Much Water. . .

. . . has passed under the proverbial bridge. I have graduated from high school, I am now working full time for Miller Seed Farms, my ankle is currently sprained since I landed on a friends foot while playing volleyball, and many other things happened since I last posted.

Graduation went smoothly. There were few surprises, and very little out of the ordinary happened.

The party on the following day was great. I spent the majority of the day hanging out with some cousins at the coffee shop, at the park, at Arthurs, etc., etc. It was NICE.

These fine people are known to modern man as Random Thinker and Teresa Miller, who graced me with their presence for the exclusive purposes to celebrate my graduation and to party. Trust me, we had a nice time!!!!

The youth picnic is tomorrow. It will be a good experience, if for nothing else, because I want it to be.

Later,

thesinger

Last Weekend In My Rearview Mirror

Friday lunch, my bros (minus Floyd), my sis, my sister-to-be, and myself got a 30th Anniversary Dinner around for the parents. Their anniversary is actually on the 26th but since they are currently at the Ministers Meetings in Illinois, we had to do something special for them before the actual day. We constructed, in their honor, a meal of Festive Hamburgers, cabbage salad, Bavarian cream, home-made Two-Hour buns, fruit juice, and an Ice Cream Cake. Pictured is the delectable Ice Cream Cake:

On Friday evening “The Nislys” came over to our house and made papusas which we sent packing into papusa heaven in rapid form. . . It was a GOOD TIME!!! You can see more pics and details at elsalgal.

Saturday was also a fun/friends-filled day. After some necessary work was completed at the home base, I went busting in to Kev’s house to meet him, Sheri, Matt, Ryan, and Jacob. The purpose for the meeting was to go to Wichita, KS, meet Vj, Luke, and Mark, and party the day away. This is us in the Chuck E Cheese’s parking lot, deciding where we would like to eat.

We decided to eat at La Mesa, a moderately priced Mexican joint. Yes, Sheri, we know you can smile. Way to share that brilliant smile with the rest of us. . .

After the massive lunch, we played Mini-golf at All-Star Sports. It was a nice time of sharing and being together. We wanted to hit a coffee shop on the way home, so we decided to drink coffee at the Riverside Perk. Since I had learned about the place on the internet, I was not quite expecting what we found. The place was smoky, dark, infested with hippies, and semi-grungy. Thankfully, they had tables outside where the second-hand smoke couldn’t kill us as fast. All-in-all, the place served relatively good coffee, but lacked in the professionalism and atmosphere departments.

Portraits was the name of the game, since Vj is busting off to SMBI and needed some pics. Here’s a random pic of VJ and Kev.

Of course, why just not shoot everybody in sight? I did, and came up with a jewel of a picture of rnisly.

We did a short Goodwill stop on Maize Rd. on the way home. I purchased a magnif short sleeved shirt that fits like an old glove–really well.
That evening, I went to the Oren Yoder residence and played (what else?) Dutch Blitz, otherwise known as “da splits”. I have two pictures to share. The first is of a “touching moment,” and the second is not a jewel of an expression, but a “rosene” of an expression. . .

Peace I leave with you. . .

thesinger

Reading Material

After church yesterday evening, some kids came over to “hang out” and “chill.” In the early stages of the party, most of the guys grabbed a piece of reading material. It was my pleasure to pick up my camera and record most of the readers and their reading material.

Undeniably, it is slightly more difficult to discern who this man is. We can deduce, however, that he is well caught up in “world news”.

Mr. B and the foreshown reader of World got into an intense discussion about the ethics of allowing a child to read World. It’s obvious to me that Darrel has Answers!!!!

Ah, quality reading material at it’s best. At least Daniel and Loyal seem to think so. . .

Kevin was the first to walk in the door to join the party. Whether it was hospitable or not, I gave him this book, “SAT HIM DOWN”, and told him that he needs to read this book. He nicely obliged my latest kick, and began to read You Just Don’t Understand, by Deborah Tannen, Ph.D. Throughout the course of the evening he read at least 100 pages.

In the previous paragraph, I mentioned “my latest kick.” This kick is closely related to my studies in Speech Class, since I plan to give a speech on the subject of gender differences in communication. I have found the aforementioned book to be extremely down to earth, yet full of meaty ideas to chew on. I think that everybody should read this book because you are either a man or a woman and are forced to communicate with both men and women everyday. The book is full of truths that will change the way you think about relationships and communication. It’s definitely a must-read for all.

Ok, time for thesinger to get off his soapbox and leave for church.

Later.

Today was peaceful.

I got virtually no “work” done today, but, I had fun doing nothing. 🙂

In an hour I plan to go out to eat with some of my coffee homies to fulfill the loss that rnisly and I suffered at the hands of Kev and Jac. i.e. We’ll be buying them supper. . .

After the food has taken residence inside my stomach, we kiddos plan to attend a local theater production of Fiddler on the Roof. We hope it will be enjoyable. . .

I am going to do more nothing. . .

thesinger

A “Moppish Looking Thing”?

I’ll let the first three pictures speak for themselves. . .

Next, comes the clean up part. This is when John sweeps the kitchen, and then asks Kevin where the mop is. Kevin gestures in a vague sort of way to a corner that exists in the washer room outside the kitchen. So John meanders over to the corner and pulls out some “moppish looking thing” from “the corner”. The “moppish looking thing” could also be a “wall wiper thingy” but John decides that yes, it actually is a floor moppish kind of thing.

Next, Kevin tells John that he should place the moppish kind of thing into the rinse water to make it “moisturized”. John uses his common sense and tells Kevin that he has to finish washing and rinsing the dishes before the idea is even ok to think about. Kevin and Ryan finish the washing the dishes, and so, John merrily places the “moppish looking thing” into the rinse water and “moisturizes” it.

The next step is obviously to scrub the floor with the “moppish looking thing”.

John also rinses out the “moppish looking thing” in the rinse water after he has scrubbed a large section of floor. This does not result in the cleanest rinse water you have ever seen, but nevertheless, it does make for a cleaner floor, and that is/was the goal.

My question for my dear readers is this: Is this actually a floor mop?

Random Kansas Party Pictures

I’m not sure if I feel like writing comments on some of these pictures, so, maybe I won’t on some of them.

Perhaps TheFlyingFatMan could make a nice profit if he sold his abundant fiber. . .?

Technically, this is not a “good” photo. I like it anyway. . .

We played a version of Bible Trivia. My team lost. . . 😦

Kenny was really asking questions regarding my sanity. I think he was a little concerned. . .

We played a balloon popping relay race with two teams. My team lost again. . .

I think perhaps the newest baby (balloon) on the block is a very large one. . .

“The Remains”

We also played another kindof weak game where you attempt to open a Hershey’s Kiss with oven mitts. It was also a relay race, and my team lost, again. . .

Random. . .

People were playing ping-pong and Pool as the need arose throughout the evening.

Yes, Shane is glad to be back from Faith Builders; Dorcas seemed a bit more exuberant then usual most of the evening.

The evening was appropriately random, filled with about 1 hour of committee-planned activities, and the rest was just good old hanging out with the homies.

Later,

thesinger

Another coffee party!!!

The location was different, but the people were same. Matt, Jacob, Ryan, Kevin, and myself were the lucky participants. The location was Kevin’s house. It seemed to be the logical place to have the party, since Kevin recently bought a espresso machine.

I had a cup of straight espresso, a cup of real cappuccino (it was, of course, made with a shot of espresso and a shot of steamed milk) and another cup of regular drip brew. I am highly caffeinated right now, if anybody is wondering.

Matt and Jacob left the party, so Kev, Ryan, and myself are sitting downstairs, either surfing randomly, or posting, or working on a mysterious website that has not been revealed to the public yet. Yes, we are all on separate laptops. Yes, it is a good male bonding experience.

Oh, and getting slightly high on caffeine together is also a very good male bonding experience. Oh, we made some wild/exciting plans for Tuesday lunch at school where we plan to be very cliquish. “But who cares?!” Says Ryan from behind his laptop. I would tend to agree. 🙂

On discussing internet connection speeds, Ryan said, “It doesn’t matter how fast your internet is, it is still not fast enough.”

I think I shall do something else now. Peace out!!!

thesinger

Kansas: Random?

The answer? Yes. Very. Tonight I’m going to an official youth group activity that was announced with the main activity as “Random”. This could mean that the committee just didn’t know what the activities will be, or, as I prefer to think about it, our Kansasness is showing through again. 🙂 I like to live in Kansas. The homies here are TOPS and there are very few other places I would rather live.

I hope to take my camera (if I don’t forget it) and shoot some pictures of some of our activities. There could be some choice opportunities. . .

In other news, the parents have gone in to PA in preparation for Floyd’s wedding. (I’ll be going next Thurs.) Should be some good times/parties. . .

Gonna run. Got some work that should be done before tonight. . .

Later,

thesinger

Ah, coffee, (Uummmm. . .) and parties. . .

Ah, yes, those go together very well. I/we discovered that after we (Jacob, Ryan, Kevin, Matt, and myself) got together yesterday morning at 9:00 to drink coffee. Yeah, that was the reason to get together. Very shocking? Maybe. But as we are “all” coffee freaks, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to you.

Perhaps, we don’t “all” like coffee as well as the rest. Our dear brother in the Lord, Matthew, is not as fond of coffee as we would like to think he should be, but perhaps with some time and some encouragement, he can learn to like it. I certainly think so.

Ok, I have time to post 5 pictures. So I will. A pic of the party and of the good times:

Ryan, coffee mug in hand, having a grand old time.

Jac, laughing his head off during the ingestion of a bite of donut.

Matt with Kevin cheesing in the background because he placed a coffee mug in front of Matt for the pictures sake. (Btw, thanks Kev for providing the donuts and rolls. They went over very well.)

And, to celebrate our coffee/party spirit on early Saturday mornings, we took a group picture. You will want to notice the heart mug seated in front of Matthew. The hearts symbolize precisely how deeply he feels about coffee: Very! at least, against it. . .

I’ll end with a quote by Kevin regarding (You fill in the space here). “Nothing’s like a hot one on a cold day.”

thesinger

A long time ago. . .

away back when me, myself, and I (plus some other people) was on the Youth committee, we were responsible to organize, plan, and execute an all day Youth Picnic. This was all fine and good. Most of the day went very well and it was not a bad time. After we got home, however, was when the work began. We used hay bales to sit on in the back of a grain-truck. This is fine and good, but there is a fair bit of work involved to get the straw bales and then to take them back to their place of residence. So, having that background, the story can now continue in full force.

We took the truck (and straw bales) to their owner and nicely placed them in the loft of his barn. This process was not without it’s own pains, but overall it went ok and the good feelings were spread around with abandon because we had finished the last and hardest part of the picnic!!!!!!!

As we drove into the lane to Cedar Crest–the place where the youth had met for the picnic–the lights of our car illuminated five straw bales that were in hiding behind the waist-high brick wall that surrounds the front door of the church. Yes, it was dark. Yes, we were very tired after playing hard all day. Yes, we had very little energy left to invest in hauling those bales to their proper home. At this junction in the story, you may want to ask, “But couldn’t you just have put the bales on the grain truck and taken them home?” The answer to this question is not very complicated. It was just that the truck went home directly instead of going back to Cedar Crest.

Well, what do you do? Do you sing songs? Shout angrily? Become extremely irate? Laugh at our stupidity? Rail? Rant? Rave?

The answer: Yes.

Next, you sit back, relax, and enjoy some Mt. Dew.

Next, you make bad faces at the camera, because you really are very tired and NOT EXCITED about those bales. . .

Next, you load the straw bales on to the back of Big Joshes Volvo.

Next you cheese real big for the camera because you really have accomplished a real feat of power/energy/force/beef/brawn/dynamism/force/horsepower/intensity/might/muscle/potency/strength/vigor/vim/virtue, or something like that.

Next you see lots of straw on the sidewalk and because tomorrow is Sunday, you decide that you must sweep it up.

Next you pose with your newly-made band, and take an inspiring picture.

Next you think, “Oh, but I wouldn’t want to remember the evening with a stupid picture like that!!” So we commence to shoot another “more decent” one.

And then we’re done. At least, I had a curfew and had to go home. I heard reports that said that the party continued for quite some time.

So, thanks for allowing me to tell you this story. It has blessed my heart to retell it and I hope it has blessed your heart to hear it.

thesinger