Today is the 86th Anniversary of the Titanic disaster. On April 15, 1912, over 1,500 people perished when the “unsinkable” Titanic luxury ocean liner sank off the coast of Canada after hitting an iceberg. I heard on the news today that a church in Florida was supposed to have a “memorial service” in remembrance for the victims of the Titanic. While I’m not trying to discount the great loss of life to the Titanic victims, I wonder why this particular church is doing this. Are some of the survivors members at that church? Probably not. I believe that there are only 6 survivors still alive today. Did anyone at that church have a relative that died on the Titanic? Not likely. Has this memorial service been an on going tradition at this church to have a memorial for the Titanic or is this some type of recent step? More than likely it was just started this year. I can understand a memorial service for victims of war whether the victims were civilians or soldiers. Those people had a great impact on the outcome of history. But a memorial for the Titanic? This disaster didn’t have a major impact to the world’s history compared to the wars. Personally I think the church is having a memorial service because it is trendy. My guess is that they decided to have it because of the success of the blockbuster movie. It seems like everyone wants to get on the bandwagon to cash in on the Titanic. And yes, even churches seem to want to get into the act. While the church probably would not receive cash benefit from the service, it would receive free publicity (and obviously it already has because of the news story about the service).
I ask, why have a memorial for the Titanic? There is a danger in going along with trends of the world today. The bible speaks of this in Proverbs 14:12, which says, “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Churches and individual Christians need to realize this. Churches should be the last organization to jump on something because it conforms to the trends of today. There is nothing wrong with having a memorial service for the Titanic victims. But I do question this church’s intent with this service. It seems that they are having this service for the wrong reasons. Churches should not do something because it is trendy and seems right, but because it IS right

Yesterday I had a minor fender bender on my way to work. It was totally my fault. I wasn’t watching where I was going and rear-ended a lady while turning right onto a busy street. No one was hurt and the cars where not in bad condition at all. In fact, it really can’t be called a “fender bender” because nothing was bent. We basically traded paint on our bumpers. The lady was very nice and understanding about it. I hope the situation will be worked out soon.
It seems like everytime someone makes contact with another car on the road, they have to report the accident or exchange addresses. This ties up traffic and is generally a big headache for everyone involved. I do have a solution to the continuing problem of these minor traffic accidents. Why not have NERF cars. “Nerf,” in case you don’t know, is a spongy substance used in kid’s athletic gear. Since it is so soft, there is no chance of anyone getting hurt. Instead of making bumpers out of plastic which can scratch if anything touches it, why not make them out of NERF? That way, your drive to work would be fun, no one would be hurt over minor fender benders and no one would have to stop in order to exchange addresses and insurance companies.
(Please note: this is a tongue in cheek approach to traffic safety. No one really wants NERF cars. But in a perfect world, it might do just fine 🙂 )

It’s Spring Break at most of the area colleges around here including my alma mata, Lipscomb University. I have 4 years of memories (both good and bad) of dorm life at High Rise dormitory. During school breaks such as Spring Break and Thanksgiving, it is not uncommon to find alarm clocks going off and continually ringing because there is no one there to turn it off. It seems pretty inconsiderate or just plain stupid to leave your alarm clock on for the weekend or school break that you will be gone. But believe me, I’ve seen it all during my 4 years at school. With that in mind, I’ll present my list of dorm pet peeves….

Top 7 List of Dorm Pet Peeves

7. People who throw away anything. If you are a scavenger, you can find anything in the trash of a dorm. One time my friend and I found a fully working Nintendo 64 in the trash (and in excellent condition). There were even two games with it. We couldn’t believe it worked when we hooked it up. I guess the original owner got a newer model and didn’t feel like selling it or giving it away to anyone, so he trashed it. That’s wasteful. Other friends have found working toasters, lamps, sofas, chairs…all ready to be thrown away. We live in a land of plenty where people don’t appreciate what they’ve got.
6. Door Alarms. After 9 pm at night, the side doors of all dorms could not be opened. If they were opened, then the alarm would sound. $50 fines were given out to people who intentionally opened the doors. The alarm was quite loud especially if you were on the 2nd floor. I’m not sure what it accomplished to have the door alarms. 9 pm was chosen because of some type of equality law. The administration wanted security for the girls’ dorms at 9 pm, so they had to do the same for the guys’ dorms.
5. Car Alarms. If I can hear your car alarm from my 5th floor dorm room, then it is way too loud. Car alarms should not go off in the rain/wind. But they did in Lipscomb’s parking lot.
4. People who trash the dorm. This accomplishes absolutely nothing. Do you like living in trash? There have been tons of times where I have gone to brush my teeth and found the sink covered with hair where someone had decided to give themselves (or their friend) a haircut. Clean up after yourself.
3. People who play baseball, soccer or any other type of organized sport in the hallways of the dorms. People, it’s call the SAC (Student Activities Center). If you would like for me to escort you there so that you can play your games, I will. I’m trying to sleep/study.
2. Maintenance work that drags on forever. This is more a problem with the college administration than the dorm residents. Showers where continually being retiled because water was seeping into adjacent rooms. One time the shower on my floor was shut down for that reason for 3 months with no repair work done whatsoever. I finally complained about it and everyone on my side of the floor was given $25 gift certificates to a local mall. Still it didn’t seem satisfactory. Seemed to me like a bribe.
1. Alarms clocks that are not turned off for breaks/weekends when their owners are not there. (See above).

Dear Mike,
You asked me to write a letter to you for your time capsule (to be opened in the year 2015). In it you asked for memories of your college days at Lipscomb University. So here goes…
I hope things are going well for you. I guess by now we’d both be about 40 years old. Agghhhh…middle age! I suspect you are working for Disney in some type of manner. Probably married.
As far as memories at Lipscomb, in our freshmen year, I remember getting (by e-mail) your 101 distribution list of “101 Things to Do During a Dull Sermon.” You had a distribution list of e-mail addresses at school. You would periodicially send out your 101 list twice a week or so. Your list grew from teh orignal sermon idea to announcing happenings at school. I had a distribution list of my own…where I would send out David Letterman’s Top Ten lists. We seemed to get competitive about who could get the most people on their distribution list. E-mail was a new thing back then. It was amazing that I could e-mail a friend in Massachusettes and she would get it within seconds.
Do you remember Mike Woollard’s stuffed animal Walrus? His Walrus was something that he made in home economics in 8th grade. He had brought this blue Walrus to school. We bugged him about having a stuffed animal at college. One time you, Matt Owensby, Amy Bohn, and some other people kidnapped Mike Woollard’s Walrus and took pictures of it at different places. You went to the local Media Play (store that sells, books, CD’s, and computer games). You took pictures of it in a shopping cart and a bunch of different places. You were so wild at Media Play, the manager had to ask you to leave. I think you went to Opryland Hotel after that. Unfortunately I wasn’t with you at the time. I had invited my parents to see Singarama (Lipscomb’s yearly musical). But I did see the pictures you took. You were able to replace the Walrus without Mike Woollard knowing anything had happened. Mike W. didn’t know what to think when he saw those pictures of his Walrus.
Do you remember rooming with Clark Gray (from Huntsville, Alabama)? Clark spoke with an extremely southern accent and liked tennis. He did have an aquarium with piranhas in it. These piranhas only ate when it was dark. Clark had put some goldfish in the tank. They weren’t eating them yet. I happened to be over at your dorm room. You told me that you were going to take a nap. I left and went back to my dorm room. You called me about 20 minutes later to ask me to come down to your room. It sesm like the piranhas had eaten some of the gold fish while you were sleeping. THere was a floating head of one of teh goldfish. Gross!
How about O.J. Simpson’s trial? It was all we heard about on the news from late 1994 to 1995. On October 3, 1995 they finally announced the verdict (in the criminal trial). They were going to be announcing the verdict will we were in chapel. After chapel we rushed into the basement of Burton Bible Building to find out the verdict. Not guilty. We were disappointed. The evidence showed that he was guilty.
Do you remember working the help desk at ISS at the school (in the basement of the library)? How about Helen Gore and Michelle Putnam? Helen was in charge of us ISS workers and kept us in line. 🙂 Michelle was a faculty member at Lipscomb. At the end of each semester we’d have a pizza party for ISS workers in the conference room at ISS. Helen would order tons of pizza from Papa Johns. We’d sit and eat all day. ANd it was all free.
Do you remember when the VAX would go down and no one could access their email (or anything else)? Or how about the change from a DOS environment to Windows ’95? That was quite a chance. It took forever for students to learn to use Windows 95 without asking the help desk.
Do you remember going to church at Crieve Hall church of Christ? I always caught a ride from you. I offered to drive, but you thought I was a bad driver. So you didn’t want to ride from me. Dan Winkler was the preacher at Crieve Hall. I remember the singing being excellent.
I remember Dennis Hennen and I visiting you at Disney World in June of 1997. We were able to see most of the parks (Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, and Disney MGM). Animal Kingdom hadn’t opened yet. Dennis had made up these cards that told us when to ride the rides (when was the least busy times) and where the most inexpensive place to eat at was. It helped out a lot. We rode Space Mountain about 4 times.
Well, that’s about all I can think of at the moment. I was able to get a full time job in September ’97 at Northern Telecom (Nortel) in Nashville. I think right now you are planning to work at Disney World again from Feb. ’98 to August ’98. Please try to contact me when you read this. My parent’s ohone number and address is at the top of this page. I imagine I’m probably not living there any more (but hopefully still in Middle Tennessee). Hope things are well iwth you.

Hello All,
It�s once again time to try and get all of my correspondence caught up by sending a form letter to you. I know it�s a little impersonal, but it�s so much more efficient for me. Anyway to let you know what�s going on in my life: I am graduating from Lipscomb University in August. I will participate in a graduating ceremony May 3, with all of the other May graduates. But I won�t �officially� graduate until I complete one more class this summer. I will have a BS degree in Government and Public Administration. My minor is Computer Information Systems. I don�t know what I�ll be doing once I get a job, but I hope to have one dealing with computers.
Things have been much more hectic this semester compared to last semester. I�m taking 17 hours which includes a internship. My internship is up at the State Capitol where I work in Representative Steve McDaniel�s legislative office. He is minority House leader from Henderson County in West Tennessee. It has been a learning experience. I have found that it takes a lot of time and patience to be a state legislator. You have to learn to be nice to constituents also. Through this internship I�ve learned that political office is not for me, so that is why I am desiring a job in the computer field.
Speaking of computers, my e-mail address will be changing. It will change to after May 3. I still should be able to get mail through the summer through my DLU account. But after the summer it is anyone�s guess to whether or not I can get anymore mail. If your e-mail address is changing (i.e. you�re graduating, transferring, changing ISP�s), please let me know.
I also have a homepage up on the internet. It is located at http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Quad/4551/jeff.html
If you haven�t checked it out yet, you might want to. I have put in some precious time into it and I hope that you enjoy it. Stop by and sign my guestbook.
As far as this summer goes, it is anyone�s guess to what exactly I�ll be doing. I will probably help out at my church�s summer camp (something I�ve done for the past 4 years; how could I stop now?). I will be taking that lone class I have left in order to graduate. It is a research class where I have to write a 50 page paper on a topic having to do with politics. I think that we don�t even formally meet.
I certainly hope things are going well for you. If I haven�t heard from you in a while, PLEASE write me back. I would love to hear from you. Sometimes the only contact I have with some of y�all is through e-mail. Anyway that it all for now. Hope to hear from you soon.

Hi Folks,
I hope your holidays went well. I had 3 weeks off from school and somehow it went by too fast. For the first part of the break, before Christmas, it was a little boring. Many of my hometown friends were gone to see relatives and other things. But after Christmas things started to pick up. On Dec. 26, I went snow skiing in Paoli, Indiana, with Scottsville church of Christ from Scottsville, KY. The Scottsville church is a church that I used to go to summer camp with. It was fun to be around some old friends and get caught up on what everyone was up to. This was my 4th time skiing, so I am pretty much used to skiing. I skied on many of the intermediate hills. Unfortunately a ski lift that is at the bottom of the”Black Diamond” expert hill was closed. So I couldn’t try it. I had a really great time even though it was exhausting. We got up at 5 amin Scottsville (I had driven up earlier the day before and spent the night with a friend in Scottsville). After skiing all day I didn’t get back home to Mt. Juliet until 2:15am the next day!
After my ski vacation I had a post Christmas party for some of my old high school friends. We had about 17 people to show up. Most people enjoyed it. We had a scavenger hunt where we had 90 minutes to locate many things from the 80’s including a Rubik’s cube, Dukes of Hazzard stuff and a bunch of other things. Tickle Me Elmo was on the list too and to everyone’s surprise someone had one!
My semester went well too. I was pretty satisfied with my grades this semester. After a killer final exam I was thinking I had a “C” in my Macroeconomics class. But my professor must have curved the grades. As far as interesting things that happened this past semester, Lipscomb did have a bomb threat in October. The entire campus had to be evacuated. It was peculiar seeing all 2400 students and faculty gathered by the softball field on the edge of campus. They’ve offered a reward for info on who did it. But to my knowledge they haven’t been caught.
I’ve got another busy semester ahead. I’m taking Quantitative Methods 2 (Bank Math class); Systems Design (Computer Class); American State and Local Government; Public Administration 2; and Holy Spirit; and John, Peter,and Jude (Bible Classes). I’ll also have a 3 hour internship with a state Senator. So that will be a total of 17 hours, not too bad. I’ll be in a graduation ceremony on May 3, but I won’t officially graduate and get my diploma until the first of August. Then I’ll be in the job market. I am a bit apprehensive about graduating. I will be at a turning point in my career. I won’t know where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing a year from now.
I hope that we can keep in touch throughout the school year. My e-mail address is the same. So please send me some mail. I can’tguarantee that I’ll be able to get to all of it, but I’ll try. I hope that you have a great new year and a good semester. See you soon.

Dear All,
I hope that you had a great summer. Time passed by fast for me. It seems like just a few weeks ago I was making plans for another humid Tennessee summer. But now it is once again time for another fall semester. My summer was eventful. Probably one of the highlights of it was going to Washington, D.C., with a political science group from Lipscomb. It was for a class called Political Science Travel. Basically we spent a week in Washington visiting the sights and various lobbying groups.
After we got back we had to read a certain 700 page book and take a test over it and read another book and write a report on it. All that for 3 hours worth of credits. The travel part was very fun and interesting. Some of the places we went to included the Pentagon, the Smithsonian, Capitol Hill, Supreme Court, Library of Congress, Arlington National Cemetery, among many other places. We took a Capital Dome tour with Tennessee Congressman, Van Hillary. From what I hear very few people get to go up into the dome of the Capital. We got to have our picture made with Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee. The trip itself was very tiring. We walked everywhere we went, taking the subway for very long distances. This was my 3rd time to Washington. I’ve been there more times than Disneyworld!
Another highlight of the summer was getting to see the Olympic torch when it passed through Mt. Juliet and Hermitage. I happened to be working that day at your favorite retail outlet. I timed my lunch break just right to when the torch passed through. My workplace happened to be on the path of the torch so all I had to do was to walk outside. And guess who was carrying it? Mr. Billy Ray Cyrus (Achy Breaky Heart). Now most of you would cringe at the sight of Billy Ray carrying the torch. Still it was exciting to see no matter who was carrying it. I must have caught Olympic fever because I decided to get up early the next morning and see it again in Brentwood (south Nashville) on
its way to Alabama.
For the 4th straight year in a row I was a camp counselor at my church’s summer camp. I look forward to it every year. The camp experience is such a special thing to do each summer. This time it was unique because it was at a different venue – Fall Creek Falls (about 3 hours east of Nashville). The waterfalls are the biggest east of the Mississippi. It was very picturesque.
Once again I took summer classes. This time I took Racquetball and a class called Religion and Politics at Lipscomb and Statistics at Nashville Tech. The Religion and Politics class was the best class I had this summer. We discussed various issues including the Christian Right’s role in politics. Racquetball was fun, although very tiring. It was at 8:30am every day during July. Living 30 minutes away from campus didn t make driving in rush-hour any fun. Stats was okay. It was a prerequisite to another class required at Lipscomb. It didn’t take too much brain power. All of the Stats tests were open-book and open-note.
I’ve got another busy semester ahead, but I’m not complaining. Here’s what I m taking: Macroeconomics; U.S. Political Parties and Elections; Corinthians; Systems Analysis (computer class); Personal Evangelism; and Business and Industrial Psychology. I think I have a pretty good schedule with some decent teachers. I’ll also be working once again in the computer lab at school helping people with their computer software problems.
I hope things are going well with you. Please write back. I know that this is a generic letter being sent to a bunch of people. But I want to hear from you. I can’t guarantee that I will be able to get back to you. I appreciate your friendship and look forward to your letters. May God bless you in the upcoming semester.

Dear All,
I hope you had a good break. I decided to write to all of you at once because of time restraints and because I know that I’d be saying the same thing to each one of you. I hope this doesn’t seem too impersonal. As I write we’ve just been through our first major snowstorm of the year here in Nashville. We got about 3 – 4 inches which may not seem like much to you northerners. But it is a major problem down here when you factor in the fact that we don’t have as many salt trucks to get the roads clear. We get this much snow about once every five years. The snowstorm came on Saturday night. My family was snowed in, so we missed church the next morning. I wasn’t sure if I’d get back to school on Monday, but I was able to catch a ride with my dad. (I have very little experience driving on icy roads).
My break went really well. The highlight by far was my ski trip to Paoli, Indiana, on Dec. 28th. I went with a Kentucky church group that I know from going to summer camp with. This trip was unusual because I was one of the only ones in the group who had been skiing before. This kept me busy most of the time giving ski lessons. After all of the ski lessons I got down to really skiing. I tried my first intermediate (blue level) hill for the first time – and I didn’t have too many problems. We skied all day until about 8:00 or 9:00pm – and I didn’t get back home to Tennessee until 2:30am! Even though I was extremely exhausted, I had a great time. If you haven’t been skiing before, try to go sometime.
Christmas went well too. I got pretty much everything I wanted or needed. New Year’s was good too. I spent it at a friend’s house with a small group of friends – nothing spectacular or anything. But it was still good to be able to see some old friends.
I am not ready to be back in school. The break just didn’t seem long enough. This semester will probably be the toughest semester ever. Here is what my schedule looks like:
COBOL (computer language class) 7:30am Tues. Thurs. Even Friday
Contemporary Political Methodologies 8:50am Tues. Thurs. Even Friday
Christian Evidences 8:50am M W Odd Friday
Macroeconomics 10:00am M W Odd Friday
Foundations of the 20th Century (History class) 12:30pm Tues. Thurs. Even Fri
Christian Living 1:40pm Tues. Thurs. Even Fri.
Even though it’s just 14 hours, some of my classes are going to be very hard. I’ve heard horror stories about macroecon. And my history class will have a great deal of reading and papers to do in it, but my history teacher is a very good teacher. Along with classes I’ll also be working around 10 hours a week helping people in the computer lab. I’m still working on my major, Government and Public Administration – it’s sorta like a Political Science major with less philosophy and more of a concentration on government. My minor is still Computer Information Systems.
If you want to get in touch with me other that e-mail, here is my address and phone #:
Yes, I’m still living in the dorm this semester.
I hope you have a good semester. Write back soon! I can’t guarantee that I’ll get back to you soon, but I’ll try!