Eric Online

(Part 1 of session 45 is up)

The last few days have been very busy. Allow me to go through some of the things that have happened:

Thursday and Friday both were long work days for me, but they didn’t prepare me for Saturday. It was to be my first time as a Chick-Fil-A cow. Chick-Fil-A is useful for catering and such, but if you’re looking to draw attention, people bring in the cow. So around 10 AM, I arrived at the store (saw Tammy and BJ inside) and met with the local marketing director. We gathered the catering trays and the cow suit and put them in the CFA van. I was the one who ended up driving the thing, which was more than a little intimidating. She led me to our destination: a new fitness center’s grand opening. They directed me to the back of the store where I was suited up. It took several minutes and 6 hands to get me into the suit. The black spots on the cows neck and forehead where the only vents, and also my only viewing ports.

After a few photo ops, I walked outside to wave at Kingston Pike’s traffic. Since it was a fitness center, it only stood to reason that I should probably appear to be working out or something. My routine included waving at cars, jumping jacks, flexing, and at one point riverdancing. After an hour or so, I went inside for a drink and short break. I was already tired, but still had quite a bit to go. After the break, I returned to the grass outside the store to find they had brought me an exercise bike. So, for about one or two hours, I pedalled. I was waving at passing cars, still flexing sometimes, and trying to come up with other funny things to do. I got plenty of honks from cars, and one person actually pulled over:

“Man, I gotta tell ya, you’re the most hardcore cow I ever seen. We saw you out here before we got lunch, and your still out here pedalling.”

A radio station was also trying to bring in some attention, broadcasting from the fitness center. Apparently, they had gotten at least three calls about how awesome the cow was. All in all, I did pretty good for my first time. The problem was that I had a seven hour shift waiting for me after that, and it didn’t help that my legs were spaghetti after that workout.

Okay, part 2 of the post.

Wednesday nights at church, we have about eight or so people meet with the worship leader to practice new songs, making sure the congregation isn’t met with unfamiliar songs unless plenty of people can support the singing. Worship team, vocal support group, whatever you’d like to call it. Anyway, this past week we’ve been working on installing a new sound system and projector setup, which looks fantastic. It’s really amazing how much more polished everything looks. We managed to work out the kinks for this morning, which is one of the biggest Sundays at Laurel: the day the new students arrive. Things went great. The entire church auditorium was full. Every pew was packed. Mike Taylor did a great job of leading singing, and his song choices were a good mix of classic Church of Christ anthems and more contemporary songs. Mark Smith’s lesson was a “never give up” message, with a bit of self-humiliation as he told everyone about his extensive collection of Hawaiian shirts. Plenty of new students showed up, and we have plenty of activities to invite them to. If all goes well, we’ll have several new faces at the CSC this year.

Finally, Zach has returned to Knoxville, so Alex is moving out to his new apartment on campus. In just a few minutes over breakfast, I was shocked to see how “in tune” Zach and I still are. Having been friends for four years now, we seem to anticipate each other’s lines, knowing what is about to be said. Often, we don’t even have to say it; we just know what phrase or quote was about to be said. With Zach back in Knoxville (and therefore Zach’s computer), I know that my free time will soon be sunk back into Team Fortress 2.

Presenting a new desktop background for your (and my) enjoyment. You can check out the full-size image if you want to see it in detail. If you’d like it for a background, just click for the appropriate size below, then right-click to “Set as desktop background.” For Macs, I have no clue.

1280 by 800:

1024 by 768:

(Session 44 of the D&D campaign has been posted)

Doom II never struck me as a particularly deep game: shoot the demons, look around, find a better gun so you can shoot more demons. The music is nothing to write home about, either. However, that’s where OverClocked Remix comes in. The albums done by OCRemix are always some of the highest quality mixes on the site. This latest release marks the eleventh album done by the online community, this time focusing on Doom II. Check out the new release: Delta-Q-Delta. Also: totally free!

View all Overclocked Favorites

(The second and third parts of session 43 are up)

School starts in about two weeks. The first few weeks are always the most hectic: new classes to study for, new ideas to learn, and new students to meet. Every year brings a new set of freshmen to the CSC. It’s always fun to meet these new people, remembering I was once in their shoes. On July 31 of 2004, I got this e-mail from that year’s CSC president, Meredith Martin:

Hello Eric,

My name is Meredith and I work with the Christian Student Center and the Laurel Church of Christ here in Knoxville. I am looking forward to meeting you in a couple of weeks. We have a very large group of incoming freshman this year and I know they will have an awesome presence in our campus ministry! We have a full schedule of activities planned this year and we are eager for you to get involved. Please contact me if you have any questions or if there’s anything I can do to make your transition easier!

Meredith

Interestingly enough, the first person who contacted me from the CSC would later accompany me for two months in Malaysia.

A Shakespearean take on the Abbot & Costello classic, “Who’s on First:”

And the original:

Apologies for the very short post. I just figured a video post would be better than a full week without a anything.