Planet RMFO Blog

Today I was looking through my pictures from my trip to Ethiopia in March of 2007. I haven’t traveled internationally since then, and I’ve been itching to go. And looking at those sweet little faces made that itch even more pronounced.

Sometimes, it’s easy to get bogged down in my work. To stare down deadlines. To get entirely too focused on where an apostrophe goes, or what a transition between paragraphs should look like.

But all it takes is one look at those sweet faces. And worries about commas and deadlines are replaced by their stories.

Stories of hope and perseverance. Stories of faith and diligence. Stories of unbreakable bonds between a mother and her child.

And it is then that I realize the worst thing I can do is to lose focus of why I do what I do. I don’t do it for the bylines or for the praise. Because if I did, I would have already given up. I do it for them.

I do it because they need an advocate. They need someone to tell their stories. They need someone to respond to their need. They need. So I write.

yesterday at work was pretty good. i’ve been working on this one calculation for about a week and a half, but i’m still not well versed with the analysis world, so i was having to ask a lot of questions. yesterday afternoon, i was finally able to get help from my supervisor and it was like the light came on. i was able to get what i needed to done and send out an email before i left with the results i found. it was kind of awesome.

also yesterday, i was getting directions to birmingham to meet CJ later today in preparation for Clemson/Bama tomorrow. i plugged in the addresses on google maps, and noticed a little camera icon by my address. i clicked and MY HOUSE IS ON GOOGLE MAPS! apparently the google mobile drove through and snapped photos in my neighborhood. (i wish Paris was my neighborhood) i saw that they pretty much did the whole NOLA metro area. i thought it was pretty cool.

i need to go finish getting some stuff together. i have my stuff ready for this weekend, but i’m also going to be bringing some stuff over to my aunt and uncle’s in case that Gustav guy shows up while i’m gone. the models are shifted more to the west, but i can’t completely trust them. still, i feel a little better than i did yesterday or a couple of days ago. just hope i can get home early next week.

also, today marks 3 years since katrina. i don’t feel nearly as weird as i did the two previous anniversaries, and in fact it seems like such a long time ago. the attitude with Gustav’s mostly “we know what it can do, we’re doing what we have to. however, we also know how bad things could get, and we’re ready for them.” it’s kind of cool to see people have confidence and not in a panic.

TOMORROW IS GAMEDAY! OMG WTF BBQ!

It took me for-ev-er to read this book. I kept putting it down, and also there were things like the Olympics and the DNC and being sick and being tired from going back to work that kept me from reading as much as I normally do. I am glad I stuck with it, though.

After moving from California to Hampden College in Vermont, Richard finds himself taken in by small, wealthy group of students who study Greek together. As Richard gets to know them better, he discovers that they have a secret. As he falls deeper and deeper into their confidence, their fear of discovery leads them to kill one of their own.

The first part of the book is setting up the things I just told you - Richard’s relationships with the five of them and how their friendship leads to murder. (This is all told on the inside jacket and in the first chapter, so I am not spoiling anything by telling you that.) The second half, which I liked better, was the fear of discovery. I liked how the walls were closing in around them, the sense of dread that permeated the pages. The question is, will they be discovered? And even if they aren’t discovered, will it have been worth it in the end?

The last hundred pages had twists and turns that had me actually gasping out loud, and because of that, I would say that this one is worth a shot. I think it would be a decent choice for a book club discussion because of the characters and their relationships alone. The first part is slow, but the payoff, for me at least, was worth it.

Wild Goose Chase, the latest book by pastor Mark Batterson of National Community Church in Washington, DC, sets out its’ premise in the introduction:

The Celtic Christians had a name for the Holy Spirit that has always intrigued me. They called Him An Geadh-Glas, or “the Wild Goose”. I love the imagery and implications. The name hints at the mysterious nature of the Holy Spirit. Much like a gild goose, the Spirit of God cannot be tracked or tamed. An element of danger and an air of unpredictability surround Him. And while the name may sound a little sacrilegious at first earshot, I cannot think of a better description of what it’s like to pursue the Spirit’s leading through life than Wild Goose chase. I think the Celtic Christians were on to something that institutionalized Christianity has missed out on…

With each chapter in the book, Batterson then calls the reader to “come out of the cage” of one encumbrance or another, sharing anecdotes from his own life and those he’s come into contact with in his ministry, and then finishing up each chapter with an example of the principle that he sees in the life of a biblical character.

I was unimpressed when the introduction, and indeed, the whole premise of the book, seemed to be based less on some Scriptural principle than on a single phrase from Christian antiquity. And my concerns were deepened when I looked at the chapter titles and subheadings:

• Goose Bumps: Coming Out of the Cage of Responsibility
• Dictatorship Of The Ordinary: Coming Out of the Cage of Routine
• Eight-Foot Ceilings: Coming Out of the Cage of Assumptions
• A Rooster’s Crow: Coming Out of the Cage of Guilt
• Sometimes it Takes A Shipwreck: Coming Out of the Cage of Failure
• Good Old-Fashioned Guts: Coming Out of the Cage of Fear

While there are some good points to be made in the book from time to time, it really feels to me that Batterson wrote the self-help, motivational principles of Wild Goose Chase and then looked to find bits and pieces of Scripture to support his points… which is a dangerous way to teach the Bible. In addition, Batterson’s style of writing is unimaginative, cliché-ridden, trying too hard to be cool and trendy. Color me unimpressed.

After finishing up Wild Goose Chase, I felt like I had just sat through one of those exercise infomercials where ridiculously-toned models and cheesy announcers hype their transform-your-life product ad nauseam for 30 minutes late at night. What I came away longing for was something more solid, stable, and reliable - something more analogous to a Ken Burns documentary on PBS. So I’m sorry, Multnomah, I just can’t recommend this book. My friends, if you’re going to buy a book on living the Christian life, get something by Eugene Peterson instead. You’ll be glad you did.

As requested, I’ll link to Amazon: you can buy Wild Goose Chase there. But I’d suggest you pick up something else instead.

Tags: Books, Reviews

The crowd gathered, the band came on, the crowd squished together and the rain began to fall. This was the scene when Radiohead came to Vancouver. I’ve never been a hard core Radiohead, but have enjoyed a lot of their songs. This was my first Radiohead concert, so I was eager to see them, as it’s been 5 years since they have been in these parts.
Radiohead had an interesting stage with organ pipes dangling around them and the ever changing light show, but for Radiohead it’s about the music. They’re a band that is not so high in entertainment, but more in letting sense their soul through the music.

During some of the more mellower songs I could hear the rain falling around, which was kind of weird. Keeping close with everyone around me I didn’t notice the rain too much although I finally took my glasses off as they kept steaming up.

At one point the crowd on one side was getting pretty rowdy and Thom had to remind them they were not at a Rage Against the Machine concert.
Radiohead had come out for their second encore and had played 24 out of their 25 song set and I had yet to hear Paranoid Android. Thom asked the crowd if they wanted to hear Idioteque or Paranoid Android, I am glad the crowd agreed with me. And when we awere all singing ‘rain down’ it seemed very appropriate. A nice way to end the show.

Despite the rain, Radiohead still put on a fine show even without the entertainment.

Here are a few pictures from the concert.

This is after the show as the crowd was dispersing.

Family

• Zoë started kindergarten last week.  The initial separation was difficult for her (surprisingly . . . first day of preschool last year was easy), but when we came to get her, everything was great.  She’s really enjoying it, and already doing well, academically and socially.  Amy and I are sending her to a really good Christian school, but we’re not anti-public school or anything.  We’re just anti-THESE public schools around here. (They’re… not good.)
• I still like being married.
• It’s reported that Amy likes it, too

Church

• Things are going well.  We’re planting another Grace Central congregation (with a view toward even more over the next ten years). Folks are being gathered, forming relationships, believing the Gospel, serving eachother.  It’s cool to see Jesus work in and through people.
• Greg has been preaching through the book of Ezra, which is just what we need to hear at this stage — the story of God rescuing his people from exile, and then working through them to build his temple.  He’s doing the same now — his temple now known to be his people, the Church.
• (Feel free to subscribe to Grace Central’s podcast to hear these sermons, by the way.  Maybe you’ll want to come join us! The iTunes link is here, or you can subscribe manually here.)
• I’ll be preaching my first sermon (ever) at Grace Central some time in the next few weeks.  Please pray for me as I study and prepare to deliver God’s Word to his people.
• Home groups are starting back up in a couple of weeks after a Summer hiatus. We’re looking forward to that.

Tech

• I’ve been enjoying Ubiquity, a new experimental extension for Firefox. The best way I can describe it is that it’s like Quicksilver, but for your browser. You should just watch the video and try it out for yourself. It has the potential to change the way we browse.  Seriously.
• We got an Xbox 360 a few weeks ago.  I’ve actually been using it as a media extender (thanks to Rivet and a Linksys WRT54GS w/ DD-WRT firmware — in bridge mode) almost as much as I’ve used it to play games.  The ability to watch HD video podcasts on our TV rather than on my Macbook’s screen is pretty darn nice (not to mention streaming the iTunes library to the TV, as well).
• (My Xbox LIVE gamertag is raekwon00, by the way. Add me as a friend!)
• I added an Airport Express router to our home network (this is in addition to the Airport Extreme and the aforementioned Linksys).  This little thing is fantastic for extending your network’s range or creating a dual-band 802.11n/g network.  It’ll come in handy if I’m ever again in a hotel with wired-only internet as well.

Music

• I wish I had something to report here. I need some new tunes. Suggestions?

Sorry to be so complain-y. But it’s been that kind of week. SUCKY THING THE FIRST The Hills! It’s so bad this season, y’all. Now I know what you are thinking - it has always been bad. And you are right. But it’s always been more awesomely bad than just bad. Now? Just bad. Boo. SUCKY THING [...]

so i’m starting to enter ryan adams fanboy mode. i’m reading everything i can about the tour and the upcoming album. i’m even going to the TM pages for the shows i went to just to see what kind of tickets could be bought now. i was poking around on ebay for different things today, and decided to do a search for RA tickets. i came upon this auction (linky linked). these seats are next to my seat for the Tuscaloosa show. literally, i have seat 14. guess i’ll have something to ask my concert neighbors about when i get there.

in other news, work today was long. i’m back in the deep end of the pool as far as what i’m doing, and i’m trying my best. it just feels like i’m spinning my wheels. tomorrow should be a good day though, and i’ll have things taken care of before i go out of town this weekend, and vacation/evacuation since Gustav still wants to come here on Monday.

best line of the day….i asked “since when are hurricanes named with Russian names?” my friend Kenny said “well, if it’s Russian, it’s going to go to Georgia.” it was fantastic political humor at 7:52 am. unfortunately, it does not appear to want to go to Georgia…..yet.

We have fire drills and tornado drills, but what do you call it when there’s an actual fire or an actual tornado? When I was in high school, someone set some kind of fire in a bathroom (the details have become somewhat fuzzy), and what we called it was, “Everyone get out of the building and then stand in the rain for hours and then come back into the building and shiver for the rest of the day because the radiators can’t be turned on.” (Huh, seems like some of THOSE details aren’t exactly fuzzy.)

Today, a tornado touched down near my school, and as we emphasized that, no, it was not a drill, I learned that what we actually call it is “tornado lockdown.” I was actually kind of impressed with this phrase. It sounds so official and makes the idea of everyone crouching by the wall in the tornado position seem so much less silly.

Of course, it didn’t seem silly at all when the tornado siren started going off. I don’t have a lot of tornado experience - we get tornadoes here, but certainly not like other parts of the country. I remember there being a pretty serious tornado warning when I was in elementary school and that we spent a couple of hours crouching by the wall, but I don’t remember hearing the tornado siren. In fact, I am not sure I have ever heard a tornado siren. It was surreal when it went off, because it’s something I have read about but never actually experienced. And I was okay when it went off the first time, but when it started going off the second time, I actually got a little bit scared. We spent an hour in tornado lockdown. I am very thankful that everything turned out okay, and that no one was hurt, but I would be lying if I said that hour in the tornado position didn’t take a toll on all of us. Not to mention the extra hour we all stayed at school because the buses couldn’t run until everything was safe.

That’s where Mike comes in. Let’s start with yesterday, when he drove me to my class so I wouldn’t have to walk in the rain, came home, made chili for dinner (he claims this is not a soup), and came back and picked me up. Today he drove me to class again (because I was going to be late late late without his help, thanks to the extra hour at school), picked me up after class, and let me cry on the way home. This is why he’s my hero - saving me from a downpour, holding my hand as I cry in the dark. It was a long day, and I am more than a little bit overwhelmed. Let’s all hope for a more normal day tomorrow. (Please.)

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When listening and reading Kennedy’s nomination acceptance speech at the 1960 Democrtic National Convention, it is actually somewhat freaky how relevant his words are today.  I think Obama could take the speech and swap “terrorist” for “communist” and “McCain” for “Nixon” and almost read it word for word.

Well, except for the part where he calls his opponent young.

This part gives me chills.

Perhaps he could carry on the party policies, the policies of Nixon and Benson and Dirksen and Goldwater. But this Nation cannot afford such a luxury. Perhaps we could afford a Coolidge following Harding. And perhaps we could afford a Pierce following Fillmore. But after Buchanan this nation needed Lincoln; after Taft we needed Wilson; and after Hoover we needed Franklin Roosevelt.

But we’re not merely running against Mr. Nixon. Our task is not merely one of itemizing Republican failures. Nor is that wholly necessary. For the families forced from the farm do not need to tell us of their plight. The unemployed miners and textile workers know that the decision is before them in November. The old people without medical care, the families without a decent home, the parents of children without a decent school: They all know that it’s time for a change.

We are not here to curse the darkness; we are here to light a candle. As Winston Churchill said on taking office some twenty years ago: If we open a quarrel between the present and the past, we shall be in danger of losing the future.

Give it a listen.

I would like a few things.

• Move the “Create a New Filter” link to toward the top of the page. I end up with a lot of filters and I don’t really want to scroll down all the way to the bottom just to make a new one. Or put a link at the top and the bottom. There’s no reason it can’t be in both places at once.
• Under the “Reply” pull-down box, place a link to make a filter from that sender. This is a lot easer than, say, copying the email address, going to filters, making a new filter, pasting the email address, etc.
• For Google Apps, could we perhaps get a “Global Filter” type page or something to mass-manage email? There are quite a few message types I would prefer no-one receive, and I don’t have time to modify each account.

Thanks!

Do you have Convention Fever?

Have you been watching the wall-to-wall coverage on cable? Are you crotch-deep in balloons? Have you been watching pundits so long that the professorial George Will has begun to resemble sturdy Midwestern rocker George Thorogood?

If the answer is yes, your diagnosis: Convention Fever. Your prescription: suicide.

My face has broken out in hives and my skin has grown gray and clammy in what I fear to be Convention Fever. I have sent word to ol’ Doc Taft to make haste in getting here, as my heartbeat is growing shallower with each American flag straw hat sighting…

Folks, be sure to check back in tomorrow, when I liveblog my death.

seriously….come on, i’m going out of town this weekend. at least the computer models shifted more westward today. if they keep moving then it’ll be fine. i don’t want to have to evacuate/go on vacation, that would suck. right now the plan is to come back Sunday, but now it looks like that’ll be too late. argh.

on the way home today, chad and thomas were talking about boarding up their windows in case the storm came this way. they asked me if i was going to board up my windows, but i told them no, because i’ve had worse things happen to my house, and the windows just aren’t that important.

i’m really not that worried yet, for now it’s more an inconvenience.

I do not, myself, like icebreaker sorts of things. It brings out the middle schooler in me, the part that doesn’t like joining things, the part that is still afraid that people will point and laugh, the part that struggles with sincerity. When, in my college classes, we have to do icebreakers, it is hard for me to resist rolling my eyes. It’s not that I think I’m too cool for icebreakers. It’s that I think I’m not quite cool enough, that no one will be interested enough in me to want to break the ice. That people will think it’s silly if I participate too much. So I hang back and try not to let myself seem too invested. (Also, I don’t like silly games that have no point other than breaking the ice. Let’s come up with an actual way to break the ice for a change.)

I like to watch the students when they do icebreaker activities, to see how their personalities come out. This one hangs in the corner, acting much like I always feel. That one dives in fearlessly, asking questions of all his classmates. This one goofs off, that one works steadily. I don’t have kids (or particularly maternal instincts), but from time to time I am unexpectedly moved to see them discovering who they are, taking risks when they would rather hang back, eschewing a sense of safety in order to get involved. I want to take them aside and tell them that it doesn’t do any good to keep worrying about what people think, and that they should jump into these activities with as much abandon as a child joyously jumping into a puddle. But I know they have to figure those things out themselves, so instead I simply say, “Are you finished? Then have a seat.”

Well, yesterday was the first day of school around these parts. As usual, the day was replete with seating charts, syllabi, and sorrow.

Teachers tend to feel much the same as students on this day, and I was no exception. Throughout the early morning hours I found myself contemplating my career choice with no small level of anxiety. However, as the wide-eyed, frightened 12 year-olds began streaming into my homeroom, I felt something begin to build inside me. Slowly and unstoppably, a overwhelming strength began to surge through my veins, and I once again felt at one with my role in the universe.

My insatiable power over these 7th graders built as I began to shout frenzied and arbitrary commands at them, thus disorienting their command structure and rendering their defenses useless. Like Emperor Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith, I raised my arms in glorious victory and howled in an unearthly voice, “UNLIMITED POWAAAAAHHHH!!!”

Also, I proctored a study hall.

I want to plug a DVD player directly into a monitor. Anyone have any experience with this sort of thing, any product recommendations?

Today will be spent and nigh upon wasted in the acidic belly of that coffee belching beast. Five hours that cut out the heart of my day, and tomorrow, four early morning sunless hours that cut the heart out of my mood. Normalcy will return on Thursday, I hope, as least much normalcy as can be expected from my adventure intensive life, which has neither contained much adventure nor intensity of late. But, any day now I fully expect some tall bearded old man to knock his knotted walking stick against my door and barge in followed by a throng of short, stout-looking men and whisk me off there and back again on some adventurous deed.

Until then the only question that truly remains unanswered is, “would you like room for cream?”

Hello, internet. It’s been a while. I’ve had a rough couple of weeks. My grandma passed away last weekend after a two week stint in the hospital fighting a variety of infections and organ failures before her body just couldn’t take it anymore. So I spent all of last week at my parents’ house in [...]

Wolfgang Puck Chicken Tortilla Soup

I know nothing about Wolfgang, maybe he once was on Food Network? My only frame of reference for him is seeing him on my grocery store shelf selling soup. Nothing really struck my fancy till I was house sitting and saw that they had some of his soups. They told me to help myself to whatever, so I helped myself to some his Chicken Tortilla Soup. I figured since it was a mexican style dish that Id grill up some quesadillas to go along with. There are few things in this food life that I lead that is much better than this folks. Maybe not Wolfgang Puck’s version every time, but how have I not had tortilla soup before then? How is that possible? I really dont know. Maybe I have and it wasnt that amazing that I just dont remember it. But man alive, this bowl of soup was oh so good. So thank you Pell’s for stocking your shelf with this soup and offering it to me while you were on the west coast. My eyes have seen the light to the greatness that is tortilla soup.

During conventions it’s either feast or famine with the commission work. Often during down times I’ll just work up something with the hopes that it’ll sell on Ebay, and at the very least pad-out my commission portfolio. This particular one was drawn while I was sitting around commission-less in Charlotte, but later sold online.

This is rendered with markers and Micron pens, and probably took a little over an hour. But I didn’t have anything else to do, so it kept me occupied.

My close friend and Rock TV mascot Todd Luker spent Friday morning at the Minnesota State Fair, presumably sampling the available foodstuffs and viewing the disgustingly obese animals lying in repose in various barns found on the premises. As luck would have it, he happened to pass the FOX 9 booth just as our old friend and meteorologist Keith Marler was sitting to greet passersby. Todd was nice enough to drop in and visit with him on my behalf.

Apparently Keith brightened up immediately when told that Todd acting as ambassador for the John Larroquette Project. Grabbing a promotional photo, he started muttering excitedly about how he hadn’t visited the site in a few months while vehemently scratching his pen across the faces of his co-workers. See for yourself…

Fine work, Keith Marler. Your gracious spirit and secret weirdness are a blessing to our otherwise oppressively chirpy morning airwaves. I’m glad you ruthlessly censured M.A. Roscoe with your Sharpie the way you did. Somebody seriously needed to shut her up. Tom Butler doesn’t seem so bad, but I figure he was just caught in the crossfire.

Maybe this is off-topic, but what do you suppose it would be like to be roommates with Keith Marler? Does he seem like the kind of guy who would leave a sink full of dirty dishes for a couple days? Does he snore? Worse, does he have sleep apnea? Does he have a CPAP machine for his sleep apnea? Can he afford one?

What say all of us pitch in for Keith Marler’s CPAP machine? The guy needs his sleep, and it’s the least we could do, given all that he’s done for the community here at the John Larroquette Project.

so i didn’t exactly wake up as planned at 1:30 this morning to watch the gold medal basketball game. i had set my computer to tape the game though, and when i was awaken by a video message on my phone at 6 am, i couldn’t go back to sleep because i had to know how the game turned out. i got out of bed and began watching the game. it was amazing, esp how i actually cheered for Kobe Bryant as he took over the game in the 4th quarter to put the game away. it was great!

later in the morning, i went to watch the water polo final, after avoiding finding out a final score. i went to the NBC website to watch the video only to see that the headline on the video was “Hungary defeats USA for the gold medal”. WTF? i’m trying to watch the game in suspense, and the only way i can watch the game is telling me what the end result is. thanks a lot NBC jerks! oh well. it’s still cool that the USA water polo team got to the final. the more i watched some of the sports, the more amazed i was when a US team would do really well in spite of not having a professional league like other countries.

so the Olympics have finally come to a close, and i can’t remember watching and being more involved in an Olympics before. i watched everything i could live or online, and it was great. i had discussions with a friend to go to London in 2012, but we’ll see if that actually happens.

in other news, the video message mentioned earlier was from my friend Marika who made it to the Ryan Adams show in SF last night. she sent me a 15 sec clip of a new song. this got me thinking, i should look on youtube for clips of new songs. i ended up during my search finding a video of a band (Company of Thieves) doing a cover of a RA song. i checked out more of their stuff on their myspace, and am thinking about buying the album.

speaking of RA, it’s about a month and a half until i see him in Tuscaloosa. he’s been keeping a blog, that gets updated at a frenetic pace. he posts videos sometimes of new songs, or old songs, or random stuff. recently he posted a version of my favorite song, and it’s below….enjoy.

Sylvia Plath cover by WereWolph from Wilson Wolf on Vimeo.

I finally managed to finish the new lead to Old Joe Clark. I’m not sure exactly what took me so long to get around to it, other than the six months spent working on the graphic novel and a few other projects. On a whim this evening I decided I should just go ahead and finish it. My mixing set up isn’t all that great, but it’ll do for now.

Enjoy.

PRESS PLAY TO HEAR THE NOISE.

Once upon a time, Mike and Kari bought a house. Here is what the kitchen looked like.

(That’s three layers of linoleum. And the scary carpet.)

There were crazy light fixtures and half the room was carpeted and the cabinets had weird yellow slats on the doors and the fireplace was hideously ugly. And ugly wallpaper. There were so many awful things I can’t remember them all.

This is what it looked like for most of the summer.

How did we get through that? I don’t know. Margaritas, mostly.

And, FINALLY, here is what it looks like now!

Yes, I know we need a cover for our vent.

Yes, I know we need some crown molding for the fireplace. You people are so demanding. Can’t we rest on our laurels for a while?

Obviously there are a few details we need to finish, and we need to work on window treatments and hang pictures, but I wanted to let you see how far we have come.

One last word about the kitchen - here is a picture of our tile. I mopped last night, so I feel confident showing it to you. Our friend Randy at Rekoncile Design did the floor, and he did a spectacular job.

The kitchen transformation can also be viewed here.

Bryan asks an interesting set of questions.

1. What time do you usually leave for lunch?

Anywhere from 1130 to 1230 depending on what’s happening at work. The odd time I skip the whole dog and pony show altogether, but most days I take it.

2. How long do you usually take for lunch?

I get a half hour as mandated by Ontario law, and that’s it. Most days I’m under that. Rarely, I go over by a few minutes.

3. Ever eat lunch at home?

I suppose I could, as I live 10 minutes from home, but I dislike driving enough already thankyouverymuch.

4. What are your favorite places to eat out for Work Lunch?

Wendy’s or The Country Kitchen (part of Highland Farms). I don’t do that as often these days.

5. How often do you bring food in from home?

Almost every day. We always have something around here, even if it’s just a sandwich with lettuce, ham, provalone, horseradish mayonnaise, mustard, and pepper.

6. Are you a lone ranger or a community eater?

I don’t like eating with people. I’m solitary. Groups of larger than two — especially people I don’t know — make me long for solitude.

7. How often does your company pay for your lunch?

Never in a blue moon would my company pay for lunch. Well, there was that one time with the pizza.

8. What is your favourite lunch meal of all time?

Left-over pasta that I made. Especially angel hair noodles with a really nice sauce. The ground beef, Spanish onions, green onions, green pepper, red pepper, garlic, and diced Roma tomatoes kind. Kills me.

last night i got in pretty late from a birthday party, but i was planning on getting tickets for Ryan Adams in ATL in October. this would be the 2nd of two shows for Ryan Adams Road Trip 2008. i fell asleep last night though and did not set an alarm. i woke up this morning in my clothes from the night before at 8:55 am….5 minutes before tickets were going to go on sale because it was 10 am eastern time. i saw the time and said “Thanks God!” i got on the computer and got two tickets, because i had a feeling my friend who i had not heard from still wanted to go, and if not, i got 4th row behind the pit on RA’s side of the stage! yes, that’s right, to go along with my 2nd row on the right side of the stage in Tuscaloosa, for ATL i’ll be a little further back but on the left side of the stage. not bad not bad. TM did the same thing this time and sent me a code for a free iTunes song after gouging me for $12 per ticket ‘convenience’ charges. jerks.

after breakfast, i went out and mowed my lawn. it’s been raining here almost every other day it seems the past couple of weeks, so i hadn’t had a chance to cut my grass with it being wet. so today was tough going because even at 11:00 am, it seemed really hot. i made it through though with the mowing, but came to realize that my weedeater had died yesterday. i was going to have to get a new one to complete the yard work this afternoon.

i was wondering what time Fay would be getting here, and thought it would be this evening, so i actually went out to walmart on a Saturday afternoon. i was hoping i’d be back before any rain started. i went over to Sears and got a new weedeater. i got home and put it together and my gosh, it is so much better than my old one. i’m glad that one burned up! the new one disintegrated everything in its path. i think the sound of my new weedeater motivated the old lady behind me to get her son to weedeat her yard. i don’t know if he lives there or what, but he usually does all her yardwork.

anyway, as i was finishing with the new weedeater, i noticed sometime after mowing the lawn, the old lady behind me had let her dog crap in my yard again. i hate that. it’s not so much that i hate flinging the poo back in her yard (which i do), it’s that she’s so inconsiderate of me. any suggestions to show her who’s boss? i am open to them.

i grilled out with some pork tenderloin, and combined it with mac and cheese and steamed broccoli for a fabulous preseason game meal. the Saints beat the Bengals, and then i went back to watching the Olympics. did you know the world record for 5000m is 12 something minutes? that’s almost 3 miles! that’s crazy!

ok, so that was my rather interesting Saturday. i’m going to bed so i can wake up at 1:30 am to watch the basketball game and maybe water polo. then i’ll go back to sleep for church. i’m dedicated for sure to the live Olympics. no sign of Fay yet, but i figure it’ll be raining sometime tomorrow morning. my yard is ready for it though!

Wet ‘N Wild

Beginning of the summer some friends of mine from 514 told me I should get a sessions pass to our local water park, Wet ‘N Wild. You may be thinking that these are young, college age friends when actually they are in their 30s and parents to the sweetest one year old in the world. The story goes that the summer they moved to Carolina from Washington (state - I cant believe I even say that because if I meant D.C. I would say D.C. I can spot a east coaster vs. a west coaster when this is even a discussion) they got sessions passes to Wet ‘N Wild and with Emma (their one year old) loving the water, they thought this would be the perfect summer to do it again. I wasnt totally sold, and put it off. Even when other friends of ours who at the time where expecting a baby goes sessions passes. But then my pastor’s family got sessions passes, who have kids that ages are perfect for such a place, I caved. I got a sessions pass to Wet ‘N Wild and man Im glad I did. Ive had such fun hanging out with my 514 friends, spending some quality time with Emma in her floaty, riding rides with the Renslow kids (pastor’s family) and my favorite, spending hours just floating on the lazy river. The Renslows go twice a week, every week, all summer. My other friends come when they can, which is probably once every two weeks or so. Im pretty much the same with my random work hours. I even took the Renslow kids without their parents once and it was blast. This last week I went alone, which to me felt a bit like going to the movies alone. Uncomfortable at first, but once I settled into, no one really cares other than myself that Im here alone, it was great. I got some quality tan lines which is really why I got the sessions pass in the first place oh and the fellowship of course. I hope that this many friends get sessions passes again next summer because I have loved showing off my sessions pass to my friends who I know are judging me for having it. I have no shame! I have loved my summer and my sessions pass.

Many apologizes for the delay in posting my favorites. Blame the lack of commutation on my landlords part to tell us he had changed internet companies. And then not understand what “just reset the router” means but interprets as call the internet guy to come out twice to the house. Poor internet guy. But I cant complain too much, the rent is too cheap. So, lets carry on with this fun little series.

Jon and Kate plus 8
TLC has brought many wonderful things into my life. I enjoy What Not to Wear (but it is very bad to watch that then go to a public place like the mall. Gosh does America dress awful.) and some of the home make over shows. But lately, all I turn TLC on for is to see if Jon and Kate Plus 8 are on. I just dont know what it is about this show but I cant get enough of it! Its almost that I couldnt believe that a women is alone all day with 8 children and her house looked so neat. Or that she didnt run away. I had to seen how they function in such a matter. I love the line at the end of their show “It may be a crazy life, but its our life.” They love their life and its not at all what they had planned. They are a delightful family who love each other. Sure, Kate can be mean to Jon but I wouldnt be so kind if I had 8 kids running around either! Id be too tired to be nice I think. Im amazed at her mad organization skills. I think also, its sharing their story, a story they didnt plan or expect. Us, the viewers get completely wrapped up in it and want to watch these kids grow up. We have made this connection through this TV show which is so weird to think of since I dont really consider myself a reality show watcher. I keep coming back, seeing how their doing. To hear more of their story. And I really cant completely explain why but I enjoy Jon and Kate plus 8 a lot.

Welcome to the Nodcast: A podcast so boring it doesn’t even have an RSS feed.

Nodcast 1: A Reading From Truman Capote (Ogg Vorbis)
Nodcast 1: A Reading From Truman Capote (MP3)

Who will follow me into the sky?
Will they train their telescopes
to catch my silver sail?

Who will leave this dying world behind?
Will they build a ship to set
their better angels on my tail?

The meek can inherit the earth
we’ll take the stars.
The meek can inherit the earth
when heaven’s ours.

Who will give their daughters to my sons?
Will their generation stretch
as far as they can fly?

They can have the cradle we’re done
growing into giants upon
giants standing high.

The meek can inherit the earth
we’ll take the stars.
The meek can inherit the earth
when heaven’s ours.

Apparently whenever you get a prescription filled now, there is a description of what the medicine looks like. I got an antibiotic, and on the sticker that CVS printed, it says, “This is a PINK, OVAL-shaped TABLET imprinted with G on the front and 3060 on the back.” Is this some kind of law, or just a CVS thing? It makes me laugh. Whose job is it to write those descriptions? How do those people feel when they go home at night? Are they tempted to describe the medicines using more exciting colors? Because I would say that these pills are a rose/fuschia combination.

Mike got some cough syrup from the doctor, and his is even better. The label says, “This is a GOLD LIQUID.” Now, I am not positive, but it appears to me that Mike’s doctor prescribed him Felix Felicis. I am linking that for those of you who aren’t Harry Potter nerds. Felix Felicis, you guys! Liquid luck! I am really jealous, because all the doctor gave me was PINK, OVAL-shaped TABLETS. No magic. No luck. What gives, doctors? I was sick, too! I work with teenagers and need all the luck I can find!

(School starts next week. Please send any extra luck my way.)

(The downside to his Felix Felicis is that every night since he has started taking it I have fallen asleep with “Felix Felicis” by Harry and the Potters in my head. “All these ideas seem so reasonable once I’ve had something to drink.”)

• Here we go again!
• One of the great tragedies of the modern church is that we’ve for the most part lost the language of covenant. We still have some of the ideas. But there’s hope. Imagine, if you will, the power of context and the power of covenant wedded to each other; perhaps this is an unholy union of the ancient and the post-modern, but which covenant doesn’t have context? The church and God in the context of his schema of salvation; the covenant of marriage in the context of God and the church’s covenant; these are powerful concepts.
• Share the Well is — and I hate to say this, as much as love Long Line of Leavers — probably the best Caedmon’s Call album ever. So many years and I still love CC. It’s true. I’ve listened to them longer than I’ve been a Christian.
• I’ve heard it said that if God seems distant it’s probably because you’ve drawn away; the implicit assumption is, of course, that God is static and that he always wants to be close. In light of scripture, does this seem true? Are there not many people in scripture who were desperate to draw close to God only to find him still distant? I think when we talk about God we need to remember that he’s also a person, or a Person if you will, who has thoughts higher than ours and a plan greater than we can understand. God’s not static. He moves, we move, it’s the grand danse (as you may have heard said). If God seems distant and you don’t understand why — if you want to draw near and nothing happens — all you can say is that there is a reason. It’s almost blase in its simplicity. But there is a reason. Sometimes you don’t get to understand, sometimes you do, but there’s always a reason.
• It’s hard to synthesise the appalling poverty most of the world labours in and the almost limitless prosperity we enjoy. The question is, of course, at what point does prosperity become a curse? This very blog begs ask that question: I have enough money to buy a computer and enough free time to contribute this ocean of dross that is the internet. How much time do I spend feeding the hungry and how much time do I spend feeding my own various hungers? How much should I?
• Candace is getting baptised on Saturday, which is totally awesome. Baptisms are amazing things, no matter which side of the spectrum you fall on. It’s a powerful symbol no matter how you look on it. I’m a paedobatist by preference, but anyone who fulfils God’s command to baptise is terrific in my books. I have a special bit of confusion for “Reformed Baptist” (decide which side you’re on, you freaks!) who seem to have forgotten that Reformed theology leads inexorably to the baptism of children, but hey, it’s all good.
• It seems to me that a little introspection and self-knowledge is a good thing, but a http://www.aldaily.com/lot leads to confusion. Maybe it’s because people function on a sort of quantum level: You measure yourself enough and you change. Then you have to start over again and it becomes a full-time occupation. And not a fun one.
• Beer is proof that God loves us; dentist are proof he can change his mind.
• I’m less three teeth, by the way.
• You ever have it where you say, “It can’t get any better than this?” and then it does? Yeah. I got that. It’s called marriage. I’m an incurable optimist, it’s true.
• This is probably the best thing I have in my feeds.
• It seems every nation has its legacy to overcome. US, India, China, all the big ones.

last year i took to the road to see Ryan Adams three times in three nights. this year he’s going to be touring again in October, and i’m lining up plans to go to two shows in two nights. the Texas dates probably won’t work out at all, but the shows in Alabama and Georgia will. i bought my ticket yesterday for the show in Tuscaloosa, and i got 2nd row. however, the base price of the ticket was $35 and my total for ONE ticket had an $11.80 ‘convenience’ fee. to make up for completely gouging me, ticketmaster sent me a code for a free song off iTunes. thanks i guess. (i ended up getting that new Madonna song “4 Minutes”)

i’m off work today, but i ended up sleeping in rather than watching the water polo. however, the USA didn’t need my help and are playing for the gold Sunday! incidentally, it’s going to be about an hour after the basketball gold medal game tips off, so i’m not sure how much sleep i’ll be getting.

speaking of basketball, the US team beat Argentina today. it was supposed to come on around 9:15 am, but no, the NOLA NBC station tape delayed it so they could show the Today show in its entirety. it’s a known fact the Today show does not get good viewership in NOLA, but they tape delay it everyday maybe thinking no one will figure out that Today shows times in ET not CT. so today because of their ridiculous planning, i had to watch the basketball game an hour later than everyone else in the country. in addition to the tape delay, they cut in almost every 15 minutes with a weather update to show TS Fay will probably come this way by Sunday or Monday. they didn’t do a split screen or anything, they just skipped ahead during the game, one time with 3 seconds to go in the first half. what is wrong with them? the ironic thing is that the affiliate’s slogan is “on your side”, but in this case they were not. the main thing though, is that the US team has finally made it to the gold medal game, which is awesome.

It’s almost that time of year again! In August and September I’m always eager to talk about football. By November, I’m sick of it. But! It’s August! I’m ready to talk about football! Yay!

So, out with the old and in with the new. Paul Johnson has arrived at Tech after the malaise of the last couple years of football and at the very least has got people talking. No one really knows what kind of team he will field this year, mostly because he is going to be introducing a lot of young talent (8 sophmores or freshman on offense and 7 on defense. Yikes.), but also because he’s bringing his vaunted triple option offense to Tech. What is the triple option?

Well, there you go.

The offense has been the source of much conversation this offseason. How’s it going to work against fast defenses? Can you really move the ball and protect the quarterback without a tight end? Is the offense just smoke and mirrors? When someone in the press asked Johnson if the offense could work in the ACC, Johnson dryly responded “well, they [Tech] weren’t lighting up the scoreboard with their pro-style offense last year, were they?”

One thing is for sure, the offense is made for a quarterback with legs and Josh Nesbitt fits the bill, even if he hasn’t played in an option offense before. Now the question is does he have the instinct to know when to pitch and when to keep the ball? That’s the question on everyone’s mind. Hearing about fumbles in practice does nothing to ease the mind here.

Certainly the option offense is going to benefit by recruiting players with that kind of experience. I personally don’t think the triple option is going to be fully realized at Tech until Johnson recruits his very own runaway beer truck.

There’s also questions about the defense. Jon Tenuta and his “BLITZ! BLITZ!” defense has gone to Notre Dame

3rd and 2? TA-NOOH-TA BLITZ!

In comes Dave Wommack and, hopefully, a little more diversity in defensive coverage. But will it be better than the Top 10 nationally ranked Tech defenses that they have had the last couple of years? No one really knows.

So, what we know so far is that Tech’s football team is a mystery wrapped in an enigma. We’re about to find out soon, though as Jacksonville State arrives in town next Thursday night. They sport newly transferred Ryan Perriloux from LSU who might cause our new defense fits, but do they have the O-Line to stop our defensive line (arguably our greatest strength this year)? Is it going to be a shootout if the newly unveiled Tech offense gets rolling? Lots of questions are on the table and hopefuly next Thursday we’ll at least have the beginning to some answers.

What do you think about your team this year? What are their chances? Conference championship? National championship? Getting to a bowl?

Sometimes my life gets dark. The sun fades behind clouds. The dark before the dawn stretches on. I fold in on myself, unable to see my hand waving in front of my face.

But then, in a corner of my life, there’s a whoosh and a flare. A flickering candle of friendship.

A friend calls me and won’t let me just say that I’m “okay.”

The darkness quivers.

A friend can tell that something is wrong by a word on a computer screen.

The darkness shakes.

A friend asks me what I’m doing despite her own darkness.

The darkness breaks.

A friend hugs me.

The darkness lightens.

A friend makes me laugh.

The darkness wavers.

A friend prays.

The darkness scatters.

A friend loves.

The darkness flees.

Shortly after our family moved to Memphis, we were on the hunt for a second vehicle. Gabe would continue to drive the Jeep, and I needed something that would get the boys to daycare and me to work. Our expectations were about as low as they could get - air conditioning and something that wouldn’t break down. Seriously. Those were our two criteria.

With the immense help of my dad and a few of his close friends, we purchased a vehicle for me on July 15th that not only exceeded our expectations but blew them out of the water AND fell within our price range. The only downside? This make and model was named one of the ugliest vehicles in 2001 by Time magazine.

*snort* I kid you not. God has a mighty sense of humor, doesn’t he?

Well, this is all I have to say. Our bright red 2001 Pontiac Aztek might not be the prettiest crossover out there, but she sure is making our lives a lot easier these days. And I get to listen to CDs in my CAR again. Praise the Lord, Hallelujah!

Mike and I had two tall bookcases that we used to store DVDs, but when we moved here, we decided that we wanted something else to store our DVDs. This means that our DVDs are still in boxes. Which means that we have been watching the same movies over and over. One day we will find the perfect thing to store our DVDs. How do you store your DVDs? Any advice? (Please keep in mind that we have over 200 movies. It’s kind of out of control.)

When we decided to get rid of the bookcases, I asked one of my teacher friends if she wanted them for her classroom. She said she did, so last night Mike and I loaded them (along with a coffeetable for another teacher) into the back of my grandpa’s truck. Which was parked on the street in front of our house. And then we watched some Olympics, read some books, went to bed. I took some cough syrup and promptly fell asleep. And then I woke up at 11:00 to Mike’s eyes boring into the side of my head . . . and the sound of pouring rain.

Sure, sensible people would have taken care of this sort of thing beforehand. Sensible people would have checked the weather or preemptively backed the truck into the carport. But that’s not the kind of people we are, so I pulled on a sweatshirt, backed the other two cars out of the driveway, and had Mike back the truck in safely. I hope our neighbors were entertained. My pajamas legs were soaked.

Afterwards, we looked at the radar, and the little patch where it was raining was the only place in a five-state area where there was any rain at all. Perhaps the key to fighting drought is to load your possessions into the back of a pickup truck, assume it’s not going to rain because it never does, and wait for it to start pouring.

Listen to Max & Mitsy weekday mornings on 104.7, the Spin!

You like amiable banter and wacky mischief? Max is your man! He’ll fill your spirits like a dump truck filled with sunshine!

You like warm chuckles and traffic reports read with precision? Misty’s your gal! She’ll fill your mornings with blue skies and heaping mounds of crispy cole slaw as she laughs sincerely at all of Max’s zany antics!

There’s no stopping Max & Mitsy! From their trademark “News of the Weird” segment to the “Morning Blowout” where they give away $104.70 to a lucky caller, they are totally unique! Always smiling, never controversial, Max & Mitsy will annihilate you with sparkling radio kindness!

Bend over, everybody! Max & Mitsy are on the air!

i just watched the 200m final, that guy Bolt is crazy. i had read earlier this week the giant difference between Michael Johnson’s record and the next fastest time, something like 0.3 seconds. Bolt broke it WITH a headwind. that is insane! as bad as i feel for the two guys who got DQ’d, it did mean the guy from Clemson (Shawn Crawford) got silver. what up!

i will probably get up early tomorrow morning to watch the US in the semis of the water polo. i don’t have work tomorrow.

i’ve been watching the basketball games and keep thinking the US mens’ team could be better than the Dream Team. i know you can’t really ever prove it, but i think they really sent as many of the top 10 NBA players as they could have sent. the ‘92 team had great players, but a few of them were on the downside of their careers. none of the players on the current team are slowing down, they are all speeding up, or are already at their peak. it’s been amazing to watch.

that Chinese chick who tried to fake an injury in the beach volleyball gold medal game was ridiculous. then again, if you know you’re going to lose, might as well string the glory of playing in front of your home fans a little more.

i miss watching the swimming.

Last Wednesday I went to the Farmers’ Market and bought lots of tomatoes. But this week I had to go back to work rather than purchasing tasty vegetables. Last night, Mike asked what time it opens on Wednesdays (7:00) to see if it would be possible for one of us to go. But we decided just to wait until Saturday. Great plan, since apparently Barack Obama showed up at the Farmers’ Market this morning.

(Let’s talk for a minute about the voicemail I just left Melissa, challenging her to get Barack to show up at a yard sale. Because that’s the kind of friend I am.)

I mean, sure, even if we had decided to go, it would have been before 9:30 By 9:30, I was already deep into a meeting. But I can still complain about it, right? Why not last week, Barack? I was there! I was buying tomatoes and supporting local farmers! Why not Saturday, Barack? I’ll be there then!

For the record, I sometimes play a little game at the Farmers’ Market called, “How many people are wearing Obama t-shirts?” In the parking lot, I play another game called, “How many Obama bumper stickers do I see?” Your spot, sir, was well-chosen.

Political figures I have met: John Edwards (who is not very tall) and Elizabeth Dole (who looked different than I expected). I met John Edwards at the Greensboro Public Library not long after he announced his first presidential candidacy. I tried to hide behind a pole, but I ended up shaking his hand on the local news. I met Elizabeth Dole when I was hanging out with THE KING. Apparently they are friends.

OK, so bad travel plans notwithstanding, I made it to Denver on-time on Monday evening. Tuesday was spent in an all-day FAA DER Recurrent General Training class (boring), and today and Thursday I’m attending the National Software and Airborne Electronic Hardware Conference. It’s sponsored by the FAA and NASA Langley Research Center, and there are some really interesting topics if you’re into safety-critical airborne software. Which, I know, none of you reading this are. So enough about the conference.

Haven’t really seen much of Denver yet, though I may atone for that this evening and travel about. I’ve just got too many things on my to-do list for this week. Sermon prep for Saturday, new Conversation Cafe website (now branded Topics On First - check it out! - but it’s still the beta version of the site), planning orders of service for the fall, updating church bylaws and membership covenants… so much to do, so little time.

Denver is a little bit frustrating, location-wise, because you think you’re in Colorado, there should be mountains… but there aren’t really any mountains in Denver. You can see them off in the distance, but they’re still too far away to get to without some more serious time driving than I’ll have. Oh well. Maybe one of these summers we can hit them for a vacation again.

Well, lunch hour is almost over so it’s time to head back to the conference. Good times.

Tags: travel

Yeah, that’s right. MOI. Details are still in the works. But it’s awesome news that we’ve been praying for. Off to sleepy town for the evening…

My cold (for which I finally went to the doctor today, and, hooray, it’s a sinus infection!) (um, sorry people I have been around - I really thought I was getting better), Mike’s cold, the last few things that didn’t get done in our house because of the cold, the fact that I haven’t been able to run because of the cold, and the expected end-of-summer blues have really got me down the past week or so.

I struggle with contentment at the best of times. I think I make trouble for myself sometimes, finding things to be upset about. I lived for a long time in a state of righteous indignation, and it’s hard not to revert to that. Especially in situations where righteous indignation is appropriate, or at least would be understood. I have been in some situations lately where righteous indignation was called for, and I certainly talked Mike’s ear off about my feelings, but I managed not to run it past as many people as I normally do. I managed to shake it off a little better than normal. I don’t know if I was too sick/blue to deal with it or if I have turned a bit of a corner in that area. I hope it was the latter. I know that there were some things I chose not to talk about, that I chose to let go. And it felt good. It’s not a decision I am very familiar with, to be honest.

Tomorrow it is back to the routine, back to school. I have been there for the past few days, getting things together. I have been dreading it. I am nervous about starting the school year (something I have never done before) and taking two classes. Being off has made me long to be independently wealthy so that I could stay home all the time, running and cooking and traveling and writing and keeping the house clean (well, if I was independently wealthy, perhaps I could hire someone else to clean the house for me. If we’re going to dream, we might as well dream big), just like I did this summer. But being back at school has been good, too. I missed my school friends, and there are already plans to go out together, to see movies, to do lunch. I have some new projects this year at school that are both exciting and intimidating. I don’t want to go back, not really. But I also know I wasn’t made to lounge around all the time, and I (hope I) am up for the new challenges I will face this year.

I made the mistake recently of wearing my good shorts and a good t-shirt while helping Mike and Kari paint. As a result, a couple times a week I look like I work for a home maintenance business. Today, for example, I tucked a dark t-shirt and pair of shorts into my bag at 6:15 while heading out the door. When I changed out of my work shirt I realized I picked the shirt I painted in. This look is augmented on the days that this attire is unwittingly matched with my Tilley, creating the perfect storm of blue collar attire.

Sometimes I wonder if the moderate brim on my hat it too much. Often mistaken by ignorants as a cowboy hat, or even perhaps an Indiana Jones fedora, I never condescend to point out the difference. Then I remember that I don’t care what people think, ignoring the fact that having to tell myself that intimates that I do on some level. And so, I don my hat in an act of rebellion to the betrayal of my own feelings on the matter. This hat will look pretty good when they’re all leathery bags of skin cancer.

• Sometimes when Laura leaves the house to go out and do whatever, I do dishes and listen to post-rock. You know, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Explosions in the Sky, Mono, Red Sparrowes, that sort of thing. Right now I’m listening to This is Your Captain Speaking. It’s good stuff! If you’ve ever listened to post-rock, you’ll know how hard it is to come across truly interesting material, even by those veterans of the genre such as (and especially) Mogwai. TIYCS seems interested in being interesting. That’s good.
• I don’t like megachurches. I mean, I can see where they fit into the ecosystem of Christianity — if it can be called an ecosystem as opposed to a burgeoning, idiotic choas — but I don’t like them. I don’t think I ever will. It’s not simply that they’re generally white, suburban, middle-class and almost always utterly devoted to not offending anyone. It’s that they’re not distributed enough. They’re too centralised. Thus, one pastor boffs his secretary, the whole thing goes under, and your sanctuary gets converted into indoor soccer field. I’m pretty sure churches should be small, efficient, face-to-face, involved, local, community-based, and active. But mostly small. Enough that you can’t hide in the crowds. But also enough that if something goes wrong, and entire faith community isn’t left floundering in the shallows.
• Let me ask you this: Why do you dislike Thomas Kinkade’s art? Is it because his art is bad? I bet it isn’t. I bet you don’t know good art from bad art even if such things exist. What you probably mean to say, instead of, “I dislike Thoman Kinkade’s art,” is, “I dislike Thomas Kinkade“. That would probably be more accurate. You don’t like his commercialising of his art (but when was art ever not commercial?), you dislike his subject matter (though his paintings are quite nice to look at), and you especially dislike the types of people who buy his prints (you think they’re generally the unwashed white trash living in trailer parks somewhere, their floor and ceilings and furniture covered in linoleum). You don’t want to be one of them, because that wouldn’t be… something. Wouldn’t be cool, wouldn’t be acceptable to your peers, wouldn’t truly speak to your sensibilities and your good taste. Maybe what you should say instead is, “It’s not kosher to like Thomas Kinkade… so I don’t like him.” Because at least then you’d be a bit more honest. In the meantime, look at some of his paintings. They’re quite nice.
• This may be some indie music heresy, but you know what’s wrong with My Bloody Valentine? They’re completely and mind-numbingly boring. Sure, they came up with sounds no-one had ever heard a guitar make before, but none of those sounds is interesting.
• I hate modern classical music. I really do. Things started going off the rails in the early 1900s and haven’t gotten back on since. Once I thought, “Why have people accepted abstract art, but not abstract music?” The answer is, of course, that a bunch of different colours splashed on a canvas a la Pollock can be extraordinarily — if unintentionally — beautiful. It doesn’t hurt me to look at. Notes seemingly scribbled on a page at random, however, has the capability to make me — and from the look of it lots of people — wince. (I am abusing my dashes; I know.) Harmony and melody aren’t old social conventions meant to stifle the artists. They are a common framework in which we as Westerners operate. It may indeed be that this only a custom, but that doesn’t matter: It’s ingrained and there’s no point in the composer trying to wiggle it loose. You are literally hurting me with your atonal disasters, your craptastic 12-tone form, and your alternative rhythmic nightmare. Go write some music someone wants to listen to; see if there is perhaps something of value to be found in those old forms everyone seems to have abandoned without a reasonable alternatives. Rediscover, for heaven’s sake, the power of beautiful music. Don’t make it your mission to question what beauty is. It just is.
• My, there are far too many dishes here.

I’ve been working up some updated sample pages of my pencil work to send out to editors. After trying to find a good script, to no avail, I decided to do a simple action scene. It probably won’t be more than four pages or so, just enough to convey a sense of storytelling, pacing, and rendering.

Here’s the first two pages

Today I’ll be working up the third page. The steely gaze of the Shoney’s Big Boy compels me.

America loves Michael Phelps!

He won 8 gold medals! He won his races by a combined 1/100th of a second! He has nearly exposed his pubic region to millions of adoring viewers on multiple occasions!

And now, he must marry Sasha Cohen.

Think of the greater good that would be brought unto the greater number of people by their gloriously unholy union. Those two could swim, skate, dance, and crabwalk circles around the rest of us while we would lift up their names in song and kneel before their graven images.

Think of how many Americans would pay premium money for a pay-per-view event televising a night of their precise, patriotic procreation! Their union would be the marital incarnation of America’s manifest destiny, and the world would bow in subjugation!

Barack Obama, let’s make this happen!

so remember how i had joined a gym? i’m still paying for that gym, but i have totally fallen off the wagon as far as going to it regularly. last time i was there, i scanned my card, and the guy asked me if i was new. i started running there, but once i got up to running a 5k, i was able to run that at home. i like running outside, and not on a treadmill. anyway, in light of all this Olympic coverage and how awesome it has been to watch all of the swimming, i decided i’m going to buy some swimming goggles (i like these) and see if i can start swimming regularly. i won’t be lulled into wanting to do something at home because i have no pool at home and the neighborhood pool is probably 10m wide. usually when i’ve gone, the indoor pool has old ladies in it doing some kind of water aerobics, but i only will need one lane. growing up, i took swim lessons from another family in our neighborhood, and i learned all of the strokes. i’ll start easy with the freestyle, but i might see about the backstroke since i also liked to do that. we’ll see how it goes, i’ll probably be able to start on Wednesday.

in addition to getting back on the gym kick, i want to see how much slower my time is compared to the Olympic swimmers. it may take me like 10 minutes to swim what they can in 30 seconds, but hey, i gotta start somewhere.

I really wanted to get this down on the hard drive… and I didn’t realise how bad the piano recording was until I had got to singing. So i just gave up and didn’t bother correcting any of the (obvious) flaws in the levels. It isn’t pretty, I tell you.

Scatterbrain - Ogg Vorbis
Scatterbrain - MP3

Everything I record these days seems to have a ringing noise at the high end… anyone have any ideas how to fix this problem?

You want some orange juice?

I’ve got a tall glass of delicious orange juice right now. I just had a sip. It was tart and sweet, like a compliment from a hated ethnic rival.

You want to take a drink from my glass of orange juice? You’re welcome to it. I’ve drunk about a dozen full glasses of orange juice today, so it’s a safe bet that my bowel movements are pure liquid by this point.

It’s probably time for me to lighten up on the ol’ orange juice, but that ain’t gonna happen. You’d have better luck asking a stray dog to stop licking its filth-encrusted anus than getting me to set down my tall glass of refreshing orange juice.

I used to call it OJ, but then there was some unpleasantness surrounding that name in the mid-90’s. Do you remember that? It was the moment when it became clear that a substantial percentage of our nation’s people are basically insane.

Anyway, I still like orange juice.

Looking out the window of my 5th floor studio, I can spy a large Shoney’s Big Boy. Transplanted from his original locale, he sits atop a building, overlooking a terrace, and remains unseen by pedestrian traffic on the street below. The sun has faded his colors a bit, but he stands like the statue of liberty, sans the ties to France, offering huddled masses the promise of fries and burgers, and quite possibly indigestion…or perhaps food poisoning.

There are also a few paint cans on opposing buildings, rusted and forgotton, left behind by rooftop workers that opted to leave a pile of rusted metal piled in the corner rather than tote it a couple stories down to the trash. This is apparently a common theme among Greensboro rooftops, as several buildings seem to sport a corner full of twisted, rusting rubble.

I doubt I’ll take the time to look much out the window much more today. I’m just happy knowing it’s there, the sunlight illuminating my drawing table, and knowing that high above the city, the Big Boy stands like a sentinel. Ready to hurl his prodigious burger where needed.

so i went to Charleston this past weekend for one last vacation before summer ends. the journey getting there Friday was epic in it’s ridiculous unfolding. i was flying out of Gulfport because it was a little cheaper than flying out of NOLA. my flight to ATL was supposed to leave at 10:29 am so i could make my 1:30 pm connection to Charleston. then they updated the board….11:00 am, then 11:15 am. the arrival time on the last time change was going to be 1:33 pm, past the time i would need to be there for my connection. i went to the gate counter and told the lady, and she confirmed me on the next available flight to Charleston in case i did not get there in time for my original. i noticed on the ticket i was confirmed in first class which i figured was the least they could do since we were leaving almost an hour late.

we took off from Gulfport an hour after the originally scheduled time and arrived in ATL at 2:10 pm, way after my connection was leaving, so i was going to be taking the next flight. i realized a desire for chik-fil-a, and was on a mission to find one somewhere in the ATL airport. they make us wait in the plane while people are organized to ‘accept’ the flight. don’t people have jobs where they just go from gate to gate ‘accepting’ planes? while on the plane, i noticed a group of older women who were all flying to different destinations, but they knew each other. they made an announcement that there were 20 people on the plane who had either missed their original connections or were going to be rushing to make their connections, and people should let us off first. i was up near the front, so it didn’t really make a difference for me. the older ladies were worried about their 2:50 connections. they finally get a walkway lined up, and it’s stairs! a couple in their 80s were the first off the plane, and when they got to the bottom of the stairs, they stopped to ask an airport employee something. this held up the entire line, then one of the older ladies sitting near me on the plane goes “would you come on, move it along!” then i hear her say under her breath “wait a second, they are not that much older than me”. whoops. no one’s feelings get hurt though, and we move on. we have to walk up stairs to get to the concourse, and then realize they have gated us at the most crowded concourse at the ATL airport. Thanks Delta!

i walked back to the gate where my Charleston flight was leaving from and had to wait 20 minutes for the lady to finish with the previous flight. while waiting, i called my friend Brandon who i knew was at a computer and got him to look up where a CFA was in the ATL airport. i finally was able to check in for my flight, and took off to find the CFA. i found it and booked it back to the gate where my flight was taking off. i got on the plane and took my seat in first class. i sent the following picture to Brandon thanking him for his help:

i began to eat and thought as all the other commoners walked past me, if they thought all first class people got CFA. i had a bottle of water, a pillow, and a blanket waiting for me when i got on the plane. one of the stewardesses asked me what i wanted to drink while people were still getting on the plane. i told her i was fine, because i had a diet coke from my CFA meal deal. a gentleman sat next to me and he ordered a scotch and water. he asked me why i didn’t get anything to drink, and i told him i was fine with my diet coke. he laughed, so i asked him if the drinks were free. he laughed and said “of course they are, this is first class!” he asked me what i wanted to drink, so i told him a crown and coke. the steward came by and he told him what i wanted, and the steward asked if i wanted the drink in my CFA cup. i told him no. when the stewardess brought my drink, she apologized for them not having crown, but she had CC (i later found out this was canadian club). i thanked her and started drinking a cocktail before we even pulled away from the gate. i told the guy of my troubles with the late flight and the missed connection, etc. he told me it was a pity they gave me first class for a flight so short. we both ordered 2nd drinks early in the flight, but were not able to order a 3rd before the announcement came that we were making our approach to Charleston. i felt great getting off the plane in Charleston though.

incidentally, the guy next to me talked me up about where i was from and what i did. turns out he was a Clemson alum and the leader of some contractor in Charleston. after telling him i was looking around as far as a job, he ended up giving me his card and telling me if i wanted i could send him my resume. i told him i’d think about it.

so what started off as a nightmarish day, ended up being pretty good, and i only ended up getting to Charleston 3 hours after i had originally planned to arrive. still though, i’ll rethink flying Delta unless i have to, in spite of the free alcohol.

OK, this is dorky and possibly only appealing to me because I’m a physician.

Bacteria Tower Defense

Apparently coded by an MD, and actually quite accurate in terms of antibiotic coverage and such. Kinda clever. I do miss the regular DTD showing you what’s coming up next so you can plan your map better, but as in real life, you don’t really know what the next patient is coming in with.

Ruby Adelaide Free, our sixth grandchild and Sarah and John’s third child, came to our world a little after 7 pm EDT today. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

I always try to blog on Sunday. So, my Monday morning readers will have something fresh and funny/insightful/brilliant to read. I don’t want to let you down, dear readers.

But seriously? I have nothing today. So I’m going to make you work. I’ve decided that one of my life goals is to be on the Ellen Degeneres show. Yes, you heard me. I have very lofty goals in my life.

The only issue is, I have absolutely nothing that would warrant my appearance on a talk show. So that’s where you come in. How can I get on the Ellen show? I want your brilliant ideas since I apparently have none! Thanks

Mike caught my cold. Except that his version is some kind of bronchial infection, complete with a fever of 103. And much being pathetic and watching the Olympics. I have provided him with homemade soup, macaroni and tomatoes (tomatoes I canned with my own hands, people), toast, and tea. And still, he keeps telling me that he needs a bell.

Work necessitates that tomorrow I travel from Cedar Rapids to Denver to attend three days of FAA training. On the face of it, that doesn’t sound too bad, travel-wise. CID -> DEN is only a two-hour flight, and one US airline, when not eternally funding the estate of George Gershwin with its advertising budget, provides three daily non-stop flights from our fair city to the Mile-High.

But wait! This is no ordinary travel planning. This is corporate travel! Per the guidelines of our corporate travel policy (its wisdom, who can measure?) I have been routed on a different airline from Cedar Rapids first to Dallas-Fort Worth, and only then to Denver. For those scoring along at home, that’s 850 miles and two hours south-by-southwest to DFW, a 90-minute layover, then another 800 miles and two hours northwest from DFW to DEN. Which is quite obviously far superior to the 700 miles and two hours directly west from CID to DEN. To ice the proverbial cake, the forecast for both CID and DEN tomorrow calls for nothing but sunshine. DFW? 80% probability of thunderstorms.

Two years ago when I attended this training travel was a mess and I ended up driving through downtown Atlanta at midnight searching for my hotel; last year DFW gave me delays heading to New Orleans and I was trying to avoid the bayou and find my hotel after even The Big Easy had fallen asleep.