Booklists!

Ok, so I've got all kinds of gift cards to B&N and Boarders, and I've got a few ideas of my own, but I'm curious to know what books you guys recommend. Specifically: what books are really "must own" books? (from your perspective) I'm looking for books that must be gone over, written in, wrestled with. . . not books that are best checked out and checked in.

Dave and Dusty in Tucson

Test

Just trying to see if I can get that annoying space to go away. I may need to change the template altogether.

Dave D is in town

I have not seen Degroot or Luke on this site, so when Dave D. comes over tommorow, I will be sure to show him. It's kinda odd that we finally met up again here in Tucson, rather than DC.

Caption?

Click Here

Can't...post...the...picture. Arg.

Please pick a caption for this photo.

And feel free to browse the other sights as you would like.

And, and please if you haven't been getting emails from me - I don't have your address - please post it or send it to me!! adamrmorehouse@yahoo.com

Name-A-Jones

What should Davey call his baby?

I'm...just...so...happy....(tear)

I just spent the last 45 minutes catching up in our newly refurbished Room 611... and first, I have to say that too many of you are showing off. Andy Logemann, where did you learn all those big words? Dave, what's up with the clandestine birth announcement? Proclaim it from the rooftops, man! Andy S. and Coye, why must you rub my face in my non-doctorate involving educational future?

Actually, I need to tell you that I've never laughed out loud so many times while sitting in our battlefield Internet room. I love this and wish I could read it more often. Alas, but I am fighting a war.

Feel guilty now that you have a little perspective? Well, don't! No, really, life isn't bad here. It is hard to find more than 30 minutes on the computer, and it is hard not having contact with friends, but this is almost the next best thing. I have missed this kind of fellowship more than I can say, so it was an incredible blessings to sit in and laugh with and love all you beautiful men. Hope I can do it more often.

Okay, now get out of my room. I have ROTC in the morning :-)

What Josh is doing

Since Strauss asked what Josh is up to, since most of you don't know, and since he probably won't be joining the blog for a while, I suppose I will take it upon myself to offer a quick Herr update:

Josh is currently teaching English language and American culture classes at a university in Xi'an, northern China. He has been there since August and will be there until I think sometime this summer (his commitment was somewhere between 8-12 months). He has also just finished applying to graduate programs in East Asian History at several American universities in an attempt to try for a history PhD. I'm sure he would love to hear from any of you, and he sends out a 'newsletter' about once a month, so you could pretty easily get him to add you to his list. I will give you his contact info if you email me and ask me for it at adreamwithinadream@yahoo.com . I'm sure that he would appreciate hearing from all of you, even if it's just a short note or asking to be put on his mailing list. He just finished his first round of classes, and he is starting to feel more at home in Xi'an, but I know that he is still lonely quite often. AND his birthday is December 29, so that's a perfect excuse to email him and say hello! aDios

: )

Act III: The attack of the little davies!

Our House

As promised, a photo of our domicile

Nothing Ever Happens Where I Work

My building is in the middle of a police quarentine zone, because the pharmacy diagonally across the intersection was held up shortly after I arrived at work. Those of us at work can't leave. Those who hadn't arrived at work can't enter. At least I'm trapped somewhere with heat. So much for being in the safe part of town.

To Begin Where I Am

As I make my grand entrance into this performance of nostalgia, I offer the following obligatory comments about my “real” life for those of you who have not been following along.

Act I

[narrator: off stage]: I hear an indefinable noise, and then a strobing white light dominates my field of vision…

I wake up in a cold sweat to find myself in the midst of my second year of a doctoral program at a large research university somewhere in the south of Indiana. I have no memory of how I arrived here. I open my mouth to try to speak, and a flurry of unidentifiable utterance tumbles out, words I do not recognize and that have no application in ordinary speech: metropolitan, temporality, commodification, neo-imperialism, dyadic relationship, prosity, valence, essentialism, topos, subjectivity, prurient, inscribed…I clamp my hands over my mouth, and the dissonant speech dies off. Where am I and what have they done to me?

I have no answers to these questions. [blackout]

Act II

[stage lights come up to reveal a tan, suburban house with a red door.]

Katie and I have now been married for a year and a half, and are not planning to keep up with the Joneses as progenitors of a race of eccentric children, at least not yet. What’s that you say, by the time I have children Dave’s will be old enough to conduct bizarre medical experiments on them or employ them as improvised music instruments? True enough, but it’s a risk I am prepared to take. Perhaps there will be more of Sarah in this child than Dave. Only time will tell. We bought a house this summer in Bloomington, Indiana because of the spotbillig cost of living in this little college town and are happily enjoying our space after living in an apartment last year. Like Herr Strauss, we too have entertained our share of visitors, and love having people drive down (or up) whenever they feel led to do so. If I can locate a photo of our new home, I will post it at a later time.

Katie is working as a teacher in the local school district, and has just been accepted into an MA program in library science. She will be starting part time in the spring. I taught my first undergraduate course this semester, a freshman writing class equivalent to writing effective prose at Wheaton. There are many stories to tell from this experience, but I will retain them for a later post.

I believe this will suffice for incoherent ramblings and other sundry news of my provincial existence. We should begin to discuss some topic of mutual interest—the bagel bag is an excellent first step.

Favorite Christmas Invention

Bagel Bag: Pure Genius!

Favorite Christmas Things

So, Christmas is less than a week away. Since there seems to be a "holiday variety" of just about everything, here's a short list of my favorite Christmas things.
The best Christmas...
Movie: Die Hard (yes, it is a Christmas movie)
Beverage: Eggnog w/spiced rum (although I do like a good Wassel)
Song: "The people that walked in darness", No. 11 from Handel's Messiah
Carol: "O Come, O Come, Emanuel"
Tree: white pine (okay, so I just pulled that out of the air)
Food: Roast Beast
Book: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Dr. Seuss (Dickens sucks!)
Poem: "For the Time Being", W.H. Auden (especially the "Temptation of St. Joseph" section)
OT passage: "For unto us a child is born..." (Isaiah 9:2-7)
NT passage: The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), or "Behold the handmaiden of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38)
Activity: hanging out in the kitchen during Christmas parties
Favorite Christmas Helicopter Pilot: Dusty!!!!!

That's about as good as I can do for now. Feel free to share your favorite Christmas ______ , especially if it's a category I didn't think of. aDios

The RH-66 Comanche 

Noah's Ark Play

"Saa te to, itte kuru ne."
Literally, "Welp, I guess I'll go out and look for an olive branch and bring it back so that you know that there is um land out there."

AudioBlogger!

On a Differnt Note

Did you know you can post pictures? Just click that little picture frame between the spell check and the eraser in the Create Post interface and choose from the options it gives you. If you don't have a pre-existing online picture host (like the ones Ryan and Steve use), choose the Hello BloggerBot (unless you use a Mac).

I just ate oat-meal.

The Pilot Card

Dusty. . .we're all waiting for the Pilot Card story!
We give you till Saturday night, then Andy L. will proceed to write it for you (right Andy?)

Hit List, Who should be on it?

I still like the idea of a hit list, but I guess we should determine who is eligible before people start using it.

------------------------------

T6ers still unreached by this blog. If you can think of someone who needs to be added to this list, do it. If you know the email of someone on the list, contact them.

Mark Sheerin
Nate Calendar
Aaron Chaney
Steve Lambert
Rosen
Sammy
James Gilbert
......................
......................
......................

T6 Gains Access to the West Wing

A couple of nights ago, Brett, Luke Armerding, David DeGroot and I posed for a picture at the deep end of the White House press pool. Then, we decided that we should swing by the Oval Office and the Rose Garden while we were there, or more precisely our tour took us there. No Bush sightings to report. And that's the honest truth.

* A few words have been changed to remove all misleading aspects of the above news.

Prayer Requests

I've had tonsillitis for almost two weeks now. If we could pray that I would get well soon, that would be great.

Also, I think many of you know this, but Adam is in Iraq.

Christmas Letter

In an effort to reach out to people that I haven't heard from in a while, I composed a Christmas letter before this blog was ever up and running. Traber 6 is not the only target audience, but I don't think you'd find it too boring. I'll probably post some other news that's not in the Christmas letter, too. I try to keep Christmas letters cheery.


For the Son of Man came to seek and save what was lost.
-- Luke 19:10


Dear Friends and Family, Christmas, 2004

Growing some shallow roots in DC/Alexandria, VA has been a rewarding process. I still work at the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) in Downtown D.C, where I have gotten to know some of my co-workers better, and I still take evening grad school courses in economics at George Mason University. I should have my master’s degree half completed by May.

Alexandria Presbyterian Church has become my church home. Besides sitting in the pew on Sunday morning, I’m currently attending a small group Bible study. I hope to start an informal college and career group and to get involved with the church’s missions committee in the coming year.

I had to replace my apartmentmate in September. Torrey Babson, the old guy, got married. The wedding was nice, and I got to see Catherine Dyson (now married) and Mark Sheerin (college people). The new guy is Jack Williard, a recently graduated engineer, raised in North Carolina, schooled in Boston. Living with Jack is working out well. It’s not uncommon for us to go running together after work on nights that we’re both home. I spend the bulk of my friend time with Jack or friends from college. For those wondering, the Wheaton-Traber 6 contingent currently stands at David DeGroot, Brett, Luke, and myself.

Jack and I are getting quite experienced (and hopefully skilled) at hosting out of town guests. The apartment has seen over a dozen day or night, out of town guests this past year. Andrew Burger, Paul Ashman, Kari Geske, Aaron Chaney, my parents, and Erin (my sister) have come to visit me. Also, Mark Sheerin, my old RA, came to visit my old roommate. My job gives me long weekends every other week, which works out well with having guests, especially on holiday weekends that are often four day weekends for me. Consider this letter an open invitation, especially since my limited vacation time restricts my ability to see everyone.

For vacation this year, my sister and I tripped by train through Germany, Austria, and Switzerland in May. Erin impressed me with how well she did on her first backpacking circuit. In 2005, I hope to visit college friends, Ryan Banek and Steve Hunter, in Japan.

I hope that this letter finds you and your loved ones well, and I would love to hear from you. My email is now andykstrauss@juno.com, and the cell has not changed +1 703 402 2821.

Grace and Peace,
Andy

Just coming for my stuff

Steve, I think I left my bookbag and Nalgene in here earlier today when I was playing Worms. Have you seen it anywhere? Oh, and hi, everyone! I didn't see you at first.

Checking In

(stephen walks into room 611 and puts his backpack down...)
Woah hey guys, I see you've made yourself at home again in 611.

Dave, this is a good idea. Sounds like fun.

Welp. I'm in Japan still, but I'm coming back to Texas for Christmas break (for about 10 days).
Today I went to lunch with my class of 7 over-45-year-old housewives (one is a Christian).
We ate good food, and actually got to talk about issues like faith and doubt, Christianity in America (the Christian who went said that not everyone in America is a Christian, and the ladies said "Really?"), and why I came to Japan.

In other news, I have been playing Half-Life 2, though far less often than I played Half-Life at Wheaton. I really like it.

Also if you don't know, I have a site with pictures, music, and a journal: www.sahv.com
I try to update it, I don't make any promises as ambitious as "Song of the Week or so" (that's Dave's thing, and you should listen to it every week or so).

uh-oh, this is starting to feel like an email, so I will end it in an un-email-like abrupt way.

Ryan's Photo's

Absolutely stunning photographs! Ryan: You have a real gift with that digital light catcher! How do you get such amazing colors? I especially resonate with the pictures from atop that ridge where the clouds form below you and the sky's so clear above you!

Others: You should definately check out Ryan's picture gallery!

Greetings from Ryan

Howdy friends. I'm here too, now.
I don't have any news but I have some pictures online from my first year in Japan:
http://photobucket.com/albums/v464/RyanBanek/

Dave, grats on the baby!! Keep 'em coming.

Beamer Center

Holy cow...this is the most amazing place. I was just up in Wheaton a couple weeks ago (where I ran into Dave and Sarah). I really wish we had a place like this when we were there. They have pool tables (where those little junior high kids cannot go), the new Stupe serves real food, lots of mail boxes, and many more facilities.

Christmas

Quick update.
Well I am now at Ft. Campbell, KY, doing my time in the 101st Airborne Division. Spent a year and a half at flight school after Wheaton. I'm a Blackhawk pilot and currently serve as an XO in my company. I will be picking up a flight platoon when we go to Iraq next fall. I just receive an email from Dave Degroot, informing me that he will be flying out to Tucson for Christmas. As you may well know, Tucson is home for me and I will definitely have him over. Other than that, I'm staying on the single side of things and have only played the pilot card a few times :).

Less Read, More Write

It is more blessed to give than to recieve!

James is getting married

I just got James Entner's official wedding invitation in the mail. He's getting married on January 22 in Findlay, Ohio to Allyson Corbett, a girl from Ohio who he met in California and courted in Chicago (she was going to Trinity in Dearfield). I'm pretty sure they're going to be living in Evanston. Just for the record, there's no chance of me getting married anytime in the near future. Or not-so-near future.

Adam Should Be Joining Us Soon

I'm excited! If we build it, they will come!

I hung out there plenty.

Nice TV reception.

That's really funny

Should be changed. Too bad we didn't hang out in Caspar's and King's room, then we could have a rhyming community now! Well, now we are in a numerically correct space.

Ummm...611 Online

Davey, I just realized one problem with our wonderful blog's wonderful name. Adam and Steve lived in Traber 611. 611 studios. 609 was Pat and Caspar. I'm assuming you can make the appropriate changes.

Dave Update

If you wish to see the actual big news from my life, scroll down to the part where I mention that SARAH AND I ARE. . .

So this group-blogging idea has been forming in my head ever since I wrote Steve hunter an email in October (2004) where I said,

“. . . I wish that every other weekend all the T6ers could all come back to your old room and hang out for a while. You know, we’d sit there and hail everyone as they came around the corner down the hall, and they’d run or skip down to the rest of us. We’d have the Nighmareish Epcot Theme song on; Coy would be hitting people with his golf driver. Andy Logemann would be talking in his boy-Satan voice, Aeijtzsche would be thumbing away at his bass, Adam would be snapping pictures, IM-ing, and cracking jokes; I’d be getting killed and getting frustrated in Half-Life, Dusty would be looking for something someone took from his room, R.A. Mark would be laughing and laughing and laughing. Ah, yes, perhaps that would be the way it would be. . .”

Hey, maybe we can get a list of people’s emails and start a reply-all conversation for a while, maybe that would be close enough to curb the nostalgia ache.”

Then I thought to myself, reply-all emails are nice, but community blogs are just so much cooler. After I had that thought I got very hungry and forgot about the idea for a few months. Fast-forward to December (2004) where I’m thinking to myself, “Dave, we should do that blog thing! Then we can start working on the fact that you’re addressing yourself as ‘we.’ ” So, there you have it.

Ok. Now for the big news. SARAH AND I ARE doing just fine! You thought I was going to say something else? Well, yes, actually- -Sarah and I are expecting our first child! That’s right, she’s due at the end of June (June 22 to be precise)! Coy, stop singing O-bla-de, O-bla-da! O.K. fine, you can sing it. So that’s the BIG news.

But there are other things as well: We’re going to be moving east in a few months (the beginning of May) where we’ll move into campus housing at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary; I’ve been accepted into their M.Div. program and I’ll begin classes in the fall. No, I’m not planning to become a pastor; I just want to take the long road to getting a Ph.D. in Theology.

As we wait for the child and our move, Sarah and I continue to live and work out here in Wheaton (we live in the apartment complex right across the street from the Outback Steakhouse in the Danada area)- -Sarah works at College Church as an administrative assistant (for the missions pastor), I work two jobs as an independent contractor. First, I work with this organization (translated: a guy who started a 501c3 (non-profit) from a church) to try and promote citywide partnering and communicating for the sake of Christ-generated unity. “How do we do this?” Well, very creatively. My first stage has been to conduct audio interviews with different pastors and ministry leaders in and around the city, asking them to talk through a brief autobiography, a few detailed formative moments in their life and ministry, their visions and dreams for the future, and a few thoughts on unity (vis. John 17). I’ve put up the first batch on a site which you can find by going to www.cityfirst.net and clicking on the “Glimpses. . .” icon.

I’ve also been working with a consulting agency that specializes in organizational development (especially for Christian organizations). I’m on a team that’s working to with the central territory of the U.S. Salvation Army as we help them build intellectual capital to match the generous financial capital they have acquired through Joan Kroc’s recent gift. You can find out all about Joan Kroc’s gift just by typing her name into Google along with Salvation Army.

I also have a website I update from time to time at www.verdack.com

That’s quite enough for now!

Coye's first posting

Well well well, Dave finally found something that will get me to try my hand at the infamous web-log. I think it's a pretty great idea, too, so hopefully a lot of the fellas will use it. A quick catch-up is probably in order since I haven't really talked to many of you in the last year, so here goes:

I graduated in May and spent the summer working for Wheaton's English department in England in Scotland. Yes, that's right, the college paid me to go to Britain for the summer. He, he, he. After that I spent a little time in Chicago-- just a few weeks, really-- then came back to Amarillo, Texas for a while. I've been doing odd little jobs-- painting, editing a popular medicine book, etc-- and working on applications for graduate school. Since none of the schools I applied to last year really wanted me, I am at it again, but I have just about finished with all the applications. (Glory! [pronounced "gll...Ory"]) As Andy knows, I won't hear anything from the schools until March or April, so that's a lot of fun. I should be starting a real job pretty soon. I think I have a spot lined up teaching developmental English at the community college for the spring semester, so that could actually be a really good gig.
So that's about it. I'm living in Amarillo, trying to be a good Episcopalian, running out of money and drinking fine Irish Whisky.

You know what would add a lot to this site? If we could all watch Kenshin or Neon Genesis together. But that's just silly, really. I look forward to hearing from the rest of you. And thanks, Dave, for setting this up (although "609 Online" would have been even cooler). aDios

Hello!

Welcome my friend!

Consider this your online Steve-and-Adam's room! 609 Online! That's what I should have called the site! Shoot.