Prison Cell 104

Okay, I'll admit it . . . I'm feeling sorry for myself. It's Friday night and I'm holed up in my dorm room, RH104. I had a meeting that took up most of today so I ended up working past five and the next thing I knew, it was almost 9:00. I looked out my office window and thought, "Why is it getting dark outside so early?"

So I returned to Ramseyer Hall and heated up a Banquet microwaveable pot pie for dinner, then settled in with my only friend here, my laptop. Ah, woe is me!

Actually, this is my new laptop and I think it's going to work well for me. It's not set up completely yet to meet my needs but we'll get that done on Monday. I'm pretty happy with it. I enjoyed looking at some of my YouTube videos of MelodyJoy and the boys tonight.

This has been an interesting week . . .

On Tuesday, I was on my way to the house to meet the guy who was inspecting it and then to the bank to meet with our lender. About halfway there, cruising along at about 40 MPH on Lake Avenue, it felt like I had hit something. I looked in the mirror, thinking I must have clipped a mailbox or something. Nothing seemed amiss from that view but clearly something had happened. I quickly pulled into the driveway for the Catholic Cemetery and got out. My front right tire was flat, with a four inch gash in the side and the rim was bent. The good news is that one of TUFW's maintenance guys, JT, jumped in his truck and drove out to change it for me so I could get on my way without a huge delay or getting too sweaty and dirty. By the next day, I had a new tire on the car.

I found out the next day that Jeannette hit a deer at highway speeds this week while driving home from Albany. Fortunately, no one got hurt and (she tells me) the damage to the truck is very minor. So I guess both of those automotive incidents are bad news, good news types of events.

On Wednesday and Thursday, I spent all day in a Chancellor's Cabinet retreat for TUFW. Before you get a picture in your mind of us retreating at some resort in the hills of Indiana (what hills?), let me tell you that this "retreat" was in a conference room at a local church. But we did get all the mixed nuts, mini-peanut butter cups and diet soda we could handle. The retreat went very well, I thought. Frankly, it was exciting to be a part of substantive issues and to feel like [1] I was able to make a contribution and [2] people actually were listening to me. It was refreshing. There are some harsh realities that we must deal with but I think we are heading in the right direction. To a significant extent, it largely boils down to building TUFW's enrollment. Break out the Rolaids. Actually, it doesn't have me too stressed. As Dr. Kilty has said a couple of times, God didn't disrupt our lives to bring us to Fort Wayne and let us fail.

Today, Dr. Kilty and I drove to Upland to meet with Taylor University's president, Gene Habecker, and my counterpart on the main campus, Steve Mortland. This was my first encounter with Dr. Habecker (which should give you some idea of how autonomous the TUFW campus is, when they can fill a key position like mine without even involving the president of the university). Naturally, I was a little bit nervous, just wanting to make a good first impression. The president's take on things was pretty much what I had anticipated but I was especially pleased to see how much Steve and I appear to be on the same page. Over the course of our two hour meeting, I think we made some ginormous strides that will strengthen the university as a whole, the main campus in Upland and TUFW. It was a huge encouragement to me.

Nothing much planned for the weekend. Tomorrow, I am invited to dinner at Sharon's house. Sharon is the assistant to me and to our director of admissions. She and her husband live on a farm about five miles from our house. It'll be a nice break to have a home-cooked meal. And, for the record, Sharon would want me to let everyone know that she has invited me to visit her church. ;-)