Shot Gun Bow Tie

For those of you who read everything on here, I apologize for not posting the panorama of PNC park. It was taking to long, and I lost interest. If you really had your heart set on seeing it, I can keep working on it, let me know.

In other news, that I did not get to in that last post, last week was amusing. Seeing as I have been lackadaisical in keeping you updated this is going to be a shot gun post, I am going to be all over the place, if you wish to know more, let me know.

On Saturday for the game, we all car pooled from the church. This acts as a good meeting place where we can leave cars, as it is safe and free. Well when we got back around 11, we arrived to a river flowing down the street. Well that is a bit of an exaggeration, but there was a lot of water. There was a good foot and a half to three foot wide stream of water flowing down the Church side of Amberson, and the about a block down, there was a mini stream flowing on the other side too. This required some investigation, as it was not raining, and there was no obvious reason for this water.

Taking a picture of this was hard...

A wider angle

So after putting our detective skills to use (walking upstream to the source) we figured that a water main broke, as water was seeping out of the ground. As it was the 21 of May someone mockingly mis quoted a Bible verse citing that the rapture was going to be signaled by the Earth sweating is pain or something like that... anyway, a the top of the stream there was a little geyser shooting out of someones grassy strip next to the road. We then made boats out of the programs we had from the game, and raced boats down the river. My boat one, as it did not get stuck and traveled a whole 4 blocks to a receiving storm drain that was taking the excess water like a champ.

Last Sunday was the last SPYS (Shadyside Pres Youth Sundays) event. This would be the youth group that I have been helping out with. Apparently I am the unofficial partner to Jackie in ministry. I only say apparently in the sense that I didn't know how much I was involved until parents started coming up to me and thanking me for helping out. Looking back it has been a good semester working with them, they are fun kids, and working with Jackie is great, she is a good Youth Minister.

But before that! Oh man... There is a long story behind this next part, and I don't even know all of it. It comes down to southern influence in fashion. It may or may not be widely known that a good southern man wears a bow tie far more often than anyone else. There are a significantly more southern men at Shadyside than there were at Colbert (most notably Rev. Jim Tinnemeyer who, when not wearing his pastoral collar, is wearing a bow tie). So Bart and I wanted to join in the fun. Last Wednesday, we headed down town to pick up our bow tie, it was a great male bonding time. Then on Sunday we met early at Pamela's for a pump up breakfast and retired to his apartment for a champion bow tie tie-ing session. The results are as follows:

Does it surprise anyone that my bow tie is black?

I was really tempted to make this my profile picture on FB.... and for those that know about me and my profile picture, you know that is a big deal.

 
Other happenings:
Last Thursday I got to experience a new dining place with Gwyn, and by proximity Jackie. The Similling Banana Leaf! It is a small, quaint Thai place in Highland, quite literally across the street from where Jackie's apartment is (which is why she went with us, she was home, so we knocked on her door and asked her to join us). There I realized that I have moved out of the 'I am interested, but hesitant' mode of my feelings towards Thai, Chinese and Japanese food and in to the 'I am Ok with this' phase. I realized that I knew what I was getting (Massman Curry), I had a preconceived notion of how it would taste, and I greatly enjoyed it. For those who grew up with me (aka my family) they had to deal with me putting my nose up to this type of food, and would get Mr. Wok for themselves and get me something else, or I would eat left-overs. This has changed. Family, I will now eat whatever you want. On a grander scale, this means that there are only a select few things that I don't enjoy eating: Broccoli Casserole and Ham and Egg Pie. I am moving up world.

I have convinced people that games are still cool. After said dinner, Jackie, Gwyn and I played a round of Carcassone. I have been playing a lot of Carcassone lately. Gwyn really likes it, so we tent to play it a lot ;). Last night, Tracey, Brian, Gwyn and myself played a round of Carcassone, and I was able to introduce Bohnanza to them. It was interesting that when I suggested it, they all moaned and complained about learning a new game... bla bla... and then nearing the end, with Gwyn and Tracey dominating the game, they loved it. I have also started a tradition that I picked up the last time I played Settlers. We played at Sam's house, the family she lives with had the game. When I opened the box, I realized that the lid had a running list of who had won the game. Basically a list of dates and names. I thought this was an awesome idea and have started this with Bohnanza and Carcassone, who ever wins, gets eternal glory and a line on the box lid.

I have also started my internship! It is going great so far. I am in an old conference room that is filled with animal heads (the owner is a big game hunter) and I have lots of space and lots of privacy. So far all I have really done is familiarized myself with the project I will be working on, and made up a tool list and part list. They don't do electrical engineering there, so they did not have any tools (like O-scopes, Mulitmeters, Power Supplies...) So I got to do some shopping. They are apparently really lax about working times, I just have to get in 29 hours a week. This means fridays off! :)

In the near future: Chicken Sausage and Apple Pizza!