my best imitation of myself

Takin' care of business

2007-06-19T13:21:00.000-05:00

I'm living the good life this summer. I'm working about 25-30 hours per week, getting paid pretty well for working on my thesis, and I don't have to live in Sweetwater. Anyway, Cole, the undergrad we hired to work on my project with me, has a sense of humor extremely similar to mine. I'll try to post funny things that happen up here. For example, last week:

Abe: "Cole, how big does the countersink need to be for that bolt to fit inside?"
Cole: "Let me measure."

*measures with caliper*

Cole: "Looks like about...two-point-five tenths of an inch."
Abe (laughing): "So, you mean a quarter of an inch."
Cole: "....Hmmm....I guess you could say it that way...."

Also, there is nothing better than waking up after you (not so) accidentally fell asleep in your office chair.

Posting delinquency

2007-04-19T11:50:00.000-05:00

Ok, I know it's been a month since I last posted. Sorry to all 3 of you who still stumble by here every now and then.

I've been thinking about a particular issue a lot lately. While on a long drive, a non-Christian friend of mine and I were talking about religious philosophies. During the discussion, he said something to the effect of, "Yeah, I think there's probably a God, but I don't see how he could hold me responsible for what I've done -- I mean, I'm just who I am, and I'm doing the best I can with what I've got." That is a really compelling argument to a lot of people.

Here's how I think a common response would go to the way the gospel is often presented. A Christian would tell someone that they've committed high treason against a king, and that the punishment is death. One might say (and with good reason), "What? I didn't know about any king, or any rules, or any of that!" How can God hold people responsible for breaking rules they didn't know existed?

I think the answer to this response lies somewhere with the theological issue of depravity. To our ears, the charge made above sounds like, "You messed up where you should have (i.e. could have if you would have tried harder or known or whatever) done this." The charge of treason to the human ears needs to also go towards convincing someone they need to be changed. "You're in a state of treason. You can't do better. You are in a state of wanting to choose yourself over God. You are dead and need life." Christianity then becomes about being transformed. Maybe then we would stop trying just to integrate Jesus into our current self. Maybe eventually we could stop underselling the gospel. Of course, what it means to believe then takes on an entirely new depth. It is no longer only about wanting forgiveness. It transforms into seeing the person and character of Jesus as perfect and lovable, and wanting to be transformed into that person. Forgiveness is also important, but I think it is too small to capture the enormity of the process (at least the way we've sold it for so long).

Anyway, please leave comments or questions. I haven't really thought this out entirely, but I think it is of enormous importance. Perhaps more posts to come on this issue.

Jaw Surgery Recap

2007-03-19T15:12:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a week and a half since the dreaded surgery. First, and most importantly, my teeth fit together properly now (yay!). Now, for the rest of the story (said in Paul Harvey voice)...

I went in around 11 AM on Thursday, May 8th. I filled out the paperwork, changed into the stupid robe and everything, and lay in a bed for a while. Then, the anesthesia started and they took me in (this was around 12:15). When I came to, it was after 3 (how much after, I don't recall, as I was a bit loopy -- anyone who has been on general anesthesia can relate). The worst part of the whole experience for me was the fact that when I woke up, I had a tube up my nose down into my stomach, pumping out all the blood I had swallowed during the surgery (note to hospitals everywhere: don't use clear tubes if you're going to pump a whole bunch of blood out of the stomach of a patient who is awake, as it is a bit disconcerting for said patient). Anyway, after a while, they took the tube out (which hurt a lot). I hung around for a couple more hours and got home around 7. Tara bought me Guitar Hero II and brought it over with her brother's Playstation, so I didn't get anything read this week (on an unrelated note, I am really good at Guitar Hero II now). Sunday was the peak of the swelling. My face was absolutely huge. I did not look human. If you're lucky, you'll get to see pictures. Anyway, I still look a bit swollen, and have already lost around 10 pounds. I wasn't really in any pain the whole time, since I was on some heavy narcotics.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for your thoughts and prayers and stuff. Many thanks to my mother for fixing all of my meals in a blender. I think I'm going to lose even more weight now that I'm back in Lubbock and have to make my own stuff now. I'll post pictures if I ever get some.

Jaw Surgery

2007-03-07T08:52:00.000-06:00

The long awaited jaw surgery happens tomorrow (Thursday) at noon. If you're in the DFW area, feel free to bring me a milkshake sometime next week.

Are you nearsighted or farsighted?

2007-02-20T16:29:00.000-06:00

Today I saw the Ben Franklin impersonator from "The Office" (the one with the stripper) walking on campus. I swear.

Skateboarder

2007-02-14T10:13:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, I was riding a bus, and I saw a skateboarder ride out into the street in front of us, but in the opposite lane. He wasn't looking where he was going at all, and when he turned and saw us, he tried to stop, but he flailed his arms and toppled over backwards, and his skateboard went flying. It was hilarious.

And seriously, enough with the snow. We have to stand and fight. Let's all go buy nonbiodegradable goods right now to speed up global warming.

New Car -- Final Chapter (I hope...)

2007-02-05T11:41:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone, I just thought I'd give you the final word on my new car (hopefully). Kam (the salesman) had the car delivered to my parents house in Arlington, and my friend Dallas gave me a ride to go get it last week. Anyway, it looks great and drives even better. Here are some pictures from the dealership (I haven't taken any yet). And yes, that is a "moonroof" you see...

The ongoing saga of my car

2007-01-30T15:30:00.000-06:00

Alright, I know I haven't posted anything in a while, but I've been stressed out by this whole car situation, and I've been on the phone for at least an hour or two a day for the last 3 weeks. I've been dealing with Clara Turner's insurance, my insurance (claims, adjustors, agents, total loss specialists, and much much more!!), banks, credit unions, used car salesmen, shipping companies, highway patrolmen, my parents, and maybe one or two more that I forgot about.

Bottom line, I'm ordering a replacement car from a used car dealership in Houston, which will be covered by the money I'm getting from my insurance company for my old one. It is the same as my other car, only it is an EX (the trim level above my old one) and a two-door coupe (which I'd actually prefer). Kim saw the ad for it on ebay and she emailed it to me. It is basically the same price as my old one. However, I did order it from a used car dealership in Houston (which seems good based on all the investigating I've done), and it scares me just a little to purchase a car that I haven't actually seen. After speaking with Jacob Hubik, friend and employee of Alliance Federal Credit Union, there is not much risk in doing all of this. It is being delivered sometime either today or tomorrow to Arlington, and I'll get it out here somehow or another. Today, I did get a little spooked when a highway patrolmen called me and said that the truck with my car didn't stop at a waystation and claimed he wasn't transporting the car commercially, it was for a friend named Pete. But after calling the shipping company and talking with them, it seems like it was just a dumb truckdriver who was trying to make up a story to try to get out of some trouble with the cops for not having proper documentation or something. I'm more than a bit anxious to get this car and have the whole thing over with. Further car bulletins as events warrant.

I don't have much else on my mind right now, so that will be all for now.

Car Update

2007-01-17T15:08:00.000-06:00

My car is totaled. Sad day. Everyone should do something nice for me, like find me another one just like it.

Car :(

2007-01-10T13:00:00.000-06:00

Short of myself or someone I know being seriously injured or killed, I went through pretty much the worst possible thing that could feasibly have happened today. (Okay, I'm sure you could come up with some worse scenarios, but spare me...unless they are really funny.)

Some dumb lady smashed my car to smithereens. I was eastbound on 4th Street (speed limit -- 50 mph) about to cross Indiana. The light was solid green both ways. I saw a black Dodge Intrepid waiting to turn south onto Indiana. She started inching forward right before I got to the intersection, but it looked like she saw me. Then, at the last minute, she started pulling out in front of me, just slowly enough that there was no way I could do anything but minimize the damage. I swerved to the right a little and smashed into the front corner of her car. I then caromed into two cars who were waiting at the stoplight to proceed northbound on Indiana. One of the vehicles was an SUV that I barely dented his bumper. When I looked up at the other car, I heard, "It's Abe!" It was Tara and Johanna in Johanna's car on their way back from the rec center. So now, mine and Johanna's cars are both at Lubbock Wrecker waiting on estimates to see if they are totaled or not. I drive my stinking '92 Nissan Sentra for so long without a wreck, and I get a new car and it gets smashed in less than two weeks. If only someone would have smashed my old car. Oh well. No one is hurt, and the lady who caused the whole thing was insured, so everything will get taken care of eventually. I just won't have a car for a few days, and I won't have my car for who knows how long.

God is good. No one is hurt. My identity isn't in my car. I'm trying to love the poor ignorant lady who probably shouldn't have a driver's license, but who needs and deserves Jesus just as much as I do (or should I say "don't"). She said she was going to dispute the citation she received for failing to yield to right-of-way in municipal court, but I doubt it will come to anything. She was probably just embarassed and depressed about wrecking a bunch of cars, and it is always easier to act like it wasn't your fault in situations like that.

Anyway, there's my story for the day. This way, maybe I won't have to tell it like 199482783 times.

Aren't you the sovereign God of justice?

2007-01-01T21:22:00.000-06:00

To all my Christian readers, especially those who subscribe to reformed theology: The O.C. Supertones have some incredible lyrics. You wouldn't think it based on the image that they have. Most people who grew up in youth group remember hearing about them in the same breath as some shallow, Christian-ska-or-swing bands like the Insyderz or the W's. If you're lucky, you even might associate them with Five Iron Frenzy (slightly silly, but incredibly poetic and powerful at times). However, it is amazing to look at the theological development of lead singer/songwriter Matt Morginsky through his lyrics. His philosophy on church polity and how theology should affect our lives is incredibly mature for someone in his line of work. By far his most complex album is "Loud and Clear". I highly recommend checking it out. You might want to read the lyrics before you listen, especially since the music is a little different from what you might be used to hearing. I put a few of my favorite snippets here. This album has quickly turned into my favorite morning run music since I've recently rediscovered it. Anyway, the music really might be too much for some of you to get into it (it's a weird mix of white-boy rap, ska, and rock), but it is a far cry from his early lyrics.

"What happened to our voice?
What happened to our influence?
Tell me who will listen to uneducated congregants?
And why should they when all we have to say is
Bumper sticker doctrine and cute catch phrases?
Does this amaze us that no one will take us seriously?"
-From "Escape from Reason"

"If you’d saved even one man
Surely this is undeserved
But the saints by your mercy
Stand with you uncountable
Is this not amazing?
Isn’t your name grace?
Aren’t you the sovereign God of justice?
Haven’t we offended?
Did we not crucify?
Guess that we can only wonder why"
-From "Lift Me Up"

"See wisdom and knowledge is one thing that we lack
You’ve been a Christian how long and you’re still on Similac
So I call on Martin Luther and all the reformation
Back then the common people couldn’t read God’s revelation
You had to be a monk or a priest or read Latin
That was all before the revolution happened
But the fire cooled down ever since that generation
We put down the Bible and pick up the play station
And we can’t defend our faith cause we don’t even know it
We say we love His word but pick a funny way to show it"
-From "Return of the Revolution"

"The rain falls on the righteous and the wicked
Mine is not to reason why this is
In this I rest in this I find my refuge
That my thoughts and ways are not His
I spend my life on looking up the answers
It’s rare that I can’t find a reason why
But reasons fail at children without mothers
His plan is more than I can know

God do you really understand
What it’s like to be a man?
Have You ever felt the weight
Of loving all the things You hate?
Have You struggled, have You worried?
How can You sympathize?

I have spoken much too soon
Put my hand over my mouth
I can’t contend with You
Your ways are so much higher
And we pass through the fire that Christ endured before us
When You were in the wilderness"
-From "Wilderness"

New Car!

2006-12-30T16:36:00.000-06:00

I've been threatening to do it for months now, but I finally did it. I bought a car. It is a 2005 Civic LX Special Edition with a 5-speed manual transmission and a sweet stereo system. This really is my dream car. I was looking at new Toyotas and Nissans, but they were anywhere from $2000 to $4000 more expensive. And they felt like toys. This feels like a real car. I got a great deal on it, and the resale value will stay higher. Anyway, I'm very pleased.

It is going to be weird getting used to a new car. When something is that much a part of your life for over 6 years, it is hard to part with. Everyone told me that this would happen, but I didn't believe them until now. I'm afraid when I pull into my apartment complex with my new car and park it next to my old one that I left in Lubbock, the poor Nissan is going to feel very insecure. Anyway, you've been good to me, Sentra; I'm sorry for abandoning you like this.

I'm accepting suggestions for names for it. I'm not a big car-namer, but I know several of you are very adamant about this, and so I'm keeping an open mind.

Here are pictures:

Christmas time's a-comin'...

2006-12-18T15:39:00.000-06:00

Has anyone else heard the Emmylou Harris version of that song? No matter how much I claim not to be a country fan, there's just something about growing up in Texas that makes you unable to dislike Emmylou Harris' voice, especially at Christmas...

Anyway, I just thought I'd comment on how much studying the Old Testament this semester has made me appreciate Christmas. Saturday night, I saw a Christmas story rendition with some soul at the Jubilee Theater in Sundance Square. It was great. Anyway, studying the Old Testament has given me such a richer framework within which I can see the beauty of Christ and of grace so much more deeply. If you were at Southcrest this semester, and especially if you were involved in small groups, hopefully you have some idea what I mean. I wish I could convey everything I learned, but it would be difficult to type a semester's worth of study in one blog entry. However, feel free to ask me about it.

Cheers to having nothing to do for a solid three weeks except try to make a dent in the small library I brought home.

Thanksgiving and stuff

2006-11-28T16:34:00.000-06:00

Alright, thanks to Jill's comment on my previous post, I realized it had been a while. I've been busy, what can I say. I don't really have much to say here, either...

Anyway, Thanksgiving was nice. I always hate Thanksgiving break though, because you get all in vacation-mode, only to come back and have final reports and finals and stuff to finish. Unfortunate. Oh well. Over the break, I saw a Stars game with Kyle and my dad. I also saw "Deja Vu" with Rachel, which was excellent. Saturday, I ran a 5K basically cold turkey, meaning I ran a total of about 10 miles in the preceeding month. Amazingly, Brandon Williamson and I finished 1-2 in our age group (20-23). He beat me by like 2 seconds (we finished in right at 21 minutes). I would have tripped him or something had I known, in order to steal the glory of the Jingle Bell Run all for myself.

Okay, school is crazy for a little bit, so my posting will be scarce until finals are over. That is all for now.

Good Monsters

2006-11-13T14:52:00.001-06:00

I have been thinking a lot lately about entropy, brokenness, deterioration, and mortality, etc. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we're studying the OT and looking at sort of a humanity-on-a-large-scale picture. Also, we studied Ecclesiastes, which is heavily related to this subject. We should talk about depression more. Everybody feels it to some degree -- when you're sitting all alone at night in your room, when you're studying, or even walking to class or something. I think everyone thinks it is weird to be depressed since no one ever talks about it. We go around trying to put on happy faces so nobody thinks we're weird or something. Stuff is broken. "Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, / Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." Go read Ecclesiastes. Look at Romans 8:18-30. The way we are going about things now (i.e. life on Earth) is vanity, futility, or whatever word you want to use there. The things we do are meaningless. Should it be so surprising that we get depressed? Maybe we just realize the futility that we're currently immersed in. However, don't stop there. There is hope for believers, as the second half of the Romans passage spells out.

Anyway, the newest Jars of Clay album ("Good Monsters") seems to have a lot of lyrics on this subject. Lyrically, it is some of their best work. The music is a bit of a departure from some of their earlier work, but it is still really good. Here are a couple of my favorite chunks:

I don't have a lot of prospects
That can give some kind of peace
There is nothing left to cling to
That can bring me sweet release

I have no fear of drowning
It's the breathing
That's taking all this work

Do you know
What I mean
When I say
"I don't wanna be alone"

-From "Work"

Sometimes I can not forgive and these days mercy cuts so deep,
If the world was how it should be, maybe I could get some sleep.
While I lay, I'd dream we're better, scales were gone and faces lighter,
When we wake we hate our brother, we still move to hurt each other,
Sometimes I can close my eyes and all the fear the keeps me silent,
Falls below my heavy breathing, what makes me so badly bent?
We all have a chance to murder, we all have the need for wonder.
We still want to be reminded that the pain is worth the plunder.

Sometimes when I lose my grip, I wonder what to make of heaven,
All the times I thought to reach up, all the times I had to give up.
Babies underneath their beds, in hospitals that cannot treat them.
All the wounds that money causes, all the comforts of cathedrals,
All the cries of thirsty children, this is our inheritance,
All the rage of watching mothers, this is our greatest offense
Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God.

-From "Oh My God"

Anyway, there are several really good songs on it. I would highly recommend it.

Of the sacred desert sand

2006-11-10T11:06:00.000-06:00

I went to Ben Folds last weekend. Jill posted about it. However, she failed to describe the opening act: Corn Mo. He was a large man with long, stringy, 70's-rocker hair. He played an accordion and sang in a rather crazy 70's-hair-band-meets-Freddie-Mercury type way. See for yourself. That link doesn't quite do what we saw justice, since he was all alone on stage. To really get a feel for it, you should watch a couple of the videos that are on the page. Anyway, Ben was awesome, as always. On a related note, if you're extremely tall, extremely fat, extremely poorly groomed and bathed, and you have extremely large hair, please do other concert goers a favor and stand in the back or only go to shows with seats or something.

I think the mannequins are getting too life-like. I was walking by Victoria's Secret, and for a split second, I was like, "What is that girl wearing??!", but it turned out it was only a mannequin in the middle of the store. I mean, how anatomically correct do these things need to be? I think we can imagine more than the mannequin-makers give us credit for. However, I would imagine that it's a rough industry -- where do you make huge advances in the mannequin-producing industry? "Way to go Joe, way to make realistic nipples." They probably would get bored if they couldn't keep trying to improve their models. Pretty soon, they're going to advance far enough that the industries of mannequin-production and robotics will merge. We're going to have robots wearing Vicky's underwear roaming the store and helping females (who probably will be extremely self-conscious due to the super-hot robot models) try on underwear.

In other news, I got a spam email today with the title, "Of the sacred desert sand". In the body of the email was simply this (and only this -- no picture ads for Cialis or Viagra or anything like that, incredibly enough). The body didn't contain the title again, and it wasn't in italics or anything, but I took some poetic license in my rendition of this beautiful email.

"Of the sacred desert sand"

Hello!

The principal cannot skip school!

Now there are roaches eating crumbs-
Which makes my parents glad.
I did a lousy job.
I did a lousy job.
When I come home from school.
I didn't shut the light.
You guessed it-on my rear.
My grades are so much better now,
School is closed now, what's it to ya?
If I don't get it off my chest
I felt it on my ear.
and a full-blown case of rabies.
He greets me at the door each day
I have a brief confession
eight spider bites and hair loss,
There won't be school no more.
I didn't clean the mess.
and a broken leg with scabies,
There was mischief in their eyes.
School is closed now, what's it to ya?
I hope my students don't find out
I had asthma and was wheezing.
that I am such a slob.

I found it quite touching.

Copying Jill's post

2006-10-30T20:47:00.000-06:00

They didn't have "physics" as an option, but if you mix math, engineering, and philosophy, that's what you'd get, I think...

You scored as Mathematics. You should be a Math major! Like Pythagoras, you are analytical, rational, and when are always ready to tackle the problem head-on!

Mathematics

100%

Engineering

100%

Philosophy

100%

Psychology

92%

Chemistry

83%

Biology

75%

Sociology

67%

Linguistics

67%

English

58%

Journalism

58%

Anthropology

58%

Art

33%

Theater

25%

Dance

What is your Perfect Major?
created with QuizFarm.com

Concert Retrospective

2006-10-28T15:29:00.000-05:00

In light of Jill's recent post and next weekend's Tulsa trip to see Ben Folds, I thought I'd take a look back at some of my favorite concert memories over the years. (Plus, I had about 30 minutes to kill and couldn't figure out what else to do.) Main events are listed first, opening acts are in parentheses. My somewhat dorky music taste got better as I got older, I'd like to think...

The O.C. Supertones (Ghoti Hook, Stavesacre): My first real concert. I was in 7th grade and Kyle's dad took us. We were at Bronco Bowl in Dallas (before they tore it down...anyone else remember Bronco Bowl?). This is where I got my first taste of the ritual of concert t-shirt buying, a staple for anyone even somewhat involved in the live music scene.

Five Iron Frenzy (Switchfoot, The W's): I promise they won't all be cheesy Christian ska/punk bands. I went to this one with my dad, Kyle, and Max Kunisch. Switchfoot only had one album out at the time. The concert was in the attic of punk-rock church somewhere in Hurst or Richardson or somewhere like that. The AC wasn't working, and it got so hot that people started passing out and they had us all go outside for like 20 minutes or something. This is one of my favorites to look back on, because I liked Switchfoot so much and they were opening for Five Iron in the attic of some church, and now they are on TRL and stuff. Crazy. Plus, Reese Roper (Five Iron's lead singer) was still in his habit of wearing bizarre outfits on stage, and I think he was dressed as an African shepherd or the Sheik or something that night.

Eric Clapton (someone whom I'd never heard of and whose name I can't remember): This was awesome. We were in High School (junior or senior year, I don't remember). Kyle's dad took me, Kyle, and Andrew to see Eric Clapton for Kyle's birthday. It was at Reunion Arena. EC played for almost 3 hours, and it never once got boring, not even a little bit. He was absolutely incredible.

Ryan Adams: In summer 2005, I was living in Austin working at National Instruments. Kyle lived in San Marcos at the time and was a music writer for the Texas State newspaper. He called me one day and told me that was covering the Ryan Adams concert he had two free tickets to see him the next night in downtown. He played two sets, including almost all of the "Heartbreaker" album, and it was free and spontaneous.

Ben Folds, Rufus Wainwright (Ben Lee): The same summer, I drove to Arlington on a Friday, then drove to Tulsa, OK (4.5 hours or so) on Sunday afternoon, saw Ben and Rufus that night, then drove back to Arlington that night, arriving at around 4 AM. Then I drove back to Austin the next day, but it was all worth it. Ben Folds is my favorite, but Rufus put on the best show I've ever seen, hands down. If you ever get the chance to go see him, take it.

Honorable Mention: Counting Crows/Goo Goo Dolls, Dream Theater/Joe Satriani (mostly for unintentional comedy value), Lyle Lovett, Cornerstone Festival (where I saw, among many others, Larry Norman and Stryper...To Hell with the Devil!!!).

Please feel free to share your favorite concert memories.

Long, strange weekend...

2006-10-23T11:08:00.000-05:00

Alright, I have a few interesting things to say here.

First, on Thursday, I had a run-in with the 14 year old EE student here. He is this little, nerdy looking kid with a squeaky voice. His parents should be drawn and quartered for sending him to college like that. Anyway, I was walking out to my car, passing the Petroleum Engineering building, and he comes out of the door about 5 feet in front of me as I was passing, glances at me furtively, then proceeds to run towards the door I was walking towards in the goofiest manner possibly. He was running such that his feet sort of stomped and his armed flailed crazily in all directions. He stopped at the door and opened it for me. I said thanks, and he, in an extremely squeaky manner, said, "no problem." Then he ran off the other direction in the same crazy way. No one else was around to see it either, which really was a shame.

On Friday, I saw a bicycle pulling a cart with a guy in a huge bear suit on it. They were riding around campus in the middle of the streets. Bizarre. I have no idea. I felt like I was taking crazy pills. Also, Friday, I finally convinced my physics professor that the pulsating charged sphere does not radiate power. Quite exciting, considering we'd been arguing for almost a week about it.

Saturday, I was at a Robot competition for junior highs and high schools West Texas, and, needless to say, I saw some crazy people. Who joins the robot team in high school? I guess I was part of the state finalist MathCounts team at Boles Jr. High, so maybe I can't really talk here...

Saturday night, I saw "The Departed". It was excellent. Pretty gory and crude, but great. Definitely a guy-movie, though.

Soul Handshake

2006-10-16T12:45:00.000-05:00

The other day I got my first authentic black-guy handshake. A few weeks ago, I was walking up the steps to my apartment, and this black (I think he was actually mulatto) guy with baggy pants coming up behind me. He looked a little thuggish, and he looked like he was trying to catch up to me, so I was a bit concerned at first. Then he asked me if Nils (my roommate, Sven's brother) was home, as he proceeded to walk in the door behind me. At this point I was still a bit concerned, since for all I knew he could have just discovered that a guy named Nils lived there and that he wasn't me and then used that information to gain just enough of my confidence to get into our house, and he was planning on robbing and killing me (OK, so that's a slight exaggeration...). However, he turned out to be a really nice guy. We talked for some time about school and stuff for a while. His name was Shahrazad (I'm not sure if he spelled it the same as the Arabian Nights guy). Anyway, he came back over last week and when I opened the door, I got an enthusiastic black-dude handshake (you know, the kind nerdy white people do jokingly, but black guys do them and they seem cool). Probably my first and last.

On another note, this has been a depressing football season. The Red Raiders are killing me, and Drew Bledsoe...don't even get me started. He does not look like an athlete. Bill Simmons (with some help from a reader) summed it up best, I think, in his article from last week. The awkward softball game analogy is spot-on.

The Texans are clearly the second-class NFL team in Texas in every conceivable way. Why wouldn't they try to feud with the Cowboys? If you were Gary Kubiak, wouldn't you be making little passive-aggressive digs to get Dallas people riled up, like: "We have all the respect in the world for Bill Parcells, he was one of the greatest coaches ever," and "We're nervous about playing Drew Bledsoe. We've been dropping easy interceptions all season. This will be a big test for us." They really need to work on this.

My favorite random Bledsoe e-mail of the week, from Eugene in Madison, Wis.: "Did you see Bledsoe getting up after he ran that touchdown in against Philly? His teammates were helping him up like they thought his spine was broken. The celebration looked like something you would see at a company softball game, where the fat, uncoordinated boss that nobody really likes nearly kills himself trying to beat a throw to home, and everyone kinda awkwardly celebrates the fact that he scored, but they don't really like him, and they kinda wish he was a little more hurt than he was, but they pretend to kind of care that he might be hurt. Right?"

Again, I think Dallas needs to make a QB change.

Oh well, at least hockey season has started, and the Stars are 5-0. On a side note, if you are a fan of the Stars announcing team (Ralph Strangis and Darryl Reaugh) you should read this article by John Buccigross. It always makes me nervous whenever they get national attention, because I'm afraid ESPN is going to steal them or something.

Strange Commercial

2006-10-07T11:34:00.000-05:00

I just saw a commercial for the US Army reserve. The kid was talking to his dad, saying he was going to enlist, and the dad was like, "I don't know", but the kid convinces him with some argument like, "I'm going to be a part of something special," or something along those lines. Anyway, it was very moving. After that, the commercial voice guy says something like, "call today to see about strengthening your community and your country by joining the US Army Reserve." They give some other info about it, and then it says, "also, you'll receive a free sports watch." A sports watch?! I can just hear potential callers, "I'm thinking about committing to joining the armed forces, and I don't really know if I want to spend my life in this way, I'm really having doubts about it, but when you decided to throw in that watch, mmmm boy! I jumped all over this. I mean, sports watches are worth AT LEAST $10, that's a great deal." I don't know if I want the people who are dumb enough to take that offer defending our country...

The Cardinal Rule of Football

2006-10-01T21:40:00.000-05:00

Here's a quote from an article on ESPN.com regarding Texas Tech's 31-27 victory over Texas A&M.

Tech trailed 27-24 when Johnson outleaped A&M cornerback Jordan Peterson to make an acrobatic catch in the front corner of the end zone, stunning the crowd of 85,979, the eighth largest in Kyle Field history.

As the teams lined up for the decisive play, Harrell spotted the single coverage on Johnson and called an audible.

"I was like, 'Robert against that guy?'" Harrell said. "I like our chances."

Dusty Thompson's (my college minister) Cardinal Rule of Football: Never put a slow white guy in single man coverage against a large, fast black man.

Sweatshirt

2006-09-28T16:14:00.000-05:00

Talk about impulse buys...

Today, it was colder than I thought, and I was feeling sort of sick. Plus, the physics building is so cold. So, I bought a Tech hoodie at the bookstore. I've been looking to buy one for a year or so, but today's wind and allergy season were the catalysts I needed apparently.

I have little to no motivation to study these days. I need to get that back. Oh well.

In other news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead...

My experiences as a most intelligent donkey...

2006-09-26T18:23:00.000-05:00

Ok, so the title is a bad pun, which you should get after reading this post. Also, I've already told this story several times, so I apologize if you've already heard this.

I swear I'm going to get beat up one of these days. Last Friday, I went up to the rec center to work out and/or play basketball or volleyball. Since no one was on the volleyball court, I decided to go get in on some pickup basketball. The team I got on was really small, so I didn't think we were going to last too long. It turns out that we did, though. Everyone on our team was playing really clean, and everyone was shooting really well, too. I'm a pretty streaky player, and this ranked pretty high on my scale of basketball performance, so I was having fun. After we won about 5 games in a row, the courts started crowding up a little bit. More people starting showing up, and our sixth opponents looked rather menacing. They were all a lot taller than we were (the guy guarding me was probably 6'3" or so), so I mentioned to one of our teammates that our reign of terror was probably coming to an end. But we killed them. We were playing by ones and twos to fifteen (three-pointers counted for 2 points), and we were up 12-3 at one point. I think they made a little run back to 12-6, and the guy who was guarding me went into "too serious and angry for rec center pickup basketball" mode. He started yelling at his team not to let us shoot any more twos, since I think 8 of our 12 points were from two-pointers. He also started yelling that if we were shooting a two, to foul us, he didn't care, but just don't let us shoot any more twos. About 4 seconds later, he lost me and I drifted to the top of the key, got the ball, and buried another two-pointer. As I was jogging back down the court, I patted him on the arm and said something like, "Hey, if I'm going to shoot a two, you might want to consider fouling me." He was not pleased. Curse words flew. I tried to apologize and calm him down, but I'm not sure if it worked.

I quit playing after that game, because I didn't think it could possibly get better from there.

This might be fun

2006-09-20T13:15:00.000-05:00

I was going to post something here, but I couldn't think of anything interesting to say. So I typed this instead.

Anyway, everyone who reads this should list three books and albums that they really like a lot that they want to share with others (try to pick stuff that people might not know about, like not Piper or The Beatles). That would be fun. Mine are:

Albums:
1) Toad the Wet Sprocket - "Coil"
2) Rufus Wainright - "Want Two"
3) Augustana - "All the Stars and Boulevards"

Books:
1) "The Brothers Karamozov" - Fyodor Dostoevsky
2) "Chaos: Making a New Science" - James Gleick (dorky, but fascinating)
3) "A Severe Mercy" - Sheldon Vanauken (this book made me cry)

Ok, this is a good idea. Everyone should participate.

I am the rain king

2006-09-12T16:20:00.000-05:00

Well, it was an eventful weekend. Friday night, I hung out with Rachel, Nathan Ables, and Felipé (a friend of my sister's) over at my house, watching Arrested Development and playing cards, among other things. Saturday night was the focal point of the weekend, as Jill and I held our second annual birthday concert series--Goo Goo Dolls and Counting Crows. I would have enjoyed Goo Goo Dolls a lot more had their singer not been horrible, not to mention totally classless and obnoxious between songs. It was their last tour stop, so I guess his voice was tired, although Adam Duritz seemed to be doing alright. Speaking of Adam Duritz, somebody has let themselves go. He is rather plump now, and he still has those crazy dreds sticking up everywhere, which, in tandem, prompted Jill to refer to him as a pineapple. My favorite line of the night was during "'Round Here". Adam was singing the line, "'Round here, we all look the same", and Jill leaned over and said, "Speak for yourself, house of Spongebob". I couldn't stop laughing for several minutes. Anyway, since the two bands were dual-headlining, Counting Crows didn't play nearly long enough for our taste, neglecting several songs (such as "Rain King", "Mrs. Potter's Lullaby", and many others), and making some questionable song choices in light of the abbreviated set (such as "Ghost Train" and "Colorblind"), but what can you do. All in all, it was a fun time. I had dinner with Jill in Garland beforehand and actually saw her house and met her family, which was good, and we had a lovely evening.

Birthday musings

2006-09-05T10:27:00.000-05:00

Well, another birthday has come and gone. Twenty-two years on the Gregorian calendar have now passed since I came out of my mother's womb, and when you think about it that way, it sort of takes the excitement out of the whole birthday experience. Usually, there is a giant birthday extravaganza for the Labor Day birthdays, but since Kyler isn't here, there was a football game this weekend, and Kim and I had meetings and stuff for church on Sunday, we didn't end up doing the whole 50th St. Caboose mess or anything like that, which is OK with me (not that those parties aren't fun, but sometimes it is nice to relax a little). However, Jill still came in town (we have the same birthday), so it still felt somewhat normal. My parents were in town for the game, church, and birthday lunch, and I ate so much dessert on Sunday that I felt a little sick when I was going to bed. Thanks to all of you who wished me a happy birthday in one way or another. My favorite thing about birthdays is it reminds you that people care about you. And the presents.

In other news, apparently God didn't want me to live to see my 22nd birthday, because he tried to drown me this weekend. It rained non-stop for over 48 hours this weekend, I think. Fortunately it let up for most of the football game, but the rest of the weekend was constant rain. There were giant lakes in many of the streets thanks to Lubbock's lack of a drainage system (seriously, there aren't gutters here).

My birthday and other stuff

2006-09-01T14:39:00.000-05:00

My 22nd birthday is on Sunday. Seeing as I will undoubtedly be too wasted to post this entire weekend (just kidding), I figured I'd mention it today. Jill, who is my birthday buddy, is coming in town, and I'm sure fun things will happen.

In other news, I might be able to get two masters degrees (one in EE and one in physics) by next May (2008, that is). Crazy.

We had almost 500 people at Southcrest last Sunday morning. 190 people came to small groups this week (counting Fishbowl). That is huge.

I have keys to the EE building now. Exciting.

Isn't it weird how my life was so boring in Sweetwater, but I seemed to have way more interesting things to post about then? It isn't just that I'm too busy to post now, I can't think of anything interesting to put up here anymore it seems. I guess anything that happens now that I'm in Lubbock, most of the people who read this thing were probably there, too.

Ok, well that's all for now. Next weekend I'm going to see Counting Crows, so that's at least one decent post in the near future.

Posting Delinquency

2006-08-28T10:42:00.000-05:00

Sorry, I've been busy and out of town. Last week, I (along with Joe and the rest of our group) did the music at Foundation, a Christian camp for freshmen coming in. It was tiring. We were there from Wednesday afternoon to Saturday afternoon. We played 3 sets a day, and, including practice, we probably played for around 30 hours. It was a lot of fun though. It was weird being "the band" at a pretty large church camp type thing. Everyone thinks you're cool or something, when really you have an engineering degree. Don't tell anyone.

In other news, I am officially the TA for Project Lab II, which, if you knew me in the fall of 2004, you remember how much I complained about that particular lab because it was centered around West Texas BEST, a branch of a national robot-building competition for high school and junior high kids. This year, however, I'm getting paid to do it, so it won't be quite so bad. Class starts tomorrow.

I'll try to post more often once I get rolling this semester.

Religious Musings, Pt. 2

2006-08-17T11:35:00.000-05:00

Alright, so recently I've attempted to explain Christianity to a few people. It is weird how much more difficult it is to someone who doesn't have all of the "Sunday School" background that so many of the people in our little sheltered, Baptist-youth-group lives have had. It turns out it is a huge thing that is difficult to capture in a few minutes of explanation (who knew?). So I'm going to give it a shot here, and all my readers can feel free to try to poke holes in it or refine it however they see fit. Maybe at the end of it, we'll all have a better idea of what it means to believe. I'm trying here to develop it with little to no Bible lingo, so bear with me if it gets a bit philosophical or esoteric.

There is a God. This is evident to anyone who looks at the universe or at his own consciousness. Many people (seemingly smart ones, at that) don't buy this, which amazes me, but I cannot explain the existence of matter in our universe or the human consciousness without an all-powerful, infinitely intelligent Creator. However, I admit that this is not the final argument by any means, but for the remainder of this discussion, I am going to assume a Creator-God who is perfect in nature, intelligence, and every other manner. Also, I think it is worthwhile to mention that I think perfectly pure nature implies perfection in every feature of nature: perfect love, since a perfect God has no room for the impurities that corrupt love (such as jealousy, insecurity, etc.), and perfect justice and righteousness. I think these two will be relatively sufficient for this discussion.

Based on these ideas, a perfect God would not create creatures that he did not love. The alternative picture, a being creating things only to destroy them out of spite or a desire to feel more powerful, does not fit with a perfect nature. Again, some smart people throughout history have disagreed with me, and so I don't presume that this argument is final, but I don't want this little essay to get too long.

If there is an infinitely powerful God who created everything we see, including us, then our only response should be one of worship of him. By worship, I don't mean a group of created, primitive humans doing chants and dances around a fire to appease the God who created them. I simply mean that we should assign worth to this being because He is the only thing worthwhile that exists. Everything we do should be with respect to this being. Doing otherwise would be worse than my Lego creations defying my nature and saying that they knew best, since I didn't really "create" them, I just put them together, and I am not a perfect creator in the first place.

However, humans don't do this. We rebel against God on every level of our existence. We try to find joy in places where it does not exist because we want to be in control. Instead of simply resting in the divine nature that created us, we want something that is impossible: to be God ourselves. We seek "pleasures" that make us feel important or sexy or powerful or rich, even though these things will pass away like dead grass and mean nothing. This basic attitude is what the world today knows as Sin. Even though God loves his creatures, part of what it means to have a perfect nature, as mentioned above, is perfect righteousness or justice. Based on this rebellion and treason that humans commit and have been committing every day since we've been around, our just punishment is the end which we've been chasing: apartness from God. We futilely try to find joy and fulfillment apart from God, and so we are banished to that state.

Fortunately for us, God, in his perfect love for us, planned a solution for humanity's rebellion: Jesus. God's nature was incarnate in human form in the person of Jesus. Jesus lived an infinitely perfect life on Earth and was subjected to the suffering and horrible death and pain that we deserve. Most importantly, he was subjected to the banishment from God that all deserve through this death. In this way, God's righteous judgment for the sins of man was poured out on the one man who lived perfectly. He then was resurrected by God, therefore overcoming the curse of sin in mortality and death. We must acknowledge our own sinfulness and our need for restoration. We must put our trust in that work to regain fellowship with our Creator, the end for which all men were created. We must spend our lives striving to participate in the divine nature by living according to it, summed up by the moral law given in the Bible (Ten Commandments, Jesus' teachings, Paul's teachings, etc.), although nothing we can do is worth anything in comparison to Jesus work -- God loves us only because Jesus' righteousness counts for ours. We should also, as a natural reaction to the mercy we have been shown, care about other people and want them to have the joy that we have, since we didn't deserve it any more than they did, and since doing so is sharing in the restoring of humanity that God is doing. The Bible is the story of God's restoration of man, culminating and centered completely around the person of Jesus. All of this was done for the glory of God in the way of our enjoyment of and participation in his nature.

Alright, I know this was really long, and I'm sure I left out some stuff. Try reading this as someone who has no idea about anything relating to Christianity. If you find yourself saying something like, "But I don't understand how that necessitates that," feel free to mention it.

This is a little creepy...

2006-08-13T19:52:00.000-05:00

I got this from Jill. Read and be amazed.

You Are Bert

Extremely serious and a little eccentric, people find you loveable - even if you don't love them!
You are usually feeling: Logical - you rarely let your emotions rule you
You are famous for: Being smart, a total neat freak, and maybe just a little evil
How you life your life: With passion, even if your odd passions (like bottle caps and pigeons) are baffling to others

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

I'm alive

2006-08-12T11:02:00.001-05:00

I didn't get mauled by any bears. However, I am quite glad to be sleeping on a bed again. I'm all for nature and stuff, really. The hikes we took were so much fun, and it was nice to wake up to a gorgeous lake and mountains, but I don't sleep too well on the ground, as it turns out.

Last night I played softball with Sven. He hit two inside-the-park home-runs, one of which was a grand slam, he almost made an amazing diving catch in center field (the ball popped out of his glove as he hit the ground), and he ran full speed into the fence trying to make an incredible, Willie-Mays-over-the-shoulder catch (he got his glove on it, but the collision with the fence sort of made him drop it). It was exciting, but now his knee is basically immobilized from the run in with the fence.

That's all for now. I'm planning a "Religious Musings, Pt. 2" in a post or two, but I don't feel like typing or thinking that much right now.

Refusing to take advantage of modern technology for a few days

2006-08-07T09:22:00.000-05:00

I'm going camping in the mountains in New Mexico with only a backpack. Scary. I'll be back this weekend. Unless I get mauled by a bear.

Five Dollars and Rock 'n' Roll Music

2006-08-04T11:16:00.000-05:00

So yesterday, John Spaulding, a manager at the office I work at, walks by my office door with a list of some sort in his hand, pauses, looks at the list, then walks into my office. He puts the list down on my desk and says, "Five bucks. Sign here." Seeing my confusion, he said, "When we meet our shipping deadline, Larry gives everyone a five-dollar bonus." So I signed, and he handed me a five-dollar bill and walked out of my office. I thought that was hilarious. A five-dollar bonus? I mean, I know five bucks is a lot to some people, but people with full-time jobs? I know, if I saw five dollars lying on the ground, I'd pick it up, and it will pay for lunch or something, but it just seemed very odd to go out of your way to send a manager around handing five dollars to all the employees at this company.

In other news, I played with some of the best musicians I've ever played with last night. They were all old guys who knew and played mostly classic rock and blues. We jammed for about 2 hours, playing and singing "Rocky Mountain Way" (Joe Walsh), "Drive My Car" (The Beatles), "La Grange" (ZZ Top), "All Along the Watchtower" (Hendrix/U2 version, not Dylan), some jazz-blues (or is it blues-jazz? we didn't do any free-form jazz odyssies, though, much less in front of a festival crowd) stuff we just sort of made up on the spot (no lyrics with those, clearly...we didn't "freestyle", nor did we "flow"), and much, much more. I got to sing melody on "Rocky Mountain Way" and "All Along the Watchtower" because the tacit band leader didn't know the words (he sang harmony on the chorus of "Rocky Mountain Way", it was awesome). It was probably the most fun I've ever had playing music. Some days everything just comes together: the other musicians, the style of music, your chops that day, improvisational inspiration, and a general quality of rock-and-roll. Too bad I just found them the day before I leave Sweetwater, ne'er to return. And, before the drummer showed up, I got to play drums for a while, too, which I never get to do. There are few things in this world like the camaraderie of a bunch of musicians who know their instruments jamming together, looking around at each other, encouraging each in turn to take his shot at some rocking solos or something, reveling in the beauty of the music -- I'm just glad I got to be a part of it for a little while.

Religious Musings

2006-08-02T15:37:00.000-05:00

After reading "Atlas Shrugged", I've been thinking a lot. The more I've thought about it, the thing that I think is most unbelievable about Christianity and modern "moral virtue" to someone like Ayn Rand is that it is filled with contraditions. We are human, and we have certain desires -- to be happy, to seek personal fulfillment, etc. -- but we are told to repress them in the name of self-sacrifice, which is intrinsically "good". I think we (Christians) are all guilty at propagating this misconception in one way or another. We shy from philosophical buzzwords like "Hedonism" (living life only for the sake of "pleasure" is wrong, because it is about more than that, right?) and "Egoism" (it is DEFINITELY about more than personal pleasure and "what is best for you"...seeking personal pleasure must be sinful). For some reason we have the idea that pleasure and God are mutually exclusive floating around our heads-- if we're doing the right thing, we should be miserable. However, Blaise Pascal (a Christian) said:

"All men seek happiness. There are no exceptions. However different the means they may employ, they all strive towards this goal. The will never takes the least step except to that end. This is the motive of every act of every man."

If this is true (and it seems to me like it is), then we are created with a desire for happiness. We want to be happy because our creator wants us to be happy and gave us that capacity. That is our purpose, but we look for it in the wrong places. Here is a nice passage that says all this better than I could:

"The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

C.S. Lewis - The Weight Of Glory

If this is true, we should stop selling Christianity as a moral code to be fulfilled. Even if we say differently, we often betray our motives by acting as if the measure of one's spirituality is determined by how well he or she refrains from activities that the world holds to be pleasurable (money, power, fame, sex, etc.). When we start living this way, we start to believe that these really are the best activities, and we start to secretly envy our non-believing friends for the fun lifestyle that they lead ("Jesus, why couldn't you have just waited until after college to find me so I could have had some fun?"). For those of you who have read "Atlas Shrugged", I believe it is easy to see how the "looter" ideals are only a couple steps away when this attitude becomes synonymous with "morality": envy could easily give birth to hatred, and selfish desires could easily be self-righteously masqueraded as commanding others to share with "the public" (although Rand's description is a rather superlative case). If there is indeed a perfect God who has a perfect nature, what could be more worthwhile and fulfilling than seeing that nature and striving to understand it and be apart of it? Christianity is not a journey towards self-discipline and self-control, it is a lifelong striving for personal pleasure.

Anyway, if you've gone to a small group of mine at Southcrest, you've probably heard this stuff before. However, it never ceases to amaze me how often I find myself failing to believe it.

Books I've read this summer

2006-08-01T16:40:00.000-05:00

In full:

"Chaos: Making a New Science", by James Gleick
"The Elegant Universe", "The Fabric of the Cosmos", by Brian Greene
"The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament", Edmund P. Clowney
"Ishmael", by Daniel Quinn
"Blue Like Jazz", "Searching for God Knows What", by Donald Miller
"Atlas Shrugged", by Ayn Rand
"Ender's Game", by Orson Scott Card
"Heart of Darkness", by Joseph Conrad
"A Severe Mercy", by Sheldon Vanauken
Genesis - II Kings, Titus (like, the Bible)

In part (half or so):

"Introduction to Quantum Mechanics", "Introduction to Elementary Particles", by David Griffiths
"A Brief History of Time", by Stephen Hawking

To be read in the next two weeks:

"The Christ of the Prophets", by O. Palmer Robertson

I'm going to miss reading when school starts. It is going to be slightly more difficult to read as much then, unfortunately.

I found it!

2006-07-31T14:51:00.000-05:00

I found the elusive water-bottle cap! You all can rest easy tonight. As depicted here, it landed against the inside of my armrest support and slid down into the bowels of the chair. It was trapped in this tiny, bottle-cap-sized alcove.

Vortex of Evil

2006-07-31T12:18:00.000-05:00

This morning, whilst I peacefully drank from a bottle of water, a strange thing occurred. I was trying to replace the cap to said water bottle with one hand, and it slipped, falling to the ground. I have no idea what happened to it. It fell straight down, made a sound like it landed flat somewhere, and now I can't find it. It has been driving me insane for the past hour and some odd minutes. I can't hardly think straight. My office is not that big, and there is not much stuff in it. I have crawled around on the (disgusting, bug-infested) floor of my office looking for it. I can't do anything for more than a few minutes at a time without looking down at the floor for it. Has anything like this ever happened to anyone else? I cannot see any conceivable way that this is possible. It is a mystery. Mabye it was swallowed by a vortex of evil.

Another dorky cartoon

2006-07-28T08:55:00.000-05:00

Anyone get this one? This was created (with a little help from the cover art of Griffiths' quantum mechanics book) and submitted by my own graduate advisor, Dr. Richard Gale.

In other news, I ran a mile in 5:54 (that is fast for me--don't laugh, real runners) last night. That is 45 seconds faster than my fastest time in high school. I think I could have done a little better, but I got a little weak mentally about halfway through lap 3. Weird what losing some weight, working out, and a summer of boredom will do for your fitness.

Anyway, I think this weekend's trip to Lubbock is going to be the death knell on my desire to be in Sweetwater. At least my car is working.

Car

2006-07-27T15:51:00.000-05:00

Ok, I know that 3 posts in one day is excessive, but my car works now. It wasn't the starter after all, it was the clutch safety switch, which only cost $28 of labor for the guy to bypass. Hooray.

T-shirts

2006-07-27T13:45:00.000-05:00

I found these online today. If I'm going to be a physics graduate student, I guess I'll have to start dressing like one, too. Now you all know what to get me for my birthday (my favorite is the Maxwell's equations shirt...). If anyone can tell me what those little blobs are in the middle one, I'll be very impressed.

The Round Mound of Rebound

2006-07-27T08:20:00.000-05:00

God help us.

Although, the last paragraph was a bit encouraging. I'm not a racist, but I do have some serious issues with the way African-American culture doesn't seem to value good education and intelligence sometimes (not all of it or anything....no one send me hate mail, please). I guess he is probably at least as qualified as the Governator or Jesse Ventura was.

Also, this is hilarious (I specifically refer to the entry from July 19th). I almost cried. There is also some interesting stuff about how the AP grossly misreported it. Also interesting, but not laugh-out-loud funny.

Books

2006-07-26T16:02:00.000-05:00

Well, I finished "Atlas Shrugged" and "Ender's Game" (the latter took about 1/8 of the time to read as the former, no exaggeration). Both were great books. Ayn Rand is smart, and I think Objectivism (her philosophy) is genius and probably the best thing out there if there is no God (her whole formulation sort of rests on atheism, which I obviously do not agree with). It is basically a combination of egoism, existentialism, hedonism, and anti-Communism, stating that a man living, accomplishing, using his mind, and enjoying his life are his highest moral purposes. "Ender's Game" was really good, too, and it only took 3 or 4 hours to read. Next up, the Major and Minor Prophets and some commentaries...

I'm glad I called THAT guy...

2006-07-24T08:56:00.000-05:00

Which movie is the title of this post from?

Andrew Peterson's phone number has turned out to be quite a useful acquisition. When I was in California with Kim and Laurie, I got Kim's brothers' numbers in case we got stranded on the lake somewhere. Andrew, the younger of the two that were with us, is a mechanic, and I've called him twice in the past 4 days to ask him why cars aren't working. The first time was for my sister (read previous post). Yesterday, I'm driving back to Sweetwater from Lubbock, and I was getting a bit drowsy, so I decided to stop in Post for an ice cream cone at McDonald's. I went ahead and went in, because I needed to use the restroom as well. When I came back out, my car wouldn't even start turning over; it just clicked when I turned the key. I asked an older couple walking out if they would mind trying to jump my car off. We tried -- still nothing. So I called Andrew, and he told me it was the starter, which I had guessed. However, he (as well as the older guy who was helping me) described to me how to push-start a car that had a standard transmission. The older couple said "Oh yeah, we used to have to do this with our son's car." So they start pushing me backwards out of the parking spot that I'm in, but the incredibly over-staffed McDonald's work force decided that they needed to help, too. About five McDonald's employees came running out and started helping. So there I am, sitting in my car, trying to steer, with about 7 people running around my car and pushing it. Finally, we got it started, and I got back to Sweetwater safely. Unfortunately, now my car is stuck in the driveway and I have no way to get it out except to push-start it again. I guess I'll have to find some volunteers at work today. It is a good thing that my house is less than a mile from work, so it took me fewer than 10 minutes to walk to work this morning.

On a different note, I saw "Lady in the Water" yesterday. It was probably the worst movie ever (except maybe "Wendigo"). Seriously, I loved all of M. Night's other movies, but this one was just awful. I was just mocking it by the end, along with several other members of the audience.

I'm not a horrible brother

2006-07-21T09:01:00.000-05:00

Alright, if you haven't read my sister's latest blog entry or heard the story, read it (the link is in my dropdown list of friends). I may have laughed a little, but I did call and figure out what was wrong with her car and if she needed to have it towed, I called Prock Automotive to see when they would be able to see her, and I was about to call the tow truck but Billy Weaver beat me to it. I only laughed because the way she was crying it sounded like her car was on fire. When I found out that it just wouldn't start, and she was about 20 minutes from Lubbock...I don't know. So girls, don't send me a barrage of hate mail or anything. Anyway, it was a good story.

Also, Jill, you're right: Ayn Rand is ridiculously and unnecessarily long-winded. I only have 250 pages left, though, and I'm getting through them if it kills me.

"What part a' New Jersey you from?"

2006-07-20T13:45:00.000-05:00

So I played that guy (see 3 posts back if you don't know) in tennis last night. He was very serious about tennis. He was in incredible shape for being 57 years old, and he was about a 3.5 player (NTRP ratings, if that means anything to anyone). I think he remembered every tennis event that has happened to him for the past 30 years and told me about most of them. He had several racquets which he had ordered as demos from the internet (he tries them out, then sends them back), and he kept switching back and forth between them (I think he used 3 racquets in one game, once), saying how one didn't have enough control, and that one was the lighter and helped him when he was getting overpowered, etc. He even busted out his roll of lead tape, which Sampras (and others) used to make his racquet heavier. He was, in short, a very silly man.

Anyway, the entire match something had seemed strange to me: he kept looking at his watch before games and before a lot of points. I figured since he had called me that he probably didn't have anything else to do tonight, and he didn't look old or sickly enough to be on a medicine schedule. However, in the third or so game of the second set, I had just hit a winner and was walking toward the net to switch sides, when he told me that the score was 40-30, and that wasn't game. I thought about it, walked back through every point with him and showed him that I had already won 4 points, it must have been 40-15 when I last served, and that was game. He agreed, and he said, "Oh, I must have pushed the button wrong." I really had to work hard to keep from laughing aloud at that point -- he had been keeping score on his watch. I have played competitive tennis for about 10 years now and have never once heard of a watch that keeps score for you. Apparently this thing was extremely complicated, because I later asked him what time it was, and he finally answered me after about 15 seconds of frantic button-pushing.

Anyway, for those of you who play tennis, you can maybe appreciate this post a little more. The moral of the story is that tennis money is better spent on lessons than fancy watches, racquets, and lead tape (this applies to most of the 25-handicap golfers with too much money I've ever heard of, too). He was a very nice guy and I had a good time, despite sort of making fun of him here. But who wants to read about nice he was? Also, God bless Texas 5-A sports.

The mark of an educated mind...

2006-07-18T11:43:00.000-05:00

...is to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it, or so says Aristotle. I like this idea because I think it is important, not just because educated people make themselves feel smarter by knowing lots of different facts and points of view. I think the process of entertaining lines of thought without accepting them refines and strengthens our beliefs. If you believe something just because you've led a sheltered life and been told by your parents or private school teachers or whomever that you should believe it, even if it is right, it is almost like a person being called "healthy" because they have been quaratined their entire lives: you may not get sick, but you are no good in the world because your immune system has not been exposed and built up.

Anyway, I say all this because I just started reading "Atlas Shrugged", by Ayn Rand. She is brilliant, as is the book, but she obviously subscribes to a world view which is vastly different from mine. I love reading the opinions of brilliant people with whom I disagree, because it forces me to try and reason out why I think they are wrong and I am right. I feel like I am being exposed to germs in the air and building up my immune system.

Also, I have a story for everyone which I neglected to post. Last weekend (like 9-11 days ago) I was in Austin, TX, visiting friends and such, like Kyle and Andrew, Nicki, Steve (my old roommate and NI buddy), and people from the Austin Stone. Saturday night, I was out playing Ultimate Frisbee on the State Capitol lawn around midnight with Nicki and her friends. I had on one of my favorite shirts, my Hard Rock Cafe shirt from Hong Kong that Tara got me, and so I took it off to play so it wouldn't get disgustingly sweaty. Then, when I walked to my car, I remembered I had to take something to Kyle, so I called him and set my shirt on top of my car. After talking intently with him for a bit, we figured out what the plan was, so I drove off. Then, about halfway there, I saw some a guy with a sign begging for money. I had no money on me, and I didn't have my shirt on either, and I thought, "Sorry buddy, I don't even have a shirt." Then I thought, "Huh...where is my shirt?" I realized what happened and drove back downtown to look for it, unsuccessfully. Now some bum in Austin has my Hard Rock Cafe shirt, and he's telling the other bums all about his travels to East Asia. So, if any of you are in Austin and see a bum wearing a Hard Rock Cafe shirt from Hong Kong, please buy it off of him and give it back to me (I'll pay you back). Anyway, it was a fun weekend, and Kyle and Andrew (Meryll plug) are now on their national tour (Kyle had really long sideburns and a mustache when I saw him last).

Bored

2006-07-14T15:28:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting at work, waiting for a simulation to run. I wonder if I'll ever find a job that just thrills me. Does anyone have a job like this? I wonder what people would spend their time doing if it weren't for need to buy things like housing and food. I would just go to school for a long while, then go teach after that. Not really even in a classroom setting, I think -- I'd just find someone who wanted to learn something, and I'd try to teach it to them. If I didn't know it, I could look into it, and we'd go through it together. Maybe I'd just sit around and play the piano all day instead...

I spilled blackberry yogurt on my white shirt. I am really a slob when it comes to food sometimes. Good thing I'm going home to the laundry fairy.

It ain't as easy as it looks to grow flowers in the dirt

2006-07-13T08:13:00.001-05:00

So it turns out there is a song by a band called Fasball on an album I really like called "Sweetwater, TX". The lyrics are a bit abstruse, but the general feel from listening to it is about the same as the way you feel after living here for two months.

Last night, I was out running. My semi-weekly routine is to run to the high school, run a mile on the track there, then run home--about 4 miles in all, I think. Anyway, there were actually some people who sort of knew how to swing a tennis racquet out on the courts at the high school, which is the first I've seen of that in all my runs. There were two younger guys, who looked like they were on the high school team, and two older guys who could have easily been their fathers (turns out they weren't; the tennis community simply spans generational boundaries here in Sweetwater). I went up and talked to them after they finished their match, and our conversation went something as follows.

Me: "Hey guys, what's up? I was just watching and saw that you guys could actually swing a racquet. I was wondering if one of you want to hit sometime."

Old Guy #1 (in relatively strong West-Texas accent): "What part a' New Jersey you from?"

Me: "Excuse me?"

Old Guy: "You don't sound like yer from around here. I'm an English teacher and I pay attention to accents, and ya don't sound like yer from Texas"

Me: "Well, thank you, I guess. I'm actually from Arlington"

Old Guy: "Arlington, huh? Well my name is..." <continued conversation>

I would have like to have added something obnoxious like, "Oh, you mean because I enunciate and generally speak like an educated person?" However, I refrained. I stood and talked to them for a few minutes, and I'm going to go hit with one of the younger guys tomorrow night, so we'll see how that goes.

I also just finished reading Donald Miler's (the author of "Blue Like Jazz") "Searching for God Knows What". It is much better than "Blue Like Jazz", I think. He is a wonderful writer, and the line between his thoughts and systematic theology doesn't get quite blurred in this one (not that he did it on purpose in the first book, but it sort of came off like that from time to time). Much of the book talks about how God is relational and the Gospel isn't about a set of rules that you must follow. The main thing I took away from it was that man is broken and tries to get our fulfillment from an extremely weak version (from people around us) of the worth we have as loved creatures of God. Getting our worth solely from God, through the person of Jesus, is the only fulfillment to the deep longings of the human soul, and so many of our little religious systems are just ways for us to try to get approval from others or feel important or worthy somehow (I am too systematic, and my explanation here still ends up coming off as theology -- go read the book). Anyway, he makes a lot of interesting points. I still think that systematic theology is very important to understand who God is -- it is hard to love a being without knowing that information. Plus, human nature tends to distort who God is when not kept in check. So read the book, but still go read Calvin and Edwards and Piper when you're done. I just get tired of this whole idea of, "man, I don't want to think about deep issues like God's sovereignty and the implications it has on man's free will, I just want to love God." Which God are you loving? Issues like this are integral to understanding the nature of God and therefore the nature of the love, grace, mercy, justice, jealousy, perfection, etc., that he possesses. Ok, sorry, I'm rambling.

The summer of excitement continues

2006-07-12T08:53:00.000-05:00

Last night I was tired from lifting and my sleep schedule was still a bit off from my weekend trip to Austin, so I went to be early (about 10 or so). Ryan (my roommate) comes running in at 11:20 PM (it might as well have been 3 AM -- it sure felt like it -- as I was out cold) and wakes me up. It took me several minutes to get my bearings and sort of figure out what was going on, but he kept saying, "Dude, did you hear that? How did you not hear that? Come here," and things of that nature. When I finally got out of bed and walked out to the living room, there was what seemed to be a late 80s Buick (or something similar...it was dark and I was out of it) sitting ON OUR FRONT LAWN. I could see the faint orange glow of a cigarette burning from about where the driver's head should be (I think his head actually was there, I just couldn't see it -- this story isn't THAT weird). I began freaking out a little bit, since this seemed even more surreal to me than it would have at a normal time given my state. I made sure the door was locked, and I suggested that we call the cops. After discussing this for about 4 seconds, we decided to do so, but right then the lunatic started driving off of our yard. He missed Ryan's car by a few inches. He proceeded to drive to the house next to ours, graze the car that was parked in front of that house, sit for a while, then drive away. The neighbors from the other side walked over, and they had already called the cops (apparently the idiot had already crashed into a trailer sitting in front of their house). After standing in front of my house in only my boxers for a good 5 minutes, just sort of laughing deliriously, I went back to bed. The cops found the guy later, staggering down an alley, completely wasted. They came by our house around midnight (I was long asleep) and asked Ryan how much the mailbox was worth, which apparently he had hit on his way into our property, to which he just laughed (for explanation, look a few posts back to the one about our shower). Here are a couple of pictures of the aftermath.
Also, I'm tired of being treated with no respect by a certain Ukrainian at my place of employment. That is all I'm going to say about that, because it would not be edifying for me or anyone else involved to elaborate.

Furthermore, I have attached this, which I meant to add to yesterday's post but could not do so because Blogger.com was down for maintenance.

I think that the point of the beginning of Genesis is for God to demonstrate to Israel that Yahweh (redeemer God that they knew, saved them from slavery) is the creator and one true God of the universe. With that in mind, it seems like the literal, historical accuracy of the first of Genesis is less of an issue. Giving us a "scientific", empirical account of "the beginning" was definitely not God's point through Moses there. However, it doesn't seem like this is enough of a reason to say that it is figurative, just maybe that it isn't the point. Also, the Bible seems pretty clear that the point of creation is definitely humans. The current scientific movement that man is no more important than amoebas or tigers or trees or whatever seems correct if there is no God, but based on some explicit Biblical reasoning and some slightly more complex lines of thought which I won't post here, it seems like if there is omniscient, sovereign God, God's mercy and love to fallen man is the main story. This doesn't mean we should go on living like we are God over this planet and destroying other life and resources, etc., as the book says, but I think the reasons are other than "humans are no better than the rest of living things". I cannot accept that human consciousness can be fully explained by electrical signals which were produced as an evolutionary process. I haven't thought this through too well, so I'm not sure just yet how I feel about everything. Feel free to post your thoughts.

Ishmael

2006-07-11T14:39:00.000-05:00

I just finished "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn. It is fascinating. I am not a tree-hugger (the book was, among other things, a call to change the way we live and stop destroying the world), but the book was really amazing. I don't agree with everything the guy says by any means, but he is a really smart dude. From a hermeneutical (definition) standpoint with respect to Genesis -- evolution, 7 literal days vs. 7 figurative days arguments -- it provides some interesting questions and thoughts. Has anyone else read this (Brandon, I know you have)? What did everyone think?

Couldn't God have used evolution? Does it really make sense that the beginning of Genesis is 100% literal? When can you, if ever, say the Bible is figurative without compromising the integrity and validity of the whole thing? If God really did create the whole universe in 6 literal days as measured by a normal human clock, why the fossil record and other confusing evidence? Could God have created everything in sort of an "already seeming 100 billion years old" sort of way? Does it even make sense to talk about God creating something in some set amount of time, since it seems like time is just a construct of this existence, and not something God would be bound by or subject to? I could keep going, but I won't...

Anyway, read it if you haven't. It is relatively short, and almost all dialogue.

I'm kind of a big deal

2006-07-07T13:15:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I'm not really a big deal or anything, I know, but it is really weird at work now because I actually am doing real work. People depend on me for things. A fraction, albeit a very small one, of the future of the company is in my hands. Today, Ken, one of the other engineers, said, "Alright, well I'm not going to draw up the design for this [photomultiplier tube] and order the parts until I get the OK from you." That is very strange to me. I guess it is just a big jump from school to the real world, and I'm just now getting a taste of it. With other jobs that I've had (teaching tennis lessons, tutoring, waiting tables), I've been providing a valuable service for people, but the stakes were just a lot lower. For those of you that have had actual corporate jobs, maybe you know what I mean. Anyway, I just thought I'd share that. You may now return to your normal daily activities.

I don't want to work...

2006-07-06T08:25:00.000-05:00

...I just want to bang on the drum all day.

Seriously. I need to find a job at a piano bar or something. That would be more fun. I think I'd have to become more talented first though, which probably isn't happening...

the joys of college life...

2006-06-30T08:35:00.000-05:00

OK, I had to post about this. When else for the rest of your life will you be able to do things like this if not in college?

So, for those of you who are unfamiliar with my situation, I'm living in Sweetwater, TX working for ADIT Photomultipliers, a subsidiary of Ludlum Measurements, Inc. Ludlum Measurements purchased a house right next to the main office in April that they plan to tear down and turn into a parking lot eventually. However, for the summer, they're letting us live in it for free, which is very nice. However, it is what you might call a "fixer-upper". Among many other quirks, the shower is by far the most interesting feature of the house. There are actually two showers, but one is in a sort of closet-turned-bathroom and it does not function. That is, unless you refer to brown water drizzling from the hot and cold knobs (that's right, not even the faucet) when you turn it on as "working" (I think they may have unclogged it, actually, and now perhaps it shoots a single laser-like stream of water at speeds that would put a hole clean through a kodiak bear). Anyway, the functioning shower consists of a bathtub and a faucet with one of those little hoses with a little plastic showerhead thing attached to one end and a rubber tube that slides over the faucet and is supposed to stay on from the water pressure. However, the tube would never stay on, and you had to just hold the little showerhead and spray yourself and set it down when you were washing your hair or whatever. The whole thing felt like a setup where they might bathe baby seals at a traveling circus or something. It was quite strange.

Last night, Ryan and I decided to take action. Ryan bought some SWEET camoflage duct tape at Wal-Mart, and we went to work. We wrapped the duct tape around the faucet-hose junction about 49 times, then we taped the showerhead to the wall, giving it a slight angle by lodging it against an old toilet paper roll. Other than the water that sprays furiously (in small quantities, high pressure) from the leaks in the faucet-hose connection, it works pretty well. We have some ideas involving epoxy to fix that, though.

Anyway, it was a fun experience. I got to take the inaugural shower, a great honor.

Poor Brits

2006-06-28T11:35:00.000-05:00

Henman draws Federer in the second round of Wimbledon (after a shaky 5-setter against Solderling)? At least their dreams will be crushed early on in the tournament this year, as opposed to those years where Henman gets a draw where his hardest match is Paradorn Srichaphan until the quarters (he still manages to build up suspense by drawing out what should be easy matches to 4 or 5 sets). Then he plays Federer or Agassi or someone along those lines and gets destroyed.

the world-renowned Sweetwater Municipal Band

2006-06-27T09:50:00.000-05:00

My employer, a Mr. Larry Ludlum, has been talking to me for some time about coming out with my piano to practice with the Sweetwater Municipal Band, so last night, I finally went. They already had one pianist, but I brought my stuff just to come sit in and play a little bit if I could. It was fun. We played some boogie and blues stuff, which is a lot of fun. We also played some marches and stuff, during which I was decidedly outdone by the old lady with the keyboard with little colored buttons and cheesy drum loops. It is always good to play with some musicians that play outside the style set that you are used to. I was reminded of my ever-growing sightreading deficiencies and how good old people are at their instruments. Even though they make some questionable fashion decisions, they have been playing these things for 20 to 40 years, which makes my 14-ish years of piano seem sort of silly. Fortunately, after the 4th of July concert next week, they're back to jazz and blues again.

Anyway, so, it's true what they say: while slow and dangerous behind the wheel, senior citizens can still serve a purpose...

The Quantum Eraser

2006-06-26T12:08:00.000-05:00

I apologize in advance to most of you reading this. This won't happen often, I assure you.

Ok, my current tally is 1 perky post, 2 melacholy posts, and 3 sports posts (one of which doubled as a "soap-box post"), which means it is time for a nerdy post. However, to my less mathematically inclined readers, please do not be discouraged, as I will try not to get technical here, and the experiment I'm going to describe is truly mind-blowing.

One of the most fundamental, underlying principles governing quantum mechanics is that all objects exhibit both wave and particle features. For objects of everyday size, the wave features are negligible for reasons I will not delve into here. However, for an object like a photon (the fundamental "packet" of light), wave and particle features are on almost equal footing. One of the experiments that helped to show this was an experiment in which beams of light (or photons) were shot through two slits. If you fire the photons through just one slit (either one), they produce some light on a screen on the other side, as expected. However, when you fire them through both at the same time, instead of adding up their intensities, which seems intuitive once you know that light is made up of little tiny particles called photons, they behave like waves and generate an "interference pattern", which can be thought of like crossing water waves adding their intensities and cancelling each other out in some spots. On the screen is a pattern of alternating light and dark bands.

Even if you slow down the photons and fire, say, one every ten seconds, they generate the same interference pattern, which is amazing since none of the individual photons can interact with any of the others -- they just know, somehow, where the crests and troughs are for the interacting wave pattern. Wave nature can also be thought of as the particle being sort of a lot of places at once (not that we just don't know where it is, but experimental evidence has shown over and over that an electron or a photon or any particle is described not as being here or here, but sort of spread out in and being sort of here and sort of here and sort of there, etc.).

That is, until you look at it. When you measure a particle, somehow, by some mechanism not understood by modern physics, the particle suddenly collapses to a specific position. The interaction of the measurement somehow forces the particle to lose its wave-like nature. By repeating the same experiment described above, only putting sensors on the slits to see which one the photon passes through forces the light to behave like a particle. The interference pattern disappears as soon as you do this. However, as soon as you turn off the sensors, the interference pattern magically appears again.

However, the amazing part is that if you muddle the sensor information down the line in the experiment such that it is no longer useful, the interference pattern mysteriously reappears. If the sensors are down-convertors, which take one photon in and launch two photons out (one in the original direction and one in a separate beam to tell you "the photon went through this sensor"), this experiment is easy to describe. The "which-path" information is given by the down-convertor's beam. However, if, the two output beams from the down-convertors are fed into a mixer which jumbles them up down the line such that no one could get the "which-path" information, the interference pattern reappears on the screen. This is incredible, since the interference pattern shouldn't seem to care whether or not you look at the "which-path" information, and since the jumbling could occur far, far away, which would make the mixing of the beams happen after the photons actually hit the screen.

This experiment challenges fundamental assumptions that we have about physics and how the world works. We assume that the universe is causal (events happening now can only be affected by past events), but this experiment seems to suggest that, at best, our model of causality is far too simple. With this experiment, and several other, more famous ones, our assumption that the universe is local (stuff happening here can't affect stuff happening over there until "information" such as light or gravity waves has had time to travel the separation) is severely shaken. Also, it is almost as if quantum mechanics shows that things don't really exist until you interact with them. Does the moon exist when no one is looking at it? Some of the more liberal quantum philosophers would say no.

Quantum mechanics has a lot of other crazy stuff, but I think I'll limit myself to just one today. I got the description for this experiment from "The Fabric of the Cosmos", by Brian Greene, and if, by some miracle, this post interested you, you should definitely read it. Anyway, if our universe truly is held together by something as nutty as quantum mechanics, I'm just glad I believe in God...

I still love Bill Simmons

2006-06-22T13:01:00.000-05:00

Another good article (mostly the second half, after the whole Shaq-Wade bit at the first, although that part is funny too if you're a fairly serious NBA fan). Hilarious. But the rantings from my previous post still hold.

And this, too, shall pass away...

2006-06-21T09:39:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I'm still a little upset at the Mavericks' loss, and perhaps I still will remember for years to come the phantom foul from game 5 and the game-6 elbow that D-Wade threw at Dirk's chest that somehow got whistled against Dirk. Perhaps I still believe that the Mavericks would have won the NBA championship had the officiating not been so one-sided at critical times (I understand bad calls go both ways, and that was somewhat true throughout the majority of the middle of games, although Wade still shot an obscene number of free throws). However, I'm struggling to see how this should really be affecting my life. What does it say about the priorities of someone who is so affected by a game played by a bunch of grown men whom he has never met that he would let his thought life be affected for more than a day at the outcome? I'm not sure why people care so much about professional sports. Maybe it stems from some subconscious, "my daddy can beat up your daddy" syndrome, but at least there the vicarious pride involves a close relative.

I watched the game in a bar a Chili's sitting around four other people whose collective IQs probably just eclipsed triple digits. They kept screaming things like "YEAH! F--- SHAQ!" and then laughing drunkenly. When they'd shout things like, "You *bleep*-ing idiots! Why don't you just foul Shaq?!" I would calmly explain that 1) Shaq is on the bench and 2) if you intentionally foul away from the ball within 2 minutes of the end of the half/game, then the fouled team gets two shots and the ball, but then they'd resort to more drunken laughing and comments like the first one I mentioned or, "Well foul him anyway." I've also spent some time this morning reading comments on Mark Cuban's blog, half of which were written by people who could barely string together a coherent sentence but tried to write in such a way as to sound like they were profoundly revealing the single truth of the mysteries of basketball. I think all these events have really put things in perspective.

Life's more than girls. Life is more than money, or careers, or cars. Life is definitely more than basketball. Go learn a foreign language. Read a book (a meaningful one, not "The Devil Wears Prada" -- not that I haven't heard good things about it). Study science or mathematics or philosophy. Consider the meaning of life. Go feed a homeless person. Help someone who is sick or suffering. Do something unselfish. Consider God and your own mortality. America scares me sometimes. Oh well, there's always next season.

I love Bill Simmons

2006-06-20T15:59:00.000-05:00

If you don't read Page 2 on ESPN.com, you're missing out. Bill Simmons is the funniest and best sports writer I've ever read (and I'm not just saying that because the of this article). Here is a sample of some things that people emailed him after game 5 (my favorite coming from Warren of Ludington, Michigan).

I do solemnly swear, this 19th day of June, 2006 that I will never watch an NBA game again. Everyone is supposed to say what a great game that was with a straight face? At least the WWE has the grace to give you a wink. If watching a man in a flak jacket and thigh pads repeatedly throw himself into defenders to draw foul calls is what passes for "competition," or better yet watching said man hit layups because no one can breathe on him, I believe I can live without [it]. Why would anyone follow a "sport" that employs Dick Bavetta and Stu Jackson? All that was missing was David Stern running onto the court with a steel chair, ABC execs in tow. Bill Simmons, I name thee prophet. It went down exactly as you said it would.
-- James, Richmond, Virginia

Have you ever, I mean EVER, seen a guy get more calls than Wade in Game 5? As staggering as it is to even think it, much less say it out loud, this surpasses the level of calls Jordan used to get in the playoffs. Simply AMAZING. I am a die-hard NBA fan, and I understand and accept the whole "stars get calls" factor, but this is an insane new level. Every time Wade falls down (even if not touched) he gets a call. You called it in your preview, the refs were gonna give some games to Miami, and they did.
-- Jonathan, Raleigh, N.C.

Please admit to everyone that the treatment Dwyane Wade is receiving is absolutely absurd. The final play in Game 5 summed it up: He commits a backcourt violation, pushes off on Terry, then goes wildly to the bucket and gets bailed out on a phantom foul call. Is what the NBA has to do to create its star of the future?
-- Mark, Chicago

I want to say something about Dwayne Wade, but I fear I may get called for a foul.
-- Warren, Ludington, Mich.

After witnessing the Game 5 debacle, I am absolutely convinced that Stern is trying to fix the Finals for D-Wade and the Heat. Stackhouse's suspension, Dirk's phantom foul in OT, and then Joey Crawford's inexplicable call for a Mavs timeout -- it all adds up too perfectly. This could be a conspiracy as far-reaching as Watergate. I can already imagine the inevitable ESPN movie, "All The Commissioner's Men," where a stubborn, upstart young sports columnist brings down Stern and the entire NBA hierarchy. So, Simmons, the only question is: Will you be our Bob Woodward?
-- Robert P., Topeka, Kan.

failure

2006-06-20T10:18:00.000-05:00

I just broke something at work, something that is sort of bad to break. The details aren't really that important. Basically, I was doing something new, and I accidentally bumped something that I wasn't aware was extremely fragile (or I would have been more careful). Anyway, it was my fault, but it isn't like I did something too horribly stupid. I just hate failing. Oh well. It's not like they will fire me or anything...

depressed

2006-06-19T11:19:00.000-05:00

Not only did the Mavericks blow it again, but I drove from Lubbock to Sweetwater after the game (I left around midnight), and I was at work this morning. What a horrible 12 hours.

alright, Rachel, I caved

2006-06-16T21:45:00.000-05:00

I finally caved and created a blog. So, to my extensive fanbase, I hope you enjoy. I'm not promising that I will post regularly. I'm shooting for about the posting frequency of Jill or my sister (I don't pretend to aspire to Rachel's almost daily posting, although I might if I were as bored at my job as she is at hers...).

Anyway, I've been in California for the past two weeks. I visited Stanford (which was really really nice) and Berkeley (which was really really weird). The hardest thing will be getting a high enough Physics GRE score to get into any bigtime school, seeing as I don't have a few of the classes that I need to take for it. However, Calvin got a perfect score, which is good, because had he done average or above average with a degree in physics, I would not have been confident about my chances. Plus, with a Ph.D. from Stanford, I would be expected to win a Nobel Prize or something, and I'm just not sure I'm that excited about doing research. Anyway, don't tell any of the various admissions committees that. I've also been out on a houseboat for a week and at a cabin in the moutains for a few days ("it's nice to go to the cabin..."). I learned to waterski, also, which is quite a lot of fun. Right now I'm sitting in Kim's old roommate's (Stina) house watching the end of the Rangers' game and listening to Stina snore on the ground. It's hot in Arizona -- today was a very mild day because it only got up to 104 or so...so don't move here.

Alright, that's all for now. Probably no one will read this for a while, since no one knows it exists yet. Further bulletins as events warrant.