Well, I guess a lot of things have changed, or at least happened, since my last update. Wednesday the 9th I played a sweet game of Ultimate Frisbee with a group of people, one of which I really knew, some of whom I vaguely knew, and most of which were total strangers who became friends by the end of the night. I love ultimate frisbee. Playing with people who love playing it makes it even better. I told myself going into it that I shouldn't push myself too much, that I should hold back on some of the crazier things I've been known to do when playing, and try to take care of my body and not break anything in lieu of Thursdays on First starting the next morning, but I didn't listen to myself. I ran, jumped, dove, grabbed, slapped and yelled like I didn't have to get up at 5-something the next morning. And I loved it. :)
Thursday was the first Thursdays on First & 3rd of the year! This is what my whole internship has been based around and gearing up towards. I was excited, but a bit apprehensive heading into it, being a very visible leader of the event but having no hands-on experience with it before. From my perspective, it went great! We had a decent number of volunteers who were great to work with and enjoyed being there, and the vendors (at least the ones in my area) didn't cause any trouble or make too much of a stink about anything. They're pretty much all great people.
Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate very well, and it rained off and on (mostly on) from 11am through 3pm, causing most of the lunch crowd to stay indoors, leaving many of the vendors with some long faces. My boss was |this| close to calling the market off because there was some danger of high winds which could really wreak havoc on the 10x10 tents the vendors set up. Fortunately, she decided against canceling the evening portion, and all the bands played. People responded, and the evening crowd was quite a bit heavier. I enjoyed a vegetable panini from Martinis at the Kahler Hotel. It was good!!
The band stopped playing shortly after 9pm (which I think is about half an hour later than they were supposed to) and I ran around all over the place making sure all the vendors were getting things taken down without any problems. My night ended around 9:45, making for a day of slightly over 14 hours. I loved every minute though, and can't wait to do it again this week, though hopefully with better weather!
Friday morning I slept in until about 10am. It was my birthday, and mom made me a 3 egg omelette with peppers, onions, mushrooms and cheese. It was delicious!! While it was being prepared, I admired and inspected a birthday poster that mom, Johanna and Cassia had made for me. It said "Happy 22nd birthday Christian" on it, with the word "happy" hidden 22 times on the poster. I found 17 of them the first time through, but had to look a bit more carefully for the other five. Good work, Team Family. I spent the rest of the day at home, playing baseball, mowing the lawn and hanging out with Johanna while the rest of the fam ran errands for the weekend's festivities.
Saturday night I had a party with my college friends. Sadly, a majority of the people I invited were unable to attend, but a number did come for a short while. We had a hoot playing some crazy tennis, a "closest to the stump" golf shootout, and some great food and games of Apples to Apples and Uno. My dear friend Laura was the only one who stayed the whole night. Knowing that she drove down from her home north of the cities for my party was a tremendous blessing to me, and really meant a lot to me, since most of my friends couldn't make it. Praise the Lord for His blessings. :)
Sunday ushered in party # 2, this time with all my Scout Troop friends. This one was pretty much a Troop 102 reunion, with 12 of us joining together for a bonfire and a creepily hilarious game of Apples to Apples that lasted somewhere around 3 hours. My green apple card winnings pegged me as being "intelligent" and "sexy." What more could a man want to be? :P
Today it rained all day, and accordingly I spent it curled up in a chair reading from 8am straight through to 1pm. I finished Anne Graham Lotz's The Magnificent Obsession. The last 60-75 pages were mostly decent, but I still won't recommend the book to anyone. Way too much speculation and conjecturing of biblical figure's thoughts for a Christian Living book for me. I also finished Skye Jethani's The Divine Commodity, which I found to be a thoroughly engaging and culturally accurate and relevant book that I will soon be recommending to a couple of the pastoral staff at church. I recommend it to you, dear reader as well. Find this book and read it.
I'm also now about a third of the way through Emily Bronte's sole work of fiction, Wuthering Heights. Such a turbulent book so far!! Love it though; really intriguing character interplay and intertwining. I also started a biography about George Frideric Handel. I've wanted to read a biography for a while, and for some reason I just had it in my head that I should read about Handel. We'll see if anything jumps out at me as I work through it's 175 brief pages. I also started Shane Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution. Looking forward to digging into this much-talked about book!
That's about it for now. Looking forward to Thursdays on First again this week, and then a trip to Lake Mille Lacs this weekend! First time up there for the summer, should be great. Gonna do some serious reading/fishing, hopefully. Then the weekend after that I'll be flying down to St. Louis for the CBA convention! I went in to Christos this afternoon and talked with my boss there about that. Sounds like it's going to be a great time!!
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