Be like Dave

So, once again because the bum did it, I started looking at some of the referrals to my blog, to see how people are getting here. Most, of course, are just bookmarked by the likes of the bum or Erin, or people link here from their sites. But a couple of interesting ones caught my eye, all of them Google searches.

1) Hit #3 for "shawn's Indiana University." Now, why exactly are you looking that up?

2) Hit #1 for "christine alspaugh," my alleged wife from Michigan, to whom I "owe" child support. Maybe I shouldn't have actually entered her real name. Maybe I shouldn't have just typed it again.

3) Hit #15 for "chickens singing 'in the mood.'" I think this is one of the more prouder moments of my life. It's linking to a post from 2005 referencing the bum's and my last "concert."

*bawk*

The greatest toy ever made

Tonight a large contingent of the Romania group did some baby-sitting for a few families in the church to raise some money, and I found the greatest toy ever made. It's a super bouncy ball. Well, that's mildly misleading. First of all, super bouncy balls wouldn't be that special, and every boy has probably had about forty million of them growing up. No, this family had four super bouncy eggs. That's right--a super bouncy ball in the shape of an egg. And they had a huge basement with a huge cement floor and no obstructions. I had a blast. If I had had one of these growing up, I may not have needed other toys. Ever. I do have to confess, though, I did take a nice shot on the lip after one of the kids bounced one hard...and they're still cool.

Only twice previous

In my week away from Bloomington, and thusly away from computers and cell phone receptions, I did get to play a lot of golf. By far, the most exciting round was on last Wednesday, when Matt, my dad, and a guy from the church I grew up in played Mystic Hills. It's a fairly new course near where I grew up that was supposed to be hard and really nice, so of course, I wanted to play it. Now, it took a really long time to get the hang of the course and start playing well, but I did play the last 12 holes in only 3 over par. More exciting, though, was the 475-yard par five 14th. Now, it's a short par five, since we were only playing the whites, but deal with it. Anyway, it was a soft dogleg to the right, and I hit a huge tee shot down the left side of the fairway, leaving me about 215 to the green. I pulled out my three wood to try to hit it close to the green. It was partially blind, and I could only see the top of the flagstick, but the shot was a thing of beauty. It was long, solid, and dead straight--right at the pin. So, I climb to the top of the hill, and what do I see? The ball is about nine inches from the pin. I tap in for a crowd-pleasing 3, my third ever eagle. This was also my first ever made eagle putt. My two previous eagles where shots I holed out from the fairway (one in a golf match my senior year, which had to be demoralizing). Anyway, on the whole the course was fun to play. Moreover, it's just exciting to say I've played on a Pete Dye designed course--he's a stud in the golf course design business.

It's about time

Since I know all of you care, and since I won't have internet for the next week or so, I figured I would make one last post about the past couple of days. Basically, I've driven a lot, I've gotten too little sleep, but most importantly, I played my first round of golf for the season this morning.

Now, all I'd done up until today was hit one bucket of range balls, so basically no chips shots and no putts. And, early on, it was clear that I had no touch or finesse whatsoever. Plus, we were playing one of the hardest courses we ever play, so that complicated things somewhat. Anyway, I didn't get a par until the 7th hole, keeping me at +7. I finished with 8 pars in the last twelve holes. On the back nine I shot a 40, which might be my best on that nine, and that includes bogeying the short par 5 (even after a sweet bunker shot) and double bogeying the first hole, which is simply unacceptable, and a three-putt bogey on 17. The round was capped off by a beautiful 4 iron to within about 20 feet on the final hole, bringing that monster to its knees.

Ok, I'll stop talking about my golf for now. Probably four more rounds in the next week or so, and my dad usually pays, so it should be fun!

A culinary expert

So, how do you spend a weekend evening when you're bored and not much to do? Obviously...you make a cake. :)


Actually, I was making a Romanian cake for our Romanian meal at church today, where by "Romanian" we mean "looks like a Romanian flag." To top it off, under each color is a different type of cake.

All in all, making two of these cakes was a 3-hour process. I seriously need to get a life...

Dream

My room's all better. At least, that's what I dreamed. I dreamt I popped into my room (I just happened to be in the area--don't ask me why), and a janitor was just finishing up his cleaning. All of the computer junk was gone, especially off of the shelves on the left wall, as well as most of the math textbooks in the room that I didn't need. It was less dusty, and there were new white boards. In particular, the "white" boards were actually a dark purple (purple is a school color, for whatever that's worth). Apparently I was only to use light-colored markers... Now, I don't know what to take from the dream, as my dreams tend to be incredibly out there (at least, the ones that I remember), but it was somewhat comforting. Oh, and in the dream, I thought "I need to blog about this." So, there you go.

Kinda scary

The status of my room, that is. I stopped by Sullivan HS (see previous post), and pretty much nothing's been done to my room since the end of the school year. In particular, the old teacher also taught some computer stuff, so there's all kind of software, hardware, and computer magazines filling up my closets, shelves, and cupboards. All in all, I was given six keys pertaining to my room, but I only know what four of them do. And I can't get into any of the computer desks on the far wall, either.

Plus, it's all the more apparent that I'm going to be moving someplace I don't know anyone. I don't mind living by myself, and have for years, but I need some kind of social contact. I'll get some at work, but will that be enough? Now obviously, God's going to care for me, and He has a great plan set out, but I still worry and get a little scared.

To add to everything, Carmel HS called, presumably for some kind of phone interview type of thing. It had to end, pretty much right away, because right away she asked if I was still looking for a job. Since I refuse to lie, that ended that conversation right away. I would have gone through the interview, just so they get to know me, but alas... It's just ironic because Carmel has pretty much all the intangibles, from my point of view: friends nearby, friends in the building, I helped form the swing club there and they are some great kids, I could keep attending church in Yorktown, and I'm really close to Indy and lots of swing dancing. And there's a decent chance I'd get some fairly high-level classes to teach. But, they're about three weeks too late, and so I go to Sullivan. How stupid is it that I'm 26 and kind of scared to finally be entering the real world? How little faith do I have? God has so much work left to do in me...

A little more weird(er)

Tomorrow (Wednesday) I think I'm going to Sullivan High School to pick up my keys and the textbooks, get a look at my room, and maybe drive around the area (including Terre Haute), just to get familiar with the layout and potential places to look for houses. With that being said, it's a little freaky to think about walking into the school and asking for my keys. I don't know, it just feels official and authoritative and like I'm grown up. I haven't been grown up yet...why should I have to start now?

On another note, we're having a Romanian meal on Sunday at ECC to raise money for our trip. The food I'm preparing is a Romanian cake....by which I mean, a normal cake with frosting to make it look like a Romanian flag. Now, some other group members want me to make each color of the flag a different type of cake. But, how do you do that? How can you put three types of batter into a pan and not have them just mix on their own? I am so culinarilly challenged...

Almost amazing

So, there was some craziness at the HS girls' state track meet I was working at tonight, and I wanted to share it. Now, no one may actually realize how crazy/special this was, since most of my friends don't do much track and field, but I'm going to share it anyway. So, we're (we=dad and me) watching the pole vault, and we watch what appears to be the last competitor miss her final jump at 12'3". So, competition over, right? No. Another girl gets up and starts to do a run through. Now, the only reason she would be allowed to do this was if she hadn't started jumping yet, which she hadn't. Do you understand this? This is the state finals, and this jumper passed on all the heights below 12'6", and all of the other competitors could not make that height. And she's starting there. She procedes to clear 12'6" on her first jump by a good foot. Keep in mind, she tied for the state record last year at 12'9". She moves the bar to 13'0", and clears it easily. She then moves it to 13'6", and clears it with inches to spare. Now, she qualified in the regionals at 13'9", which happens to also be the national record. So, what does she do? She moves the bar to 14'. So, instead of trying to tie the national record, which she knows she can do, she tries to break it, even though she only cleared her 13'6" jump by about 3 inches. 3 misses later, no national record was achieved. I know the more attempts you do, the more tired you get, but how can you not make sure you at least tie the national record?

Oh yeah, for what it's worth, this girl's only a junior. She's got another year of utter domination left.

It's official...

...at least, more official. There was an emergency school board meeting last night in Sullivan, and so they ended up approving the hiring of a one Mr. Alspaugh. Now all that's left is to actually sign the contract. I'm even welcome to come pick up keys and textbooks at my convenience. It's nice to think that they were so anxious to get me signed that they called a special meeting just approve me. At least, that's what I'm telling myself...