Well, here it is. The old blog has been spruced up in anticipation of the big New York co-op. I've been trying to figure out what I wanted to call it, and this is what I've decided on for now. I also considered Mr. Ogle Goes to Broadway, The King of New York, No Day But Today, and Carrying the Banner. I'm pretty sure the blog will stay Alex Meets Manhattan, but there's a chance it could become more a muppet inspired Alex Takes Manhattan or Mr. Ogle Takes Manhattan. We'll see.
I stayed in Cincinnati until yesterday morning, and it ended up being the perfect amount of time. Amazingly, I was able to spend time with just about everyone I wanted to. Sunday afternoon was especially great. I went over to Artie's house and spent the afternoon hanging out and talking with him and his young son, Jackson. Artie and I had tried to hang out more since the one time we were able to earlier in the quarter, but we couldn't until now. We caught up, and eventually Artie's wife Lisa came back from the store with their 8-month-old Lincoln. Lincoln is extremely cute, and I had a lot of fun playing with him and helping him walk around the house. They invited me to stay for dinner which I couldn't pass up, and Artie wanted me to tell Lisa my Africa story after he had gotten the updated version earlier in the afternoon. I'd say the afternoon and evening made up for our lost time this quarter.
Coming home, I figured I would wear my lip ring from my Halloween costume to see what my parents would think. Well, at first Dad didn't notice, but Mom did. She didn't think it was real until Jaimie (who had seen pictures of me at Halloween) joined in and said "It was really hard to keep it a secret when you told me two weeks ago!" I hadn't even told her I was going to do it. What a great sister, eh? At that point I just let the chaos continue. Dad was silent, with a very upset look on his face. Mom started to say things like, "Why didn't you get an earring? I'd be okay with an earring, that'd be good! Or a tattoo!" When Mom started saying that Dad told her to be quiet. Once it seemed like they were really convinced, I went outside with Matt to get my stuff out of the car so that Mom and Dad could have a moment of terror to let it sink in. When I came back in, Mom gave me a thoroughly convinced "You will HAVE to take that out while you are here." And I walked up and put my face really close to hers and as she looked at the ring disgusted I pulled it out of my lip. It was really fun and it went on much longer than I planned, but when Jaimie joined in I had to keep it going. Mom is still talking about it today. It was pretty great.
Anyway, now I'm home here, actually excited to spend time with my family. I'm looking forward to time with my friends too. I'm just hoping for the next few weeks to be a major time of focus and foundation-building before the awesome chaos of 2009 begins. Who knows, I might even get some reading done. This afternoon I finished up Erwin McManus's The Barbarian Way. It's an awesome book about breaking out of the idea that following Jesus is something that is safe and comfortable. It's crazy how relevant the book is to my upcoming trips to New York and Africa, considering I bought the book earlier in the quarter before I had any idea Africa would be happening, and that I just started reading the book a few days ago.
Anyway, that's enough for now. I think I'm headed to Matt's hockey game tonight, then I've got Jury Duty tomorrow. I don't expect to update this baby all that many times before I head to New York, but who knows. When I have things to write about and time to write, I'll do my best.
I hope everybody is having a great break! Stay in touch.
much love
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