I overslept this morning and had a hard time getting out of bed. Once I got up, I watched a little TV and did a little work. I found a sandwich for lunch, talked to my sister online, then reheated some leftover potatoes.

After lunch, I went to the gym, though I found it was a lot harder to push myself to go to the gym. But I made it and swam a solid workout.

Then it was back home, where I showered, dressed, and worked some more.

Boring day… but no complaints. Very peaceful.
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I know bits and pieces of many other languages.  I took two years of Spanish in high school and three semesters in college.  That was enough for me to (minimally) translate for my team when I took a mission trip to Guatemala, but still not even close to fluent.

I know a smattering of French, German, Portuguese, and Japanese just from living in the United States.  I learned bits of Thai, Mandarin, and Cantonese on my two visits to southeast Asia.  I learned bits of Twi, Ga, Ashanti, and several other Akan languages when I lived in west Africa.  I even know a smattering of sign language.

But I’m only fluent in one language: English.  I will always rely on online translation.  Too bad, since translators make lots of money.

Today, he announced that he has disabled anonymous commenting in response to my comment.

If he really wants to disallow anonymous comments, fine.  But I honestly think this is kind of an immature way to handle the situation, particularly when the comment is clearly not spam and clearly not inappropriate (no curse words, sexual innuendos, that kind of thing).

As the webmaster, he can delete the individual comments.  Or he can respond to them in any way he chooses.  Sometimes those comments display the immaturity of the commenter more than the immaturity of the webmaster.  Other times, they stimulate an interesting discussion.

Besides, this is the internet.  Disabling anonymous comments just means that I will pull out my anonymous email addresses- you know, the Gmail and Yahoo and Hotmail addresses that you sign up for under a different name.  It won’t eliminate anonymous commenting.

I have to admit, I’ve thought about going into this kind of digital surveillance as a career.  I mean, I know I’d have to learn a little more about coding and such, but it’s definitely something I could do.  I’ve also learned, though, that it’s rarely worthwhile to make enemies- particularly those who are in charge of major crime syndicates.

I got a call from a friend around noon. She had just finished a job interview not far from my house, so I invited her out for lunch. We went to On The Border, which was DELICIOUS!!! We had a great meal together, and had an especially great waitress named Rashael.

Before I left for lunch, I remembered to throw my gym bag in the car. So after lunch I went straight to the gym, where I had a GREAT workout. I swam somewhere between 600 and 750 meters- I was praying, and too distracted to focus on counting. But I’m certainly not complaining because it was a GREAT workout- it just felt so good!

After I cleaned up from my workout, I relaxed for awhile and got some more work done. Sooooo relaxing!

We had dinner at Chick-Fil-A tonight. My mom’s school had a fundraising evening- they got 10% of the profits. Tasty.

I wonder what tomorrow will hold. This whole week has been so good. I look forward to seeing how the week ends!
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Today I was looking through some of my archives and I saw the photos of Sadie.  And I thought… she is just awfully cute.  Maybe I will dog-nap her and run away to one of the myrtle beach resorts.  We’ll run up and down the beach resorts myrtle beach, and I can spend the whole day enjoying her cuteness.

I mean, come on, if you want to say it then you should have the guts to stand behind your words, right?

Anyway, tonight I was sorting through my rss reader, and reading some old blogs.  I came across a blog that was set up by a family that used to go to my church (many many years ago!).  Now this family has always been a little off the deep end, if you know what I mean.  I knew them as a preteen, and as I’ve grown older I have realized all the flaws in their logic.  I think they would describe themselves as “very conservative”, but I believe that giving them that label disrespects conservatives, because they believe in soooo much flawed logic!

Back when they first started this blog (a year and a half ago, give or take), they would ALWAYS delete my comments because my email address and blog clearly identify my name.  I don’t try to hide it!  Once upon a time, I did the anonymous route, but I’ve learned it is more trouble than it is worth!  Anyway, this family was afraid that somehow, my name would cause sex offenders and serial killers to find them (this, regardless of the fact that we live in different states and don’t communicate except via facebook anymore).  Yea, total paranoia.

Well, they didn’t want me to comment, so I didn’t read their blog much.  Occasionally I may read a post but nothing regular.  I mean, if they don’t want me to comment, what’s the point?

Today, in reading through some old blogs and such, I came across their blog.  Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the most recent post was a diatribe against public schools and Barack Obama.  (It’s worth noting that they homeschool their children.)  Basically he said, since Obama has become president, he will be convincing every public school student to become a socialist, and every public school teacher will follow along with this plan because they’re all Obama-bots.

Look, I’m not a fan of Obama.  I didn’t vote for him and I don’t think he has done our nation any favors.  Is he trying to push his agenda in public schools?  Maybe, but I don’t really know enough about the issue to form an educated opinion.  But to call all public school teachers “Obama-bots” or to ridicule public school teachers is insulting.  Not everyone has the privilege of home-schooling their children like you- and quite frankly, I would count you among the people I’ve met who are homeschooling but probably shouldn’t be.  Teachers have a very hard job, perhaps one of the hardest jobs in existence.  To ridicule them is to ridicule the future.

Besides, you never know when you may need a teacher’s help.  Don’t burn those bridges!

So of course I commented anonymously.  I’ll update you on any response I may get.

It definitely got me to thinking.  There’s such a story in that, in the world of illegal organ trafficking.  It’s scary, in a way, because it’s real.  None of us know what tomorrow holds, and it’s always possible that something could happen tomorrow that would cause us to need an organ transplant or a bone graft or something like that.

Fiction always explores reality.

Then I got a call from a friend asking me to meet her for lunch. We ate at Minskys Pizza and I have to tell you, it was GREAT. There was a buffet and you know what, they had the BEST canadian bacon and pineapple pizza I’ve ever had. Yum!!

Before I left for lunch, I threw my gym bag in the car, and I’m glad I did. I stopped at the gym on the way home for an invigorating swim- and it was! It felt great and I felt great.

I renewed my library card, which felt great because I LOVE my library!

Then I picked up a cake at Price Chopper for the birthday of friend at church. The cake remained in the car while I ate dinner with my parents, then we took it to church and set up a table with the cake, forks, plates, and napkins.

Church was awesome, as usual. On Wednesday nights we gather and just pray. It’s a simple gathering but so beautiful, so nice to just rest in God’s presence.

Finally the day ended with cake and a celebration of another year lived well.

The only negative thing that happened today occured this evening, when I accidentally deleted all the saved passwords from my computer. But this wasn’t a crisis- I have all my passwords backed up in a secret “analog” file- i.e. not on a computer. It will be annoying to have to reenter passwords for the next few weeks, but that is such a mild nuisance that it certainly didn’t put a damper on my day.

I am so blessed.
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A West Highland White Terrier who was tied up momentarily outside a supermarket was mugged for his green wool coat.

Seriously, if you are literally stealing the coat off the back of a dog, you have reached a new low!