Home Ownership

The cost of owning a home has sunk in with me. With repairs and improvements, it takes a lot of time and money. The most recent thing is a water spot on the kitchen ceiling. The shape of it is quite funny, and I don't feel at liberty to display it yet. I guess that is a redeeming thing about a water spot - it makes me laugh most times that I see it. The other thing is that our lawn is huge and is being overtaken by weeds (and large Cicada killer wasps!). So I am trying to learn as much as I can about lawn care (fertilizers, seed, weed killer, etc). I find these things to be quite annoying. But I will treat them as learning opportunities, and I think that owning a home should come out ahead financially over renting, over the long run. And the fact that I am learning hopefully makes it worth the time.

Cicada Killers

Has anyone ever heard of cicada killers? They are big wasps that live East of the Rockies, including in our front lawn.

We have several holes that they have burrowed. They prefer lawns that are not full. That is sad but true about our lawn.

They sting and paralyze cicadas and bring them to their young underground. I actually saw one carry a cicada underground.

They live about 2 months. The best way to get rid of them apparently is to hit them with a tennis racket. They are not harmful to humans.

Prayer and Work

On Friday I was asked to do a large project, and to try to have it ready by Monday. It involves loading about 315 files. Previously, this would have taken days of personal attention to each file, but I've been reading, and due to some new technology, I felt that it might be possible to kick it off, and that the technology would just load every file in the folder. At the end of the day I saw that my idea had failed. The computer had run out of memory in the "buffer" whatever that meant.

I came home, and tried it again. At dinner we prayed that God would help it to work. We came back and it had failed - the exact same error. I was miffed, because I wanted to give attention to Courtney instead of to work, but she said I could go ahead and try to figure it out. I tried a few things, and researched some things, and I eventually stumbled across a setting for the "buffer", and I placed it on a bigger drive, and increased the "maximum rows". At the end, I'm not sure what exactly made it work. After 12 hours, it is still running. (That's a good thing. Even though it's slow, at least I didn't have to pay attention to it)

So I want to give glory to God for helping it to run successfully. It's more complicated than that, because I had to do all that reading, which helped me to know about the shortcut, but I don't really want to dissect the theology of it right now. And if I dissected it, I wouldn't know if I was right - it might be speculation. I mostly see Him in the area where I stumbled across various options, and I feel that somehow in His divine power, He led my eyes and hands to those options.

Movie Review: Poseidon

This was a recent remake of the 1972 movie The Poseidon Adventure.

0. Basic Plot
1. Character changes since 1972
2. Special Effects
3. Inconsistencies
4. Fergie
5. How much I liked it

0. A cruise ship on New Years Eve gets hit by a rogue wave and capsizes. As most of the initially surviving passengers are in denial, they stay in "the top" of the boat. However, a handful of characters try to travel to the bottom of the boat (now the top) to safety
1. The characters are almost completely different than 1972. But I'm not sure if my readers really want to know the details. I was ok with the changes. Richard Dreyfuss plays a homosexual, and that explains the gentleness of the character, but it really doesn't play a part.
2. Special effects were great. Would there really be so much fire underwater? I guess so. There is fire in the entire movie. The deaths of the passengers are more graphic and "creative".
3. A main character had his legs stuck under some big metal structures, and it took 3 people to get him out. And then he walks, runs, and swims normally in the rest of the movie.
4. Fergie is in the movie as the cruise ship singer, and I thought it was going to give the movie a "trying to prove we're cool" feel. But personalities eventually did not have that feel to them, and it was ok.
5. It was heart pounding. I recommend it.

Movie Review: Twins

This 1988 movie had the makings of a great comedy:

1. Good 2 main actors
2. Good storyline

Swarzenegger and DeVito are both great actors, and they cracked me up. The plot was great. They were two twins separated at birth, and they couldn't be any more different. Julius has spent all of his time on a desert island and is clueless about modern society. It's funny how he learns new terms. DeVito steals a car that was meant to be delivered illegally for $5 million, because of what was in the trunk. They go and look for their mother, and also deliver the car.

It gets bogged down in the cheap romance and fake emotions in the middle of the movie. And then it has a lazy ending where the acting turns bad. It doesn't come close to my favorite comedy - Dumb and Dumber.

Book Review: The Modern Gladiator (Audio), by Hyrum Smith

I picked this up to listen to on the trip to Lincoln. The premise sounded very cool - and promised to tell me how to manage my work like a gladiator! It compared the modern office worker to a Roman gladiator. The author describes the violence that the Roman gladiator encountered - swords, arrows, wild animals, and then compares it to emails, people dropping by, and phone calls. It was quite a joke. And then it ends with talking about products that he is selling.

I like this review from someone on the Amazon page:
Here's the short version: 1. Life used to be much more simple. 2. Soldiers used to use long swords and shields until the romans introduced the short sword and shield. 3. Use whatever tools make you effective in business and check out my website to buy them. the end.

Maybe I'll have a Worst of 2008 Award, and this will get it.

Movie Review: Eragon

We watched this in an outdoor movie at a friends' house. The previews looked horrible. so we would have never seen it if someone else hadn't chosen it. Turns out it is based off of some popular books.

Synopsis: A boy gets chosen by a dragon to be a dragon rider while the (medieval?) world suffers from an oppressive king and evil sorcerer.

It turns out that it's not bad. And Courtney saw some true parallels between the dragon and Christ.

When the credits rolled, an out-of-character song played - Keep Holding On by Avril Lavigne. Imagine hearing a rock song at the end of Lord of the Rings - it was that ridiculous.

Restaurant Review: Kyoto

The Japanese steakhouse is a unique type of restaurant. I hadn't been to one in at least a decade. The chefs cook the food right in front of you. I ordered some sushi, and enjoyed it. It had cooked shrimp in it. Then Courtney and I shared a chicken teriyaki meal.

We were with our friends Devin and Lynn and Nell and Erik. And this was Nell's choice.

The food was great. And the portion was large for the price.

The cook/chef had some nice tricks and it was a good time. But he went over the line with some sexual innuendos. I don't really even want to get into the details of it.

It's a good place to go for a special event. Try to take a kid with you, and your special rice formation may be a Mickey Mouse out of rice instead of a naked woman and the cook saying "Titty!"

Poem about my car on its 150,000 milestone

I came up with this poem this morning

150,000 miles in my car
We haven't driven very far
Manhattan (KS) and Lincoln
-the furthest places we have been

My right leg it takes a toll
Because there is no cruise control
"Give me a break" says my back
Soft and comfort it does lack

Six years of driving it, I sure am tired
Most people would yell out "You're fired!"
But since I am conservative
we'll see how long that it will live!

Book Review: GI Joe and Lillie, by Joseph S. Bonsall

This was the Aunt Janice Christmas gift to me. I read it in its entirety on the day back from Burlington.

The author is a member of the singing group called the Oak Ridge Boys. I'm not sure who they are but judging by the guy in the fantastic white beard I'm pretty sure it's not my favorite music style. The author is the one on the left.

The Oak Ridge Boys

The forward is by Barbara Bush. George Sr and she are friends with the author.

The author displays much knowledge about WWII throughout the book. He focuses on one couple. The man (referred to as GI Joe) got through D-Day when he was 19, but was badly injured in D-Day minus 50. The man had recurring nightmares from his experiences for the rest of his life. The woman served in Women's Army Corps (WAC). They met in a hospital, and tried to make it through life together. Shrapnel continued to come out of the man's body, until he was tired of going to the doctor, and one piece eventually caused a stroke. The man was paralyzed in half of his body and could hardly speak the rest of his life. It is a story about sacrifice. I kept wondering why especially the author focused on this couple, since this type of story may have been common.


At the end, the author reveals that the story is about his parents. It should have been quite obvious, with the author's name on the book cover being the name of GI Joe's son. but I was quite thick headed. It is unusual for someone to write in 3rd person about himself, so that is what threw me off. It makes sense now how the author knew so much about this couple.

I thought this was a quaint book. But I would have been more inspired by a collection of stories about people who sacrificed, rather than a detailed story about this couple. But I appreciated the book.

Book Review: It's Called Work for a Reason!: Your Success is Your Own Damn Fault, by Larry Winget

I first saw this at Barnes and Noble, but ended up checking out at JoCo Library.

It is an entertaining and in-your-face book about work and customer service.

Here's a few nuggets that made me think:

• Superstars will always leave you. And they make their own rules
• 20/60/20 rule - the top 20% will move on. The bottom 20% performers should get let go. After those people go, the remaining 60% can go up or down into the other 20% percentiles.
• fire people who don't perform
• they pay you for results - if you're great at sales, you shouldn't be bogged down by all the required paperwork
• Let people perform in their individuality. Instead of focusing on "team" focus on how that person can get things done in their individuality.
  
• Beware of self-professed team players. They mostly just want to hide behind a team because their work sucks
• Casual days are the worst idea ever - days where people can look like a slob and work like one too.
  
• Take the crap off the cubicle walls - make the office look like a place where people work
  

This book messed me up for a week, because I tried to work harder than usual, by working through lunch or trying to be perfect. But it upset the equilibrium that I had perfected. I realized that my instincts have served me well. I already have a good work ethic.

Overall this book was entertaining and insightful, and I recommend it. It's not overly academic or without personality like most personal development books. I like this guy.

Burlington IA & Justin's wedding

We trekked to Burlingon IA last weekend. It is a 6 hour drive. Burlington is in SE Iowa next to the Mississippi. It was affected by flooding - the couple had to change the location of their reception.

Anyway, I really like the Iowa countryside, more so than Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, or South Dakota - all places we've been to the past month. The highways were pretty much deserted, and it made me wonder if the Iowans get out much. We stopped by the same town (Albia) for lunch both ways - Subway for Courtney and Hardee's for me - the only two restaurants available. We went straight to the church and got to see the groom and talk to him a little while before he had to rush and take another picture.

Here are some pictures. The church had plastic deer in the very center of their small lobby. We said that it was blog-worthy, so here it is.



The reception had a dance, and we naturally did not participate. I only saw three people I knew the whole weekend - and that is the groom (who I met at our wedding), Courtney, and me. Which made me question the sanity of making such a trip. But I enjoyed it overall. We sat by ourselves at the reception table. The main perk is that we got 8 nice cookies, not that I can eat them. I got to drink out of 5 water glasses, and had the salt shaker to myself.



On Sunday we worshiped by enjoying the nature at Crapo Park. Despite the name of it, it is very nice. There is a trail that leads to a little waterfall and a cave, and we saw some kittens. We also walked along the riverfront.

Book Review: The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

I am happy that I thought about reading this book. It was better than I expected.

Tolkien wrote it for his sons, and the style seems to be for children. But it really is well written. It was a memorable book. Bilbo, Gandalf, and 12 dwarves go on an adventure to kill a dragon and take back the gold and plunder.

It's also kind of a prequel to the Lord of the Rings. Characters that appear in both the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are Gandalf, Bilbo, Gollum, and Elrond. It gives the history behind how Gollum lost the ring and how Bilbo found it. But the ring is not connected to evil yet, it is just a magic ring that makes Bilbo disappear.

Coming up

Happy B Day again Michele! Is it really 30?

I have finished 3 books in the last 3 days. Actually I read one small book completely today as we were traveling. So I will be writing those soon. They include The Hobbit and It's called Work for A Reason! - your success is your own damn fault.

Also, I'll need to journal on our recent trip to Burlington IA. I have a lot to say about it, but due to busy-ness of life, I may have to write a short snippet about it.

Best of July 2008

Best Movie That I Saw for the First Time: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Best New-To-Me Restaurant: The restaurant at Mount Rushmore despite price gouging? It beats out the cheap and good Chinese food place in Alliance, NE for no particular reason. I filled up on free burger toppings Best Life Happening: Nebraska & South Dakota trip despite my cold Best Book I Read: The only book I completed in July was The Divine Conspiracy Best online video I watched for the First time: Crow and Kitten are Friends

Picture(s) of the Month by Courtney. Both from the 4th of July. One of them I thought was a very nice portrait of Hope and Jeff.

1600 year old version of Bible goes online

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25785089/


I agree with this quote from the article:

"I think it's just fantastic that thanks to technology we can now make the oldest cultural artifacts — ones that were once so precious you couldn't show them to anyone — accessible to everyone, in really high quality," said Schneider.

Movie Review: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

I came into this movie expecting good things, because the Paul Newman - Robert Redford combo worked so well in The Sting. It was The Sting, I believe, that inspired us to watch all of the Best Picture winners. See my review for The Sting here from January 2007.

I wish this one had won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1969, because it would rank pretty high on my ranking of winners.

This movie was pretty impressive at first viewing. It's really artsy. There is a long sequence in the middle that I grew impatient with, and that is one of my questions with it. There is also an acappella song that I didn't like towards the end of the movie. But overall it makes a great movie.


The music was composed by Burt Bacharach. And they took a big risk by composing a song named "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" for a certain scene. It's a risk because it really has nothing to do with the movie, and it is a totally different music style than the rest of the movie. But it works. And I don't think I'll post the clip because it probably would take away from the experience to see this clip before seeing the movie, but you can search on YouTube if you want.


I think this movie is great because of the acting, because of the creativity that saturates it.

Sabetha, KS

We took a day trip to Sabetha, KS yesterday to go to a wedding. Sabetha is 1 hour north of Topeka. So we basically drove a big square. West to Topeka, North to Sabetha, then East to St Joseph, and South to home. I like a little variety.

It was in a large church in Sabetha that you could basically fit the entire population of the city into. People come from neighboring towns to go to the church. At the reception we were at the rowdy table of YouthFront workers, and we downed 4 bottles of sparkling grape juice.

We walked into the church 5 minutes before the wedding started. That is already an unsettling feeling when you're in town. But when you're travelling, it prolongs the oh no we're going to be late feeling.

Then I also had my first almost ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere experience after the wedding. I had this plan in my head to drive to Missouri, because of the famed lower gas prices, but it so happened that we had 25 miles to go to St. Joseph, and the tank was pretty much empty. We made a U-turn and stopped in Highland, KS (home of the oldest college in Kansas - Highland Community College chartered in 1858). So basically I got lucky that there was a town right there when we needed one. (I say "I" because it was completely my fault). So I'm happy to get out of that, and I will take the gas situation a little more seriously next time.

We watched a movie after that - Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - from 1969. Great movie. Review coming up.

Then today (Sunday), I led worship for youth from the piano, and played bass in the worship service. Then we came back at 4 PM to discuss the topic of worship in "roundtable discussions", which are really on rectangular tables. I led a group of about 5 other adults in the church. It was a low key group, and we got through the questions quickly. Courtney led a group that had 10 people, with a number of jokers and laughers in the group, and they were by far the rowdiest table, and I turned to look at them several times, especially when I heard Courtney laugh across the gym.

Book Review: The Divine Conspiracy, by Dallas Willard

I finished the book The Divine Conspiracy. It was a marathon read - 400 pages of deep thoughts. Willard occasionally makes a funny remark, or has a burst of good humored sarcasm. But those are even in context of very serious points. It was like listening to a boring professor break down the fine points of the Christian life. Some people would love that - and many people have enjoyed this book.

The nice thing I got out of it was that the Beatitudes are not additional laws. Jesus did not come to make us more legalistic. His Beatitudes seek to explain what type of person lives a godly life. It's the person who gives away his cloak, or turns the other cheek. The examples listed are not meant to be a comprehensive list of rules that Jesus wanted to communciate while he was on earth. It's important to get to the heart of what he was saying - the heart of the person.

Imagination

I appreciated Mike's post on Imagination

http://king.typepad.com/mike_king/2008/07/imagination.html