Last night, Hans and talked about a number of things, but especially our mutual desire to see Christians orient themselves around God’s Word more faithfully, especially when in the presence of other Believers. Hans pointed out Hebrews 3:12-13:

It really struck me that encouraging others in the Word is not just a good thing to do now and then, but is essential to everyday living. Paul doesn’t just say encourage one another now and then, but “day after day, as long is it is called ‘today’.” What will you do Today to encourage fellow believers?

A few nights ago, I finished reading Frank Peretti’s Visitation. I made it out to the library yesterday and found a book by Christian author Jake Thoene called Firefly Blue. I’ve yet to start reading it, but not only is the subject matter, relating to an FBI agent on a case, intriguing, but it sounds like Thoene will bring the Christian elements so many interesting stories lack these days.

I woke up this morning at 6:15 or so and after eating a little breakfast, I hopped in the car with my parents and sister and headed out to Highland Park, where my sister would be playing with the Elgin Youth Symphony in a concert held at Ravinia. Though our directions said it would take an hour and 10 minutes to get there, I got us there in an hour flat. I was fortunate to not get pulled over by the cop I passed going 80 mph. My parents and I dropped off Jill and then hung out around Highland Park for a bit until the concert. We checked out a nice beach in neighboring Glencoe and walked around for a while for exercise. Then, we went to the library and I read some of Frank Peretti’s book, The Visitation.

After the concert which was very good (as usual), we mingled a little bit and then headed back home. I ate a quick lunch consisting of leftover pizza and apple juice and then headed out to fix my mom’s piano tuner’s computer. Four hours and a computer with working burner and mouse later, I arrived at home, only to head back out to hang out with Ross Huntley and Gabe Gorsline, friends from MSOE IVCF. If I leave in a few minutes, I should get there about the same time as Gabe.

I would have expected to be bored these next few days with Stan in St. Louis but I’m keeping myself busy with my web site, driving people every which way, hanging out with other friends, and working. Tomorrow I wake up bright and early once again to drive my sister to Ohio for Credo.

I just got back from a brief visit for the doctor. I got my cast off last Thursday but he left the pins in and had me return today. After looking at my finger under the live x-ray machine and bending it every uncomfortable way possible, he told me to keep bending it, using it and to return in two weeks to get the pins removed. I’ve also got therapy next Tuesday and Thursday. Overall, though, it’s not too bad….just not always pleasant to bend as far as I can bend my other fingers. I can type fine, write fine, and so forth.

Last night, I was at Stan‘s until about 3am tweaking the Patriotic template for BlogSCL and finding and helping Stan fix bugs in the script. We got a fair amount accomplished and though I didn’t end up getting much sleep last night, it was worthwhile.

I’m currently working on converting my web site over to PageSite because Stan has put a lot more work into it than I have into my web site manager, resulting in a much more powerful content management system. Addtionally, I’ll be able to quit triple-posting my blog entries across Live Journal, my web site, and BlogSCL because BlogSCL integrates nicely with PageSite.

Check back periodically and look for new blog posts and web site changes!

I just posted an article here on Stan‘s BlogSCL and upon submission it asked me if I was sure I wanted to delete the selected article. Funny thing was that I was posting a new article, not deleting an existing. Well, at least I know that the confirm deletion code I wrote was good…Stan just put it in the wrong spot.

Ah…the joys of programming at 2 am.

Lately, a lot of my friends have signed up for a blog from LiveJournal. I’ve looked into their services quite a bit and really like some of their features, such as the friends and interests lists. LJ also makes contacting others easy and integrates right into Mozilla Firefox, both of which seem quite appealing. But, at the same time, I like the integration of my news manager into my web site. So, I have signed up for a LiveJournal; my username is: erichmusick, but have decided to post all entries on both my web site and my LiveJournal so I get the best of both worlds.

On a completely different note, I was hanging out with my friend Hans this evening, riding around. We were driving North on Rt 59, coming from the Fox Valley Mall area. There were some baracades of some sort in the middle of the road…seemingly normal for a Chicago suburb. I accelerated once my light turned green. After reaching a speed of about 40 mph, I saw an animal which turned out to be a racoon waddling toward my car. Not wanting to cause an accident and becasue things happened so fast, I did nothing except maybe let off the gas a little bit. Hans and I heard a thud and I looked in my rear view mirror and saw the cars behind me change lanes to avoid the roadkill. At the next street, we pulled off 59, stopped under a street light, and hopped out and examined the car to ensure it was okay. I looked at it more closely later on and found some guts near the wheel well and on the bottom of my door. Otherwise, the car was fine. We road back around to check on the coon, only to find out it didn’t survive the ordeal.

While I feel bad hitting the poor animal, there wasn’t much I could have done. It hit me more than I hit it. It scurried into the side of my car. I would have felt worse if it had been a pet, as opposed to a wild animal because it would have meant something to someone. … In this situation, as long as my car is okay, I’m not so upset.

Well I’ve gotta get up at 8:30 tomorrow so I can go and work another who knows…10 hours if it’s anything like today. At least the work is enjoyable!

Well I had my surgery today. My right hand is now in an enormous cast-like bandage. It’s not an actual cast, but it has a hard material in it. Therefore, I have very little typing ability. It is helpful that I am accustomed to typing properly (cause I know where all the keys are), but I am forced to peck when using letters on the right side of the keyboard. I’d tell more about my surgery but I’m getting kinda tired again, so I’m going to get to bed.

I really ought to get on here more frequently and post updates on my life, but I’m never really in the mood for writing.

Anyway…

I took my last final (Probability and Statistics) from 2-3 pm on May 19. About 5pm, my dad and brother got up to MSOE with the old van so we could bring home my deck, the two lofts, my futon, and all the other junk I still had at school. And when I say junk, I partially mean it…now that all my stuff is home and all over the place, I look at it and wonder why I have it and what to do with it. Really, there’s not much more stuff than I began with, but it doesn’t want to re-situate. I got home later that evening and spent much of Thursday relaxing and attempting to put all that stuff away. Friday I worked most of the day and then left around 9 or 10 to head back to Milwaukee.

I spent Friday night in Milwaukee with Gabe and we left with several other Intervarsity members for Chapter Focus Week at Intervarsity’s Cedar Campus retreat center in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. In addition to being somewhat sick the entire week, I broke my finger Monday evening after dinner. A bunch of us were on the beach throwing rocks at a larger rock sitting on top of a log standing upright. We moved the log to a different location and placed the large rock on top of it once again. Like any good engineer, I saw that the log was unstable and wanted to reinforce it. As I moved a rock to the log’s base to stabilize it, the rock fell off the top of the log onto my hand. I felt pain shoot through my hand but assumed it was nothing more than a good bruise…until I looked down at my hand. My right ring finger was pointing sideways and had some blood near the joint where the finger meets the palm of the hand. I felt Steve Strombeck grab me to keep me from falling forward. He put my arm around his shoulder and helped me walk back to the cabin. The pain kept increasing and along with it, my nauseous stomach. I passed out for a few seconds and as I woke back up, Steve laid me down in the grass. Everyone from my chapter gathered around and assured me that I would be okay. They were also asking me a bunch of obvious questions, such as “What is your name?” and “Where are you?” I answered in a somewhat frustrated tone, as if I deserved to be asked more intelligent questions. As I realized later, this was to keep me from going into shock. I remember babbling on and on and cracking a lot of jokes, or at least making comments I thought were funny. When you’re kinda woozy like I was, that has a tendency to happen.

After a 45 minute drive to the hospital with a hand numb from the ice placed on it, I got in the ER and they fixed me up. The rest of the week went all right … I had to learn to swallow pills and never really recovered from my cold and sore throat, but we had some decent Bible studies and some hopefully helpful training on how to lead a Small Group. Everyone was understanding of my injury and helped me accomplish those tasks which were no longer simple because of the temporary loss of the use of my dominant hand.

As per the instruction of the doctor in Saute St. Marie, where I was treated for the injury, I saw a doctor here today. His first comment was something to the effect that my injury had not been treated properly … without a doubt, it needed surgery. So it looks like I’ll be going in Saturday to get some pins stuck in my finger.

Well, I’m going to have to cut this short; Stan and I are going to make one of our late night Wendy’s runs.

As I wrote the other day, Andrew and I did a speech on using cash vs. using credit. Based on the vote of the class, I lost, so I got stuck wearing a barrel for the duration of the hour. I couldn’t sit down and then we went outside for Matt and Beejay’s presentation and I had to wear it out there, right in front of the whole world. Oh well, it made for some good laughs – not a sight you see every day – and if it helps make things more interesting and helps my grade, it’s all cool. Sometimes you have to put your “pride” on the line to get things accomplished. Actually, that’s a very Biblical concept. People will hate you for witnessing to them, but we’re called to do it regardless, out of our love for others and Christ and because of their depravity.

I think I’m going to pretty much take the day off. I’ve got Probability and Statistics at 3, but don’t really have a whole lot of homework that needs to get done today. I might try and do some Chemistry, though, and studying for the Physics test I’ve got Thursday, partially out of lack for anything better to do.

Sometime, I’ve also got some more changes to make on the ETS Equipment web site and on the Tourette Camp site.

Some of you might know about a recent conflict a few of us had on CTZ. In addition to resolving the problem, one good thing that has come out of it is that Brad and I have gotten to be pretty good friends out of all the talking we’ve had to do.

Well I think I’m going to go do some reading. I’m trying to finish up Sermon on the Mound so I can move on to other books – I hate to be in the middle of several books at once.

I’ve been working on homework for about 4 hours now and it’s getting a bit old, so I decided to take a quick break for a little bit, write a thing or two on here and get some food before getting back to work. I’ve only really got one more assignment to work on – a persuasive/demonstration speech for speech. My friend Andrew Kundert and I are doing a debate type presentation about using cash vs. credit. It’s not really realistic, though, as we’re taking extreme sides for the sake of making it interesting to our audience of fellow engineering students. Andrew is going to argue for using cash in all circumstances while I’m going to argue for using credit for everything. I think we both would probably agree that each has its purpose, but anyway I feel like I’m beginning to ramble. Originally, the teacher said that the “winner” would get a slightly higher grade, but we talked to him about that because we’re not arguing a position we necessarily agree with – we just want to make it interesting. So, what we decided to do let the class vote on the “loser” of the debate and make that person wear a barrel for the rest of the class period, or something to that effect. According to Andrew, the barrel signifies poverty or something, so that works.

Well anyway, I could go on and on and write about a million different things going on in my life – Scott flipping his Camaro last weekend, staying up late Thursday night playing Cranium, my friendship with a girl I’m interested in, and so much more, but I don’t really have the time. I’m improving on getting on here and posting, though – it’s only been a little over a week since I last posted, as opposed to the … what … month … last time?

Well I’m off to eat some popcorn and do some planning for my speech.

As I’m sitting here in Eric’s and Scott’s room, I’m contemplating what to do with the rest of my evening. Scott went home for the weekend, Eric is getting ready for bed, Adam, who was hanging out here went to bed, and I’m feeling a bit sleepy. But, I don’t have to get up until 11 tomorrow and if I go to bed now, I’ll oversleep. I guess, though, I could force myself to get up early AND a little bit of extra sleep wouldn’t hurt, espeically since I don’t think I’ll get much on the weekend.

I keep telling myself I’m going to try and write on here more frequently but I have so many other things going on that I just never really get around to it. It takes an update to my site for me to make a post. Just a few minutes ago, I added another paper I wrote for last quarter’s humanities class to the writings section of the site. I thought this paper was really good and had some things we could all remember at times, so I encourage all to read it.

Well, hmm. I could write about so much, but don’t really feel like it. I need you to give me feedback – what you want me to write about on here as I try and get on more frequently. But then again, that assumes people actually read this and I only know of a very select few who do.

I think I’m going to get off the computer and do some reading until I start to fall asleep.