Recently in Miscellany Category

I hope this letter finds you well and celebrating this joyous time of year. 2009 was a busy year for our family. Never a dull moment, however much I wished there were.

Jon is still working hard at NPC, where he has been for 5 1/2 years now. He is also still taking classes at Pitt State. It goes slowly when he only takes one class a semester. He has had some continued success with his writing. He was again chosen Editor's Choice in Relief literary journal for another short story. That story was also nominated for a Pushcart Prize, which is a literary prize for small presses and literary journals. Jon has also been busy building websites and taking photos.

I've uploaded a little over 300 photographs from our week at Camp Sharon Junior I (4th and 5th grade) camp. I was sound guy/multimedia guru so my job was to float around the camp and take as many pictures of the kids as I could manage and show them on a slideshow during meals and other times. By wednesday, the kids were waving at me and yelling "hey camera guy!" and they would actually come up to me and ask why the picture I took of them earlier in the day wasn't up on the screen.

They had a lot of fun with this and I think the pictures turned out pretty well. You can view a gallery of them on my Facebook photos page, or I have the full gallery here on jbrisbin.com:

http://jbrisbin.com/photos/camp_sharon_2009

I'd like to think that writing is so powerful that the time-honored axiom "the pen is mightier than the sword" might hold true.

That's a load of crap, actually.

I got a strong conviction recently that I should get a couple of prison pen pals. It's not something I've ever done before and I really don't see myself as much of an encourager, but these things often come out of nowhere and God will throw things your way that make you scratch your head. They're serving life sentences (at least) and have been incarcerated for decades. I'm not entirely sure what to say to be encouraging because if I talk about the goings-on here in the Midwest (we talk about the weather a lot here) that might remind them they're in a big, gray building. If I talk about the kids, they might be reminded they've not had the chance of having a very good home life. If I talk about the future, they might think "don't remind me I've still got 20 years left".

To be honest, I'm not sure I know what to say to be an encouragement. The sword of justice, in these cases, seems to be a fair bit stronger (louder, at least) than the paltry words penned on a hand-written letter.

I finally managed to take an hour or two and re-install the theme. Thankfully it wasn't as bad as I was dreading (isn't that usually the case?).

There's still a few quirks here and there (like in commenting and search). I'll iron those out over the next few weeks.

I'll have plenty of time because I didn't get the seed money for the start-up I was thinking about starting. I finally got the "thanks, but no thanks" rejection letter this week.

It's probably better this way anyway. Equal parts annoying and disappointing. But as they say in the Robinsons movie: "keep moving forward!"

Reading A Story On the Front Porch

Digital pencil and oil (Corel Painter X).

We're not politically correct in our household. We say Merry Christmas. Sure, Happy Holidays and all that. Be happy. I've no qualms with being Happy.

But I personally want to wish merriment on you at CHRISTmas.

Just keep in mind you can't strip Jesus from Christmas. There may be aspects of our celebration that are not scriptural. Big deal. That just means the holiday is more meaningful because it's multi-cultural and incorporates pieces and parts of the various cultures that have influenced the celebration. If it wasn't for Jesus, this holiday would have no meaning.

Personally, I wouldn't care if they moved Christmas to July. It's still a celebration of the birth of The Savior. Not "A" savior (one of several); we're not celebrating the birth of a great prophet and teacher (though He was those things). The Christmas holiday celebrates the birth of the one-and-only Savior of mankind (oddly enough, not Man himself, which seems to be the theological fad these days--that Man can save himself). The Creator of the Universe in flesh-and-blood.

You don't have to believe all this to celebrate Christmas, by the way. You don't have to stand up in church and become a Christian to join in the celebration of the holiday. It won't kill you (quite the contrary), but you can glom onto the celebration even if you don't think there's anything you need saving from. That's the great thing about a Christian celebration that incorporates elements of the cultures through which it travelled.

Believe it or not. That's up to you. I'm still going to wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Just wanted to let everyone know that Friday at 5:00 p.m. the lights came back on. Six days without electricity is something the kids will never forget, I expect. They've been walking around all day just saying "I'm so glad the power is back on." I can't agree more.

A special thanks goes to the linemen and tree trimmers from North Carolina, Texas, Louisiana, and other parts of Missouri (and quite possibly from other places around the country as well...those are the states I know utility crews came from) for working long hours in extremely bad conditions to get our power restored.

It's an utterly helpless feeling, when your power is out. There is really nothing you can do about it. You just sit around and wait on someone else. That's an unsettling feeling.

Now: the cleanup.

Just talked to my mom (we live right next to Mom and Dad) and she had talked to one of our neighbors, who had, in turn, talked to someone from the electric company. The bad news is that we are on our sixth day without electricity. The good news is that they expect everyone to have power by tonight. I pray that's true.

The generator has been a godsend. After several days, though, babysitting the thing gets a little tiring. Change the oil every 24 hours, re-fuel it every eight (give or take). I guess that's the price you pay to have electricity when the lines are down. I had taken an extremely cold (let's say frigid) shower last night, so was ready for bed. At 11:30, I had to put all my clothes back on, put on my overalls, and go outside to top off the generator so it would have enough fuel to run till morning. I put the last of the gas in it this morning and that filled it up. My wife will have to go into town and fill both five-gallon cans back up, just in case we need it another night. I'm not taking any chances any more.

Soon will come the fun part: cleaning up the several tons of limbs that are strewn about the property. Oh yeah, and we're supposed to get snow this weekend:

/O.EXT.KSGF.WS.A.0004.071215T0000Z- 071216T0600Z/ BOURBON-CRAWFORD- CHEROKEE-BENTON-MORGAN-VERNON-ST. CLAIR-HICKORY- BARTON - CEDAR - JASPER - INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...FORT SCOTT... PITTSBURG... BAXTER SPRINGS... COLUMBUS...WARSAW...COLE CAMP... VERSAILLES... NEVADA...APPLETON CITY... OSCEOLA...HERMITAGE... LAMAR ... EL DORADO SPRINGS...STOCKTON...JOPLIN... CARTHAGE 430 AM CST FRI DEC 14 2007
...WINTER STORM WATCH NOW IN EFFECT FROM THIS EVENING THROUGH SATURDAY EVENING...

THE WINTER STORM WATCH IS NOW IN EFFECT FROM THIS EVENING THROUGH SATURDAY EVENING.

SNOW WILL SPREAD INTO THE WATCH AREA BY FRIDAY EVENING. THERE MAY ACTUALLY BE TWO MAIN PERIODS OF SNOW...ONE FRIDAY EVENING INTO THE OVERNIGHT HOURS...AND THEN ANOTHER SATURDAY MORNING THROUGH MIDDAY. OVERALL AMOUNTS WILL RANGE FROM 5 TO 7 INCHES IN THE WATCH AREA WITH LESSER AMOUNTS TO THE SOUTH OF THE WATCH AREA EXPECTED AT THIS TIME.

THE WATCH AND POSSIBLE SUBSEQUENT WINTER STORM WARNING AREA WILL LIKELY BE ADJUSTED TODAY AS MORE CONFIDENCE IN THE PATH AND STRENGTH OF THE STORM SYSTEM DEVELOPS.

A WINTER STORM WATCH MEANS THERE IS A POTENTIAL FOR SIGNIFICANT SNOW... SLEET...OR ICE ACCUMULATIONS THAT MAY IMPACT TRAVEL. CONTINUE TO MONITOR THE LATEST FORECASTS.

I bailed on work yesterday afternoon and drove thirty miles to the Lowe's and plopped down several hundred dollars for a 5500w generator. Got the beast home, put oil and fuel in it, fired that baby up on the first pull and hooked it up to the furnace. Got the refrigerator plugged back in, as well as a few lamps and the phone. Of course, I had to get the satellite TV plugged in, too. The kids need something to do since there's no school yet again.

My wife and I really debated about whether or not to spend the money on a generator. I'm glad I did. Although it was a lot to be paying (two weeks before Christmas) for something you hopefully won't use all that much, I really think it was a necessity. Not just so we could pump some heat back into the house but because it was really the only thing I could do to feel like I was able to provide for my family.

I've felt like I've just been reacting by staying with other people. It's always better to sleep in your own bed, sure, but this is more than that. This was a proactive step I took so that my whole family could sleep together in our house.

There's not many opportunities any more for a man to feel like he's genuinely provided for his family in a substantive way. Like saving the life of your child at a swimming pool several times and you shrug it off as something parents "just do." Usually, we do our thing in relative obscurity and we may (or may not) be appreciated for it.

This generator means more than just TV and heat. It means Dad is providing for his family.