One Man
If one man can bring ruin to our country, ONE MAN, then our country is in trouble already. Checks and balances keep one man from ruining things. Yes, this person can appoint people to office, but I don't think I've heard anyone complain of anything BUT this person. If you're going to point blame on anything, put it on the government as a whole for sitting back and letting crap like this happen.
November 21, 2000
Today marks the 5 year anniversary of my father's death. It's hard to believe it has been that long. It didn't upset me for a long time, and now it doesn't much. But there are times where I just wish I could be a daddy's girl again. I wouldn't be who I am today if that hadn't happened, so in ways, I'm thankful. But I also know that God had a reason for making that happen. Somewhere down the road, maybe I will be able to comfort someone going through something similar. I know there were many that helped me and became a second family to me.
Some memories:
* Playing in the snow
* Stripping wire
* Crushing cans
* Taking the wire and cans to the recycling center. Also, collecting glass bottles and seeing how far we could throw them at the dump.
* Tickle fights
* Atari
* Roller skating around CMSI
* My first drive around the "block" (in my area, that was a 2mile by 2mile block) which ended in hitting a guardrail a quarter of a mile from home.
* The good ol' 88 GMC Sierra
* The good ol' 88 GMC Sierra breaking down all the time down in the Arbuckles
* The Dollar General Christmas Parties (mostly remembered for the dang good chicken... I wish I knew how to make it!!)
* Random times in the living room where we'd sing to anything on the radio
* UNO!!!! (don't think too much into that, Scott..)
* RUMMY!!!
* SOLITAIRE!!
* Playing Uno or Rummy while it is storming to keep me calm.
* Setting his alarm clock an hour ahead of time so that he would get up on time.
* Mowing.. and how proud he was when he got the best lawnmower that Walmart had. It even had a cupholder.
* Cleaning
He was always so proud of me. I never really understood it while he was alive though. But it was brought to my attention soon after his death. He really adored me. I guess that was probably really obvious to everyone else, especially since I am an only child. I'm glad I know now because in some ways I feel like I am still trying to make him proud of me... doing the best I can at all I do. That's the only way he'd want it.
The more I think about it, the more I realize how I always wanted to be like him. Most kids wouldn't think that crushing cans and stripping wire would be fun, but I did. I still enjoy it now. I still love mowing and obsessively clean sometimes. I really admired my dad. He made the best of what we had. And he worked REALLY hard for it. And best of all, he was HAPPY with what we had. I can only imagine what kind of role model he'd be for me if he was still alive.
I miss you daddy..
Evolution
All this talk lately of evolution made me wonder something:
Evolution is basically survival of the fittest, right? This means the strong survive and the weak do not. However, in days of new medical technology, the weak are surviving and even reproducing. Shouldn't this affect the "evolution rate"? Is this bad? Should medicine really be trying so hard to keep everyone alive as long as possible?
Now what???
Continuing from another conversation...
Why in the world are gay people encouraged to "express themselves" but those who are religious (esp. Christians) are DIScouraged?
What is the difference between these two? Please... someone explain!!!
Friday is Fun day!
Yeah, cheesy, I know. But it really was fun.
I guess there were a few events that kind of stunk. I didn't wake up until 7:35am when I was due at work at 7. bad bad bad. I felt horrible. Then I was rushed during my shift to finish German homework and to study for my german exam I had at 10:30. That went all right. I went home for lunch and hadn't received any word from Petra yet, so I decided to take a shower and started making the rest of my plans for the day. Well, while I was in there, she emailed me. So now I had to modify my plans, but I was happy to. I ate lunch and crocheted and watched Friends. Then it was time to go to the Thunderbird Micronet and help them out. They were attaching new guy wires to their tower. To my surprise, the measurements class was coming out for an IOP. My car got stuck, so I stayed out to help them. It was sooooo beautiful out. I absolutely loved it. It was perfect weather (~80 degrees) and the leaves were changing colors and the lake was pretty. And I got to work with measurement stuff!! Yay. While I was out there, Petra asked me to present my long term project from last year during her class next friday. Wow... I haven't looked at it in a while. I agreed to it because I really am proud of what we did. I am excited to be working with her more.
From the Micronet, I had to run a few errands, like getting my roommate's bday present and stuff. I went back to Sarkeys to get some of the stuff I left up there earlier in the day. Then something painful happened. My car doors don't shut easily, so you have to close them pretty hard. As I got out of my car and shut the door, my knee happened to be in the way. Yeah... my kneecap got whacked pretty bad. It has been hurting a lot. It hurts especially when I am either standing or when it is bent. If it persists much longer, I'm gonna have to see the doctor, which I REALLY can't afford, so please pray that it wnon't be anything more than a bruise.
A group was meeting at Chili's for her bday dinner so I went to meet them. I got there a little late, so by the time I got to order, they were receiving their food. So I got mine to go. Then by the time I got my food, it was time to go! Rachael liked her gift (electronic guesstures) and we both can't wait to play it! hehe. It's fun when you can give a present that you can enjoy too.
Then it was time for some tv and video games. That was a nice end to the day. Friday really was Funday, except the whole sleeping late and knee incident. :-)
SW Oklahoma!
Today I was able to go out with Leslie, one of the Mesonet Technicians. It was a true blast. She is a really lovely lady to spend time with. We planned to go to Mount Scott repeater to change the RF PROM, Walters to change the 2m Wind Sentry, and Grandfield to change the battery.
We started off by heading down to Mount Scott repeater. She was gracious enough to drive slow a lot so I could take a bunch of pictures. When we got to the repeater, we realized that another technician had the key to the enclosure. Instead of being discouraged, we just drove to the top and enjoyed the view. It was so beautiful. I can't understand how some can look at the natural beauty of the earth and not believe in God as well. It is amazing. It was really hazy though, so most of my pictures from the top aren't very good.
Leslie is from Lawton, so she knows the area very well. The entire time, I got a narrative of the history of Lawton. Very Cool! On our way out from the mountain, we were trying to find buffalo. She decided to take me to the Medicine Park site too. That was definitely an offroad adventure. Unfortunately, there were no buffalo at the site. There was... um... evidence that buffalo had been there though.
From here, she wanted to take me to Holy City. That was really awesome. It is hard to describe. It is this area off from the main road and it has these stone buildings. The main building is a catholic stylish church. The rest of the buildings are things like a manger, crucifixion place, where Moses received the 10 commandments, etc. Apparantly, they do easter passion plays there. I REALLY want to go!!! The feel of the area was incredible. There are pictures up in the buildings of past performances and it looks so authentic. I can't wait until one is being performed! It was really nice to go there with Leslie too because it was kind of a common bond and it led on to more conversation as our trip progressed.
On our way back to the road, I looked off to the left and saw a prairie dog!!! I asked her to stop and I took a picture of it. Then I saw there were A BUNCH of them. I put my window down and one started barking at me! It was soooo cute. We stayed there a few more minutes so I could take pictures. Then we proceeded to the city and restaurant of Meers. I never realized that these famous burgers were made of Longhorn cattle! I thought that was pretty funny. It seems like we were there forever. We ate and talked. I found out apparantly the technicians didn't really know I was interested in an actually position. She gave me some tips on what I should get to know to make myself more appealing for that job. That was great! We finally left around 2pm or so. Time for Walters!
At WALT, the 2m Wind Sentry had to be replaced. She let me do it all on my own. :-) It made me very happy. There was spider web junk everywhere though... I thought that was a little strange. Not much interesting happened there. I took a bunch of pictures, then we left to go to Grandfield.
En route to GRA2, we drove through the town and there were bales of cotton on the side of the road. I've never seen that before! As we proceeded down the road, there were random cotton splotches in the grass. Leslie deemed it "Redneck snow." I retrieved some from the road to keep as a souvenir of the cute little town. The problem with GRA2 was that it was a Super Mesonet Site and therefore needed extra power. So we had to change one of the two batteries. Of course, it just had to be the enclosure that had a wasps' nest in it. Luckily, she had some OFF! in the truck. It started eating away at the insulation of the wires and the paint on the battery!! And we put this stuff on our skin? Something is wrong.. The wasps were finally dead (enough) so she let me change the battery out too. Then we had to call in for a program download because we changed the master battery and the logger lost its program. We double checked a few more things and I took more pictures, and then we headed out. It was nice because that site is at an airport, so I got to see planes! :-D It was sad that none were landing or in the air though. Oh well.
From here, we had to get gas and head back to Norman. I dropped her off at her house in Blanchard and drove the truck back to Sarkeys. That is definitely the biggest thing I've ever driven! Much more powerful than my car too! haha.
All in all, it was a great, relaxing day. At least until I got home. Because I didn't get back to Sarkeys until 7:30, then helped the closing operator with some things, I didn't get to my apartment until ~9pm. Not good when you have homework that was supposed to be due at 9pm. I emailed the teacher and she said it was okay to turn it in a little late. And then I found out that this big GEMPAK project that was supposed to be due on Thursday was further "postponed" until after our exam on Monday. I was absolutely furious when I found this out because I had spent many hours Tuesday evening working on that because I knew I would be gone all day today. I definitely could have used that time for other things such as German or tech writing. Oh well. It all worked out. I don't remember when I went to bed, but I just know it was a really long day.
Yay! :-)
I get to go to GRA2 tomorrow!! Maybe WALT too. So exciting! :-)
I also was able to talk to Petra today finally. She said that she is going to try to set me up with a project to do at the Thunderbird Micronet. Right now, she's kind of overloaded with work due to her/Larissa being ill for the past week or so. However, she said she will keep me in mind. And if she doesn't, I'll be bugging her anyway. :-)
So stuff work related went well today. Food related stuff did not. Took too long for my food.. And I got a completely wrong order just now -> apparantly ordering chicken nuggets and a coke equals double quarter pounder and DR PEPPER!!!! EEEEEEEEEWWWW!!! Could it BE any grosser than that?? oh well.
I need to be heading to bed... tomorrow will be a looooonnnnng day!!! :-D
