Peru anybody?

Here it is Sunday and I am leaving to go to Peru on Friday. If you asked me right now if I was ready, it would be a resounding no. I have my passport and enough clean underwear and stuff like that, but am I prepared to sit and talk to Peruvians? While it shouldn't be any different than talking with people here in Norfolk (which can be a challenge, i.e. shipyard folk) I feel woefully inadequate. I guess this is where the Lord takes over. If you know me very well, you'll know I tend to forget things. Important things. I forgot that our group was being commissioned in church this morning. I forgot until today that TSA doesn't like you to bring large amounts of liquids, i.e. the bulk shampoo that I buy because it's cheap. I probably will forget something important this week. Hopefully I won't forget why I'm going on this trip. That's the most important thing.

Since it is Sunday afternoon, I am due for a nap. I hope you are doing well.

what a crazy weekend

I had big aspirations for this past weekend. A carpool to Blacksburg with my friends Jake and Amanda. I received a call on Thursday that a very close family member, Tuck Dickerson passed away. Therefore I went to Tuck's funeral instead. Let me give you some background. I was only born with 2 grandparents as the other two passed away before I was born. Both of those grandparents died when I was seven. When my dad was growing up on the farm, the folks living on the farm next door (Tuck and Mary Willie) helped dad out many times when my grandfather was in the hospital. Therefore, they naturally became a sort of grandparents to me. Please allow me to tell you a little about Tuck Dickerson.

For as long as I've known him, Tuck lived in Charlotte County, VA, near the bustling town of Phenix. Charlotte County is the only county in VA without a stoplight. That is where I spent alot of my childhood hunting, farming christmas trees, and enjoying a break from "fast-paced" life in Blacksburg. Now that I really live in the city, I realize how much I have taken the country for granted. I'm sorry, back to Tuck. There were many awesome things about Tuck. First, he married one of the most wonderful women I have ever met, Mary Willie. She is an amazing cook and a woman who is grateful for her relationship with God. They recently celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary. That's sweet. Second, Tuck was as strong as an ox. He never lifted weights because he didn't need to. His time on the farm built him into a hoss. I only mention this because his physical strength was only matched by his willingness to show emotion. It takes a heck of a man to be able to do both of those things. Third, Tuck always welcomed me into his home and loved me unconditionally. Not many people can honestly do that.

Tuck taught me about hard work, striving after God, and how to be thankful for everything around me.

Happy Independence Day!

Nothin says summer like July 4th weekend. I am excited because I'm going back to Blacksburg with my friends, Jake and Amanda. We are going to the Floyd wine festival, an event that I have never been to despite my 22 years of residence in Blacksburg. It will certainly be a great time to reconnect with family and friends. If you will be in Blacksburg this weekend, let me know and I can see you.

My house is still working out well, except for the short ceilings in some parts. I bump my head often. My road trip to Rockbridge went really well, as I spent some time with some old friends and was blessed with the oppurtunity to hang out with some new friends. It is always encouraging when others share their lives, both the highs and the struggles, with me.

I almost forgot to mention my trip to Nags Head! I took a few days off to see my family down at the beach in NC. I have been blessed with such an awesome family and I am consistently humbled by their love.

In other great news, I leave for Peru in 2 weeks! I am excited to go to another country and share my life with the people there. I am also filled with uncertainty about how to mentally and spiritually prepare for the trip. I guess a little faith will go a long way. I am going with my good buddy Josh, who is in the June 16th pose picture below. We were originally bound for the medical team, working logistics to the doctors could be freed up to treat patients. We have been moved to the conversational english team, where we will be talking with Peruvians who know "book" english but have little experience speaking with people who primarilly speak english. I can't wait to spend a whole week away from the shipyard and invest in the lives of others.

My time at work has been a little slow as I prepare for my next phase of training. There is too little work for the large number of new hires. Hence my blogging right now. Hopefully around mid-July I will transition to new training. I learned today that there is a guy who works here named "Harry Carey". That's funny. What's also funny is the anti-terrorism training I had to take on the computer this morning. I now feel confident in my ability to ward off terrorists. Haha.

I hope you are doing well and that your July 4th will be filled with hamburgers, relaxing, friends, and rest.

Beatin the heat

Apparently I like to rhyme in my blog titles. I hope you like that. The weather started getting hot down here and June has had me super busy. Two weeks ago, I went to Lake Anna for the weekend for a reunion with my Leadership Training team from college. For those of you who don't know, I was a Young Life leader at Virginia Tech. I was responsible for helping to prepare college freshmen for their time in college, both in college ministry as well as in their personal lives. While the members of my team changed each year, the team from my last year decided it would be a great idea to have a reunion. We were right. My buddy Josh's (also a member of team LT) parents are in the process of building a lakehouse on Lake Anna. All they have so far is a garage with an unfinished loft above it, so essentially my weekend was glorified camping. We had a roof over our heads and electricity, but that was it. It turns out that was all we needed for a fantastic weekend. It was so good to catch up with, learn from, and encourage each other as we have all moved away from Blacksburg. I am truly blessed to have such a great group of friends. Here is a picture from our weekend:

This past weekend, Mom came down and helped me move. Move you ask? Yes. Two guys from church, Tyler and Jeremy, proposed moving in together somewhere in Norfolk. After realizing that I drive to Norfolk about 4 times a week already, I thought it would make more sense to just live where I'm already going. I must be honest: Saturday was hard because of rain. It was also hard because while driving down the highway, my mattress and box spring became airborne. That's right. I look in my rearview mirror, and my comfy mattress and box spring are flying away from my car. Since I'm a man, I take pride in my ability to properly load and secure goods. My pride was dashed and now I was soaking wet and trying not to get hit by highway traffic while reattaching my bedding goods to the truck. Fortunately I had bags over them so they weren't damged very much. The rain continued almost all day but mom and I pulled through. Sunday was sunny but not too hot so Mom and I loaded the last vanfull of stuff into the new house without difficulty. We went out to a nice seafood dinner followed by the standard trip to WalMart. I hope you will come by and visit this summer! Let me know and I will accomodate.

In other news, my hockey team is still not good at hockey. But after having not scored a goal in a little over a season of ice hockey, I finally scored my first goal! It didn't make much of a difference in the game, seeing as I scored with 1 minute left and we lost 8-1. It was still exciting to know that I am not a complete idiot on skates. My team is a great group of guys and I am priveledged to play with them.

I will be gone again this weekend as I take a trip to Rockbridge to visit some friends and a wedding in everyone's favorite place: northern VA. I hope you can taste the sarcasm there. I will do my best to enjoy NOVA. At least the people there will be awesome.

I hope you are well!

Shake n' Bake!

Memorial Day weekend calls for American activities. To that end, I filled my weekend with family, racing and overeating. While you may not agree that every American embraces these ideals, I decided to partake in these this past weekend.

Starting on Friday, I went to Dixieland Speedway, a dirt track in the sprawling metropolis of Elizabeth City, NC. Each Friday, the 300 residents of Elizabeth City gather to watch their friends race modified cars around a dirt track. Different heats involve different cars, each heat bringing something special to the table. The race was fun, but the activity in the stands was even better. Not only did I see mullets and a tuxedo T-Shirt, but there were even 2 fights to be observed. Let me set the stage. Fight #1: Some guy (Let's call him "Mr. Jorts") was mad about something and there was a large scrum. During the scrum, another guy (Let's call him "Mr. Wife Beater" due to his attire) decided he wanted to jump in and hit Mr. Jorts. After things settled down, I was enjoying the races when I felt some thumping on my bleacher seat. I noticed Mr. Jorts was running behind me with an angry look on his face. He ran down the bleachers and sucker punched Mr. Wife Beater. Mr. Wife Beater was none-too-pleased and the two engaged in another healthy scrum which attracted the attention of the local law enforcement. Keep in mind all of this happened about 8 feet in front of me, close enough I was able to take in all the dialogue. As Mr. Jorts was pulled off of Mr. Wife Beater, Mr. Police Officer pulled out his tazer and suddenly a red beam of light appeared on Mr. Jorts' chest. Mr. Police Officer said, "I'll taze your butt". (That quote was edited in order to keep this blog PG.) I had never heard those words uttered and since Mr. Jorts was inebriated and angry enough to require a good taze, I became excited to witness my first tazing. Unfortunately, Mr. Jorts finally came to his senses and realized that handcuffs were a better deal than handcuffs plus tazing. All in all a great week at the Dixieland Speedway.

After about 3 hours of sleep, a trip to Indianapolis was in order. So I hopped abord a plane and went there. I got my first taste of the swine flu experience as a woman at the airport donned a protective mask. I laughed to myself. Once in Indy, I soaked up some good family time as Dad, stepmom Marj, and new stepbrother/sister drove up from Blacksburg. I also got to hang out wiht my uncle, aunt and cousins which is always a blessing. My family is crazy fun and I love spending time with them. I also had the privelege of enjoying a 6 man golf game. As for the race, the first lap was as exciting as always. It is such a rush to see the cars come around turn one and hit full throttle. My dad was smart enough to capture my adrenaline rush on video and once I have that video, it will appear here. Unfortunately, during all the excitement my favorite driver, Marco Andretti (Mario's Grandson), crashed on the first lap. Boo. It was a fun race with many spectacular but safe crashes. Helio Castroneves won the race for the 3rd time and performed his traditional "climb the fence" routine. Many in Indy are skeptical of Helio due to his recent accquital on tax evasion charges. I confess I don't know the situation and Helio is always so happy and loves the fans so I'm ok with him winning. After the race, I hung out with my cousin and her friends. I got to bed around 1230, just in time to get 3.5 hours of sleep before my plane was destined to take off at 545. Now since I only got 3.5 hours of sleep, it was a shock to have a news camera shoved in my face at the airport by a local reporter looking to interview a tired traveler on his way home. I obliged and hopefully my dirty, confused face and bumbling speech made it onto the local news. I made it home at 10 am, early enough to spend the day relaxing at the beach.

Speaking of airports, I have a beef with moving walkways. They might be a huge waste of energy. I admit that I use them on occasion, but still. If normal walking speed is too slow for you, perhaps you should open up your schedule. I know you may be thinking a bunch of race cars going in circles may be a waste of energy too. Maybe you're right. If nothing else, the Indy 500 allows me to hang out with my midwestern kinfolk.

back after a break

Oh hello there. I haven't talked to you for a few weeks. My deepest apologies.

Bad news for blogging. My computer crashed last week so I am constrained to blogging while at work. Don't worry, Uncle Sugar said it was ok. (That's what gov't employees call Uncle Sam because he pays the bills.) Speaking of bad news, my hockey team still sucks at hockey. If we finish poorly enough, we get sent down to the "C" league. That's hockey talk for "back to the minors." A nice large slice of humble pie. At least hockey is fun to play and keeps me from getting fat.

Enough bad news. Let's move on to how I'm really doing. Last Friday, I had the priveledge of leading my first brief. Let me explain. Whenever a big procedure is done at work, the sailors must be briefed to ensure that they know what they are doing. This brief is performed by the engineer I'm in training to be, so as part of my training, I lead the brief. I used to be unintimidated by public speaking, but now I'm in the real world I do fear looking like a complete idiot in front of people. The brief went well and I supervised the work all day. It feels good to be productive.

Another bonus of life right now is I get to visit my cousins, uncle, and aunt in Indianapolis this weekend. And, since it is Memorial Day weekend, Indy 500!!! It is that time of year when I yell myself hoarse and get super pumped by a bunch of loud cars drivin in circles. Also, I just learned my roomate from VT, Justin, is coming to visit on Friday. That's reason enough to celebrate.

I tutored a bunch of kids again yesterday. It was crazy fun. I tutored 5 girls. Academically I felt confident tutoring them, but socially I felt like an idiot. Somehow, the girls got angry at each other halfway through and their drama turned into yelling. I didn't know what to say or do. Fortunately, one of the workers came in and handled the situation. The girls and I learned about zooanimals and their habitats, long division, reading, spelling, hammer pants, and tadpoles. It was epic. I was going to get a haircut afterward but got sidetracked by some of the children in daycare. They taught me how to do this dance called, "The Stanky Leg". Basically you stand on one foot and rotate your free leg. I also attempted to teach a young man how to play rock, paper, scissors. I also learned that if you are a large adult, don't sit in little kid's chairs. It don't fit right.

Enjoy your memorial day weekend!

A good Friday

I think today is going to be a good day. I think I have figured out what ZZ Top does when they aren't touring and rocking so hard as to change the physical properties of things. They work at the shipyard! I am pretty sure I saw a guy walking out from night shift who looked exactly like ZZ Top. Too bad we aren't allowed to bring cameras to work or I would totally have a ZZ Top picture. Also, I saw one of the rarest mullet breeds. The Femullet. That word is a hybrid of a female and a mullet. Good stuff. I also have a great lunch of leftover wings, a garden vegetable wrap with ham, spring mix, carmelized onions and spicy mustard, and some cajun spiced mixed vegetables. Tasty. In addition to all this, I think I'm going to a comedy club tonight and you know how much I love to laugh. I hope your Friday is awesome.

A lame end to an awesome weekend

Dad turned the big 63 last week. Happy Birthday Dad! To celebrate, I went down to South Cackalacky for the weekend to celebrate with my sister and Dad. Unfortunately, Bam and the kids I mentioned last week couldn't come because Connor had a soccer game. Who knew my family was full of jocks? I'll expound on the wide world of sports later.

My trip down to SC was eventful. Because I'm a fat kid and there isn't a Chik-fil-a near my house, I decided to hit one up on the way. So I went to www.chick-fil-a.com and found a few sites along I-95. After realizing I wanted to drive until it got dark, I passed all of my proposed chikin sites. I then started looking for bbq, also a favorite. After realizing I would have to sit down for a long time and wait for bbq, I stopped at Zaxby's. It was tasty and the girl behind the counter had an awesome southern accent. This paragraph was completely unnecessary and I apologize to you the reader for having to sit through it.

I then took 3 wrong turns in SC before ending up at my sister's at 11 pm. Fortunately, I had alot of great friends to talk to both on the way down and the way back. If you were one of those, thanks for keeping me sane and awake. The actual visit with my fam was great and it felt so good just to relax, talk and play with my sister's dog, Bella.

I had a hockey game last night, which I went straight to from SC. Nothing like a 5 hour road trip culminating in a hockey game. The tables were turning. We were up 2-1 late in the 3rd period and had dominated the whole game. With time expiring, the other team scored, tying the game. We went straight to a shootout and lost. Awesome. It felt like that Boston College game a few years ago at Lane Stadium when VT dominated the whole game and then lost. I guess I will always be a fan of teams who tend to choke at the end of games.

I thought I would get to lead a meeting today, but I was unable to discuss what I was doing with the important people, so I didn't lead it. Good thing because some stuff went wrong and I might have wet my pants if I tried to handle it. So here I sit, eating lunch.

If you have anything you want on this blog, please let me know and I will accomodate. I will be getting my camera fixed/new camera soon so pictures will start appearing. Text gets boring. I hope you are doing great and be sure to let me know how you are doing.

that didn't last long

As quickly as the playoff beard appeared, it was eliminated along with the Philadelphia Flyers. They lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-3 yesterday in a game which I didn't get to see because I thought it stated at 7 pm. Scheduling is not one of my gifts. I trust that next year I will be able to grow a full playoff beard long into the month of May as the Flyers make a push towards the Stanley Cup.

This week saw another loss for the Chesapeake Whalers, as we got obliterated 8-0 by some team that consisted mainly of teenagers. The game didn't start until 10:30 and I guess older guys don't perform well on ice after 9. The kids we played against were really fast and outskated us most of the game. I had fun and got a great workout so I guess that means I'm a winner.

It sounds like with both hockey teams that my emotions are invested in that I have had a terrible week. This couldn't be further from the truth. It was pretty outside all week, the pollen is starting to subside, and one of my best good friends, Josh Nicoletti, came down to visit me. We joined a bunch of people from church and went to a large yard sale where cheap goodies were purchased. Also, we hung out on the beach for like 4 hours, which reminds me of a funny story. Before my hockey game Thursday, I decided to take a long nap outside after work. It was warm and sunny, so I thought this was a good oppurtunity to catch some rays to help cure my pastiness. I used adequate sunscreen and then fell asleep. I thought I applied the sunscreen evenly, but later that night I noticed an oddly shaped sunburn on my back which had a handprint in it. One thing I have learned: make sure you reach around everywhere when applying sunscreen or you will look funny.

I also introduced 3 new people to the awesome movie that is Hot Rod. I have now seen this movie 12 times and it still makes me laugh real hard. Today Josh and I joined up with my buddies Jake and Amanda and played some beach bocce. Have you not heard of bocce? I feel sorry for you. I could struggle to explain the game here or provide a link which will save you time. Learn about bocce here.

I hope you are doing well. Enjoy this beautiful weather that is here and I hope to talk to you soon. I will have plenty to talk about here next time as I get to hang out with my Dad, my 2 sisters and my niece and nephew, Jenna and Connor. If you have never seen a picture of the two awesomest kids ever you need to.

Clockwise from left: Yours truly, Connor, my sister Bambi, Jenna, my other sister Bronwyn.

Jenna again, this time super excited.