They're back...

Got a phone call from Mom and a text message from Rebecca letting me know that they (and Ryan and Dad) are back safely from their trip to Panama. Sounds like everybody had a great time. I’m looking forward to seeing the pictures.

they're leaving... but they're coming back.

By late this evening I’ll be the only member of my immediate family still present in North America. My folks, sister, and brother are heading down to Panama to visit my two brothers who are already there. Actually, I’m not sure if Ryan is going down today or sometime shortly later… but that’ll leave me as the only one back here in the good ol’ US of A. This is a big trip for all of them, but especially for my folks, who haven’t been on a trip like this in many, many years. Dad just got his passport done last-minute, but fortunately it got done. So they’re off, for a 10-day trip.

I’m slightly jealous, but even with cheap (<$400 round trip from Chicago - Panama City) airfare, I don’t think we could quite manage with two kids under 2 yrs old on that kind of trip. :-) We’ll be happy to stay home this time.

Have fun you guys! Take lots pictures and have safe travel. I’m looking forward to all the stories and pictures when you get back.

home again, home again...

I got back last night about 10:30 from another quick trip to Wichita, this time for DER Orientation. I can now officially function as a DER Candidate, which is, essentially… well, nothing from an official standpoint. I just get to review lots of stuff with the hope that as I learn and become more proficient, I can be appointed a full DER. It’ll likely be at least a year.

One upside to the trip was the time to do some reading. I should do full BookJournal posts on each of these, but I’ll summarize here now just to summarize. (Helpful, no?)

On the way down, I finished reading Orson Scott Card’s Speaker for the Dead. Brilliant. Maybe even better than Ender’s Game. That man knows how to write. (More on that later.)

After that, I finished up N.T. Wright’s What St. Paul Really Said. I thought it was also brilliant. His interpretation of Paul’s themes of justification, the righteousness of God, and the Gospel make a lot of sense. I went back and read through Romans after finishing Wright, and there were several places where lightbulbs went on. I’ll have to ponder this some more. One thing that bothers me a bit is his conclusion (and I’m putting it very roughly here) that Christ’s being Lord will result in the Church working to establish His kingdom here on earth. As I understand it, this is a pretty typical amillenial Reformed view of the end times, and I guess I just can’t get my dispensational brain around it. If any of my readers could suggest some good reading in that area, I’d be grateful.

The reading list isn’t done yet, folks. After N. T. Wright, I headed back for some fiction. So I read The Bourne Legacy, which is a new novel by Eric Lustbader written around Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne character. It was a pretty good book. The writing style was more like a contemporary spy thriller and much less like Ludlum, which was weird. But otherwise the story was good and appropriately muddled. Finished that book as we were pulling up to the terminal in Chicago on the way home.

Then I went back to non-fiction. Some time ago, Keith had recommended Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card as an excellent volume on how to write fiction. He was right, it is excellent. I’ve always had fleeting thoughts of doing some writing, but never really applied myself to it. (Who has the time?) But if I ever were to start, this book would become a primary text for me in helping develop good characters and plots. Card has good insights into what makes fiction work, and he expresses them fairly simply and with some good examples.

Now I’m back home and trying to catch up from missing a day and a half of work. Good times.

and he lifts up his arms in a blessing for being born again...

Last week Becky and I were able to leave Laura with my folks and take a couple days of vacation up to Door County, Wisconsin. We’d never been there before, but had heard that the scenery was terrific. We weren’t disappointed. We knew it was going to be dicey as to whether the leaves would still be on the trees at that date, (hey, we’re cheap, we didn’t want to pay peak-season rates for the hotel) but we figured it was worth a try.

Simply put, the scenery was magnificent. We drove down more little roads that were covered by archways of red and gold than I can recall to count. The weather was beautiful, even on the last day when it was raining. We had a very refreshing time, relaxing and taking in all the little towns: Egg Harbor, Fish Creek, Sister Bay, Bailey’s Harbor, and some little places whose names have slipped my mind by now.

Friday night we ate at a restaurant that had live jazz all evening. Saturday morning we had pecan rolls at a bakery/restaurant that were “hailed as the best pecan rolls in Wisconsin”. They weren’t kidding. Door County has no chain restaurants or hotels any place north of Sturgeon Bay. It was refreshing to be able to choose between a bunch of unique cafes, restaurants, and supper clubs, rather than asking myself “so is it Subway, McDonalds, or Applebees tonight?”.

Two establishments particularly caught my eye on the trip; sadly, I only got a picture of one of them: The Pudgy Seagull Restaurant. (I’ll post the picture ASAP.) The other was for somebody’s “Ho-Made” bakery items. For that special personal touch in baking… OK, I won’t go there.

So it was a great weekend. It was no fun to wake up this morning and realize it was Monday and that meant I had to go back to work…. but it was at least nice to be well-rested while doing it. :-)

On the road...

I’m writing tonight from a hotel room in Norfolk, VA… I’m here to attend the 2005 FAA Software DER conference. I’m not actually a DER yet, but have applied to be one and my company figured it would be good if I came and got some training.

So far the trip has been uneventful; flew from Cedar Rapids to Detroit and then on to Norfolk. I’d never been through Detroit before; it’s a pretty nice airport. The tunnel between Concourse B (where I landed) and Concourse A (where I needed to go to catch my next flight) was pretty wild; the tunnel walls/roof had funky psychedelic colors that semi-randomly changed… would’ve taken a picture if I hadn’t put the camera in my checked luggage… :-(

Got to Norfolk and was pleasantly surprised at my rental car; it’s a silver 2005 Ford Mustang. Pretty cool. Managed to find the hotel, the Marriott Waterfront hotel, very nice. It has a view that overlooks the Elizabeth River and just around the corner is an old battleship that’s part of a museum. I’ll have to take some pictures tomorrow.

It’s a little bit lonely and quiet right now. I haven’t met up with any of the others from Cedar Rapids yet; I’ll have to find them in the morning. So, I’m sitting in my hotel room, just finished ironing all the clothes I brought along, thinking it’s probably time to head to bed. Unfortunately, I’m still on central time, which means it only feels like 10:30 PM but the clock says 11:30. Oh well.

On the bright side, the web tells me that the Cubs came back to win in the 9th inning, 3-2. Go Cubbies!