Have you ever had one of those days, when there wasn’t a lot to do and you were really enjoying it? I woke up late this morning with only one real task, to cut Jon’s hair. As some of you might know, my roomates hair had grown to quite the length, reaching just past his shoulders. I’m told it was really nice hair, but as many girls can empathize with, it’s hot in the summer. So he agreed to let me cut it. *grin* I cut hair, not often, but I was trained by my mom before I left home, and I will sometimes cut my younger brother’s hair when it needs it.

The catch to cutting Jon’s hair was, he wanted it cut to a length of about five inches. See, I only know one hair style, which is the style my hair is cut in, and that style is short. Styling hair isn’t my profession, but I figured, it can’t be too hard. I did warn him before hand that I could only garuntee it done well if I did it like mine. *grin* So this morning I cut it. It didn’t look too bad. I cut it the same length all the way around. *grin*

So we left the apartment to run some errands and then head to a pool/dart/ping pong tournament a friend had going at his house. It wasn’t until much later in the afternoon that I noticed Jon’s hair got curly at the ends. And gosh if it didn’t look just like the kind of hair cut I’ve seen on many a girl. Without knowing it, I’d given my roomate a Bob. *hehe* It took a lot of will power not to laugh as the evening went on. Fun thing is, he had okayed it after I had finished. He didn’t notice it until much late either. Suffice it to say, when we got home, I did some trimming.

On slightly more serious matters, I discovered that the area just west of Hwy 30 outside of Saint Louis is really beautiful. The land turns hilly around there and many of the neighborhoods have winding roads that go up and down and are covered with trees. Just gorgeous. If you ever have the chance to visit, I simply must take you for a drive around that area.

I have several new poems to share. They are:

An Evening Prayer
Nostalgia
Late Night Conversation
Special Girl

Please enjoy!

Your Own Blog Ditty!

Yesterday Jason B. and Jeremy W. and I went to the park to take stock photography for Marzhill Studios. We were jumping off park benches and doing cartwheels. There were two precious little girls playing, and I caught some photos of them. With permission from their father, I get to post them here.

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The large versions can be downloaded and printed and are 1.5mb in size. I just want to say thanks to the parents for letting me post the pics. Enjoy.

Tell if this sounds familiar. Watching myself grow up (I know that sounds a bit weird, but I’m a very introspective person), I’ve noticed a cycle. The length of the cycle varies depending on one thing or another, but the general gist of it is like this. Everything is going well. I begin to make tentative steps forward with things. After a little success, I become a little bolder, growing confident. Then I become just a little to confidant and someone humiliates me. I stop short and think, "Sheesh, didn’t you learn the last time that you can’t run around with that attitude?" I wiggle around for a while, then submit to humiliation. Rinse and repeat.

The trick is to catch the beginnings of that little proud attitude. I’m not offering excuses, but that creature of conceit is an elusive enemy. And all to often it catches me off guard. It is all the more dangerous because of the delayed nature of its consequences. Arrogance rarely manifests itself till pride has had time to germinate and root itself inside your soul. By the time the first blade of pretension raises its wrinkled little head pride has taken root. Ones defense must then take the precautionary measure and a proactive stance. If you wait to react, it will all ready be too late.

At the end of this particular cycle, I’m always grateful for the one who was wise enough to rebuke me, and for a God who was merciful enough to spare me worse consequences.

That isn’t the only cycle I often experience though. Attitudes and general states of mind tend to cycle as well, and many of them are welcomed. The seasons especially are rich and beautiful, one that I anticipate with each circuit. Recently a number of my friends have graduated college, and a number are also getting married. It has put me in the mind to consider seasons, and why God has given them to us. Yesterday, some friends and I were out working on a project. Discussion in the car somehow came upon the topic of stimulation, more specifically the observation that people do not respond to states but changes in states. The example of stoplights were brought up, how often people will jump the light because they detected a change in another object close by, like a clock or the light facing the other direction.

Perhaps that is the reason why God put seasons in our lives. The constant change causes us to respond, to move and change as well. Growth can’t occur without some form of change or motion. Water, when left still, will stagnate. The feeling I’m left with is that the seasons and cycles that make up our lives are gifts, given to us to facilitate our growth.

It also occurs to me that like all things in the universe, the seasons must be governed. When organisms attempt to change too fast or fail to change fast enough, problems arise. Cancer is evidence of this phenomenon, the effect of rogue cells dividing uncontrolled destroying the normal growth of the living organisms around it. The key then in life is to find the balance in growth, a balance dictated by He who governs the growth of all things. Paul counsel’s us to let our moderation me known unto all men, and exhorts us to be sober minded. So then, the seasons in our life are given perhaps not only to prompt change, but also to moderate the rate we change.

I woke up early on Friday morning, the day I flew out to meet Jenn. My roomate Jon drove me to the airport, and with a certain amount of nervous excitement I made my way through security checkpoints, airport gates and airplanes until I arrived in South Carolina. The Bible Belt. And Greenville the Bible Belt Buckle.

I met Jenn at the airport, and with an exchange of hello’s and hugs all around, we were off to explore the depths of Greenville. I was a bit quiet at first. See, I was sick with a cold and feeling a bit reserved. Knowing this wouldn’t do on Jenn’s graduation weekend, and with so many people to meet, I decided on prompt action. Caffiene was called for and at lunch I consumed enough to keep me nicely wired the rest of the day.

With lunch consumed and our acquaintence familiar, we set off to pick up Amber. With much rejoicing and hugs again (at this point I considered giving Jenn another hug, but thought better of the idea. I didn’t want to seem forward. *grin* *ahem*). From the airport the second time, with Amber in tow, we happily made our way through the city streets to the jungle of electronic paraphenalia we like to call Best Buy.

There were many ferocious denizens of the bright blue and yellow jungle, not the least of which was Jenn, who taking offence at being photographed, growled and made faces at us. Seeing Jenn in her natural surroundings was indeed turing out to be an adventure. We tried to save the photo, which in my opinion was rather good, but she stalked us and succeded in mauling it thouroughly. She did indeed buy a camera, a Sony, which she proceeded to have much fun with throughout the next couple days.

We met her parents a little later at her home. Two very gracious and kind individuals who I feel blessed to now know. Her mom is very much like her, incidently. Outgoing and gregarious. I discovered that all the females in her family do that same cute baby talk whenever anything remotely cute is discussed, or when they are trying to be cute to get out of trouble for michstief they’ve gotten into. Jenn’s father is a very lucky and tolerant man. *grin*

After dinner and some trouble with straws, which I still consider a problem that ought to be rectified by the straw packaging industrty, we finally made it back to my hotel, where they dropped me off and we all crashed for the big day ahead tomorrow.

Graduation day was truly an enjoyment. Pomp and Circumstance, seriousness and joy, were all present. Bob Jones University did a fine job and The ceremony was enjoyable. Afterwards we took pictures. Here are a few.

Jenn and her mom, were all together beautiful on this happy day.

Jenn and her dad both smiling at the accomplishment that both worked so hard to achieve.

Jenn and Amber looking like the best friends that they are. They will both try to tell you they aren’t pretty, but those of us who now see them know better.

And this one is of Jenn by herself, just enjoying the moment.

At her party we all helped. There was much gift opening and laughing and thanking. I discovered that Jenn’s Grandmother, God bless her, makes chocolate no bake cookies just like my mom does. Mmmmmm…. The secret is in the peanut butter. Afterwards we hung out, then had dinner I think. It becomes a bit fuzzy here. Sunday morning was church, and afterwards a quiet dinner with just Me, Amber and the family. The afternoon was sleepy, though we didn’t nap, and with somewhat tired but happy hearts, tinged with regret because I don’t think anyone really wanted to leave, I was dropped off at the airport for my flight home.

Getting home was uneventful, though long. Flights were delayed due to weather, but flying through a storm is an awesome experience that I reccomend to everyone. Late that night, about ten oclock, I got into Saitn Louis. Jon picked me up and took me home. Ah me. I’m so blest.

This Week in Review

You know, bloggin only once a week, although freeing in some ways, is frustrating in others. Throughout the week I’ll come up with a bunch of things I’ll want to blog, then come Friday, I can’t remember many of them. I’m gonna have to start writing these things down.

Jenn wrote about my visit, and Amber did as well. I would tell you my perspective, but they have done such a good job, there is little for me to tell. I do have several photo’s I want to post when I get home, so later on this evening look for those here.

You may have noticed a couple changes of late, and also some outages on certain pages. My apologies to all if you did. I’m changing the way I do my photo section. You now see a ‘Daily Photo’ on the side bar. I will be adding a new photo everyday from now on, excepting perhaps Sunday. The main photo page will turn into a photoblog of sorts, and eventually I will be posting more information on each photo like where it was taken, f/stop, shutter speed, film speed, iso rating, and so on. Hopefully sometime in July I will be launching a commercial photo site where you can buy selected photo’s from walljm.com.

I finally launched the redesign of A Blog Apart. With a new articles section, a cleaner simpler layout, and five new authors, I hope ABA will be more enjoyable. I’m still working on small usability fixes and such so forgive the rather rough appearance.

Its Spring. It is of some fascination to me how the seasons affect my attitudes. During the Autumn months my spirit becomes very soft and reflective. I’m prone to fanciful flights of poetic meanderings, deep gray moods and bouts of cathartic melancholy. I so love the Autumn. Winter is restive, a time I don’t particularly enjoy. Its almost always too long. Spring though… Spring is a time for doing. During the Autumn I feel like reflection, a pastime I very much enjoy, but in the Spring I feel the need to produce and accomplish. Poetry doesn’t come easy in the Spring. Mostly because my attitude is more critical in the Spring and much of what I write is either too sappy or to mechanical.

Work has been a lot of fun lately. My real purpose there is to do ‘Data Mining’, which is terribly boring. I’ve spent the last couple months researching and experimenting with web analytic solutions. But it seems as though I came at just the right time to catch a wave of change. With just a few well placed comments and suggestions, a revolution of Web Standards and modern web authoring techniques is sweeping over the landscape where I work. And for some reason, they all think I’m an expert or something. *chuckle* I haven’t had the heart to tell them different. So in the middle of the boring web analytic research, I get to talk about CSS2 and XHTML, the importance of keeping your data separate from your presentation, and the importance of centralizing the maintenance of common content areas. w00t!

In light of how much I’ve wanted to blog these past couple weeks, I may start posting something on Tuesday’s as well. We shall see. One benefit from the decreased posting is that huge comment thread going on just below this post. Sheesh. You would think a little poem would cause so much chatter. *chuckle* Oh well… See you next Tuesday.