Blonde Moment

I'm not one who has them normally, but Sunday I had what I hope to be the only one this year.

As you recall, I just bought a lawn mower from Kimmy's dad. I got it last weekend, and it worked like a dream for my first mowing of the season. Truth be told, it was the first mowing of my life. I know, I know. I had brothers growing up who did all the mowing, and when I moved out on my own, I rented, so there was always a landlord who did the mowing.

So, back to the story at hand...

I brought the mower out yesterday for the second mowing of the year. It started just fine, but after only a few passes in the back yard, it started making a weird noise, then it quit. I emptied the bag, which was only half full, thinking that might be the problem. It still didn't start. In fact, I couldn't even pull the cord - it was completely frozen up. What to do? I called Kevin.

Kevin, in turn, called his father-in-law.

In the meantime, I called Tim (my brother-in-law) to see if I could borrow his mower to finish my yard. He offered to come over and take a look at mine to see if maybe he could figure out what was wrong. Once he got there, he immediately turned the mower onto its side and said "There's too much grass underneath." He cleaned out the grass and it started right up. Great! I was, however, still a little leery since it didn't do anything like this the last time I used it. While finishing the back yard, it died twice more, but each time started right back up after I cleaned the grass out from underneath. I was about halfway through the front yard, when Kimmy's dad pulled into my driveway with another mower!

I felt like such a jerk. I didn't expect such a fast response. In fact, I was just thinking to myself that since the mower seemed to be fine, that I better call Kevin and tell him that it was a false alarm. I should have done it as soon as Tim got it running again, but I wanted to make sure it really was fine. I can't tell you how bad I felt that Kimmy's dad made the trip to my house for nothing.

When I went in the house, I noticed that Kevin had called to tell me that Kimmy's dad would be out at 7:30 with a replacement mower. I didn't hear my phone ring because I was outside mowing with the mower that didn't need replaced.

There you have it. I guess it's a common thing for lawn mowers to shut down when there's too much grass underneath. Let this be a lesson to all you first-time mowers.

Mighty Mouse

I just got a Mighty Mouse for my computer at work. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a multiple-button mouse with a scroll wheel for the Mac. You PC users are fully familiar with the concept since you've had these for quite some time. For us Mac users, however, it's a new thing.

The verdict is still out on whether or not I like it. I'm leaning more towards the "not". Here's the thing; who needs all those buttons? I'm familiar enough with my keyboard commands that I can navigate through all my menus and sub-menus without even touching my mouse. Half the time when I go to click on something, I push the wrong button and some random menu pops up and just ends up frustrating me.

Admittedly, it's kind of cool to have all these menus at your fingertips, but only on those rare occasions when you actually need them. Otherwise, it's just frustrating to realize you've clicked the wrong button, and the mouse is not responding like you expected. Frustrating, I tell you.

One thing I do like is the scroll wheel. I'm perfectly happy without it, but it's the thing I like most about the Mighty Mouse. Other than that, I like my one button. Simplicity is where it's at.

Directions to The Gate

This is going to be a quick post. I'm very busy at the moment, but I wanted to get directions to my church up on my blog in case anyone is interested in attending.

It's right off of Rt. 7. If you're going south on Rt. 7, it's after you go through the "heart" of North Lima. If you're headed north, it's before you get to it. Anyway, you'll see a colorful round sign (if you're coming south, it's on your left; north, right) for a development call Pine Lake Reserve. There's a guard house there. This is where you'll turn. There's never a guard, and the gates are always open. I guess those things are just for appearances. You'll take that road down toward the lake, and at the end, you'll go to the right. You'll see a small building on the hill, and that's where we meet. It's very easy to find. We have a sign right on Rt. 7, too, so you can't miss it.

The service starts at 10:09.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Rambling for the sake of rambling

My, my. I haven't posted anything in a while. This post probably won't be very entertaining, but I'll take this opportunity to get you all caught up with what's going on with me. So here's your chance - if you don't care about what's going on with me, navigate away from this page now.

If you're still with me, then I guess you have one of those inquiring minds that want to know.

As some of you know (and some of you probably don't), I have been involved with a church plant in North Lima for the last 10 months or so. The church is called The Gate. In the fall, we started meetings with what's called "the lauch team". Our team consists of the pastor, Dave Knickerbocker and his wife, Vanda, me (I'm the worship leader), and about a dozen other people who left a big church to come join us. The launch team met for Bible studies and training all through the fall, winter and early spring to get ready for what's called our "preview services".

We had our first preview service last Sunday, and I have to say, it went very well. We've been blessed with a wonderful building right on Pine Lake - it's small, but adequate for our size right now. All in all, it was a wonderful time of worship in a very intimate setting. It's been amazing to see how God directly answers our prayers - from providing us a perfect setting, bringing together a group of people with a common goal, and touching the hearts of some people we've been praying about, and prompting them to come to our first service.

We'll continue every Sunday with these preview services until our "public launch" on September 9. At that point, we'll move our church to the South Range High School gym. Hopefully by then we'll have some more people who have committed themselves to join us on this journey. I'm hoping for a drummer :)

On a more sour note, my ex-martial arts instructor is threatening to sue me because I'm attending another school. He's sent my sister three threatening letters saying he's going to bring legal action against us because we're both going to American Karate Studios now and teaching classes there. He seems to think that this is Korea instead of America. North Korea, it seems, where people don't have the freedom to train wherever they please.

I'm not worried about it; it's an annoyance more than anything else. I hear his business is doing poorly, and I'm sure he's just trying to scare us into giving in to his ridiculous demands. He's saying we owe him money for breach of contract. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I have an attorney here at work drawing up a scathing rebuttal. I'll keep you all posted.

Let's see... what else?

I'm getting a lawn mower! And, I get to mow my own lawn all summer long!

I'm going to plant a garden this year. I've not ever done anything like this before, but I'm sure there is someone that I know who would be willing to help me get started.

I've been getting a lot of freelance work lately. It's a real answer to prayer because I've had some things come up that will need some extra funds.

All in all, life is good.