I read an excellent short biography today of JRR Tolkien on the Tolkien Society website. I reccomend that y'all should read it.

In addition, I am pasting in a section from another part of their website:

"On January 3^rd Tolkien fans around the world are invited to raise a glass and toast the birthday of this much loved author at 21:00 (9 pm) your local time.

The toast is "The Professor".

For those unfamiliar with British toast-drinking ceremonies:

To make the Birthday Toast, you stand, raise a glass of your choice of drink (not necessarily alcoholic), and say the words 'The Professor' before taking a sip (or swig, if that's more appropriate for your drink). Sit and enjoy the rest of your drink.

Here is the entry form."

You can count me in on this one.

Hope everyone is having a great school holiday.

Signing Off...

Through strange circumstances yesterday I ended up driving around the new Firewheel Town Center three times. Once to put a little extra gas in Ellen's gas tank so she wouldn't run out - then we spent a little time in Barnes and Noble and after running another errand we came back for Ellen's car. All of these trips (but especially the mid-afternoon one) made me think back to my Site Analysis Class when we had to design parking lots.

Now their parking lots are not a problem that I can see. The real problem is that when they designed the roads between the shops they neglected to design for large amounts of traffic. I think that since they were trying to "pull off" this special new design they had the incentive to do it right the first time. and I think that they failed---

That might sound a little harsh but consider this, in regular malls people don't have to worry about getting run over walking from one shop to the next. If this is supposed to be better than a real mall I don't see it.

Originally (and I suppose it still is) one of their big selling points was that you could drive up to the store you wanted to go to park, shop and then leave (kind of like a normal shopping center) but yesterday not only was that practically impossible but it was so congested they had hired people to direct traffic for at least one of the intersections. Now I have no problem with guys directing traffic, in fact I think that if the designers had made provision for traffic guys it would have been great and added to their design. As it is now there was no room in the road for them to stand so they were sqeezing between cars and standing in front of others.

In conclusion- I think that their concept, while it might sound nice, is flawed. If they have to hire "emergency" traffic directors on the first day it gets busy then something is wrong with the picture. Perhaps cars do not belong on the interior--

Signing Off...

I know I just posted but I have to put up these song lyrics. This song is from the first Indelible Grace CD and it has a great melody in addition to the great words.

If Thou Hast Drawn

1. Draw me from created good,
From self, the world, and sin
To the fountain of Thy blood,
And make me pure within

Chorus: If Thou hast drawn a thousand times
(Oh draw me Lord again)
Around me cast the Spirit’s bands
(Oh draw me Lord again)

2. Lead me to Thy mercy seat,
Oh draw me nearer still
Like Mary, draw me to Thy feet,
To sit and learn Thy will
(Repeat chorus)

3. Draw me all the desert through
With cords of heavenly love
And when prepared for going home,
Oh draw me up above
(Repeat chorus twice)

©1997 Kevin Twit Music /
Nomella Music (ASCAP).

You can hear a sample of it Here

So this afternoon I was walking back to my room after checking for mail and I saw that someone had thrown out a monitor in the first floor trash room.

In my experience when people throw out computer equipment that means it is broken. Despite the fact that chances were good that it was broken I decided to take it back to my room and check it. Well it turned out that it did work so I now have a nice desk ensemble.

Having two monitors really is nice because you can keep several windows open at the same time. For instance, right now I am writing this blog and also keeping an eye on the iTunes window so that I can select a new song when one I am listening to finishes. Maybe a little extravagant sounding but it was free.

By the way I am listening to "The Love of Christ" on For All the Saints: Indelible Grace III sung by Derek Webb -- in my opinion one of the best all-round songs he has done.

Signing Off...

On Saturday night I saw The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and I was very impressed. The fact that it was so close to the book was the second best part. The first best part was that the move was executed without totally overdoing the special effects. The overall effect was a great movie that I could probably watch over and over if I wanted to (or if I was around the little kids).

I must say that I was crying (not bawling) off and on for probably the first 30 minutes because, more than any other story I grew up with I have wanted to see this done, and done well. I am happy to report that it was done well. To those of you who are wondering about LotR -- for me that story wasn't really an important thing to me until I was about 12. TCoN was read to me at a very early age by my father and then I picked them up soon after.

Particular things I liked in the Movie: the Landscapes and outdoor sets, The actors (particularly Lucy - or was it a young Eleanor Green?), the dialogue was good (if not great), Tumnus was excellent too... can't think of any more but I know I will pick up more when I see it again.

I can't wait for the other 6!!!

Well I finished my first final yesterday evening and I am sure it went well, our teacher doesn't even like giving finals so he always gives them a twist -- this time we were allowed to use our notes in any form we had them (which includes booting up your computer or using the textbook) needless to say I had them all down except for a couple.

but I still have one more to go -- it is today at 4:30 and it is the tough one. So I will bid you farewell and go back to studying.

Eric

Yesterday afternoon Jenny and I spotted about three fires on our weekly drive to Hale Center. This one was by far the largest of those we saw and actually was just outside the city limits about a mile from her parents house.

After lunch Mrs. Mull announced she was going to Plainview to Wal-Mart to get some more Christmas lights for their tree and Jenny went with her (they didn't find them by the way). This gave Mr. Mull and I a chance to test out their new car's 0-60 ability (talk about a new twist on the Sunday afternoon drive). The car went 0-60 in 9.4 seconds. It is a Olds Intrigue but I don't remember the year. After we tested the car we drove to the other side of town and drove around the fire. during lunch the fire had gotten bigger and was putting out a lot of smoke. In fact it was putting too much smoke to be just a grass fire so our take was that they were either burning a barn full of tires or some kind of "evidence".

In other matters, School is not too busy but it is just busy enough to drain me of most good ideas for blog entries.

Signing off...