Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Want to know what's awesome? I'll tell you. What's awesome is having trouble opening the front door in the morning on account of the piles of snow outside. I fell asleep in April, and I woke up in January.

I know, I know--I've lead with the weather so much that you're sick of it. Too bad. I'm sick of it, too. In fact, I wish I didn't have any weather-related things to blog about; that would make me a very happy man. But the fact of the matter is that the weather stinks, and I'm going to tell you about it. So there.

Anyway. Close to six inches of snow on the ground this morning when I woke up. Not a ton of fun, expecially the having to shovel it part. Thought I was done with that, let me tell you. But you know, there's one guy who's really happy that it's snowing, and that's the guy who sweeps our sidewalks. He's got a tricked out John Deere with a fantastic sweeper attachment on the front. He must have figured he was done for the year, too. Bonus for him.

Here's what it looked like outside this morning. Sorry for the poor quality of the photos...

Yes, that last one is my ruler in the snow, measuring roughly 5.5".

Moving on. My ISP (Uniserve) has been having a major problem with their email server today for some reason. I haven't been able to get my email since noon, and man, I'm worse than a crack addict going cold turkey. I still check every few minutes, just in case they've fixed the problem, but alas, no dice. Stupid.

The worst part of this whole thing is the inability to get information from their website. It's all flashy and stuff, but there's absolutely nothing about current issues. Sure, I could just call in, but who wants to wait on hold for some guy to say, "Yup, there's a problem with the email server." Could've told you that myself, actually. Hopefully there were no emails of great import in the old inbox. Realistically, I'm just missing about a dozen pieces of spam, but hey, anything counts, right? I'm so pathetic.

Let's try a different topic. There's a new building being constructed here on campus (the Maxwell Centre, so named after Prairie's first president, L.E. Maxwell), and it's almost ready for moving in. It was actually a relatively quick process--they broke ground last summer, and it's done now, which is moving like lightning here in Alberta (came in under-budget, too, as they like to tell us). It's beautiful, but it's intended to house the new nursing and ECE programs that Prairie's offering, as well as giving the President a nice new office.

It's a bit of a slap in the face to the Bible College, isn't it? I mean, the Bible College is your bread-and-butter, and you build a nice new facility and don't let the Bible College use it? Come on! Keep the money-maker happy, and put the nurses and their new-fangled program in the old building. Hey wait, it's not like I care--I'm not going to be here. And yes, I understand that a nursing program needs specialized labs and such; I'm not knocking it, I'm just saying it's hard to build motivational value for the students to get behind the project when it won't really be of benefit to the vast majority of the student body.

Anyway. The bookstore is also moving into the new building, which means that they have to move all their stock from the old building over. Apparently, getting the stock across the courtyard and into the new building is too arduous a task, and so they're having a clearout sale for all their old merch. If I'm that manager, I'm moving the stuff, but whatever.

One of the great things about the sale is the 80% off clearance tables. Mostly knick-knacks and stuff I wouldn't choose, but just like at a garage sale, there are always gems. One such gem that we located was a DVD of the Veggie Tales classic, "The Sumo of the Opera." I personally cannot get enough of Veggie Tales, which is good because neither can my son. He's a VT fanatic--he'll dance a little jig to the theme song and everything.

All that lead-up to say that this particular VT is one of the funniest I've ever seen, and that's saying something. The main portion spoofs Rocky, complete with a Mr. T character. Awesome. The Italian Scallion takes on Apollo Gourd. Good stuff. The other stuff on the video is just as funny, especially when it involves the French Peas. Good times. In fact, wife and I watched it ourselves tonight all the way through, because we never seem to get from the beginning to the end with the little one running around. Ah, the things you have excuses for as a parent.

I think that's going to be all for tonight. The usual early start tomorrow, made all the earlier by the fact that I actually have to get there early for the group presentation I have at 8:00. Actually, I'm not presenting, but I have to be ready to take questions afterwards, so I still had to prep. After that, there's Phil Callaway at chapel, and then more school. Only four more class sessions left, which I'm truly and honestly excited about (in case you couldn't tell). It's all coming to an end so quickly.

Thanks again for stopping by and reading. I appreciate it. See you tomorrow.