September 03 2011

            I woke and looked at the time when it was 4:44.  Ella was due to wake at 6:30 so she could be at work at 7:00.  I didn’t want to wake her so I lie in bed and read my RV Travel newsletter on the Droid X.  I followed a lot of the links from the newsletter to other websites and then checked on what was happening on Facebook.  Not much actually.  I checked the time and found it to be only 5:45.  Still not time to get up.

            Yesterday, I had made a recording of the sermon for Sunday.  This is another nice app for the Droid.  I often record like this to check how the message flows when I say it out loud, the length of time it takes and so that I can listen to the playback and mark any changes on the written copy.  Since it was only 5:45, I put the recording on ‘loop’ and the earbuds in my ears and listened to the playback.  Ella woke me a few minutes to 7 to say she was going to work.  (I hope it doesn’t have the same effect on Sunday’s listeners)

            Since I now had the bed to myself, I saw no reason to get up.  Our communal breakfast would not be ready until 8:30 so I lie abed and watch “Burn Notice” on Droid TV.

            The point of this is to say that from 4:44 to 8:15 was spent staring at the screen of my Droid X.  I used to ‘look down upon’ video gamers who would spend hour upon hour in front of their game units.  Opps!  I guess I can’t cast THOSE stones anymore!

            Breakfast today was eggs-to-order, toast, hash browns, sausage, coffee and juice.  That is a great breakfast for $3.00.  Tomorrow will be the last communal breakfast for the season and consist of pancakes, blueberry pancakes, and or French toast for $3 + $1 for a sausage patty.  The sausage patty’s come from some food service company and must be about a third of a pound each, which makes them well worth the extra dollar.

            Breakfast is also a time to sit and visit with friends, some of which will soon be following the warm weather south or moving back to their ‘sticks and bricks’ homes.       The end of the camping season is always a sweet/sad time of year for us.  It is sad because so many of our friends are gone for the next 4 to 6 months.  But it is also sweet because the pace of the resort slows down and space opens up as trailers and motor-homes go south, go home, or go into storage. 

            Soon the lake will fill with thousands of geese and ducks as they also migrate to warmer climes.  Rabbits, raccoons, deer, foxes, hawks and owls will soon be more evident in the park also.  Trees will begin to change into their fall ‘party clothes’ and it will be time to begin getting our home ready for the winter. 

            If all goes according to plan, this will be last winter that we will need to add insulation around the base of the trailer and heat-shrink plastic to the windows.  Next year we intend to join the migration.  The details are yet to be worked out.  We will either pack up our fifth-wheel trailer and tow it to Texas or we will leave it on a site here at Cutty’s and purchase an additional travel trailer or fifth-wheel trailer.  Whether we purchase one in Iowa and tow it south or we load up the truck with a winter’s worth of supplies and go to Texas to buy a trailer, we haven’t decided.  From searches on Craig’s List, it appears there are much better bargains in Texas than Iowa for RVs.

            Change of subject here.

            Being Saturday, and with me preaching at Cutty’s tomorrow, we took the opportunity to go in to our home church at attending the Saturday night praise service.  Pastor Webb’s service was based on the same text I’ll be using tomorrow.  However it was a different part of the scripture that ‘spoke to him’ and the message went down a different path than what I will be preaching.  If you are curious, you can follow my sermons on www.thomasewilliams.blogspot.com   Tomorrow’s sermon will be “Sin Happens … So Does Forgiveness”

            This is Saturday of Labor Day Weekend which means a lot of activity at the resort today.  Most of the things that happen this weekend will happen without my involvement.  The one thing that was on my “to do list” for today was the concert this evening.  Michael Miller, who has been a professional singer, invites his many friends who are professional or semi-professional entertainers to come and spend Labor Day at Cutty’s.  They are not paid for their performances here (other than possible camping for free for the weekend).  It has always been amazing in the past and so was something I was looking forward to seeing and hearing.

            In the past a stage has been set up outside at the end of ‘Main Street’.  This year it has rain off and on all day.  Because of the weather, everything was moved under the huge shelter at the other end of ‘Main Street’.  This changed the acoustics dramatically.  The crowd was having a wonderful time and doing a lot of talking.  There was so much talking that the entertainers’ microphones kept getting louder, unfortunately so did all the background chatter.  Perhaps it is a function of my hearing aid, but I was not able to enjoy the concert at all and finally gave up. 

            I went to the Adult Center (for you who don’t understand what the Adult Center is; you have to be 18 or over to go in the building.  It is Adult in the old sense not the x-rated sense) and read a couple chapters of “Beyond Good and Evil” by Friedrich Nietzsche.  That alone should give you and idea of how much I was NOT enjoying the concert.

            Really the highlight of my day was singing along with the Praise Band at church.  And all in all, that’s not a bad thing.

            I’m about ready to call it a day.  I may stay up to watch “Dr. Who” at 11:00 – or not.