tha's straight gutta'

As many of you know, and as perhaps more of you do not know, I'm going to work in Brenham this summer. I'll be doing inner-city mission work there for ten weeks. For those of you who think "Brenham" and "inner-city" do not belong in the same sentence, allow me to relieve you of your ignorance: 10% of Brenham's residents live in government subsidised housing; a number that was at one point the highest percentage in the state. That said, I am obviously going to have to hone my ebonics skills before heading out there. Some of my current youth group kids grew up in the hood, and they help me stay up on various street terms. One of my new favorites is "tha's straight gutta" or "that's straight gutter." The latter is there for the Supercinski's. Anyway, the afore mentioned statement is simply another way of saying, "that's cool!" or "that's wonderful," whichever you might normally find yourself saying. If I think about it I'll keep you guys updated on my new words I learn throughout the summer, but I'll be honest, I probably won't think about it. Something I also won't be thinking about is the new gutter that some mystery man installed right above our front porch this morning... it is without a doubt the shortest gutter I have ever seen. Straight gutta.

changes next door

It doesn't take the keenest of eyes to notice two things that are significantly different about the well-known Luther House in the picture above. The first thing any given neighbor would notice when driving by and listening to their bass-bumping car stereos is the void directly below the second floor window. That's right ladies and gentlemen, the infamous and severely weathered deer head has finally been removed from the facade of the Luther House. Some would argue that this is a sad thing, and to some degree it is. The removal of the deer does, however, improve the appearance of the house a great deal... if it weren't for the wooden blockade that was built minutes before the house was de-deered. You see, the city has numerous problems with how disgusting the Luther House is, so much so that they often send notices telling them to remove items within the given time period or pay a fine, and remove them anyway. One item that College Station would love to see the front porch without is the couch that rests on the Eastern corner. They said that furniture that is made for the indoors is not to be visible from the street on the exterior of a house. So rather than moving the couch, John Banks in all his handiness, built a wall blocking the couch's visibility from the street. Brilliant.

It goes without saying that the deer head which was removed went through various pranks, one of which is pictured below. Also, if you'd like to see a sideways video of the actual removal of the deer, click here and then click "Download." Enjoy.

december finally struck

You may recall the post a week or so ago in which I complained about the ridiculously hot weather here in Texas. Well pretty much the very next day it started to get cold, and this past couple of days have been amazing! The temperature has been camping out around the upper 20's to lower 40's, and there's been ice, which nearly brings life to the dead trees that it coats... so pretty.

Not only is it really cold outside, when you live in the Extreme, you get the joys of the outside weather inside too! Our heater can't make its mind up as to when it wants to work and when it wants to rest, but it seems it likes to rest most when it really ought be working. So, from the second I woke up yesterday until I went to bed, I had all these layers on, and I drank 3 or 4 cups of spiced apple cider. I had my doubts concerning the necessity of that purchase, but it turns out there was nothing that necessitated a purchase more.

a story from the Extreme

So the other day began just like any other: I woke up earliest of all the residents in the Extreme, and Mikey shortly followed suit. Taylor woke up some time much later, I'm sure, however I don't remember and in fact, that is not relevant to this story. I woke up and took a shower, after which I went into my room to do the things people do after a post-shower dry off session. During my time dressing I heard Mikey move from his bedroom (where he sleeps) to the bathroom (where we recently got new light bulbs). I went on with my daily routine, which includes some cereal, reading, talking to Jesus, and things of the sort. I completed said activities when straight to my mind arose a question that Mikey needed to answer. He had since moved from the bathroom back to his room, where I assumed he was partaking in his daily routine, which possesses similar qualities as mine. I opened up his door and saw this terrible display of lethargy:

hey kitty

Remember the kitties I posted about a couple months ago? Well if not, there were three of them: Max, Nig, and Stripes. Max is dead now, and everyone has Kent Cochran to thank for that. In happier news, however, Nig and Stripes now like to come in to the house. Here you see Nig entering and looking for food. They rarely find food in the house, but we let them look nonetheless. I must say it's quite unlike me to welcome any feline into my house, but I think I just feel for these kitties having lost a close friend, so I show them a bit of hospitality.

On a completely unrelated note, I need to apologize for my inconsistancy in font sizes. I like this size, but I often forget to change it to this... give me time... it'll come.

Finally, I think it's proper in the world of blog ethics to leave a comment if someone dedicates a post to you. Just a thought.

let the circle be unbroken

Some of you may recall a post of yore which depicted the Extreme's new Circle of Conversation, and offered the title, "you could be here." The first group of people who accepted this generous invitation were half of the 6 Chicks and a close friend to the Chicks. Topics discussed included but were not limited to cookies, opossums, puppies, and other topics which one would file under the "greater questions of life" folder. Participants in the afore mentioned conversation were (from left to right) D.O., Stephanie Logan, Claire Elise Borne, Mikey Mills, Jessica Lynn Schmale, and Brooke Ashlee Teague Brandon. I know, an elite group indeed.

At some point in the conversation, things must have become extremely boring for one Claire Borne, which she had no shame in showing all of us by simply falling asleep. It looked a lot like this:

sting pong

The welts on Jon's back wouldn't be there if it weren't for the wonderful game of sting pong. Play ping pong, first person to five gets to hit the ball at their opponents bare back the number of points said opponent was short of five. For example, if I scored 5, but Jon scored 3, then I get two attempts to hit him (note: that was certainly a fictitious example, and none of those welts are from a ball that came from my paddle). In case the picture I'm describing isn't on this post... well, I'm working on it.

On a different note, I turned a thing on where you have to type in a code when posting, so as to eliminate spam (see previous post's comments). I hope this doesn't discourage anyone from posting. Post away friends.

you could be here

Seeing that the Extreme is not your typical college boys house, it stands to reason that the Extreme's living room is far from the status quo. Say all that to say, a picture is worth [at least] a thousand words, and the picture displayed above says, among other things, than conversations need to be had by humans sitting on these furniture pieces. That is why this area of the living room / music room has been deemed the Circle of Conversation. Now for the awesome part: you and those with whom you associate need to come over and discuss the greater questions of life with the Extreme boys. If none of them are present, you should still stay and talk, discuss, and other synonyms that describe verbal communication.

the kasbah was rocked

As happens every fall, college students around the nation head back to their respective college towns/ cities for a new semester. We here on Luther street thought this an appropriate occasion to invite a few friends over to hang out. Well one thing led to another and the Back to School Dance Party happened this past Saturday night. This picture gives you a decent idea as to how many humans were there. We decided that at any given moment there were 300 people on the property (inside and out) and that the grand total of people coming and going was around 500. The second biggest party that the police officer who shut us down had ever seen in the Brazos Valley. Yes, that's right, the police came and tried to give us a noise violation (praise God we only got a warning), and abruptly ended the festivities. Thanks to all who came out, and thanks to the two people who read this blog.

In other news, if you were curious as to what my strengths were from the book I posted about below, they are as follows (and I think in this order): Developer, Adaptability, Belief, Positivity, and Woo.

first day of school!

I do apologize for the delay posting this photo, seeing that the first day of school was nearly two days ago now (now being the time I posted this). Here I am on the first day of school, standing on the front porch, fully equipped with my backpack and the sun in my eyes. I wish that L.O. would have had the courtesy to come to College Station for this picture, but she had her own school (Texas Tech) to attend. This first day of school was different from all the others I've ever taken part in because for this day, the Lord decided to take the greater part of my voice away, leaving me barely able to communicate with my newfound classmates. I hope that I won't be shun from the business community as a result of this... well, actually, I don't think I'd care if that happened. Why did I say business you ask? Because I'm a marketing major, contrary to popular belief.

never a dull moment

I was walking over to the Luther house with my recently viewed copy of Garden State (which I thoroughly enjoyed), which I was going to return to Jon, who borrowed it from Beth, who borrowed it from Megan. I open the front door and I see the roommates hard at work, painting the living room. Logan took the cake with Jessie's shorts, and I took the picture.

Extreme bug update

Quickly, I'd like to share this picture of the most recent bug incident caught on film at the Extreme. The orange bellied bugs are (seemingly) being dominated by the spiders of the house. Who will win in the end? Hopefully the humans, but only time will tell! Stay tuned!

kitties??

In an effort to keep the site new and wonderful (mainly for ol' Peanut because she doesn't know how to change it from her homepage), I'll attempt to post things more regularly. Here you see a picture of one (two if you look closely) of the Luther street cats. His/Her name is Maximus, but we just call him/her Max most the time. He/She got his/her name because he/she is much braver than the other two cats. Max has been so brave as to almost eat out of the hands of both myself and Colby. Despite most of the houses residents disdain for felines, we've opted to keep these around to kill the Luther street rats. I don't know how we're teaching them to hunt however, seeing how we feed them tuna flavored cat food.

all the clouds broke at once

Here in College Station, it seems to rain around 50 to 60% of 365.25 days in a given year. I'm sure the actual number is significantly smaller, but for those of us who's main mode of transportation, it seems fairly accurate. Today a storm was brewing right around noon, so Mikey and I decided to make lunch and eat it on the porch to the sights and sounds of said storm rolling in. While we were making our sandwiches, we heard and an enormous amount of rain pelting the roof. We took a look out the back door to see the great rains, and could only laugh at the sight. I couldn't accurately say what was so funny, but whatever it was, we enjoyed it. So much so that a picture was taken, and posted on the blog. The photo doesn't exactly do the storm justice, but it was quite the downpour. I had many thoughts of our Biblical friend Noah.

While on the front porch, as Colby, Mikey and I were discussing the greater questions in life, God interrupted with the loudest, most massive crack of thunder I have ever heard in my life, no exaggeration. The only thing I can compare it to is to an explosion at the Batman Stunt Show at Six Flags, only the explosion lasted for 10 seconds. Not like a bunch of separate blasts, but all one, really drawn out one. I proceeded to yell for the next minute or so about how cool God is, and how cool it is that I personally know the guy who made that nearly earth-shaking burst. Rain is so funny.