Hands aren't alone.

I climbed up on my roof this evening to take pictures. I need a tripod, so I can get some really cool long exposure pictures. I can set my camera on the wall and get a couple, but it's impossible to tilt the camera like that, and some of the best shots would be elevated. I think the morning after tomorrow, I'm going to get up early to jump on the roof and take sunrise pictures.

Today was the first day back for kids after fall break. I have to say, my fall break ended up rougher than I would have liked, which is partially my fault, partially the way things go. But while a lot of people were not necessarily looking forward to school starting again, I kind of was. Staying here but not having to work really caused a break to routine that was perhaps less welcome than it should have been. But I deal.

Also, I finally got our new building finally finished wired today. I was extremely happy, I only had to reterminate cables an average of 1.33 times per cable, and I think I finally have figured out what the dealy-o is on my cable crimper, so I shouldn't have problems in the future quite as pervasively. I just have to go tomorrow to nail the final router in place, as right now it is sitting on a chair in the hall. Class was going on while I was finishing, and so I didn't want to be a huge distraction by beating the living tar out of a nail to get it to go into the concrete while learning was being attempted.

I got to play with new gear today - we got a video camera for promotional stuff, and so I got to pull it out and look around at it. I'm pretty pumped, it's a Canon HV20, which can shoot 1080i hd. (!!!) I told our admin guy that's going to use it that I would show him how to use it and Final Cut on his new MacBookPro if I could borrow and use the camera occasionally.

Yesterday was a day that... I guess the only way to say it is that He knows what we need, and gives it to us. I had a good chunk of time in the morning to just be with Him, not worry about other things too much. As I conveyed in previous post, Thursday was just not the best day, and I had a lot on my mind from other things, too. The opportunity to spend time with Him was really welcome, and while it meant that I didn't participate in meeting, that was OK. Sometimes other people just get in the way. After that, I got to go play Ultimate, which was fun. It's still warm enough out to run around in shorts and still be comfortable. It was also nice to get away, in ways different than earlier in the morning, and just kind of relax in a fast-paced, frenetic fashion.

I came back from Ultimate and went down to the new building to work on the wiring stuff, which I did for a while, but started to get really frustrated at the fact that I couldn't make a good termination to save my life, apparently, and that I was still working on Friday afternoon, and all of the other things going on in life, and so I decided to quit, call it a day. I went and shot hoops for a while, childishly threw the ball around the court a couple times when a particular thought process would get me upset (it was not one of my more mature half-hours). Then played Volleyball, which was pretty enjoyable. I'm actually almost able to play that game. After VB, I changed and soaked my head to get ready to go out to eat with a bunch of other folks for a teacher's wife's birthday. The teacher and his wife are really great people, and he had gotten a bunch of roses out of their garden, and told everyone to come up with a quick little roses-are-red poem for his wife. It was a really nice time.

Even better that that, however, was the fifteen minutes after soaking my head and when we left. I was standing out on the road, waiting to go, and had a good conversation with one of my friends, a teacher who had been gone over fall break and asked me how mine had gone. I kind of unloaded on him, but he was really cool to know that what I really needed was someone to just listen. He knows what we need, and gives it to us.

I woke up early this morning, and walked down to the French Bakery before work, fresh croissants are just really good. I got some for some other teachers and semi-anonymously put them in their classrooms before school. I say semi because lots of people know I walk down to FB in the mornings, so at supper I got asked if I made an early morning walk. I neither confirmed nor denied my participation in such an activity. I like being me.

All of this has been a series of up and downs recently. The further information that I have is that my uncle passed away from a heart attack. I feel unhappy since I can't make it to the funeral. It isn't as though I enjoy funerals, but, when it's family, you just wish you could go. To support them, to let them know you're there. But I wouldn't have been able to get out before today, and it would have been about a 30 hour travel experience one-way, I would have rolled into town a couple hours before the funeral, and had to roll back shortly after, and I just didn't think I could make it work. It feels cold to make such a decision about such an event on such a practical level, but I don't know what else to do.

What else to do. In His hands, open we are. In His hands, secure we are.