In a matter of hours, I'll be on my way to the country of Guyana. I'm looking forward to it. The past few weeks have been sort of stressful, but they are over.

This trip marks the first time I've ever left the country. I'm sure it will not be the last, however.

I wish I had something deep and insightful to share, but I'm tired and don't really have anything.

I'll be back in town on June 10. Until then, dear readers, I bid you adieu!

So today I packed.

On this trip to Guyana, we must bring our own toilet paper. But there's a process involved. First we take the roll and look through it.

Then we take a plastic bag and look at it.

Then I pull out the roll and make a funny face.

With the roll out of the way, I was able to compress the roll somewhat as I fought sleep.

I took a nap but continued the process with another roll. When both rolls were compressed, I put them in a plastic bag.

I woke up and looked toward the door. Then something shiny appeared on my cheek.

I examined my cheek for shininess.

It's apparently raining like the dickens in Guyana. I tried out my poncho to make sure it worked. I'm happy to report that not a single raindrop got into the poncho during this test run.

I folded the poncho and put it into a plastic bag.

I study the most important medication that I"ll be bringing.

I am so happy to have Irish Spring. Really.

Oral hygiene is important in the jungle.

Jock itch is no one's friend.

I'm taking a whole box of contact lenses with me since I dont' have spare glasses to take.

When you can't brush, Trident.

This is my best Security Guard impression.

This is me trying to look cool by adding sunglasses.

My coolness attempt ended in failure when I wore the Wal-Mart floppy hat.

This is my water bottle. It's blue.

Alas, they had no Superman underwear in stock.

I turned in my license plate today. It was very sad.

I've lived in Concord for a while, and yesterday is the first time I've ever gone into Bass Pro Shop at Concord Mills. It's a redneck paradise...rows upon rows of fishing rods, bait, tackle, guns, ammunition, waders, and duck calls.

I entered the store looking for some supplies for my trip to Guyana. Namely a windup LED flashlight. The only one I could find came in camouflage. I just couldn't force myself to buy it.

Malaria medication. I leave in 2 days. I'm starting to get excited about the trip.

Sunday morning I had to be at the 11am service because they wanted to pray for the Guyana team. I did not bring my earplugs, and I was a little nervous about the sound level.

My hearing has been improving, but it still has its limits. A few weeks ago at Nate's ordination service, I was fine until the full choir appeared. They started belting out the music, and the volume was so bad I had to put my earplugs in quickly.

So the whole choir was once more on stage, and they started singing their little hearts out. To my surprise, I was able to handle the volume. Since I was sitting off to the side, I decided to test it out. I walked up to the balcony and stood near where I had been during Nate's ordination service.

They were singing loudly, and I was still able to withstand the volume. I walked back to my seat and took a picture of the choir to commemorate the occasion.

This past Sunday marked the first time in more than two years I've been able to be in a sunday morning church service without wearing earplugs.

God is healing me. He must be. What I'm experiencing is impossible.

Shauna narrates the story of Paul and Silas in prison.

Tabitha, my cat's namesake.

Our group is split into two teams. Don't ask me why, but I'm on the team that has to lead most of the group singing. When we started singing, instead of standing with the rest of the team, Chris turned around and started conducting our performance. What he didn't know is that I have no idea what any of this hand gestures meant. Shhh.

Around the campfire, I tried to take a candid shot. Tabitha and Monica noticed that I was taking a picture and immediately posed. The end result is a little odd. Some people are posing, some people are not. I find it humorous, though.

Here are four members of our team. On the left is Houston, a guy that's been on about 2 dozen missions trips. In the middle is Chris, and ex-Marine. On the right is Michael, who is married and likes to skateboard. The fourth team member is the iPod in its self-contained sound system.

This is a picture of our oh-so-sexy Guyana shirts. They don't look that bad in person.

You can't see it, really, but I did try. This car had the best bumper sticker ever. It has a picture of a cake with candles in it, and it says "Let them eat cake. Birthday cake. End abortion!"

Then and there I decided never to have an abortion should I ever become pregnant. Never underestimate the power of a bumper sticker to change a life.

On The Lot is finally live. Submission deadline is September 1. I'm not opposed to entering; I just need a good idea.

There are your filthy captions, you rabid dogs!

After hanging out with Christina all week, I took her to the airport for her flight home. I insisted on a picture. She smiled and thought to herself that someday she would have her revenge.

I've been having a feud with Tracy about pictures. I take them and put them on the Internet, and she prefers that I do not do this. The other day I ran into her office to take a picture, and she wasn't there. Undeterred, I took one anyway.

On Sunday morning, Christina played some music at the graduation breakfast for seniors graduating from high school. She did quite well.

Well...that sucked.

Did I mention that traffic was terrible?

Since it was a race weekend, traffic around Concord Mills was horrible. It took us 20 or 30 minutes to go two miles. We passed some people that had jumped out of their car to walk, and there were about 10 people in their group. Here are the last few walking by. Unfortunately, we saw others walking as well. They just struck me as being rednecks for some reason.

As Christians, Christina and I felt compelled to visit the Christian bookstore inside Concord Mills. We were greeted with the above display, and it made me want to vomit. I despise Christian marketing.

Upon our arrival in Concord, I took Christina to Concord Mills. As we were walking, I noticed a girl that had put both of her hands in her rear pockets. It looked incredibly odd and uncomfortable, so of course I was compelled to take a picture.

I was amused by the license plate on this car, but don't remember what it said.

I had to use the restroom when I finally made it past the mean security guard and to the dorm. Christina made sure the bathroom was empty and let me in. After using the facilities, I left the lid up so that the girls would know a boy had been there.

On Saturday morning, I drove to Columbia International University to pick up my friend Christina. She was going to spend the weekend in Charlotte and fly out on Monday to go home to Wisconsin.

I arrived at the CIU campus only to discover a ton of people there for graduation, which was that morning. There was a bit of a long line.

Well, I just finished watching The Da Vinci Code...all 15 hours of it. As a result, I've now lost my faith.

It was fun while it lasted.

Let the debauchery begin!

After seeing the Da Vinci Code, I was driving home and encountered this truck with spinning rims. I don't think you can tell what they are in the picture, but they made me shudder. Viewer Discretion is advised.

As if seeing the Da Vinci Code on Friday was not enough, I happened to pull up next to this vehicle on the way to see the movie. Someone desperately wanted to be cool, but unfortunately their efforts had failed.

After raining off and on all day, a rainbow finally appeared. It was rather bright.

I became suspicious after graduating from community college and my diploma never arrived. I called and discovered that my advisor had never submitted my name for graduation, and so I was technically still a student even though I had fulfilled all the requirements. They got it taken care of, and when the current semester ended, they mailed my diploma to me. Hooray!

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Tab has been looking outside for a month or two; I finally decided to start putting her outdoors again. Things seem to be going well for her. This is a picture of her being outside.

Finally, the man that was speaking finished speaking. They called the ordination candidates up, and then each candidate and spouse had hands laid on them and people prayed for them. My friend Nate is among them. He's the whole reason I even went to the service; it was rather boring otherwise.

This is me, looking enthralled as the service went on and on...and on.

The service that night was an ordination service. About 5 or 6 people were there to be ordained with the Assemblies of God. The service was the culmination of the A/G's District Council, and the room was full. I had hoped that things would be short and sweet, but it turned into a full-blown production. Pictured here is Concord First Assembly's choir and band, playing their little hearts out.

I think I'm going to move to Russia, since they are now paying couples to have babies. I know Russia offers mail-order brides; but does America have mail-order husbands? Gotta go pack my bags...this $55/month payout will surely not last long.

If Tracy knew her picture was on here, I'd be summarily executed. So shhh!

Looks like I'm going to have a tremendous serving of humble pie within the next few weeks. I shall have to admit that I'm incredibly wrong about something I've held as fact for a long time. I'm not really looking forward to it; but I know it's the right thing to do.

*sigh*

But at least that whole ordeal is almost over. More details as they become available.

This is Israel. He just graduated from law school, after 7 years. I went to school for 7 years, off and on, and came away with a 2-year degree. When I told him this, he seemed to be impressed. This is his "I'm impressed" face.

I love how the barn is noted on the map as "BARN." As if we couldn't tell what it is.

In this shot, Dana's friends are all concentrating on the game. As they wander around, talking on their cell phones.

I headed up to Winston-Salem to meet my friend Dana in person. We went to a local park and played a round of frisbee golf with some of her friends. She refused to be photographed (something about instant death for me), but was fine with me taking pictures of the scenery. This is a field that I thought looked gorgeous. It was much more breath-taking in person.

Your eyes do not deceive you. This is an actual putt-putt course located inside the Salisbury mall. Because when I go to the mall, I know I get a hankering for miniature golf. I am so glad I don't live in Salisbury.

Carolyn wanted me to try on this little number. I refused. Adamantly.p>

I went to Salisbury with my friend Carolyn. She is going to be working at the mall there, and wanted to make sure she knew where the mall was. Once there, she went into a few stores for some shopping.

Who needs the Internet to find love when you have Payless? Apparently all their cashiers are highly-trained matchmakers. Who knew?

I do believe my ears are getting better.

Sunday night, at Underground, we had an acoustic set instead of the usual full band. I had earplugs in, as I do every week. To do otherwise is unthinkable, as it's simply too loud. This week, though, with my earplugs in things did not seem to be too bad. So I took my right earplug out.

To my surprise, the noise level was tolerable. So tolerable, in fact, that I felt safe taking out my left earplug. The left ear is the weaker one, and if I hurt it I know fairly soon after the fact. With great trepidation, I took out the left earplug.

And I was fine.

Now I am definitely a skeptic...no argument there. There are some reasons that maybe explain why I was able to take out the earplugs. The band's setup was different. It was an acoustic set. The drum set was gone. My sensitivity is more with higher frequencies, and they were notably absent. So that's one possible explanation.

But I think it's more than that.

I've been testing my noise tolerance. Normally I have to drive with an earplug in my left ear because even the sound of wind is too loud and causes problems for me. The next morning, I usually wake up hearing a buzzing in that ear if I overdo it. It's incredibly easy to do.

As I've driven around Concord the past few days, I have done so without an earplug in the left ear. The window has been down, and I've been hearing the sounds of wind and of passing traffic. Even motorcycles. The only concession I've made is rolling up the window on the interstate, and that's because it seemed too loud.

Another thing I've been doing to test my ears is listening to music louder than I normally do. As someone that's sensitive to louder noises, I can't listen to anything even remotely approaching loud. My radio goes up to 30, and the most I can normally listen to is 9 or 10. Anything louder was unbearable. Since Sunday night, I've been listening to it at 11 or 12.

I woke up this afternoon, and there was no buzzing in my left ear like there is if I mess it up.

I'm not totally better. I can still heard the ringing in both ears, and I still have to ask people to repeat themselves. But...

...I think I'm finally starting to realize that this is real, and it's not going away.

Thank God.