Adventures of a tool

Day one:
#1 I subconsciously reach up and touch my hair, then think (2 weeks after the last haircut) "Wow, my hair is really long!!"
freshmen have to have "white walls", basically shave our heads, to be qualified as good looking in uniform.

#2 (to be repeated, no doubt) Talk about my roommate, only to receive blank stares. Oh yes, I must have said "Old Lady."
It's not a blackbelt (freshmen/sophomore) privilege to have rooms, so we don't have roommates either. We have an old lady, that we have to take care of very carefully.

#3 Free time! What do I do? Sleep? Well, polishing shoes may be more important this time.... Oh yeah, I don't have to have them two-barred tomorrow.
Our black shoes need to be so reflective that under fluorescent lighting you can see the individual bars. Basically mirror-finished polish. It looks good, but it takes a lot of work.

This in the space of about 3 hours. We'll see how things continue in the near future.

Day two:
#4 Realize that I haven't explained yet what a 'tool' is.
Tools are those people that just can't give up the Corps games, even when they're not really in the Corps at the moment. These games are often excessive and seem completely out of the normal for any normal person. We're not exactly normal people, you know. Not even after just a semester. It gets worse if the sophomores, juniors, or seniors are tools.

#5 Realize that for some odd reason, I'm not using many abbreviations, or those I do use I want to know exactly what they mean.
Corps games you know. Freshmen aren't allowed to use acronyms, so we get along just fine either knowing and saying exactly what they mean, or else just not using them.

Day three:
#6 At the tournament, find out that somebody knows what the haircut (long as it is) implies, and unfortunately tell them some of the silly things we tools do, not knowing that they would be treating it like an inside joke from then on.
The game in question -- if somebody whacks me with a garrison cap, I have to thank them and ask for another. These things are far less common as an upperclassmen, so I'm looking forward to that.

Lost track of time:
#7 Show off how much I can... or rather, want to physically train myself. It may be excessive.
We're supposed to stay in shape over the break. I'm mentally preparing myself for said staying in shape. It's high time I actually started to do so.

Note that there's probably a dozen examples of each, along with many unmentioned. You know, when they said we would get tool training, I think they meant training on how not to be one. It didn't work very well. O_o

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This tournament I mentioned -- I'm a judge this time. First time ever. Alumni get food paid for and provided, as long as they judge some. I rather think judges get the sweet end of this deal this time :)

Pictures so far, if you look again later on I'll have more up. (as of 6:30 12/18/2010)

Brenham Meltdown 12/10

More to come later? Who knows. I got one post in last month, maybe it'll be one more this month.

Thoughtfulness... well, I'm afraid I haven't any for the moment. You see, it's so hard to find thinking time sometimes, when all is on the go. But I suppose this is worth thinking about -- how much time does it take? Just because you spend a long time thinking about something doesn't mean you were thorough, and just because you were done thinking fairly quickly doesn't mean you were not!

God bless!
-Petr

Through the months

September -- 1 post
October -- 1 post
November -- well, let's see :)

'Time flies when you're having fun, and fun flies when you're waiting for time'
paraphrased, from Mom

In case anybody was wondering, I have been thoroughly enjoying life in A&M, in the Corps -- every once in a while, that is. Sure, fish (freshmen) sort of get the bad end of the deal. But that's the best way to learn and become part of the traditions at A&M. Bonfire is personal for all the men of Falcon 16. The twelfth man is the most important player. Buddies are made for life, and never let down. Respect is given until it is lost. Privileges and responsibilities are earned.

This is the life of a Corpsmen, at least summed up in ideals.

For something more 'realistic', take a look at these :) (yes that's right, I do like to take pictures)

2010 Fall College Station

Here concludes this short update. My laptop battery is dying and I'm getting ready to crash.
Farewell, dear readers, and God bless.
-Petr

A new day dawns

That is, tomorrow morning. I'm kinda guessing it's a little late to dawn at the moment.

For those who like pictures, look here!
(Pictures on the other side of this link, fyi)

Corps trip #1 tomorrow, we're heading out to Arlington. Yippee! (kind of)

Can't wait to see what happens.

God bless! Even my short life is enough to demonstrate that He can and does.
-Petr

Take shelter

Or so says the Maroon code warning. Tornado headed your way, ACK!

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Okay y'all, I'm sitting in the Evan's library at TAMU, somewhat wet, and probably late for a class or something. Bummer.

But hey, I'm surviving :)

For y'all on facebook, look up my mother's pictures. For those who aren't:



That was last weekend, first real Corps stuff for me. FOW is over, the buffer week for getting used to classes is over, now the real work begins, and the upperclassmen have decided to crack down on fish that aren't perfect. Well hey, I guess I'll have to learn to be perfect huh?

Not here I won't. Only by God's grace can I see any improvement -- and there's been a lot of grace around here. Never far from sight, anywhere and everywhere. Amazing to see.
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Why did nobody say it would take half an hour just to get to classes? :P

-Petr

For real

First, an update.

June 28 through July 10: Stillwater, Oklahoma. Ooooklahoma how the... (it's a song, it keeps going, and that one particular phrase gets very old pretty quickly)

OK&VBS2010

The original plan, and the one that was carried out, was to visit family for as long as a week, and then head home. This in and of itself creates such an occasion for joy and mirthful days that it's worth mention by itself! Hey N's, y'all sure know how to have a good time and make family feel at home :)

That encompasses about the first 6 pictures in the previous album, the first week spent in Oklahoma -- one of family going on small adventures hither and thither, staying cool inside, long hours of dialogues on world peace and small furry creatures. (the board's official report has yet to be filed, much less published)

That week went by fairly rapidly... as has much of this summer. My immediate family left that Saturday, and that's where the first plan and the second plan diverge.

See, a week later, the Stillwater VBS was going to start. I like to go out of my way to be at this particular VBS (my past records should show this). So I stayed at the N's for another two weeks! Take the first week of incredibleness and extend it into two weeks, only plus a few more people... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Saturday Aunt Liz took Stephen and I out to the Alabaster Caverns for most of the day. It turned out to be more of a long drive with good music, a history lesson or two, followed by a lot of hiking and gaping at scenery, followed by the drive back home that had the same as the first. Field trip officially, unofficially a really good reason to go hiking and wandering through a cave.

Monday and Tuesday were quiet, cleaning up days. And also a bit of Calculus review.
Wednesday was to be another quiet day, except that one of the VBS official team members arrived early. The house wasn't very quiet until after the sun went down! Thursday the rest of the team arrived, and all tallied up accounted for one from Ohio, one from Kansas, two from California, one from Scotland, and one from Northern Ireland. Add my person and two of my cousins to that lot, and then extend it to the rest of the Stillwater crowd, and VBS had a lot of workers.

I have to add in a spot of something here. Stephen and Megan, a Northern Irelander and a Scot respectively, certainly added a lot of flavor to this particular week. And they sang Oklahoma some. You can never tell!
A shout out to those who came across the pond to help out! :)

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday went by smoothly, Friday being the day that the entire VBS team went on the OSU ropes course, both high and low (things such as the human knot). Fun fun. (feel free to gape at the pictures again)

Monday the 5th of July was the first real day of VBS work -- and it wasn't properly working really hard. We set up the field that was intended to be used for VBS, ran through our rough plan, all without the kids. July 4th was the day before and the rest of Stillwater was still taking a break.
Okay, make that Tuesday as the first real day of work, but even then we got rained out and only about a third of the total people who would have shown up could actually stay out with us in the rain.
Evenings were either really tough or really fun, depending on how you look at it -- basically the VBS team went to some populated area of town and started knocking on doors talking to people. Some confrontations on spiritual matters ensued.

Wednesday and following VBS was held at the YMCA, just in case the rain came again. I could (and would) go on about the details... but how time flies by! (or something)

July 10: Departure. Aunt Liz drove to Dallas, while Mrs. S. and I came along for the ride (Mrs. S. was visiting with Rachel, who is in fact staying there with my grandparents. Funny how things work out like that!)
For the sake of not rehashing too much of my melancholy, I'll avoid the part where I say it was sad to leave -- ask my cousins and family, they will most likely clue you in.

July 12: Enid VBS begins, only without me. I was in Nacogdoches, getting ready for Calculus 2! That's the reason for random review during this long trip. Summer II semester dual credit at SFA -- a packed month. However I'm very happy to report a final GPA at SFA (this is merely coincidental information, it doesn't transfer) of 4.0! That gives me hope yet for this coming semester.

Skip forward to August 14, when I had my official graduation and Eagle Court of Honor. Yep, big ceremony, lots of hullabaloo. I honestly didn't hope to make it a big deal -- it just makes things official. And is a good source of barbecue (thanks Mom!)

Grad/CoH (mine)

The major upside being that I get to see all sorts of people from all over that I hadn't seen in forever :)


On a completely unrelated note, I am now in possession of copies of:
Newsboys In the Hands Of God
Tenth Avenue North The Light Meets the Dark, Over And Underneath
Fireflight Unbreakable
Coldplay X&Y, Viva la Vida
Jars of Clay Long Fall Back to Earth

All of which I would offhandedly recommend. Again, I think the advocation is best left to somebody else, mostly because I won't be here, or have the privileges to listen to these in public...

This semester has become the future that I both looked forward to and dreaded. Now it's here! All packed up, moving out tomorrow, how odd.
My life is about to become very inaccessible in all sorts of ways, one of those being that I am now cutting contact in many fashions, save only gmail and this blog (if I'm doing well). For those who are yet unaware, I'm going to Texas A&M and be in the Corps of Cadets (I hope you have heard of the latter if you have heard of the former). Fish Orientation Week starts tomorrow, and if you are currently reading this, I am most likely unreachable until... ?
I don't know much of the matter, except that it's going to be a major trial.

That in mind, this is Petr, Amigo de la Sombra, your friendly neighbourhood... (okay I'm not digging that deep) signing off until further notice. You'll know when I'm reaching through insurmountable odds to get here. Your prayers are much appreciated.
Until we meet again, take care and God bless!
-Petr

Out to lunch?

Double post! These titles went together too well to be one :)
And there's so many pictures to look at I figured I'd better post them separately. It helps to have an appreciation for one's camera!

Regionals 2010

ICOM Graduates/Galveston

Nationals 2010

Enjoy

AWOL or --

Howdy!

Yep, that's me folks. I shan't comment on the time since last time was now... except for what I just said, and that may remain a mystery for a while.

What follows is both a couple excerpts from life and a somewhat reasonable stream of consciousness. If it was on my mind, there's a chance you'll be seeing it on your screen.
("These are the tales of a wanderer looking for adventure, and what an adventure he finds! Coming to computers near you!")
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Geekiness from last month aside... not many complaints about the new computer. It's very nice actually. Fairly fast processor (2.4GHZ), 1GB video card, 4GB RAM, 9 cell battery, runs both Kubuntu and Windows 7 reasonable, though I'm still working on that hardware acceleration issue...
Ross managed to rip Dr. Who dvds to his hard drive, so I moved those over to mine and will be taking it with me :)

Oh wait, did I just go geeky again?

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:A rant about the ideology of ages follows.:

There's clearly some value that our society places on the idea of age, beyond the basic idea of young, middle aged, and elder, beyond generational distinctions, beyond even what the government or insurance companies require to make "important" decisions (never question the bureaucracy!). Ask a young child their age and they may respond "six going on seven!!" For those in their teenage years, 15 and 16 may be different worlds, much less times. Beyond 40 some will tell you very emphatically that they're not a day older than 42 or some such age. Those older than 70, while they have much less of the tendency, may in fact be going for a family record (okay I was stretching with that one).

I was going to go into detail on this, but a little bit of research later, and it turns out there's not a whole lot that I can tell -- 48 hours and a lot of reading, maybe I could tell you something you don't already know.

Something you probably do already know -- a quick glance through the Old Testament sure says a lot about elders. They are the ... well... elders. They sit at the gates and talk, they carry out the letter of the law from the prophets to the people, they give counsel to those who need it.
The wisdom of the elders is something that should not be underestimated, especially by those who most need wisdom. For some reason, living longer gives one a lot of experience, can you imagine that!

As for the young, what most easily comes to mind is the idea of innocence, faith like a child, being awe-struck by what seems to be everything. These are not hard to find if you really look. We are told that faith like a mustard seed, child-like undoubting faith, is what moves mountains. And can't a child move a mountain if they're determined enough?
Not in the literal sense no. But I'm sure the parents in the crowd can attest to the sometimes incredible tenacity of those younger than 10?

Well here's the point I was going to make, but I'm not sure it can be made anymore: For those of us who fall into general categories, what difference does a year here or a year there make? When you first meet somebody do you ask them how old they are or do you ask about what interests them? Or if you've known somebody five years and can't remember their age, does it matter? Sure there is a level of maturity that a 20 year old has over an 18 year old, but does that apply to separate individuals? Again you can look at individuals and say "that person is mature beyond their age" or of another "they are very immature" (referring to people as long as 20 years apart) -- what relativity gives us these ideas? When you come to expect something of somebody because of their age, you're not looking at them anymore, just a (dare I say it) stereotype.

Human beings, man, we are given the responsibility of taking care of creation. We are created, and God's most loved creations. Surely that says something about each man, woman, or child? They're made with a purpose, with a plan, as somebody separate from the rest of the world. Individuals -- what a concept!

:End rather unorganized monologue:

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For those who might wonder, I've done a lot of traveling lately. Yes but Peter, don't you always do a lot of traveling you say? Certainly. I love traveling :)

A brief glance at a calendar recalls to mind these occasions: NCFCA Region IV Regionals, in Austin at Concordia University, a visit to Houston for a graduation and beach party (yes it was the first time in 15 years I'd been to a beach), New Student Conference at Texas A&M (with all that information overload), NCFCA Nationals in Virginia Beach (Somebody offered me a ride), another trip to Houston today for the ICOM end of year party (I love my club!!), and tomorrow departure for Stillwater Oklahoma. I've certainly got my fill of traveling this year.

I know how much you like pictures. They're forthcoming, and some of you may have already seen them...
The rest of the pictures will have to wait until I've actually taken them :)

So this is it, farewell for now! If you're reading this, there's a good chance that I'll be around there sometime soon... then again, there's a good chance that I won't. We'll see.

God bless!
-Petr

NOT a typical day

So. Last night I installed Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid Lynx. This morning, I got up and said "hey wouldn't it be cool if Windows could access the files on Lucid!" I went and got some nice software that was supposed to help it work. It turned out the software only worked with ext2, ext3 with inode size 128, or ext4 with some similar option (I have ext4 Linux file system, so it didn't work). So I uninstalled the software and decided to live with it. The software demanded that I restart the computer, so I did. Here comes the BIOS display-- and then a blinking line and a blank screen. No keyboard input or anything. GRUB died! The only thing that worked was the live cd!
Here I am, about six reinstallations of Ubuntu (Lucid) later, and I think I might have both working. Here's hoping.
*Assuming* it does work, the next challenge is transferring files from another computer to my new hard drive. I'm trying to use a direct network connection between them and since one has auto-negotiation (or duplex, or whatever you want to call it), I don't need a crossover cable. In theory.
This was my entire day, interspersed with lunch, park day (with a few homeschoolers), and dinner (at a homeschool business meeting). Oh yeah and I was so distracted that put a notice up at the wrong place! The original plan was to have the meeting at Maroney park (5 minutes from here), but we got rained out. I was tasked with putting the notice of location change up at Maroney -- but I was so distracted that I went all the way to Pecan park (15 minutes from here).

And then God said "Do not be afraid, only believe."
"Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." ~1 Peter 3:15
"For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died and then rose again."~2 Corinthians 5:14,15

This has been your compulsory rant of the month from Petr, followed by a wake up call in no uncertain terms.

The region IV invitational speech and debate tournament is next week, starting Wednesday morning, and I am... not likely to do a whole lot better now than ever before. But that's okay. See above -- it's not so much that whole thing about winning that counts anymore.

Now if anybody understood all of the above, please mention it and I will gladly buy you ice cream :)

God bless!
-Petr

Repeat of a past non-intrigue

Hi there!

Yeah, it's me again, back at "ye ol' drawin' board". Somebody pointed out to me that this poor ol' blog is rather neglected, and I agreed. Maybe it's time to get back to the mindset of "I wonder if I could blog about that..."

So, as a fulfilled promise, I give you these further sources of funny looking html code. To the average eye it may appear like a simple picture with a link, but don't be fooled!

Ski trip 2010

Texas National Open 10

Farmington 10

The last is the one freshest in my memory, though I suppose a brief recall of events may help those not previously involved.

So -- Ski trip 2010: see previous post :)

TX National Open: The NCFCA tournament held in Texas open to debaters all debaters, not just those from region 4 (TX, OK, NM, AK). Worth mentioning is the fact that Joshua Jones got first place speaker!! (not place, mind you. There is a difference)
Furthermore, I competed in extemporaneous starting this tournament and will continue to do so through at least one more. Basically, they give the competitor (assume the name "you" until further notice) 3 topics to choose from, all based on current events: "Will the A350 be a viable competitor to the Boeing 787?" and the like. "You" has (have?) thirty minutes to prepare a seven minute speech on one of the three topics. Further, You has been doing research on hopefully any and every current event for the past 3 months and will print off any and all articles from any and every source. You then can quote anything s/he likes from these articles, provided they can fit it and their entire speech outline on a 3x5 index card. At the end of the thirty minutes, You must go give the speech in a separate room, taking only the index card.
Sound fun yet? :)

Also worth note is the fact that I finally got my Humorous Interp (basically a ten minute, one person comedy) memorized and almost reasonable. Alas, it was still several minutes long. So I used a different script altogether for the...

Farmington, New Mexico (CHILE Qualifier) tournament: Held in Farmington, NM, open to those from region 4.
Worth note -- my new script is based on a folklore tale. Thanks to Mom for finding it!
Further, I (finally) broke to outrounds in debate. Strangely enough I beat the first person in octafinals, but then lost in quarterfinals, winding up with 8th place in the tournament. I'm quite happy with that :)
Even more information -- the reason for so few as 17 pictures from this tournament and so many in/from a car is that during the tournament and before I could really get the pictures I was looking for, the camera was used as a video camera and all memory card used up. No, taking pictures is not my passion, but I still lament not having more space or another card.

Feel free to ask questions. Those who know me are familiar with the fact that I answer questions more easily than volunteering information... (though that statement came rather easily. I wonder why)

Have I missed anything yet? My my, it appears to be near the end of March! If I'm to keep up once-a-month postings, I might as well start very soon this week.

I rather wish Annie would return, it's beginning to look rather lonely around here without her claws...

God bless!
-Petr

In celebration - of?

The question of the day...

Or is it?
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Good evening, my dear friends! It may even be morning for some of you. But that makes no difference to the likes of myself -- we have things that need to be done at such late hours!

Ok, so there's another reason. Has anybody heard of Terminal Man?
http://www.wired.com/autopia/tag/terminal-man/

No, that's not what's going on here. Just similar. I wonder if he ever stayed the night in Denver...

Long story short, if you desire. Debate tournaments, much traveling, ski trip, stuck in airport overnight. Short enough? :)

This latest adventure started last week. Roughly. Almost a week and a day ago, in fact. 12 AM Saturday night -- we got up and drive 3 hours to Dallas, got on a plane at 6, watched the sun come up somewhere outside from between complete strangers. And that was just the first flight. From Denver we took a mid-morning flight to Aspen (and slept the whole way). A lot of hurry-up-and-wait-ing going on, or certainly after we arrived in Aspen. The ski place (oh yes, did I mention it's a ski trip?) had weird management policies, the condominium wouldn't let us in until 4ish, and lunch wasn't exactly easy to come by.

How about I sum up again? This entire past week consisted of a whole lot of skiing, some eating, some sleeping (you think!), and of course just enough debate/speech prep to realize that I'm not doing nearly enough.

The snow conditions in Snowmass were almost ideal: powder the day we arrived, snow for most of the week to keep that layer of powder there, and a whole lot of back country (extreme terrain, YEAH!) deep powder. Yes I did "drag" several people down the tough ones quite a bit :)

I might well have some pictures up from said trip soon. However, realize that I didn't take a whole lot of pics, and they're not all much to look at.
But I've got some from the last tournament!

DFW Feb 10

(That's a whole mess of html, by the way. Not that I would know what all of it means)

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I have the great privilege of achieving 100 posts. YAAAAY

So is it competition or cooperation that got me here? :)

God bless!
-Petr

Eh what?

Lets see now, how did I do this last year?

goes sifting through archives

I take it back, I didn't. That would be... 2007? Man it's been a while. Anywho. (ready for this yet?)

WHITE CHAMPAGNE!!!

With some rabbits thrown in there for the purists

Have you a good Christmas/Incarnation and New Year? I know I did!  Blizzards and such... that's another story for another day :)

God bless!
-Petr