I'm Back! A Return to both Posting and to Gainesville.

Hello everyone. Let me begin by offering my sincere apologies for having slacked off so much with my blog posts. I believe it's been two months since I last posted, which is inexcusable. I'm hoping to make it up to you in the following ways:

1. You may have noticed that I decided, for the first time in my blogging career, to post homemade VIDEOS! I'll admit, they're not that great, but it's my somewhat-pathetic first attempt at being a movie maker. Anyways, more on that later...
2. I'm also going to be relatively busy with some cool stuff in the next few weeks, so I thought that I'd try to do three posts in three weeks to make up for my lackluster start to this academic year. If I get a good reaction from the videos, I may try to include more of them in the future. Plus, the next few posts may very well take you to such exotic locales as Pittsburgh, PA and Québec, Canada. Keep your fingers crossed there (that's foreshadowing at its finest).

Hopefully that will be enough incentive for you to not give up on reading my blog and on keeping in touch. Now, on to the good stuff.

Life in Columbus has been going really well lately. Meghan has been able to work her way into the substitute teaching ring in two different school districts around Columbus. One is Bexley, which is the super-nice area of town right next to where we live, and the other is the Southwestern Columbus school district, which has also turned out pretty well. She seems to be doing a lot of elementary school subbing, and it seems that she's enjoying it quite a bit. I am in full-swing now at OSU taking three different courses. My professors are great; my fellow graduate students are kind and helpful; it's a good situation all around. I've even had a small bite on a potential dissertation topic. No celebrations yet, but Dr. VanKley, my advisor, appears to be really jazzed about my interest in a particular 18th century Jesuit who wrote this awesome paraphrase of the bible, which compares very much to a 18th century French version of the "Message" by Eugene Peterson (for those who know what that is). Cool stuff. I'll keep you all posted if the topic continues to be fruitful. I won't go into it much more, but it could lead me into some really awesome research.

Now that you've gotten the basic update on life, I thought now I could share some videos from my (somewhat) recent trip back to Gainesville. I was invited back to Gainesville by my old advisors to attend a lecture series that they helped organize. The speaker was a very influential historian of the Reformation; he was absolutely fantastic. I would've taken video of him, but first I think that might've been inappropriate and second I doubt most of you would've been quite as enamored with him as I. Instead, I took videos of hanging out with friends and family in Gainesville. Unfortunately I didn't have a ton of time to see everyone I wanted to, but I was able to enjoy some quality time with my sister, brother-in-law, and a handful of other friends. Here are four short videos of some of the things we did.


Upon arriving in Gainesville, I was immediatly rushed to the small field behind the Oaks Mall in order to play a round of ultimate frisbee. Great times, but I did end up with some bruises that are still not fully healed right now. I'm not complaining....I'm just saying maybe the Oaks Mall should take better care of their fields.


That night, Jenni took me to participate in one of her favorite activities these days: rock climbing. I took a lot of footage of us rock-climbing, but I thought it would be funny to make a "blooper reel" of us falling on our butts. While you don't get to see it, Jenni is actually quite awesome at rock-climbing. I, however, am a different story.



On Sunday, the guys from the Servants of Christ Fantasy Football League met up at David LaCagnina's house to watch some games and enjoy some delicious grub, compliments of Mr. LaCagnina himself. Fantastic time.


Back in the day, Grant, Jenni and myself used to meet up for lunch on Thursdays. We decided to keep that tradition alive by going to Chop Stix while I was in town. Grant (no surprise) managed to convince me to try consuming two bowls of Egg Drop soup at the same time; I wasn't as sucessful as I would've hoped.

Altogether, I had a great time back in Gainesville for the short while that I was there. I'm hoping to return soon, but it all depends on how things come together. Thanks to all who hung out with me while I was there, and sorry to all those I didn't get the opportunity to see.

More posts to come in the next few weeks. Hopefully some more videos too!