The Chris Morgan

Yesterday (Friday 2010-04-02) was Good Friday. I worked in the morning at Starbucks and went home to watch a movie and wait to hang out with friends. After the movie, I met Kristen Sweeney to go to McKay’s in Nashville. It was about 4:30-5, so right around rush hour. Traffic was heavy, but still moving well.

I glanced over to say something to her and the next thing I know, the car that was going 60 was stopped in front of me. I hit my brakes and started sliding. I tried to jump into the left lane because it was open. I thought we were settled in the lane, but the car fishtailed. I tried to get control back, but we slid back and forth and ended up hitting the guard rail. The guard rail turned the car half way around and we ended up facing oncoming traffic. The car was full of smoke and other stuff from the air bags (both went off). It was hard to breathe and I couldn’t speak because of the smoke. As soon as we could get out safely, we ran across the shoulder and into the grass between Eastbound and Westbound lanes. Within a minute of us getting to the grass there were two nurses with us. We called 911. The cops and an ambulance came. They checked us out and cleared us to go home.

The car is dead. I dented a guard rail. I almost killed one of the best friends I’ve ever had. I survived. She survived. No hospitals. No gushing blood. No broken bones. Only the only injuries came from seatbelts and airbags. And in rush hour there were no other cars involved.

I have some burns on my arms and a bruise on my chest. You can find pictures here: http://tinyurl.com/ybcx9qc. Currently, there aren’t any of the car. I’ll put some on there next time I see the thing.

Kristen got hit in the face by the airbag. It pushed the lens of her eye against her iris. It then became swollen to the point where she can’t read at all. Her cornea is also swollen. The doctor says it will take anywhere between a few days and a few weeks to heal, but it will heal.

God was definitely there. If He wasn’t we’d be dead. We’re doing ok, and we will heal. However, the Geo will not.

- Chris

When I was a child, I broke my mother’s lamp. I was able to glue it back together and, with a new bulb, it continued to function as a lamp. We repaired the lamp. My God is not a God of reparation, but of restoration.

Reparation is making something that is broken continue to function (more or less) as it did before it was broken. My God is the one who Restores. Had He touched the lamp, it would have been restored. It would have been in the exact same condition as it was before I broke it. Not only that, but my mother’s trust for me would be restored as if the lamp had never been touched. My shame for my failure would vanish as if it had never happened. There would be no remembrance of the damage done.

My God is Jehovah Rapha – the Healer. The one who Restores that which is broken. This is everything from broken lamps to broken bodies. From damaged relationships to the fractured relationship of God with Man.

My God doesn’t do anything half way. When He heals, it is no partial healing. A God healing doesn’t put cancer into recession. It heals completely. Erasing, eradicating the damaged areas and replacing them with cells that had never known cancer.

May My God restore you this week. May he renew your broken, sick bodies. May he refresh your mind. May he rejuvenate your love for one another. And may My God pull you close to his chest so you can hear his heart beat for you and you may hear him whisper his love into your ears.

- Chris

and again I find myself sleep deprived. work schedule is still the same hours, but a few new developments have come in the XM arena. I can’t post all of them yet, but I can say that there are good things happening. We are wrapping up the programming side of our latest project: Project Oz. there is still a lot of design work to do, but that goes pretty quickly and is relatively easy to estimate how long it will take. from the programming side, there are really only two things left to do (other than finding and fixing bugs). I am making great progress on one and expect to wrap it up next time I have a chance to program. the other has been delegated to Josh Netherton. I don’t think I have done a great job explaining to him what I want, so he and I are going to need to spend some time going over that, but I think that after that, he shouldn’t have much of a problem buttoning that down. then it should just be helping the design team finish and working on some other projects. through Oz I have learned a ton about programming as well as other stuff.

anyway, lunch break over. back to work.

so either i can’t get to bed to go to sleep or somehow i get to bed but can’t sleep. ugh. too many short nights and long days. but enough about that. i have two funny stories from the drive thru that happened only this morning.

a guy orders and gets up to the window and i look out to get his money. he’s not wearing pants. he doesn’t look awkward or anything. in fact, he doesn’t seem to notice. you’d think he was wearing slacks or something by the look of his shirt… but i’m pretty sure i saw boxer-briefs. it was disturbing.

two girls pull up in a big truck. they give me their money then continue looking at something weird in their hands. they had several little pieces of cloth and string that they seemed to be examining. eventually one of the girls stretched one out so i could see it and lo and behold ’twas a thong. these girls then both looked over at me and started giggling. no idea why, but apparently them looking at thongs with me standing there was weird for them. yet they kept looking and the longer they looked, the more they pulled out and the more they looked at me and giggled. ugh. being a man is so much more simple. there are about 5 different types of clothing and everything fits in one of those categories or is something really really strange. and we don’t show our underwear and giggle when someone notices what we’re examining.

after typing all this, i have decided that these stories are not nearly as potent as they were this morning. however, i spent the time to write them and i’m not deleting this post. hwoever, i’m very tired, and i’m not going to get much sleep tonight either… or this weekend. i have more work to do. anyway, i’ll get a day off soon. i think i have next sunday off (which will be my first day off since i got back from vacation unless i work magic tomorrow and knock out the entire punch list before i crash).

bed time.

love to all my readers
-chris

Stacy left for Cambridge today. In honor of her, I placed a countdown timer on my page set to tell me how long till she gets back. It’s going to be a long 2 months and 24 days for me. But it will fly by for her and make her incredibly happy. I’m glad for her.

-Chris

so… most of what i have for an update is stuff that i should not be posting publicly. also, this update is not quite what i expected and i need to make some serious decisions about what this means for me in the short and long term before i can say anything officially. here’s what i feel like i can say:

i will not be hired immediately at XM. however, there is now money in a bank account specifically set aside for me to trade. this money will (i think) be traded exclusively by me. i will make a percentage commission off my profits. though i will be trading real money, i will not officially be an employee of XM.

on another note, Tom and i have worked out a deal where i can live in one of his houses and bring Ryan with me to help with rent. since i’m getting married some time this spring/summer-ish, i’ll need to be on my own by then anyway, so renewing a 1-year lease is not practical. however, Tom will let me live there as long as it makes sense for everyone (or until he sells the house).

obviously there are some more details that would need to be included to make this a full update, but i am not willing to make those public yet. sorry for the ambiguity, it is necessary. more to come as i am able.

love,
chris

Today is Tuesday. It is 6am and I have already been up for 2 hours. Ouch. I am on my first break at SBUX and am writing on my iTouch.

I have news… Or at least pending news. My internship ends tomorrow. As for what this means for my future at XM, I do not yet know. So my news is that you should look for an update soon.

On the programming front, I got a great compliment yesterday when Kenny said that in 6 months I would be on par with any other developer. He clarified by saying that he would be able to give me any problem and I would be able to come up with an efficient, imaginative solution. I’ll take that compliment.

On a side note, I want to go back to bed. Oh, and I will publish this as soon as I get to wi-fi, so the time stamp will be off.

Crawler – a program that downloads web pages and searches them for data.

I have written 2 crawlers in the past 3 days at XM. They are pretty neat, but I know that most of my readers would be bored or confused by a thorough explanation. Let’s just say that they are really neat programs. They are both fully functional, and one will be used in the daily operation at XM. And I feel really stinking good about it.

Work at the BUX is going swell. I have this entire weekend off, and that will be awesome. Stacy is going to be in town, and with Christy’s wedding just around the corner, Sandy and Derek will be in town too. Actually, a whole swarm of Cohls and relatives will descend on Smyrna in the next few weeks. It should be fun.

I was trying to think of something less work-related to blog about. But with my hours as they are, the majority of my hours not at work are spent sleeping.

Oh! The retreat! I went on a retreat with. The young adults at Smyrna Assembly this past weekend. It was flippin’ awesome. I had a great time getting to know people and just relaxing. It did exactly what I needed it to do. I came back refreshed, energetic, and ready to get back to work.

Anyway, I don’t have much else to say. I am having a nice string of good days, and I am enjoying the relaxation from the stress.

-Chris