Fall In, Fall Out

well, this is it. my last day in california is over, and i had a blast at the coyote tonight after a great church service this morning. there are lots of pictures and videos i'd love to post right now, but i've got to get to sleep because i've got a good eleven hours worth of driving to do tomorrow, the most i will do the whole week. the plan is thus:

monday: san diego, ca -> el paso, tx

tuesday: elpaso, tx -> dallas, tx

wednesday: dallas, tx -> meridian, ms

thursday: meridian, ms -> sevierville, tn

friday: sevierville, tn -> edgewater, md

i should be arriving home in maryland at approximately 7pm on friday night if all goes according to plan and there aren't any major delays. it's going to be a heck of a week, but i will attempt to keep blogging daily to keep you all posted throughout the week here and on facebook/twitter. it's getting late, so it's time to sleep. i can't believe everything fit in the car! no cat scratcher tree, it was too heavy after all, but i got the top piece off so the catty has a place to lay during the ride when she isn't in her cage. i think she'll like it. ;-D goodnight to all and goodbye to some.

So Many Purring

it's done! the question: what is it? 'it's it — what is it?' wow, i'm annoying. well it = the website, as well as the room slash packing. the website took a bit longer than i had hoped, but it came out better than i thought it would as well. it will be live tomorrow, and i can link it here if i so desire to let you all in on exactly what i've been working on. plus all of you nerdy web designer types can make fun of my non-elegant code and lack of external css. yep!

as for the room, that took a lot less time than i thought it would. i could've gotten it done faster still if i had been a little less discriminate, but i had fun finding some neat stuff i thought was completely missing. actually, now that i think about it, i probably spent more time detailing my car than i did in the room organizing and cleaning. here's a picture of the big haul:

total: 3 red crates, 2 plastic bins, 1 cat carrier, 1 suitcase, 1 safety case and a computer case that's completely filled with a ton of random stuff. all that + my clothes and my personal effects [including laptop, monitor, etc.] is everything that's going into the car. hopefully it will all fit, and by fit i don't mean physically fit within the dimensions of the vehicle, because that is a given. it's just not that much. by fit, i mean not cause my car to sink down so low that my tires and wheel wells get to know each other on a first name basis, if you know what i mean.

the collapsing cabinet and potentially collapsing cat-scratcher tree are a different story. not sure how i'll manage to squeeze that in there, if it's even possible.

oh my! so much to say. lots of things happened today. this morning i went to visit grandpa in the hospital, which was good. i didn't get up too early, don't worry. he had an angioplasty yesterday and he was discharged today, so my mom and my aunt kelly drove him and lynn [de facto wife] to ramona and they took themselves the rest of the way out to ocotillo wells. after that, i cleaned a bit and chatted with my friend richy brasher, whose wife's blog can be found here! it was nice, and we talked about reformed theology, which is always great. then i talked to my wife which is always greater than talking to anyone else!

tonight was the first half of my two-day event to celebrate my leaving california, which was held at buca di beppo, a pretty nifty italian restaurant. i had chicken parmesan, which was somewhat lackluster, and some pretty good pasta. their bread was excellent. all but six people who said they were coming actually came, which was cool. got to see the lazzes, the stimsons, the seevers, my sister and bobby fleury. all in all, it was a good night with some good times. tomorrow night we will be at the coyote bar in carlsbad, where my dad will be playing. come hang out!

man, i blog so late. it's 3am now, and i started this a looooong time ago. tomorrow is another busy day, and monday i'm gone. pray that i'll get everything done! i still need to: get a set of alan wrenches and get the 'boom booms' [sub-woofers] installed in the trunk, replace my wiper blades, fix my wiper fluid shooter thingy and secure my duct tape rigged intake boot. yee-haw! oh yeah, i did one other thing today:

yep.

Dancing Alley

i never thought that i could possibly be as proud of having a clean car interior as i am now. it only took me like 5 hours, but i managed to completely detail the whole inside of my car [whom i named 雞炒車 — lit. 'chicken fried car' but actually 'chicken car accident' in spoken cantonese] which, if you ask my brother or wife, was definitely necessary. i don't think i had ever cleaned the center console in the entire time i've owned the car, which would be over 2 years now. anyway, it looks great. i'd post a picture, but by the time i was finished it was too dark. maybe tomorrow.

work was mostly good, but bittersweet, as it's going to be sad not having the mack doodle around anymore. that's okay, it just makes me want kids that much more, the prospect of which is starting to become increasingly exciting! finished almost all of the last page of the website i've been doing, which i slowed down on because it doesn't need to be finished until sunday afternoon. i'm a sucker for taking any reason to procrastinate and running with it.

tonight, as i'd mentioned yesterday, i was supposed to visit my maternal grandfather in the hospital, but he had his procedure today [which went exactly how they wanted it to, so good news] so we're going in the morning instead. i could've gone out, but since i'll be busy tomorrow morning, i wanted to get some cleaning/organizing done tonight. i got some done, but took a bit of time out to go get dinner with my sister. it was good times! we went to denny's, which is not a good restaurant by any stretch of the imagination but its inherent nostalgia makes up for that.

cat, why do you only sit on me when i don't want you to?

did i mention lately that i love my wife? i don't think i mention it here enough. she's been such an encouragement to me in the last few weeks, reading me her sermon notes from sunday morning and telling me about her morning devotionals [piper sermons for now] and all that the Lord has been teaching her. it's really great, and she seems to be growing by leaps and bounds. the one she listened to today was on proverbs 31, which i was nervous about because i've heard so many sermons on this verse that it's almost become trite, but it was really great.

it got me thinking about the concept of 'fearing the Lord' and what exactly that means and why we should fear God and how we should fear God. piper said that if we run from God because we fear Him, we don't fear Him enough. how true is that? if you were truly afraid of the Lord, you'd be running toward Him, because you would know that He is as merciful as He is inescapable. if the expression 'food for thought' were ever appropriate, now would be the time. i'll leave you with that.

p.s. my wife is awesome and she wins forever.

Need To Know

school work done, website almost completely done, room halfway clean, stuff not quite organized. today was a good day, a productive day. i've not got much to say, except that tonight my sister and i filmed and produced what i would humbly regard as one of the greatest video responses i've ever seen on youtube. like all good video responses, they're best viewed in context, so click here to see the original video first. after that, click here to watch our response. enjoy!

tomorrow is my last day at 'work' watching mckenzie, which is really sad. i'm gonna miss that kid. i will have to make a neat mosaic of all the random iphone pics i've taken of her over these past two months, because there really are some pretty great ones. here's an example:

tomorrow night i'm supposed to be going to my buddy nick's house to watch alien 3 [we watched the first two a few weeks ago — thoroughly enjoyed both for very different reasons] but i'll be visiting my grandfather in the hospital. if you're friends with me on facebook, you may be friends with my sister who posted a prayer request yesterday for my grandpa. he suffered something like a miniature heart attack, and he's got to have a procedure done and the outcome is not certain.

please pray that if God wills for him to live, that he would live thankfully and glorify the Father. pray also that if he is to die, that his family [myself included] would be comforted through his loss. i hope that doesn't happen, i love my grandfather a lot. it seems like his wife, my grandmother, died only yesterday. well i don't mean to be depressing, but that's really all i've got to say for now. only 3.5 more days until i leave california. crazy.

Days Drag On

each day i spend apart from my wife is a day i am missing a vital part of who i am. marriage being what it is — a sacred vow between two individuals that have became one flesh together — to be far from one's wife is to be far from a part of oneself. i know there's only a week and a few days left 'til i see my love again, but i thought i would take the time to list the things i miss about her.

• feeling her skin against mine. how obvious? maybe, but this is the first thing i think about when i think about missing her.
• the smell of her hair. so many things here remind me of it. even smelling my own pillow which smells nothing like her reminds me of her hair's scent.
• her pouty faces. pictures through sms and e-mail just aren't the same. i want to see it live and up-close.
• the monster dog. i know, missing the dog isn't the same as missing her. but every time i look at my cat, i remember that the dog is not here. you know?
• intimacy in general. being in close proximity with someone has an effect on how you feel about that person. it's irreplaceable.
• watching videos/t.v. shows together. when we're apart, i'm not allowed to watch 'our shows' [except for lost] until we're together again. i don't really miss the shows at all, i just miss watching them together with her.

this is clearly not an exhaustive list, and i could go on and on about missing her, but i won't. those who are reading this may or may not know how much i love my wife, and how much i long to be in her arms again. but if you didn't before, i hope you have a better idea now. today was a good day, and i got a lot accomplished again. this time it was on the website, which is about 80% done, thanks to the guy finally sending me the pictures i needed. i'll post a longer blog tomorrow, but for now i must sleep and dream of my lovely bride.

Get Off Your High Horse!

the vlog i mentioned is done! the link is not here, because it is currently uploading, but by the time i finish typing this blog entry, it will probably be ready. so i don't know why i'm typing what i just typed. why do i do stuff like that? i'm a dork.

in a word: productive! i got a lot done today, between editing the julieandstacy video and the one i just finished, i'm pretty satisfied with my work. i got a chance to help a friend with his paper that he was stressing out about, which was cool because i do hope to be a teacher someday. really though, if i'm able to help people now and educate them on topics that i know more than them about or help them with some aspect of academia i'm familiar with... doesn't that make me one already? anyway, pray for him. he's got six classes this semester and he's getting married in the fall. his name is zach!

aiya... this brings me back on the topic i was talking about yesterday. is it weird that i'm that new to the whole social media experience [specifically twitter] that i get giddy when some e-lebrity makes the effort to read my blog and send an @reply to me? anyway, dan brown responded by saying that he would argue that information should be free, but he didn't expand on that or make a response to my further questioning. hopefully he'll do so in the future, i'd love to hear that one.

if you haven't notice, my titles tend to have little to do with the content of my posts themselves [yesterday's being a notable exception]. they're usually whatever i'm thinking of at the time. this one comes from the first line of an age sixteen song called 'dear judas'. i use it in 004, my latest vlog, which i mentioned earlier. yep. this has been a short blog. watch the video!

Education For Sale

as many of you may know, i've been attempting to be more active within the youtube community these days, and i subscribe to a lot of different people with a lot of different ideas. just this afternoon, dan brown posted a video concerning institutionalized education. instead of summarizing the video, i'm just going to link it here and let you watch it, then respond afterward.

the interesting thing about this video is that the topic concerns something that i was just talking about with my uncle marc at my grandfather's house earlier today. we were really talking about politics and economics, which led into a discussion of academia in general. this makes sense, as he is a doctorate-level professor at a school that i don't remember right now [may be regent, where he got his ph.d] and he works in academia every day. in the discussion, i was mentioning that the internet has really thrust us into a new age of information where it's become more expedient to conduct our research business in a non-ivory-tower situation.

marc pointed out a few things, such as the concept of research with physical books in a physical library still holding a high value in education [specifically in preparing a paper or dissertation] for reasons of 'serendipitous discovery' of adjacent books on different topics that one may not find in the event that they were doing purely online research. he also mentioned the need for an online search engine which aggregated and parsed through only peer-reviewed journals and publication to verify that the information has a high probability of being valid. he also said something that got me thinking of the whole concept of the 'value of information':

bud: 'yeah, but that sort of information isn't public because they can't let us within their ivory towers to get it. it's too valuable to them.'
marc: 'oh, so all information should be free, then?'
bud: 'ideally.'
marc: 'well then, i hope you don't like making money at your job.'

my first thought was inclined toward accusations of exaggeration, but the more i think about the value of education and the cost of information, the more what he said seems valid. are we doing some far too utopian thinking here? in a world of completely free information, especially in the u.s.a. where the economy is so heavily based on information, how will anyone make a profit over anyone else? how can the mass of information cultured on the internet be organized without any trained leaders that have anything to speak of their credentials in overseeing such a massive undertaking? who will teach? will it end up being the blind leading the blind?

i think those are some questions that have to be answered before i'm fully sold on making a shift toward making information totally free. as it stands, it seems like there has to be a certain level of disconnect between the educator and the educatee in order to produce the educated. what do you think? let's get some discussion going here.

regarding today, let's just say that things went well for me with the dmv. i'll be posting a vlog on my youtube channel tomorrow explaining what happened, and i don't want to ruin the surprise, so i'll build a little suspense instead! i've still got to edit that video, the new julieandstacy video we shot tonight at practice and the julieandstacy f.a.q. video we did as well, though that one won't be going up until next week anyway. i've also got to edit my dad's video of cycad sex. don't ask. it's not as perverted as it sounds.

I Lost The Game

the ironic thing about this post is that i had planned to make an introspective, deep, meaningful post about nostalgia and reminisce about some things of yore. then my car had to go and ruin it all. let me explain.

for the past few days, i've been going through hell trying to get my car registration taken care of so i can leave the state, which i am doing on monday, march 1st. the first snag was the fact that i paid almost an entire month late, due to a mix-up between paying the dmv for one thing when i thought i had paid for another [christin's license vs. my registration] so i ended up paying a late fee. i mailed in the check for registration on wednesday, which was good on one hand because i avoided a bigger late fee and bad on the other hand because i may have been able to save myself a headache if i had just gone into the dmv the next day instead.

yesterday, as i mentioned in the previous blog which i won't link because dude... it's right below this one and you can't possibly be that lazy. okay, yes you can. here you go. anyway, as i mention there, i didn't get to smog my car because the check engine light was on. the guy cleared the code and sent me home, basically hoping it was a false alarm and i set up an appointment for monday. it wasn't a false alarm. today, my sister's boyfriend adrian took a look under the hood, and we discovered a crack in the intake boot which was most likely the culprit.

we looked for a legitimate solution, but ultimately settled on a quick duct tape macgyver status solution — which worked quite well, all things considered. in order to have the car ready for the smog check tomorrow, i had to take it out to drive for about 30 miles or so to make sure the car's engine computer had sufficient time to reset and diagnose any potential problems. i grabbed my zi8, hopped in my car and blasted some explosions in the sky. it was looking to be an enjoyable evening of relaxation, driving and possibly some artsy video material. and it was.

until i got off the freeway coming home.

as i exit the 78, vehicle stopped at the crest of the hilled off-ramp, waiting patiently at the red light with a big smile of success on my face, i think: 'i made it! 30 miles, no problems.' green light — it's my turn to go. i shift into first gear and hit the gas. KAHWHIIIIR! the engine surges as my mazda protegé heads into the intersection's left turn and my brain heads into a bout of insanity the likes of which have seldom been known by mortal man.

five minutes later, my throat was literally hoarse from screaming.

very few things frustrate me more than car troubles, especially with this particular car. at this point, i'm thoroughly convinced that if you looked up the term 'lemon' ['Lemon_(automobile)' for you wikipedia folk out there] in the dictionary, you would see a picture of my car on it. i'm not going into any detail here, but seriously, just ask my wife. the worst part about this whole thing is that it's not even legitimate car troubles, minus the intake which will be properly replaced as soon as possible, because every problem i'm having is a smog problem which is completely and utterly irrelevant in the state to which i am moving.

so tomorrow morning, i'm going to call the lovely dmv and plead my case. hopefully, i can find a solution to my problem that doesn't involve:

1. heavy artillery — because i can't afford that.
2. a lot of time — because i don't have that.
3. excessive fees — because i'd rather spend the money on the guns.
4. going to the mall — no comment.
5. ritual suicide — though i prefer that to the mall.

if you don't get that last joke, you're not my friend. you may think you are, but you're not. okay, maybe you are, but you're very deprived! if you don't get that i'm joking about purchasing and using firearms, you must be new around here. i'm not a very good shot, and i can't afford shooting practice either. if you don't get the title of this post, i'm very sorry, because you were winning the game until you realized that you didn't get the title of this post. i'd tell you to google it, but you're probably better off not knowing. if you did google it, i'm sorry for ruining your life.

the sermon went well. it should be posted in the next couple of weeks. no website work today, because failboat dot com decided to not send me the photographs i need again. so much for professionalism and deadlines. perhaps i shall make my nostalgic post later.

大雞唔食細米

for those wondering about the title of this blog entry, it's one of my favorite chinese sayings that i will probably never use correctly in conversation. it's just really, really funny. it doesn't sum up the day, it's just the first thing i thought of when i decided to make a title. you should probably google it if you want to know what it means, or just click here. God bless cantodict.

today should have been just horrible, but in actuality it was somewhat of an enjoyable day. i woke up about 3.5 hours later than i wanted to, thanks to my dumb ass setting the alarm on my clock for p.m. instead of a.m. and had some lunch. i went to the smog place, which i'll probably link after i've written a yelp post for them, and waited for about 2 hours in line and got through a whole point in my sermon preparation [1 out of 5, mind you] only to hear that if they were to run the test, i would automatically fail because my check engine light was on.

now i knew about the check engine light already, because it's gone off several times before and it's pretty much always been a false alarm, but i didn't know that having one on was an automatic epic fail! so i had the guy clear the codes and i get to go back on monday morning to get it done. the downside is that now i can't go work for my old boss on monday morning and make some much needed cash before the big move a week later. the upside is i don't have to work on monday! the other downside is that i need to wake up ridiculously early for my appointment.

the rest of the day, i got my sermon done, which was great. it didn't take as long as i expected it to, which is even greaterer. i've been listening to music today, which wouldn't normally classify as weird because most people listen to music all the time, but lately i've been listening to nothing but podcasts while i'm driving. it was nice to listen to music. i picked some nostalgic 311, all albums minus their latest [which i haven't gotten, but it can't be worse than 'don't tread on me' so i'll probably get it eventually] on shuffle. it was nice.

i also listened to everything on all caps and the oceanic six's myspace pages during my sermon preparation, which is funny because just yesterday i posted a status on facebook about how i'm sick of breathy synth-pop... but these guys actually do it pretty well, and their lyrics are lovely. they sing about nerdy stuff like harry potter and zombies, and all of the latter group's songs are about stuff from my favorite t.v. show, lost. though if this season doesn't start picking up quick, it may not remain my favorite show.

anyway, i think my previous two posts are too long, and i've probably alienated people from this blog with my wordiness... so i'm compelled to stop writing now in order to placate the masses that may pass by my words thinking i talk too much [read: the tl;dr crowd, definitions 4 and 6 are my favorites]. but then i remember that i'm not an egomaniac and in the end i could really care less how many people read my ramblings, especially if they think i talk too much. anyone who thinks that i talk too much on my own blog probably wouldn't like me too much in person anyway. so why should i shorten my writing for their sake? i won't. they can diaf.

i don't mean that though. reading through some of those definitions is funny, and it points out another huge pet peeve of mine regarding language: nazis. all types. i love to point out incorrect grammar as much as the next guy, but the difference between me and who we would define as the nazis is that i'm doing it for the purpose of education. does that make me arrogant? some may think so, but i assure you that my motives are [for the most part] pure.

what caused me to think about this? some of those entries are over-complicated! the first entry for 'diaf' is perfectly acceptable, there's no need to go into it any more than explaining the acronym and using it in a sentence. people who want to go further than a dictionary would go are just trying to showboat their amazing knowledge of the english language. to these people, who are certainly a sect of the aforementioned nazis, i simply reply: welcome to the information age, people. we don't need jerks to tell us things that google can tell us. we all have google.

did i really need to link google? does anyone not know about google? i mean, it's a freaking verb in the dictionary now, isn't it? i guess it's like advertising for milk — it's unnecessary and totally nonsensical, but some board of officials do it anyway. but i suppose that would imply that i have a board of officials telling me to raise google awareness. i don't, don't worry. and now i have officially rambled enough. time to watch star trek and wish my beard were as awesome as riker's beard. speaking of beards, leave me a comment telling me what i should do with mine.

as you can see, it's getting pretty beastly.

Part Of The Crew, Part Of The Ship

well, so much for today's main duty! due to technical difficulties [lack of photographs] on the client's end, i am unable to progress in my foray into the wonderful world of web development. i know, you're all crying hot tears with me. for those who follow my facebook profile, you may already know that i've been recently suffering from a serious lack of motivation and willpower to get this site done. this little setback isn't helping that. now i get to think and blog and try to get a head start on writing for sunday.

speaking of writing, i find that i have a hard time writing sermons on any day but saturday. i don't know if it's just out of habit because of my persistent procrastination [forgive the alliteration] or if it's some other mental block, but i can't focus on writing if the deadline isn't imminent. i know, it's friday and i've got to preach this sermon on sunday morning, but for some reason it seems that my id does not consider '2 days away' to be imminent enough to motivate the rest of my psyche.

see what i did there? if all else fails, blame freud.

i think the question for tomorrow regarding motivation/inspiration will be whether or not i'm able to get the sermon done in time to celebrate brian's birthday at 'the shout! house' tomorrow night. my guess would be: probably not. it generally takes me about 5-12 hours to write a full sermon, depending on how much preparation [a.k.a. reading the text over and over and reading commentaries slash listening to sermons on the text over and over] i've done throughout the week. at this point, i think i've got a fair handle on where i'm going. it's the last sermon for this particular series, which is ephesians 2, the podcasts of which can be heard here.

so now i've got myself thinking about preaching: what it's meant to me in the last 2 years of being able to preach at least once a month, what it's going to be like not preaching for a long time, what i'm going to do in place of preaching to maintain that area of my life's disciplines, etc. i suppose the timing of this blog relaunch is fortunate, as i could always use this as a place to dump various thoughts. though i doubt i'll ever do so in the form of a full-out sermon with points and stories and what-not. i think that once we're at our new church and everything, i'll be okay with it. the more i preach, the less qualified i realize i am.

nic keeps telling me that i should go to seminary, and it's not like i disagree that i would benefit from a seminary degree [especially from wscal], it's more that i feel like it's something that's very out of reach for me. i know that i could save money and get there, or get financial aid and make it happen, but i think the ultimate question is whether or not it's something i actually have a desire to do. as for right now, with everything in my life pointing the direction it is, with my heart being inclined the direction that it is, i really think that it's just not for me. it could be for me, if we were in a parallel universe where i wasn't dead-set on hong kong, but i don't think it's in the cards.

this ice-cream is called 'mint cookie crunch' but there isn't anything crunchy about it at all.

i can't wait for the class i'm in to be over. it's incredibly dull, and i've hardly learned anything that couldn't be ascertained from a cursory glance at wikipedia [actually i've learned quite a bit more from wikipedia than the book on certain topics]. my next class seems interesting, as i'll be getting into my major classes about teaching english language learners. i'm most excited for the classes with an emphasis on diverse cultures, as hong kong is full of that, and the stuff that will make me a better teacher than i was when i taught last time.

really though, i think i was a fine teacher but a lousy language centre worker. as a regular n.e.t. in hong kong, you don't have to deal with the things that made me look 'bad' as a centre teacher. the most notable of these is the fact that the children in my class have to be there, whereas in a centre their parents are paying for them to be there. that may not seem like a big deal, but when your boss is telling you that you essentially have to lie [tell kids' parents that their kids are really doing just swell and improving greatly when they're total rubbish students that don't want to be there or unmotivated brats that don't need the course] that's when it becomes an issue. keeping the kids in the class is more important than academic integrity and actual learning.

it bothers me that chrome's spell-checker is telling me that 'centre' is spelled incorrectly, despite the fact that the origin words 'centre' and 'centrum' both put the 'r' first. granted, according to the online etymology dictionary [the trustworthiness of which i have yet to test], 'center' is older. but in hong kong, where they speak the queen's english, they say 'centre'. nitpicky? yes i am. that's about all for now. maybe i'll get some enchiladas tonight.

No Man's Slave

re-launching my blog is something i've been meaning to do for a long time, but just haven't actually done it yet. this blogspot has been drifting in cyberspace for too long, so i've decided tonight is the night that two become one... wait, that's the spice girls. why do i know that? oh yeah, i have a little sister.

anyway, today was comprised mainly of doing a bit of work on the website i'm working on [no link at this time, i'm not getting paid for publicity — yet] and my normal duties as 'manny' for the wondrous mckenzie and such. i was supposed to fast today, not because of lent or anything, but just because last night i had an inkling to do so. i remembered to for the morning, but once i went to make the kid her lunch, i completely forgot and instinctively ate her leftovers. silly me. did a bit of last-minute schoolwork tonight, which i do frequently, so i missed small group again.

something that will be in the works soon, as far as my public persona [or lack thereof at this point] is concerned will be a daily vlog. as some readers may know, i do a great deal of watching on youtube, and have a fair amount of interaction among the group. i've also begun to utilize the social networking medium which i once referred to as the great satan as a way to communicate with those whom i don't normally communicate. it's quite interesting, and i've seen a fair amount of success in that avenue. but yes, the daily vlog.

the daily vlog will be called '廣東話對VLOG' which is somewhat of a chinese pun. the name came from my previous experience with pimsleur's cantonese course, which i've come to develop quite a distaste for, because of a phrase they used all the time: 'listen to this cantonese conversation' and the way the cantonese speaking guy said it was so funny. anyway, the subject of the vlog will be my wife and i learning chinese together. this will motivate us to learn chinese as well as keep up retention for both of us, which is so important since we live so far away from chinese speakers in general. it will also give others who may be interested in learning an outlet for that.

speaking of my wife, it's getting harder to be without her, and the days feel longer as march 1st approaches. i love her so. i ask anyone reading to please pray that we would be patient and wait for one another and not despair as the time we've been apart increases. also, please pray that my situation with my car's registration is taken care of — i don't really want to drive all the way to maryland with expired tags. hopefully the dmv will take care of it.

tomorrow: work on website.

saturday: smog, write sermon.

sunday: preach, finish website.

it's gonna be a loooooong weekend. ;-/