Shortly after it finished uploading to YouTube, I received the following email:

Dear TheTimSeattle,

Your video, Fountains of Bellagio: The Pink Panther Theme, may have content that is owned or licensed by EMI Music Publishing.

No action is required on your part; however, if you are interested in learning how this affects your video, please visit the Content ID Matches section of your account for more information.

Sincerely,
- The YouTube Team

Yup, despite all the booms and ooohs and aaahs distorting the music, YouTube nearly instantly recognized The Pink Panther Theme song playing in my video, and felt the need to send me a nasty-gram warning me about the usage of “third party content” in my video. At least this one didn’t get totally blocked like the one-minute video I uploaded a year or two ago of the contents of a Woot Bag of Crap with massively distorted audio of “The Final Countdown” playing in the background.

Okay, fine. Whatever. I get that the big publishing companies want to “protect” their “intellectual property,” and it’s easy for YouTube to automatically detect things like this and take action.

What I don’t get is why when someone uploads an exact copy one of my videos that’s on YouTube, YouTube does absolutely nothing. I shot the video below of a crazy electrical installation about a year ago.

After I uploaded it to YouTube and posted it to Seattle Bubble, it took off, rapidly racking up hundreds of thousands of views. Shortly after it became popular on YouTube, some user downloaded it and uploaded it to Break.com as their own. Then, other users started uploading copies to YouTube.

Did I learn about this via an automated message from YouTube about my video’s copyright being violated? Nope. I only found out because friends pointed out that my video was embedded on various websites, and when I clicked through to YouTube from those sites I discovered that my video had been uploaded by another user.

To its credit, YouTube does react quickly when you use their Copyright Infringement Notification form to report this sort of abuse, usually taking down the offending video the same day. However, it’s still quite annoying that I’ve had to personally hunt down copies of my video that have been uploaded by other users (seven other users, so far) and manually fill out that form, despite the fact that YouTube obviously has technology capable of automatically detecting things like this.

It’s also worth mentioning that when you fill out YouTube’s Copyright Infringement Notification form, there’s a field where they ask for the address of original YouTube video that the offending video is violating the copyright of. And yet, when they do take down the offending video, they don’t bother providing a link to the original content anywhere on the page. Instead, you just get a generic page that looks like this:

They can put links in the video space. Why wouldn’t they put a link to the original content on the removed video when a user like myself explicitly tells them where the original content is?

If YouTube really wants users to upload original content, why wouldn’t they use their existing tools to provide better copyright protection for independent original content, instead of intentionally turning a blind eye to infringement that they are easily capable of automatically detecting?

I can only conclude that YouTube doesn’t care about original indie content.

Seriously, how can such incredible devices be available for just five dollars? Just a decade or two ago something like this would have been either impossible or unimaginably expensive.

Truly we live in an amazing time.

• 11/21, 1:04 PM – Winter weather advisory in effect for Puget Sound
• 11/21, 6:18 PM – Travelers warned of possible icy conditions
• 11/22, 12:57 PM – Snow across Washington, more to come
• 11/22, 3:57 PM – I-5 traffic causing big backups
• 11/22, 7:01 PM – Snow creates record traffic numbers on WSDOT site
• 11/22, 8:15 PM – Closed express lanes snarl evening rush
• 11/22, 9:52 PM – I-5: Seattle area’s newest parking lot
• 11/23, 5:09 AM – Snow, freezing temperatures hit Washington hard
• 11/23, 8:29 AM – Northwest freezes as rare blizzard roars through

This is my story of that day.

Since it was snowing lightly throughout the day, I kept a fairly close eye on the traffic situation online, doing my part to contribute to the above-mentioned record web visits to WSDOT’s traffic website. Things were getting a bit hairy-looking as the day wound down, with I-5 north showing as stop-and-go, but the express lanes (which my bus usually took on the route home) still looking okay. At 4:30 PM, I decided to leave work.

I headed down to the bus stop at 6th and Union. A couple buses came by, but they were both completely packed to the gills. I started walking up the line to try to get on a bus earlier so as to maybe get a seat.

At 5:11 PM, I finally got on a bus at 3rd and Madison.

At 6:00 PM, the bus had traveled a grand total of three quarters of a mile. Speed on the bus: 0.9mph. Average human walking speed: 3.1mph. I got off the bus at 7th and Olive to try my luck on foot, since a quick calculation showed that with a little over 12 miles to go, at the speed we had been traveling at so far it would take over 13 hours to get home on the bus, versus just 4 hours on foot. While on the bus, I learned that the reason the express lanes looked okay online was that they were open to southbound traffic instead of northbound traffic like they are during every other evening commute. See the story above about that colossal fiasco.

After a quick stop at REI to buy a hat, I headed off at about 6:15 PM. When I got to the I-5 off ramp that my bus would usually take, there were no cars coming off the freeway. None. I later learned that this was because the freeway was completely blocked just south of the off ramp. I don’t know when it was eventually cleared.

I covered 8 miles in two hours to a friend’s house in Lake City, where I stopped for a 45-minute break to get some tea and dry socks.

At 9:00 PM, I headed out to take the four and a half mile walk the rest of the way home.

The whole time I was walking along Bothell / Lake City Way (SR-522), I saw so few cars drive by that I could count them all on two hands. I finally arrived home at 10:25 PM, just over four hours after getting off the bus. Who knows how long it would have taken me had I stayed on that bus.

The next few days I was pretty sore.

View 11/22 Commute Home in a larger map.

Thanks to the idiotic complexity of music licensing, only Season 1 of Malcolm in the Middle ever made it to DVD. If Fox released the rest of the series I’d buy it today, but instead they seem to prefer that their fans pirate the show online. Whatever.

Drop monkeys onto table. Pick up one monkey by an arm. Hook other arm through a second monkey’s arm. Continue making a chain. Your turn is over when a monkey is dropped.

FOR ONE PLAYER: Time yourself for picking up all 12 and try to beat your best time.

FOR TWO OR MORE: Each monkey left on chain is 1 point. First player to get 12 points wins.

Those instructions “for two or more” aren’t the most exciting game for an adult, especially when you know the simple trick (always pick up the monkeys by their right arm, using their left arm to pick up the next monkey). However, recently one of my friends (I forget who—sorry!) had a cool idea to make Barrel of Monkeys into a better multi-player game for grown-ups:

1. Get multiple Barrels of Monkeys in different colors, one color for each player.
2. Pour all the monkeys out on a table, mixing together all the colors.
3. Everyone tries to pick up their own monkeys at the same time.
4. Whoever successfully picks up all their monkeys first is the winner.

The only catch is that you can only buy Barrel of Monkeys in three colors today: Red, Green, and Blue. This limits the game to only three players… or does it?

I decided to see if I could make a new color of Barrel of Monkeys using Rit fabric dye to darken the color of one of the three existing colors. Here’s the process I used.

Since I knew I was going to have to use a pretty big pot if I wanted to dye the barrel itself, I decided to use two packets of black Rit. I added hot tap water to my pot, then put it on the stove to keep it hot.

Once the water was almost to boiling, I added both packets of Rit, the monkeys, and their barrel.

Most tutorials on the internet that talk about dying plastics with Rit say to leave it in for 20-30 minutes, but the plastic that Barrel of Monkeys is made out of is especially resistant to being colored, so I left it in there for an hour, stirring frequently.

After an hour, I took them out, rinsed them off, and let them dry. You can see the result above. On the left is what the monkeys looked like before dying, and on the right is after.

I didn’t think it was working at all during the 1-hour dying process, since the dye solution was jet black and the pieces still looked pretty blue, but as you can see, the monkeys definitely turned into a much darker shade of blue—sort of a teal color.

I deem this experiment a success. I now have four distinct colors of monkeys, allowing me to play four-player rapid-monkey-grab. I may even give it a shot with green and red as well to see if I can get some pleasantly-darker shades of those colors, too. Then we could have six-player monkey mayhem!

It’s coolest feature is the massive zoom that they crammed into such a small package. Allow me to demonstrate.

Here’s a photo of our church’s lawn zoomed all the way out:

Now here’s that same scene zoomed all the way in to that dandelion in the center:

HOT.

I posted it on Seattle Bubble, it got a few thousand views, and we all had some laughs. I didn’t think much more about it.

…until a week or so later, when the video started to spread.

First it appeared on Fark, then on White Trash Repairs, then on Reddit. Total number of views on YouTube shot up to over 20,000! Wow!

At some point, some jerkface decided to steal it and upload their crappy stolen copy to the popular video site Break.com, where it proceeded to get over 300,000 views!

Then someone else stole it from Break and uploaded it to their own YouTube account, where a few more sites found it, including Jim the Realtor’s blog and Sports Illustrated. Fortunately both YouTube and Break were responsive and helpful. YouTube took down the other copies on their site, and Break transferred the copy on there to my account.

A few days later, someone at Gawker (a very popular blog) found it and posted it on their site, after which it was re-posted on their sister tech blog Gizmodo. Another Reddit user found it and posted it there again, this time making it to the front page.

Meanwhile, the video also made its way on a few other popular sites, including Geekologie and even a German site called Brainblog. Nice!

As of this writing, between YouTube and Break my video has been viewed over 850,000 times! Yesterday at this time it was at about 750,000, so if this pace keeps up, my video will be viewed by over a million viewers by this time next week!

I contend that the Wii game de Blob has the best video game music ever.

The tracks embedded at right were composed by yours truly in-game. I say “composed” because the genius of the music in de Blob is that the music is a fully-integrated part of the experience you get when you play the game.

Each level starts off totally silent. The music begins to kick in as you bring the drab grey city to life with colorful paint. The more colorful the city gets, the more intense the music becomes. Plus, different musical flourishes (vocal ‘dows’, keyboard, guitar, etc.) are added to the music with each building you paint, with the instrument determined by what color you’re painting with at the time.

For more of my thoughts about this under-appreciated gaming masterpiece, check out my review on GameBrainSpew.

de Blob 2 comes out in a week, we’ll see if they can live up to the high musical standard set by the first game.

I say it’s an eagle made out of flames, the logo for whatever company made the cap.

Jeni says it’s a bottle cap over a fire, a symbol meant to instruct people not to put the cap in fire.

Who’s right?

Pastor to church leaders: Get off Facebook or step down

Rev. Cedric A. Miller has had it with what he says Facebook is doing to couples coming to him for help and is giving his married church leaders until Sunday to get off the social-network website or resign their posts.

Miller, senior pastor at Living Word Christian Fellowship Church, the popular interdenominational and evangelical church on Route 35, said a large percentage of his counseling over the past year and a half has been for marital problems, including infidelity, stemming from Facebook.

Miller said there was no problem when people just met with friends from high school in a platonic way.

But that has changed, he said, and now people are reigniting old passions and connecting with people who should stay in the past. He said a marriage can be going along fine when someone from the past breaks through and trouble begins.

I’m the last person you’ll find defending Facebook, as I personally think it’s an enormous waste of time (to put it lightly). That said, this pastor is deceiving himself if he really believes that “a marriage can be going along fine” and suddenly Facebook is to blame for leading a spouse to infidelity.

People don’t just decide one day to go out and break their marriage vows by having an affair. “Reigniting old passions” on Facebook is the symptom of underlying problems in a marriage, not the cause.

If Rev. Miller thinks that banning Facebook will somehow magically prevent marriages from falling apart in his church body, he is going to be in for an unfortunate awakening.

In my opinion, misguided dudes like Rev. Miller are part of the reason that Christianity is perceived so negatively by much of the culture. What if, instead of focusing on nonsense like Facebook, Rev. Miller launched a campaign in his church to teach husbands and wives how to meet each other’s needs, and strengthen their marriage against all forms of temptation? Wouldn’t that be time much better spent than sermonizing about the evils of Facebook?

[Update]
Like I said, Facebook is not the cause of marital infidelity. Guess what Rev. Miller managed to do ten years ago without any assistance from the big blue internet evil: Pastor who banned Facebook had three-way sex affair.

…Democrats weren’t content with just promoting Murray’s record.

They attacked Rossi early and often, portraying him as not just wrong on issues, but personally “sleazy,” as Pelz put it during one conference call with reporters. In particular, they ridiculed Rossi’s history of business associations with lobbyists and ethically challenged financiers.

When they did talk about issues, Democrats weren’t content with slamming Rossi for views he actually held. In some cases, they just made stuff up, accusing him, for example, of being hostile to Boeing and veterans.

“I think she succeeded in making him an equal issue, which is I think what she had to do,” said Democratic political consultant Blair Butterworth.

It may have worked, but the sometimes ludicrous lengths Murray’s campaign went to to slime Rossi should put an end to any illusions that she is still merely an idealistic mom in tennis shoes.

So apparently, all you have to do is make junk up and spend millions of dollars plastering the airwaves with your phony portrait of your opponent as Satan incarnate? Awesome.

Also, what trend did Murray “buck” exactly? The trend of Democrats waltzing to statewide victory by taking over 60% of the Seattle-area vote while losing in most of the rest of the state? Oh wait, that’s what happens in nearly every statewide election in Washington.

We took Steps 4 & 5 in reverse order.  And Steps 6 & 7 can happen simultaneously.  We are right at the beginning of our home study process.  Meaning, we haven’t even gotten the homework.  This is the part of the process where the agency & state pry as deep as they want to into our lives to see if we’ll be fit parents.  I’ve been told it’s very intrusive.  We’ll see.  As far as I understand, it involves a lot of questions with essay-style answers, and at least 2 in-home visits each from the agency’s worker and the state’s worker.  Our house will have to pass safety & health inceptions.  We’re working on that.  We basically have to do the home study process twice: once with Antioch & once with the state.  This is the one thing I hope they do change before we’re through.  It is extremely silly that the state insists on doing a study of their own.

“VoteVets Action Fund” for this delightful piece equating Dino Rossi with insane Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad!

Congratulations! You win a virtual spit on the shoes.

Welcome to the “Adoption” section of our blog.  To make it easier to keep up, you can follow the RSS feed.  If I’m good, I’ll keep you up to date.  I’ve thought about starting this a lot.  The problem is that I don’t know exactly where to start or what to say.  So, I’ll just start typing.

I guess I should start at the beginning.  We’ve been trying to conceive for 4 ½ years now.  After the first 18 or so months, we talked to my doctor.  She did a few basic blood tests, and put me on Metformin^*.  Six months later we started seeing a specialist.  We went through treatment for 18 or so months.  Last December we decided to stop.  If you want to know specifics about all that you can ask and I’ll answer.  For the sake of those who aren’t at all interested, I’ll skip the details.  What are our options now?  We could keep “trying” and/or adopt.  We chose and.  Yes, we would still love to have a baby.  Obviously, we have no control and it seems like God is saying, “NO.”

So, adoption.  We’ve been thinking about going this route for a long while now.  The original idea was to have one or two of our own, then adopt.  When having our own began to seem just out of reach, we started considering moving adoption up on the priority line.  It got to a point were we could pay thousands for a procedure that gave the chance of maybe having a baby, or paying those thousands and be guaranteed a child.  It began to feel selfish to want our own blood, when there are so many children who want and need parents.

We did some research on international and local adoptions.  The amount of money it was going to cost repulsed me; especially international ones.  It feels like foreign countries are selling their unwanted children^**.  The words that I have said over and over when talking about abortion kept coming to mind.  “If you just have your baby, I’ll raise it!”  So, we decided on local.

We had heard of an adoption agency that allowed people to adopt for free.  Amazing.  So, we started looking into, and decided to go with Antioch Adoptions.  Keep in mind a lot of this thought process was happening alongside fertility treatments.  Please don’t think that we stopped treatment and then jumped into adoption without spending tons of time thinking/praying about it.

I think that’s a decent summary to start with.

^* No, I’m not diabetic.
^** I understand that at least part of that $$ is to protect their children from being placed in horrible people’s hands.  But still, $25,000?!?!?

Notice anything… odd going on here? Perhaps it would be a little easier to see if I put it in chart form…

If you buy 24 crayons, you pay just a penny per crayon. But if you only want eight crayons, you get to pay nearly ten times as much per crayon.

You could buy three boxes of 24 crayons and still spend less than what they will charge you for a single box of eight. What the heck.

Pretty flattering. Thanks, Seattle Met!

For two thousand and eight, these are the facts,
Of Tim and Jeni’s story of the year.

The windy island wedding of the Jacks;
Tim worked from home, not as an engineer.

We helped Tim’s parents move to a new home,
And saw the sights that Boston had to see.

On down to California did we roam.
Then welcomed our friends Bryan and Beckie.

Tim launched a new website: The Naked Loon.
We both became new members of the Seed.

At home we remodeled our entry room,
And vis’ted with Rebekah, yes indeed.

For Christmas time the Christmans came, and lo!
The year didst close with snow snow snow snow snow.

I gave notice at Valberg and now I’m starting a new job at Genie with more responsibility and more stress and when I went to look at electric bicycles for my commute I wrecked my car and the police gave me a ticket and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year.

At court I contested the ticket and three people before me got their tickets thrown out but the judge didn’t care and I had to pay a hundred dollars. We went looking for a new car and I said I wanted a brand-new car with leather seats and tinted windows and cruise control and a sunroof. We got a 2001 Saturn and all it has is a sunroof. I think I’ll move to Australia.

Who needs dancing?

Jeni got her interior design diploma from the Art Institute and I had to go to her portfolio day and set up and fetch lunch and just sit in the corner all day. I said I was going to play my DS. I said, if I don’t get to play DS I am going to be really bored. No one even answered. I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year.

In June Jeni’s sister Rachel got married to Adam and Jeni was in the wedding and all I got to do was open the door for people when they showed up. During the ceremony I had to sit in the front row and I couldn’t even play DS. At the reception there was dancing, but I don’t know how to dance. Who needs dancing? I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year.

we could barely see the mountain

I could tell because we went to Mount St. Helens in August and there was so much smoke from fires that we could barely see the mountain and then we went to Ape Cave and it was just cold and wet and dark. The next day we went to Beacon Rock and Multnomah Falls and I had to walk all the way to the top of both of them. I got really tired having to walk that high up. I think I could see Australia.

We took swing dance lessons and Jeni stepped on my foot and our instructor played music from those dumb Eharmony commercials. We went horseback riding in Leavenworth for our anniversary and our guide had a horse with a cool black tail and Jeni got to ride a white horse. Guess whose horse was plain old boring brown? It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year.

Guess whose horse was plain old boring brown?

That’s what it was, because after horseback riding we went into downtown Leavenworth and the restaurant I wanted to eat at was too crowded. Come back next week and we’ll be practically empty, they said. Next week, I said, I’m going to Australia.

While working on the still-unfinished top-secret website project J.R. made me work on messy code and then when I started crying because of the code Pete said I was a crybaby and while I was punching Pete for saying crybaby Jeni came home and scolded me for having messy code and fighting. I am having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year, I told everybody. No one even answered.

I had to set the table.

So then we decided to build a new living room and bedroom in our garage. Jeni chose the layout of the rooms. Jeni chose the color of the walls and the lighting. I chose to hire someone to do the construction for us but then our bank account said we can’t afford that. My friends made me do all the construction work with them, but they can’t make me enjoy it.

When my parents and brothers and Rachel and Adam and Joy and Heather all came over for Thanksgiving the remodel wasn’t totally done. I had to spend Thanksgiving morning installing the new projector and surround sound system. I showed everyone the unfinished closet. I showed them where a shelf would be if we were finished and I showed them where our new painting would go if we had time to hang it up. We were going to eat at one o’clock but my parents were late and the food took forever to cook and instead of playing DS while I waited for the food I had to set the table. Everyone said they had a good time, but I think they wished they were in Australia. It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year.

wished they were in Australia.

My Seattle Bubble website only got over a thousand hits a day. I lost four times in a row at my new train board game. We went to my parents’ for Christmas and I put too much oil in the truck. Jeni quit her job but we still had to go to their boring Christmas party, where I couldn’t even play DS and her boss didn’t give her a bonus like everyone else. I hope you sit on a tack, I said to her boss. I hope the next time you get a double-decker strawberry ice-cream cone the ice cream part falls off the cone part and lands in Australia.

It has been a terrible, horrible, no good very bad year. Jeni says some years are like that. Even in Australia.

Inspired by the book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst.

Tim on an Astoria beach

The intent of this letter is for me, Timothy (there are some who call me… Tim?), to update you on not just one, but two action-packed years of Ellis household happenings. This is of course due to the fact that the closing of 2004 was conspicuously lacking a year in review letter. I can’t elaborate on the reasons for this other than to vaguely allude to filthy squirrels, but whatever the cause, the result is that twice as much information must now be packed into relatively the same amount of space. As such, I should probably stop talking about the letter and actually get around to letting the letter talk about the last two years. Ready, set, go.

2004 started off on a somewhat awkward note when my best friend J.R. took me to a beautiful waterfall in a secluded back-woods Oregon forest and proposed. Of course, I had to turn him down, so instead he proposed to his girlfriend Jen two weeks later while Jeni hid nearby and took pictures so the memories could last for a lifetime.

In February, we got tired of spending $850 each month on rent, so we decided to move somewhere cheaper—a lot cheaper. When our friends Pete & Kimberly bought a house in Lynnwood, their former residence in Kenmore became available for little more than a song, and of course we jumped on the opportunity. I mean that literally. As in we actually went to their old house and jumped. We were pretty excited about saving money. With the move came not only a new address and a ridiculously hard to find house, but also the ability to have pets. Since one of my life goals is to operate my own personal zoo, we got right on that by getting two ferrets in March (Fezzik & Iliana), “rescuing” a Siberian Husky from a local shelter in June (Latcka), and getting two more ferrets in August (Grizzly & Dimitri). We also discovered a delightful litter of five one-month-old kittens in the attic in May, but couldn’t keep any of them due to Jeni’s allergies (they and their stray mother went to a local no-kill shelter). Yes, you read that right. They were living in our attic for at least four weeks before we found them.

Latcka demonstrates her attack pose

April brought Jeni a new part-time job for our friends from church Yen & Veronica, whose new baby Zayn needed taken care of two days a week. Jeni was glad to do it and both of us were glad to have a little extra financial help in paying off the remaining school loans.

J.R.’s January proposal led to a June wedding in Astoria, Oregon, in which I had the great honor of being the “best man.” The weekend trip to Astoria was both pleasant and relaxing, and the wedding went smoothly. Two interesting notes about the church they got married in: 1) It can be seen in the background of the opening scene in the movie Goonies. 2) I can personally vouch that all of the windows in the sanctuary were shiny and spotless for the ceremony.

Jeni’s brother Michael came up to visit in August, and her other brother Darrell Jonathan came back and stayed a few weeks with us after we drove down to California for Thanksgiving. We showed them both all the local sites and gave them the full “Seattle experience,” which essentially consists of visiting the Space Needle, sitting in traffic, and getting rained on.

To celebrate our anniversary in October we spent a weekend on Orcas Island, enjoying nature and taking in the “island lifestyle,” which as far as we could tell involves not going out to eat or doing any shopping other than groceries after 6:00 PM, fending off sea otters from under one’s deck, and complaining that President Bush has personally destroyed the island’s tourism industry.

Just before Thanksgiving we made the first major purchase of our married life when we bought a new-to-us pickup truck. Although the truck doesn’t get as good of gas mileage as our cars, we decided to get a truck so we would be able to transport furniture, loads of dirt, and go places with our dog Latcka without getting her white hair all over everything in the car. Personally I didn’t mind the appearance of a fresh blanket of snow covering the entire interior, but Jeni wasn’t okay with it for some reason. Go figure.

2004 closed out with Jeni’s involvement in a local non-profit theatre group and their production of A Christmas Carol. In her capacity as the Assistant Stage Manager she was responsible for corralling the unruly actors, ensuring that the constantly disappearing props got on stage at the right time, and tending to the costumes’ emotional needs.

Brock hauls away the junk

Now for those of you that are still with us, it’s time to move on to 2005. Right at the start of the year I joined forces with J.R., Jon, and Pete to form a crime-fighting super team. As a secondary objective we are working on a top-secret super-awesome website that will become wildly successful and make us all gigantic bags of money when we finish it. Stay tuned for more info next year, when our year in review letter comes engraved on platinum tablets.

Honestly, nothing else really interesting happened until May, when Jeni took a road trip down to California for her sister Rebekah’s graduation and her friend Beckie’s wedding. Joining her for the quest was my brother Matthew. I was unable to join them because I had to save my vacation hours for a later trip, but I don’t want to ruin the upcoming paragraph’s surprise. That would make the paragraph pretty sad.

In June we sold one of our cars, since we didn’t really need two nearly-identical cars in addition to a truck. After three attempts we found someone on Craig’s List to buy our 1991 four-door Cavalier. They were so excited about having a car that when we got back from the test drive they practically threw the cash in our face, grabbed the keys, and ran out the door.

The extra cash came in handy, since around that same time Jeni started a one-year program in Residential Design (interior design) at the Art Institute of Seattle. She has classes three nights a week, and gets to learn all kinds of neat stuff like how to draw houses, choose fabrics, tie-dye shirts, and build rocking chairs out of cradles.

Jeni on her way to work

As I mentioned earlier, the place we’re living in Kenmore is extremely cheap. In fact, due to a surprising turn of events in late 2004, it’s actually even cheaper now than it was when we moved in. By “cheaper” I mean “free.” We pay utilities and that’s it. Of course, having free housing doesn’t make us immune to the desire to own our own home, so throughout early 2005 we spent a lot of time “window shopping” and even finding out how much of a home loan we could get pre-approved for. Unfortunately this whole process was pretty depressing, as we realized that all we could reasonably afford would be a grass hut on a thousand square foot lot located in the tiny town of Index. Partly as an outlet for my frustration at the ridiculous cost of housing and partly as a way to track home price trends in the area to search for a glimmer of hope, I started a blog in August called Seattle Bubble. On it I track all the local news stories about housing prices and trends and post them online with brief comments. Hundreds of people read my blog on a regular basis.

Since we’ve decided to stay in our ghetto (but free) digs for a while, throughout the year we have been busy making various improvements both indoors and outdoors. One noteworthy example is that our awesome mailman Brock came and hauled away no fewer than nine dead appliances that were strewn about in the yard, allowing us to create a vegetable garden, from which we had a bountiful harvest of tomatoes and squash this fall. Brock also hauled away hundreds of pounds of scrap metal (including three car engines) that a previous owner was storing in the garage apparently in hopes of one day building a spacecraft. This allowed us to discover a leak in the garage roof, which I am still fighting with to this day. Once I fix the leak however, we will be able to convert the garage into useable rooms—practically doubling our livable square footage.

On our North Carolina trip

Also in August, we took a weekend trip to Spokane to be at the wedding of our friends Laura and Matt. Jeni did Laura’s makeup for the day, and I was happy to help run the sound board, sitting in for the intended sound man who had an unfortunate scheduling hiccup. August was a pretty eventful month overall, because a few weeks after we got back from the wedding, Jeni had her last days of caring for Zayn. The reason for the ending was that Yen & Veronica had their second baby girl in October, and shortly after this they returned to Singapore where Yen will be teaching accounting. We will miss them.

I have continued to work for Valberg, a small engineering firm in the town of Monroe, where I design electronic control systems for all sorts of things from half-million-dollar sports cars, to limousines, to fast boats. In order to help pay for school, and to gain experience relating to her classes in residential design, Jeni started a new job in September at a local store called Lighting Universe. She works as a sales associate in the showroom, where her responsibilities primarily involve helping people choose the right lighting for their rooms.

Speaking of lighting, this paragraph doesn’t have anything at all to do with lighting. In October I finally had enough vacation saved up, and we were able to make a long-planned trip to North Carolina to visit my grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins. We had a great time while we were out there, and since our plane tickets were free (due to frequent flier miles), we were able to pack a ton of stuff into our two-week visit. We visited two historical towns, went to two beaches, drove east into the hill country, stood in the place where the first airplane flew, watched my little cousin Kari demonstrate her mad Tai Kwon Do skillz, built sweet LEGO houses, rode fast thrill rides, and were flashed by an octopus. Not necessarily in that order.

2005 was also a busy year for our church (The Anchor), as we made a number of changes in pursuit of God’s calling for our body. We have been trying to sell our building, so we could use the very large amount of resulting funds to rent more appropriate facilities, expand our ministries to the community, and invest the cash remainder. Also we split into two more localized bodies to foster a tighter sense of community and to help those in the north end of Seattle better reach their neighbors. These changes haven’t been easy, and a number of people have left the church for various reasons, but we are continuing to do our best as a group of believers to follow God’s will.

November and December were very busy months for us, that included my parents and my brother Peter coming up to our house for Thanksgiving, us driving down to California for Christmas, and Jeni spending time with her best friend Heather upon our return.

Our last bit of big news is that with the sending of this letter, Jeni and I are now debt-free! In a mere three and a half years we have eliminated nearly $40,000 in debt. Although nobody gave us a trophy for the occasion, we definitely have a high sense of accomplishment, and are quite happy to be financially free and completely independent. By the way Matthew, that’s six months less than four years, which means that even including $5,000 in debt that wasn’t from my schooling, I win. Booyah.

Well, that pretty much wraps it up for 2004 and 2005. I’m quite impressed with you for making it all the way through this marathon letter. If you want I will get you a trophy. I’d also like to take this opportunity to put down those that didn’t read this far, because—hey they’re not reading anyway so I can say whatever bad things I want about them. Just kidding, I love them even if their attention span is equivalent to that of a hummingbird.

May the blessings of our Lord be poured on you without restraint this year. Don’t be a stranger.
Sending our love,
Timothy & Jennifer

The pictures featured below are scans of a publication released in 1951 by American Radio Publications, Inc. through the local AM talk radio station KVI. The Seattle Civil Defense Manual covers all sorts of important and useful information that all local citizens apparently needed to know in order to survive in the harrowing times known as the fifties. A copy was unearthed by an industrious and awesome coworker of mine as he cleaned out his garage. He loaned it to me for a weekend and gave me permission to scan it and put it online.

I’m sure there would be nearly no end to the clever commentary I could provide to go along with this material, but I have decided to let the publication speak for itself. Please note that the contents of this publication should not be construed as reflecting (positively or negatively) on the present-day KVI, since they most likely have little connection (outside of the name) to the KVI of 1951.

Click on a page to open a new window with the full version. The full-size scans are somewhat large, so horizontal and vertical scrolling will probably be necessary. Alternatively, you may download the full manual for later viewing. High resolution, non-watermarked TIFF files are also available upon request.

Front Cover

KVI’s Staff And Facilities Are Dedicated To The Public Defense

KVI – Don Lee Programs Dedicated To The Public Welfare And Necessity

The Seattle Area Prepares For An Atomic Attack

Civil Defense Provides Maximum Protection On The Home Front

Atom Bombs Could Destroy These…

The Mighty Atom Bomb!

Damage Effects Of An Atom Bomb Explosion

Advance Precautions May Save Your Life

What To Do

Personal Injury Effects Of An Atomic Blast

Subversive Organizations In The U.S.

No City Is Safe From Atom Attack

Many of us spend lots of time thinking about things that annoy us, or problems that we have to deal with. The oblivious driver that just cut us off. Or the person sitting next to us in the coffee shop, talking on their cell phone so loudly that the person on the other end of the line could probably hear them even if they weren’t using the phone. And what about those arrogant trees, always dropping their leaves and needles everywhere, as if the whole world were their recycle bin? Or the incessant weasels, whose only great joy in life is to climb up our pant legs when we aren’t paying attention… or maybe that one is just me.

Yeah, life is rough. But, have you spent any time lately contemplating the good things in life? You know, things like buttons. How can you think of buttons and not smile? Buttons that hold clothes together, buttons pinned to shirts with clever quips on them, buttons you click with your mouse on the computer screen (like the one at holdthebutton.com), buttons on a phone, or on a remote… Truly, buttons are one of the great marvels of life, and indeed, also one of the most overlooked.

There are buttons all around us. As I write these words, there are easily over a hundred buttons within ten feet of me. I would wager that you could find at least two dozen buttons from where you’re sitting right now. But how often do you take a moment to think about all the good things that buttons bring into your life? Probably never.

In order to help you to better appreciate the button, let’s go over a brief history. In the year 1636 AD, the representatives of the States-General, presiding over the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, issued a decree. It stated that anyone who was able to devise a way to keep their giant fluffy pants from riding up their legs while at the same time allowing them to dispense eggs from the chicken coop with ease, would be crowned “king for a day.” In addition, the winner would also be awarded with a big bag full of tulip bulbs. Since tulip bulbs were insanely valuable in the Netherlands in those days, hordes of people began frantically searching for a solution. In practically no time at all, nearly fifty different viable solutions were proposed to the States-General. Being the cheerful and benevolent government that they were, they awarded the prize to all of the inventors. However, since the representatives of the States-General were not particularly inventive themselves, they named all of the solutions “buttons.” Over the years, many of these amazing “buttons” were lost, due to advancing technology, the language barrier, and badgers. But today, we are blessed to still have a small handful of these “buttons” remaining as a part of our culture.

I hope that with your new-found knowledge and awareness about buttons, you can begin to let life’s little annoyances slide off your back and appreciate the joy that they can bring. This article has brought you more information about buttons than you could have possibly researched in an entire lifetime; both because a lifetime is too short and because most of it was completely made up. But don’t let that little detail that stop you from deepening your appreciation for buttons. The next time someone cuts you off in traffic, or those pesky weasels run up your leg, look for a button, and smile.

After spending a relaxing Christmas day together, we decided that the day after Christmas would be a good day to do some long-needed cleaning. Specifically, we needed to clean out the storage closet in our apartment, which is 1’10″ wide by 2’8″ deep by 7′ tall and was packed completely full. So, that’s what we did. Well, first we went to see a movie. The new live action Peter Pan. It was a decent movie. I give it 7/10 and Jeni gives it 6/10. When we got back from the movie, we dug right into the closet. After we ate dinner. Leftover lasagna and Martinelli’s Sparkling Apple-Cranberry. Mmm.

Four hours later, when we finally emerged victorious over the storage closet, we had accumulated three bags full of trash and two bags full of stuff to give to the GoodWill. These were 33 gallon trash-bags. We were left with only 3 mid-sized boxes and one bag of stuff left to put back in the closet. Following are the tales of Tim’s life that are told by some of the items that were excavated from this closet.

• November 1997 – Photograph of a Wrecked Car
• May 1999 – Photograph of Tim
• September 1999 – Jeni’s Letter
• October 1999 – Piano Label
• March 2000 – Nerf Dart Gun
• April 2000 – Housing Booklet
• November 2000 – Personal Poem
• December 2000 – BLUM
• February 2001 – A List
• March 2001 – Laser Tag Score Sheet
• October 2001 – Another Poem
• November 2001 – Pumpkins Photograph

My first car. It was the product of hundreds of hours hard work and months of saving. A symbol of freedom and independence. And on November 9th of 1997, on the 8th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, it was a twisted hunk of useless metal. You may instinctively place the blame for this wanton destruction on the teenager with the driver’s license, but if you did you would be amiss. In fact, as I drove defensively at 35mph along a winding two-lane country road to do some studying with my friend Lisa B., a man driving a light pickup truck blindly turned left just in front of me.

With very little time to react, I slammed on the brakes and on the horn. As the truck grew larger and larger outside my windshield, I began to have a sense of detachment from my surroundings. Indeed, as my car came crashing into the side of the small truck, planting itself into the other vehicle with the screeching of twisting metal, I began to feel as if I were dreaming. The engine still running, I surveyed the detail work in the side of the pickup as I collected my nerve.

While I spoke with the absent-minded driver of the truck, a man I had never seen before walked up seemingly from nowhere and said “Tim?” This did not help me convince myself that I was not dreaming. As it turned out, the kind man who knew my name was the father of one of my classmates, as well as the principal of the elementary school where my youngest brother attended and my mother volunteered. When we contacted the police, they refused to come to the scene since we had already moved our cars and nobody was hurt. Fortunately there was a witness, plus by the way the cars were damaged it was obvious that the collision was not my fault. But the really important detail to remember about this story is that my puny little 1983 Chevy Cavalier was able to drive home, and the burly little pickup had to be towed from the scene. My car triumphed in it’s only skirmish. However, the damage was extensive enough to cause the insurance company to “total” the car.

One of the oldest items that we drew from the storage closet was this photograph of my car in my parent’s front yard just after that wreck.

Late in my freshman year at SPU, my dorm floor, 5th Hill, went on an all-floor retreat to Orcas Island. The weather was beautiful, and we all had a great time. We trekked to a mountaintop, and jumped off of towering cliffs into a pristine lake. The photo on the left was recovered from the storage closet, and shows me perched upon the peak of Mount Constitution on Orcas Island. This photograph proves that Sprite will make you beautiful. Well, maybe not. But the following Labor Day weekend, myself, J.R., and Nathan Devena set out upon a quest in the great Northwest to prove that Sprite can at least be a heck of a lot of fun. As we trekked about the San Juan Islands, Bellingham, Vancouver B.C., and Seattle, we had far more fun than should be legal with a twelve pack of Sprite.

The image on the right was not found in the storage closet, but is a collage of all the amusing times the three of us had with Sprite on our journey. Left to Right, top to bottom, this is what is pictured:

1. J.R. squeezing a can of Sprite in the same place on Mt. Constitution.
2. The picture above on the left.
3. J.R. sacrificing Tim on the wall on Mt. Constitution with a can of Sprite.
4. Nathan on the same wall, drinking Sprite.
5. Destiny Williams grinning ear-to-ear while holding a Sprite.
6. Tim, Nathan, and J.R. all holding Sprite.
7. Dana Cantrell smiling with a Sprite.
8. A wild male deer kissing a Sprite can (really).
9. A majestic can of sprite overlooking the ocean.
10. Nathan’s hand reaching under a stone wall to get a Sprite.
11. Sprite in the window of a castle.
12. Sprite falling from a drain hole in a castle wall.

Ahh, good times.

Just one week after the Sprite Adventures, an event occurred that those of you who have read our story will be familiar with. That event would be the Janz family’s unannounced (Calling ahead 30 minutes out of town does not count as announcing your visit when you live 1,000 miles away.) visit to our house. As you may know, I was out of town attending a friend’s wedding in Seattle when they unexpectedly dropped by. When I returned, I sat down at my computer to find a note taped to the monitor. Eventually that note made its way into the storage closet, and was recovered in our cleaning. It is pictured at left. Here is what it said:

Sept. 10, 1999

Hey you! I was here, and you weren’t! What Luck huh?!? Well, maybe we’ll have a next time (smiley) I haven’t seen you on line in a while, so email me k? I can not believe I’m here, in your house… oh well!!! I figured since we were in the state, we should drop by. I tried to see if you were on line last night. (you weren’t) So I talked to Nathan. He said you weren’t leaving till 4. He was wrong!! (smiley) Well I hope you have (had) fun at your friend’s wedding. I’ll talk to you soon!!

(heart)jeni

Sorry
(S)o
(S)loppy!

~ I haven’t actually written in a while!

The last quarter of my freshman year at SPU, just as all of us bright-eyed new students were finally getting into the swing of things, the school tore down the dining hall to make way for a glorious new one. It was the first big step in their ambitious and highly touted “Comprehensive Plan for the 21st Century.” However, I for one was not impressed when the new Gwinn Commons opened in the Fall of 1999. It looked all shiny and new, yes, but for a brand-new dining hall in a school that plans to expand, it was already sorely short on space. At dinner and lunch rush times, you sometimes had to wait for 10 minutes after filling your dinner tray to find a seat. It was, in a word, ridiculous. Plus, to top it all off, they got rid of the self-serve sandwich bar, and no longer had ICE CREAM! For further reading on my thoughts about this matter, please refer to this opinion column on the DUI website.

It wasn’t that the new Gwinn was a smaller building than the last one. In fact, it was much larger. They had even added a second story. The main problem was that all the extra space that they added was allocated very poorly. When we heard that they were putting on a second story, we imagined a design where we would get our food downstairs, then go upstairs to eat. Alas, as it turned out, the second floor was built not for general student use, but rather to be a special meeting hall, to be used for special occasions only.

One of the finishing touches on this disappointingly useless upstairs was a brand-new black baby grand piano. Before the official opening of the upstairs portion of the building, J.R. and I were able to take an unauthorized trip upstairs and check it out. When we entered the foyer, there sat the piano, without a fingerprint on it, and still with the tag hanging off. So, I did what anyone would do. I sat down, lifted the key cover, took off the protective shipping felt, and plunked out a few tunes. And I kept this tag as a souvenir.

Take that, new Gwinn.

Picture this: A dorm floor with 45 guys, mostly Freshmen and Sophomores. 45 guys who like to play video games, a lot. Now picture these 45 guys realizing that perhaps they like video games a bit too much, and swearing off video games for one week. What you have just pictured is 5th Hill in March of 2000, my Sophomore year. As a result of this video game fast, some of the guys started to get creative when thinking about how to spend all that extra time. Studying? Hah, no… What we dreamed up was the glorious game that is: Mafia!

We split the floor into three “families,” each with about 10 guys. Then we all went out and bought cheap NERF dart guns, set out some basic rules for how to “kill” someone, and went at it until there was only one family standing. Kills were not allowed anywhere in the dorm building or in the dining hall, but pretty much anywhere else was fair game.

The first day that we played, two of the families allied with each other to wipe out the third family, my family. By 5:00, my family was down to just me and 2 other guys. Drastic measures had to be taken. Upon returning from my last class I immediately set out to determine opportune times during which to take down my enemies. This was not an easy task, as it is difficult to determine where people are at any given time of day, plus family members tended to travel in groups for protection. One of the first chances that I came upon was a member of another family who was alone in band practice until about 7:00. But that wasn’t the only bit of useful information that I found out. I was also told which locker he used to store his instrument

But that wasn’t all either. One of my family members used to have the same locker, so he knew the combination. So, one of my remaining family members and I went down to the music building. I hid inside the locker while he waited in a practice room nearby, ready to spring out at a moments notice. After about half an hour, the tiny slits that I could see out of finally darkened. My prey had arrived! My muscles tensed while he turned the dial and opened the latch. As he cracked the door to the locker, POP! Out stuck my weapon, and planted a little green dart right between the eyes. He never saw it coming.

You can read more about 5th Hill Mafia here.

My trusty four-shot NERF Supermaxx 1500 was another treasure that was unearthed from the closet.

For the duration of my Freshman and Sophomore years at SPU, I lived in the dorms. In fact, I had little choice in the matter, as it was SPU’s policy to require undergraduates younger than 21 to live on campus. As it turns out though, I actually really enjoyed my time in the dorms. About halfway through our Sophomore year, J.R. and I had decided that we wanted to stay on 5th Hill for at least one more year. The way we figured, living on a floor with 40 other guys, staying up late, playing pranks on neighbors… all of these things are something that you really only get to experience once in life. You’ve got a four-year window of undergraduate college life, and that’s it. So, as long as we’re enjoying it, why not take advantage of that window?

Well the answer to that question, as it turned out, was “Because Res-life says: ‘You can’t. Get the heck out of our dorms.’” As spring rolled around, and housing signups loomed mere weeks away, university officials let out a little secret that they had been holding all year. They were out of space. More people wanted to live in the dorms than they expected, plus more of the applicants that they admitted were accepting. New rules were put in place as to where students can and can’t live on campus.

One of these new rules just so happened to be that Juniors were virtually banned from the dorms. If they were involved in some sort of leadership (hall council, PA, SMC, etc.) they could be in the dorms, and technically, a “normal” Junior might possibly be able to get into the dorms, but we were dead last in priority, and because of the order of signups, if we tried to sign up for the dorms and didn’t get in, we would be out in the cold and unable to live on campus at all.

Well, as if all this weren’t frustrating enough to us, Res-life just added serious insult to injury when they published the Housing Sign-Up booklet, which is pictured at left with my angry comments added. Here’s the quote that they put on the front:

Living in the halls has been such an exciting experience for me. By living next door to 40-50 other girls, I found it easy to make wonderful new relationships. Hall life is so much fun. It’s fun to look out your window and see Seattle, or who knows…you may just see someone you know! Living in the halls has been the best experience so far, I wouldn’t choose to live anywhere else!

The thing about that quote is who it is coming from: Nikki Antonson – Junior. Yes, that’s right. They put a quote from a Junior talking about how much she loves living in the dorms. She “wouldn’t choose to live anywhere else!” Now my handwritten comments on the front of the book make a bit more sense: “Well too freakin’ bad, junior #489! We’re kicking you the heck out! – Res-life.”

November 2000. Is there anyone who here who can tell me what major event happened in the USA in November 2000? Yes, you in the back, with the striped shirt. That’s correct. The presidential election is what happened in the year 2000, in the month of November. In fact, it lasted the whole, stinking month. The never-ending election.

What does that have to do with my storage closet? On election day, I took great pains to avoid seeing or hearing any news about the election. Having grown up in a household where the television hardly ever turns off, I had gotten more than my fill of election-night drama in the past three elections. However, my grand scheme to avoid all news, wake up the next morning and find out who won were thwarted. Hence, this poem that I found in the closet:

Thwarted
by Tim Ellis
11/09/2000

No, no, no!
I do not want to know.
I do not wish to waste my time.
Instead I’ll get some sleep sublime.
-or play a couple games of hearts.
Anything but those nervous charts.

Rest now. Rest my tired eyes.
And dream of sweet blue cloudless skies.

Now in the morning I awake.
So certain that I’ll have my cake-
-and eat it too, oh yes indeed.
But wait, oh no! What’s this I read?
It seems that it is still not done.
Alas, the race is far from won.

Days went by, then weeks, then months.
Finally one man got his wants.
But oh, not me. I still recall…
November 7th-”Too close to call.”

That’s right. I’m not ashamed to post silly personal writings on the Internet for anyone in the world to read. I have no shame. But then, if you’ve read much of the rest of this site, you knew that already.

BLUM
by Dorothy Aldis

Dog means dog,
And cat means cat,
And there are lots
Of words like that.

A cart’s a cart
To pull or shove,
A plate’s a plate
To eat off of.

But there are other
Words I say
When I am left
Alone to play.

Blum is one.
Blum is a word
That very few
Have ever heard.

I like to say it,
“Blum, Blum, Blum”-
I do it loud
Or in a hum.

All by myself
It’s nice to sing:
It does not mean
A single thing.

There are many things that college guys do when they are short on sleep but not short on creativity. In one such instance, J.R. and I were having a conversation with the illustrious Matt Basinger, we touched on the topic of winning. You may have heard the cliché “Winning isn’t the most important thing in life” or “Winning isn’t everything” before. As we discussed winning, we came to agree. Winning definitely isn’t the most important thing in life. It’s third. Right after eating and sleeping. But why stop there? We created an entire foot-in-mouth err, I mean tongue-in-cheek list of the top most important things in life. And now I present it to the world, in all it’s majesty.

The Most Important Things in Life

1. Eating
2. Sleeping
3. Winning
4. Breathing
5. Copulation
6. True Love
7. The Simpsons
8. Smelling
9. Monkeys
10. Laughing
11. Friendship

Y2K. I bet you got tired of hearing those two letters and that number. I know I sure did. Two-digit computer years—oh no! The world is going to collapse upon itself! Stock up on duct tape, water, and snow shovels! Hunker down in your fallout shelter! What a bunch of hooey. And yes, I stated that it was a bunch of hooey before all the hype fizzled into nothingness on January 1st and nothing happened.

Well it took until over a year later, but I finally found a real-life occurrence of the Y2K bug! Really! On Laura Scherschel’s birthday, a bunch of us came out to Spokane to chill with her. That night, we went out for a fun game of laser tag. Check out the Laser Quest score sheet from our game at the left. That’s right. According to the zoomed portion, our laser tag game took place on March 21st, 20101 at 9:11 PM. Whoops.

I guess Laser Quest should have stocked up more duct tape.

I didn’t write this poem. But I like it. A portion of it is quoted in the movie Groundhog Day, by Andie MacDowell. I found a printout of it in the closet, and felt like sharing it here. Enjoy.

Breathes There the Man
Sir Walter Scott

Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
“This is my own, my native land!”
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonor’d and unsung.

Last but certainly not least, I will share with you this gem of a picture. Taken by one Miss Laura Scherschel at her lovely apartment in the fall of 2001, contained within you will see J.R., his sister Erin, and myself. The small pumpkins that we are holding were a part of the party activities for the evening. Erin carved a happy pumpkin. I carved an angry sneaking pumpkin. J.R. continued his illustrious pumpkin-carving tradition and carved another in a long line of barfing pumpkins. Unfortunately however, there were only enough mini-pumpkins for each of us to carve one, and so J.R.’s barfing pumpkin was unable to be portrayed as also being consumed by another pumpkin.

In the picture, each of us is attempting as best we can to make the same face as our pumpkins. I have always really liked this picture. To really appreciate the affect, you’ll need to click on the picture to view a larger version. It really is grand.

Basically, 2003 can be separated into two distinct portions. Two eras, if you will. BGC and WGC. That would be Before GameCube and With GameCube. Before GameCube was a time of sullenness and gloom. Entertainment options were limited to activities such as smashing nickels underneath passing trains on the way to baseball games. Oh… I guess there were the baseball games, too. But the Mariners didn’t win many of the games that we went to. BGC was generally a glum time. But on August 16th, all that changed. With a mere one hundred and fifty denelions, the GameCube was ours. With GameCube, the world was brighter. Gleeful entertainment was a mere push of a button away. The sun shined brighter, dogs stopped biting my calves, and the Mariners didn’t lose as many games. Life was good. Now that the stage is set, I’ll fill you in on some of the details of the two eras of 2003.

BGC – January 1st – August 15th

Perhaps the first thing of note that we participated in this year would be our excessive involvement in the wedding of my good friend Michael Ziemann to the lovely Brianne. I had the pleasure of donning the monkey suit and standing in the front of a church, and Jeni had the task of taking their pictures. This was Jeni’s first chance to do some real wedding photography, and it turned out fairly well. She took a lot of good pictures, and learned a lot. Mike & Brianne’s wedding was nice, and they got off to their honeymoon without any big snags, and with two lovely stuffed monkeys in their car.

In April, we went down to Vancouver to spend some time with my family, and ended up in a tiny little boat in the middle of a lake with only a tiny battery-powered engine to push us around the water. In other words, we went with the Ellis family to Horseshoe Lake on a fishing trip. Neither of us did any real fishing of course, since we didn’t have fishing licenses, but it was Jeni’s first experience with any kind of fishing. Amazingly, she actually enjoyed it. Go figure. Also in April, Jeni decided to try her hand at the Mary Kay business. She figured that since she liked makeup so much, she might as well make a little money with it. In May, we went down to California to be at Jeni’s college’s graduation. We got to spend a lot of good time with her sisters, and she got to see her friends graduate. Overall it was a fun experience. Plus, that trip finally put us both over the threshold of frequent flier miles we needed to have free tickets anywhere in the country. Woo-hoo!

On August 16th, using some personal cash I had saved up, I upgraded my video game system selection to the 21st century by buying a Nintendo GameCube. This leads us to the second era, WGC.

WGC – August 16th – December 31st

The most immediate result of the glorious new purchase was Jeni’s obtaining a job at the Evergreen State Fair in Monroe (the town that I work in). For two long weeks, she stood as valiant daytime guard over the baby shoe bronzing booth, collecting countless information cards from interested potential customers. Yes, I am making this sound far more exciting than it was. Just after she completed this daunting task, we had a 9-day vacation in California. During our fun-filled trip, we walked down Hollywood Boulevard, had an action-packed day at Universal Studios, spent time with Jeni’s family, Jeni was a bridesmaid in her friend Nicole’s wedding, and I beat Rebekah at pool. Multiple times. Soundly.

In October, we celebrated our one-year wedding anniversary. To commemorate the occasion, we spent a relaxing and romantic day at on Whidbey Island. Contrary to what many people seem to say, our first year of marriage was not especially difficult. In fact, it was quite enjoyable, and not just for the obvious reasons, either. We’re quite enjoying each other’s company, and have adjusted rather well to the joint decision-making process. And just for the record, we haven’t even once had a dispute over the toilet seat. :^) In fact, we haven’t really had any real fights at all. Oh, and Rachel: No, we aren’t pregnant.

Also in October, Jeni attended her first women’s conference with some of the ladies at our church. This made Jeni feel old. Perhaps Jeni needs to spend more time playing with LEGOs, like I do. This year I built the Smith Tower (a famous Seattle “skyscraper” from the early 1900′s) out of LEGO, and I am currently working on the Simpsons with J.R. and Micah. I definitely don’t feel old.

As the year wound to a close, we had a relaxing Thanksgiving at home. Katie Gower and Joy and Heather Bagley came over to celebrate and give thanks with us. The weeks surrounding Thanksgiving were the only time this year that Jeni was able to see her best friend Heather. She really enjoyed their time together, even in spite of their willing exposure to an extremely cheesy cartoon rendition of C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Perhaps she even enjoyed it partly because of that. To each his (or her) own, I suppose.

After talking with Heather about it, Jeni decided in November to stop selling Mary Kay products. This was mainly due to the fact that the Mary Kay business model is largely dependent on the hard sell. Think used car salesman, only with a lot more makeup on. This kind of business didn’t really sit well with Jeni, and she decided to step down and seek other opportunities.

All in all, I like starting paragraphs with the letter ‘A’. In addition, we had a pretty good 2003. Even the seven and a half months before we got the GameCube. We have both grown spiritually, and Jeni especially feels closer to God than she has before. We have been participating in a weekly Bible study all year with a small group of people from church, Jeni has also been involved in a women’s Bible study, and she has recently begun the Experiencing God study with a different group of women. Both of us have been involved in the newly created “Good Works” ministry at our church that focuses on ministering to the needs of the community. I was given the task of being the “Media Team Leader” at the Anchor (our church). That basically means that I make sure someone is around to do sound and projector each week, I train new people, and I keep the church’s website up-to-date.

Since most of you have probably put this letter down five paragraphs ago and given up ever getting to the end, I think that I will now bring it to an end. We hope that your year has gone well, and hope that we hear from each of you in the next. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and don’t be a stranger. That’s all for now.

Sending our love,

Timothy & Jennifer Ellis

P.S. (My calves were never actually bit by dogs. BGC or WGC.)

- Tim

Do stuff that you would like to write about.

Looking forward to this swell experience, J.R. and I giddily headed downtown on that fateful night. Lured by a sign promising $4 parking for the duration we would need, we pulled into the parking garage at the 520 Pike Tower. Ahh, things were going swimmingly. Upon arriving at our private suite (read: a small room with a few round tables) for Bryce’s party at Gameworks we wasted no time at commencing the humiliation. Of course, it would be terrible of me to post any of the pictures here, so I would never even think of doing that. Ever. Well, as much fun as we had, it was all soon to come crashing down on us. Staggering out of Gameworks at midnight, we made our way back to the parking garage. Which was locked. Doh.

All we could access was the stinking ticket-giver-outer-thingy. Which, as it turned out, had stated very plainly “ALL VEHICLES MUST BE REMOVED BY CLOSING TIME,” followed by the hours, which stated closing time as 11:00PM. Dang, we’re stupid. O-kay. Locked out of a parking garage downtown, without a cell phone, on a Thursday night (in other words, nobody is around but a few sleeping homeless people). Not exactly the way we thought we would be spending the evening.

We scoured the short section of the garage entrance that we had access to, looking for a phone number or some information on how to get J.R.’s hot rod out of the belly of this cement beast. Finally, we found a number. Which we called on the nearby payphone using a few coins that Paul gave us. Oh yeah, Paul was with us. He didn’t have a cell phone either though, so he wasn’t much help… except for the change he gave us to call on the pay phone. I guess that was pretty helpful. Plus I think he said a few funny things, too. Too bad I don’t remember them. Wait, where was I? Oh, right. So that phone number had a recording that gave us another number. Great. I wonder what percentage of the money from that pay phone goes to the owner of the parking garage? Fortunately we were able to flag down Nick (who had been at the party) and borrow his cell phone to call the second number. A real person answered this one and assured us that they would be down to rescue us in a few minutes.

At this point, Paul ditched us. I can’t blame him. We are such losers. Well, I’m a loser anyway. All right, I admit it, I was the one who told J.R. to park in there. I was the one who basically got us locked out of a parking garage downtown just because we didn’t spend three and a half seconds to read a sign. Sheesh. Well, true to their word, the night shift security guard for the tower showed up not too much later to rescue us–for a price. Oh yes, that’s right. Twenty-seven dollars, to be exact. Not such cheap parking after all, when you can’t follow their simple rules. It’s okay though, I’m thinking of going back there later to umm… well, nevermind. Let’s get this back to the main point. You should always read the signs. If you don’t bad stuff could happen. Seriously.

- Tim

Do you want to end up stuck outside a parking garage downtown at night, glossy-eyed and brandishing a sombrero like a madman? I didn’t think so.

Being the well-prepared citizens that we are, the lack of power did not dampen our spirits. We got out the flashlights, lit the candles, and then decided that we were bored, and would go to bed. In order to know when the power came back on (crucial information, of course), I left the light switch in the ‘on’ position in the bedroom when we went to bed. Therefore, I was woken up by a fully lit room at approximately 2:00 AM, at which time I stumbled across the room, flipped off the switch, stumbled back to bed, and fell immediately back to sleep.

Strangely, the knowledge of exactly what time the power was returned to our place of dwelling bears no further consequence in this story.

On the next day, my brother Matthew came over in the late morning to trade back tires with me (again, see Tire Blowout Fun). Shortly after he arrived, a vicious knocking came at our door. I say vicious, because it wasn’t just one, or two, or ten knocks. It was a constant, frantic knocking on our front door that did not cease until I opened the door to reveal… J.R. and Micah.

So excited they could barely complete a coherent sentence, they managed to sputter out enough information to get across their main point: A certain local grocery store was throwing out ALL of their frozen food. But here’s the catch–it was still frozen. Perfectly good food was being tossed, simply because it had spent a few hours thawing the day before. Upon making this discovery, they did what any other self-respecting just-barely-no-longer-a-college-student would do. They raided the dumpster for all it was worth, and packed their freezer so full of food that they had to hold things in with their hands while closing the door. They had come to our apartment to share this good fortune with us, and invite me to dive for a freezer full of my own bounty.

I would of course have been a fool to pass up an opportunity for armfuls of free frozen goods. So, Matthew and I went with them. Sure enough, the dumpster behind this particular local grocery store was quite a find. It was almost as though it had been arranged specially to be raided. This giant dumpster was nearly full of non-smelly trash, on top of which was laid a layer of cardboard, upon which, at the very top of the dumpster, sat two solid feet of all sorts of frozen goods.

Grabbing all that I thought our freezer could hold, I piled on the Toaster Strudels, frozen juice concentrates, boneless skinless chicken breasts, and cheesecakes. Sadly, Matthew was unable to join in the fun, since he was not to travel back home to Vancouver (a three hour drive) until Sunday. Occasionally, a car would drive by, and all four of us would jump down from the dumpster, and walk around aimlessly, as though we were attending to some important, legitimate business behind the grocery store. I think now I know what a crows and raccoons feel like. Or maybe not.

At any rate, once I had what I believed to be a freezer-full, we drove back to the apartment, bid farewell to J.R. and Micah, and packed it all in. Our freezer was filled nearly to capacity, although we did not have to hold it in to shut the door. In fact, two months later, and we still haven’t had to buy frozen chicken again. Or juice. Or Toaster Strudels. Okay well maybe we never bought Toaster Strudels to begin with. Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say is, free food is good. Yeah. In fact, that’s today’s moral. Free food is good.

- Tim

Always accept an opportunity for free food. Always.

On Sunday, just as we were about to hit the road, my dad (Norm) did a last minute check over the car to make sure it was in good order. Not that he doesn’t trust his son, but he just likes to watch out for him. Good thing, too, because as it turns out, they had run over a nail that morning, and the back-left tire was leaking fast. Ah hah, no big deal, we’ll just have it repaired. WRONG! As it turns out, tire places aren’t open on Sundays. So… what to do… Again with the good idea, Norm came up with a scheme whereby Matthew (my brother) and I would switch tires, since Matthew’s car was the same model as ours and only one year different. Perfect. Half an hour later, as we are heading out for real, Norm asked “Do you want to check the spare tire, to make sure it has air in it?” Considering that the trunk was full of Christmas gifts for Jeni’s family, and the presents we had just received from my family, we weren’t too keen on that idea. Besides, we had fixed our tire problem. Clear sailing from here on out. I’m sure the spare tire is fine. So off we went.

So, um… what’s with the blowout, then? Didn’t we fix the tire? Right. The back-left tire was fine. But when we stopped for gas in Grant’s Pass, just 42 miles from our destination, the front-right tire sprung a leak. In fact, we didn’t even notice the leak. The attendant (for those of you who don’t know, you can’t pump your own gas in Oregon, so all stations have attendants) came running over to us and told us about it. It was leaking so badly that he could hear it 30 feet away. As it turns out, we pulled the car just a tad bit too close to the curb while pulling away from the pump, and the wheel was turned just wrong such that the nozzle was pinched between the tire and the curb, and something gave (hint: it wasn’t the curb).

This is where the story gets somewhat embarrassing. A sensible person would have stopped right there, at the gas station, put on the spare tire, and had the leak repaired the next day. But, I’m not a sensible person, I’m an engineer. Only a week before had I poured scalding hot Wassail from a Crock Pot into a jug without spilling a drop, using only a thin paper plate. So, when the attendant found out that the audible hissing from the tire could be stopped by pushing the nozzle to one side, I came up with a brilliant plan. Running inside, I grabbed a book of matches, which I then proceeded to smash in between the nozzle and the hubcap, thereby stopping the noise. No noise, no leak, right? Perfect. That will hold for a few more miles to Ashland.

Obviously, it didn’t. Although we did maintain a relatively low speed, about 4 miles down the road, the matchbook must have come loose, because the tire pretty much exploded. Fortunately we were near an exit, so, after cutting in front of a semi truck going 10mph faster than me, we exited the freeway and came to rest off the side of the road on a paved area.

You may think that at this point, we were pretty distraught. Think about it. We were sitting there, in the dark, on the side of a rarely-used exit, somewhere in southern Oregon (as in, endless fields and hills with very few people), with a smoldering, blown-out tire, and oh yeah, remember that spare that my dad wanted us to check??? For some reason, though, we were actually in quite good moods. Although it had been raining when we left Vancouver, it was completely dry here, we had a powerful flashlight, and, as it turns out, the spare tire was indeed in just dandy condition. Look, you can even see a smile on my face as I prepare to put the spare tire on.

So, I think I’ve just about rambled on enough now about a silly flat tire. We got the spare put on, and made it to Ashland okay, and the rest of the trip was just super.

I’m sure there’s a moral to this story somewhere… Lemme think… Okay, how about this: “Matches don’t fix tires.” Yeah. I like that.

- Tim

Matches don’t fix tires.

Well, by now you’re probably thinking “hey wait a minute… isn’t it the best man’s responsibility to keep the rings?” Well, you are right, it is. However Tim and J.R. (the best man) had an understanding. The rings were to stay in Tim’s possession until the morning of the wedding. When they arrived that morning, Tim would then hand the rings over to J.R., so he could fulfill his best manly duty. What could happen to them in the course of a few hours?

As it turns out, more than you think.

After they were all spiffed out in their dandy tuxedos, the time came for the rings to be handed over to J.R.. Tim took each of the three rings out of their box, and placed them all on one finger. After thoroughly checking for holes and finding none, J.R. held open his inside-suit-coat-pocket, and Tim held his finger over the pocket and dropped them in.

About half an hour later, all the guys were in the sanctuary, taking pictures, and J.R. said the last words that Tim wanted to hear:

“Um… Were there three rings, or just two?”

silent stare of death. a sort of “that isn’t funny. tell me you’re kidding” look.

“I’m not kidding. I thought there were three rings, but right now I only have two.”

look of dismay.

“This is the first time I have even reached into this pocket since we put them in, I’m sure of it. I reached in to count, and all I feel is your ring and her engagement ring. I don’t know where her wedding band is.”

So, Tim and J.R. checked the floor all around where they were standing, and they checked the lining of J.R.’s suit coat, just in case they somehow missed a hole in the pocket… no luck. The ring was not to be found. Panic began to set in. They crossed the lawn to return to the dressing room. They scoured the dressing room, and searched the lawn. They told everyone they saw, as they all joined in the search for the tiny wedding band. Tim tried to reason through the situation with J.R.. He tried to determine how the ring could have fallen out. Suddenly Tim realized that J.R. had leaned over the sink to wet his hair before geling it. He headed toward the bathroom with J.R., but was blocked, and told that he was not allowed to enter that portion of the building. This rather upset Tim. As it turns out, Jeni (of course not knowing anything about the missing ring) had decided that this would be a good time to arrange some candles in the sanctuary.

As Tim waited for what seemed like hours for Jeni to finish, suddenly a happy shout arose from the direction of the guys’ dressing room. Pastor Lee had found the ring! It was lying on the floor in the dressing room, just below the spot that Tim and J.R. thought that they had placed the rings into J.R.’s pocket. Apparently, somehow the smallest of the rings had missed the pocket, escaping the notice of either of them.

Phew!

Ever the slaves to tradition, after the ring was found, Tim gave J.R. the rings yet again. J.R. counted them about every ten seconds from then until just before the ceremony, when he placed the rings, all three, on the ring-bearer’s pillow (which was a sunflower).

So now I sit here looking back
     thinking of the things I lack.
I want to pull out of this rut.
     One thing stops me—one word—but.

But right now I’m safe, secure as I sit here.
     There is nothing to fix.
But what if she says what I don’t want to hear?
     I just can’t take that risk.

Who will show me what to do?
     Who will guide my path?
I need to trust in only You.
     My God in present, future, past.

I know You have great plans for me,
     if only I would try to see.
So I won’t worry about finding someone
     of all that I shoulda coulda woulda done.

This poem arose from a late night discussion with my roommates. I can’t give all the details of that conversation, but let’s just say that we were discussing things that frustrate us. Things that we wish we had more control over. I called this “Retrospect” because it is written from a viewpoint of someone looking back remorsefully on past experiences. Anyway, that’s all.

Beep.

A wristwatch resounds the eerie announcement: eleven o’clock.
The time has come.

There, I see them. Approaching in the distance.
My comrades plunge one by one into the mêlée.
The inevitable torment spreads to them all.

One of the beasts has reached me.
The vile leech begins its solemn task.
Unable to resist, I give way to the attack.
My synapses slow. My energy is being drained.
I endure their continual beating, my will diminishing.

Thud.

I hear it. The sound of my resolve falling to the ground.
As I slump back in defeat, the battlefield comes into view.
I am not the first to drop. Others can be seen crying out in their silent pain.
Are there any survivors? The opponent’s destruction cannot be total…
     there must at least be a few.
Yes. I see some. Scattered about, they continue the fight.

Radiating warmth, one of my persevering companions catches my eye.
Focused on her encounter with the foe, she is still full of life.
On mere observation of her graceful motion, I am instilled with a new hope.
I am a Knight. My armor protects me from the continuing blows of the adversary.
She has given me reason to persist.
I must survive, if only to join her in glorious victory.

I am transformed, swiftly attacking the assailants…

Beep.

Now the timepiece sounds my triumph. twelve o’clock, and already I am successful.
Smiling, I replace my weapon and lightly stride from the scene.
As I step out into the sunlight, the day is fresh and bright.
I set out to find the one who saw me through the darkest hour.

My spirit is renewed.
The conflict is a shadow of memory, replaced by the beauty of my life’s new love.

With Renewal, I tried to capture the feeling of desolation I sometimes feel during a midterm/final. However, even in the seeming hopelessness, there is always something or someone there to help me make it through. That’s all the description I care to give on this one. It’s up to you to determine the nuances for yourself.

1. Reboot your computer.
2. Re-install the program or drivers for the software or hardware with the problem.
3. Re-install Windows, then proceed to step 2.
4. “format c:” then proceed to step 3.
5. Replace troublesome hardware.
6. Replace entire computer system.

   And if none of the first 6 worked…

7. Denounce technology and move to Montana.

I can’t think clearly. Too much noise.
The door is closed already. I get up and shut the window.
Now the voices are silent. No more noises.
Still it is too much.

The chair. It beckons me. I am easily persuaded.
I retire to its comforting arms.
So quiet… so relaxing.

Someone is at the door. No. They are already inside.
He has snuck in. It is too late. He overpowers me.
I don’t know where he is taking me, only that I must follow.

We arrive at a door. I walk through, and my eyes behold Her.
I turn to ask my captor who She is, but I have lost him in the fog.
He could not have left me. I would know it. Yet, I see him not.

She is drawing nearer, beautiful beyond words, and so full of mystery.
In Her all my ambitions are realized, all my hopes given reason.
I sit down to contemplate what She could mean to me, and all She could bring.
She draws nearer still, radiating through the mist.
How happy I will be when She reaches me, stretching out Her arms to envelop me.
She is almost upon me. I close my eyes in quiet anticipation.
I can almost feel Her joy encompassing me, Her contentment surrounding me.

But wait.
     Something is wrong.
          I open my eyes.
Where has She gone?
There, behind me. But She is walking away.
How can this be? I had waited so patiently.
I run, trying to catch Her, but it is too late.

She has disappeared into the fog.
I stand alone. Confused.

A ringing, then silence. I look out to find the source, but see only the white haze.
Again the ringing. Again the silence.
     The vapors begin to clear.
     My surroundings become apparent.
          the door.
          the desk.
          the phone.
A third ring. Leaping up, I answer it, but it is too late. Again I have been passed by.
The chair and its eternal apathy call to me once more.
…this time I stall.
No. This must not continue. I turn to the door, and walk out.
Let the world pass by the chair. I have things to do.
I have my life to live, and I intend to live it to the Fullest.

The first part of this writing is about the writer (me) developing an apathy for life. Under the weight of all of life’s pressures, giving up and just sitting down seems like the best idea. After he sits down, he drifts to sleep (the kidnapper), and then dreams of his future (the woman) drawing closer, but passing him by. He tries to catch it, but it is too late. After waking up, the dream inspires him not to just let his life happen around him, but to go out and make it happen the way he wants it to.

This is something that I have to learn for myself over and over again. Sometimes it is on a small scale, sometimes on a larger, life-size scale. If I just sit around and expect a future of happiness to come to me, then I will lose any chance I had to attain it in the first place. That is why I need to go out and make my life what I want it to be. When life gives you sore feet, don’t just sit down in a chair and give up. Kick life in the shin, then forget about it and move on.

Chapter 1

See, one time, I was walking along the freeway, I think it was I-34 through New Jersey, and this police officer stopped right by me. I thought to myself: ‘How nice. This officer wants to give me a ride.’ But instead, he walked over to me, took off his belt, and whipped me with it. Well, as you might guess, I was pretty mad. So I jumped into his car, and drove off. Just to spite him, I got on the police radio: “Jones to dispatch. (His name was Jones, I read it on his name tag.) I just encountered a hitchhiker on side of the road, at I-34 and 56 Ave, and when I tried to ticket him, he assaulted me, stole my clothes and my gun, and started shooting. Since I had been disarmed, I got back in my car, and I am currently 3 miles from the scene. Requesting backup. Repeat: Imposter at I-34 and 56th Ave.”

Chapter 2

Next, I decided that I didn’t have a use for the police car any more, so I found a cliff, connected a brick to the accelerator, and had the car drive itself into a supermarket. Luckily, since all the cops in the area were out trying to find the imposter, I was able to walk away from the scene undetected. That is, of course, after I bought some milk, bread, and a few frozen pizzas. So, I figured that once the police figured out that I was the real imposter, they would be sort of upset. So, in order to throw them off my trail, I decided to grow a beard. Good thing, too, because the next day, I had to get married to this girl I met in Bellingham one time on a skiing trip. So, when I went to the courthouse to get the paperwork, they had no clue who I was. Ha ha, joke’s on them. Good, cause I needed to get married.

Chapter 3

Oh, you’re probably wondering now, why I’m getting married. Well, see it’s like this. Being that I am a member of the Black Panthers, I am required to attend their yearly conference in Atlanta. So, I was at the conference this year, and I stopped by this booth that had a lot of information about flashlight bulbs. Well, since I’m so easily talked into things like that, I bought 5,000 of these revolutionary bulbs. Of course, I wanted to try them out, so I thought, no better place than a ski resort in Northern Washington. So, I left the conference early, and flew to Bellingham.

Chapter 4

While I was taking a break at the ski lodge, this beautiful girl came up to me, sat down, took off her shoes, and threw them in the fire. I thought to myself, ‘Wow, she has some real pretty feet.’ So, later that day, back in town, I was at the Taco Bell, and when I picked up my order, I found that it had been switched with someone else’s. Well, I really didn’t want a nacho supreme, I wanted my 7-layer burrito. So, I’m looking around for the person with my order, and there she was: the girl of my dreams. I was so lovestruck that I forgot all about the burrito, and proposed right there. She accepted, and we set February 29th as the day. (Actually, that was my idea, then I only have to remember an anniversary once every four years.

Chapter 5

So, ok. With the proposal out of the way, that made dating so much easier. You wouldn’t believe. We had so much fun during the 3 months of our courtship. I had never seen the Eiffel Tower before, and come to think of it, I still haven’t. We went on a road trip throughout the US, that is, until our car broke. Then it was… well, I guess it was still a road trip, but we were just walking. Anyway, once I got the papers, we got married, and decided to move to Australia. Why Australia? Well, we had both seen the movie “Rescuers Down Under” and we really wanted to go down there so we could ride all those giant eagles like in the movie.

Chapter 6

All righty… So we’re in Australia, and the weirdest thing happens. Somehow, I got lost one day when I went out to get the paper, and I ended up at the seaport. Well, I figured as long as I was there anyway, I may as well go somewhere, so I called home, told my wife that I would be back in a few days/weeks/months, and got on the first ship. Well, unfortunately for me, it happened to be a ship headed for North Korea. Well, as I’m sure you know, North Korea is well known for their voracious sea turtles. I was really in fear for my life. Well, the boat made it to the harbor somehow, and I was so happy just to be alive, that I headed straight for the nearest fish market and bought me some crab. I love crab…

Chapter 7

So, I’m in Korea, and I just finished my crab. Well, suddenly I realized that Northern Korea isn’t such a nice place. So, I figured I should probably get going. The best place I could think of to go was South Korea, so I rented a car, and I started my drive to South Korea. Well, about the time I get to the border, I start seeing all these warning signs, but, since I can’t read Korean, I just figured they said not to bring fruit over the border, like when you go into California. Well, I didn’t have any fruit, so I figured I was safe. Well, darn my luck, my car overheated, just after I entered this nice flat stretch of road into South Korea.

Chapter 8

Well, there I am, sitting just miles away from South Korea, with an overheated car. I tried to wait for someone to come and help me, but for some reason, the road was completely deserted. So, I figured, I’m so close, I may as well just walk. As I’m walking along, I keep seeing these strange lumps in the ground. Being bored as I am, I make a game out of avoiding the lumps. It was actually kinda fun. After a few hours, I make it into South Korea, only to be greeted by a group of soldiers with guns. They took me prisoner, and shipped me off to Chile to stand trial. So, while I am sitting in my cell in Chile, I realize that I really have to go. I mean really. So, I got up to ask the guard to let me out, when I realized there was no guard even standing watch. To top it off, the cell door was unlocked.

Chapter 9

So, I think to myself, “Well, if they’re dumb enough to leave my cell door unlocked, I’m certainly not so dumb not to leave.” I walk out of the cell, and right out the front door. Unfortunately, the front door was 100 feet underground. I looked around for a while, trying to get my bearings, but considering all there was to light the area was wall torches, I didn’t have much luck there. So I just started walking. I walked for, I think about 3 hours or so, when finally I came across some people. I didn’t figure they spoke any English, and I certainly don’t speak Chilese, so I just sat around for a while to see what was going on. They were doing the strangest thing. It seemed that they had two chickens in some sort of mini-arena, and they were fighting each other for no reason.

Chapter 10

Well, as interesting as the chickens were, I really had to get going, because I checked the train schedule before I left the prison, and my train left in an hour. So, I left them to their business, and headed for the pier. When I got there, my train had already left. So, I got on the next boat headed north. Just my luck, the boat happened to be headed for Alaska, and my uncle’s best friend’s sister lives in Alaska. So, the boat takes off, headed for Alaska, and we ran into a bit of trouble. The seas started to get really stormy, and the situation did not appear to be getting any better, so we had to play paper/rock/scissors to determine who was at fault.

Chapter 11

Of course someone on board was in fact at fault, so as soon as we found out who it was, we threw them overboard. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to help. So, I jumped in after her. Well, I didn’t have much luck finding her, probably because she had already swam to shore. So, I swam back to the boat, and as the crewmen lifted me up, I noticed something weird. Everyone on the boat but me had red hair. Well, I got really scared at that, and threw common sense out the window. I jumped right back into the raging seas, and swam as hard as I could toward shore.

Chapter 12

I soon got tired of swimming, and decided to try floating on my back for a while. After about 3 days of that nonsense, I finally reached shore. Well, obviously, after having eaten nothing for 3 days, I didn’t really care about where I was, but rather I was interested in getting something to eat. So, I walked around for a while, and soon found a village. Well, luckily the people in the village spoke German, because I wouldn’t have understood them otherwise. They told me that I had landed on the California peninsula, and the best way back to Australia, so I thanked them and left. Well, I got into the yacht that they had given me, and headed towards Australia. I really was beginning to miss my wife.

Chapter 13

Well, would you believe it, but after only 5 hours out to sea, I run into a terrible storm. It was almost as bad as the movies, where those ships get thrown all over. Lucky for me, however, I was in a “future yacht.” This thing was able to suddenly encase itself (like the Batmobile), and then turn into a submarine. Once I got under water, the storm really didn’t matter at all. You know, that reminds me of this man who used to cook deluxe burgers at my college. His name was Storm. What a great guy. One time, there was a huge fire in the kitchen in back, and nobody could find a fire extinguisher. Well, Storm just lept right up onto the fire, smothering it. Too bad I don’t have any real need to do that right now. It sounds like a real fun thing to do. Oh well.

Continued whenever I next get bored…

Romans 12:2

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Characters:

Witness
At least 4 “conformers”

Setting:

A couch (or row of chairs) is setting at rear center stage, with a remote control setting on the ground beside it.

The conformers are scattered about the stage, with their heads down, frozen. The witness waits off stage out of sight. Big band music begins to play. The conformers awaken, and begin to dance with each other, in somewhat of a swing style. After about 20 seconds of this, the witness walks on to stage carrying a small Bible, observing the conformers. They attempt to make the witness join, but he resists.

The music stops. The conformers freeze. The witness continues to walk about them, trying to get their attention, but they are like statues. Suddenly, some suspenseful music (James Bond, Mission Impossible, etc…) begins to play. The conformers immediately awaken, and begin to walk shrewdly around with their fingers shaped as guns, making jerky movements, pointing the “guns” around. The witness comes up to one of them with the Bible, and opens it and points to it. The conformer sees the Bible, and gradually stops doing what the others are.

The music stops. The other conformers freeze. The witness and converted conformer try to get the others’ attention, but cannot. Suddenly, some popular sitcom theme music begins to play. The conformers walk over to the couch and sit down as one picks up the remote. They laugh and point at the imaginary television on front center stage. The witness and old conformer then approach the conformer on the end of the couch (the one with the remote) and show them the Bible. The conformer tries to ignore at first, but is eventually paying attention only to the witness and Bible, and powers off the TV with the remote. The music stops, and the remaining conformers freeze and put their heads down. The witness and two former conformers get on their knees as if to pray. When they are done, it is suggested to play “Hallelujah” from Handel’s “Messiah”.

Fade out after about 20 seconds.

Method for forming standard UPC bar codes:

1) Bar code must begin with the start sequence.
2) The first 6 digits use the “Left Side” codes.
3) After 6 digits, the middle sequence must be inserted.
4) The last 6 digits use the “Right Side” codes.
5) Bar code must end with the end sequence.

Notes:

- Standard UPC bar codes consists of 12 digits.
- Each 1 stands for a line of the standard width.
- Each 0 stands for an empty space of the standard width.
- 1 pixel wide is an acceptable standard width for functional barcodes.

WARNING
DO NOT Attempt to use this example barcode to purchase expensive goods at the price of Lemonade Kool-Aid (about $0.25) by printing it out and taping it over a real UPC barcode.

(Based on Coca-Cola’s Surge© commercial)
A Bible-based skit written for church use.

John 4:10

Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

John 4:14

“…but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

Characters:

One Orator
At least 4 “extras”

Setting:

One large pyramid shaped tower standing about 4-5 feet tall on right of stage. Various obstacles scattered throughout rest of the stage.

The Orator stands beside the pyramid with a clear bottle of water in their hand. The extras stand on the far end of the stage, or offstage, if room. The Orator moves the bottle from far left to right, as if to display it to the crowd. He then sets the bottle down with both hands on top of the bottle, and slowly outstretches his hands from the top of the bottle to fully extended fists.

Orator:

(yelling) “LIVING WATERRRRR!!!”

Music such as Chariots of Fire, or Hawaii 5-0 are optional at this point.

The extras then begin in slow motion towards the pyramid with the bottle on top of it. Climbing over each other, falling over the obstacles, they move as if in slow motion until one of the extras reaches the bottle. When one of the extras reaches the bottle, they hold it up in the air, smiling, then take a drink and hand it to the next person, who drinks and hands it on, etc…

If music was being played, it is faded out.

Orator:

“In John chapter four, the Bible tells us: Jesus answered and said to her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water. …But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.’”

Placing something on the Internet is just like broadcasting something over the television waves. In the case of television, someone with a VCR could, if they wanted to, tape an NBA game, so that they may watch it later. However, at the beginning and end of each NBA game, it is stated that basically it is illegal to reproduce or rebroadcast the game without the expressed written consent of the NBA. Unfortunately for them, once they broadcast the game, there are people who tape it regardless of the copyright, therefore breaking copyright law. In the same manner, when someone posts something on the Internet, they can put all the copyrights and warnings that they want on it, but inevitably, it will be copied and used somewhere else without the “owner’s” permission.

Copyright laws are very good ideas to have so as to protect the rightful owner of a particular image or idea. Unfortunately, in most cases, copyright laws are so difficult to enforce, that they may as well be nonexistent. Software copyrights are violated left and right, and most people are unaware that they are even breaking the law by copying a friend’s program to their computer. It is the same with Internet copyrights. People copy images all the time, and later use them on their site. While it may be legal only for non-profit organizations or those with the owner’s permission, many, many people participate in this activity on a regular basis. In practice, most copyright laws, on the Internet and elsewhere, are simply enforced in such a manner that if you’re not making any money off the reproduction of an item, then you are okay.

On the Internet, when you post an item, you in essence say that anyone may take the image and do what they want with it. This is not the way it should be. If there was a way to enforce a law which prevented people from copying images without authorization, it would certainly be instituted, at least by the major companies with Web sites, such as Microsoft© and Intel©. Possibly the only way to enforce such a law would be to have some sort of program which detected when someone was copying off your server, and then would prompt them for a password. If they supplied the incorrect password, it would then scramble anything they tried to copy. Although this sounds like a good idea, it is highly infeasible. If it were possible to do such a thing in the first place, one would most likely need to have some sort of special server that would function in this manner, therefore making the idea ludicrously expensive.

Taking all of this information into account, it can be determined that although Internet copyright laws may be good ideas, Internet copyright practices would not change with or without a law, as people generally do what they want to as long as they think they can’t get caught, and in the case of copying things off the Internet, it would be a rare occurrence that one would get caught.

The views expressed in this essay are not necessarily those of the author.

Contents of this essay copyright 1997 tHE bRAIN© technology.

To be used only with permission.

Return of the Bolo
Episode 437

Characters

• Narrator
• Duke Skycrawler
• Princess Allah
• Garth the Caterer
• Hands Como

Narrator:

“Not long ago in a galaxy near, near by there was a young Bolo Master named Duke Skycrawler. This galaxy is controlled by a conspiracy which is mastered by Duke. Well, he thinks, but really he’s just a disgruntled postal worker for the U.S. Postal Service turned psycho-maniac custodian for the conspiracy.” “In the Mobi Desert on the Planet Zork, Galaxy M-52a beta, time 12:01pm PST, Allah and Duke are walking through the desert to rescue Hands Como from the Clutches of the anti-evil Garth the Caterer who kidnapped Hands and is forcing him to sample fine cuisine after he tried to steal his secret recipe for Bolo meat-balls…”

Garth:
“So, you like my recipes so much, do you? Here, try this one: Chicken in teriyaki sauce!”

Hands:
“No, noooooo! No more chicken!!!”

Garth:
“All right, no more chicken. Time for dessert! Asparagus flavored Jell-O!”

Hands:
“I thought you were righteous! You’re nothing but a sick, twisted gourmet chef!”

Garth:
(As he shoves the Jell-O into Hands’ mouth.) “Thank you, I do what I can.”

Hands:
MMMPPPPGGHHHH!

Narrator:
“And now, back to Duke and Allah!”

Duke:
“You know, I’ve always felt a special bond between us, Allah.”

Allah:
(Seductively) “I know what you mean. I feel it too.”

Duke:
(Complaining) “How much farther?”

Allah:
“Quit your complaining. We must save Hands from the righteous cook Garth the Caterer.” (They reach the door, knock, and without waiting for an answer, let themselves in. Eventually, they reach a kitchen where Garth is cooking a seven course dinner.)

Garth:
“Ah, I’ve been expecting you… Please, come in. Try some of my excellent new Jell-O.”

Duke:
“Never! I know full well that Jell-O is flavored like asparagus! I could smell it the second I walked in the door!”

Allah:
“Asparagus! Oh my! Save me Duke!” (She faints. Garth chuckles.)

Garth:
“Asparagus? It’s not true! I swear it!”

Duke:
“Oh… Okay… Give us Hands!”

Garth:
“Never!”

Duke:
“Well then, I guess that leaves us only one option.”

Garth:
“Paper football?”

Duke:
(Seriously) “You got it. To the death!” (Duke and Garth go at it violently. Both equal at the skill of paper football.) “Yes, I win! 21 to 18, wow! Well, see you later. Thanks for the game.” (He picks up Allah and starts walking away. He gets to the door and suddenly stops.) “I feel the Ecrof pulling me to press my memo button.” (He pushes it and it talks.)

Memo:
“You eeediot! You forgot to get Hands!”

Duke:
“Oh! Thanks wonder memo taking thingy!”

Narrator:
“Duke drops Allah and goes back to Garth’s kitchen to retrieve Hands.”

Hands:
“Thanks for saving me pal!” (He races off. Duke goes back to where he dropped Allah, who is now conscious, and they embark on their journey home.)

Allah:
“You’re my hero! I love you Duke.”

Duke:
“Oh… Thanks. I like you too.”

Allah:
“Duke, let’s get married right now.”

Duke:
“I would, but my shift started a half an hour ago, so I’m already late.”

Allah:
“No… Now! Take me now!”

Duke:
“Where?”

Allah:
“Let’s go back to Garth, maybe he will marry us.” (They return to Garth’s kitchen.) “Garth, will you marry us?”

Garth:
(Laughing a righteous laugh) “Sure… Why not?”

Duke:
“What’s so funny? Well never mind, can you kinda’ hurry, I’m late for work!”

Garth:
“Sure, no problem. Oh, and I’ll tell you later what I was laughing at.”

Narrator:
“Garth marries the couple. Duke goes to work, and gets chewed out by his boss. He comes home late, but Allah is still waiting up for him… The next morning, the communicator rings. Duke answers.”

Duke:
“Hello?”

Garth:
“Hi Duke, this is Garth. I just thought I’d call to tell you what was so funny yesterday.”

Duke:
“Okay, I’m listening.”

Garth:
“There has always been a special bond between you and Allah.”

Duke:
“Hey, we were just talking about that yesterday before you married us. We both felt it.”

Garth:
“Well, I think there is something you ought to know about that special feeling.”

Duke:
“Yeah, go on.”

Garth:
“Well, I’m not sure how to say this.”

Duke:
“Just tell me already!!!”

Garth:
“Well… Ah… You will probably hate me for this, and I really should have told you yesterday, but it was so funny (He laughs out loud again.) (Fast and slurred) You and Allah are brother and sister and I’m your father. Bye. (Garth hangs up.)

Narrator:
“Duke sits with a look of astonishment on his face which soon turns to a sly smirk.”

THE END

Hi. my name’s Chevy Blazer. I don’t know you too well, so why don’t we get acquainted? I’ll start by telling you about a typical day at school for me. As a matter of fact, I think that I’ll tell you about how my day went yesterday. Well, I got to school, and I was chatting with my friend Coel Johnson about the new computer system the school bought to operate the bells, when the bell rang. So, I headed to class. About 20 seconds after the 5-minute bell rang, another bell rang. Then in another half minute, another bell… and another… and another… By the time I got to class. twenty bells must have rang.

Finally, I got to my first class, which is Computer Tech, where I help monitor and troubleshoot the school’s new computer lab, so I’m basically like this lady Fray who likes to kick people off the computers in the library. Anyway, I was sitting there, doing work on my computer when this teacher brings her whole class in here unannounced, even though we supposedly have this great system where the teachers are supposed to sign up beforehand. Not even five minutes after they come in, I start to get bombarded with no-brain questions like… “Why won’t my computer turn on?” Well, maybe if you tried plugging it in, you might have a little more success! And with the phone cord sitting beside the computer in plain sight, unplugged… “Why won’t my computer get onto the Internet?” Perhaps having it connected to the phone lines might help just a bit! What really ticks me off is the kids who have no patience, and when the computer won’t print the first time they hit the print button, they hit it about twenty more times. It’s like these people who are waiting for the elevator to reach their floor, and they push the button over and over like it is going to get the elevator there faster. In the case of the printing, all it does is print out nineteen more copies than they need.

So, first period finally ended, and I went to my second period math class taught by Mr. Blast. I get to class, and Mr. Blast comes up to me with this weird look on his face. “Guess what I bought yesterday?” I don’t know, what? “I finally got myself a new computer!” Cool. So you got that IBM we were showing you? “Nope. I got an awesome new Macintosh 7200/90. It works like a charm… For about ten minutes in between lock-ups. But hey, one lock-up every ten minutes is a small price to pay for a really good computer.” Uh huh. You are hopeless.

In third period, I normally have PE, but yesterday, I got called to the counseling center. They want me to do this resumé now, my Sophomore year, so they can put it in their archives, and in ten years when I go to get a job at some big corporation, they will supposedly still have this resumé in their computer so I can take it and use it to get a job. Yeah, right. I can see the interview now. “Well… lets see here, you’re asking for a job as head accountant. Ah, here we go, past work experience. ‘I mowed lawns around my neighborhood for a summer.’ Well. Very nice. ‘I baby sat for my neighbors every weekend for two months.’ I see. Okay, how about your references? ‘Mr. Blast, sophomore trig teacher. Mr. Lark, sophomore English teacher.’ NEXT!”

Fourth period is Japanese. My regular teacher, Mrs. Christiansen, was gone to another teacher’s funeral today, so we had a substitute. He brought us to the library so that we could do research on a recent assignment. We got there, and were working, when someone whispered to the guy next to him. Bad move in the library. We all saw it coming, so we plugged our ears. And then, there it was. Mrs. Claire, the librarian suddenly started yelling at the top of her lungs: “QUIET DOWN!!! THIS IS THE LIBRARY!!! PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO WORK!!! IF YOU WANT TO TALK, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!” After about a minute of this, she eventually shut up. Then, it was as if this kid had a death wish or something, the same kid started to tip back in his chair and put his feet on the table. You just can’t get any stupider than that. “GET YOUR FEET OFF OF THE TABLE!!! NOW, PET IT AND TELL IT YOU’RE SORRY!!! AND SIT DOWN PROPERLY IN THAT CHAIR!!! I MEAN NOW!!!” Let me just tell you, I am never sorry to leave that place.

Fifth period, I went to Mr. Lark’s world lit class. As soon as the bell rang, he asked us to turn in our homework from yesterday. I turned to my friend Bob Shelly, and asked him, what homework? “I don’t know. Mr. Lark! you didn’t assign homework yesterday.” “Yes, that assignment I gave all of you as you were walking out of the door with your backs turned to me. That was homework. You and Chevy didn’t finish it? Well, I guess you’ll get a big, fat Ø then, won’t you?” But Mr. Lark, how could we finish it when we didn’t know we even had it? “I guess that’s your problem. I don’t see anyone else who didn’t finish.” Uh, I beg to differ. There’s me, Bob, Tom Ellis, Coel Johnson, Logo Lexo, and Flint Idsinga. “Well, that’s just not my problem.” During the rest of the class, I worked on some dumb satire essay he assigned after taking roll.

Sixth period, last period of the day, I went to Mr. Lemberger’s chemistry class. We were doing a lab experiment yesterday, and Mr. Lemberger is very strict on lab precautions. We were in the middle of the experiment, and my nose started to itch, so I stepped off to the side, and removed my safety goggles so I could scratch it. Just at that moment, as if he were watching me and waiting for it to happen, Mr. Lemberger snuck up behind me. “Chevy, I want a two-page essay on lab safety.” You’re absolutely right, Mr. Lemberger. I should NEVER remove my safety goggles when working with bubbling, acidic, highly flammable quantities of salt water. And even though I wasn’t involved with the experiment at the time, I know my goggles could have been very useful had a student attempted to smash a beaker in my face. “I’m glad you understand, Chevy, don”t let it happen again.’ We finished the experiment, and finally the bell rang for school to be out. Then the bell rang again… and again… and again…

THE END

(May be used as a song to the tune of “Clementine”)

On a Thursday, not a good day, sat a pond with lots of grime.
There at camp it sat and called me, but I said I would not swim.
(Chorus)

Chorus

Murky waters, beckon for me, but a dry one I will be.
I will stay out of the water, even if it killeth me.

Others played games, some got pushed in, I decided not to try.
I stood by and saw them goof off, calls of fun I would not buy.
(Chorus)

People tried to push me pondward, but I wouldn’t play their game.
In a while some were quite angry, I had earned myself some fame.
(Chorus)

All my friends tried, I resisted, I did not wish to get wet.
I watched by there was no danger, I just laughed and didn’t fret.
(Chorus)

Came a new girl, name of Misty, and with her came 3 new chums.
When I saw them, took to runnin’, I was not as fool as them.
(Chorus)

But they got me, picked right up me, though I tried to get away.
Kept on walkin’ to the sick pond, and I thought this was the day.
(Chorus)

Tried to reason, tried to fight them, but I could not yet tear loose.
But I knew I had to get free, so I yelled, but with good use.
(Chorus)

Then a counselor, heard and saw me, being hauled despite my will.
So he stopped them and I thanked him, and I went away dry still.
(Chorus)