Random Musings and Remarks from Fort Wayne

I've probably spent more time by myself in the last two weeks than I usually do in two months, which leads to plenty of opinions, day dreams and reactions. A few for you . . .

• You can waste a lot of time on Facebook if you're not careful.
• It seems like almost everyone in Fort Wayne has a big screen TV. The dorm I'm in even has one hanging on the wall. It's easy to lust after a 50" plasma but is it really a necessity? At $1000+ . . . I'm thinking "no." And at this moment, perched on a couch twelve feet away from the screen, I'd trade it for a regular old 24" TV with a remote!
• Speaking of television, I'm watching Al Gore's big Live Earth concert. With the exception of Madonna--who is awesome tonight--it's been pretty boring so far. But they have used up a lot of energy telling us how we shouldn't waste energy.
• My initial impression that the people of Fort Wayne are very nice still stands. They seem friendly and approachable. (I love talking to Gabby and Elizabeth who clean the offices in my building at TUFW. They are from El Salvador.)
• Still, I've been a little surprised that no one has gone out of their way to invite me to visit their church or anything. Tomorrow I'm planning to check out two churches near our new house.
• I still feel like there's no other job I'd rather have than this one.
• This is definitely going to be the most diverse city that we have lived in as a family. I'll be a little interested to see how the kids respond to such racial diversity. Of course, I guess our family itself is a little diverse. What's caught me by surprise at times, though, is the diversity ethnically . . . at the fast food Chinese restaurant where I had dinner last night, I was thrown off when the white girl behind the counter pronounced "broccoli" with a distinctly different accent ("bro-cali").
• Jeannette would be proud of me . . . I'm trying eat halfway healthy, even if it costs a little more.
• The family is going to eat up the activities here . . . a Target within five minutes of home, Red Lobster ten minutes away, dozens of movie screens, at least two really nice malls, a zoo, Fazoli's, minor league baseball. After seven years of living hours away from such conveniences, I bet it's going to be an easy adjustment.
• One of the malls, Jefferson Pointe, is an outdoor mall like what you would find in SoCal. Not sure how that works in December here! Last night, I stopped there to eat and it took me ten minutes to find a parking place. Not a good parking spot, mind you . . . any spot. It was packed out for a free concert.
• For such a big city, it's not too hard to get around. Working with only a little, photocopied map of Fort Wayne, I've been able to make my way around with little difficulty. The streets do curve and change names and some are one way, so that's a pain, but we'll get used to it.
• This is called the City of Churches and rightfully so. There are at least five within five minutes of our house, plus a big Christian bookstore and coffee house. Moreover, many of the churches are eye-catching. While my experience is limited, I think the churches are more beautiful than any I've seen all in one place.
• Banks are open on Saturdays here. Everyone thought I was weird because I thought that was weird.
• Gas prices seem to really bounce around here. When I arrive last week, they were in the low two eighties and now they are almost three bucks a gallon. Arggh.
• I still hate sales tax.
• Family is important. I do pretty well, really, when I'm on my own but there's not much point to working and living without having family to share it with.
• Friday night, I saw an older couple (i.e., older than us) walking with a little Chinese girl in their arms. She looked to be only ten months old or so. I followed them around until they went to their car.
• Okay, we've seen that God probably delayed the sale of our house in order to influence which home we would end up with here. Now that He's made that point, what's keeping it from selling now?!
• What did we do before cell phones?
• I have never slept so poorly for so long. Regardless of what the day has been like, what time I go to bed, what I've been doing, it is taking me an hour or more to get to sleep. Two nights ago, at about 2 AM, I pulled the other mattress onto the floor. It seems to help a little . . . but last night I found a pea underneath it, so that may explain all my tossing and turning.
• I visited a small church today and the people were very friendly. When they sang "There's within my heart a melody" and, at the end, "This is the day the Lord has made" (which we used for the recessional at our wedding), I thought perhaps it was meant to be for us to attend there. But then they announced that their youth pastor was leaving and I just find it hard to believe it's going to meet the needs of our family.
• I went back to the Panda Grill Chinese buffet today for lunch. A family came in with two Chinese girls. I struck up a conversation with them and learned that they attend Blackhawk Church, which is certain to be one of the churches we'll try. They live in one of the subdivisions that I considered in househunting and their daughters will be in 2nd and 6th grades this year (the same as Jameson). They also told me that the church hosts a Chinese school where kids can learn Mandarin.