Jim & Luan and Gideon

Tammy and I went out for dinner Friday night with some friends from a neighborhood I lived in until 1992. Jim and Luan were the kind of neighbors you come to appreciate more and more over the years. I've had other neighbors who were as nice but none that were better. How it became that we lost touch with each other save for the yearly Christmas card I don't understand. Jim and Luan stayed in the old neighborhood until '98 when Jim was diagnosed with MS and had to opt for a townhome with less demand on matters about upkeep. I remember before I moved how they had just purchased a boat and were really enjoying their time out on the lakes during the weekend. Jim had also built a model railroad set up in his basement for something he and his son, Frank could do together. They truly knew how to relax and I always admired that about them. I'm the type who has a hard time staying still for very long. I'm getting better but I'm still not there.

Anyway, this past summer I was at Coles salon waiting for Rachel to get her hair done when Luan recognized me and came over and chatted. Our talk was interrupted as she was called away by her stylist and that was that. Again, a few weeks ago she recognized me at Chipoltle...this time with Tammy. It was nice to be able to introduce her to Tammy as I'd told her about Jim and Luan. We agreed that we should finally get together, so, the past few weeks we've been attempting to do just that. We were finally able to make it happen last Friday when we met them for dinner at Houlihan's. It was good to see them again. I wish we had longer to talk. I think we were mostly just scratching the surface but that was fine. To me, they've hardly changed since we used to be neighbors but no doubt the years do show just a bit for us all.

I spent my weekend tweaking the photo pages on my website. When I put them together I was concerned that anyone trying to access them with a dial-up connection needed to have photos which weren't too large. That's still true but I'm finding that I've compromised the photos too much to the point that they're not nearly as good as they could be. So, I'm redoing them all and making them larger in terms of dimension and file size. I've got the first six pages done and I'll keep pressing on with the others with hopes I can get them all done before I burn out on the project.

I was finally able to get out on my bike yesterday after being off for 10 days. The break was nice but so was getting back out riding. It was cold though...1-3 degrees but the roads were dry for the most part and that was my main concern.

I nearly skipped church this morning to go out riding but I'm glad I didn't. We had a guest speaker and he was fantastic to listen to. His message was about how God wants to remove fear from our lives and free us up to be all that we can. He's not about removing those things which we fear, whatever that may be but about eliminating the fear associated with them. He preached from Judges 6 and the story of Gideon. I'd read it a few times before but some of the finer points which give it so much meaning were lost on me. Gideon wasn't a brave man just as Moses was a reluctant leader who stammered when he spoke. God chose these men who appeared to be nothing more than common men and used them to show His people that great things can be achieved by trusting in Him. Heroes don't typically come from those we hold in high esteem but rather from the humble people we tend to often overlook day to day.