MySpace blog: cleaning update (viva la ipod!)

I spent the last 6 or 7 hours working on organizing my CDs. Really it came down to putting CDs back in their cases (the ones that had been in my car back before I had an ipod). Then I alphabetized them all. Here is the pre-alphabetized stack:



Then I realized that I really don't need to keep all of them. I thought of all the CDs I found laying on the ground in New Orleans. What a waste of space. I might as well get rid of all the ones I don't listen to. And there are a lot of CDs whose cases I don't really care for. So I ripped the CDs that I kind of wanted, but didn't want enough to keep in their original cases. The result was this:




The stack is what I'm getting rid of, and the CDs in the boxes are the ones I'm keeping. You might wonder if you could have some of those CDs, but if I gave them to you and had the music ripped to my computer, that would be stealing, so they're all either going to one of my immediate family members or to the trash. But I was thinking that someone might salvage them from the dump, which would still be illegal, so I might put the discs on the electric fly-swatter and watch little pieces of metal go flying all over the place. It's fun. Or i might keep the discs in a box as a backup in case my hard drive loses all of the music. This is such a huge decision--it could affect all of our futures!

What is the significance of this day? Besides my first observable reverse culture shock moment (getting rid of unnecessary things in light of what I experienced on my trip), I also rendered the following obsolete:

That would be the cd holder guitar that I bought on the first day I was home for summer 2003 (after my freshman year). That was one of my first online purchases, and I thought it was really cool. Now I think it kind of looks cool, but who needs a cd holder when you've got an ipod that fits in your pocket and looks cool? If anyone wants it, you can buy it from me. I don't know how much for. I'll pretty much sell it for anything or maybe even give it to you if no one wants to buy it. Just let me know.

Wow, I'm blogging too much.

MySpace blog: la dee da

I wrote these between Baton Rouge and the plantation we went to. I originally wrote "New Orleans," but I realized that we actually were on our way to the plantation when I wrote these. The first one is light hearted but has a much deeper meaning to me that will just stay for me.

Ping Pong
Ping-Pong thoughts--what to do?
Lie in wait? Expose the truth?
He plays for keeps, a bond at stake
Save the rally? win the game?

A window closing, moment fading
Chance that just might slip away
A mind divided 'tween the logic
Be cautious now or seize the day?

The rally offers great reward:
Good times playing and a point scored.
Either that or slam the ball
He'll get the point or hit the wall

Risk in each, he can't decide
And so he waits--his hands are tied!
He waits so long he drops the ball
He won't be winning after all.


Untitled
Pools so deep,
so dark so sweet
They beckon me
Dive in! Be clean!

Take a drink
It tastes so sweet
Just let go
Release! Release!

Falling gently,
Ever sweetly
Plunging down
into the deep

He shouts aloud,
It feels so sweet
His feet feel water
Tenderly.

The coolness offers
sweet release
living waters
make me clean.

I just got my new recording interface but instead of playing with it, I'm cleaning my room and finally have unpacked everything from my trip. Everything is just sitting on the floor waiting to be cleaned now.

MySpace blog: An assortment of adrenaline-inducing events

I'm writing this blog with my mouth wide open. I've had it completely open for the last couple of minutes, and it could be open for the next half hour or so. I know that mouth-breathing leads to yellow teeth on the corners, but in fact, the whole reason for my mouth breathing right now is because I am bleaching my teeth. Why? Because I haven't in awhile, and because of what happened today.

Today I led worship at church. I used in-ear monitors for the first time, and I was leading in my home church for the first time. It was very weird. I couldn't hear anything else besides what was coming into my earphones, since they have a good seal and you can't hear outside noise at all. That meant that the only person in the congregation that I could hear singing was me. The people at my home church are far less expressive worshipers than those at the Stirring anyway, so it felt a little out-of-place. Add to that the fact that it was just me on acoustic with two percussionists, and the low-key feel probably made people a little less willing to be loving the Lord their God with all their strength. Leading at home was a little bit exciting, though I wouldn't say I got nervous really.

OK, my plan to keep my mouth open has failed--I am still salivating from these bleach trays, so I will just have to spit in my cup. I'm sure you're all glad to know that.

Alright, moving right along. After church, Eric and Sarah came over. Eric ran sound for me today. That was really nice. Then we ate lunch and watched the second half of the Netherlands-Portugal World Cup Game. Eric's mom is Portuguese and his dad is Dutch, so their dialogue about the game was interesting later on when we talked to them. Then Eric, Sarah, Andrew, and I headed out to camp to pick up some gear, and out to Sunset Boulders (a rock outcropping at Goat Rock Beach State Park on the coast). Yesterday I returned a kayak and bought some climbing rope, a harness, carabiners, a belay device, and a chalk bag. We had some webbing at home, but we needed to borrow a few more harnesses, a carabiner, some more webbing, and a friction-reducing device (like a pulley, kind of) in order to execute our plan.

Eric showed me how to set up the top line at Sunset. First we free-climbed the easy route on the right side of the boulder. It's probably a 50 foot climb. A couple months ago, I did it while roped in, and slipped off of the first hold. Then I did it blindfolded (while on the rope). So I was quite nervous free-climbing that high off the ground. I just kept telling myself, "you've done this blindfolded before." That worked until I got to the last 7 or 8 feet, which I'd never done before. But needless to say, we made it to the top.

Once we had summitted (that makes it sound a lot higher), we walked along the top of the rock to the left side of it (about 10 feet higher and 20 feet away). We took awhile to get everything set up, and once we had all the webbing hooked in and the friction reducing device in place, we rappelled down. I hadn't rappelled off of anything since I was a kid in Hawaii (at least 14 years ago--we stopped rappelling when Hurricane Iniki destroyed the rope swing we built down the steep hill behind our house), and I'd never done it this way. Of course, I was not paying attention to Eric going down, so I ended up 60 feet above him with a rope, a harness, a carabiner and an ATC (belay device) and no knowledge of how to get down. So Eric told me what to do, and I tentatively climbed off the rock, and headed down. As I descended, I gained confidence, and felt really good about my abilities on the rock when my feet finally touched the ground.

We were finally all set to go, and it was now 4:30. That was kind of a problem, since we were having a big get-together at my house at 5, and the drive from the coast to our house is around 45 minutes. But, we weren't going to just get our stuff and leave--we all wanted to have a go at the rock.

The route we were climbing is kind of tricky, and the first two climbers (Andrew and Sarah) got to a point that they could not pass. There were really sketchy foot holds, a really weird upside-down hand hold, and seemingly nothing on the other side of the rock (they couldn't see around the corner to their left, so they just had to feel for something).

Next, Eric attempted the climb. He said later that he was a bit nervous, since I was belaying and he thought it was my first time. I've belayed before, but with a different belay device. At the rock gym in Louisiana we used Grigris instead of ATCs. Grigris are safer, easier to use, smoother for descents, and cost $80 instead of $15-20. So I got an ATC for the obvious reason that I am unemployed.

Eric made it to the point where Andrew and Sarah got stuck (about 45 feet up), and figured out a way to keep going. He ended up making it to the top, but was kind of surprised that he made it. None of us have climbing shoes, so we were all just using regular cross-trainers.

Next I went up and managed to make it to the top. Here are the pictures:

This first one is of me at the place where Andrew and Sarah got stuck. I had to use a hold with my left hand that required me to use the technique that Larry taught us in Louisiana. You just wrap your thumb over the 2 or 3 fingers that will fit in the grip. This allows your skeletal system to hold your weight instead of just your tendons. That enabled me to do a pullup and then hold myself for awhile mostly with that hand while I looked for the next hold. I guess I'm only going into all this detail because it was the first real rock that I've climbed using proper technique (sort of). My left hand is doing that, and my right hand is in the weird upside-down hold, holding it with my pointer, middle finger, and thumb. Here's the picture finally:



(yes, I made that face intentionally for the picture). OK, next one. Once you get to the top, this is the view:

From background to foreground are the ocean, and then the first cliff. We're up on the top of that cliff, then on top of the rock outcropping. In Oceanography in High School, we learned that Geologists and Oceanographers commonly refer to such outcroppings as "knockers." They are called that because they are attention-getting protrusions. I am entirely serious about that. They're formed by the movement of the Earth's plates. As one plate is submerged beneath the other, the earth's magma needs somewhere to go, and is forced up, creating these strange rock formations in the middle of a field.

Enough talk about knockers; here's the next picture of the view from the top. You can see Sarah and Andrew down below. This is actually a panoramic picture of almost straight-down to almost horizontal.


Once I was at the top, Eric free-climbed the easy route again, and we took all of our gear down. Then we had to free-climb the easy route back to the ground. That was really freaky. Before today I had never really been afraid while climbing, and I wasn't imagining certain death or what it would feel like to fall. My body didn't lock up. However, I got such a rush from everything that while we were on top, I was visibly shaking from all the adrenaline. One the way down, I was really tentative, but I made it. I'm really glad I got a chalk bag. The chalk just keeps your hands dry since your hands are very sweaty little buggers.

We carried everything back to Eric's car and then swung by camp, where we ran into John Hinton. After we dropped everything off, we left and ended up getting to my house at about 6:57 (I think it was slightly before 7, but not by much). That was about 2 hours late. whoops.

Dinner was nice. We had all of the people from our church that were around when I was in High School. Some parents came, and some younger siblings came too. We probably had a total of 35 people over, I'd guess. Sarah and Phil are getting married on Saturday. I've known Sarah since 6th grade and Phil since 9th. They started dating during Senior year of HS. They are the first of my childhood/HS friends to get married. It's weird.

I've had a lot of college friends get married, and at first that was weird, but this is even stranger. I feel like a real grown up every time that one of my old friends does something significant that the rest of us haven't done. I think it's because I still remember what they were like as kids. In some things we haven't really changed. In other things, we're all much different.

After everyone left, I was looking at the pictures of climbing and I noticed that in that first picture in this blog, my teeth are really yellow. So I deided to bleach them. It is now 1:56 AM, and I've had the trays in for 32 minutes, so I could take them out, and I probably will pretty soon. My mouth ended up being open most of the time, and I actually didn't salivate nearly as much as usual. I never had to spit in the spit cup again. That's quite delightful and exciting.

MySpace blog: Further adventures on my asymmetrical head

Alright, I already knew that my left eye closes faster and more frequently than my right eye (check out my profile pic for proof).

But I have recently discovered that while my left ear canal is pretty normal-sized and round, my right ear canal is oblong and small. Yes, as hard as it may be to believe, a part of my ear is small.

How do I know all of this? I got some in-ear monitors and I have to use the smallest fitting tip in my right ear, but it still hurts 2 parts of my ear that are opposite of each other. My left ear handles the middle sized one quite well.

So I figured out that the best way to accomodate my small ear canal in my right ear is to put in the largest earphone tip. They are silicone, so they bend quite well. My elliptical ear canal molds the larger tip to fit comfortably and have a decent seal to isolate outside noises. So I'm just sitting around right now checking to make sure it doesn't hurt me later on.

Today, my family went to the beach. It was the first time I had been to the beach twice in a week in California. That's crazy. I don't think we went to the beach twice in a week much when we lived in Hawaii either. We definitely go there pretty much every day when we visit (which we are doing in about a month).

My brother and I took his old skate deck and tried to sand board. It didn't work very well. We could only go about 10 feet max. before falling off. The thing moved so slowly and it kept digging in. We both stood as far back as possible. I guess we need a plastic board or something. I've done it before with little toy snowboards, and you go really fast until you hit something, and then go flying down the hill head first through the air. It's quite fun.

In any case, we decided to take pictures because they make us look like we actually are going fast. Here is an example:


After wearing ourselves out, we joined our parents and sister and decided to dig the biggest hole the Ratiani boys have ever dug at the beach. We had a shovel and a bucket, so it was possible. This is my brother sitting in the bottom of the hole, just so you can see how big it is. (Andrew is about the same height as me).


And here I am in the bottom of the hole pretending to poop in it. Actually, I was just making a funny face, and my mom said I looked constipated, so she decided to take a picture.



Oh, that red jacket is my cool red jacket that I got for $1 at Salvation Army a couple years ago. It was in the men's section, but I am 100% positive that it is actually a women's jacket now. But I wear it nonetheless, and I am quite happy with it. Except I only really wear it to the beach or when I'm in a goofy mood.

MySpace blog: I'm lactose intolerant

If you didn't know, towards the end of last year, I suddenly became lactose intolerant. It's not really the sort of thing you have to get tested for. All you do is drink milk/eat cheese/sour cream and then get really sick and have to go to the bathroom.

So tonight, we had pizza. Nothing happened. Now it's 2:44 in the morning and I'm eating more pizza. I hope nothing happens.

My family went to Powell's Candy Shop in Windsor tonight. I had never been before. It is considered to be one of the best candy shops in the world. It is amazing. I didn't buy anything. I ate some of my sister's M&M's. You can pick any color of M&M (i think they have around 20) or mix and match.

Then, a few hours after we came home I beat my brother at Risk. It felt really good to be able to beat him, knowing that he usually beats me at board games. When we were younger, I had to let him win, or I would beat him and then feel bad. After I went to college, he started playing checkers online against real people a lot, so he started to beat me at that. We hadn't really played any real board games just the two of us until tonight. I schooled him. It was amazing.

I am clean-shaven right now, and it's kind of weird. I actually like the way it feels.

Really I'm only writing this because I want to get to 100000 blog views someday, and I know that I have to write stuff if I want people to read stuff. So, once again, I'm sorry if it was not very interesting. Hopefully I will do something cool or something interesting will be done to me, and you can read that soon.

MySpace blog: the tower of heaven

Let me tell you a story--a new yarn about a little girl and her need to worship.

While we were in Baton Rouge, Averiana Lain (age 5) was hanging out with us as we helped her parents hand food out to Katrina evacuees in the FEMA trailer village.

We were taking a bunch of food into the kitchen trailer (which actually has no cooking equipment built into it), and Averi took all of the light stuff and built a tower. She started dancing in front of it, saying, "worship the tower of heaven! bow down to the tower of heaven!" Josh Cobun said it was like the tower of Babel, and then said, "Averi, do you want to learn a new word today? It's called 'blasphemy.'" So, I asked Averi what the tower was, and she said, "The God of Heaven! worship the God of Heaven!"

I said, "That's not God, but God made all that stuff."

"God is cheerios!" she proclaimed joyfully.

"God made the cheerios."
"God is hungry!"
"God might be hungry, but God isn't the tower." With that I left her. It was quite funny seeing a 5 year old doing what people always did in the Old Testament, and still do around the world. It made me realize how childish explicit idolatry is. What I mean by "explicit idolatry" is the kind of idolatry in which an idol is worshiped consciously, as a god.

Today I played with my new headphones at church with the in-ear monitor system there, and I tried out my new microphone. That was fun. Last night I bought a new recording interface, so I can record some things for my other myspace. I spent $400 on it, and it's usually around $600. E-bay is good stuff.

Then this morning, I woke up at 8:45 to bid on a monitor system that had its auction ending at 8:51 (I went back to bed at 8:52, and slept until 12:30). I bid a lower amount last night, but ended up winning it for $865 plus $50 shipping. That's not a bad deal, since it retails for around $2500 usually. But still, I spent way too much money considering that I'm not working! I can afford it, but I have to start paying off my loans soon.

So, I was wrestling with the idea of technology as an idol, and whether or not buying these things was justifiable. My dad got the new issue of Worship Leader Magazine today, and since I'm the worship leader, he gave it to me. The issue is about how to properly use technology in a church setting. The last article is about how we use technology to help people encounter God, and God must be the focus. Tech stuff always fails. So, if I get too worked up about the technology, I'm bound to fall hard.

All of this talk makes me think...

"Yes, i love technology,
but not as much as you, you see
but I still love technology,
always and forever
always and forever."--Kip Dynamite

MySpace blog: Californ I A. newness in my life

It's good to be back home. The weird thing is that I really am back home to live at my parent's house for the first time in almost 2 years.

The trip ended well, but we were all exhausted. I ended up staying up all night on Thursday, editing red eye out of the 3502 pictures we took on the trip (there were a few more that I didn't get because people took them on Friday).

Today I had a meeting for Camp South Africa. I am not 100% going to be on the team, but I probably will be. Afterwards, I drove to the coast and walked on the beach by myself. Having some real alone time in the great outdoors was much needed and really refreshing. The drive back was hilarious.

I saw 4 sheep (including 2 lambs) running up a hill. Have you ever seen sheep run? I never had. I didn't even know they could run. It was funny. I was listening to the Sanctus Real CD "the Face of Love," which I hadn't listened through all the way yet, and as I sat in my car and laughed about the sheep, the singer got to the chorus, which had something to do with the word "you," and he was saying it like "yeowu" or something, so it made the situation all the funnier. EWE.

Tonight I ate fish for the second night in a row. Lovely. then I showed my brother a bunch of worship songs I play and we just played through a lot of other ones.

Tomorrow I will be sitting in on worship team practice and then next week I'll start leading here. I am curious to see how the next part of my life pans out. I really think I'm heading back to Redding in the fall, even if it doesn't make much sense financially to do that (I just found out today that I had a lot more student loans than I'd thought). But I'll have to wait and see.

Anyway...here's the "newness in my life." It actually has more to do with myspace than with the rest of my life. Check out www.myspace.com/joshratiani. The blog is giving me issues with this link right now, so just copy and paste it. It really works...It's my new music page. It's pretty lame right now, but it exists. It only has 2 songs on it, and they're both instrumental (and one is a fun one that I programmed on the computer).

Hopefully I'll record some of the worship songs I've written lately and then post them. But, I need something to record them through, and I sold my old recording interface to Jeremy around August (he still owes me the money) and I haven't bought a new one yet. So if you know Jeremy Coverdale, give him a hard time about it. And if you want to give me money to buy a new
one, then please do.

MySpace blog: Explanation

This is the reason for that short story posted before. The last 2 weeks, I was in Baton Rouge with Larry and Krista Lain (and some or all of my teammates) and their daughter Avery (age 5).

Avery likes to hear a lot of stories, so we spent a lot of time telling them to her. When we got sick of stories, I told Jessica to tell her the shortest story ever, which you will find in the previous blog, should you choose to read it. It will take you more time to load the page than to read it, most likely.

back to the story...Last night, after we got back to New Orleans, I got a call from Larry's cell phone. I said hello a few times, and then Avery said, "Josh? can you tell me a story?" Unfortunately it was quite loud where we were and I was unable to tell her the story. I actually really wanted to, because it would have made a better memory. The moral to this story is: watch out for little kids. They are story monsters.

MySpace blog: A short story

Once upon a time...the end.

Laws and Logic (not super Katrina related)

A thought just occurred to me:

Take these three situations and think about them...

1. An animal kills a person. The consequence? The animal is killed and its owner may be charged (if it has an owner) with manslaughter

2. An ordinary person kills a person. The consequence? The perpetrator is charged with murder/manslaughter, and pays their consequence in full, possibly receiving the death penalty.

3. A person dubbed "insane" by the courts kills someone else. The consequence? The insane killer gets let off with a lesser punishment and is exempt from capital punishment.

The logic behind the insanity idea is that such people have "no concept of right or wrong." Neither do animals (if we approach this idea from a Biblical perspective--only humans ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil). I'm not sure if certain humans lack a moral capacity (and somehow a sin nature, therefore?) But, if an animal deserves full punishment, then so does an insane person, if they both have no concept of good and evil.

Here is what I think #3 should be:

An insane person kills someone else and is charged with murder/manslaughter. They receive the punishment that anyone else would, and the society around them is made more aware of its shortcomings in mental healthcare. Those responsible for the person are held responsible (imagine that!)

The prompt for this thought was an encounter earlier with a young man from the neighborhood here in Avondale, next to the Church where we are staying. He is around 13 years old, but is mentally handicapped. Earlier today, he was helping us move our stuff in and tried to steal my video camera/ipod/camera (which were in one bag) two times. He also dropped my laptop and hard drive each from about 3 feet off the ground, and then threw the bag with the 3 items across the room. I've checked everything besides the hard drive. Everything works so far. Stephanie also had a rather unpleasant encounter with him, but she can talk about that and not me (if she wants to, which I doubt).

Had anything broken, it would be logical that he would be held accountable for his action. Those around him who were not caring for him aptly should also bear some of the burden. It's not that nice of an idea, but it makes sense. If I was starting a country/society those would be in the laws.

I had Quizno's tonight (finally!) and I am so happy. Laura doesn't like Quizno's so we haven't been able to eat there and I've been wanting to for over a month. Laura wasn't going to eat, but ended up getting a salad that she liked. Last week we got Taco Bell because Jenn and Laura like it a lot, and I really didn't want to go, but relented. I got sick for about 45 minutes.

I have turned into a health nut (kind of) as far as eating. I love Whole Foods. Larry and Krista took us there, and we hung out there one night. I'll probably spend a lot of time shopping there when I get home. I'm turning into my grandparents.

I am very strongly leaning toward returning to Redding in the fall and figuring out a job or just not working for awhile. I'll probably take some Master's classes at Simpson while I'm there, too. Goodnight from the Big Easy.

MySpace blog: Journey

Yesterday we took Karissa to the airport so she could fly home to be at her brother's graduation tonight.

Well, that was the plan, at least.

We went to Oak Alley Plantation first. It was pretty cool. But there was a weird feeling to the place I thought, so I was walking around praying.

Next, we headed back toward New Orleans. Well, that was the plan at least. Our directions actually sent us towards Baton Rouge, and we got on Interstate 10 in a place where there are no exits for miles (it's the middle of the Bayou) headed West. So we looked for the first exit so we could turn around and ended up on Interstate 55 North, still headed away.

Then our van stopped running. We found ourselves stuck on the side of the road in a van that said it had a little under a 1/4 tank left, but clearly was out of gas. We were stranded for about an hour and a half. Karissa's flight left at 5:57 PM, and we got stuck around 4:30, so you do the math...5 people stopped to help, but the first 3 didn't actually help. The fourth and fifth stopped around the same time. So, Josh and I rode with the fifth passerby--a college student named Kyle.

Kyle is an interesting guy. He said that he normally wouldn't stop to help, and that his fiancee was a little miffed about him stopping to help us since he had a long commute home from his internship at the Valero refinery in New Orleans. He told us that he has 2 years left of school until he gets his BA in chemical engineering and that he is currently making $22 an hour. That is a pretty cool job considering that he is a student. He also was chewing tobacco the whole time and had 2 of his fiancee's thongs hanging from his rearview mirror. So, just as Josh was putting the gas in our new gas can, we got a call from Jenn that there was finally a cop on the road that stopped and gave them gas. He made them pay for it.

By this point, Pastor Willy, our contact from New Orleans was coming to meet us. Oh, I should add that Larry and Krista (our Baton Rouge contacts) stayed with the group--we did not leave 7 girls alone on the side of the freeway.

So, we got back to the van at the exit after where we got stuck (just a short 4 miles down the road--the gas station was 2.5 miles earlier). We added 1 gallon to what the cop put in (2 gallons). Willy showed up 10 minutes later with 2 more gallons and led us to the airport. We got there right before 7 PM. We were really disappointed along with Karissa, because it was going to cost her $1000 or more to get a ticket for today to go home before her graduation (her mom was on the phone with United Airlines).

But we went in to talk to the ticket counter people about what they could do. They ended up figuring out a way for her to make it home on time if she left on a 7:30 AM flight today. It was a free re-schedule.

We ate dinner and got home after 11:20, and were asleep around midnight. This morning, Jenn, Jessica and I took Karissa to the airport at 3:40. We wanted to make sure we had time (the drive from Baton Rouge to New Orleans is anywhere from 1 to 3 hours long). We ended up getting there at 4:50, which is far faster than any of us or the Lains have made the trip (and we've done it a few times now, between this trip and the previous one).

So, the four of us hung out until about 6:45. We tried to watch the sunrise, but the airport was in the way. Then Karissa went through security and the other 3 of us drove back to Baton Rouge. (I keep almost saying Redding instead of BR). We stopped at Starbucks, but I was the only one who got anything, and it was a green tea lemonade (that's not caffeinated). Jenn and I have not slept at all (she had a half cup of coffee we left, I had a whole cup). Jessica took a nap (she had a cup of coffee before we left and an iced mocha) but it was only for a couple hours, and she just got back from the store.

We have been mudding sheetrock all morning and we are finally almost done. Karissa is flying home right now and is supposedly going to call us when she gets home. So, it's all working out really well right now.

I've been up for 10 hours right now and I'm a little weary. Jenn just said "I need coffee," to which Jessica replied, "You need sleep!"

I'm going to eat and then take a nap. Goodnight.

MySpace blog: well, well, well, looky here.

I have thorns in my feet. They have been there since Sunday evening (around 7 PM). We were playing in a park on LSU campus. There were thorns in the field and we were barefoot. I can't get the thorns out. it hurts to walk barefoot.

Today I mudded (sheetrocking term) the main room of the Baton Rouge Ministry Center (BRMC) with some of the others. Some people went into the FEMA village and visited people who came to the community night we did in February. Some people worked on Apt 4 upstairs.

Tonight we ate Burritos/Tacos and Teriyaki Chicken & Rice.

Then we went to Victoria's Beignets (Beignets are --insert long pause to be discussed later-- a regional variety of a donut that I am eating one of right now).

Then we had a night of prayer downstairs in the main room of BRMC. Since only about half the walls are up, we wrote our prayers on the backside of the sheetrock. We prayed for the Ministry Center as a whole, for the people working here, for the city, for each room and its function, and spent a little time singing at the beginning too. Some people took some time to read their Bibles and/or journal as well. It was a really cool thing, and I hope it encourages the team that is going to be here.

Since I got upstairs to the apartment (I'm still staying in #6, and part of our group is in #3 now that everyone is here and we cleaned it and painted it), I took a shower and came on myspace. During the writing of this blog, I took a long pause (see above). Bethany found a cockroach lying on the ground beneath the couch, and no one wanted to catch it, so I got up to get it, and found a cockroach whose innards were adhered to the carpet. When I picked up the cockroach with a paper towels, its guts stayed stuck to the carpet. I kept pulling on the body, and the head popped off.

Now I'm sitting on a cooler finishing the writing of this blog. I just expressed my desire to the girls in the room that I would like to fart on the cooler. Unfortunately I'm not a very gassy person. Well fortunately, actually.