I was working on an assignment this evening and the Internet died. Because I didn’t need the internet, I didn’t really care and kept on working. A few minutes later, everyone started to congregate in the hallways of my floor because they couldn’t play their online games or do whatever it is they normally do online. I find it sad that Owen’s suggestion that the residence halls should shut off the Internet for 30 minutes a week as a community building activity is actually a very grounded suggestion.

Well, that’s MSOE for you.

Hunter Buikema, IVCF staff worker at MSOE during my freshman year, was on campus this afternoon and spoke at our large-group Oasis meeting this evening. I spent about an hour talking to him leading Bible study and my experiences with Lydia. While I don’t know that I ever thought of Hunter as a huge role-model in my life, I have come to realize this evening that I really miss having someone in my life like him that I can look up to. Sure, I’ve got lots of amazing friends and a great family, but there’s something different about having a friendship with someone older yet still relatively close in age (as opposed to, say, my parents :-)) … someone who will challenge me in ways that my friends won’t (regarding, for example, witnessing) and someone who has wisdom from years of experience beyond what my peers have. It made me think back to my involvement in West Chicago Bible Church’s Omega youth group in high school and long talks I had with Bryan Lasky. I know some of my friends, such as Andy Laib and Eric Evenson have “mentors” they meet with on a weekly or bi-weekly basis for this type of instruction and so forth. So, I now think it would be cool if I could do something like that … there’s just the issue of the other commitments that gobble up my time.

I have a tendency to be a very stubborn, persistent perfectionist and I can thank that aspect of my character for keeping me up late tonight. My dad has been doing a lot of work with Protect Marriage Illinois lately. They’re working on getting signatures for a petition to allow the people of the state to vote on an amendment to the state’s constitution that defines marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman. Because people are already going to be out and about and have somewhat of a politics-mindset next week during the March 21 primary elections, he’s working on organizing volunteers who can collect signatures from a legal distance away from various polling places. In order to help facilitate the organization of these volunteers, he wanted an online form where people could sign up for the location and time(s) they were planning to gather signatures. So, I spent several hours this evening working on this little project.

How exactly I was going to tie this to persistence and stubbornness, I’m not quite sure. I think I was going to comment on my desire to avoid leaving things hanging and my inability to relieve myself from focusing on the task at hand. I was planning to go running about 9:30, then 10, then 10:30, and so on, until my brain was totally fried (and I was basically done with the project) at midnight. Running cleared my mind and I was able to import the list of polling places in DuPage County, a task that I was struggling with before got out. I also spent 15 or 20 minutes tweaking little things about the appearance and structure of the HTML code generated by the script I wrote … even down to the indentation of the HTML source. I guess it’s proof I’m a software engineer if I spend a significant amount of time making sure the generated code is tabbed out nicely.

I have decided against providing a link to this signup form, as the strong opposition my dad and his colleagues have encountered suggests to me that were the URL to get in the wrong hands, someone would spam it and make my life crazier than it already is. If you want to participate in gathering signatures, see the Protect Marriage Illinois web site for details on how you can help.

My dad told me that an Episcopal priest told him that what he’s doing is hateful toward homosexuals. I’m thankful I don’t have opportunities to respond to people like this, as I have a tendency to burst out and become upset easily. But, I would like to comment that it is absolutely absurd to claim that it is hateful to preserve marriage as God defined it in Genesis 2:24, which states, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." It is unnatural (Romans 1) for men to be with men and women with women.

Anyway … I would write more but it’s getting really late. I miss writing, but either have little to write about, or am too busy or too tired to post.