word verification

lately, i've become upset with word verification features on websites.  i am primarily upset because it is never actually words i'm being asked to type.  it is generally a hodgepodge of letters, typically including the letters q,z & x- my achilles heels of typing.  to add to the confusion, they are wavy or camouflaged in a way that makes me wonder what they want from me.  there are times when they will add in numbers, only adding to the confusion.   is this a 0 or an o (zero or the letter o)?  

all i'm asking for is actual words, like cat or dog.  those i can type.

USA!!?

being the 4th of july, my eyes, along with the eyes of a nation, were fixed upon the ever-growing arena of competitive eating. the nathan's hot dog eating competition has become as tied to the 4th as fireworks and has become, arguably, even more american than apple pie (something that seems curiously european to me).

eating in such excess seems like such an odd thing to televise. this is one event my german friend would point to as "typically american." in response to such accusations i would quote a random man from many 4th's ago: you'd better believe it.

competitive eating does seem to be a product of american excess. it does seem a bit unnecessary and a bit wasteful, perhaps a product of a country where bigger is better (even technology that is getting smaller is getting bigger in some ways- your ipod, though smaller, has more storage).

this 'american' competition has, in the last few years been dominated by takeru kobayashi, of japan- seen below with the eye of the tiger and the mouth of a messy eating infant.
thus, it is only natural for americans to rally around the first american to offer a serious challenge to the japanese champion: joey chestnut , looking as miserable as a person could possibly look... ever.last year, chestnut regained the title- albeit with an asterics beside it due to kobayashi's 'jaw issues.' this year's competition was the rematch, the rocky II, the chance to see who really was the best. it did not dissapoint. chesnut wins in overtime after they both ate 59 in regulation, eating 5 hot dogs faster than his foe in the "dog-off."

america! usa! the red, white and blue!
patriotism flowed.

yet for some reason it bugged me, as much as i was enthralled by all the drama. it feels like america is becoming less and less __________.

i just cannot put my finger on it. but it feels like we can matter a little less. saying that, i immediately realize that statement doesn't make sense. we are probably the most influential country in the world. maybe we matter in ways that really don't matter. that is why we matter less.

we send out a culture with very little depth, full of shallow celebrities and shallow thought. we send out athletes, musicians and actors that are completely detached from actual life or completely absorbed with themselves. we celebrate american patriots like joey chestnut- though he seemed like one of the few involved that realized how silly it really was. but it would be nice to see us use our influence in ways that didn't seem so fleeting.

now, i'm not trying to sound like a party-pooper. i did enjoy watching the hot dog competition. i do realize that it is supposed to be something light, that it is very tongue-in-cheek and that it takes itself seriously in an intentionally absurd way. it is supposed to be a little stupid. i get that and enjoy it.

i just feel like we are losing our depth. i fear that for the Church here too. i fear we are becoming a little more insignificant.

i hope that this isn't the case. i hope we are beginning to find our meaning in Christ rather than buildings or curriculum or anything else the Church might mistakingly make its foundation. i hope that we are actually becoming what Jesus prayed for us to be in john 17.

i know this is a strange bit of writing to tie to a hot dog competition. which is why i'll end this with a quote that makes much more sense than i did. it is from 'celebration of discipline' by richard foster. actually, it's the first paragraph.

"superficiality is the curse of our age. the doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. the desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people."

we need that depth. we get it by seeking meaning and Truth. it only comes by grace, through and in Jesus.

attack

i'm not sure why i'm posting this. the only reason i can find is that it happened while i was on the computer.

i just watched a bird fly into the window of my house. i turned my head to a blueish blur coming towards the window. there was then a thump on the window and that blur fell to the ground.

after checking to see if what i assumed to be a bird was still alive, a second bird flew all around the porch. the first bird, now on the floor, only looked a little daunted and surprised.

this really freaked me out. it is still sitting there. i guess it is a little freaked out too.

a late-night fight

at roughly 12:15 am, a knocking on the male staff's bedroom door awakened us. 'there was a fight,' declared a adolescent girl with her michigander's accent. we begrudgingly got out of our beds to assess the situation, expecting to find a couple of battered young gentlemen.

it turned out that the fight was between a couple of two-girl gangs, technically the smallest sized gang you can have. this only added to our sleepy stupor.

now, i can merely speculate as to the events that led up to this clash. when we- now acting as police detectives (no mooning was involved)- conducted our interviews with the highly emotional young ladies, our ears were met with high-pitched sobbing and out-of-breath attempts at speech. the frequencies were much too high to allow us to decipher any of their stories.

their youth leader, a 6'7" giant of a man, was fetched to defuse the volatile situation. things began to unfold as we spoke with one of the calmer girls, the only girl whose voice registered with our ears.

somewhere along the line, a girl had angered another one with hurtful words. the offended girl reacted to these harsh criticisms with a slap of the neck and pull of the hair.

when one of the youth leaders inquired as to why she had pulled the hair of and slapped the other girl, the barely holding it together teenager, with much sobbing, replied........

"it was my carnal instinct."

i had much trouble not laughing at this. but i pulled it together.

the other staffers were busy uncovering more of the story. it turned out that some liquid had been poured out over the bed of one of the gangs. a highly tearful and emotional young lady declared, "they poured water all over our beds."

the other girl, coming back down from all of the drama, retorted.....

"that wasn't water. it was pop." (the pop was drawn out with a classic northern accent)

as the behemoth youth minister emerged with his shirt off, we let him take over the investigation. in telling the story to the large, shirtless bear of a man, one of the girls made the mistake of angering him. he started to become very loud.

i began to whisper to him in an attempt to get him to use his inside voice, ushering the lot of them to a room away from the rest of the innocent and sleeping groups of non-gang members.

we sat in the hall way for the next 40 minutes as the situation was resolved. they emerged from the room, teary eyed and exhausted. emotions sure can be draining, am i right or am i right?

the next day, the girls assured me everything was great. they were back to being bff's. if anything, this will make their new, 4-person gang stronger. sometimes you need these little tiffs to get past the speed bumps keeping you from really getting to know someone. it could be seeing their limits, seeing parts of you that are less than flattering. sometimes just seeing your "carnal instinct" out in the open is enough to bring us back to civilization, peace and harmony.

i'll say this: even though they ruptured my eardrums with their boiling-teapot-like voices, they also ruptured the hardness in my heart when they learned to love each other again.
God love em.

fun with drunks

for the past two weeks i have been busy reconstructing in the nashville area. you can check out reconstruct with the link to the right or by clicking here. reconstruct is a ministry i really do love. though it is exhausting, it is extremely rewarding to see volunteer groups of youth help fix the homes of people in need.

sometimes people don't seem to catch the vision. for instance, just this past week i encountered such a person.

pulling up to the house to check on one of our groups, i noticed a sun-burned, shirtless man in jorts (jean-shorts (tebow)) standing in the front of the lawn yelling at the kids on the roof.

'this should be fun,' i thought to myself. i put the car in park, took a deep breath and opened the door to hear a slurry of what i shall call unfriendly words geared towards me.

it became quite obvious that this man, i'll just call him jerry, was more than a bit inebriated. jerry was covered in a number of strange welts, as if he had rolled around in some type of prickly bushes just for kicks and drunken giggles. when i took a look at the back of his head, i could do nothing but admire the rat tale he must have so painstakingly maintained since the mid-eighties.

the belligerent jerry decided i was to blame for an alleged mooning from two of the kids from this group. the kids denied it, the adults didn't see it but jerry was quite convinced that he had seen to adolescent derrieres exposed in his general direction. he preceded to accost me with a verbal onslaught that would make sailors uneasy, provided those sailors liked to use an excess of profanities and poor grammar.

i apologized more times than i should have, with each attempt to move past this incident resulting in more and more squiffy retorts coming from jerry. it is as if each time i told him it was wrong of those kids to do that, we were very sorry and would punish the children was as offensive as somebody exposing their hindquarters on an unexpected swiller.

as the conversation went on, jerry decided he should call the police. this was just plain silly for him to do. yet the bibber had lost the ability to reason out this situation quite some time ago, judging by the rat tail.

he dialed 911, reported the mooning and talked to me as if i had better get ready for my stay in prison.

thank God he did that. the phone call meant i didn't have to speak with him any more. we would wait for the cops to arrive and let them sort it out.

jerry would yell something at me across the street. i would yell back that we weren't talking until the police arrived. this actually made him a bit sad. it is as if he was a little boy that kept doing something long after i'd asked him to stop, never really believing i would take the toy away. i did take away my ears for him to yell in and my face in which he would waive and point his arms and fingers. yes, he looked a like a sad little boy when i told him to be quiet, a sweaty derelict of a child.

the police finally arrived, as did the higher ups of reconstruct. jerry was greeted by the officer with "we're tired of seeing you jerry. what is it this time?" jerry preceded to lay out his accusations with passion, vigor and absolutely no lucidity whatsoever. it was actually quite fun to watch.

the police officer gave him an option: he could let it go or go to prison for public intoxication. with the wisdom of solomon, jerry opted to drop it. i guess he was less pickled than i originally estimated.

with that, we gave our side of the story. we said that we don't think the kids did what jerry accused them of doing. the officer said, given the chance, he probably would have mooned jerry himself.

he said this with a bit of remorse. as a police officer, he was held to a higher standard and could not go about pulling his pants down towards possible law-breakers. although that would be an interesting crime-fighting tactic. it would confuse the perpetrators. the officer assured us we wouldn't have any trouble from him and went his way.

jerry gave up the dream and didn't bother the crew again.

we went our separate ways. yet i know jerry and i will always have a special bond. it is a connection built on love and sensitivity. he pushed me to the edge of my patience: spitting in my face so generously, nearly poking me oh so many times, etc. i thank him for it.

"jerry," if you're out there reading this, or if you can even read this, i love you man. maybe we can go rolling around in a thicket sometime or i could put some beads on that rat tail of yours. whatever you're up for buddy, i'm game.

3:30 wake up call

i'm not really a "cat-person." before i get started, i'd just like to take a second to say that i try judge animals on an animal-to-animal basis. i feel it unfair to judge an entire species based on a lovable or even loathable family pet. thus, i'm not really a "dog-person" either.

there are both dogs and cats i'd like to be guilty of "dropkicking off of a porch and killing it," to quote a favorite prayer of forgiveness for the uncle of a girl that went to our church when i was a kid. on the more humane side, there are animals i do enjoy and, on occasion, like to pet. the past few nights, the family cat has been the former (one i'd like to kick).

it has become silas' pattern to migrate to my room in the wee hours of night to sleep on my window sill. i suppose he likes the view. it is usually a quiet affair.

however, the past two nights at roughly 3:30 am another cat has found it enjoyable to sit directly in front of my window, causing silas to freak out.

i have been awakened to the ambulance-like cry of this awful beast, accompanied by the completely unsoothing sound of him hissing like a cappuccino machine. if there was ever a time for me to be violent, it is at this early hour.

the first night, it lasted for 20 minutes. i tried so many things to get him to stop. i even closed the blind. this only made it louder, with a higher level of freaking out than i've ever heard from a living being. i finally had to go chase away the neighboring hell spawn of a cat, in my dickensian nighttime attire (robe, sleeping cap, slippers and candle).

to my relief, this brought peace back to my slumber. last night, i just started with chasing away the other cat. my great concern, is that this could become routine- every night at 3:30, waking up to chase away a cat. my great relief is that i won't really have to deal with it. i will not be living there much longer and will have no pet in portland, nothing to wake me up in the middle of the night except my own hopes and fears.

thus, i won't need the classic prayer that young girl offered up. i will kick no cat off of the porch, killing it. though it is possible i will kick a certain cat off of my bed, as gently as possible.

Indiana Jones Jumps Jaws & Extra-Cholesterol

wednesday night, just before midnight i gathered at the movie theatre with most of franklin high school, many a geek and some friends to watch the newest addition to the indiana jones lore. the atmosphere was fantastic. people were genuinely delighted to be there. you only get this type of exuberance from crowds like this, unwilling to wait for the sensible matinée the next day.

if someone is willing to put off sleep to watch a movie as soon as possible, there isn't a good chance that they are there to hate it- at least i hope not. how sad it would be for people to seek out disappointment like that.

it is hard not to get caught up in the moment, the excitement of it all in this setting. there was even applause for the previews, little flashes of movies that are completely unproven (ahh previews, i could watch them for hours). there was so much build-up, so much to live up to.

lucas didn't think it could. he seemed to fear this type of hype, this type of excitement. perhaps jar jar has him afraid of any kind of expectation. i wouldn't blame him for that. at times, the guy sounds like the joy of film making was sucked out of him. he said in an interview people think it is going to be like the second coming but that:

"it's just a movie. just like the other movies. you probably have fond memories of the other movies. but if you went back and looked at them, they might not hold up the same way your memory holds up."

this is not the voice of a man who still gets a charge out of making films or that appreciates how cinema can touch people, not like spielberg at least. lucas did say it was a blast to make, that it was fun and that he thinks it turned out fantastic. i just don't know if i believe him. simply stated: i don't trust george lucas.

i had the chance to watch a documentary called "spielberg on spielberg" last night. it is amazing how personal his films are. i also found it interesting to hear him talk about ET (a film my grandma refers to as 'ET: The Extra-Cholesterol'). he refered to it as his most spiritual film. i surely do agree. i love the themes of solitude and community within it. simply stated: i do trust steven spielberg.

thus, i went into this with a natural bias. i was concerned because of lucas, but willing to put hope in spielberg to take care of our beloved action/adventure/archaeologist.

so how was the film? oh, so many ways to answer this question. i generally liked it. the movie was so close to being really good.

but the word that haunted me immediately was plausibility. unlike the first three, there was just too much in this movie that i wasn't willing to believe. primarily, it was shia lebeouf's tarzan act and some waterfall jumping. these things took away from my enjoyment of this film, a film which is still really enjoyable.

the first act is fantastic, perhaps to the detriment of the rest of the film. it is hard to climb over the very high bar the movie set for itself from the very beginning. the last half of the film suffered from the highly entertaining beginning. just one question about the beginning: what's up with all the gofers? perhaps it was an homage to caddyshack- if only they would have danced to kenny loggins' terrible music.

lebeouf and ford were fantastic together. lebeouf has the capacity to be a bona fide star, and i'm alright with that. he had me at "old man." there was genuine chemistry between the main cast and lebeouf's screen presence easily matched ford's.

the diner/fight scene might be my favorite in the film. but i feel like they rode that motorcycle right up a ramp to peru and jumped swiftly over a shark tank- possibly containing one of the relatives of the shark from jaws. (jaws 3 not only jumped the shark figuratively; they did it literally and in 3-d).*

here is my depiction:

i digress.

the ladies of indiana jones iv were great(still crossing my fingers for the calendar). but when is cate blanchett not great? for that matter, when is karen allen not enjoyable? in truth, it was just nice to see her again. add the look on jones' face when he sees marion again to things i loved about the movie. ford really showed up for what feels like the first time in a really long time, no more so then his reaction to seeing her again.

really, there wasn't a bad performance in the movie, if you don't include some of the cgi. john hurt, jim broadbent and ray winstone were very solid though their characters weren't really given much, especially broadbent's. as a bonus, it was nice to see scrubs let neil flynn out of his jumpsuit for a small part. you could hardly ask for better cast and performances. but the story took, what i feel, are unnecessary and distracting turns. as much as it couldn't live up to its hype, it just couldn't match the spectacular first half of the film.

ultimately/unfortunately, i think lucas was right in his fear. the movie is fun to watch, in many ways fantastic. it doesn't measure up to the first or third of the series. temple of doom still dwells at the bottom for me. even with its faults this one was good, a solid third for me.

exiting the theater, the words "i blame lucas" came falling out of my mouth. i suppose i blamed him for all the shortcomings- mostly because he has become an easy target. but i also blame him for making me go into it guarded, not expecting to love it, prepared for it to be 'just a movie.' i was left confused a bit about just how i felt. of course, it was three in the morning.

it definitely belongs with the other films. it is an indiana jones movie, not just an attempt at one.
i guess i'd give it a b.

thank you for indulging my nerdity. i'd also like to hear opinions of the film from the bold among us.

--------------------------------------------------------
* "jumping the shark" is a phrase used to denote when a movie or tv series plot veers off into an absurd direction, some ridiculous storyline is introduced, or it becomes out-of-the-ordinary or unbelievable. it refers to an episode of the
fading 'happy days' when the fonze jumps over a shark on water skis. i fear 'lost' might do this someday (they are teetering on the edge perpetually and i love them for it).

i'm gonna be an aunt!!

it was a typical college afternoon. i was simply sitting at my desk, working diligently on what i'm sure was a well thought out, reasonably argued paper with quite profound depth and insight while listening to various concertos. yes, that is how i remember school to be.

suddenly my door burst open as a close friend of mine, mike, came rushing towards me with the type of excitement only matched by elementary-aged children on Christmas morning. without an inch of composure, mike blurts out the following sentence:

"I'M GONNA BE AN AUNT!!!!"

i was confused, mainly due to gender related reasons. trying to slow him down, make him think about what he was saying, i asked him to repeat his sentence.

this second attempt was the same. mike, my clearly male friend, was going to be an aunt. i asked him to explain.

"my brother and his wife are having a little baby girl. I'M GONNA BE AN AUNT!"

"ohhhh, i see where you're confused, mike." i try to inform him about how this whole family tree thing works. "you'll be an uncle, always an uncle. you'll have a niece. if it were a boy, you'd have an nephew and you'd still be an uncle. the terms uncle and aunt are relative to your sex."

i think he knew he had it wrong. he simply didn't care, telling me so. in fact, he left the room with the same energy he entered. on the way out he offered me one more "i'm gonna be an aunt." i'm sure he went on down the hall, interrupting hard-at-work samford-ites, confusing every last one of them with his proud declaration.

so in honor of mike's gusto and joy let me join him in his cry: I'M GONNA BE AN AUNT! my own brother and sister-in-law are having a baby girl: addison (not sure if that's spelled correctly).

it is nice having people around you that have the capacity to be so happy that simple things like gender-appropriate terms for family relationship get lost in the joy. i've always been more stoic than i'd like to be, which sometimes looks like me not being happy. but it genuinely does make me happy to see my friends and family doing well and enjoying life, not caring about much else.

i was asked, not long ago, what kind of thing makes me happy. this is right up there at the top of the list. i love seeing people filled with joy. i feed off that. i've found nothing better than seeing people genuinely content, especially when it is in Christ. it is amazing the type of energy people with this type of joy will inspire in everyone around them.

i aim for that in my own life. i desire that "i'm gonna be an aunt" joy in my life all the time. as far as i know, the best source for that is the Author of Life, the One who came that we might have life, and have it to the fullest. so i'll, seek that.

besides, it is too much to ask of my siblings to constantly be having kids. it just doesn't make any fiscal sense, not with the economy as it is and gas prices.....oy vey. (please excuse the yiddish)

the news

so i'm sitting in this random coffee shop, one of three customers. this gentleman before me looks like the type that could be part of some mafia, italian or otherwise. he has been riveted to his work, minus the continual second-long glances at the television, on the news and inaudible above him.

all of a sudden, i see his gaze lock on the television. curious now, i look too. there must have been something serious going on for this man to prolong his look towards the tv.

it turns out it was an ad for the new sex and the city movie.

i did not see that coming. of all the things one would expect to interest this man- the floods, the disasters, the latest o.j. simpson story- it was this ad for what i can only assume will be an awful movie.

the second it ended, he was back to work and never looked again at the television. i suppose this is what he was looking for with all those glances. it just didn't add up. i don't understand why anybody would care about this, especially this man who, as i just learned thinks that using ketchup for french fries and bbq sauce for chicken nuggets is a 'no-brainer.' this coffee shop makes me uncomfortable.

all that to say, i've been accepted into multnomah biblical seminary in portland, oregon. so i guess i'll be moving to portland in the fall. i just don't know if the unicorn will make it (a reference that will confuse only some).

Appliance Direct! (White Porcelain)

coincidentally, they use to call seth worley 'white porcelain' in high school. i'll say this for the guy: he's got charisma. i suppose that means i'd feel comfortable buying any number of appliances from him.
oh, why the heck not?

I LOVE APPLIANCES!!

his love has inspired me on this day.

the century mark

i figured the best way to celebrate the 100th post was with some cake (yet another festive 'paint' creation from yours truly). i am quite proud of my ribbon work, the flames and my handwriting. enjoy.


*warning: cake may contain toxins and chemicals harmful to expectant mothers and left handers, but it does look delicious.

post 99

yikes, if i may.

somehow i've almost hit the triple digits in posting (it only took me 2 years and roughly 4 months to do it). but i've neglected it for the last few weeks and that is only slightly wrong.

i do like music. there are certain songs that i relate with certain experiences and memories.

'flight of the bumblebee' takes me back to a talent show where one judson abernathy and myself let our imaginations take us on a voyage that, to this very moment, makes me laugh much like a school boy deep down within.

'i want to know what love is' takes me back to middle school love and an emotional car ride with my then girlfriend/older woman whitney wiggins. this took place within my prime (7th to 8th grade)

'how bizarre' takes me to those first days of experiencing the freedom of the first days of driving with friends and one-hit wonders.

the list goes on and on, making me all the more wistful as each song plays in my head. it is amazing to me how the mind will tie things like this to our experiences. our lives have soundtracks, music that plays in the background or that defines the moment.

when i look back at moldova and my time there, two of my favorite moments revolved around a song. one, was the infamous ray parker ghostbuster's incident which involved air guitar and the gyrating hips of the boys i worked with and my own child-bearing set. the other, perhaps less familiar, took place on the most dreaded means of transportation: the marshrutka. the song was joe dassin's 'les champs-élysées.'

the marshrutka full of people and i were simply getting from one place to another. there were a couple translators with me. on the radio, this song began to play. immediately, i loved it. i just didn't realize how much i could and would.

as it played, the volume was increased, the passengers became happier, the sun shown a little brighter and even the typical olfactory funk alleviated (it smelled of glory). one by one people were sucked into the moment.

they began to sing and sway to the music. they did air symbols and trumpets. they sang the chorus with zeal and gusto.

i sat back and watched with joy and happiness. this is music at its heart. it changes you, almost metaphysically. the best songs can change your whole being, your emotional standing. that is what the best art in general does, whether it be film, painting, written word or the like.

this moment and this feeling comes back to me now mainly because it was used by wes anderson for the credits in 'the darjeeling limited.' i watched this film only this week though it's a year or so old.

for reasons fairly well known to me, the use of this song bugged me uncontrollably. 'les champs-élysées' was a song set in my own context. the lyrics are in french, thus i understand next to nothing. this allowed me to let the actual music form the context in which i hear it. to me that song will always encompass the mood of that day.

hearing it allows me to go back to that moment. it is what victor turner would call the 'illud tempor' -or something to that extent- in a book called 'the ritual process' -or something to that extent. he basically argues that our rituals are an attempt to go back to 'that time' when things were good or better than the present. our traditions take us back to a past to which we wish we could return.

songs become a part of our own, personal ritual. we have those songs that impact us. they are almost exclusively tied to a memory, an emotion, a relationship, etc. we listen to them and they take us back. when somebody associates it with something else, like anderson did to me with 'les champs-élysées,' he threatens that memory if only on a minor level.

but this nostalgia is a useful tool. you can take those things that have a sort of ingrained cultural association and exploit or use them for positive ends. the jaws music can be used to instill fear, or the feeling of the hunt. chariots of fire equals running on the beach and the feelings of achievement or the race. there are hundreds of examples. when these associations are used skillfully, artists have the ability to literally change people, change society.

this is the kind of art i'd like to produce, to be a part of, to take in. this is why i love music, film and books. they tie me to my past. they remind me of 'that time' when things were perfect or even awful. they grab a hold of the emotions and change i was going through at a specific time and encompass them. they connect us to each other in ways nothing else will.

this has the signature of God all over it. only he could compose our hearts in such a way. beauty and creativity are in His nature. being made in His image, it is in ours too. if only we could tap more into it.