My buddy just initiated a game of Echess with me on Shockwave. This should be great! I have been looking for chess partners for a while. I finally got to play a couple of games on a board here recently, and now my friend Michael and I will get to duel online. It'll be a slow-paced game, since I can't be online that often and don't have a computer to use at home. He's a smart guy, so I better watch out. My record right now stands at 0-2, so there's some work to do!

It's been a great spring/summer of new things. I feel very very blessed for that. Got to go skydiving, of course, and have also been able to go into a cave, see the World's Fair site for the first time, bike the Cade's Cove loop after dark, etc. I'm planning a trip to New York this summer if I can just find someone interested in going. I also want to do some horseriding for the first time. They say you either have the time or the money to do the things you want to do, but not both. In my life right now, it seems I have both, so that's a real privilege.

Verse for the day: "As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day." (John 12:47-48, NIV)