for those of you who are interested i thought i would let you know that we made an offer on a house in stevens point, wisconsin. you can view it here. now we have to wait and see if the owners except the offer, make a counter offer, or simply laugh their rear ends off. of course, we also have to sell our house.
i hate bush international airport
sunday was the worst experience i have ever had flying (and i’ve had at least a few bad experiences flying). we were flying back from wisconsin to baton rouge and left milwaukee early sunday morning. we arrived in houston at 8:30 a.m. on our continental plane and waited for our 10:30 a.m. flight home to baton rouge. here’s what happened:
- 10:30 flight – our 10:30 flight was canceled due to storms over the gulf coast – this is understandable – we were put on stand by for a 12:10 p.m. flight and guaranteed spots on a 2:15 p.m. flight if the 12:10 p.m. stand by didn’t workout
- 12:10 p.m. flight – we are waiting in line for our stand by flight and miracle of miracles they call our names to get on the plane. we hope on the plane and grab our seats. after sitting down in our chairs for 10 minutes the flight attendant came over and told us the pilot had determined that the airplane was to heavy and we would have to exit the plane (apparently i need to lose a little weight). the good news is that the ticket agent says that our 2:15 p.m. tickets are set and we have actual spots on the airplane.
- 2:15 p.m. flight – we are in line to get onto the plane when i hear a ticket agent say “she has seat 4c also.” i tell him i also have seat 4c and that’s when we realize that they have triple booked pam and my seats. turns out that we don’t get to get on the plane. the good news is that we end up getting $300 ticket vouchers for continental’s mistake. we are rescheduled for a 7:30 p.m. flight.
- 7:30 p.m. flight – our flight is canceled due to weather that no one seems to be experiencing on the gulf coast but continental swears is happening. we are reschedules for a 10:52 p.m. flight. we decided to see about renting a car to drive back to baton rouge. we spend the next hour trying to arrange a one way rental car. after all the effort we are able to discover that it will costs us almost $300 to rent the car and we will only beat our 10:52 p.m. flight by about 40 minutes. we decide 40 minutes is not worth $300 to us. we go back to wait for our plane.
- 10:52 p.m. flight – the ticket agent announces that even though our flight attendant arrived at the airport since 8:55 p.m. she is now no where to be found. it takes them an hour to find a flight attendant and we can finally take off.
- 1:30 a.m. – we arrive in baton rouge only to discover that continental has lost our luggage.
we arrived 13 hours later than we were supposed to. i know others have faced much worse in an airport but this was the worst i have ever experienced.
i think the lesson that we all should learn from my experience is that continental sucks.
interested?
if anyone would like to buy i house we are excepting offers. 😉
random quote – freedom
freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.
mahatma gandhi
remember to pray for the austins
for those who know and love the austins i would like to make sure that you have read their latest blog entry. they are fine but they are asking for everyone’s prayers due to some social unrest that is happening within peru.
susie says…
i have been assured that all of this is normal third world country peruvian life and that we are very safe. please do not worry or call, just pray. pray that all is calm during these protests and that the grievances are handled in a civilized, peaceful and uneventful manner.
so please keep our friends the austins in your prayers throughout your day and maybe send them a note or something.
wierd ministry day
today was a good & bad day that had allot of different ministry aspects within it.
- i visited with the 15 year old grandson of a church member who has a malignant tumor in his brain. the visit was actually a time of celebration because they now know what’s wrong after two weeks of struggling with what could be wrong. for two weeks jonathan was passed from doctor to doctor and diagnosis to diagnosis until someone finally said “we have to get you to the hospital now.” the great news is that the tumor is very treatable and after four to six weeks of radiation the tumor should be gone and because of the type of cancer he should be perfectly fine. he will be going to st. jude’s within the next week to begin his treatment. his name is jonathan. please remember him in your prayers.
- i’m the emergency minister for parkview for the week. tonight a lady who said her name was shirley (not her real name) called saying she was going to kill herself. after allot of discussion it came out that she is manic depressive and her medicine had stopped working (or she was off it). she is not in the baton rouge area and just randomly found the church’s number on the internet and called. she promised me that she would go to the emergency room but i have no way of checking up on her. please keep her in your prayers and ask that she will call back tomorrow like she promised she would.
- i was able to leech off some great equipment for tapestry. i spoke with red (our minister of music) today to find out if parkview might have any sound equipment sitting around not being used that i could snag for tapestry. he talked to the right people and tapestry now has a barely used sound board, mic stands, and a good bit of other miscellaneous equipment. thank you parkview.
- after two years of not taking my guitar to get it’s preamp fixed i finally brought it to a technician today. i had feared it would cost $200 or so to fix the preamp. it actually turns out that it was just a ground that was bad and it only cost me $15 to get it fixed.
my run for the day
distance – 1.56 miles
time – 17:30
pace – 11:13/miles
random quote
if we have struggled to bring about a kingdom of heaven on earth, we have been willing to borrow our tools from the kingdom of hell
david a. hoekema, “aftereffects – the legacy of hiroshima and nagasaki“
the trials of being a basset
saturday we took montana and roux to the brec dog park (located at forest park). it’s a great place for our dogs to run around and socialize with other dogs. montana and roux loved the place. the played with other dogs, sniffed everything imganible and and “marked.” the biggest problem was that roux and montana are short, large dogs. all the other large dogs were at least a foot taller than them. that’s how the problem happened.
roux decided to go act “tough” around a boxer that was there. roux had his hackles up and he had “puffed” his chest up to twice it’s normal size. he was as large as i have ever seen him and quite impressive looking. in fact, i thought he was a terror to behold. the boxer didn’t even notice him. instead the boxer just lifted his leg, “marked” roux and walked off like nothing had happened.
i guess that’s what happens when you’re a short dog.
since i didn’t have my camera with me at the time i decided to draw a recreation of the event.
i like your yard
for about 4 years pam and i have been driving by a yard that we both love. we liked the house when we first started driving by it six years ago but we fell in love with it four years ago when the owners decided to change their landscaping. it’s wonderful. it’s pretty on it own but the best part is that is fits the house perfectly. the colors go well together, the shapes fit the structure perfectly, and the textures are spot on. every time i drive by the house (which is basically every day) i think to myself “dang, they did that right.”
today we had to get out of our house for yet another showing. this is a good thing. the only bad part of the whole situation was that the whole process went long. we disappeared from the house for an hour, as we were asked to, but when we go back the realtor and her client were still there (hopefully this is a good thing). so we drive around for a little while. after 15 minutes and our second trip by the house we decided to take a longer route. this longer route took us by the previously mentioned house. since we had to waste some time pam and i talked about stopping by and telling these random people how much we liked their landscaping. so we did. i walked up to these stranger’s home that live about a mile away from us and said “you don’t know me but i have been meaning to stop and tell you how much i like your landscaping for about four years. i just wanted to tell you that you did a great job on it.”
the homeowner was as surprised as you would think she was. she began to tell me how hard her husband had worked on the landscaping and how thankful she was that i stopped by to say that. it was all pretty fun.
happy birthday arnold
it’s arnold’s birthday and i for one desire to wish him a happy one.