Well, we're muddling through what to us is a cold winter.
The natives aren't complaining much. We've been burning
junk wood from in & around the shed out back, ended up
smoking the house really bad. Kathy thought it was a
chimney fire, but it was just smoke belching out of every
crack and pore of the fireplace insert. We didn't know
what was wrong so like an idiot I threw water on it, which
of course boiled and the steam came out and flung ashes
all over the place. Kathy had to have the ladies from
church meet at someone else's house. We're about done with
the smokey smell now. Kathy's brother tells us that during
the zero weather, if the chimney cools down it won't "draw"
properly and the stove will smoke up the place. Ah! So
that's what the problem was! So you gotta keep a fairly
vigorous fire all the time. We didn't know that.

Kathy came down with pinkeye a couple of weeks ago, on a
weekend. Not that bad of a thing, here's why: her current
doctor had been giving her medicine for allergies, for her
sinus problem. Always before, "Dr. Doug" had given her
antibiotics and the problem was gone in a week. Well Claritin,
Allegra, and all that stuff didn't do much (duh!) but the
Dr. insisted that since she didn't have a fever it couldn't
be an infection. Well----she went down to MedStat on Sunday
morning and they fixed her up with eyedrops for the pinkeye,
and an antibiotic for her sinuses, and a week later she's
about over it. Almost. Much better but not finished with the
antibiotics yet. Eyes are fine.

And I went in and got my teeth cleaned and two weeks later
come up with a gum infection. Felt alternately like I was
cutting a wisdom tooth and like a horse kicked me. Dentist
has me on some-kind-of-cillin and it's muchly improved. But
he had the recent X-rays and stuff right there and prescribed
over the phone. Cost $5.14 of which our insurance pays 14
cents....

Work is going fine for both of us. Could still be kind of a
"honeymoon" period, but so far so good. This far into my last
two jobs there were already warning signs that it was going
to be a rough ride. (I could tell you stories but I won't.)
If we can scrape up the money (departmentally speaking), we
will be converting an old homiletics (preaching) "lab" into
a computer hardware lab, with hot and cold running DC -- well,
no, not really, but 5-volt DC outlets, network jacks and
120-volt AC outlets at every workstation. Students will
assemble little circuits on breadboards in one class, experiment
with computer networks in another, and probably use the space
for tearing down and building computers. Meanwhile, I've
built two 5-volt power supplies and I have a student who is
going to build one this weekend. Found out the hard way that
cheap substitutes wreak havoc with chips and transistors.
Also got a dial-in account so I can access the "internal"
Web server we use for classes, from home. Very nice in cold
weather. (Where did homiletics go? Oh, they have nicer
facilities now; us "geeks" have inherited the old building
and we're happy as clams at high tide. Info. Tech., Computer
Services with big racks of servers and routers, the IBM AS-400
mainframe, the Beowulf cluster, the campus Media Center, a
couple of computer labs. You know, "Blessed are the geeks,
for they shall inherit...." No? Something like that, wasn't it?)

Looks like I'll be teaching a math course (Real Analysis) in
the fall. It will be nice to be theoretical for a while as a
relief from all this hardware and technology stuff. This isn't
computer science so there isn't much theory; it's billed as
Computer Information Technology and contains about half of a
CS major along with stuff like Systems Analysis and Management
of Info. Systems more of a business nature. I do the technology
and Rick Koontz does the business and we both teach programming
in one language or other from time to time. (Sprechen Sie COBOL?)

Kathy and I are walking to work regularly. In fact, one day Kathy
drove up with the car and I walked, and she beat me by maybe 20
seconds. But it's cold, like 10 below one morning and I think 5
below this morning. I tell people I'm wearing everything I own
-- or if I'm not, I could push the rest in a grocery cart like
I'm homeless. Long underwear is selling well at Penney's. But
it got up to 27 this afternoon and may thaw tomorrow for a while,
followed by a prediction of freezing rain.

They don't dismiss classes around here except for major calamities.
Several years ago, the dean dismissed classes because the roads
were so treacherous. Half the student body drove to Fort Wayne
(40 miles) and went to the mall. Only time classes have been
dismissed since then was when the power was out due to an ice
storm. And in spite of the cold, Winona Lake probably won't
freeze thick enough to drive on this year. I guess somebody lost
their pickup out there a few years back....
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(Later....)
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Since I was writing that, we had another Space Shuttle disaster.
I'm borderline depressed over it for several reasons we could
discuss sometime. We're losing our will and drive to explore new
things because we want everything to be perfectly safe. But that's
another soapbox of mine.

OK, well, the weather warmed up over the last couple of days where
it actually thawed yesterday and today. Had our "BornAgain Birthday
Bash" at church this evening; about 35 people showed up. We had
guitar, bass, keyboard, trumpet and clarinet, and mostly had a good
time. Had some testimonies (spontaneous) inspired by some of the
old songs. Lots of people in the church who really know what they
were saved from -- alcohol, drugs, some carrying baggage from being
abused as children, having abortions, children out of wedlock, you
name it. Several are still fighting the nicotine habit after giving
up cigarettes months ago. And these folks bring their old drinking
buddies, ex-husband's girlfriends, and I don't know who all to
church, and they keep coming back! We love them all. One really
great guy is a Vietnam vet still having Agent Orange health
problems. He and his wife, about our age, are newlyweds (6 years),
first marriage for both. Jesus accepts all of us, and we just
praise Him for it. It's like a big support group only better
because we're allowed to pray for each other. Our cake this
evening had "Thank You Jesus" on it, plus other goodies,
including lots of chocolate....

And we're in a group of four couples all in our 50's except for
one gal who is maybe 47, and we get together and just talk and
eat every few weeks. Next get-together in a couple of weeks and
one guy is going to cook up some French "cuisine" which I think
involves food, and we're all going to watch the "Princess Bride"
video. Kind of dumb, but it beats getting drunk and not
remembering what happened. We're some of the oldest in the church
except for a group about the same size who are retired. Most of
the church people are twenty- or thirty-somethings; not yuppies
by any means, just really great folks who talk about dishes,
diapers and how good the Lord is. Many of them can hold a steady
job for the first time since getting off the bottle. And lots of
college students who are into writing papers and doing algebra,
since the church is only 3 blocks from the nearest campus
building, just up from our house. A few seminary students in
there, of course, who range in age from about 23 to 53.

Hope y'all don't get tired of me bragging on our church, but it's
really the Lord we're bragging on and how he can save anyone and
straighten out their lives.

Since we don't have grandkids, we "get to" babysit the pastor's
kids from time to time when they go out on a "date". Had a great
time with the kids this past Thursday. Especially that little
10-month-old redhead that reminds me of a little redheaded girl
who used to live at our house. The boy, 3, is a little bundle of
energy, and the big sister, 5, is really smart and a pleasure to
talk to. Good excuse for buying toys. (You should see our new
set of Lincoln Logs and the Lite Brite.)

Pastor's office is almost finished so he comes over here to our
house a couple of days a week to study and use the computer
while we're at work. He now has a computer and the church has a
KCOnline ("Hoosiernet") account so when the office is ready in a
few days he won't need to study here. It's finally official, by
the way; we have enough money to pay him a full salary as of Jan.
1 so we can be like a "real" church now. (The church bought the
campus of a Christian school that moved to bigger facilities and
we're renovating as money permits. One of our guys installed a
drinking fountain while we were all singing this evening, and we
took up an offering to help pay for it. Easy plan; 100% down, no
payments. We have a list and on New Year's we crossed off $2000.00
for finishing the restrooms because it finally came in. It's
looking good! Needs a kitchen; maybe this year....)

We hope y'all are well and will drop us a note here pretty soon.
I'm pretty careful when sorting through the junk E-mail and I
hope I don't lose any "real" messages. As Red Skelton always
said, "Good night and God bless."