Category Archives: Randomness

Personal Leadership, Randomness, Thanksgiving

5 Things for Thanksgiving Break

I am very much looking forward to the next 5 days celebrating and being with family and friends over the Thanksgiving break. I am excited to hang with my sister for a few days and I’m preparing to cook the world’s greatest turkey dinner for Thursday. This will be an EPIC week!

I am also excited about getting to catch up on some things that I haven’t had time for over the past few weeks. In fact I have Five Things I Want to Do Over Thanksgiving Break.

  1. Listen to the new Switchfoot Album- Switchfoot put out a brand-new album back at the end of September. September!!! It has been sitting in my iTunes since then and I haven’t listened to one track yet because I wanted to sit and listen to it all the way through. This week, I will have some time to strap on the headphones and finally listen to Vice Verses.
  2. Make a big dent in Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson- I also have yet to dive deep into the biography to end all biographies. I have read reviews, reflections, and opinions on it but I have only read a couple of chapters. This week I want to really burn through a good part of the book.
  3. Organize my Office- Actually I want to organize my office at work and clean my office at home. Loose notes,stacks of paper, and old magazines- you’re on notice.
  4. Catch up on some podcasts- I have a handful of podcasts that I haven’t gotten around to listening to. Sometimes I hate listening to them in the car because I don’t want to drive and take notes in my Moleskin. Call me crazy, but if I’m taking notes on living and leading more effectively than wrapping my car around a tree seems counter productive.
  5. Rest- Vacation is all about spending time with the ones you love and just being present. I want to spend some time just being over the next few days.

Enjoy your break and enjoy your Thanksgiving everyone!

 

Insomnia, LOST, Popular Culture, Randomness

Jeremy Bentham: Present but Not Voting

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I am still reeling from last night’s season finale of LOST. I won’t ruin the BIG HUGE REVEAL of who was in the coffin here but needless to say, I was shocked. All season long I had predicted that it was Michael’s body but, man-o-man, was I wrong!!! (Credit where credit is due, my wife guess correctly)

Now here is something I found absolutely fascinating about tonight’s episode. The name given to the body in the coffin was Jeremy Bentham. The real Bentham was a English philosopher from the late 1700s and early 1800s. He is most known for his advocacy of Utilitarianism, the idea that goodness is derived from an action’s outcome. True goodness is measured by the impact it has on a situation as a whole. What is done for the greater good and the greatest number of people is deemed truly great. Looks like we have a season of story in there somewhere.

benthamo.jpgThe thing that most struck me about the real Bentham and how he might relate to LOST as we go forward was his corpse. To the best of my understanding, Bentham had his body preserved and stored in a cabinet. One article said that this was due to financial reasons. More likely is that he allowed his student, Dr. Southwood Smith, to preform an autopsy on his body. Autopsies were highly controversial but Bentham and Smith believed that by dissecting a dead body many great things might be learned for the betterment of society. Again, the greater good would be served.

In 1850 University College London acquired the body and presented it on display in their main building. Apparently, the head fell off one day and so the powers that be sculpted a replacement head out of wax but kept the real head in the cabinet. The head, after years of being stolen and being just plain creepy, was removed and is in “safe keeping.” The college allegedly brings Bentham’s cabinet to important Council meetings where he is marked “present but not voting.” According to the Wikipedia article, if there is ever a need for a tie breaking vote Bentham votes in favor of the motion.

So what does this mean for our friend in the coffin? Well, Ben said everyone has to go back so… looks like “Bentham” will be tagging along. Add a little creep factor to this if he sits in on the return trip planning meetings too.

It is hard to believe that I have to wait until 2009 to find out that I’m probably wrong about this. Leave your thoughts and theories in the comments section friends. Have a good weekend everyone.

bentham.JPG

Experience, Music, Randomness, Stories

Great Day, Terrible Soundtrack

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I was able spend the day at the Texas Rangers home opener. They lost 8 to 1 but who cares? I don’t. In fact, I had an awesome day!!! We arrived at the Ballpark around 9am to begin tailgating with a group of area ministers. We set up the tent and started grilling. I had a blast.

As we were setting up, the group next to us was blasting some rock tunes including Where the Streets Have No Name, my personal fav!!!!

About an hour before we headed into the game a truck full of twenty-somethings pulled in near us. They got out and set up their tailgate paraphernalia, opened the truck door, and turned up their stereo. The smooth and mellow sounds of some dude’s Break-Up Mix-Tape started bringing the party atmosphere to a grinding halt.

I am all about using the right music to craft moments and experiences. These particular choices were suitable for a) sunset beach cookouts on Laguna with LC, b) late night cryfests over unrequited love, and c) the last songs played at a Junior High dance.

Don’t believe me? Check out their playlist:

Hallelujah by Rufus Wainwright
Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton
Kiss from a Rose by Seal
Open Arms by Journey
Ordinary People by John Legend
Easy Like Sunday Morning by Lionel Richie

These are all good songs (some great songs) but I’m not sure absolutely, stinkin’ positive that they are not “party before the game” songs.

Hope you had as great a day as I did. If you had a crappy day, I’ve just provided you with a healing mix of smooth pop music. Let Lionel take you away!!!

Popular Culture, Randomness

Caption of the Day

I got the greatest kick out of this picture partnered with this caption from The Drudge Report this morning. Classic.

batman.tiff

I also hear that the CIA is recruiting a ton of children from The Xavier Academy for covert ops and that a young man named Barry Allen is helping police in Silver City.

I just wish that Metropolis had a city plan in place to protect its citizens.

Randomness, Youth Ministry

Today

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Yesterday someone asked me what I do during the day.

It is the question every youth minister gets asked at least once a quarter.

I told this person that my schedule varies from week to week but sometimes I study, I prep for classes, sometimes I work on the schedule or budget, I call retreat centers, I meet with other ministers, I visit schools, I watch band competitions, I visit students after surgery, I make teaching plans, I walk bookstores to glean ideas… I guess I do a little bit of everything each week.

Case in point: Today I built chairs.

I built 30 chairs for the youth room at church. On Monday a student and I drove to IKEA and purchased the chairs. It took us so long to drive to Frisco and back that we were unable to assemble the chairs then. We left them in the youth room over night and this morning I went to work at putting them all together. It took me the better part of the afternoon to finish them all but I got it done. Check out my photo essay of my day.

BTW, if anyone needs a hex key give me a call. I have 30 of them.

Let's Get Crackin'

Opening the Box

Halfway

Homestrtch

Almost Finished

30 Fresh Chairs

Hexapalooza

Bible study, curriculum building, relationship growing, and now chair building. Ministry is the wildest job on the planet. I live for this stuff!

Randomness

Thirsty

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Last night I sort of awoke at about 2:15am from a very deep sleep. Apparently I was sleeping so hard and so deeply that I had become dehydrated because I stumbled into the kitchen and downed an entire bottle of VitaminWater. After about the third gulp I was fully awake and amazed at my new found ability to guzzle.

It has been a long since I had felt that thirsty.

When I got back into bed, my wife sprung to her feet and announced that she needed some water too. Apparently dehydration is contagious.

Music, Randomness, The King

The King Is 30 Years Gone

Pssst. Wanna know a secret?

I’m a big Elivs fan.

As a kid I wore out my Live in Hawaii cassette tape and I had a handful of my mother’s 45s that I played so much on my Fisher Price turntable that a permanent groove appeared on their surfaces. My dad is from Memphis so growing up we did the whole Graceland tour and we always watched the Elvis marathons on tv. I’m not a fan of most of his movies but I am a sucker for Viva Las Vegas.

Getting this off my chest feels good.

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley. Of all the great memories I have of listening to Elvis or curling my lip or mimicking his voice and singing along with the oldies station as kid there is one memory that has left the biggest impression on me.

In college, we were living only 2hrs from Memphis. On a particularly boring Saturday morning I turned to my wife and said, “Wanna go to Graceland?” To my surprise she was more than willing to make the trek. We jumped in the car and headed across the Mississippi River toward our destination.

If you’ve never been to Graceland the ticket counters and the giftshops are across the boulevard from the house. You wait in line after choosing which tour package you want and then you take a shuttle across the street. When the tour is over you hop back onto a shuttle and ride to the giftshops.

After walking through the house (which looks like your house just with green shag carpet and and people buried in the backyard by the pool) we rode the shuttle to the giftshops to purchase a reminder of our impulsive trip to Memphis. While Sandy looked at the magnets and other knickknacks I headed to the CDs.

We went the weekend before the Elvis #1 compilation was released to the public and they were selling it there at the giftshop. I was waiting in line waiting to pay and admiring the 8 or 9 big screen tvs playing the Hawaii concert in all its glory when something caught my eye.

There was a young woman sitting on the floor in front of the tvs. At first I thought nothing of it. However, as I watched closely I noticed the she was crying. Again, if you’ve been to Graceland you’ve seen people crying. Then I realized exactly what she was doing.

She was praying to Elvis. She was on her knees rocking back and forth in the middle of the giftshop with a prayer candle (unlit), tear stained cheeks, and open palms facing the screens where a dead pop star was singing “Love Me Tender.” You can’t make that up. I would post a picutre of the event as proof that it actually happened but my wife gave me “the look” when I went to snap a photo. I knew that it would be a no-go. you’ll just have to take my word for it.

That is the image I have now when I see news coverage of vigils outside of Graceland marking Elvis’ birth and death.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget that young woman. It truly was a bizarre sight. As a minister I’ve given the old “Who or what are some false gods that people serve today?” lesson. The pat answers are always money, popularity, and relationships but no one has ever said Elvis.

So the next time your sitting in one of those “Who or what are some false gods that people serve today?” lessons I am begging you to offer up the dead king of rock ‘n roll. Begging you.

Now, I’m going to listen to Suspicious Minds and crank up the volume to 11 because I’m the only one in the office.

Have a great day.