Interesting last few days

It’s been an interesting last few days. Wednesday, I drove up to Lexington, VA for traffic court. A reckless driving ticket, which I initially thought was a criminal charge, ended up becoming a plain speeding ticket during the trial. I was very thankful–I got a fine, and it looks like my license will only have four points total on it. I’m very glad about that, and I’ve driven 3500+ miles with much more caution since then.

One of the amusing things about the hearing was that the judge didn’t seem to like the cop. The cop was not at all polite to me when he stopped me. Even with two hearing aids, I had to repeat everything I said at least twice to him as well. The judge seemed to be purposely picking on the judge’s bad hearing. He spoke very softly, and on several occasions made comments that made the cop look like an idiot–especially during the first case, which was criminal reckless driving (trucker hit eight cars). I also think part of my ticket reduction may have been to spite the cop. Works for me.

On my way home from Lexington, I stopped off in Roanoke for a little shopping, since I had already missed all my classes for the day. I discovered that Dick’s Sporting Goods is more like a Cabella’s, and less like a Sports Authority. In other words, they didn’t have a single ski rack, let alone a pair of skis or a snowboard in the store. Lots of golf clubs and hunting gear, though. I also peeked in Circuit City, Lifeway, and the Valley View mall. I was wearing a suit, so I didn’t do as much shopping as I would have liked to, but at least I got a good soft pretzel from Auntie Anne’s. I hadn’t had one in at least 3 years! Mmmmm!

I got some work done Wednesday afternoon, experienced the second homegroup of the year, and went on the lifegroup tour. Speaking of lifegroups, I know where I’m going now. Only thing that could change it is if one of the other lifegroups is only threeish people.

I also had several long online conversations Wednesday night. At one point, I had five active conversations going, which is more than I like to have going. The only ones that were at all memorable though were with Tim, Michael, and Zack. Okay, I admit the Zack conversation was seven messages total, but it caused a more than two hour phone call on Thursday. I got in bed around 4am, which was not ideal, but given all the things that were going on last night, it was easily the right choice to stay up.

Thursday was not what I was expecting. I had my alarm set for 9:30, since my first class was at 11. However, I woke up around 8:30, and after several minutes, decided trying to go back to sleep would not work. The first thing that I felt when I woke up was that I should be praying on my knees. I rarely kneel when I’m praying. I got up and used the close to an hour remaining before the alarm went off to pray. I had three things that I just kept thinking of, and I prayed about all of them.

Thursday afternoon, I called Zack. I had a list of several questions for him and several things I wanted him to know. Every time I talk to Zack, I learn of something that I’ve been blessed to see happen here that had been prayed about for years in the past. I’m extremely thankful for the seeds planted on this campus by past leaders, and I hope that I’m able to plant spiritual seeds that will sprout in the future. It sounds like Zack has some amazing seminary courses this semester, and fortunately, seminary is not what he feared it could be. Some of his professors are well known–I read a report last week that one of then had written!

Other things worth an honorable mention over the past few days: getting beat down while wrestling Justin several times over, using Michael as a body shield against Justin, and duct tape!