To the Owner of the Large 18-Wheeler on 95 Last Night:

Stop. Stop this very moment. I find it disgustingly appalling that you have the gall to think you own the road. You don't. Let me re-emphasize this concept: you do not, nor will you ever, own the road. Yes, I know it is obvious that you drive a very large vehicle. But this simple fact does not give you permission to just change lanes without noticing the other vehicles around you. I am forced, therefore, to come to several conclusions. Either you are abnormally and exceptionally stupid, not to mention rude, disrespectful, impolite, arrogant and a great many other adjectives I could pull from my mental thesaurus; that you are all together both blind and deaf not to have seen me or heard me; or that you failed your truck-driving test and are therefore incompetent in your driving skills and thus should not be on the road, period. I do have to add, though, that I was rather grateful for the turn signal - not many of your kind are adept at knowing how to use their turn signal, or even where the turn signal might be located, so the warning you gave was much appreciated. I do not appreciate it, however, when you attempt to take over the lane in which my small car is occupying. My disgust for you and your brethren is amplified ten-fold by the simple fact that there was another 18-wheeler on my right hand side, thus leaving with no where to turn and effectively sandwiching me in between two demons on wheels. This left me with no other options except to slam on my brakes, lay on my horn, and pray fervently that I managed to get out from in between you both before I became nothing more than something akin to peanut butter. This is not the first instance of your stupidity I have had the most serious misfortune of dealing with, either. Already, once, I have had to pay for your idiocy in previous years and being forced to pay for your mistakes (not to mention the simple fact that I could have died had I not done the exact same thing I was compelled to do last night the last time you did the same thing to me, the time previous actually going so far as to hit me) leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth. Might I strongly suggest that you go back to school to relearn how to drive? Or possibly visit an optometrist or maybe an otologist? They might be able to better your hearing and your vision so that in the future you might be able to see and hear the little people who are around you, cringing at the very sight of you. Or how about just not driving at all? I am sorry that it would mean giving up your livelihood, but it is costing human lives for you to be driving the way you do. I am afraid that asking you to change your arrogant attitude towards fellow drivers and human beings who share the road with you to one of care and concern, being my preferred course of action and one that would prevent the loss of life, loss of money, stress, worry and as well as the loss of your job, would be too much to even hope for or ask.

Sincerely,
A Concerned Driver on America's Roads

Why You Kick the Sheep on the Boat?

I was hoping to get rest last night. I was given permission to take the entire day off, but I came in for half-day's work, just so I could get caught up on all my emails. And that was more than enough time at work; by the end, I was ready for sleep. I went home, got myself unpacked, started working on laundry and did manage to get some rest that afternoon. I was all set to begin heading to bed around 8:30. But it was not to be.

We got a call from the church, saying that a pipe had burst similar to what happened last time. This time, the water pouring out was over the Mission's office, the men's bathroom, the back end of the hallway, the Children's office, and the Financial Assistant's office and the workroom. For those who don't know, the Financial Assistant's office is where the servers are kept. There had been talk of the damage being less this time then last time we had a flood here at the church, though I don't know who started that. The last time, there were only two major rooms in the path of the water damage, as well as some through the floor into the hallway below. This time there were twice as many rooms hit, and from the news we heard, it took them at least 10 minutes to get the water turned off, and they're not sure how long it was flooding before then.

Four out of the five members of my family (myself included) hopped into the car and made our way up to help sort things out/stop the water/start assessing the damage, as they were calling for 'all hands on deck.'

We ended up spending a little over 2 hours up at the church, picking our way through the back end of the main hallway, and trying to figure out what happened. Having the electricity off made it that much more interesting. By the end of said 2 hours, we'd managed to get all the fallen ceiling tiles picked up, and some of the major things that had been on the floor up and onto other various desks and counters in the effort of getting them dried out. There wasn't really anything else to do, as by then, the damage control people were out and on site and ready to start their job, which was turning the electricty back on and getting the generators going so we could have as many of those huge air dryers as possible blowing into all the areas that had major water damage.

This morning, we all came in not knowing what sort of state we'd be in today. We have no server, though we do have (sporadic) access to the Internet and our emails, so thankfully some work can get done. But all of our major projects/work are stored on the server. We don't have the ability to retrieve anything, as our back up system can only be accessed from the server (kind of silly, if you ask me), so what we absolutely have to get done, we have to wait on. There is no guarantee that we'll have the server at all this week. We've had someone from the computer company that we use out for most of the day looking at it, assessing the damage, and it (the server) is currently MIA - taken off site so they can get it assessed and/or fixed as quickly as possible.

Needless to say, the last 24 hours have been rather interesting. We didn't get home until around 11:30 and I didn't get to bed until close to midnight. So much for an attempt at getting rest. ;-) Hopefully tonight will be better. But on the good side, I did not wake up as early this morning as I did yesterday (5:45 seems like sleeping late when you wake up at 4:15). Work today has consisted of major clean up and moving things out of the rooms that were damaged into the hallway and up higher so everything can dry out. The hallway looks like a war zone. Everything that can be done on that has been done, and my job now has consisted of attempting to work on the church bulletin - I obviously can not access anything, as it was all on the server, but I am trying to recreate it as best as possible. If it can't be done that way, chances are that we won't have a bulletin this coming Sunday. We'll most likely have at least a hand-out with all the basics on it, but nothing other then that.

I also managed to get pictures on my camera, which I can hopefully get uploaded at some point. Wish us luck!

Oh, and to explain the title: The second week in Morocco, we had a Bible camp, and did skits for the stories that we told. The first day, we told the story of Noah's Ark. Jason played Noah, a few of us were the townspeople who laughed at him, and most of us were animals. We used one of our cars as the ark, and since there were nine of us that needed to get squeezed into the car, one of the girl's volunteered to be put in the trunk. She was the sheep and came on last. She played a sheep very well, not following the rest of the animals on board the ark, so Noah had to come after her, and ended up giving the sheep a good swift kick on its backside to encourage it to get in the ark as the rains were coming. After the story, we all went to our stations, and I was with Jason at the English station that day. During one of the half-hour slots, he had a kid sitting in his lap the entire time that said, "Why you kick the sheep in the boat? Did it bite you?" And that was all the kid said. And all Jason said in response was, "I had to because I needed to get it on the boat before the rains came. No, it didn't bite me." And that went on for an entire half-hour. After that group of kids left, he told me about it, and we had a good time of it, laughing and it became one of the many jokes from that week at camp. And it seemed fitting, considering we've had the flood reincarnate here in the last 24 hours. Besides which, I needed a smile and good laugh.

I miss Morocco.