Luke’s Notebook

I have so much to write about. Unfortunately, it’s already late into the night… so we’ll see what I can muster.

Today marked the two-year anniversary of our family moving into this new house. For one-and-a-half years (beginning in June of 2002), we had worked on this project, day-in and day-out, spending countless hours here. Finally, on a cold December 23rd evening, we decided it was time to take the plunge.

Two years later, I’m amazed at how things are now. I’m so thankful for this house, for our beautiful property, and for the room we have here, both inside and out. It makes a perfect place for hosting friends and having get-togethers. Thank You, God!

Today, thanks to Jude’s hard work, we officially released the Game Room for the general public! The URL is http://www.famteam.com/gameroom/. Currently, we have two games (Reversi and Tic-Tactics), but we have two more that are in the works. I’d encourage you to check out the Game Room. It’s unique in that you can play online against other people — similar to Yahoo! Games or the MSN Gaming Zone.

Just a heads-up — it’s absolutely free, but in order to play one of the online games you must have a FamTeam Message Boards account. It’s extremely simple to acquire one of those; visit http://www.famteam.com/forums/ for that.

And I want challengers! Anybody out there — want to play me in a game of Reversi or Tic-Tactics? Let me know, and we can set up a time.

I’ve got more to write, but it’s on an entirely different topic. So… I’ll just make a new post.

Today felt like a Saturday, which is kind of weird since it wasn’t even close. It was a Thursday. So… go figure.

This evening, Dad, Mark and I went to visit Great-Grandma at the nursing home. When we got there, Aunt Berni and Uncle Dave were just wrapping up a visit with her. From what I can tell, Grandma doesn’t seem to be doing as well as she was when I visited her on Saturday, and not nearly as well as when I took Peter to visit her two Sundays ago. I think the medications she is taking may be affecting her a lot, but I’m not exactly sure what is causing what.

Tonight, I had a midnight snack which came in the form of a slice of Domino’s pizza. I don’t normally let myself have midnight (or near-bedtime) snacks, but I decided to cut myself some slack tonight, seeing as I was very hungry, and this was a freshly-leftover pizza from a family party this evening (see Jude’s blog for more on that). If I were ever elected president, I would ensure that it would be a federal offense to allow pizza to go to waste (and I wonder why I have a hard time staying in shape ;-)). Anyway, it was a satisfying snack.

It’s the first day of winter! Jude and I played some basketball at the YMCA this afternoon, and later we worked out a bit. Now, on to the important stuff…

I just read this a little bit ago from the second chapter of 1 John:

My children, I am writing this to you so that you may not commit sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one. He is expiation for our sins, and not for our sins only but for those of the whole world.

The way we may be sure that we know him is to keep his commandments. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly perfected in him. This is the way we may know that we are in union with him: whoever claims to abide in him ought to live (just) as he lived.

Those are pretty clear instructions! How do we know if we’re “OK” with God? If we are living just as Jesus did. No question that we’ve all failed and fallen short of perfect obedience to God. But we need to have our heart’s desire be to replicate how Jesus lived, to love like He did.

If our goal is to truly live a life that makes our Maker smile, then I think it’s extremely hard to stray from Him. When the Holy Spirit is living in us, we are constantly being refined, and we don’t want to sin, because it would be offending God. Though we’re still human and are prone to slip up, we’ll hate the thought of disobeying God, and we’ll want to strive to honor Him in every part of our life.

Sadly, a lot of people’s — Christians included — lifestyles are contradictory to the life that Jesus modeled for us. We need to be humble enough to be willing to surrender different parts of our life that are not in tune with that. Trust me, this can be a very difficult thing to do! But it’s got to be done. If we are knowingly rebelling against God — no matter how seemingly small the infraction may be — how can we expect grace and forgiveness?

When we realize just what we deserve — an eternity spent in hell — and think about the amazing grace that is offered to us through Jesus’ blood, we ought to be completely overwhelmed at this second chance, and be willing to cast off anything that could possibly interfere with our salvation. To think that we have the opportunity to escape hell and spend eternity in heaven, we should make sure we accept that gift, no matter what the cost.

I’ve been making a lot of progress on SmorgasWord Online (working title), and it’s really satisfying! Today, I got to the point where the game was actually playable. It’s not very user-friendly yet, but John, Mark, Jude and I had a lot of fun testing the game out. I think I’m through with the most difficult parts of the game, and now I get to take care of some easier stuff, fixing different bugs, tightening it up, making it intuitive and easy to use. But that should be a pretty simple task compared to some of the other portions of the game that I’ve already finished.

I’m hoping that we can release the game in early 2006. With the momentum I’ve had lately while working on it, that seems like a very feasible goal. I’m anxious to see how people like it! Personally, I think it has a lot of potential, and I have already had a blast testing it out. So we’ll see what kind of response there is once it’s out there.

This afternoon, we received a call from somebody asking if we could cover a very-last-minute video deposition in Edwardsville. The call was received, oh, maybe 50 minutes before the deposition’s scheduled start time, and Edwardsville is a good half-hour from here. Paul handles most of the video depositions, but since he was unavailable this afternoon, I hurriedly gathered all of the video equipment and rushed out the door.

I arrived a few minutes after it was slated to start. Thankfully, they were running late, and when I got there everybody was just sitting in the waiting room. After waiting for a good half-hour or so, I was informed that they decided to cancel the video portion of the depo, which meant I was free to return home. Oh, well! One thing about this line of work is that you have to deal with cancellations from time to time. At least I had more time to spend at home.

The past week or so, I’ve been downloading so many new programs to my computer. Let me try to list all that I’ve installed in the past little bit. I acquired two titling programs, for use with video production. I downloaded a new PDF reader, Foxit Reader, which is much faster than Adobe Acrobat. I also downloaded CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 12, which has quite a few programs includes with it. I’ve played around with CorelDRAW itself, CorelTRACE and Corel R.A.V.E.

CorelTRACE is very impressive! You can load any old photo, and it will trace it and create a vector object from it. This probably means nothing to most people, but it’s a very good thing. Have you ever seen a Flash animation on a website and tried zooming in? Well, if it’s text or an animation (vector), typically you can blow it up as large as you want without losing quality, since the object is kind of being re-drawn all the time. Conversely, if you blow up an image, it will get pixelated and lose quality, since it is just a compilation of a bunch of dots.

Anyway, this vector object that is created is great because it’s just a compilation of a lot of polygons. So you could zoom in on something very, very small in the picture, and you can actually change the shape, the color, the size or the location of the polygon. It may sound confusing — and I’m still kind of learning all about vector objects — but basically, when you have a vector object you can pretty much resize it to infinity since it’s all mathematical; it just multiplies what has been drawn.

Does that make any sense? If you want a good example, go to http://www.arndtvideo.com/ and zoom in on the animation. The text will remain smooth and crisp, but the Arndt Video image will lose quality. How about now… does that clear things up?

Oh, and if you happen to be well-versed in the area of vector objects or Flash animation, please get in touch with me. I’d like to learn some stuff from you.

Ah… five days until Christmas! That’s just really exciting. I love this time of year. Obviously, there would be no Christmas without Christ, and it’s good to always remember His birth and, more importantly, His sacrifice for us. Then there’s also the Christmas traditions — the music, the excuses for spending extra time with family and friends that you don’t see enough. It’s fun.

There are a couple of not-so-cool things about this time, and they both have to do with the weather. For one, it is cold. My second gripe is the lack of humidity! Having carpeted floors, if I touch anything metal I receive some pretty fierce zaps. Is anybody else getting electrocuted daily?!

Another bad thing about dry weather is that skin gets dry, too. My hands — knuckles, especially — are quick to get dried out, and they start to hurt unless I’m real careful about keeping them moist with lotion. It’s either that, or I just stop washing my hands until we get some moisture in the air.

I spent a good part of today working on my new game — well, the game that I’m creating. It’s home will be the Game Room at www.famteam.com (which is about to be open to the public, by the way!). And… I might as well release the working title, which is SmorgasWord or SmorgasWord Online. It is a word game, but in a very unique way. Don’t worry; it’s fun!

This evening, Jude and I worked out at the YMCA. Despite my most sincere efforts, I just could not think of a valid excuse to weasel out of working out tonight. Oh, well. Now that it’s over, I’m very glad I went through with it. Once I force myself to work out, I tend to get into it, and I end up feeling very satisfied at the end of the night. Next time I want to shirk on working out, I’ll just have to read this entry.

Hey, all right! We won all three games tonight. I think that puts us at 6-6 this season. That’s certainly a nice way to enter into this hiatus from volleyball.

After our game, my cousin-in-law Joni Dalechek (Dan’s wife) asked if I would be able to keep an eye on their baby, Ethan, while they played volleyball. I was happy to help out, so I just sat on the bleachers with the cute little chub in a car seat on the floor. Dan and Joni’s team happened to be playing at the same time as Paul’s team, albeit on a separate court, so I was able to watch parts of both teams’ games.

I’ve realized just how many people we know that were playing volleyball tonight! On my team, there was me, Jude, my Aunt Jane, Aunt Greta and Uncle Rob, and long-time family friend Judy. A second cousin of ours was on the team we played against tonight. On Paul’s team, there are two cousins of ours along with our friend Steve. On Dan’s team, there are four cousins — well, two cousins and two cousins-in-law, I guess — and we are good friends with the other two folks on their team.

So basically, I knew almost everyone on three different teams tonight. It was neat!

Then take a break from reading this, and go read Romans 8. That chapter is so encouraging, starting off with:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

Romans 8 ends with:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Isn’t that pretty awesome that nothing can separate us from the love of God? That truth ought to be enough to put a smile on everyone’s face, knowing that throughout anything life will bring us, we’ll never be separated from God’s love.

I’m about to get going with Jude to play our final three volleyball games of 2005. Our next game is nearly a month away, on January 15th, 2006. Earlier in the day, some of us drove over to St. Charles to eat lunch at Pizza Street. I’ve been there once before, and I was thoroughly impressed. Good pizza + good salad + good desserts + ice cream + Diet Dr Pepper - $3.49 = lots of great food for a low price. It’s a dangerous place to go to for anyone trying to eat sensibly. Thankfully, it’s a good 50-minute drive from our house, so it’d be hard to accidentally be in that neighborhood. Still, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if I find myself wandering in that direction every now and then…

Well, time to go play volleyball. Jude, let’s win some games tonight, okay?

It’s been a unique Saturday. I spent some time this afternoon working on the new game for our website. I’m making more and more progress. It’s definitely a challenge, but I’m slowly moving along. I’m very anxious to have this game finished with, because I think it will be really popular. I know I have a blast when playing it.

This evening, I went over to the nursing home in order to visit with my great-grandma. She was pretty talkative and alert, though she seemed to be a little bit out of touch with reality at different times. Here condition has definitely declined since last Sunday, when I took Peter to visit her. I spent about two hours there before leaving to come back home after she fell asleep.

Later on tonight, we had a little get-together at our house, with a bunch of aunts, uncles and cousins visiting us as well as a few friends, namely Maggie, Jessica and Erin. We didn’t do all that much; we mainly just talked and played some DDR. I had a good time, though.

We’re approaching the one-year anniversary of the car accident that led to Elizabeth, one of the best friends of those girls, passing away. Thinking of this, in addition to everything that’s going on with Great-Grandma and her health worsening, I’ve been struck at how strange life can be. I mean, why is it that my great-grandma is living 75 years longer than 16-year-old Elizabeth? It’s just odd. Elizabeth is in heaven, and we all know that she isn’t suffering at all, but is in paradise.

Still, it’s just weird how this all works. In one of Mark Cahill’s books — I think it was his second one, “One Heartbeat Away” — he brought up a very good point. He was explaining how we don’t necessarily know how old or young someone is by looking at their age. The more accurate way is to consider what percentage of their life they have lived, which, of course, is unknown. I’m 20 years old, and if I live to be 100, that means I’ve lived 20 percent of my life. However, if I pass away when I’m 40, I’m essentially middle-aged, as half of my life has passed me. If I die when I’m 21, then I’m very old relatively speaking.

Basically, the point is that we don’t know how old we are in terms of what percentage of our life we have lived. Being 20, I’m not promised at least another 50 or 60 years. And since we don’t know, and we have all seen or heard of people passing away unexpectedly, we need to know that our next breath, our next heartbeat, is never guaranteed. Realizing this, we need to be ready right now.

It’d be foolish for us to plan on correcting our priorities in the future instead of taking care of them right now. What a shame it would be if you were too busy pursuing your “life” — your education, your job, your relationships — that you missed out on chances to love your God and your family. I just need to constantly remind myself what is really important, what really counts, what will really last.

We’re past midnight, which means we’re one week away from Christmas Eve and two weeks away from New Year’s Eve. 2006 is a mere 15 days away. Wow.

Well, I’ve been all over the place today. In the morning and early afternoon, I worked on scoping a hearing. Later in the afternoon, I drove over to St. Louis in order to drop off a tape with this week’s “Safe At Home” episode.

As I was driving through downtown St. Louis, heading west on I-64/Highway 40, I saw the new Busch Stadium and the ruins from the old stadium. A couple of weeks ago, Dad and a few of us visited the construction/demolition site, and only a small piece of the old Busch remained. It’s all gone now, which is really strange to see.

In the evening, Paul, Jude, Philip and I went to the YMCA. I had a pretty thorough workout with the Nautilus machines and free weights, and afterwards the four of us played a few two-on-two basketball games. We were later joined by a couple of folks, so we played some three-on-three. Good exercise, for sure.

Speaking of exercise — cardiovascular exercise, obviously, is a great calorie-burner. Activities such as basketball games, running on a treadmill/cross-trainer/elliptical machine and dancing on DDR are all great ways to get my heart pumping. I’m going to try to “play” DDR more often, hopefully having a couple of really good sessions a week. If I can manage that, coupled with three YMCA visits a week and volleyball on Sundays, then I should be good to go.

Tomorrow night, some family members (aunts, uncles, cousins and the like) are coming over for a band practice of sorts. They have put together a Christmas band, comprised of many cousins (some of our guys included), along with a handful of aunts and uncles. They’re going to be jamming in our basement. Should be fun.

I appreciate the prayers for my great-grandma, everyone. So far, there’s not really a lot of news. Members from our family as well as some of Dad’s brothers have been taking shifts, spending time with her at the nursing home. Grandma and Grandpa Arndt our currently out of town, but I hear they are on their way back from their trip. Hopefully Great-Grandma will be able to hang on long enough for Grandma and Grandpa to get to see her again.

Today, aside from work — which consisted of some website work along with scoping of a transcript and some more work on the “Safe At Home” show — I danced quite a bit! I competed with Seth and Jacob, and then later this evening I joined Mom, Philip and John at different times. Man, that game (DDR) is so fun, and it is a terrific way to exercise without having to hop in the car and drive to the YMCA or something. It’s a good cardio workout.

Speaking of DDR, my confidence has swelled to the point of me publicly challenging our friend Ashley (”Ashley” on the FamTeam Message Boards) to a DDR dance-off at our New Year’s Eve get-together (see http://famteam.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5255 and http://famteam.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5223). Anyway, I need your help, because I set up a poll asking who would win — Ashley or I. Well, at the moment, I’m trailing in the polls. I’m going to demand a recount, but I need everyone to go to that first link (http://famteam.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5255, for easy reference) and vote, vote, vote! I can’t be slipping in the polls now… Oh, yeah, and if you vote for me, that’d be an extra bonus.

I guess I need to energize my base… or something. Well, better yet, maybe I should first acquire a base. Maybe third base.