Archive for August, 2010

August 26, 2010

testing the strength of my self control

“You have three pair of Star Wars shoes?  I thought you only had two.”

The above statement can be taken two different ways.  First, with the implication that my wife finds me way hotter now that she knows I have three pair of Star Wars shoes.  Or, more likely, she could think I’m way nerdier.

Regardless of how you interpret her statement, the fact that I only own three pair of Star Wars shoes deserves a lot of credit.  Considering the limited supply of the kicks combined with their very high phatness quotient*, it would be reasonable to have purchased every last one of the releases.  But I didn’t.  I limited myself, even though I might never have the opportunity to buy Star Wars kicks again.  Good job, me.

*If you are interested in acquiring the actual equation for the phatness quotient, you’ll have to contact my mother-in-law.  She is a nationally known math methods professor, and is very close to earning her Ph.D.  I don’t believe the phatness quotient is the actual subject of her dissertation, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it at least makes an appearance.

But hark! The foul temptress of indulgence is preparing to rear her head again.

*Gasp*

Word came down the line this month that Adidas is planning a whole new run of Star Wars product for the upcoming Fall/Winter season.  My initial reaction is that I don’t love the new line.  Some of it is really quite ugly.  But there are three products I am incredibly smitten with.

Problem: I already have too many shoes/clothes/jackets.

Problem: The two items I want the most are a bit too fashion forward for my wife to be seen with me in public wearing them.

I don’t know what the solutions are to those two problems.  But I do know that no one on the corner would have swagger like me if I was rolling around in a Chewbacca-themed jacked with matching boots this winter.

And that, my friends, is a little thing I like to call “hawtness personified”.

Renew and Restore

August 25, 2010

wednesday watchlist: my first college lecture

It’s official.  I’m teaching a college class.  At an accredited institution, nonetheless.  I feel pretty unworthy whenever I think of the PhD shaped void in my life.  There’s nothing quite like working on a college campus to give one feelings of degree envy.

There’s no way I’m the best prof on campus.  Not even close. But I’m passionate.  I’m prepared.  And I’m unique.  So very unique.

I did a good job sticking to the subject at hand yesterday.  Basic Christian Doctrine all the way.  But we also touched on some other topics, usually as illustrative points.  And those “other topics” make up today’s watchlist.

  • Star Wars.  Bet you didn’t see that one coming.  I actually kicked off the class with a scene from Star Wars Uncut.
  • Jay-Z, Kanye and U2. One of my students asked if there would be opportunities to earn extra credit.  I told the class I’d give anyone extra credit if they knew Jay Z’s birthday.  Nobody did.  This then led into my sharing with the class that Jay Z is opening for U2 on their upcoming tour of New Zealand and Australia, and how I need that to happen when the tour the US next summer.  Which led to my sharing about the U2 concert I went to in Omaha where Kanye opened. Somewhere in there at least 1/3 of the class started praying for my salvation.
  • Pink Floyd. I used the album cover to The Dark Side of the Moon as demonstration of how doing theology is like looking through a prism.
  • My Family. Because they are awesome.
  • Justin Timberlake. I have very little sympathy for late work, and encouraged my class to just suck it up and take the points deduction like an adult if they hand in work after the due date.  I then threatened to sing a the chorus of a certain JT song if they tried to sob story me.  But I don’t think I will.  That just wouldn’t be gracious or nice.

Tomorrow we have a 75-minute lecture on the Doctrine of Revelation.  I prepped it while listening to the DJ Hero soundtrack.  The lecture may or may not include the song God 2.o by the Roots. We’ll see if we can squeeze it in.  I really have a lot of info and discussion to get through.

It’s going to be a while before the students at this conservative Christian school in the Midwest figure out what to do with me.

Renew and Restore

August 13, 2010

friday funkfest 27

Friday Funkfest. A recurring (almost weekly) flurry of quick hits, links, videos and thoughts. Clearly, the best way to waste time at work spend your lunch hour each and (almost) every Friday.

I’ve got nothing but love for John Williams.  Love him to death. In fact, I consider his music iconic.  A lot of emotions rise up whenever I hear John Williams scores.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t have some time to drool over a Star Wars trailer scored by Hans Zimmer.  That dude is legit. I have a lot of his stuff on my phone.  Much love for this mashup.  Makes me want to watch Star Wars again.  And Inception.  Fly.

  • I’ve really been pleased with my EVO 4G cell phone.  But the new R2D2 themed Droid from Verizon is very tempting.  Not tempting enough to break a contract with Sprint and double my cell bill.  But tempting in that I might try to pick a broken one up on Ebay in 3 years as a collectors item.
  • The NBA released the 2010-11 schedule this week.  The Blazers get 20 national TV games.  That means the NBA and the networks think we’ll be pretty good.  That makes me glad.  It also makes me glad that the first Blazers trip to Overrated City Oklahoma City is on a Friday night, and the second trip is on a Sunday evening.  I’m totally making the 3.5 hour roadie to one of those.  Or both. But at least one.
  • Know what’s gangsta?  Sea Lions. Well, at least the ones that hang out with Snoop Dogg.
  • Donald Miller would rather be hated, than be loved with conditions.  He makes some good points.
  • I was really down on the Royals this year.  Like, I’ve only watched 2 games all year down.  But they’ve finally jettisoned all of the players I didn’t care for, and I’m back on the bandwagon. There’s still plenty of room.  They’re horrible.  But at least I can now have faith in the plan. As always, Joe Posnanski can explain all of this much more eloquently than I can.
  • Is this, or is this not, the greatest baseball catch ever? Probably is.
  • Soccer season in England starts tomorrow.  Get a primer on kits world wide, check out the visual Premier League makeup for the year, pull up a chair and enjoy. Great week 1 matches on tap.

Renew and Restore

August 10, 2010

how the urban core prepared me for rural america (part i)

One of the most interesting parts of looking back on the last decade is how God used each step along the way to prepare me for the next step.  The last two transitions have been particularly humorous due to their paradoxical nature.

Suburban ministry preparing me for urban ministry.

Urban ministry preparing me for a move back to rural America.

When I was at the big suburban church I never imagined this would be my career trajectory.  I thought I was going to go on to be a youth pastor at a big affluent suburban church like the one I was at and the one spent my high school years in.  People around me were grooming me for a position like that.  They were advocating for me to get positions like that.

Well that ship has sailed, and I really don’t think there is any going back.  As a family we have come to a place where we reject some of the statements that living in suburbia make, so it’s pretty much urban or rural for us from here on out.  Or as the New Monastics call it, the places abandoned by the Empire.

The place we are at now feels special, but it certainly feels removed from the Empire.  We’re 30 minute drive from a McDonald’s or a Wal Mart, for crying out loud.  There’s “out there”, and then 15 miles past that is where we live.

To be good with something like this I had to be ok with anonymity.  For the longest time, I wanted to be known.  Or rather, I wanted to have name recognition.  I wanted people to know the church I worked at.  To have either of those things be big enough that people could “identify” me two sentences into a conversation. I wanted to be viewed as kinda a big deal. In a way, I wanted to be anonymously famous.  Defined by my title, my name known by many, but with very few actually in my inner circle.  A leader in the cult of personality, so to speak.

The urban core cured me of my desire to be known.  The more I got immersed in my job, the more I faded into the background. Less speaking, mostly. Ironic, in that my story was becoming a lot more interesting. But as I stopped speaking I had more opportunities to listen. The listening was good. The listening taught me a lot about myself and a lot about God. Sometimes the key to learning is shutting up. And sometimes the key to figuring out you aren’t really a big deal is to fight the fight alongside of and for the benefit of the voiceless.

It was good for me.  If I still wanted to be known on a large scale, I never would have ended up where I am now. And the bugger of the deal is that where I am now is a place where I will be known.  Not on a large scale, by any means*.  But certainly with the depth that comes with living life in a small community where anonymity isn’t as much of an option.

*I am a bit famous in our new town, but only because my wife is the bomb dizzle. A lot of people who I’ve never met do know that I’m the new Doctor’s husband. Let’s just go ahead and add “Arm Candy” to my list of titles. Maybe I’ll just quit my job and start a new reality TV show.  “The Real House Husband of Rice County”. Or maybe not.

Renew and Restore

August 9, 2010

my favorite video prank crew

Technically they aren’t a prank crew.   But they classify themselves as “improv” and that isn’t the case either.  Something tells me that nearly prop-grade Star Wars outfits take a little bit of planning to conjure up.  As do a jumbotron and the Good Year Blimp in the event you want to give some Little Leaguers the greatest game experience of their life.  And don’t even get me started on how much work it takes to throw a wedding reception, even if it’s a surprise reception for complete strangers. This is like the Broadway version of hidden camera videos.

What I love about (most) of these videos is that their goal is to make the bystanders happy.  It’s not to embarrass* them, make them look foolish or punk them.  That tends to be the goal of most hidden camera humor, but this is the opposite.  And I love it.

*The exception would be the no-pants subway ride. That is meant to make people squirm a little bit. And it sounds fun.  So very, very fun.  One of the little known facts about me is that my mother-in law has a habit of gifting me novelty boxers every third Christmas or so.  I have her to thank for my Monday Night Football boxers, my Disney World boxers and my Spicy Hot Christmas Boxers.  Those boxers are so repressed as they deserve to be seen. This would be the perfect outlet for such a show. All of this is a total overshare, but it’s out of nececity.  I guess what I’m getting at here is that when my wife sees me in a YouTube video riding a train in my dan-da-dans, she needs to blame her mother.  Not me.  Her mother.  Someone might have to help me incept that idea to get it to stick. Where’s Leo when you need him?

I’m going to go ahead and apologize now for wasting the rest of your afternoon, because I’m sure you’re going to head over to the Improv Everywhere page and watch every last video.  Which raises an important question.

What is your favorite Improv Everywhere video?  While Ghostbusters always brings a smile to my face, I’m going with Food Court Musical.  Comedic genius, right there.


Renew and Restore

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 427 other followers