Big things:
God, country, my family, Christian friends, the church, my education, my job, summer, fall colors, blue skies, a summer breeze, the first snow of winter, a sunrise, summer thunderstorms, hearing crickets at night
Small things:
A relatively stable operating system, a generous webspace provider, cheap gas prices, being able to ski in winter, my car, my digital camera, being able to visit China this year, being able to work from home, Little Debbie Snack Cakes
Author Archives: Jeff Whittle
Thanksgiving Enjoyment
I never have enjoyed Thanksgiving all that much. I don’t care for turkey or football, so basically I am out in the cold. The good thing about Thankgiving is that you get an extra 2 days off from work. Cable channels like the TBS Superstation and TNT run movie marathons which are always good to catch. As far as shopping, I don’t plan on doing any during this upcoming weekend. I hate fighting the crowds. Usually I sneak out to the malls on a weekday and grab all my gifts at once.
Is it effeminate for guys to send out Christmas cards? I’m planning on sending out a few this year. But I always face this question each December.
A few Christmas lights are already out on private homes. There should be a law or protocol that says Christmas lights and decorations can not be displayed until December 1st. Lots of times people are so anxious to get Christmas lights up they forget about Thanksgiving. We only get to celebrate Thanksgiving on one day per year. Whereas we get to celebrate Christmas for an entire month seemingly. Let’s celebrate Thanksgiving now and not worry about Christmas until next month.
Cable Channel 9
My prediction for the missionaries recently rescued from Afghanistan: There will be a TV movie about their plight…at best shown on one of the major networks….at worst shown on the 700 Club. The missionaries will tour around the country giving speeches at various churches. Nothing will be said about how foolish they were for putting themselves into such a dangerous situation.
Well the local cable channel has placed the Power Point announcements of the high school on channel 9. So now the whole city gets to see what’s going on at the high school. Supposedly high school plays and sporting events will be shown on this channel also….which will give the students an even wider audience to embarrass themselves in front of. My question is why does the high school get to have their own channel? What happens if one of the elementary schools or middle schools wants their own channel?
Suicide of Someone I Didn’t Know, But Should Have
A few days ago a friend and I were going through an old junior high yearbook. In the process of remembering old times I asked my friend what ever happened to this certain classmate. I was not friends with this classmate, however his face always stood out in the yearbook. My friend said that the classmate had committed suicide when he was a sophomore in high school. I believe he took his own life due to a number of problems in his life. But primarily it was because his girlfriend did not want to make their relationship more serious. It’s sad. While I was not friends with him, the news of his death did have an impact on me. Looking back on it I wonder if there was anything that could have been done to make this person not see suicide as a way out. In the junior high yearbook the pictures show him in a couple of clubs. His body position in those pictures seem to indicate that he was uncomfortable. He was never smiling. Sure, junior high can be a rough experience for anybody, but I have to wonder if his experience was even worse.
Winning the Darwin Award – Christian Missionaries in Afghanistan
Well the Western aid workers/missionaries are freed from the Taliban in Afghanistan. While I’m glad to hear that they are safe, I’m a bit confused as to why they would knowingly put themselves in harm’s way. Even before September 11th, Afghanistan was a harsh place for westerners. Remember when the Taliban made all non-Muslims wear tags to identify them? The Taliban said it was for their own protection, yet their actions spelled N-A-Z-I in everyone’s mind. Those very actions proved they were out to get all non-Muslims.
Anyways going over to Afghanistan for Christian mission purposes was a foolish thing to do. There is no doubt that the Christian Aid workers were there primarily to convert the Afghanis to Christianity. They knew the consequences even before they left, yet they still went anyways. There are plenty of other areas which have just as many “lost” people as Afghanistan. Why not go to those places instead of Afghanistan?
The bottom line: Don’t put yourself in a dangerous situation and then whine and cry when you’re in harms way.
Who Reads This?
I’m curious as to who exactly is reading this. Am I driving people away in droves by posting random messages here….or is it halfway interesting to read frequent updates about what is happening in my life?
I stumbled across the webpage of an aquaintance of mine who went to Lipscomb. I know who she is from going to school with her, however I never actually spoke to her. It’s a bit weird to be reading personal information about her life. I wonder what makes some people want to post personal messages about themselves on the web. In any case I doubt that I will get as in depth as that webpage.
John Thomas is improving tremendously. He was able to sit up and walk around today. I know a great many people have been praying for him and our prayers have been answered.
John Thomas’ Accident
John Thomas, a friend of mine from church, was involved in a serious accident Sunday afternoon (yesterday). His skull was cracked and emergency surgery was performed at Vanderbilt. I hope and pray that everything turns out for the best and John is able to have a full recovery. John was our former youth minister and is very well liked amoung many of our church members.
Yesterday we had a special Veterans Day reception for our veterans at church. I was there taking a few pictures for the church bulletin. Each of our veterans introduced themselves and told where and when they served. It was great to hear the stories from the veterans. This year makes this day of rememberance even more special.
Leave it to Beaver
I’ve just discovered “Leave it to Beaver.” The show itself is hilarious. TVLand is in the middle of obviously what must be the last season of the show. Beaver is still in grammer school, but he looks old enough to be in high school. Wally looks like he should be in college, and yet he still hasn’t graduated from high school. I find the show funny not because of the gags that are supposed to be funny. It’s funny because the show is soooo backward of how real life is today. I have to wonder if this how things were like in real life in the late 50s and early 60s. The Beaver must be a moron. Before making any decision he has to ask the advice of everyone…Wally…his parents….and even Eddie Haskell. I’m not sure Ward and June ever let him think on his own. It is a wonder he got anywhere. I guess the producers of the show wanted to continue to provide the usual show of Beaver learning his lesson, without actually being realistic. In one show they were making a big deal about Eddie Haskell moving out of his parents’ house and getting an apartment on his own (while still being in high school). In America today this happens all the time. But it must have not happened often in the 50s.
The Most Obnoxious Elementary School Webpage
Why do webpage designers not test their creations in Netscape as well as Internet Explorer? Time and time again I’ve found pages displayed improperly (or not displayed at all) because I’m using Netscape to browse the page.
I found possibly the most obnoxious elementary school webpage out there….Rutland Elementary School. It’s loud, cheesy, and viewable only in Internet Explorer. Their main page has a really loud wav file of “Let’s get ready to Rumble.” The Macromedia Flash plugin is waaaaaayyyyyy over used. When I browse the page, I get nagged to install the Comet Cursor…..which is a well known piece of spyware.
Mirroring Program
I found a great little mirroring program on the web. These mirroring programs crawl user specified websites and save the html and graphic files to your hard drive for easy access later. Many times free homepage providers will delete webpages due to lack of updates. I’ve already seen a few of my friends’ webpages get deleted due to not being updated. I’ve mirrored several of my friends’ webpages to my hard drive to access later. I might end up placing them up on the web for nostalgia purposes. I’ve already placed the junior high’s webpage (a version from May 1998) on the web. The site itself is pretty sad. You can tell whoever did it originally didn’t have a clue as far as site design goes. Time and time again I have seen local school websites that are poorly designed. More often than not, the webpages contain outdated information, bad photos, and annoying animated gifs.