Friends, Part XII: Stacey Labit

It's pretty much impossible to not like someone who makes you laugh, and Stacey has been making me laugh since almost the very first time I met her.

I have to admit, Stacey (or Stace, as many call her), took me off guard at first. When I moved into the Chi Alpha house this past summer, I knew all of the people who were going to be my housemates pretty well, but Stacey was the one unknown. I was pleasantly surprised, to say the least. Her willingness to speak her mind, and to vocalize whatever [crazy] thoughts might find themselves there, have almost made me fall out of my chair laughing on several occasions (and I mean that literally. That recliner in the xa house is a little unstable, and of some of Stacey's outbursts have sent me tipping backwards.)

Not that her humor is her only good quality. I've had numerous intelligent conversations with Stacey in which she said things that really challenged me and made me think. To this day, I still ponder a comment she made about morality, and how it's usually nothing more than a way for us to say we're better than someone else.

Long story short, Stacey has very quickly become one of my favorite people. Up until last summer, I only had big sisters. Now I'm very glad to have a little one, too!

~Ken, Born of Fire

A New Wave of Friends

I recently did Part XI in my ever-expanding Friends series, the subject of which was Josh Manning. As I was typing it up, I realized that over the past semester or two, I've made new friends and gotten closer to a whole butt-load of people. It'll probably take a while, but over the course of next few months, you will see blogs dedicated to the likes of:

Stacey Labit, Kelsey Tomes, Lane Trahan, Clint Larson, Bonnie Hippler, Ciji Taylor, Carly Guidry, Josh Higgins, Michele DeClouet, Janna Mahoney, and quite possibly a few more. I hope you'll enjoy them!

~Ken, Born of Fire

A New Wave of Friends

I recently did Part XI in my ever-expanding Friends series, the subject of which was Josh Manning. As I was typing it up, I realized that over the past semester or two, I've made new friends and gotten closer to a whole butt-load of people. It'll probably take a while, but over the course of next few months, you will see blogs dedicated to the likes of:

Stacey Labit, Kelsey Tomes, Lane Trahan, Clint Larson, Bonnie Hippler, Ciji Taylor, Carly Guidry, Josh Higgins, Michele DeClouet, Janna Mahoney, and quite possibly a few more. I hope you'll enjoy them!

~Ken, Born of Fire

Friends XI: Josh Manning

This installment of the Friends is about Josh Manning, aka the J-Mann, aka Big Sexy. Okay, I made up that last one. No one actually calls him that. Well, I can think of one person that might, but I don't know for sure. I usually include a picture in these things, but Blogger isn't letting me right now, so I'll add one later. Anywho, the J-Mann and I became friends when he was an intern with Chi Alpha here at UL during the 2005-2006 school year. If there's one thing I can say about him, it's that there is definitely only one Josh Manning. Well, actually, there are lots of Josh Mannings, and he's friends with all of them on Facebook, but I'm willing to bet that none of them are remotely like him.

Josh is the kind of guy that it's hard not to be friends with, even if you try not to. Not that I ever tried not to. I'm just saying, he's easy to befriend. In any given social context, it seems that Josh's number one priority is to make people laugh, and he has about a 50% success rate, which is pretty good. And when he does succeed, he REALLY succeeds. Though Josh was only here at UL for a year, and even though he's been gone now for almost a year, many of his jokes are still told to this today, and his legacy is kept alive by those who loved to laugh at them. Like the one where you take a saltshaker and a steak knife, and say "What's this? A salt with a deadly weapon!"

Josh is also a great man of God who is enlisted in active service in the Kingdom of God.

Finally, Josh also has a great, highly entertaining website, www.joshmanning.com, which you can check out for a peek into his life. Whether you know Josh or not, I'm pretty sure you'll be at least mildly amused by this site.

~Ken, Born of Fire

Canelope

I eloped this weekend.
I went away and didn't tell nobody.
It was just me and the air
me and the wind
me and you
everybody
anybody
me.

Cake, wrestling, God, money.
The Earth is my dowry.

And now I'm committed,
though divorce is an option.