Luke’s Notebook

My Uncle Rob called this evening to speak with my mom, and evidently they just found out some terrific news in that her white blood cell count is high again, after being unusually low recently. Praise the Lord! What this means, I think, is that things are OK and they can continue the normal leukemia treatment. We were all pretty worried for the past little while because it was a bad sign that Jenny’s white blood cells were down. Keep praying for her!

I haven’t posted quite as much lately, and that’s partly because I haven’t been feeling the best and I’ve been really busy. Last night, though, me and some of my brothers went over to Grandpa Arndt’s house to watch the Rams and Packers play on Monday Night Football. The Rams got trounced, but it was fun to have an excuse to hang out and eat snacks.

I’m going to go play Paul in Super Bases Loaded on SNES.

Good morning to you! It’s 8:38 AM as I type. Looking outside, I see a bright sun shining through a blue sky, which is a welcome sight after some gray and rainy days we’ve had recently. Weather.com says that we’re only at 35° currently, so I guess it might be a pretty chilly day.

I just thank God for another beautiful day, that I have a comfy bed in a warm house, that my family is here, that everyone is safe and healthy, that we live in America, a great country! There’s so much to be thankful for. It’s too easy for me to forget about what I already have and to worry about the little details that aren’t ironed out yet. Instead, I really need to make myself look at the big picture and realize just how much I have to be thankful for. God is so good to us!

Well, it’s time to get this day underway. I think it will be spent indoors for the most part since it’s pretty cold out. Maybe there will be some good football games on.

Indeed it is. After a busy week, Friday has come to an end and on comes the weekend. Not a whole lot is in store for me this weekend. Tomorrow I will probably do some scoping, and on Sunday I baby-sit for the chubs. But other than that, I don’t know what else is planned! I don’t have volleyball on Sunday, so it might just be a lazy, relaxing day. But after this busy Thanksgiving week, I wouldn’t mind that.

I spent some of last night and a couple hours this morning on a little project. My goal was to install Linux onto James’ Xbox. Linux, by the way, is an operating system — sort of similar to Windows, though not nearly as prevalent. In case you’re wondering how a game console can have an operating system, wonder no more! The Xbox is essentially a computer, complete with DVD-Rom, hard drive, RAM, USB ports, sound card — the whole nine yards, really. And, if you do a little bit of work, you’re able to install Linux on the Xbox and make it function as a computer as it is connected to your TV screen. So I think that’s pretty cool. It might not sound like much, but imagine being able to connect a mouse and keyboard to your Xbox and browse the web or send an e-mail from your couch! It’s pretty exciting.

This afternoon, Mark and I went to help my Aunt Ann, who is a chiropractor, move things around in her office. She is getting new carpet laid down, so we had to move file cabinets, desks, et cetera. It took us a good four hours or so, but we managed to get a lot done.

A friend of the family’s, Mandy, became engaged today! She is supposed to marry Cameron in May of 2005. I’m very happy for them! We’ve known Mandy for a long time, and I know she had been just waiting on God’s timing to provide a spouse for her. Well, as always, trusting God proved to be the wisest choice. But what an awesome thing to hear!

I’m going to head off to bed now.

And I don’t even say “LOL.” But I did laugh out loud when I read this article from Green Valley Times: http://www.famteam.com/green/index.php?article=11. It’s hilarious! Go check it out.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Count your blessings. I bet you’ll be surprised at how much you have to be thankful for!

Okay, here’s the late update!

First, let me give an update on my cousin, Jenny. I hear that her white blood cell count is too low at the moment — something like 500 instead of the ideal 750. What this means is that she is unable to go to the hospital for another chemotherapy treatment. I think the main concern at the moment is that the leukemia is not in complete remission but is starting to grow again. I believe they’re going to do a bone marrow test on her on Tuesday if her white blood cell count is not up by then. Please, just keep praying for her as I’ll continue to do so. Evidently, she’s been feeling really great lately, and I even saw her on Saturday as the entire extended family gathered for a big photo.

There’s more to be told on the Digital Rebel saga. On Monday, I took the camera back out of the box just to give it another try, and that’s when I discovered it worked again! It pretty much worked all day Monday and into Tuesday. The results, let me tell you, were impressive. Crisp, sharp photos. Quick focusing. Mark and I were using the camera a lot and were quite pleased with the results. Then, on Tuesday, it happened again. The camera was overexposing big time, and the shutter would lock up for 10, 20, 30 seconds. Pictures wouldn’t turn out good at all.

This afternoon, I shipped the Rebel back to New Jersey to get a refund. Once the debit card is credited again, we’ll have to decide whether or not we want to stick with the Rebel, or if we want to go with something else. The only reason there’s a question now is because when we were getting the family photo take on Saturday, one of the photographers mentioned they were selling used Canon 10D models, which is essentially the steup up from the Rebels. Well, that really piqued our interest, so Mark and I are investigating the possibility. It seems as both the Rebel and the 10D are very nice cameras. Regardless of which camera we buy, I am eager to try it out in all situations and see what kind of results I get.

Okay, aside from camera stuff what have I been up to? Well, this afternoon I spent some time in the basement, running the network wires and coax cables into the little room where all the cables meet. It was quite a job, because we had 20 or 30 cables (CAT-5e and coax) total to run on top of approximately 12 feet of drywall. It wasn’t fun, but James and I managed to get the job done, and now that area in the basement looks really nice.

Also this evening, I washed some of the white doors on the first and second floor. Tomorrow we are hosting the Arndt side of the family for Thanksgiving, and Mom and the whole family has been hard at work, preparing for the get-together. Mom baked many pies this afternoon. I believe when it was all said in done she had baked 28 pies!! These will be divided among the two parties tomorrow, and there are a few extra that she plans to store in the freezer for a dessert at some later day.

One more thing. I mentioned it snowed today. Nothing really stuck on the ground, but it was neat to see the flurries fluttering around for a few hours. It sure beat the near-freezing rain that beat down on me as I left the Belleville Wal-Mart this morning. That was not so fun. But somebody had to buy the cranberry sauce!

What a surprise! As I look outside my attic window, I see snow falling to the ground. Not a lot, granted, but still, it’s snow! We typically don’t see snow this early in the year. I doubt that we will have any accumulation, but it’s kind of fun to get snow again. We’ll probably get some big snowstorms in a month or two, as winter comes in in full force. For now, though, let it snow!

But I am just about ready to fall asleep in my chair. So what I’m going to do is postpone my update ’til tomorrow, hopefully in the morning! I will try to get back here soon to give an update. For now, though, I must sleep.

What a surprise!

This afternoon, I decided to take the Digital Rebel out of its box and put it back together — lens, battery, CF card. I turned it out, took a picture — it turned out fine! Surprised, I took some more photos. No problems! I tried it without the flash. Nope, the shutter didn’t lock up! I then tested the camera in every single mode, with no lock-up or exposure issues. So I was extremely happy to find that out! I’m very happy, yet slightly confused. I wonder what caused the problem in the first place. Could it be that the lens was somehow out of place or improperly attached? I don’t think so, since the lens is really simple to attach and it seems like there is only one way to do that, thus making it hard to mess up. So I really don’t know what changed between Friday and today, but I’m definitely not complaining! I just hope that the problem doesn’t pop up again, because then we would most likely have to send the camera off to be serviced, which would be no fun.

Using this camera as I did today, I would say it has a lot lot of potential. I have taken close-ups, wide shots, low-light — lots of different environments — and it’s been performing pretty well. I would like to get to test it in some sort of sports environment. Softball is over, so we can’t do that anymore. But maybe volleyball or something else would be ideal.

One thing I forgot to mention the other day was the launching of another brand-new section on FamTeam.com, Green Valley Times! It’s essentially a mock newspaper with made-up articles, but they are really funny. My dad has come up with all of the ones that are currently available, and they’re just hilarious to read through. I like the drive-through one and the Brit Hume article.

Earlier today — as you’ll see if you read the previous entry — I made my first-ever post using my cell phone. Basically, I used the wireless web on my phone to connect to this site and then punched out the message on the little keypad. It’s not the easiest thing to type on the keypad, but it’s certainly doable and, with a little patience, allows you to keep in touch from the most remote of locations. Early this evening the location was I-55 in St. Louis, as the family drove home from visiting Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park in southern Missouri. I had never been there before, but it’s a park where water rushes through lots of large rocks in between two rocky bluffs. Evidently, people rock climb, swim, hike, occasionally water-slide and even cliff-jump there! Obviously today was way too cold to do any of that, but maybe we should think about doing that in the summer. I don’t know if I would be brave enough to jump off of a cliff into water, though. It doesn’t sound extremely safe!