So, I'm off to Iowa tomorrow morning. I think I'm finally getting excited about the trip again. I was all gung-ho about it when the opportunity first came up and then I got distracted with life and work and my knee issues (mostly my knee issues. I hate being broken, hence the reason I ignored my knee issues for so long. Now I just want to get it fixed.). But tonight, I'm mostly packed up (just need to fuss with the gear in my backpack a bit more), have the house and cats more or less ready for me to be gone and aside from being a little sleepy due to getting up early to take advantage of a thing the city was doing where you trade your old, polluting gas lawn mower in for a coupon for a greatly discounted electric rechargeable, green (really, it's a pastel-neon green), environmentally friendly and 75% quieter but with a tiny (14 inch) deck lawn mower and still needing to shower tonight (so that I don't have to in the morning. My ride shows up at 5:30am. Wheels up at 0600.) I'm feeling really good and starting to get excited about it. It's going to be an interesting trip. This is the first time we've done any sort of "disaster response/relief" work like this. I figure that the schedule and the work won't be much different than doing a mission trip except that we'll be more on our own than we are when we do the trips with MTW (and there's full-time missionaries already on the ground there). But, no worries. I've done 17 short-term mission trips and a bunch of weekend to week-long trips with youth. And on this trip we can drink the water! I'm guessing that, as long as my knee doesn't give me problems, I'll be golden (God willing, if you're the praying type I would greatly appreciate your prayers for all aspects of the trip, but mostly for my physical safety with emphasis on my knee). But we've got a handful of people on this trip who haven't done any trips like this before. We've also got at least four who have done some sort of long-term missions work in countries where you probably can't drink the water and more who've done a bunch of short-term trips, but I'm slightly more concerned about the newbies. There's so much that people could stress over and that doesn't help anyone. And then there's the age differences. We've got a couple of junior high kids up through retired adults. And we're all jumbled together in a van for 13 (or more) hours on either end of the trip. Just imagining the conversations over the preferences for auditory entertainment...the mind boggles. It's gonna be an interesting week.
Other random things.
Bones - one of the television shows that I enjoy is coming out with a soundtrack. Yeah! I've always enjoyed soundtracks and in recent years I've discovered that tv shows sometimes put out soundtracks as well. I've found it's a great way to discover new music, often by new and/or indie musicians. And from there you can follow the rabbit trail down the long tail and who knows where you'll come out. For me, it ends up in the darker corners of my iPod where you'll find Sprung Monkey, Four Star Mary, Common Rotation and a variety of other bands with odd names (I still think Starbuck and her Special Destiny would be a great band name). So, yeah, I'm excited and will be purchasing.
Juno - The movie, not the city in Alaska. I finally saw it. Good stuff. Sweet and fun and heartbreaking and all sorts of funny and awkward and stuff. Allison Janey channeled CJ Craig a couple of times (man do I miss The West Wing...back when Aaron Sorkin was writing it), Jason Bateman grew up to be a fun actor to watch (apparently that happened back during Arrested Development but I just couldn't get into that show....not sure why. Possibly for the same reason that, no matter how hard I try, I just can't get into The Office.). And Ellen "Juno" Page was spot on (and played Kitty Pride in X3. I knew I had seen her before I just couldn't remember where.). I'm glad that I bought the movie, it's certainly one I will be revisiting...and quite possibly a soundtrack I'll be purchasing. Cause, ya know, I like soundtracks.
The wife of the guy who writes the web comic Sheldon writes for How I Met Your Mother. I don't know why I find this so entertaining/interesting. I don't watch the show. I've only read the web comic for about a year or so (yet another bit of media that I found while following a Whedon related rabbit hole). Maybe it's my kinda recent interest in how television shows are written (mostly fueled by the wonderful blog by Jane Espenson, a writer for Buffy, Firefly, Battlestar and other cool stuff, where I've learned more than I ever thought I was interested in about how television scripts are written as well as learned to think more about language and how that makes jokes funny or, yeah, the other thing.)
Okay and now I'm just killing time until my iPod is done syncing. It's looking like it might take a bit longer than I expected, so I think it's shower time. By the time I'm dry and fresh smelling once again it should be done.
Probably no internet access while I'm gone so look for an update after a week or so when I get home.
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