All By Myself

Well, this has been quite a week. At the risk of putting you to sleep, I'll recount it day by day. Because some of you only come here for the Melody photos, I'll give you one now and then you can get on with your day. This is from Sunday and, I assume, will be the last MJ picture on this blog for at least three weeks.

Sunday was my last day at home. We keep trying to do everything we can to sell our home, so Jeannette held an impromptu open house. While she did, I took the boys to see Evan Almighty at the movies. We really enjoyed it a lot. I really liked the first four-fifths or so and the last part was pretty good. I laughed out loud a few times and it was very interesting to see Evan's neighbors mock him as he stood on the ark under a clear blue sky. It felt like it was a good representation of what it really was like for Noah as he worked on the ark in Genesis.

Sunday evening, Jordan and Jeannette dove into a new project to make the house more saleable. They tore out the barbed wire fence that has graced our back yard for seven years. Jeannette's wanted a new fence since the day we moved in so, of course, it's something we work on when it's time to move out, right? We got the fence down and on Monday, after I left town, Jordan, Phillip and Jeannette dug eight post holes and with an assist from Mitch Mueller set the posts. On Tuesday, they got most of the fence built. I'm hoping that Phillip will e-mail me some pictures of the project this week so I can post them here.

Back to Monday . . . I loaded up the Acura late in the morning and headed for Boise, about a 420 mile drive. Driving is no longer "my thing," as Jeannette will attest, so I was quite proud of myself for driving straight through to Burns without stopping, which is probably my longest non-stop drive since we drove out to Oregon from Kentucky. It was a perfect day for hitting the road and I saw some beautiful scenery (though I had to redefine "beautiful" for certain sections of the landscape that seemed to be nothing but sagebrush). I was reminded of my impression back in the late '80s as I traveled frequently through Eastern Washington that the brown hills often looked like folds of crushed velvet dropped on the earth.

I made great time getting to Nampa, even with a 30 minute break in Burns for a gourmet lunch at McDonalds, and arrived at Eric and Kim Forseth's house. Eric is the VP for Enrollment Services and Marketing at Northwest Nazarene and when I had lunch with him at the NACCAP conference in LA, he invited me to spend the night at their house on my way to Fort Wayne. Their house might just be Jeannette's dream home (especially when they finish the basement off this month) and they fed me dinner, fresh brownies and Eric even made me a sack lunch to take with me as I left Tuesday morning. They took good care of me.

After a short night, because I had a million thoughts about starting work at Taylor University Fort Wayne and couldn't get to sleep, I got up Tuesday morning and picked up Jeannette's brother, Jared, for breakfast.

The reason I drove to Boise was so that I could deliver the Acura to Jared. When he heard we were going to sell it, he said that he wanted to buy it. We had a very nice meal at Denny's (French Slam breakfasts all 'round) and then he drove me to the airport in his new rig.

The trip so far was as smooth as possible. Nice weather, nice scenery, nice people . . . easy travel. Boarding my United flight to Chicago, things continued to go pretty well. It was a small plane with typically minimal service (one diet Coke and a bag of peanuts . . . thank you, Eric, for that sack lunch) but I had a row to myself, snoozed a little and felt pretty comfortable . . . and then the pilot mentioned thunderstorms in Chicago.

We flew in circles over Illinois for about an hour but were assured that our connections wouldn't be a problem because while all the flights couldn't land, none were leaving O'Hare either. Then we received word that, in fact, we were going to land in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to refuel. But we were told that we needed to stay on the plane or else we wouldn't be able take off right away when O'Hare gave us the go-ahead. I called United and found out that, actually, my 20 minute flight to South Bend had been cancelled. I learned with my next call that the first available flight supposedly was at 6:30 Wednesday morning, so I reserved a seat. Several calls later, I had established that it appeared I'd be sleeping on the floor of the airport as no hotel rooms were available.

Complicating matters: My chauffeur. My longtime friend, Chant Thompson, the executive director of NACCAP, had foolishly offered to drive from Huntington (more than 90 minutes from South Bend) to South Bend to deliver me to Fort Wayne, another 90 minutes away more from the airport. Naturally, I was feeling pretty awful about inconveniencing him in the first place, let alone adding uncertainty to the whole affair. By the time I called to let him know about the problems, through the miracle of the Internet, he already knew my flight was cancelled and I was rebooked. I probably could have walked to South Bend faster than it was going to take to fly there.

O'Hare was a zoo. Every restaurant had long lines and each customer service desk had lines of people stretching literally a hundred yards or more. People were everywhere. I decided to walk to the gate where my cancelled flight was supposed to have departed from and just kind of play dumb to see what I could find out. The gate agent there mentioned in an off-hand fashion that many people were not showing up for their flights that evening because of the delays and inconvenience so I probably could get on standby. Stand by for what? I'd been told there were no flights until morning. Oh! There's a flight that leaves for South Bend at about 10:45, landing around midnight, and she can put me on the standby list if I'd like. After consulting with Chant, I decided to give it a shot.

I finally ate the chicken sandwich that Eric packed for me, along with a cup of cheese & broccoli soup from Quizno's, and waited for the flight, also scouting out possible spots where I could stretch out for the night if necessary. They started boarding the flight. They started calling names from the standby list. And more names. Finally, I heard mine. As I walked onto the plane, I dialed up Chant. He answered the phone, "We have lift-off?!" Yes, I'm boarding now. He said he was already 45 minutes down the road to get me. A man of faith.

I was able to stretch out with an exit row all to myself for the full 20 minute journey. I made my way to the baggage carousel to wait for my two suitcases . . . and waited. It took longer for the bags to come off the plane than it took to fly from Chicago. Finally, one of my suitcases appeared . . . and then the carousel stopped. Sigh. One bag missing. About fifteen of us made our way to the United counter to file lost luggage reports. Chant had been waiting curbside since shortly after I landed and the clock continued to tick. Finally, after 1:00 AM, we pulled away and headed for Fort Wayne.

There are no Interstates between South Bend and Fort Wayne so it's not the quickest trip, but we used the time well to solve the problems of the world, TUFW and NACCAP. He finally dropped me off at Ramseyer Hall, my home for 25 days about 3:00 in the morning. When I got into my room, I realized that the missing suitcase held my bedding, towels and soap. After unpacking and exploring the dorm a bit, I finally climbed onto my bed--stepping on a dresser to get into the top bunk, because the bottom bunk is more than a litttle claustrophobic--about 4:00 AM.

TUFW is letting me use a school car while I'm here so late Wednesday morning I made a Walmart run to buy an iron, nail clippers, laundry soap, some food, a towel and a bar of soap. Showered and shaved, by 2:30, I was in my first meeting, to discuss advertisement placement for the coming year. Fortunately, my suitcase showed up later that afternoon so I was able to make my bed.

Ramseyer is the newest building and newest residence hall at TUFW. I am in a two-bedroom, two-bathroom suite that has an unfurnished living area and a kitchenette. Right now, I have it--and the entire building--to myself. It's really very nice but it's also very spartan and empty and quiet. I hear that the dorm will be filled next week with Bible quiz teams and the following week with ballet campers, though, so I'm trying to be grateful for the solitude while it lasts. And, thank goodness, it's air conditioned.

Upstairs, in a lounge area, there is a big flat screen TV on the wall, so I've spent my evenings up there. There's no remote, which is a real hardship, but (again) I'm just trying to be grateful that it's there and available to me, knowing that in a couple of days, it'll probably be tuned to the Cartoon Network at full volume while I hide out in my dorm room listening to ESPN.com.

Since it's late and I'm tired (and you're bored), let me just make a few closing comments . . .

• Man, there are a lot of meetings here. I hope I can find time to do my job in between all of them.
• My initial impression of the folks at TUFW was positive and I'm pleased to report that it appears this impression was a correct one. Great people. I met three of the custodial crew tonight as I came back into my office and they were so friendly and nice, it just made my day.
• The Panda Buffet on State Street is the best Chinese buffet I've ever had. I've never had thirds on string beans. They must have had five shrimp dishes (including a walnut sauce dish that was like eating candy), mussles, stuffed mushrooms, sushi, stir fry, American dishes, soups, salads . . . I had to force myself to stop eating.
• This evening, I attended the closing dinner of the Summer Honors College program, attended by about 50 high schoolers from all over the country and even one from Nigeria. It was very casual but I could tell from what was said that it had been a very successful week both academically and socially. It was nice to walk away from my first TUFW event feeling proud of my new workplace.
• There is a lot of work to do here, not because no one has been trying or working hard in the past but just because there is a lot to do.
• Tomorrow morning I'll be going out to look at homes again. I think we're going to check out about 18, including some I saw on my last trip. So expect a whole bunch of home photos in the next 36 hours (though probably no videos since this "loaner" TUFW computer apparently doesn't have the latest version of Flash that I need to have).
• It's gonna be a long three weeks . . . hope time doesn't drag too much . . . and that Jeannette doesn't lose her mind trying to be single parent to four kids.