Luke’s Notebook

That’s right! December 23rd, 2003, was the night we moved into this here house. So it’s been a year already. Wow. In a way, it doesn’t seem like that. Then again, it’s surprising how much this feels like home now. When we first moved in, it was such an odd feeling. Of course everything was kind of in shambles as we were bringing load by load, but I just couldn’t understand how this house out in the country could seem like home. Well, it’s definitely home now! An awesome home, too. We love it out here!

The whole house-building procedure that took one-and-a-half years is such a witness to God’s faithfulness, goodness and perfect timing! There are just so many little stories related to the house that just prove God’s involvement in this. What an amazing story it is! Psalm 112 is very true — “Blessed is he who fears the Lord, who finds delight in His commands.” Put simply, God blesses those who obey Him.

That said, it’s weird to be a whole year removed from the old house on East Adams Street in Belleville. But we really love it out in the country. It’s the perfect fit for our family!

Aside from this being the one-year anniversary of us moving in, today just happened to be a busy day in and of itself. In the morning, the family travelled to a nursing home in Belleville to visit my Great-Grandma. She can’t make it to our Christmas party this year, so we took the party to her! The little guys opened presents from her, and we just spent some time visiting with her. I think she really, really enjoyed it.

This afternoon, Paul and I had a gig to videotape a wedding in St. Charles. It was held at what’s called the Conservatory, which is actually a nicely-decorated greenhouse with pews and such. I had never been there nor heard of it before (the only Conservatory I knew of was from the board game Clue;), but it’s a beautiful little building!

Anyway, the wedding went well, as we had a pretty easy time taping it with our respective cameras and angles. After that, we headed over to the Four Points Sheraton in Fairview Heights for the reception, where we did some more recording. Paul did most of the recording at the reception, and that consisted mostly of the toast, cake cutting, dancing and then personal messages from friends and family of the bride and groom.

We plan to now edit these videos and produce a slick “demo” DVD to advertise our wedding — and pretty much any event — video services. By the way, need a videographer in the greater (or not so greater;) St. Louis area? Just let me know!

It’s December 23rd, two days from Christmas. I really ought to go to bed since it’s so late (or early, I guess!) and tomorrow is going to be a very busy day. I have a wedding to videotape in St. Charles, and the family is going to visit Great-Grandma in the nursing home in Belleville. So I must go sleep!

I’ve had some fun today playing around with Macromedia Flash. I downloaded the month-long trial version to test it out. If you’re unfamiliar with Flash, by the way, they are typically animations or games on websites. A lot of musical artists have their websites pretty much made entirely using Flash.

Anyway, the reason I got Flash is to try my hand at possibly making animations or cartoons. I have never really done anything in the way of making a cartoon, so I’m going to see just how I can do with it. I’m guessing it’s going to be pretty difficult to make an animation, but maybe I’ll be able to come up with something simple. Following a tutorial this evening, I already managed to come up with a spherical cartoonish head, complete with eyes, teeth and tongue. Now the trick is to make the little guy move. I made him blink!

So… we’ll see how that goes. This might just be a two-day craze of mine, or I might get hooked on the program and find a way to buy it outright. We shall see!

Tuesday is the beginning of winter, and it is definitely cold enough to be that season. We’ve had some extremely bitter temperatures the past couple of days. There hasn’t been any precipitation, but I hear we may get a few inches of snow on Wednesday. And Thursday’s high temperature is supposed to be 19 degrees with the low of 1°, so I think any snow we receive on Wednesday would stick around until the weekend.

I had another workout this evening in the family room. First I did a lot of free weights, then the bench press and then 20 minutes on the cross-trainer. I was able to watch Monday Night Football while working out, so it was a nice way to make the time pass. My hope is by the time I play volleyball again — which is about four weeks from now — I’ll be faster, stronger and have a higher jump than I do now. We’ll see what kind of progress I can make!

Softball is fun. So is volleyball. Out of those two sports, I’m pretty good at one and not so hot at the other. I like playing volleyball, but I’m just kind of frustrated with how I’ve been playing lately. I wouldn’t say I’m bad per se, but I’m definitely not an all-star. I guess that’s understandable since I only began playing a year ago, and have maybe played a total of 40 nights or something. I may even be playing the best I have been since I started; I just wish I was improving faster.

One big aspect I need improving on is spiking. I definitely have the strength to put down a good spike, but my timing and placement and all of that just needs a lot of work. Every now and then, I’ll get a really good hand on the ball and have a nice spike, but that’s just way too rare. I’m able to jump pretty high and I have the arm to do it with. I just haven’t totally figured out how to spike effectively. It seems like I need the absolute perfect set to be able to get a decent spike. I see other guys take bad sets and knock down a great spike. Ah well… I suppose it just takes time.

I’ve been playing softball for like six years and volleyball for one year, so it’s understandable that I’m not at the top of my game yet. I suppose I just need to practice more and work on every aspect of my game! Hopefully I’ll make some progress soon.

By the way… we lost all three games tonight. Close games they were, but we just couldn’t pull out a “W.” Our next game isn’t until 2005 due to the holidays. Hopefully we won’t be too rusty when we pick it back up.

Saturday wasn’t too busy, actually. In the morning, John, Mark, Jude and I went over to Aunt Greta and Uncle Rob’s to help rearrange a bunch of stuff in their basement. We were at their house nearly four hours, so we got quite a bit done. Jenny was there, just reading a book in the living room. She was happy and acting like a normal nine-year-old, so that was really neat to see.

The past couple of days I have been working on a new project for our websites. It’s a counter of sorts, really, but it’s a little more advanced than your standard “This page has been visited 100 times,” sort of like my simple counter on this journal. This will have some more features and help us know what browser is being used, operating system, et cetera. Some of that info can be really handy when developing websites.

I’m excited because I get to play volleyball again today! After tonight’s game, though, I don’t play until January. So I’ll cherish it!

All the national media, it seems, has been really covering the Scott Peterson double-murder trial. What’s interesting is that he was convicted of two murders — his wife, Laci, and their unborn son, Connor.

What really makes no sense is that if Laci had gone to an abortion clinic earlier that day and had Connor killed, that wouldn’t have been a murder in the eyes of the law. And everyone agrees that it was a murder when Scott killed Laci and Connor. This case in particular just really highlights the foolishness of the whole pro-choice/pro-abortion argument. How would Connor have gone from being a lifeless fetus at the abortion clinic (in this hypothetical scenario) but then transforming into a baby when this murder occurred? Well, obviously he would have been a baby that morning at the abortion clinic! He was also a baby a month before, three months before, eight months before the murder.

There’s no question that it was a gruesome and horrible double murder. But I’m hoping that this case, due to its vast media coverage, will help people realize that, hey, unborn babies are still babies, and you just can’t justify killing a baby, born or unborn.

Christmas is approaching!

It was yet another busy, busy day. I finished typing in an EUO that ended up being 107 pages. Mark and I basically split the typing duties, and that kept us very busy for many hours.

I have to be up in a little more than six hours, so I’m going to head on to bed. Before I do, though, let’s do one of those quick recap things.

I spent a good part of this day typing in this EUO — that’s examination under oath to you. Also, I did some more video copying, as this 8MM-to-DVD project is almost finished. Actually, I finished the last of the seven 8MM tapes, and now I just have a final VHS tape to convert to DVD.

This evening, I took James over to GameStop in the Westfield Mall in St. Louis. The idea was to exchange an Xbox that he recently bought from a different GameStop. It was acting up and was still under their warranty so they exchanged it for him.

That was a very abbreviated version of this day. In the morning my brother Paul and I have to go move a bed for my Aunt Lisa, so I’d better get off to sleep.

And as I type it’s already tomorrow! My, these entries come way too late. It’s already 1:18 AM, and I just now finished everything I was working on tonight. That included some work on the brand-new website I’m building, mailing out some Christmas cards, updating our website and copying some more videos to DVDs. I sure wouldn’t mind a few 30-hour days about now. But, until that’s the case I must be wise and go get the sleep that’s awaiting me. Farewell!

Oh yes — I also got a haircut today.

Today kept me busy pretty much from dawn ’til dusk. I got up at 7:30 and after showering and such got to work. First, I spent some time editing this week’s Safe At Home episode on my computer. Around noon, the four oldest and Dad went over to Cici’s in Missouri, South County I call it. We ate lunch there, discussed different things going on with the family, website, business. I’m telling you, there’s a lot going on lately!

In the afternoon, I did some more editing, then video copying. Late afternoon, I printed up a deposition and left for Belleville with my sister, Mary.

We dropped off the depo on West Main Street in Belleville, stopped by the post office to drop off mail, drove through Taco Bell to get Wizzy a soft taco, and then we went on to the nursing home where my great-grandma is staying. Wizzy brought some beads and a star for a small tree that Grandma has set up in her room. So we put those on her tree, and we just talked with her for a while as she ate her dinner. It was neat to see her again. She said she’s been feeling good but tired.

This evening, we had our prayer group/meeting at our home. After that, I did some weight-lifting in the family room.

So it’s been a busy day! And I’m realizing that I’ll probably have a busy tomorrow, too, so I’d better go on and get some sleep.