Week of Sept. 12, 2004

Week of Sept. 12, 2004
Friday, Sept. 24, 2004
Tomorrow will complete my second week of work since sabbatical. Today is my day off. I went to Jazzercise this morning, then headed downtown to eat lunch and see the IMAX Space Station film at the Science Center. I am at a pizza place on Main Street. The first restaurant I tried had a $10 minimum for credit/debit cards. (I have no cash with me). This place has a $5.50 minimum.

My first week back I worked just under 60 hours, and it was a physically exhausting week, more so than I ever expected. This week has been tiring emotionally… Somehow all three of my committee meetings landed on the same week, which I would never intentionally do. I ended up postponing the Christian Education Committee meeting. Next week will seem short, as Ron and I will be at a professional leaders event Sunday night, Monday and Tuesday. I need to try to finish the newsletter tomorrow, so Charlene can work on it while we’re gone.

Week of Sept. 5, 2004

Week of Sept. 5, 2004
Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2004—Day 80
I’m back in Louisville, and I’m feeling horribly disoriented… Scott and I drove down this afternoon. We arrived during rush hour/dinner time. I had trouble remembering how to get to Blankenbaker (we were going to eat at Ruby Tuesdays.) We ended up eating at the new El Nopal, near my apartment. I had forgotten what it looked like when I left. We attempted to get my TV, VCR and DVD player from the White House (our youth building) and unload my desk at church… I tried to time this mission so we’d be there while ALPHA people were in small groups, but we were caught. John P. and Michael T. were on the playground. I also bumped in to Christine and Mitch Noah. I didn’t spend much time in the building, but it seemed very brightly lit to me.

I brought the majority of my mail home and went through it while we watched a movie. I threw at least half of it away. I am going to try to start getting up at 8 a.m., so I can get back in the swing of things.

Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2004—Day 81
This morning Scott and I went to Mall St. Matthews for lunch, then we went to Locust Grove. Locust Grove is a house built in 1790, owned by the brother-in-law of George Rogers Clark, founder of Louisville. The house has been restored to resemble the way it looked in the late 1700s, which is when we date the beginning of our congregation—we’re celebrating our 215th anniversary this fall. Scott had to leave before the tour was over to go back to Columbus.

I spent several hours at church this afternoon. I saw all of the staff except Doris and the preschool teachers. I got my computer set up—after using AOL dial up all summer, the DSL seems very fast. I gave myself a tour of the building, surveying what needs to be done before Sunday. Most of the evening VBS wound up in the Sunday School office, so I started to sort through that.

I bumped into a handful of church friends today—at the mall and at church. I’m sure I will see more in the next few days. I think it is good… If I were to see 200 people on Sunday for the first time in 12 weeks, I know I would feel overwhelmed.
Schlotzsky’s is still closed (it appears it is closed for good, and not for remodeling), so I ate at Tumbleweed. I didn’t feel ready to go back to aerobics at church.

I was home by 5:30. I continued to unpack, and did some cleaning as well. I watched A Wrinkle in Time, a movie based on the novel by Madeleine L’Engle, which aired on The Wonderful World of Disney in the spring. I thought it was pretty good, and a more faithful adaptation than A Ring of Endless Light, which aired on the Disney Channel. I’m glad I reread the book this summer before I watched the movie.

Saturday, Sept. 8, 2004—Day 84
Today is the last day of my sabbatical. The past 12 weeks have been wonderful, and I won’t forget this summer, though the details are beginning to fade already.

I have spent a few hours at church each day since Wednesday. Yesterday my carpet was cleaned at my apartment, so I had to go somewhere else. I went to the Seneca High School football game last night, and saw Matt, Shelley, Chris and Mitch… and presumably Zach.

Today I was at church from 9 to 5, then I went back later to set some things up after the Prayer-a-Trooper event. I feel fairly prepared for tomorrow, though I wish my first official day back was not a 12-hour day.

I am tired… This week has worn my out—saying good-bye to my parents and brother, loading the cars, unpacking, trying to get organized at church.

It will take weeks for me to process the summer—I tend to process slowly. So I will continue to write in this journal a while longer.

Week of Aug. 29, 2004

Week of Aug. 29, 2004
Monday, Aug. 30, 1 a.m.
The images above are originally from the "Coleslaw" comic strip I drew for the Messenger jr. newsletter in the late 1990s. The image depicts the Cole's family sitting down to dinner. In the strip this panel is taken from, Galatia and John announce Galatia's pregnancy. (We find out in the last strip of the series that she has twin boys).

I reworked this panel for the National Council of Christian Churches' "Peacemaking Begins at Home" nonviolence curriculum, which can be found in its entirety through my links page. This drawing was used to illustrate the "To Respect Self and Others" aspect of the Family Pledge of Nonviolence, in which family members strive to "respect self, to affirm others and to avoid uncaring criticism, hateful words, physical attacks and self-destructive behavior."

I submitted the drawing on the left, which was probably the best panel in the entire "Coleslaw" series. I was asked to make some changes, to make the drawing more "inclusive." I very reluctantly turned Philip's chair into a wheelchair to include a handicapped person and added a baby to the scene, to expand the age range of those depicted.

With the changes, the artwork was deemed inclusive. But one detail always bothered me... In the revised version, the baby's high chair replaces one of the two empty chairs for John and Galatia. There is no room for them at the table...

And that doesn't seem very inclusive to me.


Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2004—Day 74
Tonight I went to the 58th Annual Millersport Lions Sweet Corn Festival, a big to-do in the small village of Millersport. This is the first time I’ve been able to attend since 1996(?), as we’ve had our synod youth gathering Labor Day weekend since 1997. Mom, Dad, Scott and I ate at the Festival around 5 p.m., before the big crowds came and the lines got long. I had a shredded chicken sandwich and French fries (and later cotton candy and fried cheese). The grand parade began at 6 p.m., leaving from school, heading down Lancaster Street, then turning down Chautauqua Boulevard. We watched the parade from Marlowe’s house. It was pretty enjoyable. Several of the bands were very good. There are lots of band, a queen candidate from each area school, and the like. There didn’t seem to be any Shriners… I think 90% of the Jeffersontown Gaslight Parade is Shriners. The Sweet Corn Festival parade organizers put the horses at the end of the parade so no one would have to step in horse poo. Then after the parade, Scott and I enjoyed more of the Festival.

We usually had Thursday and Friday of Festival week off when we were in school. This year, Millersport also had today off. A good percentage of income for the Millersport Athletic Boosters, Music Boosters, and Sophomore, Junior and Senior classes comes from booths at the Festival, so some of my memories of the Festival are of working. My first job experience was probably at the Cub Scouts’ Mouse Roulette booth. There was an oversized roulette table in the center of the booth. A live mouse was dropped on the center of the wheel. Customers placed quarters on a number. If the mouse went in that hole, then that person would win a prize. Unfortunately, Mouse Roulette is no longer there, probably due to protests from PETA.

Another booth was the CRAZY ball booth, which was operated by the Band Boosters, and later the Music Boosters. I think the gambling aspect was similar, except the winning number was determined by rolling the CRAZY ball, a polyhedron-ish die. The slogan was “Come one, come all, come play a little CRAZY ball.

The sophomore class traditionally had game booths (duck pond, sucker tree, etc.) When we were juniors, we sold roast beef sandwiches. And when we were seniors, we sold steak sandwiches (aka hamburgers). Most of the funds raised went toward our junior/senior program and our senior class trip to Walt Disney World.

When I was growing up, we lived within walking distance of the Festival. When we went to bed at night, with the windows open, we could hear the sounds of the Festival.

As far as actual sweet corn goes, we never ate much…. We tend to be sweet corn snobs. The sweet corn my grandpas and Dad grew was/is much better than the corn served at the Festival. And sweet corn on the cob is the only sweet corn served at the Festival—it’s not one of those festivals where all the food is derived from the title food.

But my favorite part growing up was the midway rides. We usually rode rides on Saturday, when one could ride all day for $5 or so… I think it's $12 now.

Friday, Sept. 3, 2004—Day 76
John Kerry was speaking today in Newark, Ohio. I went with Mom and Dad, though I was a bit misinformed about the event. I was under the impression that because we had special red tickets we would have seats, and that he would begin speaking at noon. Neither turned out to be true. We went through several “security” points. At the first point, Kerry supporters were checking the shirts some Newark football players were wearing under their jerseys, possibly to make sure no Bush/Cheney propaganda got in. They also made some people take off their “flip-flops” off and throw them away, apparently because some Republicans have accused Kerry of “flip-flopping” on the issues. Then we went through the metal detectors. I was asked by one security person to turn on my digital camera, then I was yelled at by another for not going through the detector. Local Democrats spoke prior to Kerry, including John Glenn. We only stayed for part of Kerry’s speech, in part because my back was getting sore from standing up, and in part because we wanted to avoid the rush after the event concluded.

After the event, we went to Columbus to visit my great-aunt Martha (my Mom’s aunt). We had a nice visit. Aunt Martha was born on July 4, and her middle name is Liberty.

Week of Aug. 22, 2004

Week of Aug. 22, 2004
Friday, Aug. 27, 2004
It is finished!

Today I completed the artwork for my comic book. There is a possibility I will decide to do one more tiny panel, but if I do, it will be an easy one. There are 12 pages of art in the story; adding special effects slides, commentary, behind the scenes, etc. brings he total number of PowerPoint slides to 77. In the next few days I will review each slide, check hyperlinks, etc. There are some issues that will affect distribution—namely, getting the fonts to look right on different computers. I probably won’t be able to fix this until I get back to Louisville, as I seem to have not brought the proper software.

I did, however, manage to bring most of what I needed, and I did not need to make a midsummer trip to pick up additional things at church or my apartment. (Many thanks to Charlene for mailing me some items, and e-mailing me some files). I am beginning to pack up here at Scott’s apartment. I shipped a box of books via Media Mail this week, anticipating that space in the vehicles on my return trip will be at a premium.

The week seems to have gone quickly… Scott and I were able to go to Bible study together on Tuesday. Attendance seemed good to me. Eric was there… He’s hilarious. During a time for sharing praises and prayer requests, several of the group members said that they were thankful for the young adult group, and though I didn’t say anything, I too am thankful for the group, and being able to hang out with people my own age this summer.

I exercised three times this week, and I plan to go tomorrow morning. I am hoping to reach one of my weight goals on Monday (losing 10% of my highest weight).

Week of Aug. 15, 2004

Week of Aug. 15, 2004
Saturday I went to Lancaster, the city where I was born. I stopped first at Rising Park and climbed Mount Pleasant. I was out of breath when I reached the top, and my heart was beating rapidly. From the summit, one gets a beautiful view of the city, including the Fairfield County Fairgrounds across the street. I stopped next at Subway for lunch, and had a roast beef deli sandwich and Baked Doritos. When I was in high school, Mom would sometimes get dinner for us at that Subway, and I would get a footlong pizza sub.

Then I made my way toward the house where we lived after I was born (until I was about 3 years old)… right around the corner from the hospital, actually. The house is a two-story home on North Cherry Street in the east side of Lancaster. It is blue now, but when we lived there it was yellow or mustard-colored. Across the street is a park, with basketball courts and two ball diamonds. If we had stayed in Lancaster instead of moving to Millersport, I probably would have played there often. I spent some time in the park, proofreading previous journal entries. After leaving the park, I stopped at the church where we went when I was very young. Roger Q. is the pastor there now—I met him when I was doing day camps for the Southern Ohio Synod. I also stopped at Risches drugstore, which still has an old-timey soda fountain with stools, etc. I remember taking my great-grandmother to the podiatrist next door with my grandma. While great-grandma was at the foot doctor, grandma would buy me buttered toast at the drugstore. I may have dipped the toast in fried egg yolk, as that was the only part I liked. I think they may have served drinks in paper cones.

After my trip down memory lane, I dropped my memory card off at Target, to have digital prints some digital prints made. While I waited (so much for 1 hour photo processing…) I went to “In the Ballpark,” a nearby comic store. They were having a HUGE 25¢ sale. I bought 56 sale books.

When I got home, I made Mom draw me a layout of the North Cherry Street house, so I would know what it looked like on the inside. There are a few photos of the interior, but Mom and Dad didn’t take as many photos back then, in the days of 126 film and disposable flash cubes.

On the way to Mom and Dad’s on Friday, I stopped at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, to go to the Augsburg Fortress bookstore and do some research in the library. At the bookstore, I found a booklet published by the ELCA in which my (uncredited) artwork appears. The image is very small, but it looks great in print. I bought all the copies they had in stock (3). I also purchased a Marty Haugen cd with Now the Feast and Celebration (a liturgical setting for Holy Communion) and Holden Evening Prayer (a setting for Vespers). The Annunciation/Magnificat from Holden Evening Prayer was sung at my commissioning service, and I still cry every time I sing it… At the library, I read a bit about The Acts of Paul, apocryphal stories about the apostle. As part of my research for my comic book, I am reading the Acts of Paul, Acts of Barnabas, and other extra-biblical books. Though the storyline of the comic is based on the Acts of the Apostles from the New Testament, I’m throwing in some subtle allusions to other literature. For example, one of the stories in the Acts of Paul is about woman named Thecla. I first read it in college in my Art of Biblical Narrative class. In my MissionTrek comic book, the Ambassador starship’s computer system is named TECHLA, an anagram of Thecla. The computer also has a female voice and personality, which although not original, is another nod to St. Thecla. After my time in the library, I met Andy and Laura for lunch. (Andy was the youth director at St. Peter’s in Corydon, Ind. for a time). Though I’ve run in to them several times this summer, it was nice to be able to talk to them for a longer time.

Thursday evening was our get together with the Fellas, guys I went to high school with. I think my Dad coined the term “Fellas.” The Fellas include me, the oldest of the Fellas, class of 1992; my friend Bill, class of 1993, who has been mentioned several times already in my journal entries; Kyle, also class of 1993, who lives near Scott’s apartment; Rusty, class of 1994; my brother Scott, class of 1995; and Kevin, Kyle’s younger brother, class of 1996. We played Cranium Turbo (which just came out in stores… we received a free preview copy from Cranium Central), watched some television, ate some pizza and reminisced. At one point I was laughing so hard I choked on some food. We went out for frozen custard after we were done with Cranium.

Week of Aug. 8, 2004

Week of Aug. 8, 2004
Saturday, August 14, 2004
This has been a good week. Last night was the opening ceremonies of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. Scott and I hosted an Olympics Kick Off party at Meadow Park. A number of people came, mostly men. Bill and Kevin (high school friends) were among them. Though there was much heckling, I appreciated was excited to watch the lighting of the torch and the opening drama. Many of the places I saw on my trip were shown during the opening video montage (sans scaffolding) with voice over by James Earl Jones. The drama depicted the history of the Greeks, with men and women portraying some of the works of art that I studied in college and saw earlier this summer. Scott and I made some Greek (and non-Greek) snacks, including honey walnut cake, mini spinach phyllo pies, gyros, muffalettas, Olympic cupcakes, and Ambrosia almond crunch snack mix.

I continue to make progress on my comic book. During the party, I “inked” the drawing above. Today I colored it with Adobe Photoshop 5.0. This full panel page has been the most complex so far, as there are about 20 characters seen. This week I’ve also added a commentary I wrote on Acts 17:16-34, and a “behind-the-scenes” tour of the process of creating the comic book. So the total number of pages/slides as of this week is around 45.

During leisure time this week, I went to the Columbus Museum of Art with Mom, then later that night Dad meet us and we saw Mama Mia! It was really, really good. Scott and I went to COSI (Center of Science and Industry) on Wednesday. They moved to a new building since I was there last. There are some Disney-quality exhibits.

I think that’s all I can think of at the moment. I’m sure I’ll think of more things later… Oh, here’s another interesting tidbit. After I got back from LTS/LutherFest, I sent in a roll of film to be developed. Since I got my digital camera, I rarely use my film camera. I got the prints back this week… There were some on the roll from the first day of our spring break trip!

Week of Aug. 1, 2004

Week of Aug. 1, 2004
Thursday, Aug. 5, 2004--Day ??
My latest freelance project for the ELCA is now online. Follow the link below, if you'd like to see it. It's a pdf file, so you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open it. It doesn't look as good as it should, in my opinion. After I completed the project (in May?), some editorial changes were made, and I think it they messed up the print quality.

I finished the second page of the MissionTrek comic today. I may be able to get a third page done tomorrow. In total, counting the opening credits slide, and the "Easter Egg" slides, there are about 20 slides so far.

Scott and I met Marlowe for lunch this morning. Last night, Scott and I met Mom and Dad at the Ohio State Fair (it was opening day) for dinner. Then Mom and Dad went to a free concert featuring the Turtles and other 'Oldies' groups. Scott and I walked around with Bill (a friend of ours from high school), his wife Angel, and members of the young adult group at Scott's church.

I went to Jazzercize tonight, as well as Monday and Tuesday evenings. Tonight's class was in the new facility, which is nice, but riddled with acoustical problems.

On Tuesday night, I phoned Matt H., one of my best friends from my college days and a person who had a profound impact on my faith. He is living in Medina, Ohio. We had a good conversation, and we're planning to get together later in the month.

After Leadership Training School last week, I spent the weekend at Lake Luther for Lake LutherFest, a small-scale Christian music festival. It was a great weekend. My friend Peter (from LTS 2000) came down from Michigan Friday and spent most of Saturday at camp as well. Megan "Mo," another friend from LTS 2000 was also there most of the weekend. On Sunday, Peter, Mo, my friend Kim, and I met for dinner at Pizza Hut in Fort Wayne--the restaurant where Kati works (another LTS 2000 alumna). We had a good time. I also got to see Kim's newest granddaughter and shop at a comic book store in Fort Wayne.

On the way back from Fort Wayne, I tried to stop at the [Neil] Armstrong Air & Space Museum in Wapakoneta, but it is closed on Mondays. Perhaps another time...