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oh mckinley

July 5, 2009

Changed the oil in the van for the first time earlier this evening.  That was a messy job.  My tools are residing at my in-laws’ while we have the apartment so I used my father-in-law’s ramps and performed the task over there while the kids were running around and everyone else was preparing for dinner.  The oil pan bolt was easy to remove, but the oil was still hot from driving, so I let the bolt fall into the pan and couldn’t find my magnetic wand to pull it out easily.  And the oil filter was at the perfect angle to dump several cups of oil on the gravel driveway before I got the pan completely underneath it.  Messy, messy, or as my daughter would say, "Oh no!  Shoowie!"

Still, I got it done, and it feels good to have crossed that off the list.  The rest of our time there was fun as well, with barbeque chicken, baked beans and fixins’ for the meal and el-cheapo fireworks for the after-dinner entertainment.  After our Memorial Day fireworks experience, in which they were more subdued than they normally are (no huge pyrotechnics or screechy loud noises), Luke has really started to enjoy fireworks, where before he was quite afraid of them.  He ran back and forth, delivering them to his Uncle Chris to light, then standing back with Uncle Josh and watching the show.  His favorite thing to do, however, was to run through the smoke–don’t know what that means for his penchants later in life.  And the pack of smokebombs we purchased was naturally a big hit.

anacreon

July 4, 2009

 Yep.

Happy Fourth!

That is all.

who would ever want to be king?

June 17, 2009

One of my guilty pleasures is Ace of Base.  I’m not even going to try to justify my penchant, defending them on the grounds that they just make smooth, well-crafted, lightweight pop/dance (which they do) or something like that.  For a change of pace, I just like their music, and lately at work I’ve been listening to their album The Bridge.

I definitely think we, as Americans (and possibly you other Anglophones as well) take it for granted that almost all of the popular songs we listen to are in English.  I mean, here’s a Swedish pop band, and to have any hope of success not just on the international scene, but likely also in their own country, they have to write their *cough* lyrically profound *cough* songs and sing them in a language that’s not their native tongue.  How odd would it be if 95% of the songs we heard on the radio were, say, in Swahili?

Anyway, I just thought that was worth recording for posterity.  It sounded more profound in my head when I was listening to the music.  Maybe I’ve discovered an unpleasant side effect?

sapientia

June 9, 2009

Recent verbal/grammatical pet peeves:

– Madonna lyric: "Don’t underestimate my point of view."  This is from her song "Cherish," one of her early hits, I believe.  Heard it over the P.A. system in a store recently.  The grammatical construction is tenuous at best.  I mean, does one’s point of view have value that can be something besides either true or false, valid or invalid?  I guess there are points of view that lends themselves better to perceiving the situation at hand as it truly is, but I still don’t think of them as able to be over- or underestimated.  The word just seems to intersect the sentence at a right angle, like a container sticking out of the fridge, keeping you from fully closing the door.

– "It begs the question…"  Okay, this is a big one, and difficult to explain.  There’s a logical fallacy called "begging the question," which means, basically, to assume or anticipate a particular answer in the formulation of a question.  However, in 90% of the instances where I see the phrase used, it has absolutely no connection to the logical fallacy, but seems to be simply used to mean something like, "the question that naturally follows from the preceding statement is…"  It’s a tip-off to me that the writer probably has little, if any, awareness of logical pitfalls, since the fallacy mentioned above is a pretty basic one, and is using the phase in a misguided attempt to sound more intelligent.  Or it could just be that language is changing to accommodate the new meaning (kind of like how "eager" is being replaced by "anxious"), which is, to put it mildly, unfortunate.  Preserve the richness of the language, people!

wild honey

May 4, 2009

Still here.  Busy days combined with lack of inspiration conspire against me.  The closest I’ve come lately is when I was picking up a take-out order of hot wings at Ronni’s Restaurant in Clemmons and felt oddly compelled, in a Carson McCullers / Flannery O’Connor way, to record the collage of semi-rural America around me as I sat there and waited for my food.  I pieced together a couple of sentences in my mind but nothing serious came of it.

We’re getting a minivan.  It’s a 2005 Mazda MPV and we got a good deal on it.  I’m finalizing all the paperwork tomorrow so, Lord willing, it should be sitting outside our door tomorrow night.  Diane’s very excited about it, as am I, but not quite as much as her.  We looked for a couple of weeks, and were locked into the Odyssey / Sienna thing for a while.  Once we opened ourselves up to other possibilities, though, the Mazda appeared and ended up being a very appealing alternative.  We’re psyched.

funny luke story of the day

April 14, 2009

Luke and Pen are excited to be sharing a room.  They keep each other up frequently in the evenings, bantering back and forth in their way and just generally carrying on.  This has the side effect that it keeps their energy levels artificially high (read: it makes them overtired).  In Luke’s case, when this sets in, he gets well-nigh unbearably antsy and has trouble staying in his bed.  He’s been told many times he needs to stay in his bed at nighttime, and that if he needs something he can come out and get us.  Of course, to Luke this means letting himself out of the room, running in ours and gleefully announcing, "Daddy, I need something."  I reply, "What do you need?"  He says, "I don’t know," and I put him back in bed.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

Earlier this evening, while putting him to bed initially, I told him that if he came out he needed to have a reason, that just saying "I need something" wasn’t a reason and that if he couldn’t come up with one, he’d be disciplined for not staying in his bed.  And true to form, within a few minutes of shutting the door, I heard it open again, and Luke came around the corner to find us in the living room.  He drew himself up to his full height and proclaimed, very seriously, very deliberately, "Daddy, I need to go to bed."  I managed somehow not to laugh aloud and said "Yes, you do need to go to bed," before leading him in there again.  If there’s a loophole, he’ll find it…

In other news, I’m teaching myself to play guitar.  I’m four days in and my fingers are still hurting (even as I type).  I wonder when this goes away?  My brother-in-law Josh (who lives just a couple of apartments over) is letting me borrow one of his guitars.  It’s slow going but I’m going to stick with it.  I want to be able to accompany Diane one day as she sings; that’s the goal.

links for today

April 6, 2009

 When it comes to privacy and the internet, these guys and I really see eye to eye.

Great commentary by Al Mohler on the Newsweek article.  I liked this paragraph especially:

Mr. Meacham also suggests that this new situation is perhaps healthy for the church.  To this extent I agree — the church gains a necessary knowledge any time the distinction between the church and the world is made more evident.  Our first concern is and must be the Gospel.  It is good that non-Christians know that they are not Christians and that Christians be reminded of that fact that what sinners need is the Gospel of Christ, not merely the lingering morality of the Christian memory.

his crime was looking up for truth

April 2, 2009

Earlier in the week we finally moved all our books over here to the apartment.  Among them was my big cd carrier, which I go through occasionally to find music I haven’t listened to in a while.  Yesterday I rediscovered my copy of DJ Tiesto’s 2004 trance/house opus Just Be.  I took it to work to listen to (it makes great background music), but now I have "Forever Today" going through my head.  It’s a pretty song, so I don’t mind all that much, and in any case I would rather have something without lyrics stuck in my head rather than some inane snippet from a random chorus bouncing around up there.  The first three minutes of the song are especially lovely, in a linear, artless sort of way–just an anthemic crescendo and fall of strings before the beat sets in.  The album as a whole isn’t terribly creative and isn’t my favorite, but it’s a noteworthy listen.

This is the first evening a while I haven’t been busy doing web work or just dog tired from the day.  It’s satisfying to have completed all the work and for the ball to be in the other court, as it were, and awaiting a return volley of new work.  Diane and I have been watching a lot of Top Gear lately.  I love that she likes the show so much and likes to watch it with me.

fade in

March 24, 2009

I’ve been listening to a lot of Mark Driscoll sermons lately.  He’s been going through 1 Peter and some (most?) of his observations are priceless.  The past couple of sermons have been drawn from the discourse in 1 Peter 3 wherein the apostle addresses wives and husbands.  Driscoll preached two sermons on the passage, the first directed toward the ladies/wives, and the second, which I listened to today, aimed at the men/husbands.  It’s a powerhouse message, if you get the chance to listen to it.  There’s something in there for every man, and he gets quite angry, rightfully so, at those men who shirk their God-given responsibilties as men and husbands,in a variety of different ways.

Diane and I have a chance to hear him speak locally in a couple of months, along with other pastors.  We’ll probably have to alternate sessions since getting a babysitter for all three days could be problematic, but I definitely think it’s worth the effort.

vegemite sandwich

March 23, 2009

New music recommendation:  Dakota Blonde.  I heard them recently on Coverville where they did a smashing rendition of Men At Work’s "Down Under."  For those of you acquainted with my musical taste, their style won’t come as a shock.  They combine the thoughtfulness of a band like The Innocence Mission with country/Americana inflections of Alison Krauss or Hem and the slightly quirky female vocals of The Weepies.  Thumbs up.

the space between

March 21, 2009

I haven’t felt as inspired lately as I did a few months ago.  I don’t know what it is (or was).  I’ve been doing more web work recently, and that takes a chunk out of most nights.  Hopefully that won’t slow down, either, so I’m going to have to figure something out if I want to stay in it journal-wise.  Most entries, at least the ones I put a modicum of thought into, take a while to percolate and take shape, and that time just hasn’t been there in the evening lately.  I’ll figure something out.  It really is shameful, though, that I’ve had a review of the latest U2 album waiting in the wings for a couple of weeks, but just haven’t got around to un-privatizing it.  I need to finish that.

In other news, there is no other news.  Life continues much as it has.  We’re progressively moving out of the house and settling into the apartment here.  Today my dad came up from Chapel Hill and helped me move some more things out of the house.  He really wasn’t feeling well and it was beyond generous of him to come.  My mom and Gran visited on their way back from Hayesville as well, and it was good to chat with them for a little while.  Luke wanted to monopolize his Nana (my mom) with his book about the US states, and Penelope was a little social butterfly and put on a good show.  It was fun.

* * * * * *

This is probably the best thing I’ve ever written.  Don’t ask me where it came from or who inspired it; I honestly have no idea.  There are days I miss Florida, the six short months I lived there.  The combination of the solitude and the beauty of the ocean all around caused stuff like that to just well up spontaneously.  Here’s another oneAnd anotherAnd yet another.

I’ve probably related this before, but during my time there I visited a number of churches, searching for the right one.  The service of one I visited was held in a local school’s gym.  It was a recent church plant and I remember being approached by the pastor and his wife, an older couple, who wanted to know if they could meet with me.  It wasn’t suspicious, but friendly, and I invited them to my apartment.  They arrived and we chatted for a little while about what brought me to Florida.  I think at that point I had just lost my job and was pretty directionless, so when they told me, quite eagerly, that they had been praying for someone to come and help out with and possibly lead the college ministry at their young church, I was less than enthusiastic.  They were visibly disappointed, and I’ve wondered occasionally how differently my life would have turned out had I taken that chance.  Heck, I don’t even know if they would have supported me at all; they just knew their church had a need and that I seemed like a good candidate to fill that need.

I want to take more chances.

and a beat

March 18, 2009

Not much tonight.  It’s been a hard day with the kids in the small apartment.  Maple got fixed, too, and she’s wearing a cone and sad.

In the interest of posting something, here’s kind of a fun article I found today.  The commentary is the best part.

it’s not a hill, it’s a mountain

March 17, 2009

as you start out the climb

I’ve often wondered what Luke visualizes when he thinks about visiting other countries.  We’ll be talking about this or that continent or capital or region, and I’ll say something like, "Maybe one day we’ll go to France/Uzbekistan/Norway/Angola/New Zealand.  Would you like that?"  He nods in response and says "Uh huh."  Sometimes we’ll talk about the particular attributes of a country: whether it’s hot/cold/warm/cool in a given season, whether there are mountains or jungles there, and he’ll file that information away.  But I wonder if he ever thinks about what it would actually be like to physically be there, at ground level, looking around.  I doubt he would think the ground is color-coded like on his maps; he’s beyond that.  We do fire up Google Earth one or twice a week and check out various locales, but that can only tell you so much about a place.  I’m not saying I can visualize any country perfectly either; heck, I’ve never been to a jungle or a desert so all I know is what I’ve seen in pictures, but…  It would interesting to know what pops into his mind.

evening links

March 16, 2009

1. A fun collection of airports I would love to land a plane at.  Heck, I soloed on a half-mile-long, 20-foot-wide runway affectionately known as "the toothpick."  I honestly think Courchevel would be a blast.  It’s the old adage: If you fly by the numbers, you know exactly what your plane can handle.

2. The recent Templeton Prize winner.  For those of you familiar with my anti-quantum mechanics pro-higher dimensions viewpoint, it will come as little surprise that I’m excited by the winner’s emphasis on the direction I think physics should take.  Key quote:

Unlike classical physics, d’Espagnat explained, quantum mechanics cannot describe the world as it really is, it can merely make predictions for the outcomes of our observations. If we want to believe, as Einstein did, that there is a reality independent of our observations, then this reality can either be knowable, unknowable or veiled. D’Espagnat subscribes to the third view. Through science, he says, we can glimpse some basic structures of the reality beneath the veil, but much of it remains an infinite, eternal mystery.

That describes higher dimensions to a tee.  We can describe them mathematically, but can’t fundamentally understand them unless we experience them.  I don’t agree with the article’s meandering into Kant and Spinoza, since to agree with Kant in particular about the chasm between faith and reason is unbiblical, and Spinoza was a de facto pantheist, but there is certainly nothing wrong with ascribing to the viewpoint that reality is best explained using higher dimensions that are out of our realm of experience, and that God and the spirit world understand and occupy those higher dimensions.

slowly now

March 14, 2009

Cold, icky, rainy day.  It’s kind of hard to believe that just three days ago Luke and I took our first "new walk" (walks are an institution with us) through the upscale neighborhood across the street, wearing flip-flops and shorts.  Today long johns are advisable.  Yuck.

Diane and I had a conversation today about me becoming a car mechanic.  I have to say there are few things I love more than working on cars.  It really doesn’t matter whose car it is (though it will be said some are easier to work on than others), as long as I’m under the hood with a socket driver, ratchet-drive box-end wrench and a long Phillips screwdriver, I’m happy.  I’d like to think my diagnostic skills aren’t that bad either.  I know a lot of that comes with experience and familiarity with a particular make/model of car, but I’ve seen a thing or two in the 9-odd years I’ve been working on them.  I fantasize some days about owning a little two- or three-bay shop that specializes in a particular make or three, and just working on cars all day long.  Of course there are always the attendant hassles of customer service and bookkeeping, etc, but I think the enjoyment I would derive from the satisfaction of fixing someone’s car would overcome that.  It’s all a pipe dream at this point, but Diane is willing to entertain the idea at least in conversation, which counts for a lot.  I dunno.  Idle thoughts on a drippy Saturday afternoon.

treble

March 13, 2009

We’re moved into the new apartment.  My father-in-law was able to secure the big truck from his work on Monday night and we moved all the big stuff then, including the bed and almost all the furniture.  Monday was our first night spent here.

It’s a nice little apartment.  I feel bad for praising the apartment over the house since it sounds ungrateful, and we are so, so grateful to have had the house initially and for as long as we did.  But it was time to move on, and we haven’t second-guessed ourselves.  Well, at least not to a worrying degree.

I didn’t get to catch the comet a week or two ago, sadly.  However, just behind our apartment building is a little strip of woods, and on the other side of the woods is a huge field with a solitary tree in the middle.  Taking the dog out a few nights ago, even in spite of the streetlights in the parking lot, I could look up and see the night sky through the trees, and I was amazed at how much less light pollution there is out here versus in town.  It makes me very excited about possibly taking the telescope out to the field, or just constellation-spotting with the ‘scope.

music on the lake

March 3, 2009

We got the apartment today, so it looks like we’ll be moving here in the next couple of weeks.  We’re alternately excited and apprehensive about it, but mostly excited.  The apartment gives us a chance to really be out on our own financially, is in a safer neighborhood and is about half a mile from the rear entrance to Tanglewood, among other benefits.  We’re apprehensive just recognizing that transitions are never simple, especially with a family to consider.  But–nothing ventured, nothing gained.  The potential for great benefit is there, and we’re going to take the odds, knowing Who’s in control of ALL things.

I feel bad I haven’t been posting more regularly, but between moving and the web design business (which is picking up and occupies much of many evenings) and just trying to go to bed earlier, it’s been hard to cram in anything but a brief update.  Hopefully the dust will settle soon.

neige

March 2, 2009

Luke and I had fun in the snow today.  Work was closed so I had a "home day" to gambol about in the yard.  Until later in the day, the snow wasn’t sticky enough for a good snowman, to Luke’s mild dismay.  But he certainly was busy enough eatingall the snow he could stuff in his mouth, making snow angels and just generally rolling around in it.  

Penelope was another matter.  We don’t yet have any really "snow clothes" for her, so we bundled her up with lots of her brother’s clothes, adding several pairs of socks and tried to put on Luke’s boots, which didn’t work.  She was fascinated by the snow but so frustrated by her outfit that she didn’t last long at all.  I think we got a picture or two…  Maybe.

She’s displaying some sophisticated interaction for a 16-month-old, at least in our experience–interaction we didn’t explicitly teach her.  Diane described an incident today where she was letting Pen play in room, checking on her periodically.  At one point Diane came over to the baby gate, got the girl’s attention and said, "Penelope, come to Mommy!"  Pen ambled over, was almost in Diane’s outstretched arms before she turned around and bolted for a spot next to her bed, giggling as she "ran away" from Mommy.  Diane caught up with her and she had a ear-to-ear smile as she laughed about her "game."  She’s a lot of fun these days.

life flies by in seconds

March 1, 2009

and I would never try to make you be
anything you didn’t really want to be

The bedroom is a little lighter tonight.  The streetlights reflect off the snow outside and give the closed blinds a gentle glow.  The warmth of the blankets and pillows is always welcome, but tonight the soft light at the windows reminds me of the contrast with the cold and makes the present environment that much more welcome.  The kids will have fun tomorrow; that much we know–a quick peek through the blinds by the bed confirms at least a few inches.

It’s been…a weekend.  My parents visited yesterday and my mom and Diane attended a baby shower for my sister-in-law.  Diane was in charge of the games and a few other things and by all accounts it went very well.  They brought home some of the hors d’oeuvres too–those little mozzarella balls bathed in olive oil really are delicious.  I think we all got a little case of cabin fever; I know I did on account of the cold and rain outside all weekend.  I’m ready for spring and summer to roll around.  This plunge back into the snow and cold is a couple of months late and particularly cruel given that, technically, it’s only three more weeks until spring.  Not only that, but the cloud cover the past few days means that I haven’t been able to deploy the telescope for a comet sighting, and by the time all of this nonsense is over chances are it will be gone, or too faint to see even with the ‘scope.  Oh well.  I need to stay on top of celestial events more anyway.

ryder

February 28, 2009

We’re thinking seriously about moving.  Soon, too–within the next month or so.

It’s something that had been on the horizon for a long time for a number of reasons: This isn’t the safest area in town, Diane didn’t choose this house and it does have limitations as far as accommodating a family, financial considerations, among other things…  This past week brought things to a head, though, since an elderly resident just one street over from us was robbed at gunpoint in the middle of the afternoon–very brazen, to say the least.  Add that to a number of break-ins over the past couple of years, and it doesn’t leave one with the best feeling about the safety of the neighborhood.  And we know that there’s crime anywhere, but add it to the other reasons and you have a compelling case for at least contemplating moving.

So we’ll see.  We visited a very promising apartment complex earlier today.  Whenever it happens, it’ll be hard to leave this little house, but it will be for the best.