Last week, I went up to PVM to help out … and discovered that Dale, their media specialist, had just become really sick. I decided to step in and help with the photos, video, and DVD … something I used to do back in the day.

Here are some of the photos I took … and the video is above. Putting it together was quite a challenge … in one day, I had to sort through previously taken footage, fill in the gaps (half of the footage in this video was taken in about 2 hours), and stay up all night assembling the pieces.

Thankfully, I think it turned out pretty well!

There’s nothing on TV, I’m tired of working on the house/yard, it’s hot and balmy out, and my favorite person in the world is gone all week … so now’s as good a time as any to post an update on my life. Yep, that’s right … blogging is pretty much my last priority nowadays.

Sorry.

With summer this year has come something new in my life … more work. Yep … for the first time ever, I’m on the clock for both June and August, so I’ve been going in to school every weekday to work on lots of projects and preparation for next year. Here’s the to-do list:

1. Publish a website of resources for our Advisory program
2. Create a student lounge for our kids to hang out and have fun
3. Revamp our Behavioral Rubric to clarify how we do discipline
4. Reorganize my office and all of the junk that’s accumulated there
5. Take over our school socials, a monumental task
6. Consolidate all of my digital information
7. Redesign how our weekly chapels are put together
8. Run a one week Tech Camp in August for about 20 students

It’s weird, really … even after a couple of weeks of summer work, I can’t quite seem to get adjusted. My mind and body just want to check out … so I’ve been filling June up with lots of gruntwork. Hopefully I’ll be able to hit the ground running in August!

The homefront has shifted a bit lately … two tenants moved out in the past month while another moved in about two weeks ago. The changes seem good … and thankfully I should still be able to pay the bills and enjoy living where I do. Little by little, the house is getting organized … and along with it, so am I.

In News That Makes Me Smile, life with my lovely has been absolutely wonderful! Perhaps I should post more about her here, so y’all aren’t so surprised when I suddenly start gushing about how fantastic she is and how dramatically different my life has become. Then again, perhaps I should just leave it a mystery …

The next month should be pretty fun … weddings, a family vacation, some Cedar Point action, ultimate frisbee, a road trip, a conference in Atlanta, and a whole lotta summer. Sure, I might only get 1/3 of the time off than I’m used to … but I’m still gonna make the most of it!

Want to save some money on your water bill?

1. Wash out an empty bottle … two liters or milk jugs work well
2. Put a few rocks in it then fill the rest up with water
3. Replace the cap and place it in your toilet tank

If there’s a significant difference in your toilet’s water pressure, just adjust the size of the bottle. Once you find the right balance, you’ll start using less water each time you flush … and you can repeat the process for each of your potties.

So what are you waiting for? Do a number (#2?) on that monthly bill!

Facebook just announced that they’re going to be opening up a new can of worms in a couple of days, allowing each person to claim a username. It’s kind of a big deal, a potential game-changer for Facebook, as they’ve always resisted the username trend to ground their user base in actual identities, in real names. I’m quite interested to see how else they choose to use these usernames down the road.

It got me thinking, though … starting nine years ago, when I first registered http://webel.net, I’ve tried to keep things simple by going with the username “webel” on various services (i.e. Twitter, Flickr, etc). Short and sweet, you know? But now I’m starting to wonder if that’s really the best strategy.

If I changed my username to “lancewebel” on all of these services, for example, it would do a couple of things … first, it’d allow me to have a standard name that’s always available (so I wouldn’t have to fight with my own relatives). Second, it’d be much more search-friendly … anyone entering my first and last name would be more likely to find me if both of those were in my URL/information.

But it wouldn’t be all short-and-sweet anymore.

Hmm. I guess I have a couple of days to decide how to handle this from here on out, ’cause once I choose a Facebook username, it’s permanent. What do you think … should I go with “webel” or “lancewebel”?

A few days ago, Kristen and I came across the following note while rummaging through some of my old school papers. It’s from my first grade teacher, written at the end of the school year:

“I would like to mention again how strongly I feel about involving Lance in some kind of team soccer. In twelve years, I have never suggested to a parent any outside activity that I felt their child could have benefited from. However, it appears to me that Lance needs that extra release I feel he would receive from competitive sports. Lance is a superior student but he also shows talent athletically. Please call if you have questions. Good luck!”

– Mary Kase

Soccer, it seems, was the Ritalin of the 80’s … and I was a prime candidate. We laughed so hard … I guess that explains some things!

As I was driving down I-275 west on my way home from work today, I noticed something weird in the corner of my eye. It was white, and it was moving … right on the edge of the woods. I slowed down a bit to try to get a better look, when I suddenly saw something surprising.

It was an arm.

I quickly pulled off to the side of the road and put my hazard lights on, backing up until I got to the spot where I had seen it … and sure enough, there was a man crawling out of the woods, desperately waving his hand in hopes of getting someone’s attention.

I stopped my car and ran across the I-75 north exit ramp, where the picture became clearer. The man was on all fours with his head hanging to the ground, and behind him, in the trees, sat a totally smashed car. This older businessman, dressed in a white shirt with nice black pants and shoes with blood splatters here and there, had driven straight off of the road and crashed at highway speeds (there were no skid marks anywhere) into the edge of the woods.

I ran to him and asked him to lie face-down in the grass, then dialed 911. I then sat down in front of his head, holding his neck to try to stabilize his spine. As I was explaining our location to the dispatcher, a couple more cars stopped by, and we were able to ascertain that he had been traveling alone and that he had severe pain in his neck and back. One woman was an x-ray technician who thought to get his wallet and ask him about family … he had none, aside from his wife, who was in a hospital far away. Another woman who stopped had seen the accident … she reported that he had been run off of the highway by a semi-truck.

Thankfully, after a few minutes, the police and ambulance arrived, and we handed off the situation to the professionals. They put his neck in a brace, rolled him onto a stretcher, then asked us a few questions before carting him off to the hospital. And that was it.

So if you can, pray for John tonight. He is probably alone.

My hard drive failed last week … I hadn’t yet gotten to the point of installing OS 10.5 (and hence, Time Machine) … but luckily I had backed up all of my documents a couple of weeks ago, so I wasn’t really worried about it.

Until now, that is … I just got the machine back with a brand new drive, completely void of my applications and settings and bookmarks and everything. It’s gonna be a pain to get all of that set up how I want to. Even worse, however, is the fact that I just realized that I never finished uploading a couple thousand photos from my year in China to Flickr.

Oh, man. I really hope I backed those up somewhere …

I don’t really like it when people call me a “photographer”.

If you don’t think that buying bottled water makes you a sucker, just say evian backwards.

Now this was a good book. A mystery involving a cast of crazy characters and a twisting plot, the storyline centers around a mysterious competition to which an eccentric millionaire postumously challenged his heirs. The prize, of course, was his massive inheritance.

There were a fair amount of twists and turns throughout the book, giving the reader ample opportunities to try to figure out the clues … And the wacky characters kept me entertained throughout.

In reality, though, I think I liked reading it as much for the smart and funny writing style as I did for the plot itself … in fact, I’m pretty sure that this was the first witty novel I’ve ever read.

Are there other similar books out there, ones that’ll engage my brain with wittiness? If so, do tell!

Ok, now here’s where my vacation gets tricky. I’ve got a plane ticket to Lexington from the tiny St. Pete/Clearwater Airport for tomorrow at 4:30pm. That airport, however, is a 50-minute drive from the island my campsite is on. And I don’t have a car.

So I’m planning to pack my bag at about 10am, hike out to the main road, and stick my thumb out. Hopefully some generous soul will have pity and at least take me across the bridges to the mainland, where I can try to figure out the public bus system or something. I figure that I’ve got about four hours, that should be plenty of time to somehow make it across town.

If not … uh … this might just become an extended vacation!

You know, there are two kinds of seashells that tend to catch my eye …

I like those tiny ones, the kind that seem to wash up in the millions, tumbling over each other and hiding in the sand. They all kinda look the same, until you make an effort to bend down real close and examine them. Then it becomes clear that they’re actually quite amazing, surprising little packages of color and pattern that only hint at the grand shells they could one day become. I like to pick them up, roll them around in my hand, rinse them off, then toss them back in the mighty ocean … these little guys are all about potential.

I also like the big colorful broken shells, the ones stepped over by dozens of beach combers because of their imperfections. They may be cracked and incomplete, but if you really stop and look at them, it’s clear that their fragments tell marvelous stories, hinting at long journeys and terrible conflicts and stubborn strength. I like to wonder where they’ve been and imagine what they looked like in their former glory … these guys are all about adventure.

You know, there are two kinds of people that tend to catch my eye …

Yesterday I decided to stay ‘home’ at my campsite, taking a couple of naps, reading a bunch (I finished ‘The Witch of Blackberry Pond, meh), and letting my scorched skin cool a bit. It was nice and relaxing, the kind of pace that vacation should be about. I even stayed up “late”, reading and writing until 11-something.

So when I woke up at 5am and heard the strength of the wind pushing through the trees above me, I knew I was well-rested enough to explore. I brushed my teefs, packed a bag, donned my socks and jacket, and headed for the beach.

I was clearly the only one up … on the two mile hike, only one car passed me, and the beach was completely deserted. The frigid wind whipping off the Gulf of Mexico sent shivers up and down my body … it felt great. And I had no choice but to relax, letting myself sink deeply into the pulsating sounds and enveloping solitude.

The beach wasn’t technically ‘open’ yet, so whenever the rangers came around to patrol or empty the trash, I made a game of it, hiding in shadows and darting from tree to tree until the sun peeked over the horizon at 7:36, right on schedule.

And then, just as the people began to arrive, I quietly snuck back to my cozy little tent for a long morning nap.

mmhmm.