Luke’s Notebook

It’s the weekend! It’s been a really busy week yet again, and this weekend is welcomed with open arms — that is, if that were possible. Anyway, I’m glad the weekend is here. Finally, I’m happy to report, it seems like it’s going to be a relatively slow weekend. No dodgeball, baby shower or guests tomorrow. However, tomorrow night we do have another live webcast, but that is in the evening and really won’t last all that long. Plus, it’s fun! Last week we got quite a few callers, and it was really cool to get to meet the folks and actually speak with them while on the air.

On Sunday, I don’t think we have anything planned, either. I have my final volleyball games, unfortunately. I do not want to stop playing volleyball! I’m getting better, I’m having more fun, and I’m making more friends at the Sportsplex. I don’t want to stop! Oh well… it’s definitely been fun! I’ll probably start playing again in the fall, when softball starts to wind down. I just wish I could keep playing volleyball for a while. Even sand volleyball. I haven’t done that in quite some time, but I think it’d be a lot of fun!

That’s all for now. Have a fine weekend, you journal readers! I will leave you with this from 1 Timothy 4: Command and teach these things. Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.

This morning, I drove to downtown Belleville, where I visited a law office, where an attorney had me over to take care of some computer-related issues for him. First on the agenda was to install two wireless network cards into two desktop computers in the building. I installed them and configured them to work with his wireless DSL router. I also set up WEP security across the network, which makes it a really secure network and won’t just allow any joker with a laptop to hop on his network. No, sir. Their four-computer network should be very, very secure now.

The attorney also had me take care of a couple of things, such as removing some viruses/spyware/adware from his computer. I ended up staying there for a little over four hours, but I took a brief lunch break, wherein we all ate some Pizza Hut pizza. Pepperoni and sausage — not bad, not bad. So I ended up earning some dough and eating some pizza, and I left the office around 2:30.

While I was still in Belleville, I decided to finally get a haircut. It had been long overdue, so I went to Fantastic Sam’s and got sheared. I’m amazed at the difference! I like this new ‘do, with shorter hair and a clean-cut look. I’m definitely glad I got the haircut.

This evening I have spent a few hours working on the attorney’s old laptop. It’s a Sony Vaio with a Pentium processor, running at a not-so-fast 166 MHz. He wants me to back up the data, format the hard drive and reinstall Windows 95. After much difficulty, I managed to back up the hard drive. Now the restore process is taking place. Hopefully I’ll have that all finished by tomorrow and be able to return it to him!

Well, I’m going to get going. I’ve had some more profound thoughts that I would like to share, but it’s easier and more efficient to give concise summaries. I’ll have to allocate a little more brain space to this, though, so I can actually think when I type and share what’s on my heart and my mind. ‘Til then, though, it’s summaries.

We played at 8:30 tonight against the Saints. The game only lasted five-and-a-half innings due to some very heavy rain that fell. We were up 14-7 at the time the storm hit, and the umpires decided to call the game after the field was so messy and squishy.

I batted pretty well tonight, though, going 3-3 with a home run, a double and a single. My homer actually sailed out by quite a bit. I was surprised to see the ball carry that far. But I’m certainly not going to argue! =) My batting average now is .652 and my on-base percentage is .815. Both are kind of artifically high, due to the young season. If I can even keep those numbers around .550 and .700, respectively, I’d consider that a very good season! But I’ll just take it game by game. Last night, I went 1-3 in a win. So ya never know how you’ll bat on a given night.

Well, I’m gonna get going. I ought to get some sleep.

It’s been yet another really busy weekend around these parts.

On Thursday, we had Nick, David and Joe Balassi come over to spend a few days with us. They had fun fishing, playing Xbox, baseball and just hanging around with the younger guys. On Saturday morning, Maggie, their older sister, picked them up.

Saturday afternoon, some of us older guys went to a baby shower for my cousin, Dan Dalechek, and his wife, Joni. The reason guys were invited was because they had rented out a gymnasium in order to play dodgeball. It was my first time ever playing the “new” dodgeball — what I mean by that is not the kind I played on the school grounds, where everyone is in a circle, dodging one ball. There were teams of six going at it with seven different spongey balls to throw around.

It didn’t take too long to learn the rules, which were: don’t get hit, hit the other guy, try to catch a thrown ball or deflect it with a ball of your own. Pretty simple objective, really. The team with the last player(s) standing wins. Anyway, once we got a quick run-down of the rules, it was time to play. I’ve got to say — it was fun! I did pretty well, if I do say so myself. I had one point where I was the last guy left on our team, playing against four other guys, and I managed to come back and knock them out! It was great fun. Quite a cardio workout, it was!

My team was comprised of Kelly, my brother John, Josh, some other unknown guy and another person whose name escapes me. We did pretty good, though. Lots of fun.

Saturday evening, we had our first-ever FamTeam Webcast — basically a live radio show in the Family Room. We took phone calls, prayed over the “air,” and just had great fun! It was an historic moment. =)

On Sunday after church, a few of us went to our favorite pizza buffet, Cici’s. A little bit after we got there, I got a call from my brother John, who told me the Balassi’s were going to meet up with us there. So a little while after that, they arrived, and we had a fun time eating and talking. Lots of fun.

Sunday afternoon/evening, I became aware of the problems we were having with the server — specifically, our message boards, as our hosting company contacted me and told me there was a security issue that we needed to take care of. So I had to spend quite a few hours on Sunday and a few today in order to get the forums upgraded. Thank God that everything is running smoothly again, because that was not fun. I don’t want to do that again.

Now, this morning/afternoon has been a fun one, as well. The Balassi’s came over again, since the boys are spending today and tomorrow at our house. Maggie, Jessica and their friends John and Jonielle came over, and we had a mini party, as we played in the rec room and grilled for lunch. It was fun! Unfortunately, it was in the middle of a work day, but thankfully I was able to take a few breaks and have fun with everyone. =)

I’ve got to get going now. We have a softball game scheduled at 9:30, and, weather permitting, we’ll be playing in an hour. So that means I’d better get ready. I wonder if the rain will hold out.

Hey, I’m back. I would have posted yesterday, but it was a crazily busy day, especially considering we had more server troubles! Argh!

I had to upgrade our message board software due to some security problems, so that has kept me very busy the past day or so. I think we’re out of the woods now, though, so thank God for that! I’ll still need to update you on the weekend — dodgeball, webcast, Cici’s and more!

Until then, though, I must go and get some work done.

Oh, yes, it is!

Well, anyway, I’m going to sleep. But, still, dodgeball is fun. You’d better believe it. Seriously. It’s fun.

I got to sleep pretty late last night thanks in part to some heavy rain and hail we were receiving around 1:30 AM. I could hear hail pinging off the roof, and then there was the wind and the rain. So that was kind of strange. I don’t think the hail lasted all that long, but it was pretty loud as it was falling.

Okay, so anyway, let’s move to today. The morning was filled with plenty of work, much of which was printing a few depositions. I must have printed a good 500 or 700 pages today.

Early in the afternoon, Dad took Paul, John, Mark and I out to Ryan’s Steakhouse for a lunch meeting. It was a nice change of pace, and we all had a great time getting to slow down and just have fun talking and eating. It was good eatin’.

I came home, did more work, watched the Braves defeat the Phillies and the Cardinals hang on to beat the Astros. It’s neat to have so many baseball games on every day! So much to choose from. Of course, I usually will pick the Braves’ or Cardinals’ games, if they’re available.

Well, time to call it a night yet again. April is starting to wind down, and we’re almost a third of the way through the year 2005. Wow.

This afternoon, my video card arrived. For some odd reason, it took about 10 days to ship from Iowa to Illinois. *shrug* I guess next time I shouldn’t select the Pony Express as my preferred method…

Anyway, the GeForce4 Ti4200 seems to work pretty well. I had the most difficult time getting the computer to even recognize the thing! I was pretty flustered and almost gave up on several occasions. Finally, I decided, as a last-ditch effort, to take a Q-Tip with alcohol and clean the actual AGP slot on my motherboard. Amazingly, that did the trick! The computer picked up the card, and since then it’s been working very well. I’ve tried it with a few games, and so far I’m pretty impressed with the performance. I think it was a good buy! =)

This evening, we played a softball game against the Beavers. We kind of forgot how to hit and ended up trailing 11-0 in the bottom of the seventh inning. We managed to bang out eight runs that inning, but was too little, too late. If only we had hit like that in the previous six innings! Ah well. It was still fun.

After the game, we were hit with a huge rainstorm. I was driving when the storm hit, and it got to the point where I nearly had to pull over due to poor visibility. The rain was so heavy! And let’s not forget the lightning, which was quite prevalent this evening. But, thankfully, everybody made it home safely with no accidents or anything, and now the storm has passed and we’re at a cool 63 degrees outside.

Well, that’s it for now. Ta!

Okay, here’s what happened over the weekend. I’m writing this at the end of Wednesday, so it’s a little bit odd to do a weekend recap when we’re closer to next weekend. But, better late than never, right? Right.

On Friday morning, I went over to an attorney’s office in Belleville in order to help him out with some issues he was having with his wireless network and his laptop. After about two-and-a-half hours of troubleshooting, I finally managed to get his laptop online and able to sustain a connection. It was a really strange problem; one I never ran into before. It had something to do with WEP security for the wireless router. But, I managed to get it working reliably, and now he’s able to carry his laptop around the office and get online. Good going, me!

Around 2:00 in the afternoon, Mark and I hit the road, heading west on Interstate 70. After nearly two hours of driving, we arrived in Pana, Illinois, and found St. Patrick’s Catholic Church. The wedding rehearsal began at 5:00, so we arrived nearly an hour before it was set to get underway. Mark and I surveyed the church and kind of got an idea of where we would like to put our cameras.

We were able to talk with the priest, the groom, the father of the groom and the bride. We also watched the rehearsal and were able to get a good idea of how things were going to take place.

Mark and I initially planned on staying the night in Pana since the wedding was at 1:00 PM on Saturday, but we decided to drive home, especially since there really wasn’t much of interest in or around Pana. It’s basically a small town surrounded by lots and lots of farms and cornfields. So we made the trek home and prepared for Saturday.

Saturday morning, we got all ready, packed up the video equipment yet again, got our dress shirts and ties on, and pulled away from the house around 10:00 in the morning. We arrived in Pana a little bit before noon, which gave us plenty of time to set up. The wedding began around 1:00 and lasted a good 45 minutes. The videotaping of it went very well, and I think it will turn out quite nicely.

After the wedding, we started driving towards Taylor Springs, which is where the reception was to begin at 5:30. It was about a 45-minute drive from Pana, so we decided to first head that way and then find some place to eat lunch. We found Taylor Springs, located the hall where the reception was to be held, and then we started looking for a place to eat.

Around 3:30, we happened upon a restaurant in Hillsboro called Salvatore’s, and Mark and I, being quite hungry, decided to order an 18-inch pepperoni pizza. I’m proud to say we managed to down the entire thing, and after hanging out for a bit at the pizza place, we went back to the reception hall and got ready to record the evening’s events.

The reception recording went really well, also. I videotaped everything from the arrival of the wedding party — when they pulled into the parking lot in their Excursion limo — their entrance into the hall, the toasts by the best man and maid of honor, the cutting of the wedding cake (which was just an amazing creation, by the way), the first dance, the garter and bouquet toss, messages from friends and family of the bride and groom — all that good stuff. We ended up staying at the reception nearly four hours, and I think Mark and I got some excellent footage.

Around 9:00 or 9:30, we finally called it a night, packed up and left. We began our drive home and decided to stop at Steak ‘N Shake in nearby Collinsville for a late shake. It was a nice way to unwind after a really crazy weekend. All in all, I’d say everything went terrific! I’m so thankful that it went off without a hitch — okay, well, maybe one hitch. =)

So that’s it! I don’t like to brag, but I think we did (and do, by the way) excellent work when it comes to videotaping a wedding, special event, graduation, play, et cetera. So, for all of your video needs, contact Arndt Video! By the way, we also do photo slideshows on DVD, which people seem to really like. And, of course, all the basic stuff, such as converting tapes to DVD, simply copying tapes — you know, all that good stuff. I’ve had occasions where people will even mail me their stuff, I’ll do the project and mail the finished product back to them. So keep that in mind! Check out http://www.arndtvideo.com for more info.

I don’t let myself get cheesed, perturbed, annoyed, bent out of shape, angry or just plain mad very often. But there are a handful of things that just kind of really bug me! So I’m a tad bit frustrated at the moment. Maybe I’m odd, but there are a few specific things that really kind of get under my skin. I suppose we all have quirks like that. It makes for an interesting human race, that’s for sure! =)