OK, Reality-twisting moment today. We're remodeling Rand's room and Jeff, a friend of mine and professional HVAC installer, came over to help get his room warmer. He installed a new cold air return vent. While installing the new duct, he asked me to hand him his tape. I reach into his bucket, expecting to find duct tape. Instead I find a roll of something that looks like alumium foil. I comment on this. Jeff tells me that duct tape dries out to quickly and will flake and peel away within a couple of years. Hmm. Of the literally thousands of uses now available for duct tape, apperently actually working with ducts is not one of them. Consider my mind blown.

Christmas... So during the Christmas Eve service, listening to our pastor discuss the meaning and significance of Christmas*, it occurred to me that Christmas is the "easy" religious holiday. No wonder happyness and joy are asscoiated with this holiday (and subsequent importance). Set aside the commercialization and the child-like lust for toys and presents (which doesn't really leave when we become adults), the religious community seems to place a great deal of import in Christmas. Example, when is the last time you received an Easter Card, or heard someone say "Remember the reason for the season" for Lent? Perhaps it's the fact that Christmas is anchored to a certain date. December 25, last year, this year, and next year. All I can tell you about Easter this year is that it'll be on a Sunday. Like it's not important enough to bend vacation days around it. But I think it has more to do with the fact that Christmas is guiltless and requires very little from celebrants. Easter has all the guilt associated with thinking about someone (well, not just anyone) dieing because I mess up on a daily basis. Lent requires some sort of sacrifice from certain beliefs. Speaking of which, why on Earth do we celebrate the 40 days *prior* to Easter. This has no direct relevance to anything prior to the actual crucification as far as I know. It seems to come from the 40 days that Moses, Elijah, and then Jesus spent in the wilderness, or the 40 days and nights of rain for the Flood, or the 40 years the Isrealites spent in the desert. But none of those occurred directly prior to the events commorated by Easter. However, for 40 days after the resurrection, Jesus walked the earth and met with his followers and prepared them for the explosion of the Holy Spirit to come at Pentecost. No common observance of this in today's churches. The Ascension of Jesus up to Heaven to sit at God's right hand until His appointed time of return. Nothing. Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was loosed on the Earth and made available to all people. Maybe a sermon. But no celbration. Each of these, in my mind, are more critical to the Chritian Faith than Christmas. But hey, babies are cute right?


* And by that I mean the orignal meaning of Christmas, not the nonsense, happy/good-time, nostalgic meanings ascribed by so many tripe "Christmas" songs (see White Christmas, Chestnuts Roasting..., Rockin' 'round the Christmas Tree, Jingle Bells, etc, etc, etc). For a while I was concerned that I didn't like Christmas music. But I realized that it wasn't Christmas music that I opposed, it was Christmas-time music. Give me In Excelsis Deo, or Little Drummer Boy, or even Little Star of Bethlemhem.

It's Field Trip Time!

So, due to my wife nagging high ankle sprain, I get to chaperone Mat's 4th grade class to the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM to those "in the know".

What a great time. I developed a cold as the day wore on, but a fun time was had by all. I was given responsibility for 5 kids, one of which was my boy, Mat. Obviously, no one looked at my resume enough to notice that I'm only certified to handle 3 kids at a time, but no matter. I was sure I would rise to the challenge.

We were given full run of the place for most of the day. Wonder around, follow your interest, and whatnot. We got to see an interesting exhibition on cryogentics. Right after lunch, we were all shuffled into the OmniTheatre for a movie. "My Body" I beleive it was called. Short movie by the BBC (I could tell it was a BBC prodcution because everyone in it had an english accent and there was no mention of Harry Potter) with some fairly spectacular special effects. This included a very convincing, and graphic, display of how the body turns food into ... um ... waste, would be the best word for it. It's a good thing we watched this *after* lunch.

Here's my gang. Mat's the one in white. He apperently forgot his Southview shirt at home.

BTW, Mat's teacher was sick on Field Trip day. A little too convienent, purhaps. I don't know what the sub had to do, karmically-speaking, to warrant subbing on a field trip, but she did an admirable job, and overall fatalities were keep at a bare minimuim.

As for my gang of 5... I was issued 50 fingers, 50 toes, 10 eyes and 10 ears, and I returned 50 finegrs, 50 toes, 10 eyes and 10 ears. I'm pretty sure I returned the same parts that I was given, but I do know that the numbers checked out.



Mat tries his hand at Mammoth-wrangling.

Gage and Blake are up to something, I know it...

Hailey and Holly are shadow-dancing.

So I just had lunch with a friend of mine... It's funny how a web of friendship grows. This guy is the soon-to-be ex-husband of a woman who played on a hockey team with a guy who was a friend of a woman who is my wife's best friend. Now, despite the fact that two of thos people on that chain are not people I want to associate with anymore, I can still have lunch with someone at the end of that chain, and realize that he's not at the end of that broken chain anymore, but a direct friend I'd like to hang out with.
Anyway, on that note, my birthday is coming up. Considering that this is my "cruxification year" (I will be turning 33, which was, by many accounts, how old Christ was when he was cruxified), I figure some sort of commemeration is in order. One problem with having a birthday on January 3rd is that many people are still recovering from New Year's Eve and are wholy unprepared to properly celebrate the joyous occasion of my birth. That and at 9 days after Christmas, it kinda pales beside the joyous occasion of Christ's birth. But that's only appropriate: Jesus came to bring the world salvation and restoration to God. All I've got to offer the world is sarcastic one-liners and three very smart and very cute boys... who have their father's sense of humor. Anyway, because of this, I'm thinking about Jan 5th as a possible date. Anyone who knows me well enough to know how my last name is properly pronounced is invited (Note: you don't actually have to be able pronounce it right; I would like more than 1 or 2 people there.)

I have been accused of hosting a stale blog. I will admit, I have been accused of worse, but still...

Here are some pictures. The first is one take by the accuser of the above-mentioned accusation, with the admonition "This is a good one, you should put that on your blog."

Please note: I do not *always* look like I just had my hand caught in the cookie jar. Usually, but not always.

The next one is a picture of my lovely wife at our Church Christmas party. She, unfortunately, could not participate in much of the ensuing dancing due to an ankle injury. On the other hand, considering the rediculousness of those of us who did dance, and the pending blackmail attempts from those at the event with cameras, perhaps that was for the best.

OK, I just got done reading the open letter to Americans from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran.

In that he quotes the Qur'an

"But those who repent, have faith and do good may receive Salvation. Your Lord, alone, creates and chooses as He will, and others have no part in His choice; Glorified is God and Exalted above any partners they ascribe to Him." (28:67-68)

I had no idea that Islam was a cross between Catholism and Calvinism.

OK, this doesn't make sense...

http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=243356>1=7701

I personally consider it a tragedy that the man who helped create the X-Men 2.0 died in *Superman* pajamas, under a *Batman* blanket, and wanted to be cremated in a *Green Lantern* shirt. All of these are DC properties, and X-Men is a Marvel property.

That, of course, is tongue-in-cheek. The real tradegy is that he died at the age of 63. It's particularly poignant to me, as my wife also suffers from diebetes. I don't want to think about the possibility of facing my retirement years without my wife.

I'm too old for this... So, night before last I stayed up all night. I had to re-design a network diagram for a proposal that we are sending out this week, and it had to be done. Unfortunately, I am an unregenerate procrastinator. I didn't start it until after midnight. I guess I treasure the time that I spend with my wife too much. Anyway, I didn't get done until close to 4:30 AM. At that point, any reasonable person would get whatever sleep they could. So, of course, I played PS2 for 2 hours. I had a good reason. Or at least, it seemed like a good one to my sleep-deprived mind. You see, I am a sound sleeper. A very sound sleeper. I pray that Jesus does not return between 2-6 AM, because I can't be sure the trumpet will actually wake me up. Because of this, sleeping for a short time, say 2 hours, when my body is actually tired makes me feel worse than just staying up.

At least it did when I was 20. Now at 32, I'm not so sure.

By last night, on about hour 37 of wakedness, my eyesight started to go. It was like that effect you see in the movies when the director wants to convey that the character has been drugged. Some things seem to move closer, others further way, and then back again. It was really kinda fun. On top of that, my heart was racing. I was running strictly on a 60/40 blend of adreniline and caffiene. And because of that particular cocktail, I couldn't fall asleep until after midnight. Oh, well. I will probably take me at least a few days to recover.

In the immortal words of Larry Miller, "When you're 21 and you stay up all night, it's like victory, like you beat the night. When you're 35, that rising sun is like God's flashlight."

If I only had a brain...

So the other day at work, the company decided that they needed to update our marketing material with our collective years of experience. This was an interesting experience. My boss, the manager of the sales engineers, sent a spreadsheet with columns for the info that they wanted to one of the engineers, he filled it out and forwarded to another and so until the last person forwarded back to the manager. Process took about 4 hours of bouncing an e-mmail around 6 people. The manager of the sales people, however, had to schedule time on each of the salespeople's calendars, sit down with each one of them and ask them all the questions. Took him a week to get 10 people and he spent that week running around.

But that isn't why I'm posting this. What I noticed, to my chagrin, is that I am the only sales engineer who lacks a college degree. A couple of my co-workers even have master's degrees. Now, I consider myself an intelligent person, and I work in a field that does not *require* an advanced degree, but I felt a little inferior. I have industry certifications and experience and even about 2-3 years of college education, but no degree. (I am, to be exact, one Ph Ed credit away from an Associate's degree.) So I have made an "executive decision" to complete my degree. I will follow the Yellow Brick road, leaving a trail of straw behind me, and ask the Big Green Man for a brain. Or at least a peice of sheep skin. I'll probably enjoy it. The problem, of course, is affording it. And taking the time away from wife and children to get it done.

So. Wow. I created this Blogger account over a year ago and haven't rouched it since. Huh. Well, maybe this time I might keep it updated more than once every 18 months.

So it's come to my attention recently that I am a much more social person than I have let myself believe. At least, some people whose opinions I trust have told me so. So in the interests to expressing myself, I'm going to start updating my blog with my thoughts and rantings.

On that note, I love my Lyra. I just got a little MP3 player that supports Microsoft's Play-for-Sure: Subscription service and it rocks. So far, at least. With Play-for-Sure, I can download music from my Rhapsody subscription service and take it with me. I love Rhapsody; all the music I want for less than the price of 1 CD per month. The problem is that it's just on my PC. Now, I can d/l songs or entire albums to my Lyra and take it with me. And's it's 100% legal. Now, if I can just convince myself to use the Lyra and go running ;)

So, now I want to figure out a way to create a list on this Blog of what's on my Lyra at any give time. It's only got 512MB of space, so it won't be an iPod-like huge list. But I thought it's be cool to share what I'm listening to and offer a place for others to suggest music for me.

Also, I'm working my way, slowly, through a Dataline article on Ted Haggard, the former head of the National Evangelical Asccociation, that was written a couple months ago, before the scandal was revealed. I had some immediate reactions, which I will share here in good time. But for now, the article can be found here.