A bus almost ran me over this morning.

I was legally crossing at a crosswalk today, and, in the middle of the crosswalk, the bus getting ready to turn decides that I'm not crossing fast enough. A quick U-turn back to where I came from is the only thing that prevented my untimely demise.

Tonight was too beautiful to do anything else but ride to house church. A quick stop at the library took me through a darkened section of town. The peace, the silence of nothing else except my tires slight hum against the tarmack. The out of the way road, which are rarely travelled in the day, now are completely lifeless, freeing any worries from my mind. Cars are much easier to detect, even from behind, because the headlights suddenly cast your shadow onto the road.

There's just somemting about the cool night air that mezzmerizes me. I love the night. I love riding, walking, just being in the out-of-doors during the night. Maybe it's the solitude that one can find with no one else outside, maybe the moon and stars in the sky add to the effect, but whatever it is, I like it.

the "How To" of the day (courtesy google)

How to Regain Control of a Spooked Camel

I've been listening to this for the past several hours.

Great music.

"Don't worry, the grate over the heater can't get too hot."

So says the pilot lighter man. Boy, was he wrong.

I think I have a grid pattern burned in my foot now.

I know today's going to be good.

I woke up at 7:30a listening to Coldplay. The ride to school, while cold, was slow and peaceful. My second class was cancelled, and then I got to eat breakfast at Einstien's. And when I got back home, the house was warm and quiet.

SCE&G finally turned my house's heat on yesterday

Ok. Recap. So, for the past two weeks, it's been cold. Really cold. As in, 30 degrees at night cold. Now, for the first day or so, there weren't any problems. My house's insulation retained enough heat from the day to survive the night. After those first couple days, however, it was frigid. In my house;numerically, the thermometer said it was about 50 degrees at times. It was frigid in the sense that the winter jacket stayed on when you came in the front door. Frigid in the sense of, when you went to bed, you didn't take it off. Frigid, meaning that you slept in your sleeping bag, under the blankets on your bed. My normal five minutes wake-up shower in the morning turned into something a lot longer than that.

So, I call SCE&G and see what it takes for them to light the pilot light on my furnace. After they determined that I was the new tenant, and that the furnace had been on under the old tenant, I was informed that the city inspector had to come check it out prior to the pilot light being lit. Sounded reasonable, so I called the city inspector. They said that since I wasn't the property owner, I would have to have my landlord call the city inspector's office and give them permission to inspect the furnace. Again, sounded reasonable. So I called my landlord. He said that what I was told wasn't right; that the regulation only appiled once the property's title had changed hands, not the tenants. Then I called SCE&G back. After 45 minutes of wrestling with the operator over the phone, I got a scheduled for Friday, with a 30-minute call ahead. So, Ben and I take turns house sitting and waiting for the technician to show up. I left for work about 3p, and around 5:30p, SCE&G calls me. Due to "inclement weather" (apparently, the drizzle that occured on Friday was too intense for them), my appointment was re-scheduled for Monday. And, to make sure we weren't sitting around the house for the entire day a second time, our appointment was scheduled for 8a to 11a on Monday.

Monday rolls around, and no technician. I show up at home after class that evening, and I find a note on the door telling me that the tech had come by around 5:45p, almost seven hours behind schedule. Trying not to sound annoyed, I called again, and set another appointment for Wednesday, this time from 8a to 12p.

To our surprise, the tech showed up at 8:45a, and got the furnace lit and functioning (really, I was starting to think that they didn't work that early).

And being able to wear shorts and a t-shirt around the house is again a nice expierience.

Shellfenol: so why aren't you in bed? are you not normal?
DanGlen: no, i'm not normal. (haven't you figured that ou by now?) ;-)
Shellfenol: i guess so ;-)
Shellfenol: join the not-normal club
DanGlen: join? I started the club!
Shellfenol: oh!

"it's like having a friend, with a really cool mp3 collection." -the radio tonight

so many things...

...so many thoughts. i don't even know what they are. a 12 lane highway transistioning to a 2 lane street is the bottleneck that my mind create for itself. people and my relationship with them in our daily interactions. but hey, who ever said it's easy?

I get so fed up with people at times. I want to be nice, I really do, but some people can strech patience to an absolute limit. "Get this for me," no please, no thanks, no appreciation that they're interacting with a fellow human being. The choose to ignore that piece of themseleves, that reflection, that they see in other's eyes. They treat others like dirt, not caring one second for anyone else's well being; they are absolute in their minds. This is why I hate retail with a passion-it simply feeds the materialistic nature of people. It inspires them to treat themselves as a god, no care, no concern for others.

Then there was that preacher guy that hit town earlier this week. The ignorance he was showing towards other and their needs just dug at my psyche. I don't hate him; I have care and concern for him, as much as anyone else; the outrage towards his comments and speech was something that was hard to contain. I refused to jeer at him like the rest of the crowd (Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. -proverbs 26:4), but i just left the scene out of utter disgust for the man's actions.

Riding from class today to get lunch, I passed the public performance area, and heard a commotion. There, I found a sidewalk evangelist "preaching" to the surrounding crowd. Comments such as, "Tupac's a heathen and burning in hell," "Bob Marley's in hell because he smoked marajana," "Christianity is a religion of hate toward sin," really demonstrated the subject's lack of intellegence even before approaching the crowd.

After listening for several minutes, I discovered a fairly obvious fact: apparently, the man had ADD to some degree. After getting directed onto the topic of repentance and redemption, it would only take an individual in the crowd mentioning "homosexuality" or "democrats" before a tirade of ignorance would spout from his lips.

The crown jewels of the entire scene is when a student wrote "OPIATE OF THE MASSES" on a piece of paper and held it above the "preacher"'s head. The truth conveyed through that scene was ironic. And while it was good to see that people were actually engaging in a discussion about religion, the basis of Marx's statement of organized religion was upheld in the gathering.