I had wanted to see if people from work could meet for dinner last weekend for my birthday. Things didn’t work out because some people were out of town and because I never remember to invite people soon enough.
Anyway, since it didn’t work out last weekend, and since we’re off of school today for our “Winter Break”, and since it was Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, we went out last night.
We went to a place owned and run by a student’s family. It is an Italian restaurant called Cafe Troia. It was very fancy and very delicious. I was underdressed in my wrestling practice clothes, but had some monkfish that was so tasty I didn’t worry about my clothing.
To top the evening off, the waiter brought out my dessert with a candle in it and sang “Happy Birthday” to me. Then we all had limoncellos.
I’ve been working with some prayer beads for church. The idea is to use a little string of beads while praying, and that each bead would represent a different prayer. Some ladies from church did an awesome job of making the strings of beads, and I was to create the card that went with it. I’ve been stalled out for several months, but yesterday I finally had to get the cards ready. There was a meeting at church and they asked me to bring the cards so we could assemble the bags the beads go in.
On one side of the paper, the prayers are written in sentence form, on the other side is a bulleted list. When shortening the longer versions to the shorter versions, I hit a snag. I was looking for a way to shorten the sentence: “Bring peace to those who struggle with mental difficulty, anger, or stress.” I thought that if the prayer was for peace, I could simply say “Pray for those who… (what is the opposite of peace?)” I couldn’t say “don’t have peace” because the word “peace” occurred later in the list. I went googling. As it turns out, no one seems to know what the opposite of peace is. “War” is appropriate only in some situations. THIS page asks the question, but doesn’t receive a satisfactory answer, in my opinion. I spent several minutes in metaphysical paralysis.
Not being able to name the opposite of peace, I wrote “Pray for those whose minds are troubled”
HERE are the prayers, in case you’re interested in reading the full list.
HERE it is in RTF, for Lloyd.
HERE it is in plain text, just to be thorough.
It’s been a while since I recorded a vanda orchid update.
A little over a year ago, I received some vanda babies for Christmas. I mistakenly misted them daily and killed almost all of them with fungus. After realizing what was going on, I stopped the misting and have been a little more careful ever since. My last update recorded seventy percent fatality. I think I’m up to 95%. There are only three plants left.
Ever since it got cold I’ve been running the heating pads under the pots again. These three remaining vandas look okay for now. I hope they make it into the summer…
It has been a particularly long birthday celebration this year. Last night I played with a present I got on Sunday. Denis gave me Guitar Hero for XBox 360. At first, I didn’t think I’d like it very much. It seemed too complicated. But after playing a couple of times, I think it’ll be a new opportunity for addiction. I especially like that after you finish a song successfully, the screen says: “You Rock!”, then lightning bolts strike the words and the letters go flying everywhere.
Now this morning I have a ton of stuff to do that I didn’t do last night. But don’t worry – a true Guitar Hero always gets his work done.
My birthday was a day of fun. A friend of Denis was in DC for a conference and they were getting together for lunch. He invited me to come along.
Lunch was at a Mongolian Grill. You put a bunch of raw food in a bowl and take it to the grill guys who stir fry it in front of you, then you take it to your seat. I didn’t do such a good job picking ingredients, but it was still fun.
Afterward, we went to the Georgetown area. There are a bunch of fun shops there. It is a place where many of the buildings are being eaten by ivy. In spite of the obvious danger, we decided to walk around a little.
Yesterday was beautifully warm, so it was a great day to be walking around. So how did I show self control? Here are the things I wanted to buy, but didn’t:
A hilarious coffee creamer:
Some weirdly-laced shoes that were only $30:
A Rocketeer jacket:
Everything in this store:
