Our beloved truck is having what appear to be problems with transmission. 
The past little bit, the gears have felt like they were “slipping.” Last night, the problem got really bad, and Paul and I dropped the truck off at the shop after our volleyball games. Hopefully, the transmission isn’t the problem, because that would cost many dollars. 
But… God will provide either way! Philippians 4:19: “And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”
Anyway, about volleyball. My team won two of three games. Our record for the year, over these past six weeks, was 13-5. I think that puts us in first place, and we have playoffs the next two weeks.
I’d better run. It’s a short entry, I know, but it’s the middle of Monday, and I have to leave in a few minutes. Please keep the truck situation in your prayers. Thanks a bunch! 
This morning, I went out to breakfast with Mom. We ate at the Denny’s in Belleville, and I had a great time getting to spend some time with Mom, talking about different things going on lately. Since we all generally keep fairly busy with our different responsibilities, it’s really great to be able to do things like this.
After getting back home, the two of us, along with Paul and Mark, started painting the front porch. We painted the latticework and the risers (kickboards) for the stairs. It has made such a huge difference already! The porch looks great. We’ll eventually probably paint the porch railing and the gray floor, but that’s for another day.
This afternoon, I scoped a few hours on a deposition of John’s. It’s the first depo of John’s that I actually scoped; all the others I have typed.
During tonight’s webcast, we debuted two new audio clips. One was a Mission Impossible parody that John and Mark put together. The other was a very short clip, assembled by Mark, Jude and I. Without divulging too much, I’ll say it was a commercial — at least the beginning of one. You can check out past “projects” of ours (mostly videos) at http://www.famteam.com/videos/.
This evening, Paul and I met up with John at the YMCA over in Belleville. I hadn’t been there in months (:|), so I was happy to get back to working out. I guess this is a step towards remediation from our trip and its lack of exercise coupled with an abundance of food. :-[
It’s always such a satisfying feeling after working out. It makes me wonder why I don’t do it more often! Hopefully, I’ll be able to get in a routine of a couple of workouts a week as softball winds down. A few years ago, I really got into a good exercise regimen. I ended up losing a bunch of weight, gaining a lot of speed and getting stronger. I haven’t really lost any ground on that front, but I might as well stay on top of things and make even more progress. I want to hit more home runs next year.
Today, I tried my hand at reading back court reporting notes from the book. The sentences I read were very basic. I feel like I’m in kindergarten or something. 
I was reading aloud “The rug is soft” and other like sentences. I’m enriching my word power; that’s for sure. 
Seriously, it’s not that simple. The notes look something like this: “S/T/KAR/STOP/G/STPH.” That translates into “Is the car stopping?” Interesting, no? That’s stenography for ya. 
We’ve yet to hear definitively one way or the other from the Casting Crowns media relations lady in regards to whether or not they’ll be available for an interview next week. I sure hope they will be! We’re even willing to drive two hours or so to Springfield, Illinois, where they’ll be this Thursday night. So we’ll see.
By the way, today we received a book and a DVD in the mail (thanks, Julia! :)). The book is “One Heartbeat Away,” and the DVD is “Pride Goes Before Destruction,” both by Mark Cahill. I’m very excited to read and watch them, respectively. I read Cahilll’s “One Thing You Can’t Do In Heaven,” and I loved it. It really challenged me to reach out to folks and point them towards Jesus. I’m anxious to look at these.
Yesterday morning, Mark and I went outside in order to clean off our white picket fence and the latticework under our porch. We had used a white stain instead of a latex paint, and for some reason that caused mildew to start to gather. 
Since we would prefer that our woodwork remain white instead of green, that meant we had to spray it with a special bleach-type solution. Soon, we’ll have to paint the latticework and the fence with a white latex-based paint so we won’t run into this problem again.
In the afternoon, I did some work on web development. I registered a couple of domain names — one for the attorney whose website I built, and the other is for my server. The second one (arndtreporting.com) is more for testing than anything, I would say. I may eventually create a website for the family business, Arndt Reporting & Legal Video. In fact, that’s something that I would like to do sometime, and I think it would be helpful for the business.
Last night, we played a 7:30 softball game against Buzz. Since the light problems continued on the field we were scheduled to play on, our game was moved to the baseball field at Citizen’s Park. This field is very nice! I had never played there before, but it’s really attractive. It sports a grass infield, it’s very well-lit, and it even has covered dugouts. Boy, were we spoiled. It’s also much larger than the softball diamonds.
Well, it happened to be a rainy evening last night. By the time our team took the field, it was extremely gloppy. Wherever there was dirt, it was more like quicksand. The rain continued to pour throughout the game, and we ended up losing 8-7. I batted 0-1 with three walks. I wasn’t too upset that I didn’t get to swing the bat more, since it wasn’t the best conditions. I was just happy to get on base thrice without taking the chance of letting the slippery bat fly out of my hands.
Oh, yeah. One more thing.
Casting Crowns is coming to town next Friday, October 28th. Paul had the idea of trying to land an interview with them to put on our cable TV show and the website. Naturally, I thought it was an excellent idea, so I hopped online and found out who we needed to get in touch with to see if such an interview was possible.
Paul ended up speaking with a lady who is in charge of different media relations, and he is going to e-mail her some more information about exactly who we are, what the show is about — basic stuff like that.
Who knows if it would work out to interview them, but if it did I would think that would be awesome! The lead singer, Mark Hall, is a youth leader/pastor at a church in Atlanta, and I really like his way of approaching things. The group’s songs are really unique but very bold at the same time. It’s hard to listen to either one of their CDs without thinking, “Oh, that’s me,” or “Yeah, I’ve been there.”
So we’ll see how this pans out. Interview or no interview, I would really like to go to this concert. The tickets aren’t too expensive — $15 apiece at the cheapest — and the venue, the St. Charles Family Arena, is less than an hour away, I would say. So either way, I’m hoping to find a way to get there on the 28th. It would be icing on the cake if I get to meet the band.
Please keep this in your prayers! If we are able to get an interview, I think it can impact a lot of people through our show and the website. Lord, let Your will be done!
Today, I spent quite a bit of time practicing court reporting. I’m at the stage now where I’m beginning to learn the “keyboard” on the steno machine. I have also practiced taking down words such as “cat,” “start” and other simple ones. I’m very, very slow on the keyboard, and I still have to hunt for keys pretty often. Someday, though, I might just be taking down conversations at the blazing speed of 225 words per minute.
This evening was Game Six of the NLCS. We invited Mandy and Cameron, some friends of ours, over to watch the game. We made a little party out of it, with pizza, chips, brownies and the like.
Sadly, the Cardinals lost the game 5-1, thus losing the series 4-2. It was disappointing, but I’m happy for the Astros. This is their first-ever World Series appearance. Actually, I think it’ll be an interesting Series. I’m rooting for the Chicago White Sox, but I don’t really care that much one way or the other. It should be fun to follow.
You have probably noticed the new layout of this blog. I’ve spent some time fiddling around with it, and what I have so far is a greener theme — the leafy background, the green boxes. I had a really hard time finding color schemes that I liked, but I thought this turned out okay. It’s still not ultra flashy by any means. Maybe someday I’ll make a bold move and put in a bright color.
Today, I spent quite a bit of time practicing court reporting. I’m at the stage now where I’m beginning to learn the “keyboard” on the steno machine. I have also practiced taking down words such as “cat,” “start” and other simple ones. I’m very, very slow on the keyboard, and I still have to hunt for keys pretty often. Someday, though, I might just be taking down conversations at the blazing speed of 225 words per minute.
This evening was Game Six of the NLCS. We invited Mandy and Cameron, some friends of ours, over to watch the game. We made a little party out of it, with pizza, chips, brownies and the like.
Sadly, the Cardinals lost the game 5-1, thus losing the series 4-2. It was disappointing, but I’m happy for the Astros. This is their first-ever World Series appearance. Actually, I think it’ll be an interesting Series. I’m rooting for the Chicago White Sox, but I don’t really care that much one way or the other. It should be fun to follow.
You have probably noticed the new layout of this blog. I’ve spent some time fiddling around with it, and what I have so far is a greener theme — the leafy background, the green boxes. I had a really hard time finding color schemes that I liked, but I thought this turned out okay. It’s still not ultra flashy by any means. Maybe someday I’ll make a bold move and put in a bright color.
I spent a good part of today working on this week’s Safe At Home show. In this hour-long episode, there’s footage of a recent trip the family took to Forest Park to watch a hot air balloon race. Additionally, there is a highlight reel of family footage that Paul put together. It turned out pretty nice.
Later this afternoon, I cracked open a book that teaches the theory and method behind court reporting. For years, I’ve been working for the family court reporting business, but starting now I’m more or less a student, working to become a certified shorthand reporter.
This evening, I spent some time out on the trampoline with Caleb, Peter and David. Caleb and Peter love to be bounced around. David, however, just giggles as he cautiously hops along the side of the trampoline. The chubs seemed to have a good time.
For the second straight night, our softball game was cancelled due to darkness. Evidently, the problem with the lights has not been fixed yet. Hopefully things will be all set by the time Thursday’s game rolls around.
In other news, I’ve been thinking about changing the color scheme of this blog. I’ve had this relatively simple one for quite some time now. Does anybody have any suggestions one way or the other? Stay the same? Different colors?
Well, it has been an odd night for sports. First, we had a 7:30 softball game scheduled for tonight. When we arrive at the park, the lights are completely out on the diamond which we were playing on. After waiting for a little while, the umpires determined that the light problem wasn’t immediately fixable, so the games on that diamond were called. That’s the first time we’ve ever had a game called due to darkness. We have had plenty of rain-outs, but this was our first dark-out.
After that, we came home in order to watch two games on TV — Game Five of the Cardinals/Astros NLCS and Rams at Colts on Monday Night Football. Paul, Jude and I spent 45 minutes at home before we got ready to leave for a 9:30 game, in which we were subbing for the Killer Beez on the lit field.
As we left the house, the Cardinals were leading 2-1, and the Rams were up 17-0 on the Colts. As the evening progressed, the Cards lost the lead and ended up trailing 4-2 in the top of the ninth… with two outs… and two strikes. Houston was one strike away from their first-ever World Series berth.
David Eckstein smacked a base hit, Jim Edmonds followed with a walk, and Albert Pujols absolutely crushed a Brad Lidge slider, and the Cardinals took a 5-4 lead. Jason Isringhausen shut down the Astros in the bottom of the inning, and the series is heading back to St. Louis for Wednesday’s Game Six and a possible Game Seven. It was an amazing comeback!
The Rams, unfortunately, didn’t fare so well. The Colts came back with a vengeance as the Rams’ defense melted down. The final score was 45-28. :-[
I’m still sifting through a lot of what has been said by different folks throughout the day. I’m really thankful for everything that everyone has shared! I’m liking this comment system.
First off, I want to thank everybody who, through e-mails and comments, offered prayers and advice. I really appreciate it, guys! Thanks for the down-to-earth, practical ideas on how to witness to somebody. I just pray that God will use me however He wills it; that I would be ready and waiting to be His hands or feet to whoever, whenever. Like Julia pointed out, I think it’s got to help a lot to have more experience in handling people in these situations. But there’s only one way to get that experience: to actually go out on a limb and reach out to people.
Thanks again for chiming in. I’m still seeking anybody’s thoughts on this whole subject, so feel free to get in touch with me.