Steph's Awesome

She's this really cool girl that works as a counselor at camp. Everyone always picks on her all the time, but Matt and I think that she's really awesome. I mean, she takes so much criticism, so many sarcastic and biting comments, but she always seems to have a smile on her face. Even when things aren't going very well, like when her cell phone company is ripping her off, she still has a smile on her face. I've even seen her brothers make fun of her ... in their heavy New Yock accents ... it's a sight to behold. They're really good at it, but she takes it with a smile.

That, and she's such a servant. She'll work hours on end, doing dirty work, like Cinderella, without any desire for recognition. It's really cool. This weekend, for instance, she came all the way down from New York just to help out at camp (well, and to go to school in Indiana tomorrow too).

Oh yeah, and she has really awesome glasses. They're new, and they make her look really intelligent and scholarly. She got them just in time for school. Matt would like to add that you're quite the accessorizer. Good job, Steph.

So Steph, if you happen to be reading this, we just want you to know that we appreciate you. You officially rock our socks.

Inferior Design

Well, I'm finally in my new place. This is really fun, arranging the furniture and rearranging the furniture to try to get everything to fit where I want it. I've still got a load of stuff to bring down from camp, from PVM, but I am really enjoying this place. Here, I'll post a couple pictures that I took before I moved my hoards of junk in:







As you can see, it's a pretty nice place. In fact, before I pulled in the driveway today, I decided to drive around and view the neighborhood. I quickly found out that it's probably one of the nicest neighborhoods in Cincinnati (at first glance, at least). I think it's called Beckett's Ridge, or something like that. A few of my students said they live near here ... I'm not surprised. The Wilburs said that they live almost next door (so wheat). It's kinda interesting ... I'm not really used to this sort of environment. I just came from a cabin in the woods, folks.

One thing that's interesting is sharing a bathroom with Mike (one of the other 2 tenants). I really have to go potty, but he's taking a shower. I think I'll get used to it. Hopefully. My bladder's gonna have a hard year otherwise.

That 5th Grader Told Me To Say It

I fell in love ...

Strangely Reassuring

6.25 %

My weblog owns 6.25 % of me.
Does your weblog own you?

Homelessless At Last

I finally found a place to live! As I think I've mentioned before, I've been commuting an hour each way to work, living in my cabin in the woods at camp. I really love living up there ... if only I could move my cabin 45 minutes closer. But alas, after months of searching, I've found an awesome place to live that I can actually afford!

It's in West Chester (is that one word or two?) ... it's a large house with three apartments in the basement. The owner, Helen, is an interior designer that built the house about 10 or 12 years ago. My room is about 20x20 (that's really big), completely furnished (and nicely, she's a designer, remember?), and quite comfortable. It has a working fireplace, couch and table, 2 twin beds, and an attached bathroom (which I'll share with one other tenant). There's a large living room, with attached kitchen, laundry room, and screened-in porch, that I'll share with the other two tenants. I'll be sure to put some pictures up later on tonight, if possible. One of the roommates, Mike, works in Kentucky ... that's about all I know about him so far. The other is a doctor who lives there on the weekend (he lives at the hospital during the week) ... I don't even know his name yet!

So last night I packed up the cabin and cleaned it out ... Louie is loaded with stuff, and I have another load at camp still (how did I get so much stuff?). It will be so nice to live only 15 minutes from school and to start to get used to this area of the city. And I'm right off of I-75, such a convenient location ... near 275 and still on the way up to Hamilton, Oxford, and PVM. It's a Godsend ... yesterday I just felt an extreme peace about the place, so I called her, just in time. She told me that if I had called an hour later, she would have given the place to another prospective tenant. Hallelujah!

The Force Farce

Now this one is hilarious. Apparantly 70,000 Austrailians filled out their census forms by claiming that their religion is "Jedi."

Blogs4God

Kevin Pierpont of blogs4God.com doubts that "so wheat" will become a catch phrase, yet he used it himself ...

It's kinda funny how these websites keep finding webel.net and listing it ... you can even rate webel.net here. Now that's so wheat.

What a Weekend

Wow, this has been an interesting weekend, even though it's been short. We had a 3 day leadership conference at school that ended on Saturday afternoon ... it was pretty good, but I was definately ready to head back to campus for a break. I picked up a couple of movies for relaxation this weekend then ended up just hanging out in my cabin.

I then decided to go rock climbing (you can do that when you have a 40 foot climbing tower in your yard) and change some of the bolts on the tower. When I got over there, I found Matt Stenger and Amber Bennett and some other Miami people climbing, so I joined them for a little while. Eventually everybody but Matt left, and we hung out for a little. It was really good to talk to him ... eventually he treated me to dinner at the Rec Center (where I saw Tom Miller, but that's another story in itself). I dropped him off at about 8:30, then headed to Shriver for even more fun.

A few people from Miami Christian Fellowship (IV) were going bowling Saturday night, so I joined them ... and boy did we have a blast. There are quite a few new freshmen with the group that added a lot of life and spark, and the mere fact that we were bowling just rocked. You can see here the beginning of my perfect game (yes, a perfect 300) ... and I had the most amazing ball. I've been to these lanes (Colombia Lanes in Hamilton) 3 times in the last month and always had the same ball. It's a ball with 5 fingerholes that fits my hand perfectly. On top of the ball, it says "W.E.B." Clearly, it's the WEB-ball. Oh, yeah. And below is a little self-portrait. Kinda cheesy.



After bowling, we went back onto Miami's campus and played capture the flag until 1:30ish in the morning. It was great, perhaps one of the greatest CTF games I've ever played. The teams were small (about 7 on 7), but we were intense. And playing in a public place just rocks. My team ended up losing, but it was worth every minute.

Today after church, I went to the annual MCF Slip and Slide at the Dudley House. I don't think I have words to describe this ... just image 175 feet of plastic, with straw padding underneath, a ramp, pool and mud pit at the end, and 30 or so crazy college students. We tried a little of everything ... dogpiles, trains, surfing, swinging from ropes from the tree, you name it. We're all a little beat up (I can hardly walk) but it was worth every minute. I'm really glad to be near Miami and able to hang out with those awesome people ... I just might be convinced to live up here at camp now ...

And school starts tomorrow. Oh, the craziness. I'm gonna go brush my teeth.

so wheat.

The webel.net store has officially opened, sporting the exclusive "so wheat" design. Tshirts, mugs, wall clocks, hats, messenger bags, frisbees, and mousepads are available at rock-bottom prices*.

so wheat |sew-weet|

adj. 1. Slang for "sweet", this popular phrase was coined at Pleasant Vineyard summer camp in Camden, Ohio during the summer of 2002. It quickly spread throughout the eastern United States like airborne poison ivy. It is expected to overtake "awesome", "cool", "groovy", and "tubular" by the end of Autumn, gradually infesting Europe and Asia. Some linguistics experts believe that the phrase may even be make it to Cincinnati, Ohio by 2008.

*The creator of webel.net makes no profits on items sold from the webel.net store. He will, however, be completely elated when he sees something worn in public by a perfect stranger for the first time.

Bummer.

Ok, so Apple just pulled one of its TV ads, the one featuring a totally baked college student named Ellen. Bloodshot eyes and all, it's kind of ...





... a bummer.

Hot or Not?

I just checked to see if my blog is hot or not. This is what it told me:



Ok, explain this to me ... if you're only allowed to vote with whole numbers, and I only have one vote (a vote of 6/10), how is my official rating 9.5? Now I'm no Albert Einstein, but I would think my official rating would be 6. Hmm, kinda sketchy.

What do you think ... is my blog hot or not? :)

i like circus peanuts.

one two three four five

i hate computers.

CD-Ramen Noodle

I just spent all day working on a CD-ROM of pictures from camp this summer. There are over 1,000 pictures sorted by week ... then I built a browser, basically a whole new website, with which you can browse the pictures. I'm very pleased with the result. If only I could figure out how to make the html page launch automatically when the CD is inserted (anybody know?). All that's left is the jacket design and the label design, then they're ready for mass production!

The Blocks of Death

Objective:
Set all blocks to the "down" position.

Instructions:
Clicking on a "block", moves that block and all ADJACENT blocks to the opposite position (up to down, OR down to up). Sound easy? Solve the three by three board and you get a chance to tackle the four by four board.

Ready? Here it is.

Shag Carpet and All

I really wanna convert this bus into an RV and live in it this year.

My Fun Conversation with a Number

166179070: hello
166179070: hello
166179070: how r u today?
Lance: who are you today?
166179070: hi I m doing well.. Thanks
Lance: thanks for what?
166179070: What r u doing right now?
Lance: trying to get you to answer my questions
166179070: noting..
Lance: what are you noting? the fact that i'm asking who you are?
ICQ: 166179070 has logged off

Why?

Why are they called apartments when they're all stuck together?

Momentary Answers

1. i was just kidding about the shaved head.

2. i'll probably rent ... i have the name of a mortgage guru lady i'm going to call tomorrow, but from what i hear, the housing bubble is going to burst soon ... in other words, a year or two after the economy slows, real estate usually gets a good hit. so if i buy a place now, chances are it'll go way down in value in the next two years. if i plan to stay there for at least 4 years, i'll probably regain my value, but that's a big if. additionally, it's pretty imperative that i put at least 20 percent down, to avoid excess hidden mortgage closing costs and mortgage taxes, but at this point i only have enough saved to put 20 percent down on a pretty sketchy home. so even though mortgage rates are at an alltime low, my wisest choice is probably going to be to rent out the $400/month 2 bedroom place i found in hamilton with a buddy or two.

3. i am doing the coaching thing. i've been practicing the routine ... "Kids, go run through the woods for a few miles." i think i'm going to be a great cross country coach. as long as i don't have to wear the skimpy uniforms with them ...

4. i'm not sure about moving my office. the reason i'd move it would be to gainsanity. students are rowdy when there is no teacher in the room with them, see? i'll still be able to retreat to the desk inside the office if i want ... i think i'm just going to set up a second desk, with accessible laptop, inside the lab. something like that will work well.

Choices, choices ...

The athletic director called me yesterday to ask if I want to be the head coach for the middle school cross country team. I've never run cross county in my life ... I think I'm going to ...

I've been in conversation with financial advisors about the possibility of buying a home. I probably won't, but I need a place to live and it might just be a wise choice at this time. If only the housing bubble wasn't about to burst in the next couple of years ...

I might move my desk out into the computer lab, away from the privacy and into the mess of things, but i can't decide if that's a good idea or not ...

I might shave my head ...

The Journal of Jesus

I don't exactly know how this happened, but a website called the Jesus Journal listed my blog ... you can rate it by clicking here (maybe that'll make me feel popular or something).

Box War

Do you remember playing this game during church? Who can get the most boxes with their initial in it ... unfortunately, the computer isn't very good. But it's fun!

Can I Have A Garage Sale?

I finally took the brave step of visiting the computer lab ... I've only been back once this summer, and it scared me enough to never go back. The lab is completely full of equipment, new and old, that needs to be cleaned, updated, organized, and put away before the school year starts. We have 12 new computers, 3 laptop carts in disarray, tons of new software, and a general mess of stuff that I never really got the chance to sift through last year during school. So it looks like I'll be spending a good chunk of the next 3 weeks (probably 2 weeks of it) simply clearing out clutter and creating systems of organization. But I think that if I'm faithful at that, it'll make the school year run a whole lot smoother.

This has been a really awesome week at camp ... only 6 or 7 of us are still around, those counselors who were asked to stay for specific tasks, and it's very neat to hang out with them in a more personal and relaxed setting. Camp really was quite stressful this summer, and it was exhausting being in the spotlight all the time. But it's good. Real good. Hundreds of kids committed their lives to the Lord this summer ... how amazing it is to be near that. How amazing. :)

Hello Again!

ah. a breath of fresh air. as of now, camp is officially over for the summer. we had 8 or 9 weeks (it's all a blur now) of totally intense 24/7 ministry, and God did some mighty things in our midst. i have a couple of weeks until school officially starts up, but i'm going to need a good chunk of those for recovery. the staff (see picture) are mostly hanging around until monday or tuesday, but they're starting to trickle home to their various locations around the country. those of us that are still here will be going to king's island tomorrow, then there's a handful that are staying through the week to do some intense labor 50 feet up on the rock wall. oh, yeah.



mike dunfee and i have started to look for a place to live. i'm pretty confident that we can find something that's affordable, in a good location, and livable. i'm pretty confident that we'll find something, and maybe even something unique or unusual. we'll see. oh, and he's looking for a job too, so if you know of anyone that needs a young, motivated, sturdy christian guy (who would make an awesome teacher), let me know.

i think i'm going to go visit my friends and family in akron next week. it's been a while since i've been up there, but i think it'd be good. plus, steph needs a ride to new york ... how much fun would that be?

so in general, it's finally time to get out of the camp mode and get back into the swing of things for the rest of the year. i haven't been online in ages, louie is 1600 miles past oil-change stage, i've got bills to pay and scores of people to write back, 3 months of laundry are cleverly stashed away in my cabin, and i could really use a big tall glass of pulp-saturated orange juice. oh, yeah. :)