According to Stan, my recent acquisition of an iPod is my first step toward getting into Heaven. How the so-called purity of Apple suddenly makes me worthy of God’s grace, I’m not quite sure. In fact, I thought things were quite the opposite.
As a result of Adam and Eve’s devouring of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, sin has plagued the world for 6000+ years. How such a comment from a good LMCS Lutheran pre-sem student could be considered valid, I don’t know. You can take that one up with Stan.

In summary, for those whose heads that first paragraph went right over, my parents bought me an iPod for Christmas.

If I were more creative, I would have titled this post something better than “Life.” How dull of me.

In attempt to persuade me to write on my web site more frequently, Stan described how people begin to worry about him when he doesn’t post for a few days. I hardly think people start to worry about me when I don’t post for a few days – at least I hope not. If so, then it would appear as if I fell off the face of the earth. I think the concern people have over Stan not posting is a sign he is too addicted to Blogging and should spend his time in other activities. The thing is, though, he seems to do a great job of balancing a million activities in the little time he’s got.

Anyway … here are some of the highlights (if you could call them that) of my life right now:

Lydia and I broke up. If you care to know more detail, ask. I think I’ve gone into detail with all my close friends, who don’t even read this, so there’s not much use in going into too much depth for the whole world to see. All in all, I think breaking up is what is best. That doesn’t make it any easier, though. I’m learning a lot about trusting in God and have been reminded over and over of Isaiah 55:8-9 –

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

As great as Lydia is, it appears that we’re not meant to be together. I think I’d rather realize that now than 5 years down the road.

School is crazy busy this quarter. I’ve told myself and my friends over and over again that I couldn’t have broken up with Lydia at a better time. Last Wednesday, I worked on school-related stuff for about 12 or 13 hours. I’ve got my first quarter of SDL (Software Development Lab). I can’t go into much depth about the project my team is working on because of the NDA we signed upon entering the three-course sequence. Then I’ve got Operating Systems design class, in which we write an OS for the Motorola MC68HC11 processor. I’ve got Dr. Meier for that class and have found his teaching to be excellent, as he is easy to follow and is knowledgeable and experienced with the material.

Well I think that’s a pretty good overview of what’s new with me right now. As always, if you want more detail, it’s best to just ask me. I’d like to write on here a little more frequently – it helps me to unwind a little bit. Funny time to be doing that … at 8:30 in the morning. I stayed at Stan‘s place last night so I could drive him to O’Hare this morning. After dropping him off at 6:20, I drove back to Milwaukee and am relaxing a little bit before going to class at 9.

I received the following e-mail a few minutes ago from MSOE Public Safety. I don’t know if it’s simply my sleepy state of mind, but I found the way it was written to be absolutely hilarious.

Two individuals, a 25 year old male and a 26 year old male were recently involved in a theft at the Kern Center whereby one of the suspects climbed up onto the overhang near the main entrance of Kern Center and forcibly removed the 3′ tall letter “T” from the KERN CENTER sign.

Both individuals, who prior to the theft stated they had been drinking at several bars on N. Water Street, were apprehended 3 blocks away by MSOE Public Safety officers as a result of the assistance of an alert Facilities Department employee (Housekeeping Supervisor Lee Oakley).

Mr. Oakley had observed one of the individuals climbing up onto the overhang and quickly alerted the Public Safety Department. While the Public Safety Officers were in route, Mr. Oakley observed this same individual climb down with the letter “T” in his hand. Once the Public Safety Officers arrived on the scene, Mr. Oakley accompanied the officers and pointed out the two suspects a few blocks away. The two suspects who were still in possession of the letter “T” were detained and ultimately turned over to Milwaukee Police Officers.

Both individuals originally stated to the police officers that they were just walking by when they found the letter “T” on the ground, however, Mr. Oakley’s eye witness account, as well as surveillance video from the entrance to the Kern Center clearly showed their involvement in the crime. Faced with this overwhelming evidence, the 26 year old admitted his involvement and was arrested and charged with vandalism.

Due to the keen observation skills of Mr. Lee Oakley, as well as the quick action of the responding Public Safety Officers this theft was cleared with the arrest of the individual involved. MSOE has requested through the court that the individual responsible for this damage make full restitution to MSOE as part of the final disposition of the case.

This case clearly illustrates how the collective efforts of the campus community, working cooperatively with the Public Safety Department can help make the campus safer for everyone.

Please report any suspicious individuals or suspicious activity immediately to the Public Safety Department emergency line, 277-7159.

A fellow student, Karsten, noted quite astutely that this is propaganda.

Saturday, October 1 at 5 p.m., a benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina will be held at Second Baptist Church in Wheaton, IL. Wheaton College students will be performing. Donations will be accepted. All funds raised will go to Faith Presbyterian Church in Brookhaven, MS, which is a church of about 400 people that is hosting nearly 300 victims of Hurricane Katrina. They are currently not receiving any funding, so the families are paying out of their own pockets. The church will also be used as a vessel to spread funding among other nearby churches that are in need of financial support.

It appears that either Google has decided to have mercy on me or couldn’t stand the bad publicity (yeah right) of my recent post about being blacklisted by them. Some of those search terms I listed in my earlier post bring searchers to my site once again.

BUT, I recently updated my dad’s Kenosis web site, creating a new layout to replace the ancient one that consisted of HTML frames. As part of the update, I decided to put the words “Kenosis – Christ ’emptied Himself’ (Phil 2:7)” in the title tag of every page, as I recall many times meta tag analyzers yelled at me for my extremely short page titles. It appears Google didn’t like this and took the Kenosis site out of their results. I abbreviated the page title and a few days later the site showed back up in the results when doing the search site:kenosis.info. This is still pretty lame, considering the fact that before my update, a search for Kenosis yielded my dad’s site in the top 5 results. I’m hoping that it will get back up there before too long, as the majority of his hits came in from Google. Additionally, the site is quite comprehensive and is more deserving of priority on Google search results than many of the results that currently show up.

I keep meaning to mention that Stan has officially asked me to be his best man. I appreciate his post about me and hope to get around to updating my friends page before too long.

I started my Junior year here at MSOE this past Tuesday. I’ve posted my class schedule under the about me section of my site.

I would attempt to write more, but I’m not feeling very creative at the moment, so I’ll have to attempt to write at a different time. Sorry.