Seriously, Jen and I just about died laughing. Click on this link to see the video. If you are in a laughing mood, you should be rolling on the ground. If you are not, wait until you are in a good mood. Whew...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSs7NCWp6kA
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Friday, March 14, 2008
Field Trip Friday
Since I went to school in Africa and was home schooled through 7th grade, we didn’t go on field trips very often. I actually think that I went on about 3-4 in my entire time in school. My work has helped to make up for that a bit though. We get to go on “site visits” to see the buildings that we have designed while they are being built. Today I went on another site visit to the “United Health Group” building that is going up in Minnetonka. UHG is actually the company that was interested in interviewing Jen. It’s a small world.
The building that we checked out today was mid-construction. You could walk on all of the floors, but the glass was not in all of the walls. Some areas were pretty well finished off, and other areas won’t be done for months still. We checked out the bathrooms and watched a guy putting tile in. We got to walk on the roof of the building (it 10 stories, so the view was fun). They had huge industrial heaters that looked like airplane turbines. You could see huge blue flames roaring inside them. They were quite toasty. On the way to the roof, we got to ride in the construction lift. It was mostly like an elevator, but had plywood on the sides. There was an old man sitting inside that apparently does nothing other than operate the lift.
Safety is very important to Opus, so we had to wear hard hats and safety glasses (normal prescription glasses do count) and hard soled shoes the entire time. I feel very official and important when we go on the site all dressed up like that.
The entire trip took about an hour and a half. It was a very good way to spend my afternoon, since I got back and felt like I barely sat down to work before it was time to go. This is the 3rd or 4th site visit that we have made since I started at Opus. I’m finally making up for all of the field trips that I missed out on in school :)
The building that we checked out today was mid-construction. You could walk on all of the floors, but the glass was not in all of the walls. Some areas were pretty well finished off, and other areas won’t be done for months still. We checked out the bathrooms and watched a guy putting tile in. We got to walk on the roof of the building (it 10 stories, so the view was fun). They had huge industrial heaters that looked like airplane turbines. You could see huge blue flames roaring inside them. They were quite toasty. On the way to the roof, we got to ride in the construction lift. It was mostly like an elevator, but had plywood on the sides. There was an old man sitting inside that apparently does nothing other than operate the lift.
Safety is very important to Opus, so we had to wear hard hats and safety glasses (normal prescription glasses do count) and hard soled shoes the entire time. I feel very official and important when we go on the site all dressed up like that.
The entire trip took about an hour and a half. It was a very good way to spend my afternoon, since I got back and felt like I barely sat down to work before it was time to go. This is the 3rd or 4th site visit that we have made since I started at Opus. I’m finally making up for all of the field trips that I missed out on in school :)
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Escolia- Part 3
A diagram showing the surrounding planets and spaceships floated in the air in front of Jon. The ship of the woman he had spotted earlier was highlighted, and his intended intercept path was blinking.
"Sylvie, run a scan of her ship to check fer other life forms." Jon said in his best pirate's voice.
"It be looking like it's just her aboard, captain." Sylvie said, doing a much better pirate impersonation.
Sylvie seemed to have gotten into the mood of being a pirate, complete with her own very authentic looking outfit. Jon was a little annoyed that she seemed to be doing a much better job at it than he was, but he decided to keep it to himself. A piece of floating text indicated that they would intercept the vessel in another five minutes. Jon looked to the first mate's chair to see Rakthor sitting up like a small child might. Apparently Sylvie had helped him find a piece of cloth that he wrapped around his head, and he even had a little sword that he was swishing around in the air.
Jon had Sylvie run a background check on the other ship to see who it was registered to. She found that it had been rented out to a human from the space colony Nebul named Gwen Lasater. The ship was due to be returned in a few hours. Jon smiled to himself. A rental spaceship would be perfect because it would simply return itself when given the command. He wouldn't have to worry about someone finding it and wondering what had happened to its pilot.
A short while later they were actually able to see their target. It was a small craft, only intended for short jumps between space stations. They wouldn't have any trouble catching it. Jon took a deep breath to calm his nerves and maneuvered his ship behind hers. He directed the ship's gravity well to bring the other ship to a stop. While the gravity system was directed at another target, there was no gravity on his ship, so they all floated from their seats. Rakthor began enthusiastically launching off of walls, squeaking little battle cries as he waved his sword around. Sylvie floated in front of Jon, blocking his vision. Jon reached out his hand in annoyance to brush Sylvie away, and his hand went directly through her. He realized that of course Sylvie had no reason to float, since she was just a holographic projection of the ship's computer. Jon blew at her, as if she were a wisp of smoke he was trying to make dissipate. At that moment Rakthor careened off a wall, directly into Sylvie. Her projection appeared to be bounced at an angle away from Rakthor as he sped by.
Their gravity well easily pulled the smaller ship in close, and Jon hailed the ship to attempt communication. He put his best confident grin on his face, and hoped that it would also be a bit intimidating. The air in front of Jon shimmered and displayed the face of the woman he had noticed in the spaceport earlier that day. She had a slightly annoyed look on her face.
"What is this all about? You better have a good reason for delaying me like his."
This was good. He expected her to be a little annoyed. "My name be Jonathan Wyndham, and we be space pirates." He watched her face and tried to gauge her reaction. She didn't appear very concerned, but he couldn't really expect anyone to have heard of his name yet. He growled an "Argh" at her for good measure before continuing. "We will be taking you hostage Gwen, and if ye don't struggle too much then ye won't be getting hurt."
"And why are you taking me hostage? Do you think that I have money, or someone who is willing to give money for my release?"
Jon laughed. "Do ye really think that I can be fooled so easy? We will see if ye be changing your attitude after you've been in isolation without any food fer a week." At that moment, Rakthor slowly floated past, growling fiercely at a cushion that was floating just out of his reach. Jon sighed. At least Rakthor had looked angry at the cushion.
"Rakthor, take a tranquilizing gun and go sedate Gwen." The obedience that had been genetically engineered into the giant fly kicked in now. Rakthor's wings began to buzz, and he abruptly changed course to retrieve the weapon from a storage panel. Jon watched as he flew from the room toward the docking tube. Jon activated a control from the terminal beside his chair to cause the docking tube to snake out to Gwen's ship. Looking at Gwen's image, Jon saw that she was finally looking a little bit worried.
Gwen said, "That creature is going to put its filthy little hands on me?"
"Don't worry about Rakthor. He won't harm ye unless I tells him to, and the genetic engineers put a propensity for cleanliness in him. He washes his hands as often as any human does." Jon hadn't actually paid for that particular genetic enhancement, but he didn't want this woman to know that he was cheap.
Gwen sat in sullen silence and swiveled her chair away from the display. Jon called up a display to check on Rakthor's progress. At first he couldn't find him, the fly didn't appear to be anywhere near the docking tube's entrance. Finally, he looked around and saw that Rakthor was next to a service shaft. As he watched, Rakthor started darting around corners, pretending to shoot at imaginary targets. Suddenly, the gun went off and a dart careened off several walls before striking him in the abdomen. Jon swore silently to himself as he unstrapped and pushed off to do the job himself.
As he entered the chamber leading to the docking tube, Jon retrieved the gun from Rakthor's floating body and proceeded down the tube. He opened Gwen's ship slowly, expecting an ambush of some sort. She was sitting calmly, facing directly toward him. Jon trained his gun on her, preparing to fire.
"There's no need for that, I'll come along peacefully." Gwen said in a resigned tone. "Just let me activate the return sequence on this rental so that I don't get charged for having it out for too long."
Jon watched her, his heart pounding in nervous excitement. Gwen reached slowly toward the terminal beside her, probably so that he wouldn't think she was up to something and shoot her. She entered a command that had been queued there and computerized voice informed them that the ship would be returned to Nebul ten minutes after they left. Jon followed her out of the ship and into his own. Rakthor's body was still floating where Jon had last seen it. As they entered the ship, Sylvie reoriented the gravity and they sank to their feet.
Jon directed her to the guest quarters that he had prepared for her. It was a standard sleeping compartment, but he had disabled all the terminals in it. He didn't want to have her going through any computer files. Gwen seemed to be grudgingly acceptant of her current predicament, and she entered her quarters and began looking around. He suddenly felt very awkward, not sure what to say next. If he wished her a good night, he would seem too kind. What did you normally say to the person you had just kidnapped before locking them up? Having never been rude or mean before, he didn't think that he would be able to begin now. He decided on a noncommittal approach.
"Rakthor will be guarding yer door. Once the tranquilizer wears off of him, that is." There, he hadn't been mean or nice, he just told her how things were going to be. As he backed out of the door, she turned to him expectantly. He waited to see what she wanted, but she didn't say anything. Shrugging he exited the room.
"Good night, I hope you sleep well." The words were out of his mouth before he had a chance to catch them. He reached quickly to close the door, but not before he saw a smirk on her face.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Meme
10 Years ago:
Since my wife was a freshman, I suppose I was a sophomore. Let’s see… in 10th grade I had a crush on Elisa Cook. I devoted way too much of my time trying to figure out how to talk to her in a way that wouldn’t seem strange. Let’s face it, sophomore boys are strange by nature, so I was really stumped. It wasn’t until my junior or senior year that I dated her for a couple days, at which time she decided that she was not actually ready for a dating relationship. However, she did start dating one of my classmates a few weeks later. *sniff*
I was on the JV rugby team, which I very much enjoyed, but was not terribly good at. I had to play rugby without glasses on, which didn’t help things out but doesn’t fully explain my lack of great skill. Everyone should already know, but I was at a boarding school in Kenya at the time. I sang in the choir during that year (and all the other years I was in high school). Due to all of the guys having their voices drop, I was assigned to sing with the 1st tenors. I’m really more of a baritone, but my range went higher than 90% of the other guys, so there I was stuck.
I played a lot of hacky-sack with the other guys, and I think I still have some of the sacks we used to play with. I believe it was that year that a few guys decided hacky-sack was just not quite cool enough. They invented “bottle-ball” which involved guys standing in a loose circle, throwing a Coke bottle around to each other. They had to be in the air while they caught and threw the bottle, which meant you had to move it around very quickly. Needless to say, the game came to a bit of a halt when the bottle-ball hit someone just above the eye and left him quite bruised.
We were really bored back then. Imagine 500 kids, all confined to a single campus, with a huge fence around the entire place. We had rules about who was allowed to go outside of the fence. Basically, nobody was supposed to go out alone, and girls had to have guy with them, or something like that. Actually, I can’t remember exactly what the rule was for girls, but I do remember that it was not the same as the rule for boys. They didn’t really care about equality of the sexes I guess. So, all of those kids together in one place, and we didn’t really have television or video games. Of course, we didn’t have parents around either, so we had a degree of freedom that we may not have had at home. They were some of the happiest and most frustrating times of my life.
My to-do list today:
Help Jen finish cleaning the house when I get home, in preparation for all of our friends coming over. I’m assuming that I will get to vacuum.
Write a letter to Gabriel, the Compassion kid we sponsor. He asked for a picture of us, so I need to find one of those to put in the letter.
Work on writing the next installment of my Escolia story. I’ve been sidetracked on another story for a while, so I’m sorry for those of you that are eagerly waiting on the edge of your seat.
Make sure all of my technologies are ready for the photo scavenger hunt tonight. I need to stream all of the images through my computer to the Xbox so that we can all see them. It should be fun.
Stay awake at work… so far so good
My Bad Habits:
Letting Dustin win at video games. I really need to stop being so nice.
I don’t know if it is a bad habit, but it really annoys me when I get distracted and sidetracked. I hate feeling like I’ve wasted my afternoon because of something that happened to catch my attention.
Looking at your blogs when I should be working.
If I suddenly became a Billionaire:
In no particular order: I would quit my job and find a line of work that was as fulfilling as possible. Find a ministry that I felt really used the money donated to them in the wisest way possible, and then donate a decent portion to them. Compassion International would probably be high on my list. Of course I would invest a decent portion.
Buy a castle that had fun little hidden passageways. Of course it would be outfitted with all of the modern conveniences while looking as authentic as possible. I’d let all of my friends that wanted to, come and live with me in my castle. I would have a fully serviced kitchen with a cook and staff. That would be fun.
5 Jobs I’ve Had:
1. Dairy Queen Crew Member
2. Assistant Grounds Keeper for a church camp in southern Indiana.
3. Assistant Carpenter for my father-in-law.
4. Graphic Designer
5. Flower delivery boy
5 Things people don’t know about me:
1. My first girlfriend, Marci, was the one that helped to get me hooked up with Elisa Cook for the best two days of my High School life.
2. I am a master hacky-sacker (at least I think I still am)
3. I once shot a bird with a mango seed from my slingshot. A man saw me shoot it, and came over, very angrily. My brother Nate and I saw him coming, and went about pretending that nothing had happened. How could he prove anything, the bird had fallen in the bushes. Meanwhile my brother Jon came jumping out of the bushes with the bird, cheering excitedly. Sad day.
4. I once went streaking with two other guys. One guy decided at the last moment that he didn’t really want to any more. He of course took our clothes and tried to run away when we were on the other edge of the field. We caught him very quickly. Lets just say that we were pretty motivated.
5. Did you know that the female chameleon gives birth by falling from the highest branch in a tree so that her belly splits open?
Since my wife was a freshman, I suppose I was a sophomore. Let’s see… in 10th grade I had a crush on Elisa Cook. I devoted way too much of my time trying to figure out how to talk to her in a way that wouldn’t seem strange. Let’s face it, sophomore boys are strange by nature, so I was really stumped. It wasn’t until my junior or senior year that I dated her for a couple days, at which time she decided that she was not actually ready for a dating relationship. However, she did start dating one of my classmates a few weeks later. *sniff*
I was on the JV rugby team, which I very much enjoyed, but was not terribly good at. I had to play rugby without glasses on, which didn’t help things out but doesn’t fully explain my lack of great skill. Everyone should already know, but I was at a boarding school in Kenya at the time. I sang in the choir during that year (and all the other years I was in high school). Due to all of the guys having their voices drop, I was assigned to sing with the 1st tenors. I’m really more of a baritone, but my range went higher than 90% of the other guys, so there I was stuck.
I played a lot of hacky-sack with the other guys, and I think I still have some of the sacks we used to play with. I believe it was that year that a few guys decided hacky-sack was just not quite cool enough. They invented “bottle-ball” which involved guys standing in a loose circle, throwing a Coke bottle around to each other. They had to be in the air while they caught and threw the bottle, which meant you had to move it around very quickly. Needless to say, the game came to a bit of a halt when the bottle-ball hit someone just above the eye and left him quite bruised.
We were really bored back then. Imagine 500 kids, all confined to a single campus, with a huge fence around the entire place. We had rules about who was allowed to go outside of the fence. Basically, nobody was supposed to go out alone, and girls had to have guy with them, or something like that. Actually, I can’t remember exactly what the rule was for girls, but I do remember that it was not the same as the rule for boys. They didn’t really care about equality of the sexes I guess. So, all of those kids together in one place, and we didn’t really have television or video games. Of course, we didn’t have parents around either, so we had a degree of freedom that we may not have had at home. They were some of the happiest and most frustrating times of my life.
My to-do list today:
Help Jen finish cleaning the house when I get home, in preparation for all of our friends coming over. I’m assuming that I will get to vacuum.
Write a letter to Gabriel, the Compassion kid we sponsor. He asked for a picture of us, so I need to find one of those to put in the letter.
Work on writing the next installment of my Escolia story. I’ve been sidetracked on another story for a while, so I’m sorry for those of you that are eagerly waiting on the edge of your seat.
Make sure all of my technologies are ready for the photo scavenger hunt tonight. I need to stream all of the images through my computer to the Xbox so that we can all see them. It should be fun.
Stay awake at work… so far so good
My Bad Habits:
Letting Dustin win at video games. I really need to stop being so nice.
I don’t know if it is a bad habit, but it really annoys me when I get distracted and sidetracked. I hate feeling like I’ve wasted my afternoon because of something that happened to catch my attention.
Looking at your blogs when I should be working.
If I suddenly became a Billionaire:
In no particular order: I would quit my job and find a line of work that was as fulfilling as possible. Find a ministry that I felt really used the money donated to them in the wisest way possible, and then donate a decent portion to them. Compassion International would probably be high on my list. Of course I would invest a decent portion.
Buy a castle that had fun little hidden passageways. Of course it would be outfitted with all of the modern conveniences while looking as authentic as possible. I’d let all of my friends that wanted to, come and live with me in my castle. I would have a fully serviced kitchen with a cook and staff. That would be fun.
5 Jobs I’ve Had:
1. Dairy Queen Crew Member
2. Assistant Grounds Keeper for a church camp in southern Indiana.
3. Assistant Carpenter for my father-in-law.
4. Graphic Designer
5. Flower delivery boy
5 Things people don’t know about me:
1. My first girlfriend, Marci, was the one that helped to get me hooked up with Elisa Cook for the best two days of my High School life.
2. I am a master hacky-sacker (at least I think I still am)
3. I once shot a bird with a mango seed from my slingshot. A man saw me shoot it, and came over, very angrily. My brother Nate and I saw him coming, and went about pretending that nothing had happened. How could he prove anything, the bird had fallen in the bushes. Meanwhile my brother Jon came jumping out of the bushes with the bird, cheering excitedly. Sad day.
4. I once went streaking with two other guys. One guy decided at the last moment that he didn’t really want to any more. He of course took our clothes and tried to run away when we were on the other edge of the field. We caught him very quickly. Lets just say that we were pretty motivated.
5. Did you know that the female chameleon gives birth by falling from the highest branch in a tree so that her belly splits open?
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