Day and Night

With a blizzard hitting Chicago, it didn't take long to realize the possibility--and probability--of my noontime flight getting delayed. For the 2 or so hours that we were stranded on the runway (we also spent the better part of a third hour returning to the gate for people who wanted to get food), I noticed a couple wonderful things. First off, the weather in Minneapolis was absolutely beautiful. I snapped up a couple shots of the runway while we were waiting for updates.

(The 2nd pic is supposed to show a plane taking off, but apparently it's so small that it comes off only as a speck here)

Secondly, no one seemed to mind too much that we were having a huge delay. There were a good number of people with connecting flights, and with this situation it would seem many of them would miss their connections. (Of course, with the blizzard, many of the connecting flights were delayed, so it impacted close to all the flights equally.)

Arriving at O'hare, it was completely different than what I'd seen just hours before. I knew there would be a lot of snow blowing around, but it's hard for me to really imagine something of that nature (and believe it) until it happens.

That's not the "night" of this post though. While I was on my way to baggage claim I overheard a couple professionally-dressed businessmen (who were going the other way) in an argument. Except it was mostly the white guy screaming at the black guy, "You call me 'sir'!" over and over again.

I think I'd rather live in Minnesota. I'm used to zero-degree weather anyway.

Our pod collage

...is pretty cool. Kudos to Paul (bottom row, second from left) for taking all the pictures and performing all sorts of photoshoppy magic to create this masterpiece. We pretty much got this assembled during the first week of school. It kind of acts in lieu of putting up our names on the front door. I still can't believe no one thought to actually take a pic of this until just a couple days ago (when I came up with said idea).

"God bless you"

It's quite amazing what those words can do. I had been killing myself for spacing out on chapel time earlier today, where I was supposed to play a piece for reflection (an original composition that I had been meaning to play in public and get recorded, too), as well as a few other moral dilemmas I'd been grappling with over the last couple weeks. The sad part was, not only did I space on it, but I didn't realize it until a full two hours after it had happened, as I was walking to lunch.

I'm not sure why I decided to go to the Cage today. I normally go to the Caf (main cafeteria for those reading who don't understand Ole lingo, the Cage is more of a coffeehouse atmosphere, also an on-campus place to buy food), but I decided I needed a different kind of food. While I was there I ran into  Daniel, one of my super-Christian friends. We'd caught up for a bit before he left, but once I'd sat down and started eating, he returned and said "God bless you."

It was powerful, that's all I can say. Maybe I suddenly felt like I was being brought back into the fold, even if only temporarily. I can't say for sure. Either way, I've been feeling better. :-)

The Custodian Man

Phil is one of the custodians/maintenance men at my dorm. I pass him just about every morning out the building on the way to class. Usually I see him mopping floors or cleaning light fixtures or something. Our conversations are always brief and simple, almost always relating to the weather (today he told me the wind was really blowing out there), but even when I'm having a crappy day his presence helps. He always appears to be cheerful--in a genuine way--and the apparent simple nature of what I know of his life compared to mine somehow lifts me a bit. I guess cheering people up is not part of his job description, but with Phil it might as well be.