the less recent long and overly-prepared pieces I've treated you to, I am going to experiment over Spring Break with the serial. No, not honey buzzers or chocolate puffs, I mean where I write a little bit of a story every so often. In this case it will be every day. It will also be made up pretty much on the spot, piece by piece. As in, I have no clue what I'm going to write when I finish this introduction. Finally, each section will be blissfully short. I was inspired to this by a friend who did a serial story for the school newspaper. To prevent this introduction from becoming the majority of the first installment, I shall now immediately present to you...

The King of Cajun: A tale of breakfast and breakable plates...of steel armor

The smell of burning oil was heavy. Sir Herbert of Lokely watched the beautiful swirling patterns of smoke twine themselves around the orange sunbeams shooting in low across the western hills, highlighting where Griswold's men had emerged from the pass a few hours ago to cement the day's victory. Herbert watched his squires tending to his fatigued warhorse, stripping the barding from its still heaving, dirty, wet mass of limber muscle. Sir Herbert wished the squires were patting him down with cool, moist clothes, but he would remain in armor, his longsword cleaned and sheathed, but still at his side, until the break of the next day. It would take at least that long to secure the city, and the men needed their leaders to keep them organized and alert. Who knew what might slip through their fingers in the dark, and cheat them of the victory for which they had paid so dearly?
Lokely stepped past the blackened heap where the boiling oil had been poured, and called to a lookout on the wall above, "man of Lokely, tell your master what you see within the city. How goes the search? See you any hint that the treasure has been found?"

The smell of burning oil was thick in the air. Benjamin leaned against the back of the couch and closed his eyes, letting time slip past faster than usual in his half-sleeping state. Belian was a few feet away, through the door into the apartment's kitchen, muttering occasionally when oil splattered onto his hands, but staying at his post nontheless, flipping potatoes zealously. Grizzly Bear was still in bed. It was a typical Wednesday morning in student apartment #1. Benjamin smiled to himself, glad, as he always was, that he had gotten up and made the walk over for breakfast. He began to drift off to sleep, and time rushed past.
When he came to again, it was to hear Belian's abrupt, pleased announcement that breakfast was ready. Calling in as annoying a way as possible to Grizzly Bear in an effort to end his friend's hibernation, Benjamin sidled into the kitchen and, taking a plate from the cabinet, set to work. By the time Grizzly Bear entered, Belian and Benjamin were each carefully arranging potatoes on top of eggs and onions on his tortilla.
"Morning" they all said.
Benjamin took the large, white container of cajun seasoning from the table, turned the rotating white lid until about half of the sprinkle-top was aligned with the opening, and layered his potatoes with the rich red powder.
"Mmmmm," they all said.
"Orange juice?" asked Grizzly Bear.
"They have the spice! Seize them!" shouted the soldier at the other end of the dungeon passage, pointing with a gauntleted hand, and a mass of men, armor, and swords rushed towards the three breakfasters, who, for their part, sat dumbfounded at the board, torillas forgotten in their hands.

Dead End

2009-09-16T18:21:00.003-04:00

Dear Readers,

Ever heard of text-based adventure games? You will after you finish this post. I have only a few comments before we get into the riveting action.
First, I'm not playing computer games of late, in an effort to redeem time for better activities. So far most of the "redeemed" time has gone to watching other people play computer games. I would like to say this didn't count as breaking my virtual fast, but I'm not so sure. Just because it's old and text-based doesn't mean it isn't a time-nivorous computer game.
Second, if you have Ubuntu linux you can get this game for yourself. It actually comes with the emacs GTK text editor (who would have thought?) which I just installed to use for fortran editing. So I was actually innocently checking out the capabilities of my new editor when I stumbled upon the "games" folder in the menu. Who knew so many games could be built on a text editor?
Enough of this. Enjoy my first attempt at a little game known as:
"Adventure."

You are at a dead end of a dirt road. The road goes to the east.
In the distance you can see that it will eventually fork off. The
trees here are very tall royal palms, and they are spaced equidistant
from each other.
There is a shovel here.

>take shovel
Taken.

>examine shovel
It is a normal shovel with a price tag attached that says $19.99.

>remove tag
I don't understand that.

>walk east
I don't understand that.

>go east
E/W Dirt road
You are on the continuation of a dirt road. There are more trees on
both sides of you. The road continues to the east and west.
There is a large boulder here.

>examine boulder
It is just a boulder. It cannot be moved.

>sit boulder
I don't understand that.

>stand boulder
I don't understand that.

>examine sky
I don't know what that is.

>examine road
I don't know what that is.

>examine trees
They are palm trees with a bountiful supply of coconuts in them.

>climb tree
You manage to get about two feet up the tree and fall back down. You
notice that the tree is very unsteady.

>shake tree
You begin to shake a tree, and notice a coconut begin to fall from the air.
As you try to get your hand up to block it, you feel the impact as it lands
on your head.
You are dead.
You have scored 0 out of a possible 90 points.

Weakly Typed Languages, or, I Don't Get the Point

2009-06-11T16:23:00.005-04:00

Dear Readers,

It got all dark outside the office and started raining about half an hour ago, so I'm sticking around until it lets up a bit before making the 0.25-0.5 mile walk home. While I'm sticking, I might as well write up what I've learned today.

I'm working with IDL, a weak-typed language, which means you don't have to specify a type, such as int, long, double, or string, when you create your variables (real computer people are probably rolling over in their cubicles at this definition; it is more complicated than I'm making it out to be (don't get the idea from this mention of rolling over in cubicles that I in any way believe computer people have no lives; it's all in good fun)).
Weak-typed languages have all sorts of benefits and problems compared to strongly-typed languages.
Today I discovered one of the problems.
I was fitting some data by changing various parameters and running a batch of scripts that took a little under two-minutes to complete, then looking at my results and trying again. About three hours in I ran into a strange trend. A certain parameter did affect my results; I had observed it do so before, and was observing it do so now; however, no matter how I varied the parameter, I got only one of two outcomes, whereas I expected a whole continuum of variation as I varied the parameter. Above a certain parameter value, I got one answer, below it, another, and, the more tests I ran, the smaller the possible value of that, well, certain value became, until at last I determined there was indeed an integer parameter value above which I got one result, below which I got a strikingly different one. This was most odd, so I typed

help

at my idl command line, and idl did its best, which was to give me a list of all the variables of which it was aware, their contents, and their current type. The parameter I was varying was a ratio of two numbers, yet it, amongst a host of other ratios, was registered as an int. That was the problem, because I was working with a ratio very close to one. Any ratio with a value between one and two was assigned the integer value one. Any ratio between two and three was truncated to two. Well, that couldn't be my fault. After all, it's a weakly-typed language -- it's responsible for such matters!
And yet, it was my fault. As soon as I asked myself why the compiler would assign this particular ratio as an int, and looked at the various parameters in the parameter file, I realized my mistake.
All the other numbers in ratio form had these annoying little decimals at the end of them. I, of course, had deleted the decimal in this ratio after changing the value. No point in leaving it in, you know? But of course that was the whole point. In order to let the computer know it's dealing with a floating-point number rather than an int, IDL allows the user to simply add a hanging decimal. Well, isn't that convenient! And now I know.

Before I conclude this post, I ought to answer a question I am sure many of you are asking yourselves. The question is as follows: I thought he was an intern, yet he knows when it gets dark outside and starts raining. Do interns have windowed offices? The answer to this question is that yes, I do work in a windowed office. There are AC pipes hanging from the ceiling. Beneath, upon, above, and about my desk are seven computer monitors (besides my own -- five CRT, three flat panel) and ten computer chassis (although a few look like they've been cannibalized). There is also a window running the width of the room. It's at the top of the wall, though, leading to the somewhat jaded comment I was privy to a few weeks ago: "there's piping in the ceiling and the window's are raised; it's either prison or a grad-student's office." That statement, of course, now proves to be false, as this office is my very own, and I am neither graduate student nor prisoner.

There's So Many People! or Reflections on Summer at a Bigger College

2009-06-08T17:35:00.001-04:00

During the school year, I attend Covenant College, which is home to about 1000 undergraduate students and very few graduate students. This summer I am living at Clemson university, home to around 14000 undergrads and 3000 graduate students and post-docs. Clemson has more faculty than Covenant has students.

Knowledge of this disparity in size led me to two notable expectations.

First, I believed that the larger size of Clemson's campus meant I would take longer to get everywhere. This is false. Certainly, there's no way I can sprint all the way to the physics department and back if I want to drop off a paper. It's close to a mile round trip. However, the food is, in truth, closer than it was at Covenant, due to the fact that even on most days I cook in my apartment, and on the others, Clemson has spread the edible joy around by building several cafeterias. And, most importantly, I don't know most of the students at Clemson. I never realized until I strolled across campus one lazy sunny afternoon, that it is rare for me to pass five students at Covenant without at least smiling and saying hello to one or two, and, most likely, striking up a conversation. It can take me hours to make the few hundred meter walk to the library. My comparative isolation is not sad. I have friends at Clemson, and I live in a world where most of my friends are no more than a phone call away. It is, however, causing me to smile fondly as I think of all my kind and faithful friends and acquaintances on the mountain.

An irony connected to the first expectation is that one would think summer-school at a major university would involve ghost-town reminiscent environments. To the contrary, there is quite a bit of life at Clemson, although it is a little more spread out than I am used to. Covenant is, after all perched on a mountaintop. In fact, I am already a little bit concerned about the sheer number of people around. What's going to happen in the Fall! Will everyone be lost in a sea of antlike undergraduates rushing hither and thither? Will the spacious-seeming anterooms, courtyards, and monuments be clogged with the academically-minded future of the nation?

I comfort myself by supposing the administration at Clemson has dealt with this problem in the past. Anyway, they have at least an entire building all to themselves, so I can't imagine them not being able to come up with some sort of viable plan.

In the meantime, I will walk long distances per conversation and find the ratio of campus size to distance to food to be smaller than anticipated.

Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion

2009-06-05T20:48:00.007-04:00

This is a link to a google video of a talk by Dr. Robert Bussard in 2006. His group has achieved (momentary) "safe" nuclear fusion with a series of underfunded, unoptimized, incredibly simple reactors. The core of the simplest one was little more than a copper wire frame. They used what he calls "archaic" physics -- ideas from almost a century ago that are still accepted but no longer considered cutting-edge and thus unlikely fields for specialization and funding.
If it is ever funded to completion and put into production IECF has some exiting implications.
For those even remotely interested in science, energy, and particularly physics.
If you don't have much time, there's cool theory at the beginning, then some very interesting experimental results from minutes 39-48, followed by some less interesting parts and then some strongly stated implications from min 52-106.

Nathanael Booth and the Ring of Power, Part VII

2009-06-03T21:58:00.000-04:00

Dear Readers, At last I do no need to apologize for an extended period of blogging silence. Instead, I point you to the links for any necessary review, and happily introduce the closing chapter of what has been a most enjoyable story to write.

PartVI
Part V
Part IV
Part III
Part II
Part I

“Don't!” shouted the sweet-smelling blacksuit, and he held up his hands, fingers splayed wide to display at least a dozen rings. The Ringmaker, his own hands halfway out from behind his back, froze, eyes widening.
“I don't know what these would do and I don't care,” growled the blacksuit, “but each of us can rub ten or twenty at a time, and one of those is bound to do something unpleasant. So you will stand there and do nothing while we take each and every ring from your fingers.”
Nathanael eyed Graybeard, then looked down at his own pocket. Graybeard tilted his head in acknowledgment and cleared his throat.
“You know,” he began, and then cowered back as the blacksuits turned their wands and rings on him, “I said, you know,” he began more quietly, “I always thought you were overdressed – sunglasses and coats inside -- but this, well gaudy perfume is just embarrassing!”
The smelly blacksuit's cheek twitched.
“I don't know, Graybeard,” smiled Georgie in her sweetest voice, gesturing hyperbolically, “It's such a delicate fragrance, so elegant, so ostentatious! Where did you get it?”
One of the blacksuits coughed. The aromatic leader turned to eye his compatriot with a gaze even darker than his glasses, then turned back to Georgie. “You will regret that,” he rumbled, and stepped towards her.
Georgie stepped to meet him, jaw clamped angrily.
Nathanael's hand had been sliding ever-so-gently towards his pocket. Now it dove in and found the ring. Graybeard, seeing the blacksuits completely distracted by Georgie, grabbed his and rubbed it for good measure.
At first Graybeard thought the sound overhead was popcorn, but after a moment he realized it was the rapidly swelling chords of jazz music. A table and two chairs, containing a large pizza and a radio playing jazz, Miss Doris, and the Cabbie, respectively, crashed to the ground around them. Two blacksuits were pinned by the table. The smell of garlicky crust filled the warehouse as popcorn began to accumulate on the bill of the cabbie's flatcap.
Nathanael found himself nose to nose with the cabbie, who had apparently been standing up to get another piece of pizza. “Ya tries to have a date, jus'a nice simple date, and whaddaya get?” the cabbie asked Nathanael.
Nathanael was opening his mouth to answer when the blacksuits interrupted him with an indescribably miserable howling.
“Garlic!” Georgie heard the leader choke out, grasping for his throat, and then he was gone into the darkness. The others followed, except for the one unfortunate enough to land under Miss Doris' chair. The fairy secretary leaned over upside down, brandishing a garlicy crust in one hand, and began explaining exactly how many ways she could vaporize him.
“Well done, Georgie!” Graybeard grinned in excitement as the Blacksuits staggered away. “You had them thoroughly distracted.”
“I wasn't trying to distract them,” Georgie's face flashed between grin and glower, “I was just mad.”
“Whaddis goin on here!” yelled the cabbie, once the howling had died away into the dark.
“Sorry to call you like that,” explained Nathanael, tipping his hat and slipping out from between the table the the cabbie, “but, you see, we were under considerable duress.”
“Du-ress!”
“And we need to take a look at all the rings you were given for the frequent user's special. Unless, of course,” he turned to the Ringmaker, “the proper ring was one of these two,” he held up his own ring, and motioned with his other hand to Graybeard's.
“The Incomparable Ring of the Magic Taxi? And The Popcorn Shower Circle? No, definitely not. Neither of these will be of any ultimate use against the blacksuits.”
“All we need,” exclaimed Georgie, exasperated, “is a ring of garlic!”
“Well, we, er, got rid of that one,” the Ringmaker raised his hand as if to scratch his head, but thought better of it. “There were too many complaints from users, even after we started marketing it as the Ring of Ensured Seclusion from All But the Severely Olfactorily Challenged.”
During this conversation the cabbie had eaten two more slices of pizza and washed them down from a bottle of beer. Now, grumbling, he snapped his fingers, at which gesture his taxi fell from somewhere above them and bounced on the floor a few feet from where they were all gathered. By the time everyone had climbed up from the floor, where they had hurled themselves in an effort to avoid being squashed, the cabbie had restored his stogie to its familiar position between his lips, and retrieved the container of rings from the taxicab.
“Why would you do that?” asked Nathanael, as he, Graybeard, and the Ringmaker went over to investigate the rings.
“Yes, you could have killed someone!” agreed Graybeard.
“No,” Nathanael interrupted the Cabbie's “whaddya mean...” by explaining, “I meant, Mr. Ringmaker, why on Earth – or, in this case, why on this particularly ridiculous world -- would you destroy the only ring sure to repel the blacksuits? How could you be so foolish?”
The Ringmaker wilted under Nathanael's remonstrations. “It was going to be a hard fight either way and we...the Council of Wise Fairy Tale Characters (we call it 'Cwyftyc' for short)...decided that we might stand a better chance of being sent some good users to help us if we put ourselves into an extra dire state.”
“You're joking.”
“I'm afraid not. There were some protests from the grandfatherly wing about the ethics of putting everyone more at risk to try to trigger some kind of happy fate, but the arch-villain party insisted this was a partisan argument and that in times like these we had to reach across the aisle.”
“You must have access to C-SPAN,” muttered Nathanael.
“As a matter of fact we do. Now, this ring here is capable of turning any food in any world into chicken....”
While the Ringmaker examined the rings and the cabbie stood with his arms crossed, puffing his stogie and glaring at the darkness surrounding them, Georgie went to talk to Miss Doris, who now had the blacksuit waiting upon her, though there was not much for him to do, since she was already within reach of the pizza and her bottled water.
“I love what you've done with your wings,” ventured Georgie, smiling boldly as she eyed Miss Doris' delicate wings, on which were painted curly-cues and flowers in shades of turquoise and aquamarine.
“Turn down the ra-di-o!” shouted the fairy to the blacksuit, then, her grimace of command changing to a sweet smile, “Awww, thanks deary,” she replied to Georgie's compliment. “The cabbie tells me you go to school. Whaddaya wanna be?”
“...and this one,” the Ringmaker said, “is the Temperature Indicator of Good and Bad Jokes,” he shook the empty can and his head. “None of these! None of these!” he once again made as if to rub his head, getting his hat off this time before realizing what he was doing and whipping his hands behind his back. The cabbie examined his floorboards with a shrug.
Nathanael stopped tapping his chin with the head of his umbrella. “I say, cabbie....”

Benjamin Dobbs stretched and yawned. He'd wasted most of the last half hour gazing emptily at the sunset out the window. Now it was dark and his head, which had started hurting hours ago, was beginning to protest loudly. The last students had passed through after dinner. A study group had formed at one of the tables, so he had moved to one of the couches beneath the television, books spread heavy and hot across his legs. His notebook was a mess of scribbled and many-times-erased calculus.
There was a presidential press conference on the news. He frowned at the screen, trying to discern from the cryptic statements on the ticker what was the current crisis. The president himself was no help, having paused to sneeze. Benjamin couldn't help but smile as the sneezing continued and intensified. How embarrassing, Benjamin though, allergies acting up on live tv.
Benjamin cocked his head and frowned. The president's sneezing was exceptionally powerful and constant. But even as Benjamin thought so, the president stopped, gasping for breath and pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket. Benjamin relaxed and sat back.
The sneezing recommenced.
Benjamin stopped to watch. The sneezing stopped.
He shook his head dismissively and looked down, pulling his ring out of his pocket where he had been absent-mindedly playing with it. The sneezing began again.
Benjamin wondered. He held the ring still. The president stopped sneezing, shoulders now heaving, aides whispering to each other in the background.
Benjamin rubbed the ring. The president sneezed.
Benjamin ignored his buzzing cell phone and repeated the test.
The president sneezed to the beat of Mission: Impossible before Benjamin believed it. He examined his ring closely, looked up at the televised view of the conference room, then back down at the ring. The tiny symbol against the background banner was indeed the presidential seal of the United States of America.
He glanced at his phone as it began to ring a second time. Seeing who it was, he snatched it up.
“Graybeard!”
“Benjamin, look...”
“My ring makes the president sneeze!”
“Really?” Graybeard asked intensely “(it makes the president sneeze!)” Benjamin heard him call.
“Listen, Benjamin,” we think your ring is the key to solving our problems. We're not sure how yet, just rub it and don't stop.”
“How would it help? The president looks pretty worn out, anyway...”
“Just rub it! Now!”
Benjamin closed his mouth and began rubbing.

“You really think it's the one, Ringmaker?” Graybeard inquired, covering the mouthpiece of his cellphone.
“There can be no doubt,” the Ringmaker said enthusiastically.
“But it makes the president sneeze.”
“Yes, it does at that.”
“Who thought that one up?”
The Ringmaker stared at Graybeard, and a thoughtful gaze full of curiosity filled his face. “I can't quite recall...”
“Oh, it doesn't matter. I just can't believe my cell phone got through,” said Graybeard.
“Yes,” Nathanael chuckled, “I don't blame you, but you can never tell in fairy tales, I guess.”
“Hold on,” Graybeard put a hand to one ear as he listened to his phone. “Benjamin says the press conference is canceled; the president is being taken to detox. They think it's some sort of poison or terrorist plot or something...”
Far above them there was a thunderous crash. Sunlight and the roar of jet engines poured in as pieces of the roof plummeted to the ground. Several metallic craft sank through the hole towards them.
“More Blacksuits!” Graybeard growled.
“Ringmaker, anything you can do?” inquired Nathanael.
“I'll hold them off for as long as I can. You had better run. This is the climax, so I bid you farewell!” The Ringmaker tossed his light ring to Graybeard and disappeared into the darkness. Blacksuits were already zipping down ropes into the dark around them, and soon there was the sound and flash of thunderbolts from the direction the Ringmaker had gone.
There was a shrill scream from behind them. They all whipped around.
“Georgie!” yelled Graybeard and Nathanael.
“Doris!” yelled the cabbie.
They rushed towards the sounds of violence, Graybeard rubbing the light ring furiously.
Their run brought the blacksuit into view. He was face down on the floor, at the feet of Georgie and Doris, who stood laughing, arms around each other's shoulders like old friends.
“Sorry for screaming,” said Georgie.
“He tried to make a break for it!” explained Miss Doris indignantly. “We had to smack'im.”
“Let's go!” suggested Nathanael vehemently, starting for the light that was the trailer door.
“Bub,” said the cabbie, not moving, “if yous think yous can get out on yous feet, be my guest. I'll be takin t'cab.”
“But how will you get out of here?” Nathanael changed his course and once again they all piled into the cab.
“I'll take care of that!” the cabbie rumbled, opening the passenger door for Miss Doris. The three friends in the back seat raised their eyebrows as he gave her a hand in.

“The latest word is that the president's sneezing attack continues...” entoned the news anchor.
“This is one of those things,” commented a student, standing behind Benjamin to watch the television, “that you can't help but laugh at, but might not turn out to be funny. They're acting like he could be dying.”
The study group had ended when someone noticed the television reporting that the president was being taken for emergency medical treatment. Now a number of students were clustered around Benjamin who, with a rising sense of guilt, tried to hide his ring hand and furiously rubbing thumb from view.
“Graybeard!” he hissed into his phone, “this could hurt him! Why in the world am I supposed to be doing this?”
“Look!” Graybeard shouted back over the phone, “It's the Ringmaker!”

As the cab flashed past, they saw that the Ringmaker was surrounded by a half-dozen protective auras and waving his hands in desperate ring-rubbing combinations that sent fire, ice, grandfather clocks, sea turtles, and yogurt hurting into the line of advancing blacksuits. Behind the line roared their dropships, jet turbines turned Earthwards to maintain their altitude. Streaks of orange light burst from the pods on their wings, and everyone ducked their heads as the first of the rockets exploded, having been detonated by the materialization of a giant snow globe around it, presumably brought about by a wave of the Ringmaker's hand. Fragments of what had probably been models of Santa and his reindeer swirled furiously in the few moments it took the globe to plummet to the Earth.
“The door's too narrow!” shouted Graybeard, peeling his eyes away from the fight behind them.
“Just buckle yous seatbelts,” growled the cabbie, and swerved to the side as a rocket blew a crater in the ground in front of them. Miss Doris screamed.
Georgie sank down as far as she could into her seat, feeling very carsick.
Graybeard clung to the interior of the car and watched the trailer door approach.
Nathanael glanced back in time to see one of the rockets hurl the Ringmaker to the ground, and the blacksuits rush to surround him, wands flashing blue. Another rocket shot towards the cab.
The cabbie, watching in his side view mirror, swerved out of its path; then, as the rocket nosed into the ground where they had just been, he swung the wheel over so that the cab swerved into the explosion.
Expanding air and shrapnel batted the cab onto its side, and, sparks flying and metal shrieking, the vehicle shot out the narrow opening of the trailer door and fell the few feet to the warehouse floor, rotating around its front fender before crashing down on all four wheels again.
“Well,” said Georgie from where she sat squashed between Graybeard and Nathanael, “that's awkward.”
Nathanael muttered about diamonds and Roger Moore as Graybeard and Georgie clambered off of him.
Miss Doris did not clamber off of the cabbie, but clung to his shoulder, scolding him.
The cabbie grumbled defensively as he unsuccessfully tried to restart the cab. Shrapnel had eaten chunks out of its front, and smoke was pouring from the mangled hood.
“Graybeard? Graybeard?” Benjamin's concerned voice came muffled from the floorboards where the cell phone had fallen.
Two more dropships landed beside them. Black sunglasses peered into the windows.
Graybeard picked up his cell phone.
“Benjamin, tell my family I love them,” he said cheerfully, “better tell all our families.”
But the blacksuits reached to their earbuds, listeneing attentively. Then they turned away, climbing back into their dropships.
The dropships rose and hurtled away through blasted holes in the roof of the warehouse. Everything but the hissing of the radiator became very quiet.
“Why are they leaving?” asked Georgie.

“Guys? Guys? Graybeard, what's happening?” hissed Benjamin.
“We seem to be fine now,” replied Graybeard, looking inquisitively at Nathanael for answers. His friend shrugged and shook his head.
“What's going on there?”
“They've locked down the White House. They think it may be a biological attack of some kind...um...they're moving the vice president and the joint chiefs of staff...the military is on high alert...the Secret Service has all been called up to secure....to secure...” Benjamin's face lit up in understanding just as everyone else's did.
“They look just like Secret Service agents!” Georgie giggled.
“Of course!” Nathanael slapped his knee.
“No. Not 'of course'. Why would the blacksuits have anything to do with the Secret Service?” asked Graybeard. “Are they the Secret Service?”
“Well,” reasoned Nathanael, “they probably have their fingers in as many governements as they can get them. What better way to know the pulse of a nation than to infiltrate its upper level of security? And when they were all called up just now, because the president cannot stop sneezing, they had to call off their attack or be found out by the government; or rather, not found by the government, which would mean the same thing -- the end of their infiltration.”
“Seriously?” asked Georgie. “That sounds pretty unlikely.”
“Well,” said Nathanael sadly, “I don't think we'll be able to ask the Ringmaker. He was right about not living through the end of the story.”
“I suppose he was the Christ-figure,” murmured Graybeard.
“When I was talking to him, when you two were climbing into the trailer,” said Georgie, “he told me he had a wife and three kids. He said I could come babysit sometime and he would pay me with custom rings.” She sighed.
“You count as a frequent user now, deary!” Miss Doris leaned back and patted her on the shoulder, searching for some way to comfort her “You'll get a ring.”
Georgie smiled politely back, but a sad silence still clung to them as they watched the cabbie work under the hood.

“And then!” Nathanael could hardly contain his laughter, “the cabbie gets back in the cab, starts it up, turns to Miss Doris, and says 'Whaddya say wes gets married, Doris?'”
The friends' table in the Great Hall erupted with astonished laughter. Benjamin leaned in to make himself heard.
“What did she say?”
Georgie took up the baton as Nathanael leaned back in his chair. “She slaps him,” she paused for a roar of laughter, “says 'Cabbie! Not in fronnadda fare!', takes off his hat, and gives him a big kiss.”
“She said she would invite me to the wedding!” she concluded proudly, as the laughter finally died down and the friends wiped the tears from their eyes.
“So we get to keep the rings?” Benjamin asked. “I still feel bad about mine. It took hours for everyone to calm down about the president.”
“I wouldn't worry too much,” Nathanael reassured him, “they're talking about giving him a Guinness world record for longest sneezing fit, and the news channels had their highest ratings this year,” he broke into a chuckle.
“I wish I'd gotten a ring,” Sheep said.
“You can have this one!” Graybeard handed it across the table, “I don't like popcorn, and I have the light ring anyway.”
“Thanks!” Sheep glanced around at the other tables and rubbed the ring enough to bring a few scattered kernels falling around them. He laughed “this could be great in the middle of class.”
“Well,” said Graybeard, “since this is a fairy tale there has to be a moral.”
“Don't use taxis?” chortled Nathanael, buttering his dinner roll.
“Don't stay home from a fairy world adventure to do homework?” suggested Graybeard, and Benjamin rolled his eyes.
“I know, I know. Next time I'll come, ok?”
“Good!” Graybeard nodded approvingly. “Now I'm going to get dessert, and when I get back I want to know what you all think. Was what they did ethical – the fairy council, I mean?”
“Creating a situation so bad that we would get drawn into it? Hmmm.” Nathanael fell into deep thought.
“I've got to go, guys,” Georgie smiled at them all as she stood. “It's been great.”
“Georgie,” Nathanael looked up from his thoughts to ask. “You said the cabbie let you pick a frequent user ring. What did you get?
Georgie grinned. “I don't think I want to tell anyone yet; you'll find out eventually.” she left in the middle of a chorus of disapproval and goodbyes.
Graybeard sat down with his milkshake. “So,” he said.
“So,” replied Nathanael, “there's a limited number of options when we're dealing with...”
The two philosophers argued ethics for some while, until finally Nathanael raised both hands with an air of finality. “Look, all I can say is that I'll be quite happy if no one ever puts a magic ring in my breakfast again.”
“Oh, I don't know,” laughed Benjamin, “it sounds like it was a lot of fun, and they were right, you know, you did save them.
“For now!” corrected Nathanael sternly, a finger and an eyebrow raised in caution. “We saved them for now! We never know when they'll come barging in again.” He glanced slyly at Graybeard, who was gazing thoughtfully past him, and, leaning across the table, drank his milkshake.

Nathanael Booth and the Ring of Power, Part VI

2009-06-02T19:38:00.000-04:00

Dear Readers,

Goodness it's been a while. Spring 2009 was a rather hectic semester, and I was recalled from the majority of my writing and public musing to working and musing with my friends, my family, and my heavenly Father. I cannot express how tickled I am that so many of you keep reminding me that Graybeard and Georgie are still surrounded by blacksuits. If you don't remember the details, here is what's happened so far (I recommend you re-read part V, if nothing else):
Part V
Part IV
Part III
Part II
Part I
And if you are interested in a little update and plans for summer writing, click here.

A little man in a striped suit with well-gelled hair and polished, long-toed dress shoes shuffled in behind the blacksuits.
“Ahem!” he coughed in a faint, squeaky voice, his hands behind his back.
All three blacksuits spun around, and all three, catching sight of the little man, stepped quickly backward, lightening shooting at him from their wands.
He whipped his hands forward, and, through a sheet of blue and yellow lightening bolts, Georgie and Graybeard saw rings of all shapes and sizes shining and flashing on his fingers. The lightening played around him like fireworks, but did not touch him.
The blacksuits continued backwards until the two on the floor were shoulder to shoulder with Graybeard, who, not trusting the staff, decided to wait and see what the little man did.
What he did was simply to cross two of his fingers and rub them together, setting half a dozen rings clinking.
The remaining lights and the purple fire went out instantly. The darkness was total, overwhelming. The blacksuits on either side of Graybeard blended into the black and were gone. He lost his balance and fell to his knees; the staff shattered in his hands. Georgie fell through the dark with the boxes and Styrofoam but stopped suddenly a few inches from the floor.
The lights came back on slowly, to reveal Nathanael Booth standing in the middle of a field of wilted fescue grass, umbrella under his arm, holding his hat in one hand, running his other through his hair. Graybeard was helping Georgie regain her feet. The little man's hands were behind his back again, his mouth grinning innocently behind his mustache and his eyes blinking rapidly behind his thin-rimmed spectacles. The blacksuits had blinked out with the lights.
“If anyone comes up with a better diversion than that, friends, I will drink his milkshake!” announced Nathanael. “Allow me to introduce the Ringmaker. Mr. Ringmaker, this is Miss Georgiana Vurner and Mr. Graybeard.
“We ran all the way over here to help you,” he explained to his friends.
“Just in time!” noted Graybeard, shaking hands with the Ringmaker. “We certainly weren't trying to be a diversion,” he complained, “but I think Mr. Jones was right, it looks like we are the protagonists. By the way, Georgie, nice pitching.”
“Thanks! And nice to meet you, Ringmaker!” said Georgie, “by the way, thanks for the soft landing.”
“Not at all, not at all,” he said faintly but energetically. “Nothing to it if you have these,” he waggled his fingers for a moment. “Now, we must be going. We have already wasted precious time.”
“What happened to the blacksuits?” asked Graybeard.
“They were repulsed but not destroyed,” sighed the Ringmaker sadly. “I fear they will be after us again in no time at all. Come now! Come.”
“Not so much like our last guide,” said Graybeard as they emerged into the warehouse at large from the scarred returns room.
“No!” laughed Georgie.
“Better taste in head wear,” murmured Nathanael.
They made their way through the maze of stockpiled magical items, marveling at the size and decor of the warehouse almost as much as at the purported powers of the items contained within.
“So where are we going?” asked Graybeard.
“Miss Doris said we could find the cabbie somewhere in the other direction,” added Georgie. “We were almost there when the blacksuits caught up with us.”
“We're going to save the world, of course,” explained Nathanael. Georgie and Graybeard eyed him thoughtfully. “Ask him! Ask him!” Nathanael motioned violently with his umbrella at the little man who moved briskly through the aisle ahead of them.
“Um, Mr. Ringmaker,” began Georgie.
“We were wondering what the dickens is going on!” Graybeard laughed with frustration.
“Oh, of course, your friend here knows, but I haven't told you two. Here, here, walk beside me and I will explain.” He smiled broadly at each of them, then cleared his throat with a sound like a woodwind.
“There are many rings in this place, created in time immemorial by me and my forebears. Each one has a past, and also a future. You see, the first rings were created for great purposes, but it was found that people became bored with rings that gave them three wishes, or made them powerful, or got them friends. And the Ringmakers, to be frank, grew tired of making them. So we branched out. We made rings of humor, rings of sadness, and rings of weakness. What we soon found was that all of these were just as worthy of being called rings of power as those that could move mountains. Each ring, you see, has its own destiny. Each ring, properly applied, can be so important that, to be concise, the world would end without it.
“Applying this principle to our present crisis, the solution to the blacksuit problem is simply to find the correct ring and to implement it in the correct fashion, you see? I know the power of each ring, and now I know you. It should not take me long to determine which ring has the destiny of winning this battle against the blacksuits. But here we are.”
“You're right, Graybeard,” Georgie whispered triumphantly “We are the protagonists. He finishes talking and we arrive. Our time isn't wasted!”
“Yes,” Nathanael mused, “Capital, really.”
While they were whispering to each other, the Ringmaker had put a ring into the keyhole of an iron padlock on the door of a whimsically decorated trailer. Graybeard chuckled and pointed out the license plate to Nathanael. In place of county it read “2nd circle unlawful good.” The Ringmaker swung the trailer door open with amazing vigor, his shined shoes scritching on the ground as he half- pushed on, half-hung from the handle. Then he leaped, coattails flying, into the dark mouth of the trailer.
Nathanael ran a gloved finger along the rusty trailer step and sniffed. Graybeard, voicing a question about why the Ringmaker and his compatriots had chosen a trailer from that particular circle in which to store their rings, clambered up onto the step and stood shakily, brushing rust from his clothes before offering Nathanael a hand. Nathanael set his hat and umbrella in the dark opening and took the proffered hand, scrambling up quickly and almost tipping Graybeard back over the edge.
Graybeard turned to give Georgie a hand up, and blinked in surprise.
“Oh,” he said, as he heard her voice somewhere inside the trailer, conversing with the Ringmaker, and the two young men followed their companions inside.
At the far end of the trailer there was a single light bulb dangling from a string and failing to illuminate anything besides the three travelers, the Ringmaker, and a circuit breaker with a gold-plated panel and runes on the individual breakers. The Ringmaker reached up with both hands and flipped the main. Every wall and shelf in the room lit up with a moon-like blue glow.
“Well I'll...I'll...I'll drink his milkshake,” Nathanael laughed in astonishment.
They were not, as they had believed, standing at the back of the trailer, but at a pillar in the middle of a large room. The door to the trailer was there, fluorescent light streaming in, yet around it rose walls stretching out of sight. The walls, pillars, and shelves were similar in design to the outer warehouse, except for the strange blue luminescence. The room was lined with shelves. Some of the rings were in open canisters, as if they were popcorn. Others were on strangely lifelike human or animal hands that stretched up from the shelves, some with fingers arched desperately, as if trying to get out, others straight and elegant, as if in greeting. Some of the rings sat on pillows of black velvet, their jewels glinting against the dark backdrop. Some hung from chains around the necks of dwarf and elf dummies.
All three students breathed in slowly as their eyes breathed in the rings.
The Ringmaker tapped one toe on the floor for a few moments, pursed mustache gazing along the near shelves.
“D17, I'd bet my tophat on it,” he cried, and took off into the depths of the shelves. The students followed him to D17, a particularly small shelf. There could not have been more than a hundred rings on it.
“The ring we need...I'm sorry, the ring you seek is almost assuredly one of these.” He smiled broadly at them.
“Well, which one?” asked Nathanael.
“Oh, I don't know; we'll have to look at each of them.”
“Then how can you know it's here?” Graybeard pressed.
“Well if I didn't you would be in a pretty tight spot, wouldn't you? No way to finish the story then!”
“That's a little ridiculous,” said Graybeard.
“It's my purpose to know these things. Don't blame me for it.”
“That's an interesting epistemology,” Graybeard complained.
“Yes,” Nathanael's eyes sparkled with the reflection of the rings. “Knowledge through purpose. But is it truth?” He and Graybeard glanced at each other thoughtfully, their minds working extra hard. Then they both started talking at once.
“What's that smell?” asked Georgie after the discussion had continued for a few moments.
“Hmmm?” pulled out of their philosophical musings, the two sniffed the air. “It doesn't smell any stranger than it did before,” said Nathanael.
“It's gone; but there was something...”
The Ringmaker was behind them, muttering and shaking his head as he examined each ring. “Here's one,” he called to them, his voice drifting with whimsy “to be used when milking cows. It pasteurizes the milk. And here's one,” he raised a big green one with a jade stone, “that causes trees to grow. But no, no, they aren't what you need, I don't think.”
Despite the number of rings on the shelf, the Ringmaker was already nearing the bottom of the shelf.
“Well?” Graybeard glanced back towards the trailer door. “Can't you find it?”
“Apparently it's not his purpose too,” chimed in Nathanael.
“I have smelled that before,” said Georgie emphatically. This time everyone crinkled his or her nose as they sniffed.
“It's like perfume,” Graybeard said incredulously.
“Bad perfume,” agreed Nathanael. “Did you happen to rub a ring of sickly-sweet smells, Mr. Ringmaker?”
“No, no, I wonder what that could be?”
The light from the trailer door seemed to blink for a moment. “Did you see that?” asked Graybeard, crouching down. Georgie and Nathanael nodded. The light blinked again.
“There's someone here, Mr. Ringmaker,” Georgie whispered, “and unless that perfume is a whole lot more popular than it ought to be, it's the blacksuits. Remember the one I hit with the jar?” she asked Graybeard, and he nodded violently in recognition. “That's it. It's got to be them.”
Then the lights went out. The echo of the circuit breaker being thrown lasted interminably, then a ring on the rinmaker's finger lit up.
“Is there another way out?” whispered Nathanael.
“No.”
“They'll be able to see us in that light...”
Even as Georgie spoke, a flash a blue lightening struck beside them, fragments of shelf, dummy, and ring singing past and into them. Graybeard held a hand to a cut on his temple as they darted deeper in amongst the shelves by the light of the Ringmaker's finger. Finally, they stopped to catch their breath. Just as the Ringmaker was extinguishing his light Nathanael noticed Georgie grimacing as she plucked a shard of silver shelf from her arm. “You all right?” he inquired.
“I'm fine. Ask Graybeard -- he's bleeding.”
“Nothing,” Graybeard hissed embarrassedly, and then spoke to the Ringmaker. “Did you find it?”
“No. No, and it wouldn't have helped if we had been able to stay, either,” exclaimed the little man. “That was the right shelf, I can feel it in my bones. But I checked every ring on it, and I'm just as certain that none of them are correct. I cannot understand it.”
“Then what do we do?” asked Graybeard and Georgie at the same time.
“There is nothing you can do!” boomed a deep voice from somewhere near the front, and a harsh snicker followed the voice, echoing out of the darkness on all sides of them. “We have you trapped. Your only hope is to give yourselves up.”
The three looked at the Ringmaker in the long silence that followed.
“Well?” asked Graybeard.
“Well what?” The Ringmaker snorted at them in his high voice, “I'm about ready to give up on you myself. Not much of a set of fairy-tale children, are you? Much too old, anyway. Fine! Give yourselves up.” He waved his be-ringed fingers at them dismissively.
The three stared into the dark, then back at him.
“I just wonder if it's safe...?” Graybeard explained.
“They will probably respect your world's notable neutrality in the matter,” the Ringmaker's emphasis on the word “notable” could only have been called bitter.
“You hold us responsible?” Nathanael's words were pitched high with disbelief.
“It's not like we could just send troops to help, even if we knew about it,” muttered Georgie. “But what will happen to you, Mr. Ringmaker?”
“Oh, they'll kill me, of course,” he replied.
“Oh!” they said.
“That settles it, then,” Graybeard shrugged, and Georgie nodded.
“We can't let them kill you. We'll just have to find a way out.”
“Could the ring have been moved?” asked Nathanael abruptly. He had spent the last few moments thinking and gasping with pain as he used a handkerchief to bind up a deep cut in his leg.
“Moved?” the Ringmaker cocked his head. “But I am notified of all in-use rings. But of course!” The Ringmaker hopped half a foot in the air in sheer excitement, shoes clattering in the dark. “That's it! There's a ringuser's special they just started. My helper elves haven't told me which rings they took for distribution yet. It must be one of those!”
“Ooooh,” said Graybeard, Georgie, and Nathanael.
“Too late,” said the deep voice, and the lights came back on to reveal that they were once again surrounded by blacksuits. A frog in dark glasses ribbitted its agreement from beside the men, and one of the blacksuits smelled sickly-sweet.

Stellar Solar Summer Days

2009-06-01T20:46:00.006-04:00

What better way to break a several month's silence than by letting my readers know what I intend to publish during the next few!
To cut to the chase, I intend, no later than tomorrow, to upload the next installment of Nathanael Booth and the Ring of Power. I have written the end. How much longer can it take to publish it all?
After that I plan to work on posts every day. How often I will post depends on how much I get finished.
In the works are updates on Physics, Computer Science, sword-fighting, story-writing, a few historically-accurate Benjamin Dobbs episodes, and perhaps even something entirely new and science fiction-y...

And now, a brief update on my life, which will set the stage for some of those hopefully-pending physics and computer science related updates.
Today was my first day at work as an intern in the Astronomy department of South Carolina's beautiful Clemson University.
When I'm not learning about and hopefully contributing a tiny little bit back to astronomy, I plan to cook, write, read, study for the Physics GRE, and research graduate schools.
I will be working with IDL to learn, use, and, perhaps, improve a model of gas in what are believed to be protoplanetary accretion disks surrounding a class of observed stars known as Herbig Be stars.
This means I not only get work on real research using computer programming in an office in a physics department just a door down from real live physics graduate students and not very far at all from departments-full of living, breathing physicists, but I also get to live in my own apartment, shop for and cook my own food, and walk or use public transportation everywhere I go (all the italicized items are things that I think are just awesome, although I must admit that I may well be tired of quite a few of them by the end of the summer).
Nine weeks from now I will have, Lord willing, gained an entry-level knowledge of the field, written a paper and prepared a presentation on my particular work, spent a few nights at the SARA telescope at Kitt Peak, Arizona, and gotten paid by the NSF to do it.
I am daunted, but, today, quite happy about the prospect. While excitement over my project is one reason for my enthusiasm, I must admit that I suspect some part of it is due to all the other good things that have happened to me today. Frisbee tossing an old friend and some new, a successful journey to Wal-Mart and back with the treasure of a week's supply of food, and the unexpected arrival of air conditioner repairmen who installed a thermostat that, while set 4 degrees higher than the former, keeps the apartment at least 8 degrees cooler (I don't think the needle on the old one could go higher than 80). I hope my contentedness and joy will not prove to depend on my circumstances.

Nathanael Booth and the Ring of Power, Part V

2008-08-16T09:03:00.011-04:00

Dear Readers,

Here we are again! Another delay and another part of the story. I expect the next shall finish our little fairy tale, and, as always, would like it to be written and posted soon, but cannot promise as such.
Part IV
Part III
Part II
Part I

Benjamin slid a seven pound math textbook onto the table and grimaced at it. Twenty-seven homework problems grimaced back. He looked up from where he slouched in an uncomfortable chair as someone stuffed an empty package into the trashcan beside him. It would be so easy to just throw the book away. He laughed quietly too himself, and wondered why he had decided to study in the mail room in the first place.
“Change of scenery,” he muttered to himself, and shook his head. The walls in front of him were plastered with notices and advertisements. The walls behind him were filled with mailboxes. A television stared down at him from one side, informing him of the latest world crisis. Drink and snack machines stood, no doubt bored out of their minds, inviting students to buy exorbitantly priced flavored sugar in bottles and bags.
Benjamin couldn't help but laugh at himself again as his mind began to rebel against the injustice of the college life. He opened his notebook and started writing out the first problem.
His cellphone buzzed in his pocket. He sighed, whispered "works like a charm,” set down his pencil, and dug the phone out of his pocket.
“Hello?”
“Hey Benjamin, it's Sheep.”
“Hey man,” Benjamin greeted his other roommate. “What's up?”
“Aw, nothin. I was just calling to see if you had any plans for this evening.”
“I've got a boatload of Calculus, and then a boatload of physics. I'll probably be here in the mail room till pretty late. Sorry. Hey, if and when I wear my brain out, do you have any anime' you wanna watch?”
Sheep suggested a show that Benjamin had heard of, which was unusual, and a good sign for the evening's entertainment.
“That'll be great. I'll give you a call. What are your plans until then?”
“I...don't know,” Sheep replied. “Do you know where Graybeard is?”
“Yeah, he went to some fairy world with Nathanael and Georgie.”
“Why did he do that?”
“They were getting chased by these agent dudes.”
“Oh. Ok.”
“Well, I've gotta get back to it.”
“All right.”
“Bye.”
Benjamin hung up and stared miserably at his Calculus homework.

“I take back everything I said about this building's design. They're being attacked by evil forces. They have locks on the doors. But they don't have walls!” Graybeard fumed as they left Lilliput's office.
Nathanael peered out of the tower through a knothole roughly twice his height in diameter. “At least it helps us see how to get around. I suppose we should go for that bridge;” he pointed, “it looks like it's on this story.”
“Guys, it sounds like we're in some serious danger here.” Georgie was somber. “Are we sure we don't want to find the cabbie and ask him to take us back?”
“Positive,” replied Nathanael. “After all, why waste our only chance at a fairy tale we'll probably ever get?”
“She has a point, Nathanael,” said Graybeard. The two dissenters followed Nathanael to where one of the bridges led from the tower to the ring building. Thick wooden planks suspended by ropes rocked slowly in the breeze. As they started across they heard a sound like a jet engine growing louder overhead. One of the clouds popped like a balloon, revealing an angular, metallic craft hovering above them. The wind from whatever it used to suspend itself kicked up flower petals and tarantulas from the courtyard. Black cords uncoiled from its sides and blacksuits began to slide down them. Most landed in the courtyard.
“Look! Remember the spiders?” Graybeard pointed, and he and Nathanael watched, fascinated, as the insects swarmed toward the blacksuits.
“This is gonna be grose, guys,” warned Georgie.
But as the insects approached, the blacksuits pulled out their wands. Blue flashes lit up the courtyard, and insects flew back, making weird, insect noises as they crumpled up on the ground, miniature lightening bolts tracing their contorted legs. The blacksuits were holding their own when something happened to turn the students' attention away.
A blacksuit slid down his rope onto the bridge in front of them. Whipping out his wand, he started their way.
The students retreated around the corner.
“Maybe the cabbie's still downstairs,” said Georgie hopefully.
“Well, then, here's your chance to be useful,” Nathanael stopped running and stepped into a vacant office.
“What are you doing?” hissed Graybeard as his friend climbed under the desk.
“Hiding,” Nathanael grunted, frowning. He took off his hat and set it on the desk before squeezing down underneath it. “He'll follow you downstairs, and I'll be able to get across the bridge once he's passed. If you decide to help, meet up with me somewhere in the ring building. Now go; I can hear him coming.”

Graybeard and Georgie tumbled into the spacious antechamber and hesitantly approached the fairy Doris, still at her desk in the center of the room.
Before they could get up enough courage to speak, the secretary's gaze popped from her computer to drill into them. “What can I do for yas?”
“Yes, excuse me, we were wondering where the cabbie had gotten to?” inquired Graybeard as politely as panic would allow.
“Your guide went back to the transit sector of the ring building. Go out that door, across the lawn, second door on your right, you can't miss it.”
“There were these, er, large arachnids out there before, and some rather malevolent-looking men in black suits,” Graybeard tried to explain.
“Here, take these visitor badges. None of the ring monsters will pay any attention to you so long as you have those on. For the blacksuits, you'll have to speak to grounds; would you like their extension?”
“Well, there was a bit of a fight going on...” Graybeard said hesitantly.
The fairy sighed and leaned forward over her desk.
“Look, yous guys, I'm real sorry about the whole unsurmountable odds mo-teef, but it's there all the same. Youd'as better just get across quick, or I'll be the innocent bystander who gets killed to show how serious things are!
“Will you be safe?” asked Graybeard.
“Aw, sure. I've got training in self-defense magic with a concentration in vaporization.” she smiled and laced her fingers under her chin. “Good luck!”
“You all right?” Graybeard inquired of Georgie as they started across the lawn outside, pinning on their visitor badges.
Georgie snickered. “Sure, yeah, let's just hurry, I don't like spiders or creepy guys in sunglasses.”

Nathanael puffed for breath and adjusted his hat, crouching at the far end of the bridge after sprinting across. He peeked through the doorway and moved slowly forward until he came to the end of the floor. Beneath him was a massive room, filled with multi-story racks, catwalks, and the strangest assortment of magical objects he had ever heard of, much less seen. Thousands of items of clothing of all types and eras hung down from metal bars, labels sticking out here and there. Crates marked “treasure,” “m-food,” and “m-drink” were stacked twenty high along the walls. Construction materials filled shelves. Swords and other melee weapons lay scattered about tables. Chemical storage containers were stacked just below him, labeled “fireballs,” “lightening bolts,” and “m-cures,” -- “handle with care.” Voices and the far-away sounds of machinery and animals echoed back and forth from the walls. What little of the building interior he could see beneath its contents was skillfully carved or engraved.
Nathanael clattered down a narrow set of stairs into the middle of the room, running his hands over the swirling metal railing that drew pictures of animals and fairy creatures, and wishing that “all-purpose invulnerability” came in smaller containers so he could take some with him.
He had just reached the ground floor when he heard footsteps behind and above him. He slid up against a box labeled “worst nighmares,” and tried to ignore the growls and rustles from inside as he watched two blacksuits step out on the platform he had only recently vacated.
The box of worst nightmares picked that particular moment to give a savage jolt, throwing Booth out into the open. The blacksuits spotted him and started down the stairs as Booth took off at a run, deeper into the building, looking for any signs that could direct him to the Ringmaker.
Despite the sounds of machinery and people, the warehouse seemed deserted to Nathanael, with the notable exception of his pursuers. He reeled slightly as he turned down what he had thought to be a narrow aisle of vaulting shelves, stunned to see aisles shooting off in every possible direction, up, down, and diagonally. He bumped into something he could not see, and a huge mirror fell, shattering on the engraved concrete floor with an echoing crash.
“Ah!” he said, noting the label “m-mirror, inhabited by spirit of ancient Arab princess.” “My apologies, madam.”
“What have you done!” cried a girl's voice, with almost as much annoyance as horror, “Indeed, sir, even be you handsome as the gods and as fleet as the eagle, may they smite you with all the..all the...oh I hope they put you in one of these forever! Ahahaha!” she laughed, but Nathanael was already gone.
Knowing now what he was looking at, he focused on the one aisle that ran straight ahead, and, ignoring the reflections from what must be hundreds of magic mirrors, sprinted to the end of it. Looking back, he saw the blacksuits just turning the corner, skidding on the broken glass.
He started to jog again, breathing heavily now and muttering about using the bicycle in the gym more often. He darted down a few shorter aisles, hoping to loose his pursuers in a maze of m-animal crates. Then, joy of joys, he rounded a corner and came face to face with a large pillar in the middle of his path. Upon the pillar was a plastic sign illustrating the layout of the entire ring building.
“Ringmaker, Ringmaker...” Nathanael ran his fingers over the map, “ah!” He jabbed at a blue dot on the top of the ring that bore the appropriate title. “Now where am I...” he found himself, a small hat-shaped symbol about thirty degrees clockwise from the Ringmaker's. “Not too far!” he congratulated himself, but then, moving rapidly towards his symbol on the map, he saw two black dots.
“Dash it all!” But the worst was yet to come. Even as he was about to leave the map behind, he saw two more symbols, which he knew must be his two friends, on the far side of the ring. Even as he watched, he saw black dots moving to surround them.

Georgie ran back from the doorway to help Graybeard strip the long cardboard box off a wizard's staff.
“They're coming. Do you think you can make it work?” she asked, as her friend held up the staff and brushed off the last of the packing peanuts.
“I hope so. All those years of Dungeons and Dragons, you know. Better get behind the counter, unless you want to have a shot at it.”
“Oh, you'll do wonderfully!" Georgie reassured. "Can you believe they have a returns office in a fairy world?” she laughed from behind Graybeard, as he turned to face the door. The footsteps of several blacksuits approached slowly from outside.
“Now that I'm trapped inside it, yes,” Graybeard barked back, and tried to assume a wizard's stance.
“You know...” Georgie mused behind him, as shadows darkened the doorway, “...I wonder why that staff was in here in the first place.”
“Oh, no!” Graybeard gasped, even as two blacksuits turned the corner.
They were perhaps five feet from him as they stood in the doorway, and their wands were at the ready. Even as Graybeard flexed his hands on the staff and searched for some word of power, they snapped the wands forward sharply, bolts of blue lightening lancing out.
“Aaaaaaaaa-bracadabra!” Graybeard half yelled, half encanted. The staff made a disappointing “whiff” sound.
“Eep!” Georgie protested, as she fell eight feet to the ceiling. The blacksuits grunted in deep voices as they too plummeted to the roof, crushing hand-crafted fluorescent light fixtures.
Graybeard stood frozen on the floor, not even daring to look up, his eyes fixed on the doorway, where lightening bolts had gouged into the frame and wall.
“Gravity and polarity reversal, with full caster protection. Wow.” Graybeard's lips slowly turned up in a broad smile, and his eyes turned the same direction to observe the blacksuits, just getting to their feet on the ceiling.
“Let's see now...dematerialize?” Graybeard thrust his staff upward experimentally. The staff said “Zuzuzuzu” and the metal returns desk, still bolted firmly to the floor behind him, burst into purple flames.
The blacksuits looked down (up for them) at Graybeard, smirked, and turned their gaze to Georgie, who was untangling herself from a pile of packing peanuts where boxes of returns from behind the desk had fallen and burst open on the ceiling.
“Petrify!” Graybeard suggested to the staff. It chose instead to mutter “Wuuowww,” and cause a veritable thicket of fescue grass to sprout from the floor.
One of the blacksuits chuckled as he pointed his wand at Georgie, “abracadabra,” he mocked.
Georgie wound up and hurled an ancient-looking jar in the blacksuit's face.
Whatever was in the jar, it certainly belonged in the defectives box from which Georgie taken it. The blacksuit transformed into a shockingly fat bullfrog and fell into a deep sleep. Georgie couldn't help giggling at the absurd little creature, though she turned red trying to stifle it.
Georgie dug through the peanuts, found another unbroken jar, and flung it in at the other blacksuit. It shattered, drenching the blacksuit in a strange-smelling liquid.
The blacksuit hesitated, grimacing at his snoozing compatriot, to wipe from his face the sweet smelling liquid that had burst out of the jar, but failed to turn into anything less menacing.
Two more blacksuits burst through the door at that moment, and the gravity reversal spell had no affect on the new arrivals.
While Georgie tried desperately to find another unbroken jar, Graybeard retreated to the desk, purple flames heating his back, and prepared to risk trying to cast a meteor storm.

German Longsword: An Academic Pursuit?

2008-07-10T17:05:00.004-04:00

Regardless of how tired some of my readers may be of hearing me explain to them in person how much I like Western Martial Arts (WMA for short -- think sword-fighting), I thought it was worth a few minutes to share some visual evidence.

The first of our evidences is a video by "The Real Gladiatores", who appear to be group of longsword enthusiasts. Not only their swordplay, but their costumes, setting, camera-work, and music are impressive.

The second evidence is another video by the same group, in which the camera shows multiple angles of each stage of several sequences, which the makers have reconstructed from ancient German texts written by swordmasters Sigmund Ringeck and Peter von Danzig. Translations are provided in the side panel.

The second video in particular reveals a curious notion which you will soon become acquainted with if you research WMA, that the study of swordplay is to some degree an academic subject. As far as I know, there is no such thing as Swordfightology, yet the makers of these videos, and many others, spend a great deal of time, thought, and study, on their "hobby." Professors of language help them study the texts, and I have even come across written arguments over the meanings of particular German technical terms. There are recognized authorities on the different techniques, and hearty debates concerning old and new interpretations. Given some formalization involving academic papers and titles, we might see the study of ancient martial arts become a legitimate field!

While I am partly poking fun at mine and others' mania, it does raise some interesting questions. All current academic fields were once not recognized as such. I wonder to what degree ancient followers of even more ancient philosophers were considered to be "enthusiasts" pursuing a "hobby," and had to fiercely defend their expenditure of means in its continuance. The sword enthusiast can claim physical, mental, and historical benefits from his hobby. Should it be looked down upon as *sniff* "unacademic" simply because it involves physical exertion?

With this said, there remains the truth that WMA would be absurd as an academic field, reminiscent of the Beverley Hillbillies in a mansion. Why? Because academia has a well-defined look: it must be scientific, well-established, and, well, respectable. Attack any field in academia, and some of the members of that field are prepared to defend themselves with forceful intellectual arguments. The idea of disenfranchising any field has a faint aura of anathema surrounding it on campus. WMA is on the outside of academia, so such staunch loyalty and self-importance is silly applied to it. Just imagine people walking around in coats and ties on a billion dollar campus built for the sole purpose of studying how people in the middle ages defended and attacked with sharp implements!

So the question for today is, would my field, Physics, or any other academic field look the same way if it did not have the academic aura around it? Physicists and their forebears have claimed for centuries that ultimate understanding of the universe is just around the next order of magnitude of magnification, or at the end of the next chain of calculations. Is it not silly that some continue to make such claims, even though they have been wrong every single time before? The profession does not deserve slander; I pursue it with hopes of doing real good in the world and bringing glory to God! But I and others who together are the creators and sustainers of academia would do well to notice and guard against arrogance in themselves and their fields.

Guards. Oh yes, that's something you can learn about with swords.

Creative Tongues

2008-07-07T20:06:00.003-04:00

Consider the following article:
New Dictionary Words

Does it seem strange that new words are coming into being? It is quite to me to consider that they are now, but before, were not. If any of us went back in time and used them, they would be meaningless, dead. I find this poetic.

I wonder how much it has to do with being made in the image of of the Creator who spoke the world into being through words, or "The Word." Words, communication, and creation ("and stories!" interjects the author in me) seem linked in the actions of God.

Finally, I wonder if there are articles out there about the words that are disappearing, dying, so that if we went into the future and used them, no one would know what they mean.

Subway Apologizes to Homeschoolers

2008-06-18T16:20:00.003-04:00

Directly after commenting on my post, "Subway Fresh to Homeschoolers" I googled for any updates.

I was quite glad to see that Subway issued an official apology. Here it is on their news site.

Java and I

2008-06-18T15:41:00.002-04:00

Do not be confused by my title. I am most certainly not a coffee drinker. I am, in fact, now a software engineering using the Java coding language. While this may sound impressive, I am, in fact, a simple summer intern, and a dense one at that.

My boss does drink coffee, iced coffee to be specific, although he only began to do so recently (it was about the time he brought me on; it might be because of the stress of fixing everything I break). He also attends my church and introduced me to computer coding and Java several years ago, in exchange for the occasional evening spent babysitting his delightful children.

Now he's given me a summer job, and you may consider it a glorified excuse for why Benjamin Dobbs is still in the middle of his math homework, and, more importantly, Nathanael Booth and the rest of the gang are still trying to evade evil blacksuits in the middle of fairy land.

While those two gentlemen will just have to wait for me to finish the story, you, dear readers, may find some interesting reading on the new blog for the project I am helping to build.
The project is called "Remember One Another," and we intend for it to be a dynamic online prayer planner and Christian social network, organizing prayer lists, daily scripture readings, church calendars, missionary blogs, and, if we get the chance, much more.

The blog itself has introductory information about the project, as well as semi-daily posts from the author, making simple coding tasks sound just as hard as they were for me to accomplish. Though I hope it will be useful to other programmers, I neither set out to, nor could write a technical coding blog. Hopefully it is the right balance of information and entertainment.

Enjoy!

Subway Fresh To Homeschoolers

2008-05-29T18:58:00.003-04:00

Dear Readers,

My father pointed me to a blog describing a recent Subway contest. Examine Subway's official "Every Sandwich Tells a Story" page, if you like, but the one line of the contest rules that I am writing about is that which states "Home schools not eligible."

Five minutes of reading online turned up two speculations as to why Subway chose this exclusion.

First, because Subway believed homeschool entries, if allowed, would be of better quality than those submitted from other schools. I believe this to be true on the average, and assert that recent spelling bees and writing contests support my belief by showing a level of homeschool involvement and success disproportionate to the number of homeschoolers relative to other students.

Second, because the grand prize includes $5000 dollars of athletic equipment for the winner's school. To extend this speculation further, I suppose the planners of this contest believed that it would be a waste of publicity to give this gift to a homeschool (a family).

If the first reason is correct, I would like to complain to Subway that they are affirming a low standard, and excluding a higher one. Children in private and public schools may be accoladed for accomplishments that mean much less than they are given to believe, if some of the competition is barred from participation. Homeschooled children may well get a negative impression of their educational experience as inferior, whereas I wholeheartedly believe that it is (again, on the average) superior to other types of schooling. I have often noticed people who were or are homeschooled talking about their experience of homeschooling as if it were inferior to private and public school. Yet most of these people began college "early" and successfully.

If the second reason is correct, I would like to complain to Subway that they are being absurd. Homeschools need funds for athletics far more than private and public schools. Homeschools are not only short the tax support public schools receive, they are doubly short of it because they have to pay it! Most states ban homeschools from involvement in public school athletics, despite the fact that the parents of homeschool families pay taxes to support those athletics. A homeschool family receiving $5000 dollars worth of athletic equipment would be able, in most situations, to put it to excellent use. Homeschool homes and cooperative groups starve for lack of land, land maintenance, equipment, clothing, and funds for athletic fees. Homeschoolers profiting from this award would have reason to be far more grateful than a school, and it is the headmasters of homeschools who decide where their children eat for supper!

As my dad put it, Subway clearly communicated to him, as the head of a homeschool, that his business is not appreciated. Subway has said "no homeschools" and homeschools may respectfully give them what they asked for and withdraw their business. I myself might consider boycotting, but I barely ever eat at Subway to begin with.

What then is my point? To get a little rant out of my system, to add my 2 cents (whatever that means) to the murmur of disapproval, and perhaps to put forward some ideas readers may not have previously or thoroughly considered.

Nathanael Booth and the Ring of Power, Part IV

2008-05-07T16:04:00.005-04:00

Dear Readers,
It has been quite a while since the last installment, for which I am truly sorry, but college is both busy and distracting. Now, however, with the summer come, I intend to update with more of my usual promptness, in other words, at least once a month. To refresh your memories, note

Part III
Part II
Part I

The taxi roared over the top of the hill and down the access road. Everyone looked that way, and the blacksuit menacing Nathanael began turning to face it, but he was not fast enough. The cab ran him down and came to a stop over him, rocking from the sudden stop.
“Look, doc,” the cabbie said as the four students dove inside, “I can't be responsible for your friends who stand in the way...holy moses!” he dropped his stogie as he saw the three other blacksuits. The forth stood to his feet just outside the window, grimaced, and popped his neck. There were tread marks up the front of his suit.
“Time for a little vacation, eh?” smiled Nathanael, as the cabbie gunned the cab away. “I'm glad you were so prompt.”
“When did you use the ring?” asked Graybeard.
“I counted to about three after I rubbed it before he appeared,” said Nathanael nonchalantly.
“How does it always get here so fast?” asked Georgie.
“You waited that long?” Graybeard almost shouted.
“We've got more important things to worry about; the only exit this way is behind Carter, and they keep it blocked off,” groaned Benjamin.
“Well, Graybeard, the timing had to be perfect for him to hit the blacksuit. Cabbie? Cabbie...” said Nathanael politely, leaning forward.
The stogie stopped in mid chew.
“What. Doc.” growled the lips.
“I wonder, is there a place where we'll be safe from those blacksuits?”
“Safer than here. You gotta ask to get there, though.”
“I think he just did,” said Graybeard and Georgie at the same time.
“Whatso funny?” muttered the cabbie. He reached up and whacked the meter.
“Hey!” he growled after a minute, and slammed on the brakes. “What's this? Somebody doesn't really want to go. It don't work unless everybody wants to go.”
“Oh, well,” it was Benjamin, long legs folded up in the middle of the back seat. “I just need to be getting back. I've got tests Monday, you know.”
“Benjamin,” said Graybeard quietly.
“Whatever, doc. Hop out now. Anybody else wanna bail?”
“Where exactly are we going?” asked Georgie.
“The repository of magic rings, doc.”
“Benjamin,” said Graybeard a little louder as his roommate clambered over him and out the door.
“So it's another world?” Georgie pressed.
“Yeah, yeah, now make up your minds already.”
“Benjamin, it's Friday. You have all weekend!” Graybeard remonstrated.
“I'd love to come -- you guys know that -- but I just can't; I've got work to do. I haven't studied for the tests at all yet, and...”
“That's a beautiful speech, bub, now have fun,” the cabbie gunned the cab and sped out of sight into the woods, leaving Benjamin in the dust. There was a brief crashing sound as they passed where two metal poles should have blocked the road, and then the engine roared into the distance. Benjamin sighed and began to trudge uphill towards Carter. It was going to be a long evening.

Even Nathanael buckled his seat belt as they squealed off Jupiter Road onto Scenic Highway.
“I never knew a taxi could do that,” commented Georgie, fighting back panic.
Graybeard just gripped the door handle tightly.
The taxi had jumped over the two poles blocking the road.
“Here we go, yous guys, the repository,” sneered the lips, and the cabbie slapped the meter. The winding road in front of them jerked and uprooted itself from the mountain, taking a new course directly toward the sun. They accelerated, leaving quaint houses and pine trees far below. The road itself seemed to be moving too, adding to their speed. Nathanael leaned back comfortably, but his face was a little pale. Graybeard caught a glimpse of the valley below them, and the vibrations in the cab caused him to accidentally rub his ring. They broke the sound barrier in a shock wave of popcorn, and the world they knew was gone, the sunlight reaching out around them to swallow it.
The cabbie grumbled something about after work traffic and swerved, flashing past objects so quickly the students couldn't see what they were. They were on a multi-lane highway, zipping downhill at breakneck speed. They hurtled underneath a sign:

Fairy Tale Center: 4 m-miles

Holiday Character and Tooth Fairy Residences: 2 m-miles

Magic Ring Repository: 1 m-miles

Before they could catch their breath, they decelerated hard, everyone leaning forward in his or her seat, and swerved off and down an exit ramp. They slammed back into their seats as the taxi came to a complete stop at a little stop sign. The cabbie signaled, “first legal thing he's done, I think,” whispered Graybeard to Nathanael.
And then, another marvel, they watched a knight in shining armor cross the road. When he was directly in front of them he bobbed his head in their direction, feather-crest dipping over his visor, and continued on his way.
“What are m-miles?” asked Georgie.
“They stutter!” snapped the cabbie, and then he guffawed loudly, guiding the taxi down a winding, forested road.
“Oh yeah?” Graybeard and Nathanael tensed in the backseat as Georgie's voice developed an edge. “Look, buddy,” she continued, “I really appreciate you saving us and driving us around and everything, “really,” her voice lightened for just a moment, “I do,”
“But!” she leaned forward in her seat. “You are going to have to shown us some more respect. I mean, you call that being a servant? You're passing performance with flying colors, but your attitude needs a spanking.” She sat back with a huff, and for a while everyone faced straight ahead. The lips worked on the stogie.
“That last part was a little strong, I'm sorry,” Georgie said in a subdued voice.
“d'mention't,” grumbled the cabbie, and there was another period of silence.
“In case yous guys were wondering,” the cabbie roared suddenly, spinning to address the passengers in the back, “m-miles are magic miles. One of yous's cars wouldn't never make it anywhere's,” turning back, he busied himself adjusting his flatcap.
Graybeard and Nathanael smiled in the back seat.
“Here we are, doc! The Ring Center in the Ring Repository.”
“Oh, how well-designed!” smiled Graybeard. They drove through a tunnel in the side of a circular
building, whole tree trunks supporting the floors above them, and into an open court in the middle. In the very center of the ring-shaped court was a massive, gnarled tree trunk. Walkways connected it to the upper stories of the surrounding building, windows peered out of the trunk and some of the branches, and several thin, metal spires rose through the uppermost branches, reaching towards puffy white clouds in a deep blue sky.
“Ring Center, very clever,” agreed Nathanael.
They got out (“watch the killer insects,” warned the cabbie) and tip-toed their way past scorpions and tarantulas to the door. “Lazy repository workers never get around to collectin'm again after they get sent for” he explained, and led them inside.
A gaping hole in the side of the tree trunk admitted the party and the sunlight. Curving stairs carved into the tree led from polished platform to polished platform. The leaves of the tree gave off a green light, and amber glowed a soft red.
“State the nature of your problem, cabbie,” whined a Brooklyn accent, coming from a female fairy in business casual from behind a desk of mossy bark.
“These users needs asylum, Doris, you know that! Blacksuits are out again.”
“I gotta follow pro-to-cal, cabbie; take 'em to the Pretty Seriously Almost in Charge Boss. Third floor, first platform on the...hey, I'm talkin' ta you!” she shouted as the cabbie brushed past her.
“I know where the Boss is!” retorted the cabbie, and led them up the stairs as her voice echoed behind them “You know it's pro-to-cal.”
“What kind of boss again?” inquired Graybeard as they ascended.
“Right above the Sort of in Charge Boss, and right below the Really and Truly Boss – bureaucracy, pah! You'knows?” said the cabbie.
“Oh yes, we have the same model in most of our businesses,” smirked Nathanael.
They reached the top of the stairs, and the cabbie opened a door into an office.
“But...but...” Georgie protested, staring at the door, or, rather, around it. There was a frame for the door, but no walls around the office.
“I think it makes 'em feel important,” the cabbie said in a forced whisper, and left them standing in front of a large desk.
“So good to see you,” said a portly man from behind the desk, and he stood to greet them. He wore a green elf-hat, red suspenders, and had pointy ears, but he must have been at least six feet tall, and almost as wide. The students shook hands with him respectfully, each relieved when they managed to retrieve their hand from the huge fist that swallowed it.
“I'm Lilliput, Lilliput Jones.”
The students introduced themselves.
“Lilliput?” Georgie whispered to Nathanael, “I thought they were the small ones.”
“Perhaps Swift got it wrong; perhaps his parents had a cruel streak.”
But before the two could decide which was more likely, Lilliput interrupted them with a “Well, I'd love to get to know you, but, down to business. I'm in charge of the Magic Ring Repository, or 'MRR'. We here at MRR make sure that magic rings show up in your world in magical ways, and that, more importantly, they always work to the user's satisfaction. We've been having some trouble lately. The Mean and Evil 'Hood ('MEH') has been sending agents after our ring-runners and trying to follow them back in here. You see, MEH is comprised of all the villains who aren't magical at all. The magical villains are actually not so bad; they give us knowledgeable and resourceful good minor characters a reason to exist, thereby keeping the economy going. But anti-magic villains want to harness our magic, industrialize it, and run us out of business. Since the head of the Fair Fairy Business Bureau came down with a case of Sleeping Beauty Syndrome, MEH has taken the opportunity to use some...er...below-board methods. Anyway, this is a big enough problem that we thought maybe if we brought you all in it would cause the plot to progress to a fairy tale ending in which you defeat the blacksuits against all odds, and we reap the benefits. In other words, we were hoping you wouldn't mind being the protagonists.
A lullaby sounded, and Mr. Jones pulled a cell phone from his suspenders pocket, “excuse me.” He answered it.
“Hello, Jones here. Mmmhmm. A tracking device on the taxi? They just dropped through an artificial dimensional vortex? They're about to zip line agents into the Ring Repository? I see. Thanks. Hmm? No, no that won't be necessary, we can handle it, but Al...Al? Yeah, if you happen to pass the bakery tree run by those elves, get me a half dozen double-fudge wafers, ok? Mmmhmm, they're uncommonly good. Yes, I know about the muffin man; I don't like muffins. Yes, I know where he lives...now stop that, stop that right now, Al, I will not play this game.”
He hung up and looked at them, smiling.
“You know, I got a desk job because I was too fat to be a convincing elf – user stereotypes and all. I thought I would never get to be in a real fairy tale. But it looks like I will be after all. The blacksuits are infiltrating the building as we speak. You had better get going and start causing that fairy tale ending. Here's the big clue: Find the Ring-Maker. He'll be somewhere around the ring building. He can tell you which ring to use to defeat the blacksuits.”

Bunny on a Rainy Day

2008-02-02T20:37:00.000-05:00

Dear Readers,

I am sadly lacking in the creativity necessary to polish up the next installment of "The Ring of Power," but here is a poor poem in its place.

Upon the grassy fields he lay,
A bunny on a rainy day
Upon his cheeks and pinky nose
Alit the petals of the rose
For up above him swayed they too
The volley of the rain at two-
O-clock assailing their fair petals.

And as he slept the afternoon
The rain would never end too soon,
blue skies would never come too fast
Surrend'ring warmth and dry at last.
Then he'd hop and bounce the field
Find the carrots that they yield
to after-storm-snack yearning bunnies.

Ears leaped and waved, thinking perhaps
That they were waves on distant maps
Rolling to a thundrous gale
The snore they heard they thought the wail
Of battering wind upon their shores
That every tossing wave adores
For ever to exclusion seekest it and nothing else.

But the ears remained upon the bunny's
head, and that, twas good, and funny'tis,
Earless, though it hopped and sniffled
It might as well be called a...'miffled.'
Twas sad this bunny counted not it's cause
for thankfulness, but twitched its little paws
And shivered in the cold of the rain.

Think not the dampened mammal ill
Dreamed it a bunny-daymare shrill,
That threatened in its evilness to overpower
Even the crashing of the falling shower,
Of Fair bunny maidens with blushing cheek
and Armored-ear bunnies to bravely seek,
The fluffy-tailed emperiled.

And deadly dragons, of the form of eagles,
who clutched with talons, fighting with the beagles
to be the first to tear the fair fur of the maiden.
But bunny-braves did dare arrive to lend their aid in
defeating the monsters, not a moment too soon,
consid'ri'n the grassy field 'twas three-past-noon,
and the rain was beginning to pass.

Rain-drop on pinky nose, the slumberer surprising,
One eye first op'ed slow, it's lid unbidden rising
To unveil It's deep and moist advance
On shining a world of wetted plants
One paw stretched, front-right, from beneath
its furry...grassy...rainy....petally...sheath,
The rear-left then its adventure now began.

When done its various waking exercises,
the bunny rose with a hop and, lending me a twist of its whiskers,
disappeared into the field.

Nathanael Booth and the Ring of Power, Part III

2008-01-01T15:33:00.000-05:00

Dear Readers,
Happy New Year, by the way.
I'm beginning to tire of finding creative but applicable ways of saying "said." I hope you aren't beginning to tire of reading them.
For part I, click here.
Here is part II.
And, of course, part three awaits you below.

Georgiana froze at the door. “Does this count as a time when a girl can get the door for a guy, or is it more...”
“Goodness gracious,” Graybeard exclaimed, slamming the door open for them, “do you really think we have time to discuss the rules of chivalry...”
“I don't know, it just seems like,” Georgie's yell dropped to a hissed whisper as they passed the second set of doors into the library at a run, “it might be even more important at a time like this when things are serious for the men to be...”
Benjamin couldn't help but laugh as they darted up the stairs, feet echoing in the confined space, dodging around two professors deep in conversation. “But that would put you at the back, and you'd be the first one they'd catch!”
“That's right!” exclaimed Georgie, “it's so hard to decide.”
“Friends!” wheezed Nathanael emphatically, “Lend me your ears!”
“What?” snapped Georgie, but she was laughing.
“Which way out?” replied the other.
“Oh! Left here, down the stairs, back door towards Sanderson.”
“Thank you! Now you may continue your argument.”
“No they can't!” huffed Graybeard, “what will we do if they're waiting outside?”
“I'll show them waiting outside,” smiled Nathanael, and he waved his hand as he ran, showing the ring on his finger.
“Oh, Nathanael, I didn't know! Who are you engaged to?” asked Georgie.
They ran in silence for a few moments. A few guffaws slipped from tight lips.
“That was awkward,” Georgie turned red, laughing at herself.
“M'dear,” Nathanael consoled her, as they pounded downstairs to the back door, “this ring is incomparably more agreeable than the variety to which you allude. Allow me to demonstrate.”
He stepped out the door and rubbed the ring.
“All clear for now,” said Benjamin from the corner.
“Not for long; I hear them behind us,” came Graybeard's report from the door.
“Ah, but I hear our ticket to escape!” exclaimed Nathanael, and he had barely gotten the words out of his mouth when the bright yellow taxi cut off a truck pulling into the campus, rumbled up the hill, and screeched to a halt in front of the students.
The cabbie was working furiously on a new stogie, and his cap was pulled down flush with his eyes. “Where to doc, and don't take all day deciding this time, I've got places to be.”
“Away!” said Nathanael, hopping into the back.
“This...this is what the ring...this is why the chapel lawn...where are we going to....?” asked Georgie as the others piled in.
“Shotgun, Georgie, and make it quick!” shouted Benjamin. The back door of the library slammed open and two of the men in the suits ran out. At the same time, one emerged around each side of the library.
Georgie wrung her hands, grumbled something about stress, and jumped in beside the cabbie, barely getting her feet in before the cab was squealing forward.
The first thing Georgie saw when she looked up was one of the men in suits running straight at them.
“Look out!” shouted Graybeard, pounding on the cabbie's seatback. The cabbie grimaced, gripping his stogie with his teeth, and spun the wheel, spinning the cab in a cloud of tire smoke and sending it shooting the other way. They took the hill past Sanderson at about thirty, smashed through a shrub into the parking circle, and were already making about fifty when they hit the highway.
Benjamin and Graybeard buckled their seatbelts.
Georgie hyperventilated.
Nathanael folded his gloves and took off his hat.
“Told yous guys I had places to be, didn't I?” grumbled the cabbie as he drove, “Almost got us all killed.”
“Almost got him killed, you mean!” retorted Graybeard.
“Whatchya mean, doc? He wouldn'ta had a scratch. Not those guys.
“What do you mean?” asked Benjamin.
“About the only thing those guys can't handle is garlic. That one woulda peeled my hood like a banana, and you'd still be cryin' for your mommas.”
“Graphic!” Nathanael ran a hand through his hair, then began drumming on the door, watching the landscape hurry by. “I say, where exactly are we going?”
The cabbie slammed on the breaks. “You's the boss.”
“I've got class,” said Benjamin.
“I'm late for work,” admitted Georgie.
“Back to campus, then,” sighed Graybeard, “if you don't mind, that is.”
“You's the boss!” repeated the cabbie, “those guys'll be gone now.”
“Spoil-sports,” whispered Nathanael as the cabbie turned around.
Halfway back to campus, Georgie turned to the Cabbie with a friendly smile. “My name's Georgiana Vurner.”
“I'm so happy for you,” spat the lips.
Benjamin had a coughing fit in the back seat.

“I almost forgot!” said the cabbie as they piled out in Mac circle, glancing suspiciously up at the library. The groundspeople were there, shaking their heads at the tire marks, but no men in black suits.
“You's guys get the frequent user promo:” he grabbed a tin from beneath his seat and popped the lid. Inside were a collection of cigars.
“Oops,” said the Cabbie, and he rummaged for another tin.
This one contained rings.
Benjamin dug around with his hand.
“Come on, come on,” growled the cabbie.
Benjamin selected a ring with some sort of symbol overlaying a banner.
Graybeard took one with a jagged star burst design.
The cabbie slapped the lid back on.
“Hey!” said Georgie. “What about us?”
“Mister hat-and-gloves 'as already got one. One only, that's the rules. And you are no frequent user. You was only here this time. Now see ya!” and he roared away.
“Nice meeting you too,” rumbled Georgie.
The four watched the cab disappear and then Georgie and Nathanael turned their attention to Graybeard and Benjamin.
“Who wants to try theirs first?” asked Georgie.
“You can go, Graybeard,” offered Benjamin.
“Well if you insist so strongly...” Graybeard rubbed his ring. Immediately, a shadow fell over the little group. A rumble started somewhere above them, grew, and turned into a cascading crackling, popping sound. The air was thick with electricity.
Georgie and Benjamin moaned under their breath. Booth opened his umbrella. Graybeard grinned nervously.
“Aaaahh!” screamed Georgie, throwing her hands over her head.
“It's like, a thousand white messengers of...buttery goodness!” laughed Benjamin.
“Manna from heaven!” agreed Graybeard.
Nathanael peeked out from under his umbrella, caught a falling kernel, and chewed it slowly.
“No salt. How disappointing.”
The popcorn storm ended almost as soon as it had began, and covered only a small area. Passing students barely gave it a second glance. Clearly, someone had just dumped a bag of popcorn out their window.
“Well, Benjamin,” sighed Graybeard, “let's see yours.”

Fifteen minutes later they were still trying to get Benjamin's ring to work.
“Weeeee could try rubbing it underwater,” suggested Georgie.
“We tried that while you were on the phone,” sighed Graybeard.
“Oh.”
Nathanael laughed. “I know, maybe it responds to a vocal command. Open Sesame! Ring around the rosy! A gold ring in a pig's snout! Silver bells are ring-ing...” they all stared at the ground. “Well, I'm sure we'll find out what it does someday,” comforted Nathanael. “At least there's still a chance it's better than Graybeard's.”
“His is practical!” retorted Benjamin angrily, but then he grinned, “no more microwave stuff for us!”
“Well, guys, this has been fun, but I'm really late for work,” said Georgie, and they all scattered to their scholarly occupations.
A few minutes later, a golfcart pulled into the campus off the highway. Onboard it sat four figures in dark suits and glasses. Each one placed a strange, wand-like object inside his coat as the cart stopped,
and then they headed off in different directions.

Nathanael was whistling as he finished his day's work in Technology Services and strolled back to Maclellan Hall. It had been a busy but productive day, and he was satisfied. Who wouldn't be, with a magic ring on their finger? As he neared the entrance, he saw a few men of Sutherland poking their heads out the windows, black waterguns at the ready for anyone they wanted to prank.
Benjamin was in his room on the second floor of Mac Hall, sorting books as he prepared to go study. Victorious shouts of laughter from across the hall told him that his fellow Sutherlanders had shot another unsuspecting victim from the window. He ducked across the hall to see who it had been. The guys were draped across the furniture in stitches of laughter. It took Benjamin a good minute to get an explanation out of them.
One started to explain. “We were aiming for a girl, and, and we hit this guy in a black suit.” Benjamin froze. “He was like, administration or something. He whipped off his sunglasses and looked so mad!”
“Where did he go?” asked Benjamin, dead serious.
“To the front of Mac, I guess...why?” but Benjamin was already gone.
As he rounded the corner of the hall, heading for the stairs, the elevator door chimed and slid open. Not one, but two men in black suits and dark glasses gazed through it at him. He crashed through the door into the stairwell, his shaking hands dialing Graybeard's number as he sprinted up to the third floor – Nathanael's floor.
“Graybeard, it's Benjamin; the men in the suits are on the hall; call Georgie, tell her to meet us...to meet us at the road out back. I'm going to get Nathanael.” he flipped his phone shut as he rushed down the hallway. He pounded on Nathanael's locked door, but there was no response.
“Look, I'll be glad to open it...” Nathanael began to joke, walking up behind him.
Benjamin jumped and gasped. “Nathanael, you scared me to death. How'd you get up here?”
“The back stairs, why?”
“The men in the suits...” down the hall, the elevator dinged. Benjamin quietly thanked God for the slow Mac elevators as the doors opened, disgorging the two black figures.
“So much for a quiet evening with Bob Dylan, I suppose,” muttered Nathanael, and they ran the other way, for the back stairwell.
They burst out of the back doors at a run and headed down the steps for the access road, looking around for the others. They were nowhere to be seen.
Nathanael pulled off a glove, “What do you think, should I use it now?”
“We should wait; the cabbie might leave and not come back if we tried to make him stick around for Graybeard and Georgie.”
“We can't wait much longer; those blacksuits are gaining on us.” The two students broke into a run up the access road.
It was at that moment that they heard a call behind them. Graybeard and Georgie were coming along the road from the other direction, not noticing the two blacksuits about to enter the road almost on top of them.
“We're boxed in,” mused Nathanael, as Benjamin hand-motioned frantically, trying to warn the others.
“Now will someone explain why I was so rudely jerked from a stimulating conversation, to kidnap a girl (not that I dislike your company, of course, Miss Vurner)?” began Graybeard.
“Look!” Benjamin pointed with both arms. The blacksuits were spreading out, surrounding them, and they drew short, shiny black wands from their coats.
“What do we do, guys?” whispered Georgie. The four formed a circle, back to back.
“Other than pray?” hissed Graybeard.
“If only I had my staff,” muttered Benjamin.
“Just a little longer...” whispered Nathanael. The blacksuit facing him walked forward, and, with a smirk, extended his wand.

Nathanael Booth and the Ring of Power, Part II

2007-12-26T14:30:00.000-05:00

Dear Readers,
It is a truth, and not a sad one, that I too must live out my life, as do my characters. The sad part is when my life does not involve recounting theirs. If I had nothing else to do but write, this would have been posted long ago. But if I never did anything but write, I would have nothing to write about. So, with that convoluted excuse for the delay, please enjoy this second segment. To see the first installment, click here The rest, I truly hope, will follow quickly on its heels.

"I suppose it was about time they took me away," muttered Nathanael, as the motor of the cab rumbled, interrupting the crows in their good-mornings, and sending echoes off the chapel walls. Students across the lawn stared in surprise, but a few were already turning away to hurry on to their classes. Stranger things had happened.
"Excuse me?" said Benjamin after a moment.
"You're excused," murmured Nathanael, pacing back and forth behind the other two, taking off his hat to run a gloved hand through his hair.
"What's the matter? Don't you's guys know where you're headed?" the lips spat out from around the stogie. "If so, please, say so; I 'aven't got all day, y'know."
"I think you've made some mistake," stammered Graybeard.
"No! Wait!" shouted Nathanael, clapping his hat back on his head and stepping forward.
"Where exactly can you take us?"
The face scrunched itself up even more, almost swallowing the stogie in cheek and chin.
"Where exactly can you pay for, doc?"
"Rates?" inquired Nathanael casually, drawing out his wallet, his umbrella hanging in the crook of his right elbow. But in his other hand the ring still lay, and he played with it as he flipped open the wallet.
"Nathanael!" interrupted Benjamin, "what...?"
"Who you trying to fool, doc?" asked the cabbie. "That ring'll get you's guys wherever you wanna go."
"Then Sanderson, good man, and make it quick; we're late for class." Nathanael opened the rear door and turned, motioning his friends inside.
"You're joking," said Graybeard flatly.
"You're late for class," tempted Nathanael.
Benjamin glanced around, shrugged, and dove into the cab. "Anyway, why not?" he laughed, and stuck his head back out to grin at Graybeard. "Come on!"
"For Pete's sake!" laughed Graybeard, but he followed Benjamin into the cab. Nathanael hopped in, compressing the other two, and slammed the door. "Drive on!" he exclaimed, tapping his umbrella on the back of the driver's seat.
"Don't get prissy, doc," came the reply, and the cab leaped forward, spewing turf behind it.
"Oh! Drive carefully or you'll tear up the lawn!" entreated Nathanael, but to no avail. ("What'd'ya think this is, landscaping service?" grumbled the cabbie.)
It took perhaps thirty seconds to cross the lawn, squeeze past the library, and arrive at Sanderson Hall. The three students piled out, Benjamin turning red as he noticed others staring at them.
"Come on!" he whispered, tugging on Nathanael's jacket-sleeve.
"Well! Thank you!" said Nathanael, leaning down to speak into the cabbie's window.
"D'mention't," the cabbie revved the engine.
"Any chance you could wait around for an hour and...um...pick us up?" ventured Nathanael, throwing his arms into the air in a gesture of wild speculation, the ring still in one hand.
The cabbie rolled his eyes, and, removing his stogie, leaned out the window.
"This is a cab, bub, not a limo. See ya." And with a roar of the old engine, he was gone, dropping off the curb at the bottom of the hill and squealing onto Scenic Highway.
"None too soon; let's get inside," said Graybeard, grabbing Nathanael by the shoulder with one arm and motioning towards an approaching staff golf cart with the other. The three entered the building and rushed to their respective classes, hoping no one had recognized them in the cab. Nathanael, as he removed his gloves, dropped the ring into one of them.

“Gentlemen, I have let fall the proverbial legume side dish,” grinned Graybeard as they regrouped in Sanderson lobby after class.
“Spilled the beans?” Nathanael forced a chuckle, nodding his chin at his friend, “that's terrible.”
“Yes, I ought to have said it,” laughed Benjamin, and then, speaking past Graybeard, “Georgiana Vurner! What are you up to?”
“I think she's the one upon which our friend let fall...” began Nathanael.
“Let's go take a look at the chapel lawn!” interrupted Georgie, “I want to see the wrathful looks on the faces of the ground's team,” her whole face contributed a huge smile and she bounced, hands clasped in front of her, but then suddenly her hands and face fell, “this makes me sad, though, guys. You'll be doing so much Practical Service to make up for it I'll never get to see you anymore.”
“I assure you, we had nothing to do with it, m'dear,” said Nathanael, at the same time ramming through the difficult Sanderson doors and motioning them on with his umbrella. “It was entirely due to the cabbie's driving.”
“And by the way, Nathanael?” said Georgie as they exited the building, “what you were about to say about Graybeard spilling beans on me is a little grose.”
The walk from Sanderson to the chapel lawn was a short one.
“I've got to be in the library for work anyway,” noted Georgie, “this will be...oh...my...goodness!”
She had been correct in her prediction of the groundspeople's dispositions. They mulled about beside their maintenance cart, shaking their fuming heads, as several men in suits examined the tracks and conversed with each other. The cab had torn four deep swaths through the sod all the way across the lawn. Pieces of turf were lying everywhere.
“Maybe they'll pay us for aerating, but somehow I don't think so,” murmured Benjamin.
Graybeard sighed. “Why did I get into the cab?”
“Chin up,” said Nathanael, his voice, for once, almost serious, “they don't know it was us, yet.”
“Are you sure about that?” Georgie giggled nervously, “because they're coming this way.”
“What?” gasped Benjamin.
It was only too true. The men in the suits were walking, four abreast, straight for the four friends. There was no one else near them; the men must have been told who it was rode the cab across the lawn.
“Since when does the administration wear sunglasses?” asked Georgie, backing towards the library door.
“Do you recognize any of them?” Graybeard asked suddenly, sharply.
The others replied in the negative and began backing with Georgie.
“Guys?” whispered Georgie, “are they running at us?”
“Booth, the ring!” shouted Graybeard.
“No, no time,” snapped Benjamin. The men were almost to them, coattails flying in the breeze, polished black shoes tossing dew with each purposeful stride.

How To Compute Logarithm Errors

2007-11-27T23:09:00.000-05:00

I'm rather proud of my choice of title. You are all probably thinking I called it something boring and scientific so that you would be surprised when it turned out to be light and entertaining. If these are your thoughts, you have been deceived. It's going to be just as boring as it sounds. But I wonder if this paragraph isn't going to make you believe even more that there's something interesting in this post.

Maybe you only think that way if you are me. Eternal optimism and such. But why tarry with rivulets of self-awareness? On to the boring reality at hand.

I'm working on my physics lab write-up, or at least I was until I started writing this. These write-ups occur, naturally, after the lab is completed. They are very useful. For instance, when I pick up my notes from lab, I find that I am in dire need of recalling, first, exactly what we were doing in the lab, second, why we were doing it, and, if I feel particularly important, third, why it worked. It's a good thing the third part is optional, because sometimes we break all the rules. Compile all the laws of nature that we've broken in Physics lab, and you'd probably vaporize due to a lack of intermolecular forces.

That said, the past few days of working on my write-up have been very productive. I've definitely made recollection one (singing Christmas carols). Step two is in progress (because we wanted to drown out the guys who were rapping). And step three is a no-brainer (because our prof. sang with us).

In fact, I've been so productive that I've actually made The Graph twice. The Graph is where I put all sorts of numbers into boxes in particular orders, then realize I put the wrong numbers in the wrong boxes, and try to fix it, only to make a different mistake. Finally, I get all the numbers in the right boxes, save the file to text and to j-peg, close it, realize I forgot to label my axis, and find that my simple graphing program, whose name is Linefit, cannot read the text file. Thus, I am working on the graph for the second time today. For various reasons which I prefer not to go into right now (Translation: I'm embarrassingly inefficient) I have computed nine different logarithms six times each. Any math major can tell you that's fifty-four computations. My calculator is groaning about the mundanity of life.

My calculator, however, has it easy. All it needs to run are four triple-As and a few of those natural laws that we break in lab every week. Its purpose is predetermined. It never had to go to school, and all I have to do is press the right buttons to teach it something new. It has cool circuitry, is a "silver edition," and was apparently born in Texas.

In contrast, I need things like internet and pizza just to exist; despite what some of my non-Reformed friends think, my purpose is predetermined, but I am not yet aware of the specifics; I most certainly do have to go to school; learning requires things like long study breaks to write blog entries; I have amazing circuitry but it's too small to see; there's no such thing as a silver edition of me; and I was born in Alabama.

All this about the superiority of life as a calculator and repetitious graphing aside, my real problem, until I started writing this blog, was how in the world I was supposed to propagate errors through a logarithm (now, it's how I'm ever going to stop writing and get back to work).

See, there's errors in everything. Ask a mathematician what he ate for breakfast, and he'll tell you 2-and-1-third strips of bacon, 1-and-3-eigths cups of grits, 1 cup of factory rejects cereal, and 1-thirds cup 2% milk. Ask a physicist (we do not respond well to 'physician'), and he'll tell you 2 plus-or-minus 1 cups of lucky charms (Factory rejects? Please!) and 1.67 plus-or-minus 0.05 cups of whole milk. As you can see, physicists have far too much on their plate to eat a lot for breakfast. In fact, I saw one eat his cereal standing up this morning because he had no time to sit down. I'm not kidding! In addition, physicists have much better taste in milk. But aside from this, the astute reader will notice, because I am about to point out to him or her, that the physicist included error bars. We use these all the time, plus or minus 5% of the time.

Getting measurement errors is easy. You simply turn to your lab partner and say "what error will be big enough to cover our mistakes, but small enough to make it look like we didn't really break all the laws of nature today?" I'm just kidding, of course. Really, what you do is estimate the largest possible error you could have made in carrying out the measurement, and then double it for good measure, because there's no way you can cover up that you just broke all the laws of nature, so you might as well not try.

Propagating error gets more difficult. First, the word "propagating" is easy to trip over, like a gate that's been propped open, or a propane tank you left out while tail-gating. Second, you forget how and, when you figure it out, you are so excited that you blog about it for an hour and get very sleepy.

Thankfully, I have written the rules in the beginning of my Physics notebook from last semester. As a faithful nerd, I have it with me in the computer lab, and so I can share with you the propagation rules.

When adding or subtracting values, simply add the errors. Subtracting errors may seem like a good idea at the time, but trust me, in the end you will regret it.

When multiplying or dividing, use a very large formula that you would have memorized by now if you were in Physics II, and which I do not know how to code in html, and so will not try! (If you are interested, I can whip it up on TeXnicCenter and send it to you in Adobe. And yes, TeXnicCenter is supposed to be spelled like that. To computer programmers and their strange typing ways I say, "w00t!").

These were the rules I remembered. Unfortunately, I couldn't recall what to do when taking a logarithmic function of something. But then I found it. Yes, dear readers, it's the moment you have all been waiting for:

In order to propagate the error through a log function, simply divide the error of the original value by the value itself.

Viola.

Now, if I can just get gravity turned back on, I'll try to finish my graph so that Linefit can eat it again. Life as a computer program must be so easy...

In The King's Court

2007-11-21T00:26:00.000-05:00

Dear Readers,
Below you will find the next in my series of self-plagiarisms. Written, again, for my introductory English composition course in the spring of 2006, this is probably my favorite paper of the semester simply due to its personal significance to me. Enjoy.

I have not seen an abundance of "turning points" and epiphanies in the course of my life. For the most part, I have lived in happy monotony, working and playing, thinking and sleeping; even the occasional surprise or crisis has been picayune -- a flat tire, a surprise party, a lost paper, or a broken bone. It took God Himself to drive home the idea of a turning point to me, at the age of nine, as I sat in tears at the end of a sermon, wondering why I had not understood how amazing God was before. Even this event had a string of mundane occurrences leading up to it. So can say I was surprised when two hours spent pecking away at the keyboard in our den changed how I wrote, dramatically and permanently; however, I cannot say I was surprised that there was a lifetime of experience and instruction behind this event.

It began with my parents reading me bedtime stories when I was but a little tyke, buried under the covers in body but journeying to far away places and adventures in spirit. If I sound like the advertisement on a Pizza Hut box to read to your children, so be it; it happened.

My parents have been reading to me since I was born -- they have not stopped yet! I grew up on Lewis, Verne, and the Bernstein's; dreamed of space voyages, unicorns, and small town mysteries; and even survived Moby Dick, lounging in my dad's study and watching my sister fall asleep. I learned words I could not yet pronounce, heard of places I was not sure existed, and packed away enough stories and characters in my head to last me a lifetime. I learned to take words listened to and turn them into ideas of people and places.

From ideas came images of the mind produced by one of my greatest pleasures: "pretending." I cannot count the times I have been surprised in my yard by a neighbor or family member, caught in the act of reliving stories I had heard, or crafting new ones. I wonder exactly what they thought I was doing, running around, waving my arms in the air, humming and talking to myself. Pretending was my method of writing stories from the time I could walk until the fall of 2003. I needed neither paper nor pen, grammar nor form. I lived the stories in real time, played all the parts, and lost myself in the adventure.

The motivation to write my first full-length story came from a writing course my parents signed me up for. Learn to Write the Novel Way was its name, and that was exactly what I did. It was nothing new for me to think up a story, but the knowledge that I would spend an entire year writing it down for all to see added nervous anticipation to my efforts. I wrote up the initial plot on half a page, entitled "A Novel Idea." It was not, actually. The story took place in seventeenth century England and the Caribbean. An aged admiral, decorated for his negotiation skills, is dispatched in command of a refitted merchant vessel to neutralize a pirate group acting under the British flag. I plotted out fourteen chapters, originated characters, and then prepared myself for the great moment -- the moment when I would actually begin to write the story.

I set apart a morning in which to write the first five pages. It was, thankfully for me, a sunny day. I think best in brilliant, unadulterated sunshine. Chapter outline in hand, I sat at the computer desk downstairs, fired up Word, and, a little giddy, began.

In some ways, it was like scuffing around on the front drive, pretending. But now I could go back after each sentence and live that moment of the story again. The story pulled me in, and the knowledge that it would receive a grade gave me caution. I described the scene carefully and thoroughly. I introduced Admiral Hambly to my imaginary reader with all dignity, yet with all the visual reality I could muster.

What I described was a scene symbolic of the turning point those two hours were to me. The admiral "strode" (I felt very proud of myself for using that word) down a corridor with his dignified fellows, soft red carpet under his feet, just as I had made the journey through stately pages and dreams in the company of my family. Soldiers at the end of the hall saluted the dignitaries and swung open the doors, revealing, to Admiral Hambly, the court of King Charles II, to me, a similar great chamber, full of great yet flawed people communicating desperately important truths. Hambly and I were there to join them, there to try our tongue and pen at their own game, and see if we could make a difference.

Ironically, what Hambly had to say was not so very important. And, by the end of the book, he almost despairs, seeing how useless his life has been. Regardless of this warning sign, I sat, at the end of my first two hours and five pages, my fingers aching and my hands quivering from excitement, knowing that my life had changed for good. I had begun to learn in those first two hours the beauty of description, the centrality of character, and the necessity of plot in a "good" story. Familiarity caused me to lose some of my excitement and caution in future chapters and books. I must fight for them now every time I write. I understand more and more that, if I am going to write, I had better have something important to say, and say it well. There are already too many cheap ideas and cheap deliveries.

But I learned something in those two hours that I hope will never leave me. I knew already how to translate words spoken into thoughts and ideas. I had discovered and refined already how to take those thoughts and ideas and make them sounds and images in my mind. Finally, that morning, I learned how to capture sounds and images in words, completing the cycle. I was equipped to begin making what had, in many ways, made me.

If I hold to the Truth I first learned in the second row at church, in my first epiphany, and work at conveying it, I can do lasting good with what I learned in The King's Court.

In Which Benjamin Dobbs Starts an Electrical Fire

2007-10-29T22:42:00.000-04:00

Dear Readers,
As Dave Barry is fond of saying, 'I'm not making this up!'
And as a friend of my family once said, "You can exaggerate up to 15% before it becomes a lie."
With these two thoughts in mind, read on.
Four feet shuffled and gripped on linoleum, squeaking mildly in protest as weight shifted suddenly back and forth. Wooden swords flashed in the florescent lighting, reflected in the microwave window and greasy range top. "Clack, clack" called the swords to each other, and the two combatants panted and grunted as they traded blows.
On the other side of the room, across the pool table, two of Benjamin's hallmates had lost interest in the unusual pass-time and were focusing on the football game one of them was playing on the 360. The crowd noise channeled through the speaker system drowned out the sounds of battle only a few feet away. Windows along two sides of the commons let in the last few rays of light the day had to offer, as the eyelid of the sun blinked and began to fall for the last time.
Benjamin enjoyed sword-fighting, if that is what his activity should be called. He wasn't quite sure himself, only that he tried to hit the chap with the other stick and quite enjoyed himself at the same time. Even at times when he didn't have an opponent, his imagination could supply hordes that were even more agreeable, quite willing to ignore his weak spots and be soundly beaten. Against his roomie Sheep, he was lucky if he got a draw.
"Leg!"
"Arm!" they called to each other in unison, and backed away, Benjamin berating himself for trying for a strike so quickly. He raised his sword (dear old All Purpose Staff) above his right shoulder, his left hand close to his right cheek. He eyed Sheep's hands, trying to anticipate his move, and, in preparation for a strike, cocked his elbow. The A.P.S. jumped up a few more inches in reaction and struck the plastic cover underneath the florescent bulbs.
As Sheep countered Benjamin's attacks, a hissing noise from above gave them cause to stop and look up. Through the undamaged plastic cover, the end of one of the bulbs was hissing, sparking, and (Benjamin's heart froze) smoking.
Even as phrases such as
"Holy cow,"
and
"It's smoking," passed unsummoned through his lips, he waxed philosophical.
Knowledge dictated state of mind; of that he was sure. Simple facts, such as the smoke detector, mounted on the ceiling about two feet from the light, and the $400 dollar fine imposed upon anyone foolish enough...
fool
...to set it off, changed his entire outlook on life. $400 dollars was a lot of cheeseburgers, a lot of cheeseburgers he could smell, look at, but never buy, no, never eat. Life was short, and he had just devoted far too much of it to paying off his stupidity.
He should take up croquet.
Having finished his philosophical meanderings, he had the bright idea of reaching over to the light switch, finding yet another use for his A.P.S: insulation from hazardous electrocution.
Darkness fell.
The hissing, sparking, and, especially, smoking, stopped.
The nauseating smell of electrical fire permeated the room.
"Aw, junk!" Benjamin snapped.
The guys playing football commented on how bad the room smelled, and inquired as to how in the world Benjamin had started a fire with his staff. Benjamin would have explained at length, but his cell phone began to buzz in his pocket.
"Hello?" Benjamin's voice quivered. Had the administration heard about it already?
"Hey, Benjamin..." it was Vlad, his friend, and his big sister's boyfriend.
"Oh, man, get the windows open! It's gonna go off any time..."
Sheep and Benjamin crossed the room and began throwing open windows.
"Are you all right?" asked Vlad.
"Yeah, fine," said Benjamin, more sarcasm than honesty in his voice.
"Well..."
"I wish we had a fan," whined Benjamin.
"...I was calling to say we were probably not going to watch a movie until later..."
Good, I'm going to be busy evacuating the building and confessing anyway! thought Benjamin.
Sheep turned on the range fan and waved smoke out the window. Benjamin checked the air conditioning unit. It was already set on high.
The alarm poised, ready to spring on them like a cheetah stalking a baby gazelle in the middle of a golden, grassy field in Africa...if only Benjamin could be in Africa right then, he thought, and not there in the commons.
Vlad caught on that Benjamin was not paying any attention to him, and excused himself.
As the initial panic settled lower and began to crawl along his stomach lining, Benjamin mounted a chair and tried to get the cover off the light, supposing he might as well make sure there wasn't a fire smoldering. He couldn't budge the cover, but it was cold and nothing seemed to be amiss. Hitting it hadn’t even cracked the plastic.
He inquired as to the location of their fearless Resident Assistant, and the guys on the couch replied that they didn't know. His embarrassment overcome by adrenaline, he left Sheep with strict orders not to let anyone flip the switch, and descended to the Resident Director's office, his ears alert for the impending alarm. No one was in the office. Embarrassment caught up with him, but he eventually called the Assistant Resident Director.
"Everything's all right now,” he began, “but I was wondering what we should do if one of the lights in the commons starts smoking..."
"Did you say 'smoking'?"
"It's not anymore, and the alarm hasn't gone off," Benjamin explained himself, almost taking pride in confessing that yes, he had started the electrical fire while sword-fighting in the commons.
"Oh, ok. Just put a sign on the switch so no one turns it on, and remind me to deal with it later."
"Ok. Thanks."
By the time he hung up the phone, he had come to understand that a small miracle had occurred in that if the alarm hadn't gone off already, it probably wouldn't at all.
Ascending to his room, he tore a piece of notebook paper from a binder and wrote "Do not turn on." on it with a sharpie. Then, knowing his hallmates were much more likely to turn on the light when they saw the sign, he added the following malediction: "(The lights will smoke!)"
Popping over to the next room, he borrowed duct tape. Returning to the commons, he relieved Sheep of his duties("How did ya'll start a fire; it smells terrible in here!" commented a recent arrival.), and, after taping the sign to the wall, retired to his room with a prayer of thanks for God's mercies, and a residual sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
He wouldn’t be able to cook in the commons for a week without glancing nervously up at the smoke detector.

Marginally Interesting

2007-09-18T11:40:00.000-04:00

Dear Readers,
Today I continue my new practice of self-plagiarism. I composed the following a week or two ago for one of my classes, in response to reading selections of Job from a compilation of readings on the cultural heritage of the West. To give the drift of the paper, allow me to insert a quote I just received via internet from home. It is the quote of a British evangelist who only recently died:

"The only time you can really say that Christ is all I need, is when Christ is all you have." ~Leonard Ravenhill

Compared to most of the people I know, my life has not been very hard. I have lived through the deaths of three of my grandparents, suffered a few painful injuries, and occasionally have been treated wrongly by others.

So when I watch my friends and family going through “the valley of the shadow of death,” whether it be serious injury or illness, deaths close to them, struggles with horrible sins, financial hardships, or romantic disappointments, I find it both hard to understand what they're going through, and easy to understand that it must be really bad!

My reaction to the book of Job must be the same. I have never had great wealth, a family of children, and my health and rest taken from me in the space of just a little while. But I can imagine to some degree what it must have been like, especially as Job, irked by his friend's accusations, describes how he feels to have these things happen to him. And, as God says, they happened “for no reason” -- Job is a righteous man.

I have had many more opportunities in the past year at college than I had previously to be around Christians who were suffering. So, while little has occurred to cause me to suffer, I have been much more aware of suffering in the world around me. As a result, I have tried to understand better how Christians are to react to suffering. Studies in Job have, of course, been very useful.

Job is brought so low that he would very much like to die, or, better yet, to never have been born. It is difficult to blame him. Christians are called to rejoice in the Lord always. But that is not quite the same as calling Christians to be happy and excited to have all the things they hold dear on Earth be stripped away from them.

I was prompted to write on Job when I noticed in my used copy of our textbook I noticed a note in large letters in the margin. “God is...” began the note, but the rest was marked out with pencil. I finally made it out “...arrogant [bad word]” it read.

I laughed at first, but then tried to get into the head of the student who had come up with this conclusion from reading Job. How should I react to it? Had the author of the note been in the room with me, should I have come down hard, rebuking them for flying the face of God's majesty? How can God be arrogant when all the things He says are true, and we, His creatures, say just this sort of thing back to Him? Or should I not act upset, and quietly try to reason with the author, using the text of Job itself to reason with him or her?

The note was beside 39:26-30, and 40:1-2 were circled with what appeared to be the same blue pen that had written the blasphemy in the margin:

“And the Lord said to Job:
'Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?
He who argues with God, let him answer it.” -Job 40:1-2

I did not come to a conclusion; I could not determine in what spirit the author had scribbled the note, more than that they had much better handwriting than I, which was something I would not expect from someone who said such things about God.

I wonder if in reading Job the author had run out of intellectual excuses for ignoring God's greatness, and had tried to dismiss what they were reading by questioning God's character. Was God just posturing to look big? Was He throwing around His weight? After all, He does go on to give Job back twice what was taken away (that part was underlined in the blue pen). He Himself admitted He took it “for no reason”. Did God, after blustering at Job for a while, quietly make restitution for injustice?

If He did, He owes a lot of apologies to my friends.

I had a conversation about sin and suffering with a friend yesterday evening. We considered how we didn't deserve for Christ to die for us – we were not “worth” Him – yet God the Father sent Him, in a sense assigning a value which neither of us could see. We agreed we certainly wouldn't have done what Jesus did. Anything good is better than we deserve. We know from our Bibles and pastors that everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So Job “deserved” what he got. But as God said, and backed up by his rebuke of Job's friends, it was not for some sin that He let Satan hurt Job.

It seems that at least part of it was to show Satan, the “Sons of God” and every person throughout history who has heard of Job, that God is the reward. Those who serve Him, get to have Him as their God and all the richness that relationship entails! Riches, health, life, friends, spouses, are blessed additions.
This summer a few of those blessings were taken from me against my will. I complained a lot. It seems God was teaching me that I was not poor if I only had Him. If He chooses to take away the people and things I love, and give me in their place more of Him, I can mourn my loss, but how can I not rejoice in my gain? A man will serve God for nothing, by the power of the Holy Spirit, because God Himself is the reward.

I expect God shamed the Devil with Job. I can think of little greater honor than to be held up by God as an example to prove the Devil, and perhaps whoever wrote that note, wrong.

Death by Diacetyl: Fumes of Fury

2007-09-06T22:30:00.000-04:00

My mother made me aware of the following article:

Webmd link

The entire article is worth reading, but here's a brief recap, all quotes taken from the article:

"Rose's patient had never been exposed to food-flavoring fumes."

His only exposure was to the two or more bags of microwave popcorn he consumed every day.

"Rose took a team to the man's house and tested the air while microwaving some popcorn. Air levels of diacetyl were similar to those in the area of a microwave popcorn factory where workers were affected."

According to news reports, Rose's patient liked to inhale the aroma of newly popped microwave popcorn.

In March 2005, the EPA told WebMD that a study of microwave popcorn emissions would be completed in 2005.

And of course, while I find this all quite humorous, I suppose it ought to be taken seriously. Lung disease is not funny. Thankfully, at the end of the article, the reader will find that a number of name brands are going to stop using diacetyl in their microwave popcorn.
We will all be able to inhale that lovely smell once more, without any fear.
But please, don't burn the popcorn.

Economic and Social Safety Progress Report

2007-08-27T16:13:00.000-04:00

Dear Readers,
In an effort to free up more time for my scholarly vocation, I have, among other measures, devised a way to update my blog without writing anything. I will "self-plagiarize" by posting past pieces of prose. More specifically, I will post what I hope to be enjoyable and rather open-ended essays I was assigned in the Spring of 2006. This, the first installment, was my effort at a satire. Enjoy:

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present the North American Provincial Legislature for Economic and Social Safety with my comparison report concerning the last two years, 2344 and 2345. The progress achieved in the arenas of work reduction, technological advancement, safety process refinement, and job creation are therein detailed, showing dramatic improvement continuing the overall trend towards excellence. In addition, physical, social, and mental health is considered in detail. Finally, Mr. Speaker, the report contains several guiding cautions for the legislature's benefit. For the purposes of simplification, I will now summarize the report, giving the final figures for each area, as well as examples of progress.

On the forefront of work reduction are the technological applications committees. In 2345, these committees introduced advancements in robotics, transportation, and interface controls such that the average citizen was saved six percent of his or her work time, compared to a four percent reduction in 2344. The average citizen now spends only five percent of his or her time carrying out his or her occupation. Following are brief descriptions of a few of the technological advancements made in 2345. Robotic artificial intelligence and self-maintenance have been improved dramatically. Touch-activated interfaces have been made five times more sensitive to pressure. Thinkpads, such as the one used to format this presentation, transpose brain waves directly into text. Personal transport systems are safer, faster, and smarter. Again, these examples are but a few of 2345's advancements.

Safety process improvement committees report that, with new, standardized, biannually-updated safety registration forms, required monthly from all citizens, personal injuries have decreased by point-four percent. New assistance robots have put answers within reach of every citizen compiling these forms. The average citizen spent three percent more time on safety forms last year, for a total of only twenty-four percent of his or her total time.

Occupational opportunity committees report a point-three percent increase in job openings gained last year, with a gain of forty-thousand job opportunities for a loss of only twenty-seven thousand. Of these new occupational opportunities, forty percent were in government and supervision venues. Another forty percent were in health research and physical fitness training. Six of the remaining ten percent were in the venue of education.

Health and physical fitness committees report that the average citizen spent fifty-one percent of his or her total time researching for personal health and exercising for physical fitness. Dieting technology research introduced fourteen new dieting techniques last year, and nutritional manufacturers produced innumerable new foods. These foods contained less nutritionally harmful contents and new biodrugs for only a slightly higher price per ounce, and were either generalized to appeal to the most dieting plans, or specialized for a specific plan. The most popular new food last year was H-Two O's, which requires only the addition of water to create a bowl full of milk and healthy cereal. As a result of these advancements, the average citizen gained only four pounds last year, compared to a six point-three pound gain in 2344.

Social interactment and leisure time requirements remained steady in 2344; however, 2345 showed a new trend. Sleep reduction research yielded new therapies and drugs which reduced the average citizen's sleep requirement to only seven percent, allowing the final thirteen percent total time to be spent in social interaction and relaxation. Included in my report are some examples of sleep replacement technology, such as hypnotist robots and chemically-modified-caffeine misting implants.

Now, Mr. Speaker, with all this progress, there are still some areas of concern. Due, according to the psychology committees, to increased responsibility as each citizen is entrusted with the management of a larger portion of his or her country's robotic workforce (in order to allow further extra-terrestrial colonization), the average citizen was eight percent more depressed, four percent more likely to be obese, and nine percent more likely to take his or her own life last year. These figures represent an increase of approximately one percent in the growth of each of these areas compared to 2344. The committee on mental and physical well-being recommends more research into satisfaction-inducing drugs, genetic therapy to reduce the human body's storage of fat, sleep reduction to allow more free time, and work reduction to cut down on fatigue.

Finally, the committee on the North American Colony to Mars reports that last year's selection of colonial citizens has proven to be superb. Though suffering from dietary and general food shortages and forced because of power shortages and lack of repair equipment to take on ninety percent of the robotic workforce's duties, our brave colonists are physically fit and mentally healthy. The committee and the colonists themselves urge the legislature to allocate more robotics, food, and biodrugs to the colony with "haste brought on by appreciation for our brave citizens' work."

To conclude, Mr. Speaker, it has been a pleasure to see the increase in progress last year, especially in its across-the-board nature. The legislature needs no reminder, I am sure, to push for better research in responsibility strain reduction and colony supply allocation. With a continued passion for progress, this nation can realize a brighter, happier future.

Nathanael Booth and the Ring of Power, Part I

2007-07-26T15:38:00.000-04:00

Dear Readers,
it is my pleasure to bring you the beginning of another Adventure of Benjamin Dobbs, this time guest-starring, as indicated by the title, Nathanael Booth. The story takes place on the campus of Covenant College in ('on' is more accurate) Lookout Mountain, Georgia. The college is real. So are many of the characters. Alas, the ring of power has yet to be discovered. Please forgive unintended inconsistencies with reality. The story is in no way crafted to offend, but to entertain. Enjoy.

"There are two great questions in college, both crude renditions of that historic interrogative, 'to be or not to be?'" announced Nathanael Booth, standing at the head of the table, and all eyes were upon him as he continued.
"The first is, will my classes ever be of any practical value in the real world. The answer to that question is an intriguing mix of yes and no -- yes, because the real world is just as eager to demand pointless exercises and trials as college, and no, because no one really needs to know the name of our neighboring galaxies.
The second question is, do I starve or eat Graphgood's? To that question, alas, I still seek the answer. But today, I eat."
Nathanael set his loaded tray down on the table, sloshing a few drops of cappuccino into his egg-beaters, and seated himself carefully, his hat and coat already resting on the back of the chair. Breakfast in the Great Hall was always an adventure of sorts, prepared as it was by the dining service Graphgoods. One never knew exactly what to expect.
"Betelgeuse -- or is that a star?" murmured Benjamin Dobbs, as he attempted to spread grape jam onto a half a biscuit, and succeeded in mutilating it. "Anyway, I would certainly like to go there, and you can't like to go someplace without knowing what it's called."
"My dear sir, I most certainly can. If I wish to go to a place of rest and relaxation, I don't need to know that it's called 'my suite with Bob Dylan playing on the stereo.'"
"But could you find that place without its name?" asked Graybeard, engaging in melee combat with his hashbrowns.
"Ah! Would not a rose, by any other name, smell as sweet?" smiled Nathanael.
"Practically speaking, though, if you didn't know it was called 'rose,' you could never get one to smell," replied Graybeard, and they were off, two philosophy majors flexing their intellectual muscles. Nathanael never allowed himself to sound completely in earnest, always testing the boundaries and making no assumptions. Graybeard, eager and happy, with fluent speech rebounded from each attack to a sortie of his own. Benjamin ate his bacon and tossed in the occasional amateur fallacy that his friends graciously chose to ignore rather than squelch.
The few minutes of breakfast soon fled, and the three friends ended the conversation only to scarf down the last few bites they could before hurrying to class.
"Aack! What a place to keep a...a." Nathanael spat something from his mouth and fished it off of his tray, even as the other two stood up to go. Benjamin peered over the rim of his glass, grimacing as he hit the bitter dregs of his orange juice.
"What's that in your breakfast?"
"A ring...goodness, the places people put them nowadays."
"Perhaps someone is trying to propose?" Graybeard glanced here and there, catching the eyes of a few weary freshmen who still bothered to pay attention to what was going on around them in the Great Hall.
"Hang on to it and see if you can find whose it is," suggested Benjamin, leaning over Nathanael's shoulder and eying what appeared to be an expensive ring underneath its false-egg garnishing.
"Hmph," said Nathanael, chugging the last of his cappuccino as they hurried to the tray return. "I'll just put it through."
"But it could be worth a lot. Here," Benjamin took Graybeard's water-glass. "Rinse!"
Nathanael rinsed. "I suppose it might look good on me, now that you mention it," he allowed.
"Goodness, Nathanael, it's you!" exclaimed Graybeard, examining the piece.
The ring had a broad silver band with a strange design cut into a swath in its center. The band widened to a circular head, which was set with a ruby stone.
"Are those letters around the stone?" asked Graybeard as the three left Carter Lobby, their book bags slung at various awkward angles, squinting at the sunrise and pulling light jackets tighter about them. It was barely fall, but the morning breezes were still cold.
"I hadn't noticed those," said Benjamin, and the two leaned in over Nathanael's shoulders as he obligingly rubbed egg-beater remnants from the ring.
"Latin," said Graybeard decidedly, and Nathanael nodded. Benjamin was opening his mouth to read the words aloud when the sound of an engine coming up behind them brought them all about in surprise, just in time to see a bright yellow taxicab jump the curb and slide, slinging turf, onto the sidewalk. All but the most dedicated and tired turned and stared as the cab squealed to a halt beside the three friends.
"Holy cow!" exclaimed Benjamin.
"Good grief!" gasped Graybeard.
"I'll say," commented Nathanael.
The window of the cab rolled down, and from behind a stogie and beneath a flat cap spoke a fat face with a long pointy nose.
"Where to, doc?" It asked.

Textual Criticism

2007-07-10T20:38:00.000-04:00

My new bell number is __________

That's how it started, about a week ago. I laughed at whoever had texted me and flipped my phone closed. Then it buzzed again.
This time there was a name, followed by the number. I knew one person who had the first name given, but the second name was uncapitalized, unfamiliar, and, by the wording of the message could have been a dramatic typo of a part of the sentence, not a name after all. I wondered if I should call the number, but why bother? The first time one of us wanted to get in touch with each other, we would find out whether my mystery texter had the correct number or not.
That all changed a few days later.
My phone buzzed early in the morning. I was downstairs at the computer waking up.

My mom's in the emergency room. Pray for us.

The urgency and frustration caught me a hefty blow in the stomach region, as I realized that if this was someone I knew, I wanted to know who it was right away. I should have called then, but if whoever it was didn't have time to call, they certainly didn't want me calling them while their mom was in the ER (especially if we didn't even know each other).
So I prayed for whoever it was' mom, and sent the following, rather obscure message on facebook to the friend whom I thought might be the culprit.

Hey bro, how are you and your family? I'm keeping you in my prayers.

I felt this message would convey situation-appropriate sentiments and actions for either a normal situation, or one of my friend's mother being in serious medical trouble. I spent the rest of that day waiting for a response. Not only did I receive none, but my acute Facebook stalking skills told me that my friend had no activity at all that day. I decided to call the number back soon thereafter, which turned out to be this evening, a good 36 hours after the startling text.
The initial exchange was the type you expect from two people, both at least partially expecting someone else, one of whom is in the middle of something else and not expecting to be called upon to understand convolutions of any variety.
We finally sorted out that this person was indeed the name mentioned in the text, and had no idea who I was. It was time to go...
"Sorry to ask this, but," said I, with grace typical of myself on the telephone, "how's your mom?"
I was gratified to hear she is much improved.
"Well, that's great. And I was praying for her."
Turns out my new acquaintance thought my number was one of his pastor's.
(This just goes to show you that you really never know who is praying for you.)
"Well, if I ever call you by accident again, I'll know who you are!" said my new friend, and we said goodbye.

Don't Be Scared...

2007-06-28T14:56:00.000-04:00

...though the word "test" may be used in this post, it has nothing to do with the hideous, bloodstained, parasitic apparitions that live off of human toil and tears and then, when they've finished all of those, polish off hopes and dreams.
Unless, of course, you studied enough beforehand.
No, these are actually pretty fun.
Another reason you might be scared, but shouldn't be, is that the site I'm directing you to is apparently a dating service. I'm not sure why the items I'm interested in are kept there, but as far as I can tell they have absolutely nothing to do with meeting compatible people.

Blog Rater
This one allows you to put in a website and get a rating. This blog, for instance, is rated PG for two uses of the word "Hell" and one of the word "gun." Of course, it's now probably PG-13 for an added use of each of those words...anyway, that was interesting and useful, and the site composes a little html code so you can paste the rating onto your blog if you want to. Yay.

Your Chance of Surviving a Zombie Apolcalypse
That's right, with this you can compute your chances of surviving a zombie apocalypse (You can also learn how to spell the word 'apocalypse' here. I did!)
I took it yesterday. I had a 56% chance of surviving, I think.

How Much Are You Worth -- Dead?
This one calculates, I know not how accurately, how much someone could get for selling your body as a cadaver. I find it morbidly humorous.(Allow me to say that by posting this I am not at all trying to be offensive or disrespectful.) I am apparently worth $5115. That's not much, if you think about it in perspective.

Finally, there's my personal favorite:

How Much of a Geek are You?
I dare you all, dear readers, to take this one. Some of you I will solicit personally if you take too long. Post your scores here. Don't be shy!
Oh, yes, I'm 58% Geek...and I didn' cheat much at all! I'm a little disappointed I didn't score higher. Oh well.

I Judge this Serendipitous

2007-06-24T22:10:00.000-04:00

The following is an anecdote which will hopefully edify my readers.
This afternoon I was thinking. I do that occasionally, and today I stayed home from church in the morning and evening because I am ill. So, sometime this evening I was on our back porch reading a re-write of Jonathan Edward's sermon entitled "God at Work," but my mind, at least at times, was elsewhere.
I was considering a series of events and conversations which had transpired over the past year which had caused my to look more closely at what all this judging and not judging in the Bible is about. My thoughts this afternoon were along the lines of realizing that I really didn't know where the Bible stood. I thought it would be nice to get some reading material and study up on it. That was page, oh, 66, where Pastor Edwards was talking about pride being a big snare for people in a revival.
Yeah, I sure have the pride, I thought to myself, not making the connection between pride and looking down on other people. I mean, if God says something is a sin, and someone does it, then I can consider it to be, or "judge" it, if you will, to be a sin, right? Well, my pride in being a sin-detector extraordinaire was probably oozing out my pores, and some notion that it was a problem for me filtered through my grey matter as I read. Then I got to page 71.

C. Let us beware of judging others,

read the heading.
I'm not the kind to get all exited about things like this (that's why I'm writing it up on my blog), so I just thanked God for his amazing providence which had in this case saved me a trip to the church library, and helped get my mind back on what I was reading. Pastor Edward's primary point was that God, and only God, sees the heart, and we as people have neither the ability or the right to declare a professing Christian an unbeliever. Pastor Edwards is rather straightforward, which is probably a good thing for me:

"We will see that declaring people to be unconverted who claim to be Christians and are living good lives is forbidden by Christ in the New Testament. Since he forbids it, his disciples must not do it."

He proceeded on page 72 to toss in a list of Bible verses to show the truth of his statements.
I am also concerned that I will get spoiled by these reading materials materializing in front of me right after I am prompted to study them. But it certainly is nice.
My only real concern is that tricky "living good lives" statement, which is never qualified. My readers' thoughts, applicable Scripture verses, and other such comments are welcomed.
Meanwhile, enjoy the serendipity
God at Work was prepared by Gary Benfold. © 1995 Grace Publications Trust.

Cooking with Master Dobbs

2007-06-19T12:49:00.000-04:00

Good afternoon, dear readers! My, what a lovely day it is -- not just because it's beautiful outside, but because I am not at work! It's my first weekday off in quite a while, and I'm enjoying it profusely. I already got Michael and Patrick through their morning in the Sanctuary, finished reading Off Armageddon Reef, and, most importantly, cooked lunch. I wish to share what I cooked with you today. But first, a little history.
I cook lunch a lot at my house, (at least at times when I'm home for the meal!). I was planning to cook some chip dip for me and my younger sister to eat, but found that we were having chili for supper, so I decided to hold off and go for something a little more...exotic.
Here's a cooking note for you chili-cheese dip lovers: Try adding a can of cream of mushroom soup to your chili-and-cheese dip; it makes it taste ever-so-much-more cheesy!
Now, back to my brief history of cooking. I wanted to make a good cold salad with a white dressing, mainly because I remembered eating a great macaroni salad of similar description the other evening. However, my younger sister and fellow future partaker of lunch asked for something hot. I decided to stay my course, and make a hot cold salad.
For my base, I spun the lazy susan and selected two eager volunteers: a can of kidney beans and a can of black beans. While I could retitle this blog "ode to beans" and wax poetic, I think I shall leave that for another day.
The following is a brief, easy-to-use set of instructions to make your own hot cold bean salad!

"Holy Cow"

Saute about 2tblspns of chopped onion in a saucepan. [Note: "saucepan" is really just a longer and more distinguished sounding word for "pot"]. Saute them in whatever you feel like. Butter might work well. All I added was a little water to keep them from burning. Proceed to add about 3-seconds-squirt of cheesy ranch dressing, one large spoonful of mayonnaise, one large dollop of sour cream dip, and one swish-out-of-a-sugar-tin of white sugar. Simmer for a few seconds so everyone can socialize. Drain the beans some, but not all of the way (the bean juice will help with the sauce!) Pour them into the saucepan *wink*wink* and turn up your stove so that you won't have to wait forever to eat. Then comes the fun part. Open your spice cabinet and scan it quickly, like your driving instructor tells you to scan the road for insane drivers and deer that you cannot possibly avoid but should try to anyway. Add things such as:
-garlic powder
-chili powder
-season-all salt
-mustard powder
Then add the following essential ingredients:
-fake or real bacon bits (lots and lots)
-curry powder (4.7 dashes)
Stir all these in, simmer them for a while, and eat them!
Try it on chips.

Timothy and the Grenobles, Part IV

2007-05-19T19:03:00.000-04:00

Dear Readers,
I am satisfactorily drowsy after writing this final chapter, and so to, you will find, are Timothy and Lisa, and, in fact, the Grenobles themselves. But I do not doubt, and I think you cannot, that after all are sufficiently rested (how long that will be I cannot say), they will wake up and have another adventure together.

Timothy, meanwhile, skipped, leapt, dropped, lowered himself, and, at times, fell down the stairs. He arrived at the next door unaware that Lisa was had stopped following him. Looking inside he saw a little kitchen. In he stepped, and turned all the way around, staring up at open, wooden shelves. A beautiful, wild window frame was carved into the wall, but there was no glass, only glowing amber lighting the room, showing up wisps of smoke and steam from the stove. Pots and pans hung from the wall; a deep, Earthy smell, like fresh bread but ten times better, wafted from the oven; and in the cabinets were all manner of roots, petals, grinders engraved with labels, and brown packages tied with rough yellow twine.
As the smell reached Timothy's empty stomach he sat down in the middle of the paneled floor and cried.
The Grenoble seized two moss gloves, dipped them into a basin of water, flung open the over, letting out more of the smell and a brilliant glow, and pulled out two trays, the mitts hissing and spluttering. With a flourish it carried them over Timothy's head, dripping water onto his bangs, to the only open counter and set them down on wicker coasters.
The spluttering and splashing and, most importantly, the trays of food, had stopped Timothy's eyes. He stood behind the Grenoble's leg, looking from the counter's edge, which he could not quite see over, to the Grenoble above him, which was busy doing to the food whatever mothers and fathers and Grenobles do to food while they make you wait too long before you can eat it. Finally, it raised a deep brown, almost-black colored muffin to its mouth, smacked a bite out of it, and closed its eyes.
Timothy let out a quiet whine.
"It is ready," whispered the Grenoble through dark crumbs, and handed one to Timothy. Timothy, now that he had his food, took his time examining it, and picked off a few crumbs to fall to the ground. Then he bit in. It's texture was that of rich wheat bread, and it tasted of freshness, grains, sugar-glaze, and birthdays. Then the Grenoble took from the other tray what looked something like the play clay snake Timothy had made the day before. Timothy examined this even more carefully (for he had taken a bite of the snake, and it had not pleased him); it was brown, flakey, crisp, and firm on the outside, and curled all around. He bit it; it crunched all the way through and filled his mouth with a strong taste, like after he had eaten six ginger-snaps at once when no one was looking, and started crying because of it. This time he did not cry at first, because he was getting to be a big boy and like spicy things. He took bite after bite, and then ran around the room in circles, tears pouring down his face, but laughing hard even as he wailed with the strength of the root. The Grenoble did something else on the counter, and then carried two packages with steam coming from them over to one of the cabinets. Putting these away, it rang a little triangle and stepped back out onto the stairs. The light coming down the trunk was reddish, like that at sunset, and Timothy yawned. Lisa came out of the room up the stairs, also yawning, and stretching, with the other Grenoble. The brother and sister took each other’s hands; Timothy thought Lisa smelled like syrup; Lisa thought Timothy smelled like gingersnaps.
"Food," said Timothy, pointing into the kitchen.
"Hmm," yawned Lisa, "books," she flung her hand behind her to indicate which way.
"Now, we..." she began to say to the Grenobles, but then she noticed that they had already begun to descend again.
"Come on!" she giggled, remembering a part in the book she had just read where the children found a cave on the estate and explored it.
They passed many more quaint little rooms with knothole doors. Timothy found it all quite ordinary, and nothing to compare with how tired he was, or how good the food had tasted, and Lisa marveled at how perfect and pretty it all was. There were several sitting rooms, with various types of lamps and chairs and tables, and writing rooms with desks and almost-empty shelves, old yellowed papers, quill pens, and ink wells, and closed doors, and dusty pantries, and rooms that were only a tangle of vines or branches, and two rooms that must have been the Grenoble's bedrooms, for inside of them were round beds of leaves and moss and dirt. Instead of cups and baths were little springs bubbling up from the floor, and foresty mobiles hung from the ceilings and circled slowly, casting shadows of leaves and creepers on the walls.
when they came to these two doors, the Grenobles yawned, stretching their limbs so that they squeaked and creaked, and opening their mouths wider and wider, so that wind sighed straight down the stairs, sleepy, pulling downwards, making Timothy's eyes sag.
Then they closed their mouths so quickly that Timothy jumped to see them disappearing into their faces.
The two Grenobles stood by their bedroom doors, crossing their arms behind their backs.
"You have made us be home," they said, "goodnight." Then they each hugged Timothy and Lisa in treeish embraces, which felt like throwing yourself against a young mossy tree that gives way under your weight so that it does not hurt. Then they hugged each other, wind whispering about, went each into his room, and closed perfectly shaped doors on the knotholes. The light from the sunset was fading from above. Timothy shivered.
"Come back?" he asked the door in front of him.
It cracked open, and the Grenoble poked its head out, a nightcap on its head, the burr that tipped it hanging in front of its face.
"Go to the bottom; that is the way home for you," it said softly, and closed the door again.
Lisa looked down. She could see only one more light below them, and no more rooms. She looked up. It was getting dark; she could see the vaguest tint of red far up at the top of the submerged trunk.
"Oh, Timothy, our shoes are up there; we had better go get them," she said, and then stood still and sighed wistfully. Timothy's footsteps retreated from her hearing down the tunnel. By the time she understood the sounds, he was out of sight below her.
"Timothy!" she hissed, trying not to disturb their hosts. "Ah!" she bounded down the stairs after him. There was a wooden candlestick with an amber candle glowing in it on the wall; she took it carefully as she went past ("I'll return it later," she said to herself).
Timothy came to the bottom of the stairs and ran into a closed door. He pushed and shoved on the handle; he even growled at it and banged his head on it, but it would not budge. Turning back he found himself at the bottom of the tree trunk on a dirt floor covered with leaves. Lisa leaned down from the stairs not far above, lit up by her candle.
"Wisa, door won't go!" remonstrated Timothy, thrusting an accusative finger at the knothole. Lisa was a big sister, and Timothy knew that when she wanted to she could be very helpful with doors (only she didn't want to be helpful often).
But she could not budge this door.
"Open!" said Timothy, annoyed that she was not cooperating with him. He was hungry again, and tired, and cross. When he was hungry and tired and cross Lisa should not be so silly as to not open doors.
"It's locked," she said, beginning to realize they were alone in the dark. The shadows cast from her steady amber candle shivered inexplicably, and Lisa took Timothy's hand (in case he was scared) before turning to survey the rest of their surroundings. Across from them was an opening beneath the stairs. She stepped to it with her candle and peered through, Timothy shrinking back a little so that she had to stretch out both arms to get the candle to the opening.
A shallow gust blew through the doorway, but the amber glowed brighter in its presence. She could see trees of a forest, and, now that she looked so hard, some lights. She pulled Timothy through the doorway, and, turning back, saw that they had just stepped out of an ugly gash in the side of an oak. The sun was setting behind the tree. Dogs barked from the lights.
"Home. Come on!" cried Timothy, and yanked Lisa towards the lights, so that she dropped her candle. It hissed in a puddle, and when she picked up what she thought was it, she found only an oddly shaped branch in her hand. "Come home!" said Timothy, and carefully led his sister through the forest towards the sound of the barking. Soon they were trudging through the backyard. Timothy saw the rest of the family sitting down around the meal, and the siblings dropped each other's hands to run up the back porch steps and inside.
"Play wit' 'nobles!" yelled Timothy as his mother served him.
"What's that, Timothy?" asked his father.
"He said we played with the Grenobles," said Lisa somberly, looking down at her plate. "They...they...we played a game with them...a dancing game with the wind."
"Oh," said her father.
"Funny dancing, fell in wa-water, funny feets!" Timothy clapped his spoon in his hands.
"Oh!” laughed his mother, spooning him out a bowl of soup.
"I'm sorry I got my dress dirty...oh!" said Lisa, for she had just at that moment realized that her shoes were back on her feet. She stuck her head under the table to see Timothy kicking his feet -- shoes and all -- against his high chair.
"Lisa, what are you doing?" asked her father. She sat up quickly, grazing her head on the table and making a leaf fall from her hair.
"Making sure Timothy didn't loose his shoes."
"Did he?"
"No."
"Want to play wit' 'nobles," pouted Timothy as he saw his mother approaching with the soup. He wished he could have another of the muffins, or one of the spicy snakes.
"It's dark now, Timothy; they probably had to go home, too," said his mother, sitting down beside his high chair. "You will have to play with them again later. Now, eat up."
She blew on a spoonful of soup.
It spun and danced under her breath.
Timothy giggled.

Myth: College is More Exciting than Home

2007-05-16T13:11:00.000-04:00

Fact: Since returning home from college late Thursday, March 3, I have
- Used a large piece of power equipment, utilizing its rapidly rotating plastic blades to cut down thousands of organic growths.
- Learned about Christians in Chile, Colombia, Cuba, and Brazil, including information about their countries' history, customs, foods, and governments.
- Eaten hormigas. For those of you who have not tried them, they have a texture like popcorn and a flavor like roasted salted peanuts.
- Stepped barefoot into a casserole dish which had marshmallow spread in the bottom.
- Won several important battles with the help of Tristan and his band of warriors known as the Shining Force.
- Eaten four restaurant-prepared meals.
- Eaten no Chartwell's-prepared meals.
- Eaten several little-sister-prepared meals.
- Eaten several self-prepared meals.
- Finished a book I have been reading for more than half a year.
- Begun a translation of William William's Theomemphus, which begins with a fascinating biography detailing his part in the Great Awakening, and includes lots of Welsh words like ' ' and ' '.
- Written on my blog.
- Forced cotton fabric to realign by pumping water onto it and applying pressure with a superheated piece of iron.
- Forced wooden stakes into the ground by pounding on them with a piece of heavy metal.
- Dug out a 120-or-so square foot section of my back yard to a depth of about 3.5 inches. Might I add that I live in Georgia, thus ensuring that I was digging into Georgia red clay.
- Chipped concrete. Granted, I could have done this at college if I had signed up for that particular Practical Service, but it is still exciting, and something I did not do at college.
- Watched TV, just for fun, in the middle of the week.
- Watched on in a mixture of horror and anticipation as our fridge/freezer and stand alone freezer broke at the same time. We had to eat everything. Everything included a lot of ice cream.
- Sold shoes. If you don't think that's cool, think again.
- Teased my little sister.
- Gotten a blister on my thumb.
- Written pieces of stories, and pages of outlines for the second book in the Sol War story arc that I thought up, oh, four years ago.
- Discovered David Webber's book, Off Armageddon Reef, which is quite enjoyable, though slightly annoying due to its similarities to the Sol War story arc.
- Gone to the library without any idea that I was going to run into a bona fide member of the Imperial 501st stormtrooper legion, and myriad other Star Wars oddities collected for the thirtieth anniversary of the theatrical release of Episode IV.
- Most recently, I have acquired a rocket launcher.

Timothy and the Grenobles, Part III

2007-05-09T22:13:00.000-04:00

Dear Readers,
It is finished. However, due to the wise advice of my dear younger sister, I have split it into two more episodes, only one of which you will find below. I hope that this will allow you to read and digest it bitesize, and not be so bored (at least not all at one sitting), as you might have been had I published it all at once.

The Grenobles caught each other's hands and twirled together; the glade was filled with a singing wind that once again tossed Lisa's hair up over her head, and showered her with leaves.
"Timothy!" she called loudly, half to test the strength of the wind's song. It drowned her out completely, even though it did not overwhelm her ears. The Grenobles broke their grasp and danced past her, careening, gusts of wind laughing for them. One cart wheeled from the land into the trunk, and down the stairs out of sight. The other leapt on top of the trunk, straddling it, with legs splayed so wide that Lisa gasped, lest it slip and fall down the center of the stairs.
"Come home," it whispered from all around her in the wind.
"That is not my home," she said back, and though her voice was drowned out, it seemed to hear her, for it replied.
"It is your way home."
Lisa did not consider too long, for the sun was blotted out by clouds, and a wall of rain drummed in from the forest toward her, soaking Timothy's moss-covered tree and making the brook leap up from its place as it approached. She stepped into the tree-trunk, ducking beneath the Grenoble's legs, and down until only her head was above the trunk. The water danced and rippled just beneath her eyes; the wind swept her hair about still, but her dress was not touched by rain or wind.
The Grenoble snapped its legs together, grabbed the side of the trunk with one arm, and swung down to stand on a step above her. Lisa turned and climbed down the steps to bring her head out of the wind and rain. Holding onto the twisting, bark-covered rail that ran along the inner wall of the trunk, she leaned over the center, and saw many soft lights, the other Grenoble descending gracefully, and Timothy just in front of it, now leaping with both legs drawn up at the knees, from one step to the next.
"We are coming home," sighed the Grenoble behind her in its normal voice.
"Excuse me," said Lisa, not wishing to offend it by changing the subject when it was discussing something so important to it, "Timothy!"
He turned, leaning back against the wall of the trunk, still making humming sounds to accompany his descent.
"Don't get too far ahead, and listen to the Grenoble. You're in its house. Should we take off our shoes? They are wet," she said, turning back to the Grenoble beside her.
"Yes," it said, and, turning back to sit down and take her shoes off, Lisa saw Timothy and the Grenoble ahead of her going into a hole in the wall of the trunk, from which the first of the glowing lights seem to be emerging. Coming to the hole, which was actually a giant knothole-door, Lisa bent over and entered the room within. It would not have been large in her own house, but the glowing light, that came from a vein of sap running down the wall, put shadows in the corners, and in such a small house, with such small people, the room seemed very large indeed. Leaning against one wall was a stove, which the first Grenoble opened and tossed in glowing crystals of sap, licking its fingers with a thin tongue that was deep red striped with brown tree-rings, like the wood on Lisa's old dresser drawers. The stove glowed bright in a moment, and warmth poured in, for the tree was cool and moist inside. The other Grenoble, meanwhile, had approached a stand on another wall, and pulled down four pairs of slippers, covered with a light tan bark that curled and peeled up, and filled with soft, spongy moss. Then they all sat down on a bench along the center wall, took off their shoes.
"Funny feets!" chortled Timothy approvingly, and he leapt down, shoes half off, to examine the Grenobles' feet.
"Feet," muttered Lisa, leaning back and struggling to pull her shoes off.
The Grenobles' calves were smooth and a little green, under moss stockings. As they took these off they wiggled stubby, knotty toes, each toe having a young bud atop it for a nail, and each of their four feet having a different number of toes. Timothy sat down on the floor, pulled off his shoes, and tossed them back over his shoulder. Then he did the same with his socks. He leaned back, holding himself up on his arms, and wiggled his own toes in the air to compare them with the Grenobles.
After this, they all slipped on their slippers, picked up their shoes and socks (Timothy only after Lisa told him to twice) and put them on the now-empty shelf before continuing down the stairs.
Timothy tried walking down sideways, looking up to grin and laugh at the Grenoble above him, but after he saw too many glares from Lisa competing with the Grenoble's quiet, mouthless smile, he turned and hurried on. Timothy and the first Grenoble passed the next door without even looking in, but Lisa caught a glimpse of bookshelves as she passed, and stopped with a sigh.
"Timothy, wait!" she called, and stuck her head through the door for a better look. Through sap-filled cracks in the wall streamed in the light and warmth of a summer day, but outside of the beams was the cool of late fall. A rocking chair and a couch of velvet pillows, one deep brown, the other deep green, sat in the room, and within the walls were curving bookshelves and hundreds of books. The Grenoble came in behind her, picked up pipe, book, and reading glasses from a stand, lit the pipe, sat down in the rocking chair, and opened the book with a modest creak. A sweet aroma like maple syrup filled the room with the pipe's thin smoke, and Lisa forgot Timothy and began circling the room, head sideways, looking not for a good book, for they were all good, but for the best book for that day.
Finally, she settled on a book about an afternoon spent by a group of dear friends on a grand estate, and fell slowly into the couch's palm, watching the dust rise to be caught in the shafts of light. The Grenoble sucked on its pipe, and turned to eye her over its reading glasses. She could not help but laugh at those beautiful and strange eyes staring at her over the oak frames.
"What are you reading?" she asked to cover her laughter.
"The latest volume upon the pine style of dance. It is quite modern; I am not sure if I and my brother will ever learn it, but it is fascinating. See," it said, turning the book to show a diagram that looked like a piece of Timothy's pencil scribblings, only marked with numbers in a good hand, "the tributary gusts are used to surround the wells, and gradually lift them. There's some thought as to popping them and showering down the forest carpet; quite tricky, you don't know," it chuckled.
"Oh," said Lisa, and hid behind her own book, which was much more suited to her tastes.

The Prayers of Benjamin Dobbs

2007-05-07T21:36:00.000-04:00

Benjamin Dobbs thought he had asked for a great blessing. He had not really expected to receive an answer. For he had become quite cynical with God lately, and as he prayed that evening (head bowed in his hands) he waxed eloquent in anger and frustration.
God was not being reasonable.
It seemed that if poor sinful wretch-of-a-man Benjamin could think of these good things and ask them, then God should jolly well be good enough to do them. So great was his annoyance at God ignoring his helpful suggestions that he had come away from his prayers the night before with a feeling that crossed the line from consternated lack of understanding to disgust. Yes, he was disgusted with God. What good was an all-powerful being if he lacked the will or the desire to do good?
"Am I better than you?"
"My God!" he shook his head in disbelief, the motion turning his arms and shoulders as well.
"How can it be that I could do better? Will You not listen? I come in the name of Christ; is He not good enough? I ask for You to save human beings -- made in Your image -- from burning in Hell for all eternity. You save a few but why not more? I'm asking You for more, God! Could it be that I would do better than You?"
Something poked him in the back of the head and he leapt to his feet, the prayer forgotten as he turned this way and that to look for his assailant. But there was no one behind the damp wooden bench on which he had been reclining. Only a paper airplane lay on the concrete pad behind it. Benjamin looked up at the windows of Maclellan Hall suspiciously, but there was neither laughter nor movement in any that he could see. Most everyone had their windows shut. Benjamin stepped around the bench and picked up the folded sheet -- the plane was of notebook paper, and was already loosing its crispness to the misty cloud that wisped about. With a last glance in the first story windows that satisfied him that none of those lounging in the lobbies were in the least interested in teasing him, Benjamin sat back down and unfolded the paper, listening all the while, the muscles on his neck tense, for some sound to alert him to a repeat offense from the windows behind.

Dear Benjamin,
After considering your request it has been decreed that you will be allowed complete access to and sway over the will of God. Your prayers will be answered.

Love

-- These words were written in thick black ink in the middle of the sheet.
Benjamin sat for a long time looking at the paper, and I would not have been surprised if a question mark had appeared floating over his head. Once or twice he glanced over his shoulder. Then, disconcerted and chilled, not just by the biting wind, he went back inside, and to bed.

"Good morning," murmured Benjamin's roommate, setting his tray down with a slight clatter.
"Morning Graybeard!" replied the other as he sipped his water, staring out through the windows into the fog. The cloud had settled in overnight, and Benjamin couldn't tell for the life of him if the rest of the campus even existed outside the windows. He noticed Graybeard noticing that he was daydreaming, and shifted uncomfortably.
"What's before you today?" he asked, to avoid any questions about what he was thinking.
"Well," Graybeard pressed on the center of his glasses with one finger, and began wrapping up bacon in a pancake. "I have a philosophy test in about twenty minutes which I am not looking forward to."
"Oh, that's right. How late were you up studying?"
"The sad thing is I've forgotten. Past two for sure."
"Uuugh."
"Yes. I don't know what I'll do about my paper. It's due tonight; I haven't begun it, and with not enough sleep tonight and the two nights before, I'll have to sleep this afternoon. I may ask for an extension, but I doubt he'll give me one.
"I'm sorry, man."
"Yes...what do you have?"
"Oh, nothing much. Certainly nothing to compare to what you have going on. I need to catch up on Calculus homework for this afternoon, though."
"Test?"
"Next week, but I'm pretty far behind studying."
"Busy with that Literature paper?"
"Yes -- hello Almsy! -- but it's done now. I finished it yesterday afternoon. I want to talk to you about what I wrote it on sometime when you're not busy, whenever that will be."
They both laughed.
"What about you, Almsy?" asked Graybeard.
"Oh, the usual. Enough work to kill a wild boar, you know."
"Kill and roast a wild boar," muttered Benjamin. Then he saw the time. "I've got to run. See you guys, and I'll...I'll be praying for you."
"Thanks bro!"
"Thank you, Benjamin; have a good day."
As Benjamin walked out of the Great Hall he knew he could wait no longer. Why not pray? He was supposed to pray about everything. And if it were somehow, somehow true, he had plenty of work to do!
Dear God, Please help Graybeard and Almsy to do well on their work. I pray that you would help Graybeard to work hard...to get a good grade on his philosophy test, and to stay awake this afternoon and be awake enough to finish his paper.
Nothing particularly unusual happened. He could not see the sun as he left the Great Hall. He could barely see three feet in front of him. But excitement beat hard in his chest. He wondered, and it hurt to wonder so hard.
Thankfully, his first class was interesting and he was sleepy, so he forgot and remembered, forgot and remembered, at the same time as his head sank and rose, sank and rose, until he focused all his powers on the class, and forgot his prayers completely.

He did not remember again until Graybeard burst in at two that afternoon, and dropped his book bag onto the floor.
"Hello Graybeard."
"I (hello) have had quite an interesting morning. I'm not sure about my test, but I think I did well. It surprised me that I knew it so well though, so I think I may have been completely wrong on some parts and just thought I knew it. But I am certainly wide awake. I didn't even drink any caffeine at lunch. I had better shut myself in at the computer until the paper is done, before I collapse."
"Wow. Well, I'm glad it went allright and you're more awake. I'll try not to distract you too much.
"Thank you."
Benjamin got another half of a Calculus problem wrong, and then went outside. He paced behind Mac for a few seconds, then looked up at the sky, hands on his hips. The words were at the front of his mind, squeezing together as they tried to burst out. He wouldn't let them. He wouldn't be a fool.
Biting his lip he looked down at the ground, his heart burning. He loved them all so much. It was not wrong to pray. And whatever God willed would come. It was not up to him. Or was it?
"...you will be allowed complete access to the will of God..."
he shivered. He did not want to be fooled into not praying. No, when did he ever pray perfectly? Even if there was pride and self-reliance, he would ask in Christ's name. He had to pray.
So he did. He prayed simply at first, for people who were tired, down, depressed, overloaded, people he saw around the campus. But he could not keep them out (or in), and in a few moments they burst into his prayer. They were friends who were not believers, or who he was not sure were believers, and those who he thought were Christians, but were struggling so much to make it through each day. Before he knew it he was standing in front of one of the concrete supports, head leaning on it, knuckles brushing against it as he swung his hands at his sides, his thoughts and prayers moving from one to the next. He wondered if it were love or selfishness, whether he wanted them to love and live for God so that he would be happier, or so that they would be safe, or so that God would be glorified. With several his feelings bit hard into his heart, so that he clenched his teeth and wept. When he was done he praised God, asked for his glory in the world, and prayed, "In Christ's name, Amen," before going back inside and rushing to Calculus.

Benjamin decided at dinner that he had not been truly afraid for quite some time. He cautiously asked the first friend he saw whom he had prayed for, how he was doing. He was doing well, he said; quite well, in fact. Actually...the friend paused, looking down,
"God's really been dealing with me this afternoon. He's helped me to see things a lot better. And I just heard that the whole situation that was getting me down, you know, the one I didn't want to talk about? I've gotten good news about it, so I'm happy," he smiled.
Benjamin didn't remember what he said in reply. He was happy too, as he sat down at his table and listened to the gang chattering away, but also a little dazed. Then another friend sat down at the table. She was too far away for him to talk to, so he waited, listening, until in her conversation with another friend he caught the words he was beginning to expect he would hear.
"Life...good...God...helping...grades...professor said it was all right...I'm optimistic...trusting the Lord..."
A phrase floated in front of his mind, and before he swatted it down disdainfully it whispered itself to him.
"The prayers of Benjamin Dobbs availeth much."
He could not study that evening. He waited. He had not yet had any contact with the unbelievers or the backsliders he knew. He was used to wishing he could know how they were; used to thinking he was the center of the universe, and that unless he knew about their relationship with God, it must not exist. But this was overwhelming. In this, a more aggressive and gruesome form of his sin, he could see nothing to tolerate, as he sometimes could the milder case, as simply being his care for others. This obsession he fought, and fought, and fought. Two hours passed, and all he did was make small talk with his hall mates, pace, read his Bible, pray a little in short, desperate prayers for peace.
Graybeard gave him several updates. His paper was going quite well; in fact, it was almost done, and it was still three hours until it would be due. Another friend ducked in to proclaim that he had finished his lab early and was going to go catch up on his devotions. Benjamin almost giggled. He had prayed for those things specifically.
Benjamin prayed soberly in his bed that night, for his family, for his church at home, and for a few of his closer friends. Then, as he lingered between sleeping and waking, he dreamed of what it would be like if all those he had prayed for came to know and serve God. He fell asleep smiling, and his face was wet with tears.

It had rained again in the night, but the fog was beginning to clear when Benjamin got up the next morning. He typically did not check his email until after his morning classes, but this morning was different. At least Benjamin hoped it would be. He argued with himself that even if God had answered his prayers it might be a while until he heard from his friends, especially the ones back home. But even as he promoted the sensibility of not checking his emails until a time when other people might have been awake for long enough to actually write him, he checked them anyway. There was the announcement of the next chapel speaker, who had a very dry-sounding topic. Benjamin prayed that the speaker would come in with Christ foremost on his mind, and that he would explain his topic and its relationship Christian living clearly. There was an email from a professor about an upcoming test. Benjamin prayed for all the students to do well, and then tossed in a prayer for their general health as well. Then there was an online newslink from home. He read it, since he had a few extra minutes before he needed to eat breakfast.
Apparently, there had been a massive Earthquake in Central America. It was expected that thousands had died, and even more had been displaced. Benjamin eagerly prayed for the people of the region, and then logged onto Facebook. He had one new message. It was from a dear friend back home.
The first line was confusing, a general greeting and something about wanting to let him know because it was so amazing...
Benjamin stopped jiggling his foot and rotating back and forth in the computer chair. He didn't notice it, but he was holding his breath as he pored over the rest of the message. Another friend, not a close one at all, but one of those who didn't even profess to be a Christian had apparently been born again; was exuberant about Christ, rushing around telling everyone; it was totally strange to see him so exited about Christianity, wrote Benjamin's friend, when before he hadn't cared a whit...Benjamin closed his eyes, suddenly fully awake and full of energy. He wrote a message back, thanking the friend for letting him know, and went to breakfast, praising God.

At breakfast, his friends were eager to discuss their spiritual lives. Taken-aback, Benjamin found himself wanting to jump into the conversation and just be quiet and listen at the same time. He had prayed that their conversation would be more worthwhile.

That afternoon he pulled his red-backed journal out of the second drawer of his chest, "My Prayer Journal" it said on the cover, and flipped past more than a decade of brief updates on his life, the very first in his parents' hands because he had been too young to write them himself. Finding the end of the last entry, he put the date at the top, transcribed the message from the paper airplane, and began writing down all the answered prayers. Every friend he ran into had changed, just as he had prayed they would. He was indescribably happy. The only thing that bothered him was that he wanted to tell his friends, and he knew that they would think he was insane. He could show them the note, of course, but what would that prove? They already knew how silly he was, now they would think he was insanely arrogant and looking for attention and glory. This was only made worse because he knew that, at least to some degree, he was.
He was just about finished when he remembered the Earthquake, and wrote down his prayer for protection and comfort. As he considered the event a rush of thoughts wafted through his mind. He had better start paying attention to the news. With his new power, it was his responsibility, no matter how terribly prideful it sounded to say it, to keep track of what was going on in the world so he could pray.
He spent two hours in the computer lab reading the Drudge Report ©; and he found plenty to pray about. A few wars, a genocide, several famines, a depression, two revolutions, multiple instances of persecution, and a forest fire all vied for his attention, and he sent them all on up to God to fix them. The sheer breadth of what he was praying for amazed him.
He smacked himself on the forehead with the heel of his hand. "Aids!" he gasped, and spent the next few minutes praying against that epidemic.
Then he saw an article about the Earthquake he had prayed for that morning. There had been a second Earthquake. Many more had died, including relief workers, and even a pastor who had been comforting the survivors. Fires had broken out.
Benjamin was displeased, and a little bit panicked. He had, after all, not prayed against the occurrence of another Earthquake, but he was a bit miffed at God for getting around his prayer. He had prayed that the people would be comforted and rebuild well. Now he prayed specifically that the disasters would end within the next twenty-four hours, and that no one else would die, and that the relief workers would be effective. Satisfied that he had made himself crystal clear to God, he went to dinner.

His cell phone rang as he was trying to catch up on his homework that evening and wondering if it was ethical to pray that he would do well on a test he hadn't even studied for. It was a friend from back home; one who had been struggling. Benjamin could barely hide the fact that he was not at all surprised the friend had just gone through a season of serious conviction and repentance and was now doing much better. Thankfully, despite expecting it beforehand, he was still quite happy for his friend, and he allowed that emotion to take the forefront and hide what would probably have been confusing, and perhaps offensive to his friend -- the fact that Benjamin was the one who had started things rolling. Obviously, God had done the work, thought Benjamin to himself as the conversation continued, and God had even been the one to delegate the authority to him, but he, Benjamin Dobbs, had prayed down the blessing all the same.
He put his phone on its charger when he finished his conversation, but then took it off again and put it in the pocket of his pajamas. He wanted to be available as soon as anyone else wanted to call.
"A friend from home?" asked Graybeard from where he sat at his desk behind Benjamin.
"Yep. I'm so exited...he's doing great. Better than I've ever known him to be, actually." He felt the pang of loneliness. He wanted to tell Graybeard everything.
"That's wonderful. You know, that seems to be true of a lot of people up here. I don't know if it's just that a lot of my friends have come to an easy part of the semester or what. It seems to be as much in their spiritual lives as in academics."
"Yes. I've noticed it too," said Benjamin, hoping he wouldn't say anything dishonest.
"Really? Well, it's certainly encouraging. Sometimes I expect everything to be horrible, at least until Heaven. It's nice to know God has good things planned for this life."
"Yes," said Benjamin, and he was glad Graybeard could not see the broad grin that took over his face.

Benjamin leapt from the top bunk, took a step towards his chest, tripped over his backpack and fell flat on his face in the middle of the dark room. Something glowed in front of his face. Surprised, he jerked his head back from the carpet, to find that a sheet of notebook paper lay glowing on the floor in front of him. Hurling insults at himself for not thinking to pray that he would wake up rested and non-delusional in the morning, he clambered to his feet, his knees now just as numb as the arm he had been lying on, and used his remaining good limb to turn off the alarm that was rapidly escalating. In the relative quiet that followed he could hear the construction workers beginning their day of building the new dorm room outside his window. The glowing sheet of paper was still on the floor. He leaned over a picked it up, mmphing as the blood rushed into, and back out of his head. There were letters in thick black ink on the page:

Dear Benjamin,

You have forgotten that whether I use one event to effect many, or many small events on individuals, I am always motivated by the needs of individuals. Your prayers are becoming far too general. Please pray for precisely who you would like to me to help or hurt, and I will decide on the method.

Love

Benjamin pondered the meaning of this for quite some time. He skipped his Bible-reading to check his email, and found another news article from home.
Of all the nerve, he heard himself think. A third Earthquake had struck. He looked up other news. The wars had not ended. The famine continued. God was being nitpicky, and if Benjamin had been indignant when God didn't answer his small prayers before, he was livid when God failed to answer his big ones now.
But he was not a complete fool. He pulled his anger under control. No matter if God decided to delegate his authority to him, God was still God and he was still just Benjamin Dobbs. "I'm sorry Lord," he whispered.
The door to the computer lab opened, and in walked Nathanael Booth. "Good morning, sir," he entoned to Benjamin, as he checked over the printer, "finishing a paper?"
"No, reading the news." The loneliness struck again, and this time he saw a way to share his struggle without being explicit. "I'm a bit sad this morning Nathanael. I prayed about those Earthquakes, you know?"
"Yes, I've heard a bit about them."
"Well, there's been another. It's discouraging when God doesn't answer your prayers."
"Indeed it is," replied his friend thoughtfully, eying him. "Of course," Nathanael loaded a new ream of paper into the printer, "we can't really expect precisely what we pray for to be best. He knows what he's doing. If we were in charge of everything we'd probably botch it all up. Well, I've got to go see about Mills. Cheerio!" He tipped his hat and sauntered from the room, putting on his leather gloves, leaving Benjamin to roll his eyes and sigh. That had not helped.
He turned back to the computer. He was responsible for these people. They needed him to pray for them. So he prayed.
Lord, please help each of these individuals through this hard time. Help them to know you better. Comfort them by your Word. Send people to preach to those who don't know you, and to encourage those who do.
When he finished the prayer he felt much better. It seemed that all might be well again. He headed for breakfast.
Someone had postered the campus for a birthday. He paused, confused, as he passed the first poster in Mac lobby. His picture was on it. But it wasn't his birthday for another three months. In fact, the poster didn't even say happy birthday.
Dear Benjamin, it read under the picture. He stared at it, shivered, and walked quickly out the door into the cold morning. There was another poster on one of the front supports.
Your prayers are still too general.
He walked even faster. There was another, on a bench. He wondered who else was reading these.
You are still not praying for individuals.
He tore the page off the bench. The paper ripped straight through his picture. He hurried on. There were at least half a dozen more posters lining his path in front of Founders and Mills. By the time he made it into Carter Lobby, past the girl vacuuming the floor, he had a handful of torn posters clenched in his hands. He dropped down into a sofa and squeezed his eyes shut hard, the message running through his head.

...You see, dear son, you do not know their names. I care for people by name. If you are to direct my will, you must give me your requests for each of them, and I will answer. Because I work in individuals, not generalizations.

Love

"God," he whispered after a while, "You know I cannot know their names. I could never, never pray for everyone and everything."
He did not notice the sun rising, carving swaths of dusty light through the lobby.
"I can't be responsible for praying for everyone. Lord, you know all their names. You can take care of them all. You know every bad thing that's about to happen. I can only pray after they've already come. Father, maybe it would be better if you decided how best to answer my prayers, because you know better than me."

The Feather Knight

2007-04-30T17:00:00.000-04:00

Dear Readers,

I post today as I rest upon my battle-stained blade. For I have just slain the third of five giants which assail this fair land. Two days hence either the last two shall lie dead upon this ground, or I shall. In the meantime I thought I should give you a bit of a scheduling update, and some low-quality poetry.

I intend to post a lot over the summer. The following projects have already come to mind, and I shall list them in order of impending writtenness.
~"The Prayers of Benjamin Dobbs": This is mostly written, an odd tale of what happens when Benjamin challenges God and God accepts.
~IMHO: A discussion of why we find it necessary to relativize what we say by prefacing it with qualifiers such as "I think" or "in my opinion." Why does it offend people when we neglect these phrases? Should it?
~"Timothy and the Grenobles, Part III": I may be aiming too high, but I would like to actually finish a story properly. I might just do it with this one. There's a bit and a piece of this written.
~"Benjamin Dobbs and the Case of the Flying Dutchwoman" [working title]: It's up to Mac's finest private investigators to track down the muderer of a Halcyonite. The trail will lead them down the mountain into the darkest parts of Chattanooga, and end in the middle of a deadly ring of villains.
~"Benjamin Dobbs and the Ring of Power" [working title]: The discovery of a magic ring by a member of The Family prompts a series of disturbing ethical questions (is magic on-contract?) and leads to a deadly stuggle for power at Covenant.

There may be others, but those are the ones I've got in my head at present.
Now, on to that poetry. Watch for the "behind the scenes" afterwards. Oh, and there's some violent death entailed in this tale. Take care.

The knight waited
Crest feather flapping in the breeze
Gauntlet, buckle, emblem still.
A roaming sailing light, afloat
On hilltop heather
For but a moment sailed ore his
Breastplate, laughing as it played upon
His emblem and made the feather glow.
It had not left him when he let
His lance fall
Forward to couch back beneath his breast,
Tip angled up but a little
Probing the air, thick, steady.
Metal gauntlet on wooden staff holding
Let not even the knight's heart throb it.
His helm followed the lance - tilt
A greeting between knights - the feather bobbed.
Steed, enchanted, uttered not a sound,
Till with a jab of silver heels
The armored beast burst up, forward, down,
And down the hill they sped.
Another sailing light between the clouds
Marked the meeting of the two men
At the lowest point, beneath two hills,
Each descending to condescend to send
The other to his end.
Two steel heads alight with noonday fire all their own,
Bowed to each other as they passed, then
Leapt up, long wood necks straining
Each to cross armored finish-line first.
Each horse-head rippling, damp, bespangled
Lit in the light and strained forward again.
Into the light came two crests,
One feather, shadows falling
From the helms of obscured bright
Eyes - lies of lives that did not know
Their worth, their dearth to soon
Upon them.
One lance upon its mark
Could not cross it,
Clattered, shattered on the shoulder plate,
Concussion thrilling, excitement failing
As the truth of death came close,
Scored the knight as the lance had scored his coat.
His own shaft through tattered
Garment ran and ran and caught
The feathered knight through breastplaste,
Heart, and lung.
And the young man was flung down,
Lance - like tree rising from his breast.
His beast stumbled and ran on;
His breath pitched headlong
One great gasp!
Amazed, perhaps, or agonized;
Yet could it be satisfied? Done its
Work of keeping life,
Done its work of endless strife:
Ever going, ever returning.
Now it fled, blue skies yearning,
Following up the hill the vessel
Of light.
The knight rested
Crest feather flapping in the breeze.

I wrote this a few weeks back, about an hour before taking a Calculus exam, in the middle of studying. I rather suprised myself that I had that much creativity in the middle of studying, but not that I had so little meter or rhyme. I'm not really a fan of free-form poetry myself; I prefer to think of this as a choppy story. Until next time.

Breakfast and Everything Block: An Adventure of Benjamin Dobbs

2007-04-19T21:31:00.000-04:00

Writer's block. No, everything block. It was something like drowning in opaque water. Not that Benjamin had ever tried that before, but still, he thought it was a good analogy.
It had all started with...
That was about how it went, over and over again.
Calestranov stood from the table with a start...
"Blue wing, break and engage!"...
It was a bright, blue-streaked sky that greeted the three as they emerged. On Polaris 2 it was morning. The beauty of the place was only matched by the cold. Even within their suits they would have frozen in a matter of seconds. Only the addition of heating...
He sighed. There was definitely not going to be any productive writing this evening.
Swords flashed for but a moment in the sunset; Cashalin was not one to toy with an enemy...
Well, at least not much writing that connected with anything else.
He had tried homework earlier. Physics had gotten him through Wednesday. Or, physics and all the things he got distracted by while he tried to finish his lab writeups. Now he was at a standstill on them. Linear Algebra had looked like way too much brainwork. He had talked to an answering machine. His parents were in Texas on vacation. There was very little left to do but try to write, and he had wanted to be able to for so long.
An update? No, he was not in the mood. It would be dry and boring, and some of the stories he could not bear to see written like that. They had been so funny at the time.
Like breakfast last Thursday. Everyone at the table had been tired. That was not at all unusual. The conversation had not been too memorable (at least he didn't remember a word of it). The table broke up around 7:55, and everyone headed for their classes. Benjamin accompanied Efad towards Sanderson, wondering at what point he should leave her to head back to his room. He was skipping class that day, but had gotten up to study, and Sanderson was on the way back to his room. He had a well formulated five-second-or-less explanation for bolting from the Sanderson doors (as if anyone needed one...) which he hoped would suffice to communicate a reason for his absence. Most of the time he wouldn't have doubted his ability to get his point across, but somehow pre-seven breakfasts with sleepy people led to a lot of dull stares and "Hmmm?"s
But he was the confused one when Efad said something and peeled off to the right, back towards Founders, just fifteen feet short of Sanderson. Benjamin, pre-occupied saying something about...something, and dodging the dripping water from the corner of a roof, spun about, brow creased.
"What are you doing!?" he asked.
"Going back to sleep," replied his walking companion.
He paused for a moment, and dredged up what she had said as she turned away. Something along the lines of "I don't have class."
Oh.
"Well, I'm skipping!" he announced, and they parted ways.
Yes, thought Benjamin, tapping a pencil on the desk, that had been hilarious -- each of them walking to Sanderson to keep the other company.
Gregory turned to me, blade in his hand, gasping for breath.
"We'll need a safe place to hide, and quickly. But first we'll need supplies and our weapons. Back to their camp, swift and silent, for the other soldiers will abandon it to find out the cause of that racket," he jerked his head towards where we could hear our pursuers shouting and crying out as they rushed through the sewers.
He couldn't wait until he had enough imaginative energy, and time, to finish that one. It was one of his favorites.
He began to wonder why he never finished any of his stories. And no, he scolded, killing all the characters does not count as finishing. Perhaps it was because he had never seen a whole story before. After all, he lived in the big, grand, story arc that God was bringing about, and it had not yet reached its happy everafter. He hadn't lived to see anyone both born and die, not anyone close to him, at least. And he himself was quite young. Anyway, he would not get to be better writer by dying...well, not a better righter here on this Earth. Perhaps God would be pleased to have him write on the New Earth. That would be...oh, wow...indescribable. But he probably had a lot longer to live, and he had better figure out how to end stories. After all, people might judge a book by its cover when they first see it, but when they actually read it, the last page would do a lot to determine whether they like it or not. He didn't like books that got worse near the end, or just jerked from one point or setting or group of characters or goal or quest...to another.
The determinist smiled quietly.
"You do not understand," he whispered, "but that is not a problem..."
"Because you do?" cried Calente.
"No. I do not understand what is, either. But I can tell you exactly what what did, does, and will do. And, my dear boy, you are part of what."
A sly, mocking grin split Asren's face, "Did you predict this?" she asked, straightening up from where she had been slumped against the wall. Her hand flicked from her pouch, and a clear glass marble flew across the room, its clean blue light out of place amid the dark, brown and black dirt of the hold and the travelers' clothes. A rumble sounded through the room as the head of the determinist's staff blazed with ethereal fire. The marble turned into a spherical pool of ripples, emanating outwards, until with a great sigh that echoed through the walls and corridors of the transport, and made Calente think of sweet sleep after a day of frustration, the ripples froze and the sphere dropped to the floor, shattering with a soft tinkle into thousands of shards, each so light that they bounced nearly to the ceiling, and got into the folds of everyone's clothes.
"Yes," replied the Determinist, still smiling, "I expected you would use a weaker marble, but there was a fifteen percent chance it would be that one."
Yes, Benjamin couldn't stand books that changed their points or goals midway. That was why he didn't like having writer's block. If he didn't even like his own writing, when he knew without thinking exactly what everything and everyone looked and sounded like, why should anyone else like it?
Perhaps he ought to make another go at homework...
He had been doing well that semester. Day-long study periods, even over, no, especially over Easter break, had helped him stay on top of all the projects and tests. Perhaps the breakdown had started with the random poetry about the knight that he wrote during the last hour's cramming for a Calculus exam. He'd have to type that up later, but right now, he didn't have room in his notebook. He'd even gotten some fun work the weekend before -- clearing trails behind the visitor's center. Somehow, demolishing a forest to make it look nicer made him feel all warm and fuzzy. Maybe it was that he got to cut down trees with saw tooth knives. Now that he thought about it, he was almost sure that was why. Then he had gotten to sit in the lobby, eating icecream and pretending to work for Covenant's radio station, and listen to the Bakertree festival performers. After that had been a somewhat disgruntling walk through pouring rain back to Mac, but that had been all right as well. Still, it wasn't home. And later that afternoon he had had to plow through Linear Algebra homework.
And Tuesday hadn't been so bad. His mother had called at breakfast, to ask what he was wearing. That got the table laughing of course, until he explained that she wanted to know so his family could tell who he was when he walked past the webcam on the way to class (then they laughed harder). Dear Old Chap was there; he and Benjamin had kept each other company through deep conversations about the responsibility of the church to the community, the new 18 waffle record at the Anderson's Sunday night waffles get-together, and how they were going to build their space station, all over the weekend. Now, they formulated a most-excellent plan to surprise Benjamin's family. Arriving beneath the webcam, Dear Old Chap placed himself beneath Benjamin and lifted him to his shoulders. Everyone was most pleased, torque puns were made, pictures taken, and along with Benjamin were lifted several moods. The funny thing was his family couldn't figure out who he was anyway. When he informed them why his position should have made him obvious, they simply replied, "oh, you must have been the really tall one!" In their defense, the morning sun was lighting the background, and obscuring the shadowy foreground. They could not be blamed, and fun was had by all, at least until they had to go to class.
Now the semester was almost over. He was sure he would have plenty to do that summer, but it wouldn't be as busy as school. There would be variety to his work, as well, and time at home with his family and his dear friends. Good sleep, time to write! Benjamin sighed wistfully.
"Jonathan? Are you all right?" Martus leaned forward, wishing for the thousandth time that he didn't have the flat black of the suit's mask between him and everyone he cared about. It made it hard to sneeze, too.
Jonathan did not move. Instead, he stared harder and harder off over the plain. They were only a few feet from the edge of the cliff, the mesa spread out before them, clusters of trees and animals, insects buzzing, some happy and some eerie calls echoing up from the jungle. There were a few lights from nearby ranch houses, and the stars above were thick and bright. Martus shivered a little, not used to the drastic change in temperature. His suit-skin shivered with him. Jonathan was not shivering. His pulse was steady, his internal temperature still fearfully low, his core glowing slightly through Martus' infrared eyes.
Martus glanced back over his shoulder towards the city. She loomed up, Angelus Brasília indeed, lighting the darkness like a pillar of fire, ships slipping up and down through her roof like sparks dancing in a chimney.
"They'll be closing the doors soon, and then we'll have to get through the little airlocks. It will be crowded."
He counted to twenty, stamping his feet a little, sensing the grass remotely, and enjoying the feeling even as his patience waned. Poor Jonathan.
"Jonathan, can we go back?"
"Forgive me," replied the other.
Five minutes later Martus was sitting, cross-legged on the same plot of ground he had been standing on before. Jonathan still had not moved. His apology had apparently not indicated repentance from his goal. What was he doing, trying to melt into the landscape? It was his old home, so Martus decide to forgive his obstinance. He accessed his internal computer and sent more heat through to his hands and feet. He almost wanted to activate his suit completely, to feel the warmth of it wash over him. But then he would fall asleep and nothing short of a nuke could move him -- literally! He laughed at himself.
Then he noticed that Jonathan's vitals were changing. His heart rate began to fluctuate, but increased over time, and his temperature changed. Mark tried to recall his emotion diagrams, but found he only remembered fear and resolution -- they were the only two he needed to be able to see in combat. Davel wasn't there, so he couldn't use his memory download -- cheater that he was, it came in handy sometimes.
Then Jonathan moved for the first time. His back stiffened, and then jerked, again and again. Martus leapt to his feet, endless briefings about watching out for attacks and seizures storming their way into his head.
"Jonathan, what is it?"
His friend did not respond. Instead he sobbed harder, and Martus, embarrassed, took his hands off of his friend's armored shoulders and stepped back.
As he waited for Jonathan to stop crying, he truly sympathized with him for the first time. He had speculated before, with Davel and M'haile, how terrible it must be to be lost for so many years, but never before had he been able to put himself in Jonathan's own armor prison, and consider, no, feel, for just a moment the loneliness, emptiness, and strangeness that must come with three decades of absolutely nothing but oneself.
Benjamin smiled. That had made him a little happier.
He would get back to work now, and perhaps tomorrow he wouldn't be so distracted, and he could work hard, plowing through the oh-so-healthy but oh-so-dreary plate of vegetables before him so that the beans, meat, and desert of a weekend would taste all the sweeter.
And wasn't it that way with life? Wouldn't years of struggle, writer's block, and whatever else God was pleased to give him make the eternal main dish of heaven, the Bread of Life, his dear and awesome God, all the more sweet?

A Night in the Computer Lab: An Adventure of Benjamin Dobbs

2007-02-24T00:44:00.000-05:00

Dear Reader,
It has come to my attention that interesting things happen to me. These events are so interesting, in fact, that, with only a small amount of exaggeration and re-arrangement, they can be turned into stories, better yet, adventures. Within them you find me...but not playing myself, no, that is left to Benjamin Dobbs. You will find me as the author.
And now that I have finished it I must warn you it is long and bland.

The day had gone by quickly, thank goodness. It hadn't been a bad day at all. In fact, if it had not gone by so quickly Benjamin should not, probably would not have minded. But there were several reasons that he had been peaceless for a good portion of the day. Waking up at seven in the morning after going to bed past twelve-thirty had not helped. He did not blame himself too much for his lack of sleep, though. He had stayed up to catch up on history reading so he could do well on the quiz this morning. He had just finished the three chapters -- some seventy or so pages of text -- but had not yet taken the online quizzes which most of the in-class quiz material was drawn from. So he bumbled about, not even awake enough to fall into things, and climbed back into bed, setting his watch for seven-thirty "just in case" he fell asleep while praying. There had not been a morning that week that he had not, except for the previous Sunday, when he had not taken a time to pray in the morning at all. He would stay alert anywhere from five to thirty seconds, and then he would be resting a still head on his hands, eyes closed. Another five to thirty seconds, and he would sit back up again, forcing his eyes back open, and try to remember what he had been praying about.

But this morning Benjamin did not have this problem for very long. He fell fast asleep again, waking up one minute till his alarm was due to sound.

He had been fairly alert taking the online quizzes, and in history he got an eighty. It was better than he had been doing, but he wished he had known the meager bit more needed to get him a hundred and actually help his eighty-three. After history he went straight to Mills, the science building, and entered the computer lab. Here he checked his email, Facebook, and blogs, for the second time that day. The first had been in the few moments the computer took to warm up before he took the quizzes. There was nothing important new, so he turned his attention to his assassin. His previous pursuer, an upperclassman femme-fatale, had been killed by watergun the day before. He had been happy about not having to play mouse to her cat any more -- she had at least four confirmed kills, and two sisters to help her track down targets. Her replacement was a freshman who Benjamin thought he vaguely recognized from her Great Scots photo. After working on his Physics lab writeup, due that day, he checked his three computerized social networks and headed upstairs to physics. He entered at one end of the building, having climbed the two floors on the outside stairwell from the computer labs on the bottom floor. Just before the hall reached the center of the building and turned stood two students. One was in his Physics class, and belonged there at nine-fifty-five, because she was in front of the lab that served as classroom, and class started at ten. The other did not belong there, because she was talking to the other girl as if they were friends, was not in Physics, and looked suspiciously like his new assassin. Not yet realizing the moment of the occasion, Benjamin decided to play it cool, and leaned against the wall, not approaching. The suspected killer, short and blonde with glasses that had not been present in the Great Scots photo, hugged the other and moved his way. Playing it cool dictated he walk nonchalantly back outside and leg it down the stairs and back to the computer lab to safety.

But Benjamin was a man of habit, and so he did not consider leaving his heavy bookbag, jacket, and certainly not the zip-open murse containing his sidearm behind him to give him more speed. Nor did he rush past Dr. Petcher on the stairs without calling hello. At this point, the adrenaline had kicked in, and Benjamin, instead of heading down another flight, the quickest way to the lab, decided he needed to use up as much time as possible -- if he could get into the classroom after ten-o-clock, he was safe. No assassinations could occur in class after the official starting time. So, with one glance over his shoulder to satisfy himself that his pursuer was only halfway down the stairs, he jogged along the front of the building towards the main entrance in the center. Two rather large obstacles blocked his path. Both were students, and it took an "excuse me" and a bit of suggestive shoving to get them out of the way. The moments lost without thought to his pursuer were his worst and final mistake. He heard hard footsteps behind him, began to accelerate on past the main entrance towards Carter, still carrying his heavy load, and was shot down in a hail of di-hydrogen monoxide before he hit his full speed. As he came to a halt he calmly considered and rejected the possibility that the shots had hit his bookbag and not his body -- it took a direct hit for a kill. But he had felt water on his neck and shoulders, so he turned (dropping his bags now that it was no use) and, jovially extending his hand, introduced himself to his assassin, calling her by name.

They began to pull out their contracts. Killing people was so complicated. "We need a pen," noted Benjamin. "Here," he jogged over to his abandoned pack. "I have only pencils. Will they do?"
"Oh, sure. How did you know I had you?" she asked as they both pulled out their contracts.
"Oh," said Benjamin, and paused, partly to catch his breath, partly to try to think of something effective to say, "we have our ways," he finished, and signed in a surprisingly shaky hand, glad she was saying something to a passing friend rather than watching.

Then it was back to Physics to confess to his friend, hallmate, and the un-proclaimed heart of the Sutherland Alliance, that he had failed, died, endangered the next man in the chain, and was generally reprobate and a sad sight to see. Benjamin's friend was merciful, so Benjamin turned to the friend of his assassin and frowned. After a few poor attempts at teasing her for helping what turned out to be her teammate in soccer with a kill, he turned to the front and class began. He could hardly pay attention, and realized the experience of being assassinated, while it had felt unimportant at the time, had filled him with nervous energy. He thought of at least four ways he could have dramatically escaped, disarmed, and/or killed his pursuer.

After that he skipped chapel to study a little and go to lunch early. He had skipped two chapel's already that week. Normally there were only three in all, but this week there had been extra, because the college was having a conference on marriage and sex. Benjamin felt that today's, a Q and A separated along gender lines, would probably be the least beneficial and most likely to get a bit seedy. So, he checked his email, Facebook, and blogs on his roommate's computer, paced the room, reloaded his backpack with new books, and headed to the Mills computer lab again, where he worked on his physics writeup for about ten minutes before going to lunch. There he read some physics and watched previewers on tour as he waited for the Great Hall to open.

Driven to prayer by happening upon two people in conflict, he began his rather large meal. Within a few minutes the Great Hall was filled with girls. Apparently their chapel had let out earlier than the boy's. Benjamin joked with the girls who sat at his table that the previewers must be amazed that there really were a lot more girls than guys at Covenant. Eventually the boys did arrive, the wise directed the conversation away from the discussion in chapel, and Benjamin returned to his room to study.

After traveling through a misty period of room and hall events, including escorting a hallmate to class with drawn sidearm, he returned to the Mills computer lab to work on his Physics writeup. A friend from Physics was there. "You aren't in a good mood," he commented after Benjamin picked up a calculator when it slipped from its pertch on his desk. Benjamin helped him a little, worked on his own writeup a lot, and then left to go find something else to do. Another friend, an education major and frequenter of 508 greeted him in the hallway. "Are you having a bad day?" he asked. Benjamin supposed he might be.

Thankfully, he was back in the lab within a minute, driven by guilt, to look up the ESVbible-online and read a few chapters. He was quite distraught about his spiritual state, lacking fervor, and prayed fervently but not very long about it. Then he went next door to the computer science commons, across from his Calculus classroom, and fell asleep. He slept for about fifteen minutes, and then went into Calculus. The Flying Dutchman, as they called the good Doctor of Mathematics, was retiring at the end of the semester, and Benjamin, for one, liked him. He was quite a comedian when he wished to be. During class he made one bald comment, one joke about his old age, and told several stories about the Dutch, one of which involved singing an old Dutch song. The teaching portion of the class was not nearly so entertaining, but Benjamin paid moderately good attention, took lots of notes as usual, and then headed upstairs for science seminar in the physics commons. He got a coke from the fridge, a little bag of chewy fruit snacks with 100% daily value of vitamin C, smiled at all the upperclassmen and few freshmen in the room, and took his place on the floor with his back leaning against a table just as the week's speaker, one of the two Physics professors, prepared to begin.

It was agreed that the Physics department had been quite in touch to discuss dating the same week as the marriage seminar, and an hour of half-lifes, neutron bombardment, and six-day vs. six- "day " creation debate later, Benjamin went to finish his lab writeup. Unfortunately, there were still some problems with the graphs, so he emailed his partner and good friend, and went to work out before dinner. After a good shower, two email checks and a phone call to try to contact his partner, he went and ate, mostly just listening to the interesting discussion of Agatha Christy novels, which he enjoyed profusely. By the end of the meal, however, he had turned the conversation to Alfred Hitchcock, a subject he was more familiar with. It was chilly outside, so he soon returned to the room. There he checked his email, and, having no word, went upstairs to visit his lab partner. After some conversation, looking at pictures, and listening to music, they discussed the problem with the graphs, and Benjamin went back to finish his writeup. He copied some music from his roommate's computer to his thumb drive, put his headphones in their case, packed the books his would need for a night of studying, and headed out, taking the back way behind Founders, and ascending the steep hill to Mills. He used the auxiliary computer lab, beside the first, this time, because it was completely empty, and began to set up his things.

It soon became apparent that he had not brought his headphones, and it was a shame to have an evening of studying without headphones, so he ran hard back to Mac, got them off the dresser where he had left them, and ran back again, completely out of breath by the time he was done.

He emailed one of his dinner-fellows pictures of what she had done to the gun Benjamin's roommate had shot her with (she had crushed it with one hand, quite to pieces) and more pictures recounting how Benjamin's other roommate had glued it back together, black paint, white Sutherland S and all. It even fired, though it leaked like crazy.

Once he prepared the music -- a combination of Enya, the Village soundtrack, and music from the old computer game Crusader -- he set to work on the lab. The problem, as usual, was disorganized recording of data on his part. It took about two hours to figure it out and fix it. For breaks, he looked up cool pictures of spaceships, checked his email a dozen times, and completed his weekly PE writeup:

I was under minor stress this week. Dearth of sleep was the main one...
...My sleep schedule was difficult to maintain this week...

The best part was putting mild humor and inside jokes into the text.

Nutrition was probably my best area this week. I ate less food in the Great Hall than usual, as I was avoiding it because of assassins. I ate multiple meals, most of them lunches, in my room, and Friday night I ate Chinese off the mountain.

His other roommate's mother had been in town and they had invited him to dinner with them. He still had a good meal's worth leftover in the hall refridgerator -- or at least it had better still be there.

...I only ran for ten minutes Friday, outdoors across campus, including heavy inclines and stairs. (There wasn't any reason to let that sprint go to waste, and, counting running up the hill from the gym, back down it to return the pink towel he had accidentally walked out with, and back up the hill again the Mac, he had run ten minutes).

Finally, at about eleven, Benjamin finished the writeup, none the worse for wear, and commanded it to print. There was a dearth of printing, so he went to the printer and eyed it imperiously. It was complaining about an unexpected paper size, so he hit the large green button titled "go" and waited. After thinking for a while, it decided to go into a rest cycle, so he hit "go" again, and it went.

First it printed out an essay on physical education. Then it printed out a psychology outline. It continued with the entire schedule of Fall 2007 classes offered at Covenant. A paper on Bartok was next, followed by the definitions of words like Borazine and Thiacyanines. Finally, the crisp graphics of a Physics department lab writeup emerged facedown. But alas, it was a friend's. The next was Benjamin's however, and he snatched it up eagerly.

CENTRIPETAL FORCE

read the title.

Dr. Petcher
Box 625

That was going to be a problem. Benjamin was no Dr. Petcher (though his mailbox number was 625). It seemed he had forgotten to replace his Physics professor's humorous placeholder with his own name. It took only a moment to correct the error, but a check of the pages of the new printoff showed that, despite working all afternoon to fix it, he had still left two glaring errors on his graph. Congratulating himself on acquiring so much scratch paper, he printed off a third version, and took it upstairs to the Physics commons where it was to be turned in. The commons was locked for the weekend, of course, but that was all right because the date printed automatically on the paper -- he could prove he had completed it on time.

Returning to the lab, Benjamin crossed the third floor bridge, which looked down on the stairs and the first floor, and out of great panes of glass through the front and back of the building, off both sides of the mountain. To the front the blunt, broad, brick face of the chapel, shot through the center with a streak of stained glass, blocked most of the view of Chattanooga. To the back trees gave way to trees, to the quiet valley and lights, range upon range of mountains, and the dimming horizon where the sun had just gone down. Quite pleased with himself, Benjamin returned to the lab, deciding he ought to write about his exploits.

And so he did.

Timothy and the Grenobles, Part II

2007-01-27T00:25:00.000-05:00

Dear Readers,

It is continued, but not yet finished. I do not apologize for putting it down, for tonight has become tomorrow, and I must sleep.

"Well, which way is it?" asked Lisa, for she was an educated young lady, and knew well-enough that the first part of getting somewhere is going in the right direction.
"Which ever way you go, so long as, at the end of it, you are home," they replied.
Lisa raised her eyebrows, the same way she always wanted to when she had to pretend there were numbers that were less than none.
"If I go that way, I will go home," she said, pointing over her shoulder into the woods, "but it will not be your home."
"How can it be yours and not ours?" they asked.
"Take off!" commanded Timothy, pointing at the boot of the Grenoble that stood beside him.
"We cannot," they replied. "We cannot take off our boots until we are home, and," they said, their voices dropping to the taut gust of a winter's wind through the trees, "we cannot go home until you do."
"Let's go home, Timothy," said Lisa, sadly, for she felt very sorry for the Grenobles, though she could not understand why they should have such difficulty.
"Take off!" He shouted, and, standing, he whacked at the boot. The Grenoble watched him silently.
"They say they can when we get home. It's almost dinnertime anyway. Let's go home."
"Take off at home?"
"Yes!"
"Come home!" he called to the Grenobles, and, as if he were sailing into a gale, he plunged into the woods.
A burst of wind followed him, as Lisa clambered up the bank. As she too plunged through the woods the wind twisted and rippled her dress, and she loved the cool breeze in the warm, damp air. Timothy stopped to watch a line of ants climb a highway set deep in a crack in the bark of a venerable pine and looked back to make sure his companions were following. Lisa checked as well, and saw, to her surprise, that the Grenobles were skipping, sprinting, twirling through the woods. One moment, they were walking soberly straight ahead. A burst of wind caught them; and with their arms held arched behind them like those of a ballerina, they too burst forward. The wind changed direction, dipping to the left, and the Grenobles swayed and dipped as well. The wind swirled, spinning Lisa's hair around her forehead, and the Grenobles twirled with it, limbs acting out the parts of eddies and currents. Timothy let out a cry of joy for he knew not what.
For when he looked at the Grenobles, he saw the wind.
Both Grenobles stopped, and Timothy began again his homeward romp. So still they stood, their limbs rustling for a moment longer than they moved, and so still was the wind, that Lisa turned to look over her shoulder at them.
"Have you remembered the way home?"
"We have found him," they replied in whispers. Then, all at once, they leapt forward, flying through the air, and, though she could barely see for the torrent of wind that stung her eyes, hurled leaves every direction at once, and threw her into a run towards home, she thought that their legs still stretched below them all the way to the ground, and they were running, but perhaps it was only the forest floor caught up in the wake of the wind beneath them.
She knew then that they were not mimicking the wind with their dance. The woods all about were still, until they moved. There was no rush in the distance. The wind mimicked them, or perhaps, stranger still, Lisa thought they could be making it themselves.
On she ran, and the sober thoughts in her mind and on her face melted when she heard Timothy squealing with delight as the wind caught him. She laughed as well, and her laugh was small and weak compared to the laughter of the Grenobles, for it was all the roar of the great gusts, the rustle of a thousand leaves, the singing of many great chords, none of which could be completely separated from another, and so could not so much be said to blend into as to be the same song.
So the Grenobles sang and so they danced their way through the woods.
Until, not nearly long enough and some time later, the two children ran laughing and breathless into a small glade, the last few bursts of a wind-storm sighing about them. They did not remember such a place -- where the trees grew thicker around, but thinner in number, and the new grass saluted the sky despite the leaves that laughed and lounged about their upright blades, and where the wind dipped down to mingle and chatter with a brook. The Grenobles arrived not long after the wind, and skipped their hands across its surface like stones before plunging their faces into it. They followed the brook, socializing with the water, until a drop in its path sent them somersaulting head over heels down into a pool. They fell with grace and beauty, spinning and twisting like a wind that has lost whatever course it was following, until they fell, limp-limbed, their bark streaked with rivulets of water, and were still at last.
Timothy had laughed a great deal more than Lisa when the Grenobles fell over the brook, for she was concerned they would be bruised by the fall, while Timothy had no doubt that anything so funny and exciting could hurt anyone.
"I've never been here before," said Lisa, concern shading her eyes. She cast her gaze back and forth, with each little gasp of air, and her lip quivered, for she did not like being lost at all.
Timothy stuck a finger in the water cautiously, roared at the cold, and ran up to a big, mossy old tree and caught it in an embrace, his arms not circling round a tenth of it.
"Aaaah!" he shouted, pushing with his feet, and Lisa, bound to pout if she was to be lost, scolded rather than laughed.
"You can't move that!" she said. For it looked very much as if Timothy were trying to pick the great tree up by the roots.
"Mmmmm!" He bit it fiercely.
There was a great splashing sound, and a burst of wind flew by. The Grenobles had leapt from their rest with a great flourish, and stood, now perfectly dry, before them, as a mist of water that they had flung off fell on Lisa and Timothy. Timothy turned at the sound and the gentlest of drumming on his back by the water, and leaned his face on the side of the tree to stare at them, whishing air in and out of his reddened cheeks, his eyes soft and tired.
"We are here," said one Grenoble.
Will you be home?" asked the other.
All was still.
"Home! Take off!" shouted Timothy, his eyes coming awake again, and Lisa jumped, startled. She did not know how, but she knew that whatever was happening was very important the Grenobles, more important than what had happened before.
"Is this your home?" she asked, looking around.
"We are here." They both said.
"Where is here?"
"Will you be home?"
"I most certainly would if you hadn't made us lost!" she cried.
"Then be home...look," and they walked, stiff and straight, no more than a rustle accompanying them, to the edge of the brook. There, was a pool. Though the water on either side leapt and danced, the center was still. Even more curious, Lisa saw, was that the water ran both ways away, and neither into the pool, as if it were the source of the whole rushing brook. Yet it lay as still as if it were ice, and through it the children could see, as if through clean yet gently swaying glass, a great well. It was the open trunk of a great tree, which reached almost to the surface, so that any ripple would expose the uppermost fingers of wood to the air. But nothing disturbed the water, and the well might as well have been a picture, but for the spring in its bottom. Playing with the water, rolling the current, rippling the inner walls of the trunk spun out a jet of water, Yet, as you, dear reader, I hope understand by now, the surface of the water was not disturbed. This truth struck the children just as often and odd as it has struck you.
"Staiws!" Timothy saw them, curving down around the inside of the trunk, carved wooden stairs, half-logs, so that only their tops were flat. Down and down they went until the blue of the water became too deep to distinguish the brown of the wood.
"What's down there?" cried Timothy, looking up perplexedly at the Grenobles.
"The spring."
"No, but, beneath it?" asked Lisa, looking up at them just as Timothy looked back down, sober-faced, to examine this "spring".
"We cannot go there, so it is no use saying," they replied.
Lisa stood up straight, crossed her arms, and pouted. "What is the matter?" she asked in her most fearsome voice -- a quiet, piercing one that began every word too quiet to hear and thrilled through it so that it resounded with crushing urgency at the end. Timothy almost fell into the pool at the sound of it, for it bode badly for him when she was angry. He took a few steps away, casting about for a hiding place, or hiding person. (A hiding person is just as good, if not better, than a hiding place, for, even if you are found with them, big sisters cannot take you away from a hiding person, so you can forget your big sister and play with their buttons while they hold you).
"Nothing," said the Grenobles.
"But there is something the matter! It is past our dinner! We need to go home. Come on, Timothy!"
Timothy wailed and ran behind his great tree.
"We need to go home," said the Grenobles.
"Then go! You're wind...like wind...go!"
"We need to go down the water," said one.
"We need you to stop the spring," said the other.
Once more Lisa knew they were in deadly earnest.
"Stop it?" Lisa pitied them. She could not leave them. Besides, Timothy, she could tell, did not want to be caught and brought home; he would be very difficult. So, "How?" she asked.
"Put finger in it!" laughed Timothy, and he bolted for the water. There was little he enjoyed so much as sticking his finger into the water-spout, feeling the water run faster to escape it, and chasing it about with his hand, trying to catch it and stop it. He never could, and that is not such a bad thing, for a game that is bliss to play should never be won, or it becomes tiresome.
"Timothy!"
Timothy shied away and sat down on the bank, a frown on his face. He did not like big sisters.
Lisa raised her eyebrows, trying to look important, and, walking a few feet downstream (she could not have walked any other way!) she took up a large, round-edged stone. Huffing with the weight, she brought it back and stood on the edge of the pool with it. She looked at the Grenobles on either side of her, and then at Timothy, sitting a little ways off. They all stared back at her, and, rather embarrassed, and glad there were no adults around to think she was silly, she mphed the stone into the water. It sank through the top of the pool, sending but a single ripple out to the edges, and fell ever so slowly, until, but a moment after it disappeared into the spring, the water stopped playing beneath the pool, and the pool, with a ripple like a spider's-web caught in the wind, sank and darted out through cracks in the trunk walls, different currents bumping into each other, like a school of fish, embarrassed to be intruding. The brook did not stop, however, but began around the top edges of the trunk, water pouring from the side of each splinter of wood outward, but not inward. Soon the well was empty, and Lisa could see that it went very far down indeed. Timothy stepped to the edge of the pool, and then onto the first step inside the trunk. He looked back at Lisa, half giggled, half gasped (for she frowned at him), and charged down the steps, moving more back and forth than he did forward and down.

Timothy and the Grenobles, Part I

2007-01-15T22:32:00.000-05:00

Preface: (Aren't literary words fun?). Here is a story. It is a bedtime story. I made it up lying on the carpet, my hands beneath my head, staring at the ceiling. I told it to a little boy, and it put him fast to sleep. I am writing it now because I am too sleepy to do any schoolwork, and want to go to bed soon. I will not finish it tonight, but some other night I hope to. I wish everyone a good night.

It was a misty day in late April. The sun had winged its way to the heights, pierced the clouds for a few moments during naptime, and was now falling, out of sight, towards its rest behind the Johnson's garage. For Timothy, three years old, had divined its hiding place, and secretly planned to seek it out some night and wrestle it across the Johnson's driveway out into the street, where it would light the yard so that he would be able to play forever and not go to bed when he was supposed to.
But the sun was not his object this particular day. No, he was enjoying his after-naptime romp through the back woods, his sister Lisa trying her best to keep up with him, but failing, of course. For young boys, Timothy knew, were much more clever and agile than grown-up girls like Lisa. Why, she was all of nine years old already! He felt sorry for her, for soon she would not be able to show her age on her fingers, and what is the fun in being older if you cannot show it to people?
The sun was to the left, its warmth cutting through the mist in rays of water droplets, water-stained, moss-covered bark, and reflecting pools in leaves. The leaves squished and squelched beneath his feet and he squirmed his toes and nose and paused to examine his footing in the deep muck. Satisfied, he turned about, his wide body giving him ample balance, and saw Lisa moving with behemoth strides through the forest behind him. He giggled uproariously and dashed away into the woods, a broad smile on his mouth, leaning his weight forward like a ship's sail caught in the wind, and his grinning face was his own figurehead, his arms the rigging.
But ships do not have feet, and oceans rarely have roots, so the ship that was Timothy was, as a matter of course, surprised to tumble down into the leaves. Undaunted, he put himself back on his feet, examining himself soberly. He was somewhat dirtier than before. A leaf was stuck to the base of his hand by a clump of mud. A black-stained pine twig clung by a drop of dirt to his chin, and his shirt had several new stripes on it.
"Timothy! You'll get all dirty!" cried Lisa, her tone important and full of peril, for she thought to be dirty one of the worst things that anyone could be.
He laughed harder and ran on into the woods. There was nothing in these woods for quite a while -- he had heard his father say once that there was nothing until the next neighborhood, and Timothy expected that was quite a long way.
Now, running in the woods while someone is following you is a tricky game. Run too fast, and you might loose your sister, and never find her again, and that would be a shame. Run too slowly, and she may well catch you, scold you, clean you up, tickle you, or something of that nature. Of course, at some point you must let yourself be caught...but not until you're quite done with your romp. So Timothy had to check over his shoulder often to make sure Lisa was neither lost nor about to swoop him up with her great big strong arms. After going some ways on, he saw that she was falling behind. He turned around, flinging the leaf from his hand by his motion, and laughed loudly so that she would catch up. He saw her moving slowly from tree to tree, but she was going more in a circle than coming towards him, so he shouted "Wis-AAA!" and began bounding back towards her, slightly annoyed that she would abandon the game.
Lisa, meanwhile, tired of pretending to chase her baby brother, slowed to a walk and wistfully glanced at the treetops above her, humming tunes that only she could discern, and glancing into the distance occasionally to make sure she could still see Timothy. Soon he was almost out of sight, and she was day-dreaming about whatever it is big sisters daydream about (many of you, dear readers, may be big sisters yourselves, and I am sure you choose choice daydreams, but I cannot tell what they might be, as I can only speak for big and little brothers, and not for sisters at all). His call made her jump and forget her dream, and, feeling a little guilty for letting him get so far ahead as she now saw he was, she began to run towards him.
As Timothy came near to Lisa, she ducked behind a tree, and, amused to find that she had known better after all, and invented a new game where he chased her, crept up to it giggling, careful to step quietly so she would not hear his approach.
As Lisa caught up with Timothy, he hopped down out of sight into a creek-bed, and, stirred to greater haste at the thought of what he would look like if given a chance to enjoy himself in the muddy stream, Lisa hopped down to the bank. "Timothy!" she cried scoldingly as she spotted him, and then she stopped very abruptly and took several steps back, so that she bumped into the bank and sat down on it, dirtying her dress. "Oh!" She said sadly, examining it, and then turned back to the little creature that she had thought before to be Timothy. "Now, see what you have made me done?" she scolded.
Timothy let out a squeal, halfway between delighted and terrified, for he had grabbed not Lisa, but a branch, and the branch had gently drawn itself back from his chubby hands. The brother and sister saw each other -- the real each other, finally -- from where they stood, not more than a few moments' Timothy-run apart.
Lisa pursed her lips, folded her eyebrows, placed her hands behind her back (over the mud on her dress), and examined the creature that she had mistaken for Timothy. Timothy, meanwhile, sat down and stared at the one that he had mistaken for Lisa.
The two creatures were very similar, yet, especially in their faces, the brother and sister could tell them apart easily, though they would not be able to say why, similar to how two puppies may look just alike to a visitor, but are easy for their master to name. They were brownish-green creatures, and their skin looked like bark, but they did not crackle or crumble as they moved. The bark, indeed, seemed able to bend easily as far as it needed to. Leaves and moss clung to them, and they wore boots lined with thick wet dirt with an upper of leaves and a lower of their own bare feet. They were each about as tall as Lisa, each had two arms and two legs like Timothy, and they had faces. Their faces were strange, and made Timothy look very serious. They had no noses to speak of, and if they had mouths, Lisa could not see them. Timothy looked at the eyes of the one nearest him, and yawned. Its eyes, Lisa mused, were like acorns. Not green acorns, or dirty acorns, or scratched acorns, but the acorns that have fallen unbruised, and been washed clean in a pool of rainwater till they shine a perfect rich reddish burgundy that makes you think of smelling good living wood and knocking on knotholes in trees, and root-beer flavored candy. The eyes did not look deep, but they seemed to shine the color of wet, clean wood deep in the forest where the light cannot come and yet you feel perfectly cozy and at home, until, of course, some naughty leaf drips a drop of water down the back of your neck and makes you gasp. The creatures looked at them with their eyes, eyes that reminded Timothy of the blind dog that lived next door, and also of the eyes of his teddy bear.
"What are you?" asked Lisa politely.
"We are the Grenobles," they answered, and as they spoke Lisa saw their mouths, but once they were silent she could not find them again.
"Ha!" said Timothy. He was amused that little treeish people talked. He was of the age where he had not yet firmly decided anything about the world, and so did not know that he should be very startled to find such creatures.
Lisa, on the other hand, knew quite well that there should be no such thing, but was old enough to know that it is silly to deny what you see with your own two eyes. So, she smiled and said, "We're Hunters," for that was their father's and mother's name. "We live through the woods that way. Where do you live?"
"Will you help us find it?" they asked.
"Do you not know where your own home is?" she asked in pity and astonishment, thinking that they were lost.
"We would know better if you showed it to us," they replied.
"Ha!" said Timothy again.

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-25T09:07:00.000-05:00

I am blessed beyond belief.
I'm sitting in a really nice house, my really nice family is getting up to start preparing a really nice Christmas celebration. I'm using my dad's really nice computer to write this, without any concern about bad things happening in my really nice neighborhood in my really nice town in my mostly awesome state in my comparatively unbelievably great country, in this modern world which has more wealth and amazing good things than any other ever has. I'm enrolled in a really nice college, have lots of really nice friends, a complete lack of enemies, really nice or otherwise. Outside the windows is an exquisitely beautiful world. God has blessed me so much in my life.
But that's not why I'm blessed beyond belief. I'm blessed because God sent His Son to Earth, and His Son came willingly, fully aware of why He was coming.
He came to die so that an ungrateful wretch of a person like me could escape the just punishment for what I have done. He deserves more honor and glory than I can ever give Him.
Thank God for sending Him! Thank God He came, because I am so proud of all the things He has given me, and so thankless for them, and so undeserving of them. I need a Saviour very much, and He fills that need perfectly.
His coming is good news for all people. He died for all who ever have, or do, or will believe in Him. He came because He loved us, not just to save us, but to adopt us into His family.
Truth is stranger and better than fiction.

History

2006-12-23T22:59:00.000-05:00

Today at work I started up a conversation with an elderly customer. She was resting her legs, and was glad to talk. She is eighty-one, her last name is Loid (I believe that is the correct way to spell it), and she has lived in the Fayetteville area for a long time. She remembers when my boss was born and teases him about things he did when he was a toddler. This is not something many people can do.
Hearing her talk about the past was amazing; what affected me most was hearing about her husband. He was in the marines, third division, in World War II. He and the rest of his unit, two hundred plus men, fought at Iwo Jima, where only six survived (I'm not sure if she meant survived unwounded or survived, period). He died about five years ago.
I'm sure there are plenty of stories like this, but you don't hear them from these men's wives everyday.
I got paid during the course of the conversation, but I would have payed to have it.
And that's not only because she wished her hair were as curly as mine.
I have lots to say about grandparents and history, but I think I will leave most of it for another time. Let's just say that I would have thoroughly regretted not having the conversation I had today. I will probably never get a chance to hear that lady's wisdom and history again.

Absolute Truth or The Gospel?

2006-12-09T01:08:00.000-05:00

Which should a Christian address first? If someone does not believe in absolute truth, is it worthwhile sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them, or is a belief in "truths" being just as real for you as they are for me more important?
After all, how can someone believe that there is only one God when they believe that two people can believe in two different Gods and both be just as correct!?
Personally, I prefer to avoid questions. For instance, when I am writing an outline in church and the Pastor says that his first point is "Why can Christ save us?" I write: " I. Why Christ can save us." After all, the point is the answer, not the question. [This is why the title of this post, along with the majority of the sentences in the first two paragraph's are questions. Go figure.]
I was hoping the above would somehow apply to my topic, but I don't think it did. Anyway, let me rephrase my question. Can God save someone before they believe in absolute truth? An attached question: does someone who believes in no absolute truth really mean the same thing when they say they believe something, as someone who does believe in absolute truth? Can I possibly make my sentences any more complicated?
The latter question will be answered soon enough; the former I will answer immediately: Of course not! If you really and truly do not believe in absolute truth, you cannot really and truly believe in anything. Of course, most relativists, when smacked in the face, would find that what was true for you (smacking) was true for them (being smacked). So there are few people who do not believe in any absolute truths.
It seems, however, that a pretty good number of people are convinced that they can believe one thing in their "spiritual life" and another in their "real life.' Despite the 'real' in front of the one, these two things are supposed to be just as true. They just don't affect each other.
This utter separation is foolish. Some things can be regarded as having no affect on each other. Take, for instance, the affect my sneezing here has on the star Deneb. None at all (as far as I know). The problem is that God claims to be very involved in the world and our lives. Believing in Him must have an affect on all our many "lives".
So, we should try to convince people through logic and reason that there must be absolute truth, and then share the gospel with them.
No.
The very fact just considered -- that God is involved in everything -- should give cause for pause before we assume that his gospel is insufficient to bring men to a knowledge of the truth. Certainly, it must be heard and believed. But the Gospel is not an argument with certain assumptions we must hold before we can accept it. Paul writes in Romans 1:16 "...I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes..."
Ah, yes, but they must first believe it!
"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God." (Ephesians 2: 8). See I Cor 12:9 and Romans 12:3 as two other references for the nature of faith as a gift of God.
The assurance of the unseen reality of God and His works is another of his works, not ours. While a lack of belief in absolute truth may be the defense someone uses against believing on Christ, it is not the real reason. The real reason is that we are all dead in our sins and will not believe -- until we are made alive through Christ. Take away every defense that can be given, and still no one will believe without a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit to make them alive together with Christ.
If someone believes that there is no absolute truth, God can quite easily work in their heart to make them believe in Him. They may not realize it, but they now believe in absolute truth. Now, many believers, whether consciously and vocally or not (I am included among them), pretend that they do not believe in absolute truth. This is not something that should be ignored, and there is certainly nothing wrong with discussing absolute truth with an unbeliever. But God will deal with a Christian who tries to hold relative truths, and He is quite capable of saving people who do not believe in absolute truth. The Gospel, therefore, should be the priority. Christians and unbelievers in conversation should not bog themselves down talking about absolute truth when the much larger issue of God and man is unaddressed. The power of God is the Gospel. The power of my reasoning skills, however fabulous, can't hold a candle to it. Thank Him for that!

Haiku's Do Not Have Titles

2006-12-06T21:47:00.000-05:00

Posts do.

Justin Johns and I had fun in Calculus class today. Heather's haiku started us off.

Justin is not happy about our last test. Considering the class average grade was something like a 41%, and no one got above a C, I think that describes most of us:

I understand this
I just can't do it on tests
Stupid Calculus...

Dr. Schaffers, our Calculus professor, is 79, and we all love him. He loves making fun of us, and we've started getting into the mix ourselves. This one is based off of a comment John Davis made in class.

Schaffers tells his class
They think they live forever
They reply "you have!"

Justin replied:

Math haikus are fun
But you must see we are nerds
To the nth degree.

I chuckled and pulled out a proof:

A math nerd is in love
Says he's dependant on her
"I'm her f of x"

Later in class, Peter raised his hand with a question about the final.
"If for some reason you wanted to ruin our lives..."
"Oh, I love it," Schaffers cut him off jovially. "I'm a sadist."

The best news we got today was that we aren't meeting on Friday as previously expected.
"On the ninteenth day of Christmas, dear Schaffers gave to me...No Calculus class!"

Tidings of comfort and joy, ya'll -- no, seriously.

My Only Hope for Ever Becoming a Musician

2006-11-20T20:00:00.000-05:00

My roomate Matthew's dad sent him this video. It's really amazing -- funny, nerdy, and pretty all at the same time.

Youtube video

In fact, it was so great that by the time I had watched half of it I had gleaned from it a spiritual truth. Consider how our prayers are presented to God by Christ, aided by the Holy Spirit, in a similar way as this video, assisted by the editor, has been presented to us (of course, we aren't God. So much for analogies).

Founder's Skit Night

2006-11-16T13:08:00.000-05:00

Founder's Skit Night

This link will take you to Matt Katzenburger's blog for a brief explanation. From there, plug in the URL, and prepare yourself.

Protagonists Have No Parents

2006-10-22T18:49:00.000-04:00

This is a subject with lots of potential (mwahaha). Dad pointed it out to me, which is ironic. You see, the great majority of protagonists (hero/heroine of the story) in children's literature especially, have no parents, or just one parent, or manage to get their parents out of the picture early on.
Let's start with recent hits in moviedom, primarily those drawing from books. Though I have not read or seen the story, I am under the impression that Harry Potter certainly has no contact with his parents, or has no parents at all. Frodo's parents are dead at the beginning of the Fellowship of the Ring, despite the fact that he is still considered an adolescent. Anakin Skywalker never had a father, and his mother, while playing a part in the story, is not a parental influence after the Phantom Menace. Luke Skywalker never knew his mother, and is functionally without a father. And let's not forget the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, or any of Lewis' Chronicles. The examples of children without present parents make that of Digory's mother (weakened to the point of ineffectiveness) a contrast. Cheaper by the Dozen has parents, but at least in the fictionalized movies the relationship is primarily antagonistic. And then there were a Series of Unfortunate Events...
Other children's books: Treasure Island spends its first few chapters getting away from the mother. The evil stepmother is not very motherly. Otto, of Otto of the Silver Hand, never knew his mother, and his father sends him away. The Accidental Detectives series is a marked exception, with two Christian parents at times figuring prominently in the stories. Most of the books, however, separate the characters from their parents. Frank Perretti's Cooper Kids series prominently features the strong, meek father, but the mother is dead. Little Men is about a boys' school -- no parents are present. The girl in Swan House has only one parent. There's Heidi, Naruto, the orphans in At the Back of the North Wind, the Boxcar Kids, Pollyanna, Rose in Eight Cousins, Sarah and Nellie in Little Princess, Oliver Twist, that girl in the Secret Garden, and Cosette in Les Miserables.
Now, it is reasonable and realistic for some children in stories to be orphans, as it is for some children in stories to be away from their parents. But it seems that a vast majority of children's stories include either no parents or little interaction between the parents and the children (please, correct me with examples if I am wrong). This is just a little odd!
There are several reasons I can think of for why this situation makes for a better, or easier to write story. First, the hero seems more heroic in most reader's eyes if he or she must overcome obstacles without someone else outside doing the majority of the protecting, saving, thinking, advising -- in effect, hero-ing! In addition, accurately portraying a healthy relationship (in human terms) between parents and child is difficult. A lot of people never had that relationship, so cannot write from experience. It is tempting to turn the parents into the antagonists, or into distant advisors, more the founts of wisdom than active participants in the story.
It is sad that this relationship is lacking. One might note that the father-son/daughter relationship between God and His children is also sorely lacking, even in "Christian" books. The prayer, the occasional apology, the spiritual lesson learned, is often all that can be found. What of the constant dependence, prayer and, repentance, love -- the personal relationship?
All the characters I have written into being so far are orphans, or, for the majority of the story, separated from their parents. That is not inherently wrong, but completely neglecting to write about this aspect of life can reflect a general lack of skillfulness in the author, and, more importantly, a lack of respect for the relationship between parents and children.

Maybe I Understand the French Better Now

2006-10-17T21:34:00.000-04:00

I dug this up on Wikipedia while researching the wars between India and Pakistan.
coup de grace
The second paragraph is the best. Note "coup de gras"

Why the Bible is Not #1

2006-10-08T18:28:00.000-04:00

I'm having two thoughts.
My first thought is that the Bible shouldn't be on my favorite books list. No, I do like it, actually. A lot. I probably read it more than anything but my Calculus book (I suppose that rules out using reading-time to determine what books I like : ) ). My concern is for reverance. Of course it's a great book! It's the Word of God!! In fact, it's so good that putting it on my favorite books list seems a little like putting Gilbert and Sullivan at the same level as, as NSync. Isn't that a little disrespectful? If you have the integers one through ten, and infinity, and put them in order from least to greatest, do you simply put infinity the same distance from ten as you put ten from nine? Is that really accurate?
My second thought is more of a counter-thought. Shouldn't the Bible always be there? Shouldn't it be the book I like and enjoy most of all?
So, instead of putting it on top of the list, or not on the list at all, I put it somewhere near the bottom. Joben has lost his mind.
I suppose so, but this may not be the appropriate example of my insanity.
You see, this is a favorite books list. I haven't taken it to be a of books I learned the most from, found to be the most spiritually enlightening, correct, inspired, or holy!
The list, it seems to me, is for books I enjoy reading, was entertained by, and found to be of good quality both in style (good medium) and content (good message). The Bible has the best message ever. The medium, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is also the best ever. The style, for a large part, however, is not, shall we say, inspired! Some of the human writers of the bible were not quite masters of the written word. Others were. The Bible is a lot history and record, sometimes giving specs and materials and building techniques for buildings. Some of that is boring to me, other parts of it give me chills. It also has a lot of poetry, prophecy, and address. Weighed out, all in all, I enjoy the Bible a lot...so it's on my favorites list.
But that doesn't seem sufficient -- especially if I don't put it at the top. I need to explain. I just have. The Bible is the Word of God, containing Salvation through the Gospel -- good news -- of the Son of God becoming man and dying for the men who rebelled against their maker. All who believe on Him and His sacrifice to atone for their sins will be saved. What glorious truths! What a story, the true story, that all others can only imitate or pervert! What condescension on the part of God to bring us word of these things! To do these things! Is the inspired word of God not the only perfect thing in this universe? Even Creation is changed and twisted and cursed -- our foe, not our friend. The word speaks Hell to the unbeliever, but only to warn, and to show the way of escape, the way to Heaven! On a list of most important, best, or true-est books, I would always put the Bible first and others far behind.
But that's not how I treated the favorites list; so, the Bible isn't at the top.
Of course, maybe it should be my favorite -- my most enjoyable read. If we characterize books, it is certainly a closer friend and companion to me than any other book, and I put a lot more trust in it than any other book, by the merit of it's divine inspiration (God-spoken-ness) and illumination (God-lit-up-ed-ness). I am not so concerned about not being more entertained by other books than the Bible. The Truth isn't neccessarily so entertaining as it is riveting. Perhaps I should treat it a little more expectantly, as if everything I said about its inspiration were true (imagine that...).
So, I shall strive to love my Lord and Saviour and His book more. Would it not be good to be taught by God to love Scripture above all other books and past-times, to read and sing it's message like food and drink? In the meanwhile, I have honestly ranked it, and written a lengthy explanation for why.
[It took me about five minutes to realize I had not given justice to the Bible in this post, so this is the new and improved version, which is, sadly, still errant and uninspired.]

Speaking of Virtual

2006-09-25T12:33:00.000-04:00

I suppose we were only "speaking" in a virtual sense.
Anyway.
After reading Ben's blog and comments on all the virtual things going on, I wish to relate something that will make all the virtual-lover's dreams come true.
secondlife.com
Note the amount of U.S. currency spent in the last 24 hours.
My computer programming professor told us this morning of an article which described virtual fashion designers who are now able to support themselves by converting their virtual earnings back into U.S. currency.
Comments and speculations, please.
Well, back to the real world.

"Counter-Productive" adj:

2006-09-21T15:30:00.000-04:00

In the last three days I have spent five or six hours draped over chairs reading my PE text.
It seems that a lot of people in our country, and most others, are dying from sedentary lifestyles.
My PE book goes to great, boring, flowchart-enhanced lengths to explain to me just how these people die (slowly and often painfully, not to mention expensively) and just how many steps of "self-programming" I need to go through to save myself from this fate (six). I felt the atherosclerosis beginning even as I sat there.
If only I hadn't had so much reading I would have gone to the gym.