where's neal?

the one about the crazy preacher...

I'm taking a preaching class now and they recorded my last sermon. So if you're feeling brave enough, you can watch it too. It's on Luke 12:4-12 and it's about 15 minutes long. I talk about bears.

Goin' Back

We're going back to Budapest! Thanks to a school vacation for me, a good boss for Danielle, and a bunch of cool people in Budapest that we like, we're taking a trip. We'll be in Budapest from May 4-May 14. If you're in America, come with us. If you're in Budapest, don't leave. See you soon Magyarorsag.

Shock it back to life

I have a cordless drill. It's one of my favorite tools. I've had it for about 8 years now and after all that time, the Ni-Cad battery packs were pretty much shot. There was so little juice left in the batteries that the drill was more of a noise maker than a drill. One of the batteries was worse than the other and it wouldn't even turn a screw when it had a full change.

Then I came across a hint on Instructables.com for reviving dead nicad batteries. So I tried it. I didn't have anything to lose since the batteries were already shot. Plus, it had the added bonus that it might explode. I like it when things explode. The hint suggests using a welder. Sadly, I don't have one. But a car battery also has a fair amount of current, and I do have one of those. So I got my jumper cables, popped the hood of my trusty little Hyundai, and attached a drill battery-pack to the car battery for a few seconds.

The result: now the battery packs for my drill give full power for about an hour of work! They seem like they're almost as good as new. It's amazing. This makes me want to hook all sorts of other things up to jumper cables.

One impressive sentence

I was doing research for a paper on Islamic Eschatology when I came across a spectacular sentences I wanted to share.

"The Divine Incommensurability being mirrored in the Pen, - Its existential self-determination - the latter could not contain within the limits of its determination the incommensurability of the Divine Interdetermination, and translated the latter into differentiated mode; the Ink is thus the reflection of the All-Possibility - a reflection which, as such, could correspond only to the possibility of manifestation - and will be transmuted by the Pen into indefinitely diverse existential possibilities."

Not bad eh? I want to learn how to use that many big words in one sentence. And to make it better, the author of this gem is Frithjof Schuon; which could be one of the greatest names of all time too. Next to Martin Buber.

And speaking of research, I just found a very handy web site for all y'all that have to write bibliographies. I'm bad at typing, so the specific formatting of MLA or Turabian always takes me a long time to get right. Enter Ottobib. Just type in the ISBN number of your book and get a bibliographic entry in the format of your choice. Today this is website is running a close second to leftover turkey sandwiches in the things-that-make-me-happy list.

In "The Zone"

Danielle, Liza, Byron and I went to Maine this Saturday. Maine is only about 1 hour away, but it feels like a very different place. One of the differences is the ubiquity of lobsters. As we were driving along the coast, we decided to have some fun, so we stopped into the Fun-O-Rama in York Beach and found possibly the best arcade game on the world. "The Lobster Zone". It's that claw-toy-grabby thing, but with a tank of live lobsters! I'm still giddy about it.

Wedding Pictures

Mike the photographer has already finished the wedding pictures! He and wife Jodi and his second photographer Michelle did a fantastic job. So head on over to his website http://www.riverhomephotography.com and use the "Client Login" link at the bottom of the page, then enter:

Username: danneal
Password: hungary

Browse, admire, laugh, and enjoy.

Awesome!

We just moved into our new place in Beverly Mass. It's a great little place and I'll get some pictures of it up here before too much longer. This morning as Danielle and I were unpacking more boxes, we heard a wonderful sound drifting in the window. Our neighbor plays the bagpipe! Awesome!

watch us

Danielle and I are getting married in a few hours. If you want to watch, go to almostericssons.com

collective nouns

I was talking to Danielle this morning and somehow we started talking about monkeys. It made me wonder what word is used to describe a group of monkeys. I knew a few other words for groups of nouns, like "a pod of whales," or "a gaggle of geese," or "a pride of lions," but I didn't know one for monkeys. So I asked Google, and I found a great list of hundreds of them. Some of my favorites are:

a congregation of crocodiles
an ostentation of peacocks
a knot of toads
a shrewdness of apes
a singular of boars (I don't get this one)
a clutter of cats
a business of ferrets
a tower of giraffes
a prickle of hedgehogs
a mob of kangaroos
an ambush of tigers
a sneak of weasels
a zeal of zebras
a grist of bees
an implausibility of gnus
a waddle of penguins
a bloat of hippopotami
a crash of rhinoceri

And that's only animals. There are collective nouns for people too.

a tabernacle of bakers
a draught of butlers
an exaggeration of fishermen
a poverty of pipers
a superfluity of nuns

To get back to my original question, monkeys can come as:

a cartload of monkeys
a tribe of monkeys
a troop of monkeys
a troupe of monkeys

Now you know.

geeky and sweet

Wedding preparations and school are moving along apace. The last few weeks, I got my geek-skills out, dusted them off and made a website for the wedding. So go check out Almost Ericssons when you have a minute.

It's about time!!

After 2 and a half years of dating, I asked Danielle to marry me last night. OK, I didn't ask to marry her *last night*, but rather, last night, I asked her if she would marry me on some other night. And she said yes!
Which is good.
So some time soon, we should all get together to have a barbecue to celebrate.

Hopefully I can talk to many of you soon, so if you want more details, I can tell you in person. Until then, here's the short version.
I'm in Budapest now, and last night, to celebrate New Years, we went out to join the big city festival. I knew I wanted to propose in Hero's Square, since Danlelle and I shared our first kiss there. So at midnight, with fireworks going off, I asked. She answered. Now we're engaged.
After I put the ring on her finger, our friend Soomi came over and yelled, "It's about time!!"

So we're all pretty happy here.

trivia 2

Today I was once again searching for excuses not to study for my exams and I remembered a question I'd asked myself long ago. It went something like, "Self, where does canola oil come from?" Good question self."
Since you asked, it's made of rapeseed. (That picture is of Katie standing in a big field of rapeseed near Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic) But here's the deal, the seed of rapeseed plant is teriffic for producing oil. But there are two problems, rapeseed oil is full of erucic acid, which is mildly toxic in large doses, and the name poses a *bit* if a marketing challenge. Well, some clever Canadians solved both problems when they bred a new variant and named it "Canadian oil, low acid" - Canola.
Now we know.
Clever Canadians.
Incidentally 13% of farmed land in India is devoted to growing rapeseed.

truth cometh from small mouths

This morning, I was doing laundry when Mac, one of the guys who lives in the dorm, walked by with a family he was showing around. With the family was a 4 year old girl named Josie. Mac said, in his tongue-in-cheek way, "This is Neal. He's the coolest." So I said "Hi Josie." Josie looked at me silently for a few seconds, then said, "He doesn't *look* cool."

sigh...

Humbled by the honesty of a four year old.

trivia

Did you know...
The word Chapel actually means "little cape".

Martin of Tours once gave part of his cape to a beggar. After he died he became a saint, and part of that cape was enshrined as a relic in a little church in France. The little church became known for it's capella. And eventually the term came to be used for all small churches.

also

The earth could become a black hole.

But, for the earth to be dense enough to become a black hole, it's present mass would have to be compacted to 18 cm in diameter. (so, don't worry, it's not very likely to happen soon)

I need...

So y'all heard about this? To find out what you really need, go to Google and search for your name and needs. For example, I used "Neal needs" (gotta use the quotes). So here are the top results.

Neal must reverse a huge earnings slide
Neal needs an editor
Neal needs an avatar
Neal needs similar grass-roots support
Neal needs two wins
Neal needs improvement
Neal needs to become a better passer
Neal needs to focus on local dilemmas
Neal needs to email you for more details
Neal needs you people
Neal needs a breather
Neal needs to get better looks
Neal needs 44009 people
Neal needs to be commended on his outgoing personality
Neal needs to look in the mirror

I like #12.
What do you get?