Giving thanks

Well everyone, it has been a whole year since the last Thanksgiving. And you know what that means- its thanksgiving again.

Therefore, I hereby usurp for now my previous post plans and present for your special holiday consumption, my humble list of thanks. I am thankful for (and as last year, in no particular order):

1. Friends, whom I shall elaborate on throughout this list
2. My jolly yellow truck, which I will miss sorely when the poor thing breaths its last.
3. Bosses, whom despite their over documentational urges and occasionally random requests, really can be good guys and call you on the way home just because they forgot to wish you a happy thanksgiving.
4. Music- quite possibly the easiest entry point the undefinable qualities that make us human.
5. Good conversation that transcends gender, social, economic and political boundaries.
6. For Pushing Daises (the TV show)
7. Heroes (the real ones)
8. Heroes (the show)
9. Innovation
10. Dreams you can act on
11. My family (Especially that Abi and I can be such good friends now)
12. Kiaya, my favorite NaNoWriMo author ever and just an awesome human being in general
13. Anders, a kindred soul in deep thinking, random joking, business aspiration, and hair style
14. Brandon, the resident Sci-fi expert never short on opinion or theory, and often in surplus of good geek jokes
15. Lyndsi, who's philosophical musings and good humor I can't get enough of
16. Jim, who's the hardware hacker I'd love to be and another kindred soul in businesses aspirations as well as a wealth of other areas
17. Leah, who's smile and humor brighten my Sunday's behind the sound board
18. Noah- 3 quarters my size, twice my wit. He's in some ways my more efficient sequel
19. Shpongle, an amazingly atmospheric electronica group that one of the night crew janitor's showed me.
20. Mute Math
21. Eisley
22. John Reuben
23. Christie Dupree
24. Can I say Eisley again?
25. My coworkers- worts and all, they are really a good bunch of people.
26. My car, the fun efficient little thing with the scandalous license plate.
27. Narnia
28. Making new friends
29. The ability to play in the big game of business- for their really is no thrilling, higher stake game.
30. Loosing money and learning lessons in business now, when I don't have to support a family. It smarts a bit, but you get up, dust yourself off and remount.
31. My job at [AwesomeCo] that decided to bless me with for reasons I still do not fathom.
32. Honest conversations with my dad on a man to man level. Thanks, dad.
33. That a spider wick movie coming out soon
34. Ethan- for telling me about the awesome new trailer for the spiderwick movie that is coming out soon
35. The new LG Voyager, for being such a kick'n phone, giving the Verizon people something to stick around for and giving Apple some competition.
36. My old phone- two broken screens be as they may, it has served me well. Not many other phones I know can be ran over with my truck and dropped in the Atlantic and still keep ticking. Plus its hilarious limited functionality makes for a good conversation starter.
37. The Cat in the Hat hat Kiaya gave me last Christmas, which is an even greater conversation starter.
38. Long drives with the music cranked on foggy cool nights
39. Snow!!
40. Particularly, snow before Thanksgiving!
41. Glenn Beck.
42. The Alverados
43. Seth- what more is there to say? He's just the man.
44. "Grandpa Dan" from work.
45. Chinese food. It makes the world a better place.
46. Mexican food. See 45.
48. Long chat conversations on every topic, from the extremely stupid to the extremely deep.
49. Air travel.
50. Airships.
51. Cows. They may look stupid and move slow, but how on earth could you have a bacon double CHEESE burger with out them?
52. That reminds me- pigs.
53. Zebra Cakes
54. Heck, lets just say food. I must be getting hungry.
55. Time to relax from all the crazy hustle and bustle.
56. SLEEP.
57. Thankful lists
58. Bundling up to stay warm.
59. Sir Richard Branson (here's a video of what he's like in person)
60. Freedom.

Now go enjoy your feast everyone. Happy thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving

Today is thanksgiving.


I should know, I've been checking it out since 12:20Am and I can say with total confidence that it is legit. So, act accordingly. Eat turkey and stuffing, eat cranberries and pumpkin pie (or Blueberry, if you so please). Spend hours in conversation with your friends and relatives around a common feast. Hang decorations if you want. But most importantly, reflect to yourself and others what you are thankful for. If you live in this country, you shouldn't have to look to far.

Inspired by my friends around the homeschool blogosphere, I present to you a list- inferior, but similar, to theirs. In no particular order of, I am thankful for

1. My family, whom I will expound upon later
2. My wonderful job that has been given to me as a gift in spite of myself
3. Agape and all the lessons learned, both in and out of the classroom
4. Hannah, who evangelized Tim Burton to Abs and I, and for always having a new post, layout and music video on her blog. :D
5. Kiaya, who writes like other people breath and is never short of good conversation
6. Mr. and Mrs. G, who feel like family after one short year, make excellent Mexican food, coffee and forgive me cookies (even if there was nothing to actually forgive), and do amazing big bird impressions and play some mean jazz (but not all at the same time).
7. Brad for being the coolest, most stoic friend yet still being crazy, and for realizing how awesome musicals are and for inviting us to stuff.
8. Leah for being cool, being fun to work with at church and for having a dad who has an amazing truck I want to buy
9. Living in a country with freedom of religion
10. Living in a country with a free market
11. Living in a state with such low taxes and such good people
12. Being able to do conduct whatever buisness I want to (within, sadly, certain legal bounds)
13. Craigslist
14. Aluminum cans
16. Large transformers and their copper, but not their bloody thick iron
17. Turkey
18. Stuffing (the mix of cornbread crumbs and other ingredients put into fowl on special days)
19. Stuffing (The action, done to ones face, often with the above noun, also on special days)
20. Poetry
21. Cranberry sauce
22. Cliches, Making fun of
23. Cliches (that are actually true)
24. Online comics
25. Eisley- the band, the family (seen here with the producer in his backyard), the blog
26. Google (Whom I love irrationally)
27. My office computer, with its freshly christened dual LCD screen glory
28. Blogging
29. The funny pirate ducky on my desk (Its a ducky with an eye patch- its funny!)
30. Lists
31. The postal service (The band- I could do with out the actual system)
32. Pandora (the site, not the notorious box of ill-repute)
33. Optimism
34. Optimists
35. Being able to see all the sides of an issue
36. 88.9, WERS radio
37. Hours spent waiting for a manager to call work so you can populate thanksgiving lists
38. Abe, for being a genius and for his current obsession with satellites and the International Space Station
39. Joy for her never ending enthusiasm and never ending theatricality
40. Spelling theatricality right on the first try
41. Moriah for her quiet charm and wit, and for being deep
42. Abi, for being so mature and still crazy-random, and for getting along with me despite our attempts to kill each other a few years back
43. Jennifer for being such a role model to me, for the conversations we had last time she was over, and for introducing me to Regina Spektor
44. Josh for being a solid good brother, for pushing himself so hard and becoming teh mast3r of kung fu and for being the baddest baldy ever
46. Mom for being such a staple of love and affection all my life, for bringing me up and keeping her humor despite us all, and for the little bit of Streeter she has imparted into me
47. Dad, for all the priceless experiences he has imparted to me- working, camping, sanding, doing business and talking politics together. I've learned more from him then probably either of us will ever know.
48. Coffee so strong it can retard your very tongue
49. Coffee brewed so fast it can retard your attention spa- Ooh! I love this song!
50. Puns (No matter how ostracized I become from society for them, I still think they are hilarious)
51. Bosses that actually call so you can stop populating thanksgiving lists
52. The diverse and hilarious cast of characters that make up my work, all of which you could easily incorporate into a comic strip
53. Readers of this blog that sprinkle the globe and span the country (who ARE you guys?)
54. 42, for confounding us and creating the second question- what is the ultimate question?
55. God, for never being fully understandable, but always there. Because his mercy his greater then his judgement. Because he loved a wretch like me- to the point of his death, even death on a cross.

A small list I know, but there is of course a never ending supply of entries and I had to stop somewhere.

On number 53- honestly, this is crazy. I've seen a viewer from Australia last month and I get regular hits from North Carolina. Thank you for reading! Please don't be shy in the comments; if you enjoy anything or disagree or are even alive, let me know. I'm curious who reads this.

Have a happy thanksgiving everyone!

My summer so far acording to me.

So... I don't really think I am going to do a proper farewell post to the school year. Mostly because my sentiments have been echoed allready by all my friends- basically, go here or anywhere else in my blogosphere where people mention the end of Agape and my sentiments are very much the same.

I suppose I must elaborate a bit though... So, this was my first year at the co-op. I didn't really know exactly what to expect. Beleive it or not, when I'm in a totally new surrounding with all new people I can be intimdated. I don't like to show it and I suppose I'm not technically shy, but its just as awkard for me to try and strike up a conversation cold-turkey as for anyone else. But given enough time, I can make aquantinces anywhere. For some reason I thought there would be alot of HS steryotypes- very steady people; well educated, formal and intelligent but eccentric in nothing. I think my first guess was that 40 to 60 perecent of the people in the co-op would fit this mold, with a strong representation of these characteristics in the leadership.

Boy was I wrong. This group has blown me away with how awesome they are. They are my type of people; I don't know how to describe it. I '"clicked" with so many of them instantly. Knowledge is there, as is to be expected, but so is that weird sence of humor that draws on knowledge, and eccentric interestes abounding. I am frustrated because words are failing me(or perhaps at this hour, I am failing them...) But the point is, I didn't just make aquantinces- I made REALLY GOOD friends. These people felt like just that- a people, if that makes any sence. I relate to them on so many more levels then I do with any other group. They felt like old friends instantly. How else could I have relationships that are intergal to who I am with people I have met only two semesters ago?

I shall miss everyone, yes- but I am always on the AIM network or Gmail and with technology it never seems that there is such a gap between people as once there was. And of course, I'm not making a plan of avoiding my homeschool brothren all summer either- I shall be meeting up with you all as often as I can.

Which is not for the next 2 weeks or so, with limited exceptions. We have a sort of soft stop-order on extranious activites since we want to get our house in working order for the summer. (We still have some flood stuff to work out, though nothing major.)

I have much planned for this summer- I am going to World View Academy once again (and now some new friends Agape are coming too!) as well as going to Inside out Soul festival. In about three weeks I am going on a bike trip with my friend for 5 days. I'm really stoked about it but nervous all the same as I have to make sure both me and the bike are in working order. My friend is coming up all the way from Kansas for this afterall. Between all this I will also be stuffing my summer with as much Math as I can stomach. I need to catch up on that badly, and the classes I have picked out for next school year will fall through if I don't.

Of course, all that anticipation, but nothing exciting has really happened yet. So far the biggest event was my computer crapping out. Yeah, my main operating system hard drive had served me faithfully for over 5 years, and it began going into its death throws two days ago. Alas, we morn for the drive but move on with our lives. Knowing myself, I have stopped storing anything of value on my main disk along time ago. All my personal docs, movies, pictures, music, etc. are on other drives. This is good.

I'll probably be posting back from Frankenstien (the name of my main computer) soon. I just grabbed a drive we had laying around from a scrapped project and slapped it into my box. Things are looking good. Next post should be from the other side.

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Oh, and don't mind the spelling errors please. Its 12:31 and I have no spell checker on this box. Yes I know there are online options but I'm TIRED. Goodnight.