Changes

I recently got to share worship leadership with my previous discipleship leader, Danny. If we've done that before, it's been a long time. And I needed to be reminded how enjoyable it is to be with a group who needs and is receiving the simple milk of the Gospel.

Throughout the last week (and now) my body has messed with me by pretending to be sick in all kinds of ways or pretending to be better when it really just has a bad cold.







On one of those days when it was pretending to be better, a little bit of cleanup was in order at work. As a ton of you already know, thanks to Facebook, a sprinkler was set off in the 2nd floor computer lab at the school. I didn't get to see it until hours later, but the amount of water required was huge considering it soaked 4 rooms upstairs and three downstairs plus hallways.









What seemed worse to me was the damage from water soaking down through the floor, which is what you see here. The rooms are back together but there's alot of carpet and wall repair left to later days. And I still have no idea what the word is on the 20 or so computer which were soaked.







The Usher ministry at church gives me an opportunity to make contact with as many people as possible during the months my team is on. And I get to work with a bunch of older more mature fellows I otherwise wouldn't be around. The captains had a chance to walk through the new building and go over changes to our jobs after we move in to the new building. Most of us had spent time at the new building in the last year, but it's more and more like a bunch of rooms every day, and therefore more confusing. The functionality becomes more clear every month, though I'm still confused about a few rooms and offices. Usually, I hate change, and I am nervous about alot of changes in our new building. But with ushering, it's pretty exciting. Especially since the layout of my day is much more simple in the new building. Also, my team has grown and some really cool dudes have been added to the crew.

Still sick. Hoping to be back to work tomorrow

Busses And Wet Willies

If you haven't seen my facebook status yet, you'll know I'm somewhat proud of finally completing all tasks required to obtain a limited commercial drivers license for driving a school bus. It was an ordeal because of the special pains lined up for school bus drivers including paperwork, class, approvals, medical exam and test. Overall I think it took four months to complete thanks to my schedule and lots of confusion. The only purpose for the new license was to allow me to gas up the school's buses as needed.

The final test, just like any other license, is behind the wheel. I had practiced plenty on the road (with a CDL driver present) and on a training course, but the vehicle inspection points were detailed and plenty. I had a very nice tester who really wanted me to pass. By the time we got on the road, we were chatting up a storm. I'm not sure either of us was paying attention to the test halfway through.

It was thoroughly amusing that the 15ft stop test at a railroad crossing was interrupted by a train.

I'm not the only one who learned something that day. Jason here found out that if you teach a kid how to wet-willie, you will regret it. About 5 times.

Correction!

Yet another grave mistake has been made and the editors of this blog would like to apologize to and recognize MARILYN, the flexible young lady featured in a recent post. The writer of said post mistakenly called the sweet Marilyn, Madeline (or some spelling thereof). That writer has been sacked. Thank you

Let's Share

Nothing major to speak of here, but I've gotta share this basket weave cake design that Carol almost lost her hands to Sunday afternoon


And these icicles you know we all would have wanted to play with as kids. I had just removed a bunch of them earlier that day so that kids at school wouldn't play with them. But Sarah just wanted them down so that she didn't lose an eye...

FAILED!

It's not nice to blog about failure, but it's my own so back off! It's true that a little time is opening up in my schedule for things which need to get done, but Christmas break and this weekend were massive failures. Lets take a look at the weekend shall we?

The Harms and Emmerts were only in town simultaneously for a short time this month, so the hood celebrated the occasion with another party. But times, they are a changin'. This is the first time a hood party was without the usual wrestling/tickle matches. This floor area is usually used for wrestling, but this year, is filled with the newest additions to the families.

This was followed by a 10pm movie and a midnight talk with a buddy.

On Saturday
9:30am chat with JedWas canceled due to unforeseen circumstances
10:00am chat with Rodney, which was the unforeseen circumstance. I was blessed to have Rodney make some time to catch up during his party. Rod was a big influence and challenging example when I graduated college, and he stopped by to see how the house was doing and brain storm on some cool ideas.
10:45am coffee with a friend who apparently knows for a fact that I will be married by July 2011. Keep your calendars open people.
12:00pm Showalter time. First computer support call of the day was paid ahead by...these...Mexican things who's name escapes me again. Soooo good.

After a quick computer cleaning, it was contest time. Joel beat me in Smash Brothers, Noah beat me in PS2 basketball, Marilyn out-stretched me (but not here) and Kendra beat my record on iPhone Sudoku. Thanks for the ego boost guys.

4:30pm Jog. Not as impressive as Ben's 10-miler at the same time.

6:00pmA late addition to the schedule was Hagrid making me a steak dinner while I worked on his computer. It was a pretty sweet deal.

8:15pmFinal computer stop was at Mom 'n Pop's. Whew!

Pileup!

I found out another thing which inhibits blog frequency and causes pileups, besides having too much to blog about. Being picky. I have no need of an extra computer laying around, so loaning the laptop out is my pleasure. It turns out, however, that the end of the day I can't stand to blog from a desk and most often prefer to log in from a warm bed. Laptop's back (it's yours any time Stubers). That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.Caleb is the youngest of Mike's unfortunate offspring. We had a good time playing with his toys and stacking jelly packets. I learned yet another ways to carry a child through a restaurant. Got to see Goben before he headed out for Hollywood again as well.

These ladies were SOOO lucky to have me go to a wedding with them. Not so much the wedding actually, because I had the wrong time. It's pretty clear I just wanted the free meal. Nick, Joy and I chatted and chowed down at the reception while they attended to the bride and bridesmaid dances. Nick and I SOOO got out of dancing. Thanks for inviting me!

Holly's new annual tradition of starting the year off with a healthy lunch occurred this weekend as well. There were four courses and each one included a healthy secret ingredient. No one guessed more than one of them. Next year I think there will be some people who study up ahead of time so that Holly doesn't stump us so badly.

Tuesday night cat fight!!! I'm not sure which story to go with. Tickle war or who gets to stand under the mistletoe with Ryan? Either way, Sarah was a little hyped up after the Iowa game and needed to work off some energy.

Wednesday night choir has it's perks, like dudes with 4-wheel drive and sleds in their trunk.

I constantly have to remind people who offer me food that I'm not picky. I'm a cheap bachelor and we are low maintenance in regards to food. Here's my proof. Men's bible study desserts consisted of leftover donuts, cake, cookies and ice cream from last week's New Year's Eve party.

Goof Ball

This feels like bragging, but I can't help but tell you how thrilled I am to be able to spend time with my elders under the guise of fixing computers. Pastor Gary was sent to me when he finally caved in and fired up his internet subscription again and needed to get it hooked up. A printer printer problem also crept in there. The good news is that the internet is flowing.The better news is that I got to have a great conversation. Anyone off the street would just see Gary as the sweetest old goofball you've ever known. Gary was also a Command Sergeant Major in the Army during Dessert Storm. Because this is the highest rank an enlisted soldier can hold, a main role was reporting directly to generals regarding their enlisted men. Gary's respect and knowledge of General Schwarzkopf came from many larger meetings spent with the man. We got to spend alot more time talking about what he's doing now. I didn't know he still has his pastor license (or whatever you call it) and spends lots of time in hospital visits. I also got to update him all the new relationships and engagements and some stories of my own. But what was the coolest to me was that it took him three years to be able to talk about his four days as a POW in Dessert Storm which caused doctors to label him a paraplegic (which he's not now), but through God's grace and an amazing wife he looks back on life with wonder and joy at God's provision and is able to share even about the hard time he gave his captors.