Poems, Prayers and Promises

Well, I guess I must not consider it taking a break to blog, since the posts dropped off suddenly once break started. Right now I'm too busy enjoying the good food and rest that comes with being home for break to really post anything, but I'm sure in the ensuing weeks there will be plenty of time to write something. Maybe ;-) Until then, have a great Christmas!

I flew to into Indianapolis Intl. tonight with my student, and got paid for it! Sometimes I really love my job. We left right after dark in the snow and driving wind to make our final dual x-c. We were definitely the only ones flying, but that's cool to know there was no one else as crazy as us. And my student got to experience icing, so it's all good. We flew into Charter Services, which is Lafayette Aviation's charter counterpart there in Indy. I meant to get some pictures, but it was way to cold and I forgot my camera so sorry, no joy on the pics.

But then I got back home..... and now have nothing really to do. It's really cool, and there is indeed millions of things I could be doing, but it's also really boring. Hopefully this isn't a fortaste of the working work for me.....

Well, since I had extra time, I started looking at protein supplements and stuff to start taking when I work out. To build those massive muscles you know lol. I think I finally figured out which one to get too. That sounds easy enough but there's like 200 billion of them out there so it really gets complicated. So many things that go into them. And then right when I would find one I liked I would look at the price tag and it would be around 80 bucks or so for 30 servings. Yeah, I don't think so. I thought I wanted a "weight gainer" instead of just straight protein, but I think I've come to the conclusion that I'll just buy straight protein powder (which is cheaper) and then mix my own weight gainer. Here's one of the recipes I'm going to try just in case any of you out there really want to pack it on:

it tastes great and is a healthy source of calories.
2 cups milk
2 scoops whey protein
0.5 cups oats
2 tbsp natural peanut butter
1 large banana
Nutritional facts (estimated, may vary with products)
- Calories : 970- Protein : 70g- Carbs : 100g- Fat : 34g (using 2% milk)

Yum.

Oh, and funny story. The post that I wrote that has the picture of my truck and talks about us running around barefoot in the snow.... well I found out when I was at work later that week that Tina and Chayce, two of my fellow compadres there at Laf Avi, had stopped by my house that evening on their way to go sledding in the park right next to us.

But there's a twist, they were going to play a little joke on my by having Chayce's roommate bang on the door till I answered and then be like "hi Ross" even though I wouldn't know who he was from Adam. Sounds like a good idea right? But there's another twist.

Apparently they had the poor guy banging on the door of the wrong house. They sent him to the door of the house that's right next to ours .... it's identical, so I see how they could mistake it. Well finally the poor girl that lives next door answered the door wrapped in a towel and looking like she had just jumped out of the shower lol. The poor guy didn't know what to say, cause he could definitely see that she wasn't Ross even though he didn't know who I was. So after that whole mess, they finally found my door and just knocked this time. But of course I didn't answer because I was two houses down running around in the snow. The poor people that live around us must think the whole corner's going crazy lol. That may not be far from the truth.

Here it is.... the schedule for my final semester up here at Purdue (sniff sniff :/). Looks like it's going to be a fun semester to end on though. Here's the descriptions for the classes:

THTR 133 - Survey Of Acting
Credit: 3.00
Section 03 - 01 Lecture
Description:
For non-theatre majors. Training and exercise in the basic elements of acting and the use of the stage. Study of historical and theoretical backgrounds of acting and of different types of plays and staging.

CSR 342 - Personal Finance
Credit: 3.00
Section 01 - 01 Lecture
Description:
Lectures and discussion on problems of managing one's personal finances. Covers budgeting; use of, and cost of, credit; life and property insurance; income and estate taxation; housing; saving and investments; wills, trusts, and estate planning.

COM 256 - Introduction To Advertising
Credit: 3.00
Section 01 - 01 Lecture
Description:
An analysis of commercial persuasion from colonial times to the era of mass communication. The course examines the structure of advertising messages, how they are adapted to specific audiences, and the social settings in which they occur.

COM 315 - Speech Communication Of Technical Information
Credit: 3.00
Section 04 - 01 Lecture
Description:
The organization and presentation of information of a practical technical nature. Emphasis is placed upon the study, preparation, and use of audiovisual materials in such presentations.

EAS 325 - Aviation Meteorology
Credit: 3.00
Section 01 - 01 Lecture
Description:
This course is designed for students who have an interest in topics in meteorology applied to aviation operations with emphasis on meteorological hazards for instrument flight. Topics covered include obtaining and evaluating weather data, review of synoptic meteorology, map analysis, the ICAO standard atmosphere, pressure and altimetry, atmospheric thermodynamics, moisture and stability, low-IFR operations, aircraft icing, turbulence, thunderstorms and associated hazards, and interpretation and use of radar and satellite imagery.

AT 468 - Transport Aircraft Operations Lab IV
Credit: 1.00
Section 15 - 01 Laboratory
Description:
Unique flight scenarios emphasizing line-oriented flight training (LOFT) and crew operations in aircraft equipped with electronic flight instrumentation systems, satellite navigation, and flight management systems will be encountered.

AT 466 - Transport Aircraft Operations Lecture IV
Credit: 1.00
Section 01 - 01 Lecture
Description:
This is a continuation of AT 465, which emphasizes line-oriented flight training (LOFT) in aircraft equipped with electronic flight instrumentation systems, satellite navigation, and flight management systems.

Check out this Video:

http://video.cgi.cbsnews.com/video/video.pl?url=/media/2005/12/13/video1122443.wmv&sid=201&dart=news.video

She actually lived and then found out she was pregnant when she was at the hospital. The baby was alright too. Really skydiving isn't all that dangerous. It definitely more dangerous than just staying in the airplane though. I guess just like with anything aviation related, things don't go bad very often, but when they do it's pretty dramatic. I can totally sympathize with what the instructor had to be feeling though. I would think it's alot like sending a student for their first solo flight in an airplane.... your just really on edge. Fortunately I haven't had an opportunity to see what it feels like when things go bad in that kind of situation. It's kind of ironic if you listen to the music that's playing in the background as she describes her dive flow. It's Green Day singing something about this being the dawning of the rest of their lives, right before she goes out and almost gets killed. Here's the CBS story about it too:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/13/earlyshow/main1120132.shtml

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/

For someone who is just fine never leaving home base, I really want to do some overseas travel. Maybe this summer. We'll see. But I found this link to a CIA pub that basically is a profile of many countries. A good thing to know about if your going to go there.

http://www.faa.gov/ats/aat/ifim/

This is an FAA site used by pilots so that we can figure out all the entry requirments and stuff. Also good info for the world traveler.

Last night Josh, Sara, and me (just kidding, and I) went back to Indy to watch this movie. Yes, as you can read on the ticket it was the 10:20 showing. So that was kind of late, but it worked out well. Before we headed down we introduced Sara to Cici's and decided there needed to be a Corps trip to Cici's. After Cici's we hit the road but reached Clearwater Crossing way to early, so we went to the mall and did a turbo tour just for the heck of it. We walked through the cheesecake factory, and yeah that was about the only place open. About the time we finished walking around it was time to head over for the movie. The movie was pretty good and the message from the books shone through clearly. After the movie the gang headed over to Steak and Shake and hung out there till, oh I don't know, pretty late. Around 2:30 I think. It was really a blast though and the company and conversation just got increasingly lively and interesting the later it got. At least at our table it did but we took up three whole tables. But it was fun, and certain people now have new nicknames. Isn't that right Womp? 

My truck when I went to leave for work this morning. We had about 7 inches or so of the frigid white fluff, prompting a traditional run barefoot around the house through the snow by a few of us last night at the praise time. The funny thing is that two of the three of us that did it are Seniors, while most of the underclassmen remained inside the warm house. I thought it was supposed to be the other way around? Leave it to the seniors to have to pick up everyone else's slack lol. 

Why December 25?
The origin of Christmas had nothing to do with paganism by Gene Edward Veith



According to conventional wisdom, Christmas had its origin in a pagan winter solstice festival, which the church co-opted to promote the new religion. In doing so, many of the old pagan customs crept into the Christian celebration. But this view is apparently a historical myth—like the stories of a church council debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or that medieval folks believed the earth is flat—often repeated, even in classrooms, but not true.

William J. Tighe, a history professor at Muhlenberg College, gives a different account in his article "Calculating Christmas," published in the December 2003 Touchstone Magazine. He points out that the ancient Roman religions had no winter solstice festival.

True, the Emperor Aurelian, in the five short years of his reign, tried to start one, "The Birth of the Unconquered Sun," on Dec. 25, 274. This festival, marking the time of year when the length of daylight began to increase, was designed to breathe new life into a declining paganism. But Aurelian's new festival was instituted after Christians had already been associating that day with the birth of Christ. According to Mr. Tighe, the Birth of the Unconquered Sun "was almost certainly an attempt to create a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians." Christians were not imitating the pagans. The pagans were imitating the Christians.

The early church tried to ascertain the actual time of Christ's birth. It was all tied up with the second-century controversies over setting the date of Easter, the commemoration of Christ's death and resurrection. That date should have been an easy one. Though Easter is also charged with having its origins in pagan equinox festivals, we know from Scripture that Christ's death was at the time of the Jewish Passover. That time of year is known with precision.

But differences in the Jewish, Greek, and Latin calendars and the inconsistency between lunar and solar date-keeping caused intense debate over when to observe Easter. Another question was whether to fix one date for the Feast of the Resurrection no matter what day it fell on or to ensure that it always fell on Sunday, "the first day of the week," as in the Gospels.

This discussion also had a bearing on fixing the day of Christ's birth. Mr. Tighe, drawing on the in-depth research of Thomas J. Talley's The Origins of the Liturgical Year, cites the ancient Jewish belief (not supported in Scripture) that God appointed for the great prophets an "integral age," meaning that they died on the same day as either their birth or their conception.

Jesus was certainly considered a great prophet, so those church fathers who wanted a Christmas holiday reasoned that He must have been either born or conceived on the same date as the first Easter. There are hints that some Christians originally celebrated the birth of Christ in March or April. But then a consensus arose to celebrate Christ's conception on March 25, as the Feast of the Annunciation, marking when the angel first appeared to Mary.

Note the pro-life point: According to both the ancient Jews and the early Christians, life begins at conception. So if Christ was conceived on March 25, nine months later, he would have been born on Dec. 25.

This celebrates Christ's birth in the darkest time of the year. The Celtic and Germanic tribes, who would be evangelized later, did mark this time in their "Yule" festivals, a frightening season when only the light from the Yule log kept the darkness at bay. Christianity swallowed up that season of depression with the opposite message of joy: "The light [Jesus] shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:5).

Regardless of whether this was Christ's actual birthday, the symbolism works. And Christ's birth is inextricably linked to His resurrection.
•
Copyright © 2005 WORLD MagazineDecember 10, 2005, Vol. 20, No. 48


Mom mentioned this article to me. I thought it was kind of interesting in light of the fact that certain roomies, not to mention any names Josh, want to kill my Christmas tree lol.

And once I retire from my dream job I want to live in Brown County and paint like this guy. I love his art.

http://www.steveandbetsy.blogspot.com/

I don't really know how exactly they are working it out, but I found this blog and apparently they are a couple that flys around in a corp. jet together. How cool is that! My main squable with taking a flight job after college was the time I would be away from my wife and family, supposing there is a girl out there that would have me ;-). But this way I would never have to be away from her, we'd just be on a perpetual honey moon lol. It's just such an excelent idea! I guess she really wouldn't have to be a pilot either, she'd catch on quick enough, and she'd be one of the few pilots that started out flying right seat in a jet.

The warm rays of light from the lamp that stood next to me in the living room seemed to welcome the tiny crystals that blew past the picture window looking out over the forest below. The cold flakes of snow seemed to encircle the house, providing a protective barrier against the cold dreary weather beyond. I sat in my old overstuffed rocking chair, covered in a flannel sheet, and sipped thoughtfully on a cup of fresh, warm, coffee. My gaze was help captive by this dance of an unlikely pair, the warm glow with the cold flakes that were falling the last few feet of their great decent from above. A chilly view beyond the curtain of white was just becoming clear as the first light of the day whispered softly through the clouds hanging above. What was revealed resembled the interior of an ice box, and contrasted sharply yet tantalizingly with the snug room I could feel around me, with the supple carpet that my toes now sought refuge in. This winter spectacle so common yet so beautiful may have been what held my gaze, but if you followed my gaze back into my mind you could see that the thoughts that played within were not warm like the light, not cold like the snow. Rather my thoughts were held captive by an object that stood right in the window between the two. A little Canadian Pine that held out it’s branches as if to hold the warmth in, and the bitter weather out. Memories of the 21 winters I have seen are brought to mind by this tree that has come to symbolize the onset of winter and home. I reflected on each winter that seemed as a dramatic pause in an otherwise lively melody; markers of progress characterized by hope for the next verse. I looked at the last puddle of coffee in my cup that had now been allowed to cool in my absent mindedness and began to remember the list of things I had to do that day. They came back to me like a nagging task master, rudely directing my actions with no regard to what I desired. With an air of finality, I closed my eyes and downed the last bitter swallow of coffee. When I opened my eyes, gone were the warm glow, gone was the dance of contrast between the glow and the snow; the sun was now shinning through the overcast with a deepening voice and had erased the battle lines drawn between the light room and the dark world outside. Everything was now coated with a layer of dull gray. The day had begun.

Interesting. I sit down to write on something meaningful and I never get past the introduction. I was just trying to write an “attention getting” intro, or “zapper” as one of the teachers I had used to call it, to a paper, er, post in which I was going talk about….. well it honestly doesn’t matter now. I have just skimmed the cream off the milk of my thoughts with the passage above, and it’s much more romantic if I leave it at that and don’t spoil it by making a point. Rather look at the theme of it, and there really is some depth to it. Romance is all the more exhilarating when there is depth to it. It seems to hint, among other things, that maybe what’s important is not the past or present interpretation of “the tree” but rather the life that I live apart from the tree. If I am so focused on the glory outside the window, God, and my heart is bent around his will then “the tree” will play but a small part in my life and, in fact, it will complement and lend itself to glorifying “the view” (um yeah. “the view”= God if you didn’t catch it). I have said more than I meant to, but I will also note for curiosity sake that there are some other unrelated ideas, thought about my future, and a hint to the password on my computer all contained in that pile of junk above. Mwa ha ha ha. Don’t think about it too long it’s really not worth it.

http://www.breakthechain.org

I ran across this website today while I was google searching for info that I could use in a presentation I have to make on the Comair strike. It's kind of cool if your one of those people that get all those chain email things from other people and wonder if there is any truth in them. The one about Mr. Rogers was on there, and I was crushed once I found out the "truth" behind the email. But then again, is what this website has to say any more trust worthy than the emails that bounce around? Brings up an interesting question. It's so easy to pass around information these days through electronic means. So easy for people to make up their own truth. So how much of what we read and here through these conduits of information can we actually believe? That's actually a rhetorical question so don't feel like you have to quite school to research the answer. Unless you want to, then you could post your comment in the corridors of cyber space for all to see and believe...... or not believe.

Well, I hadn't posted something on here for a while, and tonight I went crazy after studying and started playing with my camera, the Christmas tree we have in our house, and one of the glass bulbs. The pictures get progressively stranger, so be forwarned. I actually burned a hole in the couch with the light I was using to make the last few. Oops.