Great Weekend

Friday was my day off so I slept in. I woke up around 11:30 to the news of my good friends inviting Sara and I for a walk and Lunch in Roscoe Village, a very cool part of the city. I was excited about that and threw my clothes on. We ate at a home cookin' style place which is tough to find around here, I had Chicken Fried Steak. The gravy was brown and the breading was thin, not the best chicken fried steak ever but I enjoyed it.

Saturday was 'The Rescue.' Invisible Children is an organization fighting for the freedom of the thousands of abducted children from uganda who have been forced into fighting for the LRA, an anti government force in the region. This has been going on for 23 years. The Rescue is an event designed to grow attention on the subject. In 100 cities around the world people marched the streets and gethered in public to be seen and write letters to senators and officials begging them to inact our government to intervien. The weather was beautiful whe we got there at 2:45, 76 degrees and sunny. By 6:30 it had dropped to 37 degrees and had been rainging for hours with no sign of letting up. We had bnot dressed for this weather and decided it would be unwise for us to contiune freezing, so we went home. Still a good day though.

Sunday, we went to church at Catching Life. It was thier last official service. A few members have said they arew going to stick around. Change is not always a bad thing, I hope this is as painless as possible. Our friends called us to go shopping with them at a local organic fooods store, we went and got a few things. Most of the time I feel like I'm throwing my money awey to buy organic but some of the prices were acctually pretty good. We ate dinner with Sara's friend from class and her husband, the food was good and it was nice to get to know another couple.

Good weekend.

Hydroponics and Biothermals

So, I have a tendency to get board in my free time and, during these times, I like to try new things. Several months ago I started experimenting with homemade wind turbines, I found that they are simple and that harvesting wind energy is simple and cheap. If I am going to harvest my own energy I don't want to buy the stuff to do it retail, that seems inconsistent.

Yesterday I started thinking about my container garden. Potatoes have electrical storage capacity which means it should be practical to harness the energy given off by the biothermal activity in my garden. I'm going to work on that.

Also, I planted a few of my sprouts hydroponically (water only). I know people have grown vegetables this way before so am going to see if it is a practical way to grow these. If so it will mean less expense and not having to carry soil home.

Pray4Chicago

Pray4Chicago went great!
I'm pretty pumped that there weren't any major bumps in the road on this first event. Additionally I'm pretty pumped, because I just busted out some old school Metallica I haven't heard in awhile. We had 16 people for the event, which I think was just the right number. Six of them were teenagers. The event was not designed for teenagers but we thought it would be beneficial to them so we invited a few, I think that went well. It had been a long time since I'd been around a group of high schoolers. We covered 4 areas of the city, Mark and I went to Lincoln Square becuase we needed to take care of other buisness and not stray too far from my apartment in case we were needed back at base. Other groups went to the Near South Side, the Lower West Side, and Lakeview. I think it served it's purpose well. In the future I think we will stress the importance of pairs traveling together rather than a group of 3 or 4.

Deep Fried Night

Sara has class on Tuesday and Wednesday nights so this evening I was poking around the kitchen trying to find something to deep fry. I got out a couple potatoes, sliced them, salted them and dumped them in a pot of oil. While slicing, I thought to myself about how things are changing. It was once ok to eat french fries, especially if you were going to go to the trouble of making them yourself.

Anyway, I digress. I am now frying a chicken breast. I want to have a bunch of guys over for a Deep fried night. I think it will be good for us.

Proactive/Reactive

So I've been told that I live proactivly and that a lot of people live reactivly. This is a new concept for me. I think it is part of my control freak personality to want to know the outcome of whatever situation I am walking to, or at least to anticipate probable outcomes. I spend a lot of time going over possibilities in my head and thinking about how I would react.

It is ok to be unsure of where you stand on a subject but, for me, it is important to be able to give an account for your words, or actions. Even if your account, or possition, would be different on a different day. I don't know what that means any more than I know whether it is true that a lot of people do not spend as much time thinking proactivly as I do. I had never consdered it before today.

As you approch a situation, do you consider how you would handle various possibilites whith it?
Is this a good thing or simply an avanue for stress?

I don't know, I'll think about it.

Spirit/Energy

I have met two people separately who describe their understanding of what Spirit is as energy. They describe it as what holds molecules together, what connects all matter, and as the force of life. This is interesting as it is a view of spirit with which I am not familiar. I do not yet know of any group of people proclaiming this view and so I will be interested to explore it. These two people do not know each other and were not present as one another were describing their thoughts.