He was stuck and actually beginning to slide backwards.
like, umm, this rocks…
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/games/ipod/phase/phase.m4v
p.s. I still didn’t get that iPodTouch that was on my Christmas List 
If you need any kind of technical advice or work, I’m your guy.
Check out my temporary home at ThexTech.blogspot.com
ThexTech.Net is now live!
(It’s just a redirect for the time, but I’ll get a site up at some point.)
or just mail me at:
gabethexton /at/ gmail \dot\ com
(put ‘Tech Help’ somewhere in the subject line so I don’t miss it)
This post is a couple days in the making, I started it on Monday, but the story is from Thursday…
Did I ever mention that I’m a huge Wil Wheaton fan? Yeah, so all you writerly types (and anyone else who wants to chuckle a bit) should check this one out. Wil has written truth there. To be honest I’ve been ignoring my brains interruptions of my sleep, and the problem with rolling over and going back to sleep (for several months in a row at that) is that you start to feel as though anything you might produce would be inadequate. You hear songs, and instead of going “Yeah, I feel that way too but MY words would be THESE.” you find yourself thinking “I wish I could write like that, that guy has such a way with words.” and you struggle to pick up the pen, you struggle even more to sit there and type symbolic black pixels into existence and say what it is that you mean, what it is that you feel. So, on that note…
words…
I’m filling shelves with packages of meat. People shuffle past browsing. Others move rapidly, shoving their carts up and down aisles. A man in his forties leans in next to me, “What’ve you got there?” I smile, “This is the Ninety-Six-Percent.” he nods and moves on. I turn back to my stack of containers. I crumple a plastic bag and shove it inside another, my on-the-go trash can. I look down.
A little girl approaches me. She is four at most. Her hair is jet black and falls straight, parting for her shoulders. Her eyes are deep brown and massive. She is wearing pink pants and a white shirt. I look at her and smile. She speaks… “Where’s th afroo?” I don’t understand her. I bend down, smile and ask her what she said. Again she speaks… “?Donde esta el bano?” I melt completely.
I am entirely at the the mercy of this small child, and she at mine. I know instantly that her mother is nearby, I know instantly that she’s been sent to ask me because she knows some English. It’s not very much, but it’s sure more than her mother does. I know instantly that I can respond in her own tongue. I envision her home life of Spanish and her school life of English. I envision her grown and fully bi-lingual. I see her making a difference and bridging language gaps. My mind races with adoration and dreams, everything in a split second. I must respond.
I look up to point and instantly spot her mother. She watches timidly from a distance. She watches with concern and pride. “Esta Alli.” I say, pointing toward the front corner of the store, “Enfrente, a la derecha.” Her hand rises to her mouth, covering it partially, she got the information she needed, but she doesn’t quite know if she’s done. She turns and walk-runs back to her mother.
I watch as they exchange information. Her mother obviously watched me point and I watch her repeat my gesture. They continue on. I don’t see them again. The little girl dwells in my mind. I know that my quick thinking got me out of my daydream. I could have stayed in that moment for an hour, even a day. The child, should she have wanted, could have twisted me like taffy. Her eyes and demeanor left me without recourse.
The little girl dwells in my mind. I think of the future. I have hopes, I have dreams. One of them is a little girl not unlike the one I saw today. She smiles and laughs. She giggles and runs. Her pink outfit makes me smile. Her timidity requires strength. Her loss requires direction. Her childhood requires a father, and I want to be him.
I forgot how good it was to have fellowship.
Thank you friends.
They are friends of my friends.
That’s the way it was with Columbine.
I knew or knew of them, both times.
You go through this once, and you think you’ve had the worst of it, you’re thankful that it didn’t come any closer to you, and you hope you never see it again.
And then it happens again.
Some attended my family’s small church.
I sat in the same room and dined on a Thanksgiving potluck with them just weeks ago.
Their friends helped us tear out my parents’ deck just last weekend.
Youth with a Mission, YWAM (say ‘why-wham’) is a wonderful organization. I’ve seen too many ‘missions’ organizations that try only to go out and beat the 3rd world over the head with the bible. That’s not YWAM. They help. They are beautiful people. Good people. God’s people.
Some may ask us, “Why would God do that?” “Why would he let this happen?” I’ll say one thing for sure, God did not direct this. As imperfect beings, we have let imperfection into His initially perfect world. He made us, and asked us to choose him, when we didn’t – the storm began. And now, as he holds us in his hands, he protects us from most of it. Some, however, gets through. This is that some. This is that storm of sin, that evil that none of us like.
We cannot return to perfect on our own. He is the creator of this world and it is He who perfects it. Not now, while we live here within it, but later, in a new Earth. Each of us has a hole. Each of us feels our imperfection daily. We stuff all manner of things into it, trying to fill it. But nothing suffices, and we still feel the hole. All that crap we stuff in will just rot and fall out. It can’t fill our hole. The hole has a shape, however.
It’s a God shaped hole.
Only he can fill it.
It’s snowing FEET in the mountains west of here.
It rained OCEANS in the Northwest where I used to live.
And all I get is this frickin’ wind.
What’s the deal?
I like wind when it brings behind it some of the aforementioned weather, but not when all it does is blow-up hour-long-hairdo’s [not mine of course ].
Sheesh.
