Bills blog stop: checking in

Pepe's Great Escape!

Today, while we were foraging for a new food supply for our Love Bird, Pepe, we spied some new environmental enhancements for his cage(er, living habitat). An attachable, edible, beak sharpening branch to enhance his hunting and pecking skills and a beautiful red ring the size of a large swing with a bell hanging from it to accompany his visions of swinging in a tree in the jungle! After fighting the strong currents of traffic on the asphalt river to arrive back at camp, I proceeded to “green up” Pepe’s habitat. Well, as soon as I brought one of these strange new objects in through the door, he was having none of this! With wings of steel, he squeezed through as space so small I couldn’t see it without my glasses and off he went into the wild blue(uh, wondrous air spaces) in our house! Sooo… armed with nothing but a couple of soft towels and a non threatening, wooden back scratcher, we set out on a find and capture expedition that should have aired on “Wild Kingdom”! Through sheer strength and maneuvering on our part, we began to wear down the resolve of our adversary! At one point, I had to hit the switch for the overhead fan with the swift dexterity of a gazelle to extricate the fowl winged beast from his perch without flinging him into the wall! After many attempts to cast our nets(ugh, towels) over our ungrateful friend, I guess he just valued his newly found freedom too much, he finally managed to fly into the side of a cliff(wall) and wedged himself between it and a large bookcase! After great thought about our dilemma, we decided to pull one end away from the wall, then I proceeded into the dark recess with my trusty little belt flash light and towel. Much to my chagrin, the little beggar pushed forward behind the next book case! So with great trepidation, I place the towel next to this opening with one hand, and with the other, proceeded to simulate the tremors of a minor quake to the other case! Low and behold, I saw a small red and green streak flash into the towel and voila, I had him! So I transported him to his home and gently extracted him into his own, familiar environment with the new additions and left him to himself to get used to them. I came back a little later hoping to catch him happily swinging on his new swing only to catch him soundly sleeping away, totally oblivious to his new toys! oh well, so much for the great jungle experience!

Sunday, September 2, 2007

checking in

Hello again!
I've been away from the site for awhile. After a week back at work, I've been spending a couple days trying to restore my lap top after some unknown glitch in my media player 11 Quit recognizing my 4300 some odd music files! Nothing was easy and I had more than a few professionals and students miffed! But thanx to my son Sean, friend Larwrence, my wonderful wife and myself, with some brain storming and mundane hands on work, I think it's just about whipped!
Sean said something that to me has two applications. He mentioned the fact that we can use the computer to our heart's content and everything is fine, thank-you! However, at the least little roadblock or problem, we are so quick to complain and air our frustrations! So true! This reminded me of another area where we do the same thing. As a person, I tend to do the same thing in life! Everything is fine as long as no problems come my way, but if they do, man, do I howl!! And, even worse, as a Christian, everything is cool as long as I can cruise on auto pilot! But just let one or two little circumstances cause me a little discomfort or frustration, and it's "why me, God, what did I do?!". It's so easy to say I'm a christian when everything is going my way, but where am I when the rubber meets the road? Hopefully, I am on the road of humility and gratefulness to a God who loves me in spite of my shortcomings and is leading the way to overcome the difficulties in this life. I do believe that we, in this country, have so much to be grateful for, and I would encourage us all to count our many blessings!
Steady on in the name of Christ,
Bill