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July 31, 2003
Bathroom painting: Day 4
The saga continues… No interruptions today except for lunch and dinner. Thankfully, after Julianna got home from work, she helped out tremendously by rolling the first coat of paint onto the walls (I would have still been painting if not for her help).
Things rarely go as smoothly as one would expect. I mean, I know what goes into painting — I’ve done it on a number of occasions before. Still, for every paint job, something unusual happens or something goes wrong or a little of both. Nothing really went wrong today (except for running out of masking tape and cutting my finger with my utility knife), but I did learn a couple of new things.
One is that paint has a hard time sticking to stained wood. Ok, I knew this. In fact, I bought a gallon of white primer just for this purpose. What I didn’t know was how hard of a time paint has sticking to stained wood. I discovered this after applying the fifth coat of white paint to some wood that I had primed and finding that the brown stain color still showed through. Luckily, I hadn’t started painting all of the wood yet; this first section of wood was a test run, of sorts. After dealing with this difficult area, I realized that I had to put a couple of coats of primer on everything else that was stained (two cabinet doors, two closet doors, and the ceiling) before even beginning to paint. (Not something I was too kean on, considering that I was already a day over — my ridiculous — schedule.)
The second thing I learned is that paint soaks through drop cloth sheets. Yeah, I should have known this. After cleaning up tonight, I found a bunch of little spots of paint on the carpet where they had dropped onto the sheet and then soaked through. Nice. The fun never ceases.
Tomorrow, I’ll be finished. (Or, will I?)
Informatio: Life
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July 30, 2003
Bathroom painting: Day 3
This ain’t no Trading Spaces... Of course, I’m not an interior decorator with a carpenter and two homeowners to help me out either. It’s just me. But, I started painting today! Just primer on the wood pieces, but that means tomorrow will just be painting, all painting! (Thank you, Julianna, for finishing the closet doors for me tonight!) Needless to say, I didn’t finish in two days, like the aforementioned television show, but I’m doing it for way under $1000!
Interestingly, today had two interruptions just like yesterday.
The first wasn’t so great. I got a call by a prominent area design company who I was sort of hoping to be hired by. I was told that I didn’t have the experience that they were looking for. Huh. I’ve been a graphic designer for fourteen years and they don’t think I have the experience. Oh, well… God knows.
The second was dinner with my friends Jason (yeah, the same Jason from yesterday) and his web designer. That was fun! We talked about some upcoming things that may swing me some work… Maybe the phone call, earlier today, wasn’t so bad after all.
If all goes as planned, I may finish the bathroom tomorrow. (And that’s good, ‘cause I gotta go!!!)
Informatio: Life
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No time is a good time...
I kept trying to find a good time to post this and soon figured that no time was a good time. Now isn’t even a good time, but I wanted to get it up.
Alex Schroen
1981-2003Informatio: Life, Photography
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July 29, 2003
Bathroom painting: Day 2
Today’s part of the bathroom painting project went well, but I didn’t get as much finished as I would have liked. There is still one big wall and a couple of smaller wall-sections that have glue on them. Arg.
Yesterday, I bought the product pictured to the left. After spraying it on, waiting the specified 15-20 minutes, and trying my hand at effortlessly wiping off the wallpaper glue, I found that the claims on the bottle were not quite true. In fact, I’m having better luck by just mixing a little dish soap with hot water. So much for shortcuts…
But, I really wanted to be finished with all of the glue today so that tomorrow would consist only of painting. Oh, well.
Not in complaint, my day was broken up by a couple of really cool things.
First was lunch with Jason. That was great; our first real meeting in meatspace. It’s nice to be able to meet a good friend online, who goes to the same church and lives in the same city. Go figure!
Second was a potluck at church. Julianna and I went with some chicken (for ourselves) and homemade brownies (for the others). It was really fun and we got to talk to a few people who we don’t normally get to talk to.
Tomorrow, more glue removal and then onto the real stuff… Painting!
Informatio: Life
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July 28, 2003
Bathroom painting: Day 1
So, I had the idea that I would tear down the ultra-ugly wallpaper in our bathroom and paint it this week. After all, I am still off for the summer.
I’ve done this type of work before, each time with varying difficulties, so I was pretty confident with my assessment of this particular task. I was slightly wrong, though. The wallpaper was old… Like, over 20-years old. And it was foil. I thought that it was going to take me most of the week to get it down. But it didn’t! I got it all down and was able to start on the glue by tonight (removing wallpaper glue from a wall is always a draining job no matter how old it is).
Anyway, I will probably have the glue finished by early evening, tomorrow, and maybe even get to start cutting the paint. Fun!
I’ll keep you all posted.
Informatio: Life
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July 27, 2003
Gratuitous Blog post...
I came up with another Blog term:
blog+i+nol+o+gy Pronunciation: “blah-gi-‘nÓ-l&-jE Function: noun Inflected Form(s): plural -gies 1 : the technical or special terms used in a Blog 2 : nomenclature as a field of study – blośgi+no+log+i+cal / adjective – blo+gi+noślog+iścal+ly / adverb
Informatio: Blogging
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July 26, 2003
California Vacation pictures!
Finally! It was a tough job sorting through all of the photos that we took during our trip to California last week. I’d love to post all of them, but that just wouldn’t be feasilble I’m still using a camera that produces film, not files).
You may notice that there are no pictures from the party we had on July 12th (aside from my brother and father being goofy before the whole thing started). I guess I was just too distracted by all of the people and conversation to take any! If you’d like to see some pictures from the party, taken by my good friend, Scott, go here (look for my big face and start with the picture just to the left of it).
Anyway, I hope you enjoy these photographs. If you were able to get through my original (way too long) post about our trip, you know that we had a great time!
Continue Reading...Informatio: Life, Photography, Trips and Adventures
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July 22, 2003
I'll stop the world and melt with you...
I had been tossing ideas around in my mind of how to recap our vacation to California. I could have written a short story (which would have definitely been the best, most entertaining way for you to read it). But, I just didn’t feel like I had the energy or…capacity. I could have just given a brief overview of everything that had happened, ending it with, “You’ll just have to believe me — we had a wonderful time,” but that would have left you (and me) wanting more. One night, while Julianna and I were preparing dinner, we had everyone write haikus about family and/or our week together. They turned out great and were ridiculously inventive. I guess I could have gone the artsy route and posted those (which, actually, I think I will post when I get our pictures back). Still, these haikus might only mean something to us (my family). So, being the analytical person that I am (and because of the fact that us Samoff’s are crazily talented at fitting loads of “fun” into small periods of time), I decided to sum up everything that happened in list form — kind of like a journal of past events. I know that this is not the most flow-oriented reading, but I decided to do this more for me — as something that I could come back to in the future and, possibly, relive…
Informatio: Art, Faith, Film, Fun, Games, Humor, Life, Music, Trips and Adventures
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July 21, 2003
Back to the nitty gritty...
Hey, everyone! We made it back to sweet, sweltering Kansas City, Missouri safe and sound. It was not without a little stress, though.
On our way to LAX, on Saturday afternoon, we hit traffic on the 405 freeway (go figure) that slowed us down to a crawl for the entire trip. We arrived at the airport with 20 minutes to get checked in and on the plane. My dad got a parking ticket for helping us get our luggage into the airport and we weren’t even able to say goodbye to my mom who had to drop the other family members off and speed away from the curb. We were late enough that the airline staff told us that our luggage wouldn’t make it onto our flight and that we had to go through extra security (Luke had to the endure the groping hands and magic wand routine). Still, we sat down in our seats at 3pm (the flight was scheduled to leave at 3:05pm) and, by God’s grace, our luggage made it onto our flight too.
I’ve got a lot to say about our week in California — which was amazing and wonderful and fulfilling and all of the other good words that people use to describe good things. It was also very tiring, as most vacations tend to be. I just took 120 photographs to the store to be developed, so be sure to check back here in a couple of days for a recap of our entire week — which I’ve already started to write.
Real life awaits…
Informatio: Family, Family and Friends, Miscellany, Humor, and Reality, Trips and Adventures
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July 12, 2003
We made it!
We made it to LAX safely — 20 minutes early to boot! After having lunch at In-N-Out Burger, we drove home to rest a little and then we went to see Grandma Samoff for a while. This morning, we woke up to usual the Samoff household morning fare of Biblical midrash, praise and worship music, and a disgustingly huge breakfast… Yes, the commune is back together again! Now, it’s time to get prepared for the party!
More later…
Informatio: Family, Family and Friends, Trips and Adventures
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July 10, 2003
Off again!
Tomorrow morning, we’re all on a plane to California (sorry, I mean LAX!). Maybe now, with some good travellin’, I’ll get to start feeling a little like Jason Cupp. I’m going to try to make a Blog post at some point next week, but don’t hold your breath — and to think that I just caught up with you all.
Have a great week everyone. I know we will. We’ll miss you.
Informatio: Family, Family and Friends, Milestones, Trips and Adventures
Posted at 5:14 pm | Permalink | Trackback | Comments (2)
July 09, 2003
My life as a superposited array...
There’s a list on the kitchen counter. It’s an 8 1/2“x11” piece of paper, filled with scribbles of things that I’m supposed to accomplish this week. Most of the items have been scratched off by now, but there are still a few things left to do. I used to keep all the things that I had to do painstakingly organized on my Palm Pilot, but after a couple of years of being obsessed by this, I found that it just wasn’t “organic” enough for my random thought-processes. So much to do, so little…
And I haven’t been completely honest with you: the last couple of days haven’t been completely blogless. Aside from the couple of posts that I’ve managed to get online, I have also been reading a lot and posting my fair share of comments on others’ Blogs. How am I fitting all of this stuff in? (In the amount of time I have in the day and the amount of space I have in my brain?)
One Blog post of mention is from Real Live Preacher (yes, I’ve mentioned him before). The post is about forgiveness and why we, as believers, should give it freely, not just for forgiveness’s sake, but also give it because it is a gift to ourselves. This sparked a thread of comments (for and against this idea) that was very provocative and interesting.
A question that arose, though, had me racking my brain all day yesterday:
...If our duty is to forgive our enemies, so that we may be sons and daughters of our Father in heaven (much less so that our own sins may be forgiven)...After talking to my friend Troy this morning, after Matins, I had this to say:
then what about forgiving Satan?
~ Jason Pratt
I must say that the comment-discussion that was started about Satan kind of wrecked me yesterday. I just couldn’t get a grasp on the whole “forgive Satan” aspect. It seemed like we should — I mean, it seemed Biblical. This also tied into forgiveness being a gift and who, in fact, the gift was for.My brother had this to add:
I was discussing the subject with a friend this morning, though, and he had some great insight (which I don’t think has been hit upon yet). I’m most likely going to be adding my own interpretation to his insight…
It is that, while forgiveness and grace are a free gift from God, they are only given if asked for — and when given, they are given in the form of “redemption.”
Now, from a human standpoint, forgiveness can (and should) be given freely without it being asked for. Forgiveness releases both the “forgiver” and the “forgave” from bonds (bitterness, hate, disrespect, etc.) that the “forgiver” had created. But, just because the “forgiver” has forgiven the “forgave,” it doesn’t mean that the “forgave” is redeemed (as per God’s version of forgiveness). While forgiving someone is a “gift” to the “forgave,” it might only be a gift that allows the person to know (if you tell him) that he can come to you and ask for redemption — and, more importantly, ask for forgiveness from God.
In this case, yes, it is Biblically correct for us to forgive Satan, but that doesn’t mean that Jesus’s death automatically forgave Satan. For this to happen, as it did with us, Satan must ask the Lord for forgiveness. If he ever did this, then God would surely forgive him.
Therefore, we can forgive Satan, releasing any sort of “grudge” (bond) that we had with him (if we ever had one at all). By doing this, we are imparting a gift to ourselves — freeing ourselves from the strongholds that we created.
Satan’s job, is then to ask forgiveness from God so that he may receive true (free) redemption. This cannot happen unless he asks. This cannot happen unless we ask.
...the power to forgive lies in the one offended and in the one seeking forgiveness. God is the one offended so we don’t have power over the issue. Moreover, Satan does not want forgiveness, so the question is futile.What a tricky subject… Time is also my enemy. So, how am I supposed to forgive time?
Informatio: Blogging, Introspection, Theory and Philosophy, Faith
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July 08, 2003
Photoblog schmotoblog, I'm posting some pictures!
I know this isn’t exactly a Photoblog — though, I do do my fair share of coming up with creative imagery to accompany my posts. This week has just found me at a loss for words, I guess (not that I haven’t thought of the many words that I could have written here). There’s no real reason for this, except for the fact that I’ve been super busy. I’ve been trying to finish up my portfolio — which I did — plus wrap a bunch of stuff up before our trip to California (i.e., some freelance design work, packing, last-minute shopping, etc.). If you want to see a lo-res version of my portfolio, click here (it’s a 6MB PDF file).
So, I thought I’d give you all some pictures from the camping trip my brother and I went on…
 Butterflies butterflies everywhere! It was amazing. Butterflies attacking us from every direction. One fraternizing couple actually dropped from a tree into the cup that Luke was drinking out of. When they weren’t flying at us Kamikaze-style, they were inspecting trees, flying high in the sky, and trying to get into my car (as pictured here). What an unexpected surprise.
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Here’s our view of the 
Nighttime held its own sort of fun. Here, Luke amazes all present (me) with his Fire Dance. Fire is neat. Campfire is really neat. Playing with campfire is even neater. Of course, only you can prevent forest fires, but where’s the fun in that? (Eric Hurst just posted a great bunch of a pictures of another kind of 
And last, the obligatory “group” photo. We were pleased with our find. It is a good, peaceful place to camp. I am going to take my wife there sometime soon. Camping is fun anyway, but when you come across a place that is both close and beautiful (and about 10 degrees cooler that Kansas City), it makes it all the better. (Plus, all of the trees in the area make for a perfect do-it-yourself disc golf course!) What a way to spend a couple of hot and humid summer days. Thanks, Luke. Bug bites, “bean dumplin’s,” and all, I had a blast!.Informatio: Life, Photography, Trips and Adventures
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July 06, 2003
Blogfast...
This just seemed like a good time to do it — my first week out of work and all. I could have very easily made my first real post in over a week, but it just doesn’t seem right yet. I think I’ll be back with you tomorrow — if it doesn’t take me too long to catch up on all of the reading!
In the meantime, brush up on your Blog terminology here. Here are two words that I think demand inclusion:
blog-i-quette Pronunciation: blah-gi-ket Function: noun : the conduct or procedure required by good blogging or prescribed by authority to be observed in social or official Blogs
blog-fast Pronunciation: blahg-fast Function: intransitive verb 1 : to abstain from blogging 2 : to blog sparingly or abstain from some Blogs
Happy blogging, folks.
Informatio: Blogging
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July 01, 2003
Gone camping... See y'all soon.
Informatio: Family, Family and Friends, Trips and Adventures
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