my random thoughts

Well, Wachovia was bought out by Citibank. It always makes me nervous when banks get bought out. It changes everything from new cards, to different online banking options, to statement availability, to whatever. Everything. We'll see what Citi changes when they finish absorbing Wachovia. Erg.

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Day 6 and we have power.  Yay!

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My father in law was able to get in touch with a friend living near by who checked out his property.  He said that all was fine.  The only noticeable damage was a sheet of metal that blew off of his garage. There were no signs of flooding. Praise God!

We have not heard about our own property although some forum posters have stated that there are some fallen trees, down fences, and damaged but intact roofs in our sub-division. We are trying to get a hold of the wife of our neighbor is who a volunteer firefighter who stayed in the area for obvious reasons.

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We are still in San Antonio. We were able to get in touch with our neighbors. They said that we may need to replace our roof but they didn't see any window damage and our fence is intact. Our pecan tree in the backyard split and is laying over onto their shed in their backyard but no damage. It sounds like we have been really blessed!

Prayerfully there will not be any damage from leakage.

Houston is still saying we cannot return so we are going to stay in San Antonio till Monday.

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Well, we were under a mandatory evacuation thus left for San Antonio yesterday. Thankfully, we and Eda's parents were able to get into two of the last 8 rooms available. We are currently safe in San Antonio. Prayerfully our properties will not sustain significant damage.

We will not be able to return home until we are cleared to do so which is projected to be a minimal of 72 hours. Thus we do not know when we will be leaving San Antonio to return home. I'm sure school for Eda will be closed for at least a week but I do not know how quickly the hospital I work for will reopen and our patients brought back.

Please pray that the Lord protects all those people that decided to stay and our properties.

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I just finished watching the trilogy tonight.  I tell you that I can watch these movies over and over and over.  I never grow tired of them.  There are such gems all throughout the movies and they  just grab a hold of my heart and refuse to let go.  Maybe another day when I don't have to work the next day, I'll blog about it :-)

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Well, Edouard basically dropped a little rain so they let us out of jail.  :-)  I'm so stinking tired because I hardly got any sleep last night (three snorers as roomies...erg).  Anyway, off to bed with me.

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So, I get to stay overnight at work because of Tropical Storm Edouard.  They initiated E1 Emergency status which means that essential staff (ie nurses) must stay in the building to make sure they can report for their shift tomorrow.  Prayerfully, Edouard will not be that bad and stay as a tropical storm and not develop into a hurricane.  I work on an island!

 

(I work in a prison hospital but they are trying to find us beds in the "free world" hospital :-)

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So the other morning, my wife let our dogs outside as is the usual routine.  She noticed that they were going crazy and realized that there was a possum trapped in the neighbors short tree but hanging over on our side of the fence.  So she woke me to take care of it.  It appeared that the neighbors dog had ran it up the tree and it had no where to go.  So it probably sat there all night long.  I grabbed the trap I placed in the attic (which didn't catch a thing) and my wooden sword to attempt to capture the thing.  (Our dogs had to do their business but wouldn't with a nice juicy possum to distract them.)  I tried to gently knock it into the trap, but it would have none of that.  So, I ended up grabbing it by its tail and placing it inside manually. 

We took it behind Sam's which is a wooded area and let it go; hopefully to never return to our home.

Cute isn't she?  ;-) 

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So here is our miniature schnauzer, Pancho, showing off his football skills.

Edit 08/15/08:  Well, I've submitted the video to America's Funniest Videos who sent me an email saying it may be used on their website and/or show.  Of course in order to do so I had to sign away basically all rights to it and take away any public viewing.   If you are family and/or a friend and want to see it, contact me and I'll give you private access.

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So we have some critter of large build in our attic.  It woke us up in the middle of the night a couple weeks back digging.  My wife asked, "Is it a mouse?"  No way, I mean it was digging.  So probably a possum or a coon.  We noticed that mesh to one of the attic vents had been pushed up revealing how the critter is getting up there.  We have a life trap up there but we haven't caught it yet.  I heard it yesterday and went up into the attic to see what it was, but it was gone by the time I got up there.  Or at least it was hiding.

 I need to patch that vent but really don't want to until I catch it for I fear trapping it inside.

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So, recently we had our air handler, the ducts and all that replaced right? Well, when the dude first came he said "Oh yea, you guys have a 4ton unit, blah blah blah." Gave us a quote based on a 4ton unit. Then he comes back to install the unit and says, "Well you have a 2.5 ton unit so we are going to install a 3 ton blah blah blah". But of course he gave no price change to the quote other than a $200 discount his wife "accidentally" quoted us (if we paid in cash). I was like, "okay whatever. I'm not going to cause a scene." I did do a little googling afterward and saw that the price difference wasn't all that much. Anyway, the day the installers are installing the air handler and all that, one of the workers said, "You have a small freon leak that you may want to talk to him [the owner] about." Okay small leak, will deal with it come spring. That was oh about a month ago.

 So, its getting hot, turned on the AC and nothing. The house doesn't even cool a degree but maybe even gets hotter. So I call the guy who comes out and walks out for one minute with no tools (no way it was even a second more), comes back in and says "Did my guy tell you what was going on with that thing?" "He said there was a small freon leak," I said. "Small!?? That is a huge leak. We are going to have to replace it." He calls and manages to get the home warranty to pay for the unit but has a list of fees they will not cover, $250 of it to dispose of the freon and unit. Okay whatever.

So then I get to thinking, well our trash service picks up heavy stuff on Thursdays. That would save us a some money. I call them and they say oh yea we'll do it as long as the freon is properly drained and the unit is tagged. Great! I call the AC company back and the wife says "Absolutely not! Our license requires that we take it and dispose of it in our warehouse. It is the law." I explained what the trash company said and that they do it all the time but she said no. So now I'm suspicious. I called 4 other companies in the area and they all laughed saying that no it was not required by law, it was my unit so I could do whatever I wanted with it, they would come out drain the freon and then I could take the unit to a scrap yard and get paid for it. One guy even offered to come out and do take the unit and the freon for $50 bucks. All of them said that if they were the ones installing the unit, the wouldn't even charge to dispose and haul off the unit. Erg. I get the feeling I'm being screwed over.

Anyway, I hate confrontation but the AC dude and I will have a little chat when he gets here and he probably won't be my AC dude any longer.

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Talked to the AC dude and guess what he demanded that they do it and charge $250. "It's my license and I can cancel the whole thing and ship everything back to the warranty company and be done with it." I can understand a concern for his license but when four other companies who have been in business for years have no problem with it, it leads me to believe something is fishy. Well guess what, Elite AC and Heating has lost my business.

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So this week will be one month in Texas. Crazy how time has flown and how quickly we've been able to settle in. We've got our house, furniture, jobs, and church. The only thing left is to find another vehicle. (Right now we are using one of my parent-in-law's.) I miss my family a lot but it has not been has hard as I thought it would be. We'll see as time goes by.

We've decided to fellowship at Calvary Chapel of Houston. This was the first church we attended and really enjoyed. But we wanted to see what else was out there so we attended several other churches in the area. One had upbeat worship but was more concert oriented and very seeker friendly (not very grounded in the Word). Another seemed too passive and too self-focused. Anyway, Calvary has excellent worship that is not distracting and sets an atmosphere to truly worship God. They teach the Bible expositionally which is great. They are God-centered ministry focused. They also have a Wednesday night services we can attend when I have to work Sunday. So, we feel this will be the home for us until God leads us elsewhere.

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Obviously God knows that I am not a morning person, right? So please tell me why He decided to bless me with a job where my day has to begin at 3:30 AM!!?? Yes, AM!!

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So closing wasn't $2000 less, but only $1000 less. Still, praise God!!! We received all of our furniture, mostly in one piece and we were able to purchase all of our appliances. My mother sold our Explorer for us (so we need to find another vehicle), I have a job (I start Monday as a nurse to Texas' inmates), and Eda's school is like the total opposite of where she was working (I mean total opposite for those of you who knew about the conditions she previously worked in). I think we have found a church home at Calvary Church which seems solid. They preach expositionally and worship is contemporary. They are also heavily involved in the community. We've tried a few other churches but this one seems to be the most solid, sincere, and Bible-centered thus far.

 I'm excited and nervous about my new job. Not that I'm working with inmates, but because I'll be working as a nurse! That means that I am directly responsible for one's health and well-being. Prayerfully though, my work will be ministry considering who I will be dealing with on a daily basis. I feel like I have forgotten everything that I learned in school. The Lord is sovereign and I feel that He will continue to provide in my times of need.

I'm struggling with a little bit of uselessness; feelings of insignificance. Before, my identity was in school and web programming. The new school Eda is working for has an excellent web-based program they utilize for grading and taking attendance. Thus, I have been zapped of my desire to continue advancing the web program I made for her. I may work on it here and there to put it out there for the open source community to hopefully enjoy, but right now, I just don't have the desire. The old youth group I worked with don't use the website, so there is no use for me to continue messing with it. And their doesn't really seem to be anything I can do to improve the site for some very, very dear friends of mine. The new version of Joomla is in the RC1 status so I guess I will soon be upgrading the sites to the new version which will take some work, but that will not be for a while yet.

I actually really miss youth ministry, but my wife does not. I cannot force her into a ministry that her heart is not in. My work schedule is going to make it interesting for getting involved in things. I will be alternating working 12 hour shifts on Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday of one week then only Wednesday and Thursday of the next. That second week will be really nice but the week with five 12 hour shifts is going to be ruff. Not to mention a 45 minute to a hour drive each way. Anyway, the Lord obviously has a plan for us here or we wouldn't be here.

Lord, show me your purpose for us here in Texas!

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