StumpTown

Facebook

2009-08-10T10:07:00.000-07:00

I'm not abandoning this blog altogether, but I am officially placing it on ice for a while. If you would like to stay in touch, and I hope that you will, come find me on facebook, which I'm going to try for a while.

Thanks.

Back from Pepperdine

2009-05-11T13:50:00.001-07:00

Just back from Pepperdine and don't have time for a full download. Just wanted to say:

1. It was fantastic. Great time with old friends and meeting some new ones as well.
2. Malibu is still really pretty.
3. Thank you so much to all the people who supported me by attending my class. Special thanks to Tara for gathering a fantastic praise team at the last minute and to the folks who sang. It meant a lot to me. Thank you.

I really enjoyed teaching this year and hope to go back next year for more of the week. I felt like my class went well, though I wasn't one of those who had to listen to me, so I'm probably not the best judge. But I feel good about it.

More soon. Thank you to everyone who was praying for me. Your prayers were heard and God was with me.

New sites

2009-04-21T15:14:00.001-07:00

My lovely (or "mactastic" if you prefer) wife has recently pointed me to a couple of fun sites I have to share.

First is my favorite: http://thingsiwanttopunchintheface.blogspot.com/ It is somewhat PG-13 with language, but it is darn (I try to keep it PG) funny. Plus, I think this person might secretly be reading my mind somehow. I would say, it just seems like that because these are things that annoy everyone, but then why are there so many people who continue to do/like these things? Enjoy.

Then there is this latest gem: http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/ The above mentioned punch blog links here to share her dislike for food mixtures and I need to follow up on that. Why do so many people believe that taking multiple things they like and putting them together will make something even better? Are these the same people who would drink gasoline because they figure, "hey it smells good, it probably tastes good." (Gasoline does smell good....oh it does so....stop arguing, when you know you love it).

I mean, I love playing basketball, but I don't think it would be improved if I could play ball, eat a sandwhich and run through my yard in my bathrobe attacking shrubs with a samari sword and shouting "there can be only one" all at the same time.....wait, bad example because I do not, I repeate do NOT, like doing that last thing...ever...as far as you know.

The foods from the why you're fat blog also remind me of the Seinfeld episode where George tries to do all his favorite things at once which leads to crumbs in the sheets, the need for a portable TV and an angry girlfriend.

One thing at a time. I mean what is the American fascination with adding meat to other meat. I like meat. I like it as much as anyone I know, but I don't think one meat is better if I put more meat on it. Enjoy each meat for the goodness of that meat. Every meat is special and deserves to be eaten by itself. Unless you're talking about bacon of course, which goes on everything.

This discussion brings me to FOOD RULE 17 - It is not acceptable to simply combine the seperate food items of a complete meal in a large rectangular glass dish, cover it in cheese and bake it all together. You have not created a new food item, you have destroyed several perfectly good ones. The fact that we give this concept a name and serve it relentlessly at Church potlucks, does not make it right.

Basically we have taken what prisons do with their leftovers and said it is ok to serve that for dinner.

It's not.

Take a stand.

Don't get your recipes from prisons.

Ok, I'm done.....for now.

Pepperdine

2009-04-16T17:15:00.000-07:00

Greetings all in blogland. I just got a last minute invitation to go down and speak at the Pepperdine Lectures. I now have one day to come up with a class title and about 2 weeks to come up with a class!!! Yikes. This much I know, it is going to center around our experience up here at Westside putting together our own worship CD and will seek to encourage others to try the whole thing themselves. Past that, I’m not sure yet.

Since I started writing songs, I have had several powerful revelations.

Perhaps the most significant is that writing songs is not as hard as you think. If you are a Christian, there is power and beauty in your faith. All you really have to do is find a way to articulate that power in your own words (it helps of some of them rhyme) and then set it to music. Still sound hard? I really don’t think it is. I don’t mean to diminish the talents of the great songwriters, just to debunk the notion that you couldn’t write a song yourself. With a little help from the truly gifted around us, you might even write something that your congregation would want to sing. From there, you just never know how God might use you or your song.
My class won’t be about how to write music, but more about one congregation’s journey writing music that respects our tradition and reflects what God is doing in us, with some thoughts on how you and your congregation might do the same. I’ll play some music from our CD and depending on who might be down there with me, we might even sing some.

Anyway, I am honored to be invited and excited to attend (I haven’t been to the lectures in years) and I hope I see some of you there.

Let me know in the comments if you plan to be there and maybe we can hook up down in Malibu.

My Trust Fund

2009-03-25T15:18:00.001-07:00

I don't usually write things out when I am going to speak in public. I make a few scratched out notes and then just go with what comes out. So far, it has worked for me well enough. But at my Dad's memorial a couple weeks ago, I knew I couldn't get away with that. I had some things that I really wanted to say about my Dad and knew that it would be among the hardest things I have ever done. So, this time, I wrote out my remarks in part so I could read them and not really have to think and in part so if it proved too hard for me to do, someone else could read it for me. Turns out I still went off script a bit, but this is close to the remarks that I made.

By the grace of God, I somehow managed to get through it and am very glad I was able to. Many of you have been reading about and praying for my Dad through this blog, though many of you could not be at the memorial. So, I thought I would post what I wrote here. It is a small snippet of the things I could have said about my father, but I thought I would share this with you who have provided me such welcomed support in the last few months. Thank you.

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"Deck him Ron."

The words were spit in a hushed whisper into my Dad’s ear. I nervously watched on as my Dad stared across at our red-faced landlord and even at 7 years old I could sense that violence was in the air.

“C’mon. Just deck him. We’ve got your back.”

Dale and Ronnie flanked my Dad on either side like two pitbulls tugging at their leashes. They were huge men who dwarfed my Dad, which was no easy task as you know. They were looking for a fight that would not have been their first to say the least. But my Dad was not interested and I watched as he put his hands out as if to say “calm down, there’s no need for this” and he said a few soft but firm words to our landlord who shook his head, got into his car and drove away, perhaps never knowing how close he came to the worst beating of his life.

“What did Dale mean ‘deck him?’ I asked innocently sensing that I had just witnessed something potentially scary or maybe even kind of cool and very grown up.

“He wanted me to hit him.”

“What? Why”

“He didn’t like the way he was speaking to me and thought I should hit him” my Dad said.

“oh.” I said mostly because I was still unsure what to make of these events and this explanation. Fortunately, my Dad went on to explain.

“But I didn’t want to hit him and did not want to fight. Most of the time you don’t have to hit to settle an argument and it is always better to settle things peacefully.”

I was seven, so I don’t remember if those were exactly my Dad’s words to me that day, but it was something along those lines. That scene has stuck with me as if tattooed onto my consciousness and over the years it has helped save me from many fights that never were.
It is one of the earliest memories I have of my Dad and reminded me that being strong, (and my Dad was very strong), didn’t mean you had to fight.

Many of you may be surprised to learn that my Dad was a very wealthy man. When I was born, he set up a trust fund for me and made regular deposits up until the days when his body had so totally failed him, he could no longer do it. When each of my brothers and sister were born, he did the same for them. When my brother Martin later became his fourth son, he did the same for him.

By the time my father’s body died, (and I choose my words carefully there because my father is not dead. He was with God his whole life and has only moved that much closer to Him now), by the time my father’s body died, the trust funds he had established for me and his other children had grown to a staggering sum. In fact, I can honestly say, I do not know, nor will I ever know the true value of my account.

When I would go to camp or a friend’s house to spend the night, my Dad would say, “remember who you are” to remind me that I was his son and one of God’s children and that I should act accordingly.

When we had a spare room in our house, and often even when we didn’t, our home was open to those who needed a place to stay. When we had extra food at our Christmas table and often even when we didn’t, our family grew for that meal as friends and strangers alike were invited to join us. When someone in the Church was in crisis in the middle of the night, my Dad would go to help them. When I thought myself too good to socialize with the awkward kids at Church or at school (not realizing I was one myself) , my Dad “encouraged” me,…as only he could….to befriend them. And when I was being pushed by my peers to do something I shouldn’t I remembered Dale whispering “Deck him Ron” into my Dad’s ear and remembered that my Dad said, “no.”

I grew up knowing that Jesus loved me and God made me in His own image and that all people were important to God and that meant they should be important to me.

Each time, I saw my Mom and my Dad, invite someone into our home, or go to someone in the middle of the night or reach out to someone no one else wanted to reach out to, or to honor each other in their marriage, or saw my Dad repay anger with kindness, my Dad made a deposit into my trust fund. For you see my Dad was not putting money in an account to be held in trust for me and my siblings. My Dad was showing me how to be a Man and a child of God by teaching me to trust God above all else.

In fact my parents have never had a lot of money. When I entered high school my Dad told me that he wanted me to go to college and would support me going wherever I wanted but he wanted me to know that he could not afford to give me any money to help with college and if I were to make it I would have to do it on my own. When my friends were getting cars for their 16th birthday, I got a Bible. That sounds like a nice story now, but at 16, not as much. I always had enough, but there was very rarely anything extra.

When I was a little older, my Dad would joke that I needed to get a good job and work hard because there would be no inheritance when he died. He had no money and what he did have went to REI.

Just a few months ago, my Dad and I took a trip to Victoria just to get away father and son for one last trip. We talked about the jobs he had and the places he had lived with my Mom. When I remarked at what a wild career path he had, he paused and mentioned that he wondered if he should have done more to provide for my Mom and us kids financially after his death. Maybe he should have taken different jobs and saved more money. Maybe he should have invested more wisely or even at all.

He reminded me again, that there would be no inheritance from him. He had no fortune to leave me. No family business to provide for me and my brothers and sister or the woman that he loved so much and had loved for so long.

In his old age, he had forgotten my trust fund. It is true, there was no money. No stocks or bonds or treasury bills. No gold coins or family heirlooms.

But my Dad was wrong about my inheritance. To me he left things of greater value than money or stock. My Dad spent his whole life investing in people. He built relationships everywhere he went and spent a good deal of his life helping people do the same thing. He loved the people in his family and the church and spent countless hours investing in those people.

Now, those people are his legacy. You are his legacy. We are the things he valued the most and now we have each other to lean on now that he has gone. My trust fund has paid for meals for my family and kitchen remodels and trips overseas and a newly cleaned up yard for my parents. It has bought happy marriages and mended relationships. It has paid for personal strength and support in my hours of greatest need. It pays to support my Mom and give her hundreds of people who love her and would give anything to help her. It has provided security and happiness of the sort that money could never buy.

You are what my Dad has left behind. You are my inheritance and I am what he left you in his will. The things we do for each other are the return on his investment. With every kind word, every lesson, every insight into the nature and will of God, every nugget of wisdom, every hour spent in conversation, every teaching, every meal shared or shelter offered, my Dad was investing in us. Now we have each other and that is a gift more precious than anything else on earth.

And above all, my father left me faith. By teaching me about Jesus and living a life that testified to the faithfulness of God, my Dad gave me eternal life for the future and peace for today.

I will always feel closest to my Dad in the woods where he loved to be the most. In the hours I have spent staring up the trail at his backpack, he shared with me the heart of God. I like to say that my Dad was a prophet because he was gifted with a special insight into the nature of God. Maybe that is part of why he loved so much to be in God’s creation. And as he shared with me in snowbound tents and on forest trails the wisdom of God he left to me the gift of life itself. So now, even in the face of losing my father, my mentor and my closest friend and even in the midst of all my grief, I have peace in the knowledge that God’s grace is sufficient for me today and that Jesus loves me. And that is a treasure no thief can steal and no element can destroy. That is who my father is to me.

When I was in highschool, I went camping with my Dad and Mike Patterson and a few others up on Mount Hood. While we were on the mountain, conditions changed quickly and it became dark and windy and bitterly cold. In the midst of a hurried attempt to find a place to camp for the night, the news stories of a group of students from OES who were lost for days on the mountain flashed through my head. As Mike started digging out a snow cave and my Dad tried to get our tent set up in a terrifying wind, I panicked. I quite literally froze up. My Dad moved quickly, ruining his fingers with frostbite and got me in the tent and in my sleeping bag and safe for the night. He reassured me that we would not blow off the mountain even though I could tell he wasn’t as sure as his words suggested. And of course, he said, “Don’t tell your mother about this.”
He held me close and I felt sure I was safe.

Now when life’s conditions turn on me quickly I will so greatly miss having my Dad to turn to. But as I think about going on without my Dad, I am very thankful that he chose to invest in all of you instead of the stock market. I am very grateful that my Dad left me faith in God rather than a money market account. Now my mom and my family are surrounded by the lives of people my Dad touched. I can think of no greater inheritance.

I hope that I am half the father to my boys that my father was to me. I hope someday they will consider me a close friend like I did my father. Most of all though, I hope to have the good sense to invest in people, so that my boys may end up as wealthy as I am after I am gone.

My Dad was a prophet in the wilderness, or at least Forrest Park. He was a lumberjack, a photographer, a journalist, a principal, a missionary, a teacher, a son, a brother, a husband, a father and my best friend.

If he were here today he might say “don’t stick any beans up your nose.” But he would also say thank you for being a part of his life and if you really want to honor my Dad, love God and love each other, oh and of course, read the book of Job whenever possible.

Memorial Service for my Dad

2009-03-12T19:09:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post to let you know that there will be a memorial service for my Dad on Sunday, March 15 at 4:00 pm at Westside Church of Christ. All are welcome. We appreciate your prayers.

My Dad

2009-03-12T12:24:00.000-07:00

Today at 11:10am, my father's body passed away. He lived his life with God and is closer to Him now than ever.

Thank you all for your prayers, they have been answered with blessings during a most difficult time. My Dad was at home with my Mom and me and my sister and went in peace.

May God be with us all.

From Tanya

2009-02-19T11:28:00.001-08:00

Josh is working too hard and doesn't have time to blog. I thought I would jump in and post an update about his Dad. Ron has just been to his oncologist and it appears his liver tumors have grown significantly since the last CT scan a month ago. They are too numerous to count with the largest being about 6 inches across. They all appear to be growing aggressively.

There is good news in all of this and I am reaching here...so go with me. The tumors have not spread outside of the liver. The doctor felt that they were close to that spreading stage. But not yet. The liver, while compromised, IS still functioning. This is all good news. He is still able to have visitors, still able to laugh at the antics of his grandsons and still able to eat Boston Cream Pie.

The most important thing here is that the doctor gave them additional resources for pain management which should significantly improve things. Kay has worked very hard to keep him comfortable and it takes all her energy to watch him in pain. Lastly, Ron has taken his last dosage of the Nexavar. It seems to have not had much impact on his liver tumors and caused some more unpleasant side effects to boot. There are not many other options to try at this point so now it is our prayer that God, who is so present in Ron's life, consider bringing us a miracle.
We appreciate your prayers. God is good to us all the time but this season of life is a difficult one to bear.

Know Anyone Remarkable?

2009-02-02T08:56:00.000-08:00

There are cards and letters and e-cards and email and online flourists and facebook tags and a trillion other (I counted) ways to send someone a note expressing some sentiment like Happy Birthday or "Good job getting out of bed this morning" or whatever. And there are another trillion (ok, I'm rounding up this time) ways to honor someone or mark some important event. But they are boring and stale. Fortunately for all of you, I come bearing fresh produce this morning just for you. My good friends Tony and Jennifer have launched a new web business that is a fantastic way to show someone you care or create lasting memories of a person, event or both.

Check it out right now....seriously right now...I mean it.

http://remarkabletributes.com/

I used this service to create a book for my parents to help them celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. We compiled notes and letters from friends to go along with pictures of the party we had and many of their closest friends. They can now safely use their mental memory banks for more mundane things since the memories of their party are safely stored in a beautiful hardbound album that was custom designed by my lovely wife with the help of Remarkable Tributes. It is awesome and I will definitely use this service again.

Whether you want to create a celebratory website for someone or give them a gift that is 1000 times more meaningful (I did the calculation and it is exactly 1000 times more meaningful) than a simple card or even one of those photo calendars you can throw together at Kinkos, this site will hook you up.

I don't get a discount for saying this stuff and Tony and Jennifer would still be my friends if I said nothing, but this is a really cool and easy to use product and just like with Viva papertowels, Arrested Development and my food rules, when I come across something brilliant that could be lifesaving (CAUTION: products not lifesaving), I feel I must share it.

Have a good week and go tell someone they are remarkable.

Have you Seen the Gospel?

2009-01-27T14:45:00.000-08:00

Our new preacher Aaron, (who is a great guy and fantastic preacher, but don't tell him or he will become even harder to control...and I am all about control) stole my idea (even though I hadn't told anyone about it yet) and asked a number of people from my home congregation to share ways in which they have seen the good news of Jesus in their lives in 2008. Those who were willing are writing short essays to post on the website. My wife just went through this exercise and I have printed her essay. In other words, good news - instead of me you get my mactastic wife as guest blogger today.

WARNING: Reading this story may lead to eyes watering.

The song referenced is the one I wrote for Tanya and is on the new CD if you want to listen.

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Have you ever thought about what a child’s life must be like? Wandering in a forest of long legs. Smaller than everyone else. Bouncing like a pinball through a sea of kneecaps. At any moment, some “giant” grown-up may come along and swoop you up off the ground and suddenly you are suspended in mid-air, comfortably dependent on the strength of another.

Is this what Jesus meant in Matthew when he said …”I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven…”?

The idea of being carried is a welcome thought to a child. The idea of being comforted is too.

My five year old son G2 (pictured above) goes to Southwest Preschool at his Grandmother and Grandpa Young’s church. His teacher tearfully announced several weeks ago that she was taking a leave of absence to be with her mother, who battled cancer for 11 years and was soon headed for her home in heaven.

That was Show and Tell day and when G2’s turn came to show his treasure, he crawled over to sit knee to knee with his well loved but sad teacher, laid his hand on her knee and said “I brought this giant insect to show because it starts with an “I”, but that is not what I want to share. My Grandpa Stump is sick and that makes my Grandma sad just like you. This song makes her feel better so I am going to sing it to you and you will feel better.” At that point, he rose up on his knees and began singing “Oh Lord my God, please listen to me; hear my heart speak when words are lost. The path I’m on is rocky and steep and there’s a river of sin between us I need to cross. So carry me, to your peaceful shore…” He knelt there singing the entire first verse of “Carry Me” to his teacher.

He didn’t stop to think that no one had ever done that for Show and Tell before. He didn’t stop to wonder if kids would laugh or if he would sing it well. He KNEW that his Mommy sings it to him when he gets scared, that it makes his Grandmother feel better when she is sad and that it would help his teacher feel better too.

“Carry Me” is a worship song his Daddy wrote to sing at church and his Daddy often introduces his new songs to G2, and his brother G1, as “bed night” tunes before anyone else gets to hear them.

Later, I had to explain to him why his song made his teacher cry. I had to explain why it made his own Mommy cry along with all the other parents standing in the doorway. I explained that Jesus was working through him to comfort his teacher. He liked the idea of helping Jesus do his job.

It was one of the most beautiful and profound things I have ever seen; my wonderful boy, sharing how it feels to be carried like a child, suddenly suspended in mid-air, comfortably dependent on the strength of another.

I am pretty sure that IS what Jesus meant. What a blessing to be reminded by a child barely taller than my knee.

Hodge-Podge

2009-01-26T13:34:00.000-08:00

Hello all. Sort of a hodge-podge of things today which is good since I like using the word hodge-podge whenever possible. I also enjoy donnybrook, hooligans and couscous which has the makings of a great short-story writing assignment. Find your 3 favorite words to say and make them the theme of a story. Who wouldn’t want to read a story about a donnybrook featuring some hooligans where couscous was prominently involved?

Aaaak…I’ve already digressed and I hadn’t even gressed yet. Sorry.

Even More Music – Check out Mike Cope’s blog today and you will discover that Mr. Cope has excellent taste in music. Thanks to Tony and Jennifer for spreading the word on our music project. If, you are reading this and going “what music project”, then welcome to my blog, it is good to have first time readers. The CD has been very well received. The amount of people who have said nice things about it to me and to others has really blown me away. Here I thought I was serving God by leading my Church in worship and by leading a music ministry and it turns out God was really using it to tell me He loves me. He is always doing that. About the time I think I am making some sacrifice for my faith, it turns out that I am the one being blessed. Weird.

In Your Face(book) – So, a few months ago someone invited me to join facebook. I have had a love/hate relationship with this social networking site, but lately we are “on again.” It is an amazing tool for finding long lost friends. It is also too much. There are too many people I care about and want to know about and can not possibly keep up with. Oh the stress of virtual friends. I also have a few suggestions for ways to improve facebook….

….I’ll give you a second to be done feigning surprise….Ok, and on we go....

1. Enemies – I think, like in real life, you should have more categories for people than “friends.” I would love to get a message some time saying, “Bill has invited you to be his enemy on Facebook.” Or, “you may know Jim, you have 17 mutual ‘bitter rivals”.”
2. Face requirements – You should be required to have a picture of yourself on your provile somewhere. Otherwise, how can I know whether you are the “John Smith” or whoever that I’m looking for? And you should be able to see the pictures large enough to know whether it is of a person or a small carpet stain before you go through the friend thing. As you know by now I am much more into what makes things better for me than I am for other people’s personal freedoms.

Ok, that’s enough for now.

Rapid fire Movie Reviews:

1. Kiss Kiss Bang Bank – Pretty good rental. Downey is great as always. Love the title
2. Love in the Time of Cholera (or something like that)…not so much. “Romantic lead” was an emotional infant stalker who “showed his love” for the “she’s just not that into you” female lead by sleeping with every woman in central America.
3. Mama Mia – I hear the live production is great, and I beleive it. In movies, people doing ordinary things and then suddenly bursting into song makes me embarrassed for them. When it happens on stage it is fun and when it happens in my living room, it is great, but in movies, it makes me feel like punching my television.
4. Across the Universe – Hypocrite warning – also a musical based on a pop band of yesteryear, but this one worked. Fun to watch especially if you have ever wondered what LSD would be like in a controlled environment.
5. The Dark Knight – Awesome. Seriously…awesome. “Why so serious?” (shiver)
6. Gran Torino – You know how you watched Office Space and just knew there were thousands of people trapped working for lame companies in a cubicle cheering? Well this was just like that except swap the trapped office drones for grumpy old men not ready to be put out to pasture. Good stuff.
7. The Tale of Despereaux – Decent, not great. Cool animation. Story went nowhere. My kids were bored.
8. Valkyrie – It worked. It was nothing special, but it was nice to see the more human side of the Germans for a change. I always respect movies that can keep the suspense up even when you know how it ends.
9. Quantum of Solace – Loved it. This new team making Bond movies should win some kind of medal for rescuing that franchise.
10. Burn After Reading – Worth seeing, but given what I hope for from the Cohens, pretty disappointing. Still, I don’t care what anyone says, Brad Pitt is one of the top 5 actors of his generation….at least.

More Music

2009-01-19T02:46:00.001-08:00

You can now hear snippets of every song at CD Baby. Check it out

http://cdbaby.com/cd/westsidepraise

Music anyone?

2009-01-08T11:25:00.000-08:00

If you look to the left of the screen, you will find something called a widget and on the widget, you will find that the much anticipated (by me) Westside PraiseTeam CD is now available for purchase. As you may know from reading this blog, this CD is the praise team I sing with at Westside Church of Christ singing 10 original a capella praise and worship songs written by me and my good friend Jennifer Davis. I enjoy listening to the CD, but the music is really intended to be sung. So, if you are involved with a Church wherever you live (and I hope you are), I would encourage you to check out the CD and see if any of these songs migh be appropriate to use in your own worship service. All sale proceeds go back to Westside CofC. Enjoy.

Buy Bayer

2008-12-19T13:56:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone.

A couple fun news items in StumpTown today.

First, my Dad has his new medication. Praise God. No really, I’m not just saying that to indicate that I am praising God or that it is something praiseworthy but because I am hoping that you will actually praise God. I know many of you have been praying for this, so please take a minute and say thank you. The new medication will allow him to avoid having to travel out of state to a drug trial. In a truly amazing turn of events, when his insurance company would not pay for this drug, the drug company (Bayer…my new favorite) agreed to give him the drug for free. How often do you hear about that happening? It is true though. Now the important part. This drug needs to work. The others have not or have stopped and the tumors are growing rapidly. Please keep us in your prayers.

Second, we had 4 snow days this week and it was awesome. I worked from home and mixed in a little sledding and snowball fighting with the boys. Lots of people around here are sick of the snow and the way it interferes with life, but for me, who has a hard time allowing life to interfere with my plans, the snow has been a welcome interruption. The work is still getting done, but now it is getting done along with great memories of sliding down our long steep driveway with my 8 year old screaming “yeah baby” as he grips ahold of me on the sled. Good times.

Speaking of my 8 year old and the snow. G1 took a snowball to the face earlier this week. It probably stung and was really, really cold. In times past this would have led to a 5 minute crying timeout at least as he vented both his pain and anger in tears. This remains one of my least favorite aspects of parenting young children (yes, I know…I lack compassion). This time however, he just looked around at his stunned and braced for bawling parents and smiled a big toothy grin through his icy white mask of snow. No crying. No complaining. Just laughing and firing back. My little boy is growing up.

Third, I am very pleased and excited to announce that our Praise Team has finished its latest CD. For those of you not familiar with this project, the Westside Church of Christ Praise Team leads worship at Westside every week generally led by yours truly. Before I came back to Westside, the previous praise teams have recorded albums and some who were here during that era had often requested that we do it again.

This time, however, there was a new and fun (I hope) twist to the process. As some of you may know I have been writing praise and worship songs for the last three or four years and 9 of the 11 tracks on this cd are original songs I wrote with the help of my lovely wife, my “house band” (my wife, and our friends Tony and Jennifer), the Praise Team and some uber-talented musician types: Ike Graul, Kris Strobeck and Clarissa Cox. I am still writing and it has become one of the greatest blessings in my life.

Anyway, Jennifer Davis who sings alto with us wrote one of the other tracks and then we also do the old hymn Holy Holy Holy just because we like it. Jennifer has written more and she and I are already at work creating music for next year’s cd.

A couple months ago the PT got together with wunderkind Kris Strobeck who is a local musician and producer and personal friend. We recorded 11 tracks for this cd in a single day and evening. It was an immense amount of work. But thanks to the talented folks that sing on our PT and Kris’s excellent guidance, we made it happen. Then Kris and I have worked over the past few weeks (mostly Kris) to “clean up” and “produce” the songs to prepare them for the CD. That process is finally complete and thanks again to Kris and his amazing talent, I think they came out really good.

Anyway, someday very soon, this CD will be available for purchase. At this point, it should be for sale at Amazon and iTunes in mid to late January, but possibly sooner. The cd artwork was done by a very talented young artist at Westside who is the son of one of our longtime PT singers and the collaboration of talent with some of my closest friends has really made this one of the most fun things I have ever worked on.

So, I will announce and send a link to where you can buy it when it goes on sale if you would like one. If you attend Westside (or just want to come visit), you can purchase the CD at a discount once it is available. If you live in the Portland area and want to be invited to our CD release party (you thought with Jennifer and my wife involved there would not be a party? Come on!!), please let me know and we’ll get you on the list.

I know I speak for the whole PT when I say that our only hope is that this CD and the music on it will glorify God. The process of worshiping God to create the CD has already blessed me more than I can say.

May the God of peace and the peace of God be with you all.

Dad update

2008-12-05T16:24:00.000-08:00

A bit of light in the storm today. My Dad has been trying to get in a drug study to get his hands on a Kidney cancer drug called Serafanib. Since my Dad doesn't have kidney cancer, it is very unlikely that his insurance will approve the hefty sum of money to purchase this drug. So, getting it through a drug trial has been the only option.

If he can get in he would have to travel to Denver or maybe Chicago to get the drug and the expense and inconvenience factor, even if he could get in would be very high. Still, it has been the only options.

Today came news though that it appears the drug company has approved my Dad to receive the drug free of charge if his insurance company declines to cover the cost.

So, while it hasn't happened yet, it appears that my Dad may be able to get access to this drug without participating in a study. That would be very good news.

Praise God.

Where are you from?

2008-12-04T14:32:00.000-08:00

You may know where you are, but do you know where you are from?

Our good friend Connie inspired my wife to answer that question in the mold of a poem following the pattern of the more famous poem also called "Where I'm From" which I believe was written by George Ella Lyon.

Ordinarily my lovely wife is more likely to spend her creative energy on the visual arts, but she has a gift for the written word as well and so I was thrilled that she decided to write her own "Where I'm From." It is a beautiful insight into my Wife and her beginnings and she was gracious enough to allow me to share it here. Though you likely won't enjoy it quite as much as I did (since I doubt that is possible), I hope it inspires some of you to give some thought to your own history. Anyway, enjoy

Where I’m From

I am from 172nd court
From sawdust and custom designed Barbie clothes
I am from a triangle tree house with a green corrugated roof
Sheltering my sleeping bag and books during a flood
until Daddy put on waders
Rescuing my precious things

I am from Little House on the Prairie
Laura and Ma and Manly
Long braids and nightgowns at 8:00
Dancing to the opening credits
I am from Mrs. Smith’s awesome 5th grade
A brick in Pioneer Square to remember us, always together

I am from Paradise Island
Wonder Woman on a bike
Racing with Rene’
Singing and saving the day
Swim meets and goggles and swim caps to cover our hip length hair
Proud to be matching cone head mermaids

I am from the stage
Somewhere over the rainbow
Best friends in costumes
I am from the scent of Great songs of the church
My great grandmother’s scratchy crocheted cape,
Baptistery chlorine and 728B in my biggest voice

I am from Lake Billie Chinook
Sunburns, water skis and our own private trailer
Camping and fishing
Losing a sombrero on the lake
A one man, two girl tent
A burnt orange backpack that was too heavy

I am again from the end of the street
Still love sawdust and custom designed clothes
The tree house is a rectangle now
728B is a classic sung into a microphone
Singing and saving the day
Wonder Woman on a Bike

Trials and Tribulations

2008-12-02T11:46:00.000-08:00

Greetings everyone from your long lost lawyer blogger friend.

Things have been particularly busy of late. The month of November was taken up entirely preparing for and then doing the lawyering in a two week jury trial. I basically did nothing but work on that case for about a month. Now I am slowly recovering and trying to get to know my family again. Thankfully all that hard work ended with a win for my client. It was an especially gratifying win not only because of all the hard work that went into it but because my clients are genuinely good people and it would have been a grave injustice if they had lost. If it weren’t for all the darned confidentialities and professional etiquette involved in such a thing, I could fill this blog with good stories from this trial for months to come.

Instead, I will just offer this bit of advice for any new or would-be litigators out there. When your entire case comes down to your own client’s memory and understanding of events, calling an expert witness in to say that your client has severe mental impairment that puts his memory in the .5 percentile is probably not your best move. The lawyer on the other side just might seize on that and remind the jury at every turn that 99.5% of the population remembers things better than your client.

I’m just saying…

We have all had “now you’ll find out who your friends are” moments in life. Maybe it is when your second rap album flopped and you had to sell your Maserati and most of your bling. The ones who stuck around when you were blingless are much more likely to be your friends (either that or they are just conservative investors and are hoping you swing back to your former playa status).

Or, maybe it was when you had to take some big risk like when you decided to wear green and orange together for the first time. The ones that stuck with you and didn’t even make hurtful jokes about your sexual preferences behind your back are, again, much more likely to be your real friends.

But those are just a couple universal examples. Maybe yours was a variation, but those friend testing moments are real and can be some of the more affirming or devastating moments of our lives.

This trial was just such a moment for me. I basically dropped out of life for 3 weeks. I was at the office all the time. I doled out all of my duties at Church and all aspects of my personal or family life were simply put on hold. I didn’t return emails or phone calls. I didn’t show up for social gatherings even when they were at my own house. I only saw my wife and kids when they were sleeping. I was dialed into that trial, 100%.

The people I thought were my closest friends all responded basically the same way. They covered for me at Church, they prayed for me, they never complained, they changed their schedules to accommodate mine and even came to court to watch me litigate. They sent me encouraging emails and on the rare times they saw me out of court they convincingly feigned interest in my ranting and raving about the latest boring trial detail. Then after hearing me wax on about things no one but a lawyer half brain dead with exhaustion and stress would care about, they would smile and tell me it was interesting and then tell me they thought I would be great.
Basically, the side effect of the whole draining experience was a big fat reminder that I have really good friends. They are the kind that stick with me when I’m blingless or when I make questionable fashion decisions. They even stick with me when I completely ignore them for nearly a month. But more than stick with me, they encourage me and try to help me when they are getting nothing from me but an earful about the “hearsay” rules or why western civilization may come to an end if parties are allowed to argue their case unfettered in voir dire. Those are true friends indeed and I have a whole bunch of them. I already believed that, but now I know and as my good friend the narrator from the GI Joes cartoon of the late ‘80s would say “you must fight the evil forces of C.O.B.R.A.” and also, “knowing is half the battle.”

Well, when it comes to friendship, knowing who your friends are is more than half the battle, it is the victory itself.

But, as great as my friends are and as thankful as I am for them, they all paled in comparison to the effort shown by my best friend.

I have been married for more than 15 years now and have known my wife for all but the first 11 years of my life. During that time, she has never stopped amazing me with her talent and faith and grace and beauty. But even still there have been moments where she has elevated her game to match the circumstances. There was the LA earthquake and the impact it had on her job, the move to Virginia where she knew no one and still had to be the sole bread winner for the family while I was in law school. There was the house fire, the move to Eugene, the move to Portland, the first house remodel, the second house remodel, the parents house remodel and the miracle of strength of will and character that she displayed when giving birth to our boys. At each of these times a truly extraordinary woman stepped up to perform nearly super-human feats.

So, when these moments come, they should no longer come as a surprise, but I have found that I have never “gotten used to” the spectacular. So, while it was in keeping with her character to respond the way she did when I was in trial, it still amazed me.

Now maybe it wasn’t on the level of giving birth or dealing with a devastating fire, but to me my wife’s response to suddenly losing her husband and father of her children for 3 weeks was nothing short of spectacular. She never once complained. Never asked me for more of my time. Never tried to make me feel guilty for my absence. She always told me how nice I looked and how great she thought I would do and then simply took care of the house, the boys, and the myriad of other obligations. She listened and encouraged and gave me more support than I had a right to ask for.

I had lots of help with this trial from other lawyers and the great staff at my office. But no one contributed more to my success in trial than my wife. As she has done so many times before, she not only placed my needs ahead of her own, but did it with a smile on her face.

My trial could have been a very rocky time for our marriage. Instead, because of Tanya, it simply made me love her more. Apparently, I felt like you should know.

Changing gears a bit, I also need to post an update about my Dad and his health. Basically, it is not very good I’m afraid. The cancer has been back and growing quickly in his liver since August. He has been trying a number of different medications to stop or slow it, but nothing has worked. Surgery is not an option.

Recently we discovered that the liver is beginning to show significant damage and he has been generally feeling worse and worse. Though thankfully he still feels well enough to keep working and traveling to see the grandkids and the like. Right now we are trying to get our hands on newer still unproven drugs through clinical trials in hopes of finding something that will stop the cancer. The clinical trials are all over the country and can be difficult to get into, but they are what appears to be the last line of defense.

Please continue praying for my Dad and my Mom and my family. I am praying that he can get into a trial soon that doesn’t require him to move to Boston or Chicago or Denver and that would allow access to the drug that will finally shut this cancer down.

Thank you to all my friends who have contacted me even when I haven’t posted here. And to all of those who put up with my absence the last month. It has been a great encouragement.
5420037.DOC;1

My Dad

2008-10-27T11:05:00.000-07:00

My Dad went to his doctor today. Sadly, the new drug he was taking has also failed. The tumors on his liver have continued to grow and multiply. It appears that surgery is not an option. He is going to meet with experts in this particular type of tumor that fortunately reside locally in hopes of finding additional treatment options.

This news was not entirely unexpected, but was a heavy, heavy blow to my family.

On the positive side, he is feeling pretty good and did not suffer any of the bad side effects of this last drug.

Also, we know that God is in control and while I was hoping to be comforted by healing, I will take the comfort in trusting God.

Nevertheless, it is sad news today.

When I know more, I will post it here.

Thank you to all of those who care about us for your prayers and your encouragement.

God is good all the time.

Please pray

2008-10-27T10:08:00.003-07:00

My Dad is meeting with his doctors right now. When I know something I will post it here. Please pray.

My Number 1 Fan

2008-09-29T16:06:00.000-07:00

I like being liked and so do you. Oh admit it, you do too. You know you do. Thankfully there are still a few people out there that like me. It is not a particularly large group of people, but my Mom says that is just because they are all jealous. That could be true I guess. After all I am not handsome or charming or fun at parties, but I am related to people who are all of those things and that surely counts for something.

Regardless of all that though, out of the modest group of people that like me, there is a new challenger to the title of my number 1 fan. That position is currently held by the regional sales manager for Pepsi Cola. I have no idea why.

Our good friends Tony and Jennifer have a little girl named Claire. She is about the cutest little girl you have ever seen no matter how many girls you've seen. Whenever she sees me she runs up to me and jumps up to be held and burries her head in my shoulder and holds on. She only knows a few words but says "Josh" very well and communicates well enough to show her displeasure if her parents get together with me without her. But all of this is really just build up to this video. Claire and mommy are singing a song I have recently written and created hand motions. Clearly knowing my love of football, Claire has sensitively incorporated the "touchdown" signal into the motions. Just thought it was too cute not to share.

Enjoy.

http://www.new.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1036953249109

Sutent

2008-09-23T14:31:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon everyone.

I have more news about my Dad and I am afraid it is not very good. The Gleevec that my Dad has been taking has failed. As you know, my Dad’s GIST returned to his liver and the hope was that an increased dose of Gleevec would knock it back. It did not. The tumors continue to grow at a startling pace. The next step is to switch to a different drug called Sutent. The hope is that Sutent would reduce the tumors where Gleevec could not and get them small enough that my Dad could have more surgery. We could know whether that is going to work in as little as a week.

If the tumors continue to grow or fail to shrink, there are still some options, but they are less clear. As far as we know now, at that point surgery would not be an option. There may be a radioactive drug that could be used directly on the tumor. There may also be clinical trials for different drugs that my Dad could join which would likely require traveling to a place like Boston or North Carolina. And, of course, maybe there is something else we don’t know about yet.
All of that means, that we really want these tumors to shrink…right now.

Thank you all again for your prayers. Please keep them coming.

From Dad

2008-09-17T08:46:00.000-07:00

My Dad wanted to send his own thanks and update to our congregation here and asked that I also share this letter with those reading my blog since so many of you have been praying for him. So, below is that letter. Reading it was very comforting and inspiring for me.

Dear Family…

As you can imagine it has been an interesting week in the Stump household. I was more than a little bummed to get the news last week that I had gone from the always hoped for NED (No Evidence of Disease) on my August scan to multiple new tumors just four weeks later! And one of these is already over 2 inches long!!! These crummy things move faster than several cars I’ve owned over the years.

It is not as if I don’t know what I’m up against with this cancer. I was told from the beginning that GIST is an aggressive cancer and that my particular version of it is especially aggressive; and that while there are treatments that might stabilize its progression there is no cure.

I know all this, yet…for the past month I had been feeling really good again…minimal side-effects, no pain, good energy…and coupled with the excellent clear scan in August I convinced myself that I had a three month window of clear sailing until my next scan in November. When I started feeling badly again and those feelings were confirmed by an emergency scan, I reacted as if I was losing something that was rightfully mine.

Foolishness! God makes us no such promises. We are not guaranteed the next moment, let alone the next three months. What we are guaranteed is His presence with us…and that makes all the difference.

With the elders’ gracious blessings I took several days off last week. Kay and I enjoyed this incredible fall weather camping in Mt Rainier National Park. We’ve camped there a number of times and the Park has become special to me since my sons and I have backpacked together extensively in it.

We used this time to talk through some of our ‘what then’ questions and to speak and listen to our loving Lord. So, here is what I think…

If it should be that my cancer defeats our available treatments and I don’t have all that many days left, then I don’t want to spend my remaining time morose and lamenting my losses. Sadness and disappointment are inevitable, but I don’t have to live there…and I’m determined not to. On the other hand if treatment works—and it may—and I’m granted a longer time here, then I don’t want to look back at these days and see that I lost precious days of sunshine to the blues.

Either way my response is the same: This is the day the Lord has made…I will rejoice and be glad in it! He may not make another one for me…but His grace is sufficient for today. I intend to let His grace lead me into the joy of each day’s gifts. Some days I’ll blow it and be morose anyway…it is, after all, in my nature. But far more often I’m going to celebrate the marvelous gift of life each day it comes.

I have so much to be thankful for…not the least of which is you, my church family. I’m thankful for your prayers…your expressions of love and concern…your acted-on desires to be blessings to Kay and me. We feel truly and wonderfully cared for. Thank you. God willing and with the elders’ consent I will continue to serve you, my Family, however He enables me.

To Life! And to God’s grace that makes joy possible each day!

Zero-Sum Game

2008-09-16T17:46:00.000-07:00

A quick rant:

Happiness should never be a zero sum game. A “zero sum game” is an exercise where adding something means taking something else away so the sum of the exercise is always zero. It is a political/economic/game theory where one participant’s gain will result in another participant’s loss so that the aggregate gain and loss amounts to zero. Sadly, this concept seems to regularly apply to our relationships and it is something I think we should guard ourselves against.

All of that may sound like nonsense, but I guarantee you have experienced this. Ever known someone who can not stomach someone else’s happiness or success because it makes them feel less happy and successful? Some people act like there is a fixed amount of happiness in the universe so they resent people who find it because it means less for them. This is, of course, not only wrong but destructive. There is nothing like greeting happiness with resentment to reduce the value of your friend’s happiness to zero. That way no on is happy. Is this better?

So, here’s a suggestion for the day or week or whatever. Do your absolute best to wish for and revel in the happiness of others. Let’s say you are a young parent like me and my kid learned to walk at 8 months old (It was more like 20 for our boys), but your kid is almost two and still barely crawling. You might be inclined to be jealous and resentful (well not you, you’re great, but you know, someone), but try to pause and take a different approach. Does my kid’s success make it harder for your kid to walk? Why not just be happy for me and my kid? Or if you and your buddy are trying to lose weight and your buddy eats doughnuts and French fries all day and loses 20 pounds while you work out and eat raw dandelions and gain 5, try to be happy for your friend. After all, if they lose weight it doesn’t make it any harder for you.

We are so competitive in this Country (me more than most), that jealousy and resentment have become first and second nature. We grind our teeth and wince at the success of others, even our friends, because it should be us and it is unfair and unjust….or so we believe. We shouldn’t. It makes us all less likeable when we do that. But it is easier to condemn than to avoid, especially for someone as competitive as me.

That said, it is avoidable. So, this week instead of allowing someone else’s good fortune to remind you of your own failings and make you resentful, simply take the opportunity to celebrate someone else’s success. See someone do something great? Tell them how great you think it is and mean it. See a friend get something you want and don’t have? Tell them how great it is that they have it. Don’t do it through clinched jaw, do it because they are your friend and you should wish them the best.

There is enough happiness to go around. It is not a zero sum game. If someone you know gets theres, just smile, pat them on the back and keep going for yours.

Dad Update

2008-09-15T15:34:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update…

As many of you know, my Dad was able to see his Oncologist today. He confirmed that there were new tumors (or at least newly visible tumors) on the liver. There are 6-7 at least. Two of them have grown rather large rather quickly. My Dad doubled the dose of his medication with the hope that it will shrink these tumors. If that does not work, there is another drug he can take and we will again look into the procedure he had done in May that fried the last large liver tumor.

He will have another CT on Friday with a follow up appointment next Wednesday. If the tumors are shrinking he will likely just keep the Gleevac at a high dose and monitor. That is the best case scenario. If the tumors are still growing, we will likely switch the drug and consult with the surgeon about the tumor blasting.

So, there are still a variety of promising options. For now we are praising God that my Dad is actually feeling good again which we hope is a sign that the higher dose of medicine is working, but if not, it is at least good to feel good.

Thank you all for your prayers, emails, blog comments. They have meant everything to me. Please keep it up.

Please Pray With Me.

2008-09-10T11:04:00.000-07:00

Hello out there in blog land. I am sad to have to report today that we got some bad news regarding my father this week.

If you read this blog or know my family, then you know that my Dad has been battling a rare form of aggressive cancer for several years. The first surgery removed a football sized tumor from his abdomen. In a matter of months the cancer returned, this time primarily in his liver. More surgery this past May killed the tumor in his liver. In early August of this year he had a CT which showed no new tumors or growth. The surgery was a success, he had finally recovered and then got a clean bill of health. It was a good month in that regard.

Unfortunately, he began feeling discomfort in his liver a couple weeks ago. He went in for a CT this past Friday and then discovered this week what we had feared, but had not allowed ourselves to believe. The cancer had returned and was again in the form of tumors in the liver. In a month’s time one of the two new tumors was already larger than 2 inches. It is a very stubborn and aggressive disease.

In a bit of very frustrating timing, my Dad’s oncologist is out of town this week and we will not know what all of this means until Monday (9/15) at the earliest. Obviously we are concerned that he may no longer be a candidate for surgery since the cancer returned within weeks of the liver healing from the last surgery. The return and rapid growth of the tumor means that the drug he has been taking is not working, at least not working as well as it needs to. There is one other drug he can try, but it does not have a fantastic track record and often comes with very unpleasant side effects.

So, at this point, I only know that the cancer is back. I will update this blog when we know more which should be next week.

In the past I have asked for prayers for specific revelations or decisions. I asked for prayers that the original tumor would not be attached to the colon. I asked for prayers for the original surgery. I asked for prayers that the cancer not return and when it did that it be operable and when it was for the more recent surgery and then for healing from that surgery.

Today, I am going to ask for something a little different. I do not know what a best case and worst case scenario are right now. I don’t know if we might be near the end of my Dad’s life or only at another pot-hole in what will continue to be a long journey. So I can not pray or ask you to pray for some specific avenue to the best case scenario, because I do not know what that would be.

Instead, for those of you who believe God can heal people and who are willing to speak to God on my Dad’s behalf, I simply pray that you ask God to heal my Dad. I don’t know how that might be possible, but I also do not believe God’s power is limited by my own ignorance or lack of imagination. I believe God is. I believe that He created us, that He loves us and that He is at times moved in some way by our plight in this world. All of that is too big to comprehend in detail, but it does not keep me from believing it. The reality is that God and my Dad are good friends. They love each other and have a close relationship and God will know exactly who you are talking about when you pray.

If you believe the same, pray that God heals my Dad. Don’t hold back. Be bold. Be the woman reaching out just to touch the cloak of Jesus. Be the prophets angry with God for what you don’t understand. Be David expressing your love and your needs and your true emotion. Be a child asking your father for help. He will hear you. Thank you.

Baracuda

2008-08-30T11:54:00.000-07:00

This isn’t a political blog and I’m not going to turn it into one just because there is a Presidential race coming. But I was a Poly Sci major and absolutely, unabashedly, unapologetically love the United States of America. Before I became an attorney, my plan was to enter politics not because I am power hungry (though of course I am) or because I wanted the spotlight (though of course I did), but because I love the country America is and love even more who she might become. I relish the idea that I could use whatever talent God has given me to help America and Americans realize that dream. All of that to say, I have decided to run for President. Ok, not really, that preface was really just a way of saying, like it or not, I’m going to blog about American politics just for today.

Like most of the Country I was surprised to see that Sen. McCain chose Alaska Governor Sarah “Baracuda” Palin to be his VP running mate. Lots of people are going to say that he chose this young, unknown Alaskan because she is a woman. You will here that Sen. Clinton’s many women supporters were angry at the Obama nomination and not at all ready to embrace Obama and McCain saw an opening and seized on it cynically believing that women will vote for him just because he is running with a woman. Don’t buy it.

If anyone in national politics is actually paying attention, then they advised McCain to choose Palin for a completely different set of reasons. Here they are ranked from least to most important:

1. Soccer Moms and NASCAR Dads are so 2004. Hockey Moms will determine this election.

2. Palin is a card carrying member of the NRA which means she always has her NRA card with her which is nice when you forget to bring yours and the gun show has that Uzi you’ve been wanting, but you just can’t afford it without the NRA discount.

3. She has raised five children which gives her more executive experience than anyone else on either ticket. (Biased aside: I think it is hilarious that Obama’s camp came out immediately blasting Palin for her lack of experience. Uhhmmm….really? What meaningful thing has Obama ever run other than a campaign? Now maybe you’re ok with that and maybe you should be, but I think you have to be ok with both or neither).

4. She has the coolest nickname in politics. Nothing is even close. I mean consider the Presidents since Reagan:

a. Reagan – “Ronnie Ray Gun”
b. Bush – “Coattails”
c. Clinton – “Hillary”
d. Bush – “W” (others seen often on protest signs in Portland were not printable)
So, I know she’s just a VP nominee, but “Baracuda” is flat out cool.

5. And the real reason Palin was chosen (if people were paying attention)…and I’m not kidding about this one….

Personality. You want to know who is going to win the race for President? If history holds true, the winner of the race will be the candidate with the best personality. And by “history” I mean the last 30 years or so. Earlier than that and campaigning was too different to provide helpful insights.

In this instance personality is basically comprised of two overlapping characteristics. First, it means, the person who would be the most fun to be sitting next to at a dinner party. The answer to this question is usually “neither”, but one is usually at least slightly more appealing than the other. Second, it means “interesting.” As in, there is at least some chance they would be interested in talking about something other than the mortgage reform legislation or whether they should go with the boring red Brooks Brothers tie or the boring blue Brooks Brothers tie.
Usually, it is fairly easy to identify which candidate has the better personality based on this definition and more often than not it is not even debatable. Let’s have a little history lesson to make my point.

1980 – Reagan v. Carter – Carter had some personality, but nothing like Reagan. This isn’t even close. Great speaker, great looking, great suits, wife always wore bright colors and he was an actual movie star. Not close and neither was the election.

1984 – Reagan v. Mondale – Mondale and Ferraro were interesting, especially with the whole first woman angle, but it was mostly bad interesting, not good and Reagan was a freakin’ movie star for crying out loud.

1988 – Bush v. Dukakis – The first test of my theory. Bush had virtually no personality, but incredibly, the Democrats found someone with not only less but an annoying personality to run against him. Plus, Dukakis ran with uber-boring Lloyd Bentsen while Bush had handsome, charming, tongue-tied Dan Quayle to tip him over the edge. Not a blow out, but if you looked at the two tickets, the Bush side clearly had the better personality.

1992 – Bush v. Clinton – Not even close. Clinton played Sax, talked about his underwear on TV, charmed every woman within a 50 foot radius, and regularly played the part of the funny chubby guy that always livens up the party. Bush had no shot.

1996 – Clinton v. Dole – Apparently believing that even a bad personality was better than no personality, the Republicans offered up Dole to the slaughter. By that point Clinton was a walking one-man scandal machine with about as much credibility as the Chinese Olympic Committee, but had a way, way, way better personality. Easiest election to call since 1980.

2000 – Bush v. Gore – A wise-cracking oil brat who used to run his own Baseball team and could probably drink most fratboys under the table against Al Bore who only said something interesting when he was taking credit for something he had nothing to do with. Romy and Michelle thought Gore’s claims were outlandish. Not much of a contest, though clearly America remembered enough about H.W.’s personality to make it actually a very close contest

2004 – Bush v. Kerry – Kerry seemed like a nice enough guy who would be roughly as interesting at a party as chicken noodle soup without the chicken….or the noodles.

So, what will happen in 2008? Ask yourself who has the better personality. Right now, from what we’ve seen, it is Obama by a mile. Well, McCain can only do so much to make himself a more likeable and interesting as a person. His best bet, find a likeable interesting person to add to the ticket. How about a gun-toting, basketball playing, beauty pageant competing, corruption-fighting hockey mom named “Baracuda”? That interesting enough for you? Plus, she is the first woman on a Republican ticket for President, which is also interesting. Obama went super boring with Biden, so he left a small opening. McCain just went all-in on a suited 10/Jack needing a royal flush. He may have lost even without her, but Palin may have been McCain’s only option to stay in this race.
We’ll see.

More on the Olympics...

2008-08-14T17:44:00.000-07:00

1. Do you think Walsh and Misty are disappointed they got dubbed “The Golden Girls”? I mean it’s cool to be thought of along with the gold medal, but do two twenty something beach girls who play sports in their underwear really want to be connected with….well….the Golden Girls?

2. Since the US avenged their hoops loss to Greece with an easy win last night, I thought I would pile on by noting how many Greek names sound like a medical condition for which a balm or salve might be in order. “Hey, man why are you walking like that?” “Dude, I have the worst case of ‘Schortsanitis’ ever.”

3. Like everyone everywhere except for in France I am in awe of Michael Phelps. Not because of his exploits in the pool which are ok I guess, but for his breakfast menu. According to Costas (who knows all), Phelps’ daily morning meal includes: 3 full fried egg sandwiches with cheese and all the fixin’s (by the way, there is no such word as “fixings”, it must be “fixin’s” Don’t try to argue with me about this), an omelet, a stack of chocolate chip pancakes and, ironically enough, “French” toast. He eats all that and still has women melting like butter on a shortstack whenever he takes off that ridiculous women’s swimsuit he wears. He’s my hero.

4. I’m not making this up. I noticed that for beach volleyball, they have a bug boy instead of a ball boy like you might see in tennis. There is a person with a large net who races onto the court and scoops up large bugs that might interfere with gameplay in between points. Why don’t you just go ahead and add “bugs large enough to disrupt a volleyball match” as reason number 412 I’m not moving to Beijing. Speaking of beach volleyball, have you noticed there are cheerleaders? There are many odd things about that. First, the actual athletes dress like cheerleaders. Second, they never show them doing routines on TV, I have just caught glimpses of them standing in a line. Why? Is it a secret? Third, they don’t seem to be there to lead the crowd in cheers for any particular team….soooooo…..what is the point exactly? If they are, (please excuse the expression) just eye candy, then why not show them on TV or on the other hand, why have them at an Olympic event in the first place? If they serve some other function, what is it? What could it possibly be? I’m flummoxed.

5. In the mounting evidence against gymnastics as a valid Olympic sport, there is a now a brouhaha over whether the Chinese gymnasts were old enough to perform. Really? Old enough? First, how dare you suggest that the Chinese might lie about something concerning the Olympics. That could never happen. Second, if you are an American gymnast and you just got beat, isn’t that bad enough without people accusing them of being your little sister’s age. I mean in what other sport, would you hear someone say, “hey no fair, Bobby is only 12, there is no way we can beat him, we’re already in highschool.” Insanity.

6. I think they should have a new Olympic event to replace the Decathalon or maybe just as a new “athalon” of some number. Here’s how it would work. Each country chooses their top 3 athletes from any sport and then 5 or 6 Olympic events are chosen at random and they all must compete in them against each other. I mean, if you turned on your TV and heard the announcer say, “Now for the US on floor exercise, Lebron James” or “Tyson Gay is on the top platform about to attempt his first dive and is sobbing and refusing to jump in the pool”, is there any way you wouldn’t watch? If you consider it objectively, I really should be running the Olympics.

7. If you know me at all, you know that I love my DVR like Phelps loves breakfast. But never have I enjoyed it more than during the Olympics. By the time I sit down to watch, I usually have about 20 hours of coverage cued up and can simply pick and choose what events I want to watch commercial free. Let’s just say that male synchronized diving is best watched at 4x fast forward.

8. My lovely wife thinks it sounds silly that they keep saying “the games of the Olympiad” and I agree. In honor of that somewhat hokey description, tomorrow during my scheduled depositions, I am going to try to work the word “Olympiad” into conversation as much as possible. For example, “would you say you are trying to turn this case into your own little private Olympiad?” or “how would you say this document compares to something that might occur at an Olympiad?” I’m looking forward to it.

9. As you watch these swimmers break record after record isn’t there some part of you that wonders if they are using performance enhancing drugs? I hate to even say it, but how can you not wonder given Track and Field, cycling, Baseball, etc? That’s the legacy of cheaters. Doubting greatness. Thanks a lot cheaters!

10. Is there a mascot for this Olympiad? Some person dressed as a friendly panda or something? Have I just missed it? I mean, if they have cheerleaders, don’t they have to have a mascot who is contractually obligated to ride on an oversized tricycle or randomly attach an audience member with silly string? Is this going on and if so, why don’t we get to see it? Maybe he’s hanging out at team handball.

Olympic thoughts

2008-08-12T15:59:00.000-07:00

A few questions/observations from watching the Olympics:

1. Why does Bob Costas have to share hosting duties with that other guy this year? Did he get demoted? He’s Bob Costas for crying out loud. He should be running the whole network. And just who is that other guy and who does he think he is?

2. I love that the Chinese thought they could get away with faking fireworks over a city crawling with foreign journalists. Brilliant.

3. Even with the faked fire works and the lip-syncing little girl (what? She was? Never saw that coming….), it was still the best opening ceremonies I’ve ever seen. Those moving boxes were just amazing.

4. Why do the women’s beach volleyball players wear outfits that would make Pamela Anderson blush? Do they want to? Did some beach volleyball marketing guru convince everyone it was good for their sport? I can’t help but think this was some man’s idea, but I can’t imagine that they are all required to dress like that and if not, why do they all? Curious.

5. Why do so many men from other countries think it perfectly acceptable to wear a beard on their neck? It is not. Can we have someone get the word out on this?

6. How is it that the top swimmers can “back off” while swimming in the heats and do “just enough to win” when the races are decided by hundredths of a second? Are they really that in tune? Are they really saying, “you know? I think I will step it down 14 hundredths of a second on this lap to save myself for the medal race?” I don’t get it.

7. I can’t appreciate the skill and talent in gymnastics because I spend the whole time waiting to see if they will take a step on their landing. That’s messed up. When a guy can leap into the air, flip and twist roughly 27 times and no one is impressed unless he sticks the mat like a lawn dart, things are out of whack.

8. Olympic basketball frustrates me. Everyone is all about the way the world has caught up, but if you put any of the top teams in the NBA other than USA and let them play out an 82 game season, there is not a single team that would even win 35 of the 82 games. I mean, teams are good enough that on any given night, they can beat our best players in one game. Big deal. Let’s see them do it for an entire season and then in a 7 game series.

9. During gymnastics one of the commentators went off on a rant against using replay and slow motion to judge the gymnastic events that routinely involve moves that happen slightly faster than the speed of light. Absolutely, lets make the judging as haphazard as possible. It's not bad enough we have olympic events decided by judges, let's also give them every disadvantage. What we really want is some judge blinking at the wrong moment and still deciding which person who has spent the last 10 years for this one moment gets something to take home from it. So someone has to wait 30 more seconds before starting the next routine. This is a big deal compared to the lifetime of work put in? Ridiculous.

10. I demand to see some team handball. Great game. I saw women’s weighlifting the other night (why? Why? WHY?), but no team handball. That’s not right. Someone call Costas.

Ok, that’s enough outta me.

Yikes

2008-08-08T11:34:00.001-07:00

Almost 2 months and nothing on this blog. That's a shame. Where have I been you may ask? Keeping the world safe for corporate America of course.

Before a brief update on things, I thought I would share one of the signs thoughtfully translated into English for the benefit of western athletes. Let's hope none of them are "liquor heads."

Work has been incredibly busy which is good for the career, bad for blogging.

Meanwhile let's quickly catch you up:

My Dad had an MRI this last week and everything looks good. Praise God.

My youngest brother Enoch got married to his girlfriend Amanda. It was good to see the family who gathered for the event. I wish I got to see them more.

Westside (my Church family) has hired a new preaching minister to team up with my Dad in the ministry hear. His name is Aaron Metcalf and I am very excited about both him and his family joining us.

We finally got to sing the song I wrote for my lovely wife to sing at Church and I loved it. Our Praise Team is planning to record a CD consisting primarily of songs I and other praise team members have written. Very exciting.

Olympics start tonight (really this morning) and I am unusually interested and excited this year. Not sure why. Maybe it is because the world chose such a deserving city to host....no, that can't be it....hmmmm. Really I don't care why. Just looking forward to it.

Tonight football season officially begins when the 49ers play their first preseason game against the Raiders. Yipeee.

Hopefully, now that I've broken the silence, I will get back to blogging. But 4 large trials in the next 3 months could interefere.

Signs of Our Times

2008-06-17T14:01:00.000-07:00

I wanted to get a bunch of quick movie reviews posted and will try to do that this week, but haven’t had time yet. So first, the picture that is posted with this blog comes from a website that sells replicas of signs from London. This is apparently a real sign in London, England. Of course, the imagination is running wild with the possible contents of the box, but I also like how forceful it is. Apparently it is not enough to provide protection, but you must clearly direct someone to use it. Nice. Here are my thoughts on what might be in this box:

1. A note containing a strongly worded reprimand which is what the English Bobbies are armed with instead of guns. Not surprisingly, English criminals are still foregoing these notes in favor of guns.

2. A sandwich. Not only nature’s perfect food, but a recipe for peace on earth. Probably roast beef.

3. It’s not a real box, but one of those “air boxes” created by mime’s and street performers…oh no wait, that would likely encourage an assault, never mind.

4. A phone connecting you to an automated answering service that begins, “hello, you’ve reached ‘phone in a box’ protection. If you are about to be assaulted, please press 1. If you are feeling the urge to assault someone else please press 2. If you believe the assault may cause you serious injury, please hang up and run like your pants are on fire.”

5. Another sign that says, “watch your bum, you’re about to be assaulted.” Ahhh, British humor.

6. A Frenchman who will immediately surrender on your behalf and then take your beating for you.

7. A wig and cattle gun to make you look like the bad guy from “No Country for Old Men.” If you are fortunate enough to be assaulted by fans of the Cohens’ films this will be terrifying to them.

8. A pen. After all it was a great English poet and playwright who first wrote, “the pen is mightier than the sword.” So, if you are about to be assaulted with a sword, this will apparently make you mightier. That said, sword related assaults appear to be on the decline while misuse of the pen continues to see ever increasing popularity. So keep that in mind.

9. Nothing, the box is a metaphor for the protection that Scotland Yard provides. Sadly, 47 people in London and the surrounding area died last year trying to protect themselves with metaphors.

10. Love. Because all we need is love. I know this is true because it is in a song. Also, like it or not, we all live in a yellow submarine.

Well those are my guesses. What do you think? Does anyone out there know the real answer?

Vacation 2008 - The last days

2008-06-13T11:08:00.000-07:00

Day 4

There is a risk scheduling Disneyland on the first two days of a week long vacation. What do you do to follow that? Since we weren’t getting on a plane to fly to Disneyworld, anything else was going to be a let down right? I mean, it would take trained miniature animals, hand feeding a camel, exotic cross-breeds, children of moviestars riding million dollar horses at a beautiful ranch regularly featured in TV commercials. Now that I think about it, even that wouldn’t be enough unless you also threw in the opportunity to see family you don’t see as often as you would like. Now if you could find a place where you could get all that, then maybe, just maybe you would have yourself a decent follow up to toxic watermelon gas and Jedi training.

Fortunately for us, there was just such a place only a few miles from where we were staying in Thousand Oaks. No, it’s not the Neverland Ranch (yikes), but rather the ranch where my Wonderful Aunt Sis (“WAS”) works along with my cousin Mark and his family (also wonderful to be sure, but the official “wonderful” title is now reserved exclusively for my WAS). Just a few minutes outside of a major LA suburb, just past a golf club where some golfer named Tiger holds a tournament is a beautiful horse ranch run by my cousin with the help of my WAS. The ranch is primarily for a large stable of world class competitive jumping horses and has some of the best facilities in the world. To put it in perspective, to say that the main barn was nicer than any house I have lived in would be like saying Lebron James is a better basketball player than any 6 year old I’ve ever coached.

This is the ranch where Budweiser films its Superbowl ads every year and if it is good enough for that beer hocking Dalmatian it is good enough for me. We also met Tom Selleck’s daughter (not her dad to my wife’s chagrin) while she was riding a rather pricey equine. Anyway, it is a beautiful place with a large pond/lake, gorgeous fields for the horses, amazing buildings and….drum roll please….trained miniature animals.

What do you get for the man who can afford anything he wants? Well, miniature horses, cows and sheep of course. But every billionaire has those things so to make it better you should hire an animal trainer then get some other odd animals and put on shows for school children. No matter how many times I say or write about this it still sounds really strange, but strange in a fun, good kind of way.

Basically, the ranch has several miniature horses, some full sized pigs (including Helen who is right around a thousand pounds), some miniature sheep, some goats, some alpaca and one very large camel. Oh, and I almost forgot, the Zedonk! Where does a Zedonk come from you may ask? Well you see when a daddy Zebra loves a mommy donkey very much and they get married and they decide they want to have a baby the daddy approaches the…..ok, that’s enough…I had you worried there for a second didn’t I? But the Zedonk is a zebra/donkey cross that comes out a grey and black striped donkey like creature that is just downright cool.
My WAS and cousin toured us around the ranch and the boys were in vacation heaven all over again. They were fascinated by the Zedonk and got to feed carrots to the various animals. The highlights of the feeding were:

1. The camel was awesome. Very friendly and rather than snatch the carrot away with its teeth it would extend its huge mick jagger like lips and basically wrap them around your hand and come away with the carrot. If that sounds a little yucky it is, but mostly it is very, very cool. Unless you are around camels everyday and then maybe this would just be very cool. I loved the camel. Oh and I know what you’re thinking and the answer is: one hump.

2. The boys were fascinated by WAS’ admonition not to let Helen the giant pig take the carrot out of your hand because she might just take your whole hand off. This led to the following exchange:

G1: What? The pig can eat my hand? She would eat my whole hand? Would she want to? Do pigs eat people?

Me: Well, if you think about it that would only be fair considering the bacon and pork chops and what not, but they don’t go seeking people to devour unless their covered in mushrooms.

G2: Why would a pig eat me? Are they bad?

Me: No they’re quite yummy.

G2: Don’t eat Helen Dad.

Me: Son, Helen out weighs me by 800 pounds, she has nothing to worry about. Just keep your hand away from her mouth.

3. While feeding the alpaca we noticed that they sheer them for their coat but leave their (fur? Hair?) long on the top of their head so it covers their eyes. Apparently, alpacas prefer to look as much as possible like a teenage boy from 1978 or 2006.

After we fed the various animals we retired to the small ring they had constructed to put on shows with the trained animals. They have a very nice animal trainer on staff and they regularly put on shows for school children on the best field trip in the history of field trips.

Billy: Hey Tommy where are you going on your filed trip this year?

Tommy: We’re going to the Dole plant to see how they can pineapple, how about you?

Billy: We’re going to a Billionaire’s ranch to watch a show put on by trained miniature animals, get a free disposable camera to take pictures and a cool hat with the ranch’s logo on it, then we’ll get to play on huge fields of the last grass in LA that isn’t used for a golf course or cemetery. But I guess that pineapple thing sounds pretty cool too.

Tommy: I hate you Billy. I hate you. Waaaaaaaaaa.

At least, that’s how I picture conversations taking place between school children all over the city. Except that if that were happening today their names would be Jack and Ethan or Cody or Jake or something like that.

But one of the very cool things they do on this ranch (the owner is a very generous guy), is they bring out kids from the inner city who have likely never seen an animal other than rodents or grass or air without smog and let them have a day frolicking with Zedonks in actual nature. The guy who owns this place deserves major credit….as do my WAS and cousin for making it all happen.

Anyway, the show featured the following and I’m not making any of this up:

1. Spartacus the miniature horse picked up a slightly flat miniature basketball and on command raised up on his hind legs and dropped in a miniature basketball hoop. He even had a good bank shot. That said, he couldn’t dribble at all.

2. A every well behaved goat balanced on top of a small bucket before running around the ring jumping over miniature (3 feet high or so) horse jumps. The goat’s agent confirmed an impressive 38 inch standing vertical.

3. A large pig (not Helen large, but still big) pushed a ball into bowling pins on command. The pig’s demonstration was cut short because it was league night at the local alley and he had to get down there.

4. A miniature cow turned circles before taking a bow for the audience.
Neither the boys nor their parents could have been more impressed or delighted. Truth be told, I enjoyed the ranch more than Disneyland, but that could have just been because I got to see my WAS.

After the ranch we just hung out and rested up a bit and enjoyed the sun.

Day 4 was an unmitigated success.

Day 5 we just hung out with our friends, saw our first apartment in LA, saw WAS again and relaxed in the sunshine. Very nice.

Day 6 we went to Church with my life long buddy Jeff and his wife Tara and their son D. Jeff and Tara lead worship with a praise team at their great church which was very familiar to my lovely wife and me. The church service was genuine and moving and very enjoyable. And I even got to see my old buddy Scott Lambert. That was followed by a very fun day in the park and dinner with friends. Tough to top that.

Day 7 we returned home which meant the unbridled joy of another airplane ride. Props again to my lovely wife for finding us flights that didn’t require us to rush around getting ready early in the morning. We returned home to find it, thankfully, just as we left it. We were tired and some were a bit under the weather, but overall it was an extremely good vacation. Praise God.

Ok, now I have to find something else to blog about. Fortunately, I only have about 10,000 more ideas. If I only had the time……

Have a good weekend.

Vacation Day 3

2008-06-11T16:53:00.000-07:00

Day 3 was Day 2 in house of mouse. Our game plan was simple and straightforward.

1. Breakfast at IHOP to start out with a good fuel level as we started our day. For reasons I can not explain to this day, it was by far our most expensive meal of the trip. 4 people, two of them children, and it was more than anything we ate in the park by a wide margin. I looked at the bill up and down, but I still think I must have missed something, like the fact that I agreed to buy a round of pancakes for the house or something. It may be a long time before I try IHOP again. Just makes me nervous like traveling in Europe with your wallet in your back pocket after all the stories of pick-pockets. Ok, so I’ve never travelled in Europe, but I’ve heard stories including one where my lovely wife fought off two gypsies in an Italian bathroom and chased down a third to reclaim her backpack. Lovely and ferocious! It is very likely that if there really are people with superpowers living among us, she is one of them.

2. Go to Disneyland and head right to the Finding Nemo ride. We figured correctly that the line would be somewhat shorter and that we would be better equipped psychologically to deal with a long line first thing in the morning. The ride featured a submarine in a big swimming pool where you could watch the Nemo characters out your window. The ride was just OK, but seeing the animated characters underwater like that was actually pretty amazing. I could have used more Bruce the shark. G2 could have used considerably less. While clutching to my side, he kept saying “fish are friends, not food.” I’m pretty sure I have already scarred this poor child.

3. Then we would go and meet our friends Alan and Sharon and their kids P and E and go to California Adventure. This park is one of the lesser Baldwins to Disney’s Alec. Maybe Billy. At least that’s how it is obviously perceived by the public who were avoiding this place like a nuclear blast zone compared to the crowds at the main park. That suited us just fine. We spent the morning in the area themed after the movie A Bug’s Life which featured the following highlights:

a. A kiddy train that took you through stuff a caterpillar character eats and when you go through you are bombarded with the scent of whatever food you are near, which included watermelon, animal cookies, apple strudel and more. It was amazing and pretty fun until you stop to consider what kind of chemical bath we must have been wading through to get that kind of odor in an open air ride. My guess is we suffered a 30% cilium loss and aged our lungs by 2.4 years. While we are on the subject, Disneyland smells surprisingly good. This, of course, like most good things, makes me suspicious. I mean the place is packed with people and many of them clearly take approaches to personal hygiene that suggests a less than pleasant odor. Then you add the heat and machinery and trash that must accumulate and there is just no good reason for the whole place to smell like a churro, but it does and that right there is worth $40 of the admission fee. Not joking.

b. The world’s slowest bumper cars. At top speeds you needed time-lapse photography to even detect movement. In my mind a bumper car is not worth doing unless there is a at least a 50/50 chance of leaving the session with fractured vertebrae or permanent soft-tissue damage. Sure, the kids enjoyed these cars just fine, but I was hoping for more.

c. Lots of water features designed to let kids run around like crazy and get soaking wet. High on squeal and giggle factor. It was fantastic and given the heat a perfect feature. Good work by the designers to go simple and let the kids blow off some steam….literally. My favorite part was watching G2 who was pretty overwhelmed the first day, come out of his shell in this area. My second favorite part was the mom who let her 6 year old kid loose among the various drips and jets of water while yelling the whole time, “don’t get too wet.” I think just maybe she was sending mixed messages there.

4. A bug’s life was followed by a very wet and fun raft ride where my lovely wife managed to get about 3 times more soaked than anyone else. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought that fake river was out to get her.

5. The lunch plan was also simple, seek and devour one of the much discussed giant corndogs served in California Adventure. I love me some corndog and these did not disappoint. Of course, you really need to wash down a corndog with a giant elephant ear covered in cinnamon and sugar, but now I’m just getting greedy.

6. Lunch was followed by a couple more rides with the kids and then the one truly grown-up ride we rode on the trip. This was California Screamin which is a large and it turns out, very cool roller coaster. I have two requirements for roller coasters. First, they must be fast and this one blows you away from the start. Second, it must be smooth. With those goofy braces they make you wear a jerky roller coaster can give you cauliflower ears like you are an offensive lineman from the ‘60s. I love roller coasters and would loved to have done the others at the park, but this trip was about the kids and the one I did ride was fantastic, so no complaints.

7. After that it was back to Disneyland where we randomly had double the energy of the first day and we stayed until almost 9. We saw the parade and rode a bunch more rides and had a really great time. Then we headed to the Indiana Jones store to purchase souvenirs. I had told the boys they could pick out one toy or something else to buy before we left. Not surprisingly they both chose the same “Indiana Jones Action Kit” which is on full display in both the picture with this post and the first vacation post back on June 3 (as predicted it is taking me longer to replay the vacation than it did to take the vacation…at least the replay is cheaper). The kit was perfect. Everything in Disneyland costs between 50% and 150% more than it should and the boys were set on getting something related to Indiana Jones (or Indiannie Jones as G2 calls him), but the hats were $38, the whips were $40, the revolvers were being sold behind the store out of the trunk of someone’s Disney Employee Golf Cart at a “gun show” to avoid background checks so I was worried. Then, as if created just for us, they had these kits with indestructible hats, totally destructible whips, a plastic revolver with holster and a foam machete thrown in as a bonus. Oh and a little bag of plastic jewels and gold coins. And all of this for less than $20. Brilliant! Maybe this is the happiest place on earth……or maybe the artificial watermelon gas has so altered my brain that I think someone is doing me a favor by providing me the opportunity to pay $40 for cheap toys.

8. After that we rode tons more rides and watched the parade. Everyone was in a good mood even though we were all tired. We ended with one more wild ride with Mr. Toad which was one of the boys’ favorites and called it a long but good day. The only downside is when we walked by the saddest place on earth as we were exiting the park. Right near the exit is the office where you are to go if you have lost a child at the park. There looked to be about 5-8 sets of shell-shocked and distraught parents in there at the time. It just about stopped my heart thinking about it. It was a good reminder to say a prayer, first for those families and then for my own and our safety.

9. Then to top off a great day, there was barely any traffic on the way home and we made it back “across town” in about an hour and 15 minutes which is pretty staggering. At the end it was a very good day and even though it didn’t have us saving the galaxy, it did end with everyone in a happier state of mind. Also, needless to say I, the driver, was the only one still awake by the time we made it back as far as downtown LA and we were all asleep within minutes of being on the road.

Next up is Day 4 which involved a basketball dunking horse about the size of my parents’ dog, a Zedonk and a bowling pig. In other words, it was exactly like my senior prom all over again.

Vacation 2008 - Day 2 Part 2

2008-06-07T18:03:00.001-07:00

Still buzzing with excitement from our victory over the evil empire, we charged off to ride the Finding Nemo submarine ride. This was a new attraction relatively and the kids were excited to ride it. How did they even know about it you may ask? I’m not exactly sure. My best guess is that Disney has spiked our drinking water with nanotechnology that sends messages to our brain on a cellular level informing us about the latest Disney rides, tv shows and movies. But I’m not completely sure. Just going with the most simple explanation.

Anyway, the line for Nemo was going to take more than an hour and had no fast pass. You know about the fast pass right? It’s ingenious really. You grab a ticket for the ride that tells you when to come back to the ride so you can go stand in line for other rides and then come back and stand in a slightly shorter line for the ride you initially wanted to ride. It is possible that for a major ride it makes sense and I give Disney total credit for trying to do something about the lines, but we did not use this little gimmick a single time. Nevertheless other people who have been to Disney land talk about it like they discovered the fountain of youth when they talk about the fastpass. Now the “stroller pass” that really is pure genius. This allows Mom to ride the ride while Dad stays with the stroller. Then Dad gets a stroller pass so that when Mom gets back Dad can go to the front of the line. In other words, if you hate lines and love riding rides alone, bring a stroller with you next time you go to Disneyland.

Where was I?.....oh yeah, not riding Nemo….

Instead of Nemo we went to “autotopia” or as I like to call it “The most ironic ride ever.” Disneyland is located in the LA metro area which means you can only get there by driving for hours in the worst traffic in the nation. So when you get there, Disneyland provides you a ride which basically consists of driving a small car in traffic. Brilliant. The boys loved it though and it was the perfect speed for the afternoon.

After that we went to Toontown and forced G2 to ride a terrifying (for him) roller coaster and spent the next hour trying to make it up to him with ice cream. In truth, we were all beat. The park overwhelmed the boys, the sun and activity had drained all of us and we were done. We wondered aimlessly a bit and then hit the classic kid rides – Dumbo, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, Alice in Wonderland, Tea Cups, etc. Finally, G2 was loving the rides. The rides were perfect except for one thing….the Evil Queen. You know the one from Snow White? Well G2 is absolutely terrified of her. I have no idea why. People have suggested that it could be linked to the year I spent dressing up as the evil queen and sneaking into his room in the middle of the night and cackling like a crazy person, but I just don’t see how that could be related. Anyway, right above Snow White’s ride is a window where periodically the curtains part to reveal the Evil Queen looking down on the passers by. When G2 saw this he was petrified. I was worried that he may simply try to flee and we would never get him to come back. That led to this exchange:

Me: Hey dude, there is nothing to be afraid of, she is just a robot.
G2: A bad robot?

Me: No, just a robot.

G2: She looks bad and bad robots are scary. I don’t like her.

Me. Well, I’m not saying we should go ask her for some apples, but she just stands there and she is just a machine and nothing to be afraid of.

G2: I don’t like her. I don’t like her at all. You know who could beat her? Incredible hulk.

This epiphany seemed to provide him some comfort and we just left it at that. Even though we were having fun, we were still running very low on energy so we met our friends for dinner and then went back to the hotel to call it a day.

We had a great hotel room with a separate space for the boys with bunk beds. Bunkbeds are great and all, but unfortunately, they all come with the same fatal flaw. There is only one top bunk. I realize the laws of nature require this, but it stinks for little boys and their parents. It is a little known fact that the top bunk is awesome while the bottom bunk is the bed equivalent to banging your shin on the coffee table in the eyes of young boys. We settled the issue as we often do in these circumstances by flipping a coin and then trying in vain to get the losing child to stop crying. Good, good times.

My lovely wife actually fell asleep while walking up the stairs to our hotel room, so we all just carried her the rest of the way, laid her down on the bed where she did not speak another coherent word until morning. Disneyland requires a lot of Mommying. I mean a lot. My lovely wife was mommyed out and no one could blame her.

The truly incredible thing is that our boys had been brain dead for 2 and half hours. They were in some kind of strange waking coma having completely exhausted themselves. Then, when we got to the hotel room, they were apparently piping in some kind of mind altering gas that affects only children because our boys got a second wind that could have powered all the windfarms in California. Where do they get that energy? Disney nanotechnology? Hmm……

Anyway, they finally got to sleep and after convincing myself that my wife was in fact just sleeping and not in some kind of suspended animation, I went to sleep as well. All those people who tell you if you are taking kids you should take a break in the middle of the day and then go back are right. We tried to push it too hard and too long and ended up crashing at 7pm. Rookie mistake. But we had a whole second day at the park to make up for it and make up for it we did.

The second day at Disney ended with this “The Waltons” like goodnight exchange:

Me: Good night boys.

G1: G2 is a toot factory and I can’t go to sleep

G2: (unbridled giggling)

G1: It’s not funny.

Me: Boys, it’s time to go to sleep. No more potty talk. Good night.

G2: Goodnight yodi dog (if that sounds like gibberish, it is and I have no idea what it means. I don’t make the news, I just report it)

G1: Buenes Noches

Me: Good night mommy

Mommy: (silence)

Me: Good night mommy

Mommy: (stirring slightly) I don’t…what?...boys don’t climb on that….come here…stay with us…don’t lick that…don’t hit your brother…don’t hit that nice lady…hmm…avlegrablifishkinalyfink……(silence)

G1: What did she say?

Me: She said, “good night.”

Stay tuned for Day 3!!!!

Vaction Day 2, Part 1

2008-06-06T17:05:00.001-07:00

And now the continuing saga of our recent vacation…
Day 2, Part 1 – Disney, baby. Disney.
The night before day 2 we sat with our friends to decide what time to leave. We wanted to basically get there when the park opened and my friends live “across town” from Disneyland which in LA means approximately 16 hours away if traffic is light. Also the term “traffic is light” in LA means your car is not moving in reverse, away from your destination. I find that many every day terms need to be defined when living in LA. You just need a different frame of reference for questions like:

1. Is that an expensive car?
2. Is that surgery medically necessary?
3. What do you mean the coke you’re selling doesn’t come in diet?
4. Do you know anyone in the business?
5. Do you know how to find the Paris Hilton?

Anyway, since it was going to be a bit of a haul, we had to make a plan. Why is it that it can be so difficult for 4 otherwise relatively normal adults who are good friends to arrive at a plan with complicated details like where we should eat or when we should leave or where can we find a half-decent sandwich or things like that? Anyway, after hiring and firing two different professional mediators, we came to a decision, went to bed where the kids slept approximately 4 minutes then got up late and completely abandoned the plan we made the night before.

The drive to the magic kingdom was really about 2 hours a way and in the course of that time our kids began channeling their excitement into a rousing game I believe they must call “who can ask the same question the most.” “Is that (pointing to any visible structure on the road side) Disneyland?” was the clubhouse leader, but an impressive stretch run by “Do you have something to drink?” narrowly edged all others to win the game. What was most impressive though was that despite the long drive and build-up our kids did very little whining or complaining. What good boys. And why shouldn’t they have been good? They were on their way to the happiest place on earth!!!!

We got to our hotel which was about 5 blocks from the park entrance, got our parking pass and walked to the park. Since I want to get this posted today, here are the highlights from the rest of the day (first part only):

· Weather was a perfect 75 and sunny. You read about the crime and traffic and other problems with LA and you think why do so many people live there. And then you go and it is 75 and sunny every single day and you get your answer.

· To my surprise and delight my typically apprehensive oldest son was gung-ho to ride Splash Mountain even after hearing about the long drop at the end. He usually pleads with me not to make him ride stuff like that but he wanted to make that our first ride. Line was short. G1 loved it and G2 hated it, but it was still a pretty good start.

· Before the first ride we walked down the very well done mainstreet where kids were lining up by the hundreds to have Mickey Mouse, Pluto and Cruella DeVille sign autographs. Really? Autographs? I mean, I suppose if you were wearing a coat made out of Dalmations, it might be cool to have it signed by Cruella if you were the kind of psycho that wore clothes made from dogs, but other than that….autographs? From people dressed as giant mice? I don’t get it. Thankfully, neither did our boys who made no demands to stand in those long lines for the pleasure of shaking hands with some college student about to drop dead of heatstroke inside a giant cartoon dog.

· From Splash Mtn, we did Pirates of the Carribean, saw a live Indiana Jones show, rode a Buzz Lightyear ride and several others before the unquestioned highlight of the day…..

· JEDI TRAINING – There is a show in “Tomorrowland” where several Jedi have teamed up with Darth Vader and Darth Maul to train young Jedi in the ways of battling with plastic colored swords while wearing a very impractical friar’s robe. You should know that my boys love Star Wars. Love it. They could watch the movies over and over around the clock only breaking to talk about them and relive certain scenes if we let them…..which we don’t….as far as you know. Anyway, we had heard about the show from our good friends Tony and Jennifer as their boy was a participant when they visited the park, but I had forgotten about it until now.

We came upon the show as it was about half way over and basically little kids with plastic light sabers were doing battle with a very real looking Darth Vader and very spooky looking Darth Maul while storm troopers observed and Star Wars music blared in the back ground. As I was watching the engrossed audience I could actually hear George Lucas getting richer. It was amazing. We decided this was a “must do” event and I inquired how one got their kid up on stage with the Darths. Then I was given horrible news for any parent. You could show up and stand for hours with hundreds of other kids and parents in this sort of bullpen area and hope you were one of the lucky few chosen at random by the Jedi instructors. NOOOoooooooooooooo. That was terrible news because that means (a) jockeying for position for an hour in advance with other ruthless parents and (b) the real possibility that neither kid would be chosen, or even worse, one would be and one would not.

So, we did the only sensible thing and left Tomorrowland never to return. Nope. Not us. Instead, I stood in the bullpen for more than an hour while I ate the most expensive chicken sandwich I’ve ever eaten and called on years of elbowing people out of my way on the basketball court to protect the 2 square feet that my boys (and their friend P) would need to stand in prime choosing position. This included the following actual exchange with another parent:

Angry Bitter Sweaty Mom: Do you mind if my kids stand right here in front of you? You just need to have your kids back up. We’ve really been wanting to do this and they want to be up front, do you mind?

Me: Uhhhmmmm, actually I’ve been waiting here quite a while so my boys could be up front, so yeah, I guess I do. Sorry.

ABSM: (looking at me like I had just called her a common prostitute): Listen, my kids have just as much right as yours to stand there.

Me: (bracing for battle and wishing I had more jedi training myself): Well, they have every right to stand here like everyone else, but I think my kids have the right to keep standing where they are standing now and have been standing for like an hour since they got their first. I don’t mean to be rude, but like I said, we’ve been here for a while.

ABSM: Oh that’s just great!!!! Thanks a lot!!!

At that point she just squeezed in next to me and my kids as if their mere presence and sweatiness would drive us from our claim. Instead I just stood there as if oblivious to her gruntings and mutterings until finally they left to try to find some other poor sap to try to con into giving up their space. I mean, give me a break.

Anyway, finally, the Jedi came out and the show started. When he pointed at my boys and said, “the two right there in front with the red shirts” calling both boys up to the stage I whooped and clapped like I had just won the lottery. Then when he called up their friend P too, I could finally just relax and enjoy. So all the boys got special Jedi training and we captured it all on film. It was faaaaaaaaaantastic. Plus, in a shocking turn of events, they defeated both Darths who made the galaxy’s slowest getaway as they were lowered down under the stage by a platform that may still be taking them down even as I write this.

The boys were grinning ear to ear. I was still celebrating my victory over ABSM and we were frolicking around in a place that smelled like churros wherever you went. Ahhh the bliss.

The Jedi training ended with this exchange between me and G2:

G2: Why was Darth Maul there fighting?

Me: I think he got tired of fighting out in space and decided to get a job here at Disneyland since really, when you think about it, there aren’t that may jobs open to guys with horns, face tattoos and whose only discernible skill is looking fierce and fighting with a brightly colored sword.

G2: (nodding at the unquestionable logic of my answer): Daddy, I think you should get a job here at Disneyland. You could put on your robe and fight kids with a sword.

Me: I think they arrest guys for doing that.

G2? What? What do you mean?

Me: Hey look it’s finding Nemo.

Tune in next time for Day 2, Part 2 – running out of steam.

More good news

2008-06-04T17:07:00.001-07:00

More good news today about my Dad. He got scanned today and talked to the doctors and they all declared his surgery a success. Ding dong, the tumor's dead. Sadly, it took a big chunk of liver with it which is resulting in some fairly extreme pain for my Dad, but the surgery went well and the remaining tumor in his chest is stable so today was a day of good news. Praise God.

No time to provide Day 2 of the Vacation extravaganza. Instead my thought for the day is I bet the ability to read other people's minds is the most overrated super power. It sounds like something that you would like to have, but I'm guessing it would make most people miserable. Think about the people you know with absolutely no social filter. Now think about how much fun it is to be around them. Now consider if everyone was like that. See what I mean?

I would much rather have invisibility or the power to turn any rock into a sandwhich.

VACATION

2008-06-03T15:58:00.000-07:00

Hello all. Long time no blog.

We are freshly back from a much anticipated, much needed, long overdue vacation.
We went to Disneyland and California Adventure and Windy Hills Ranch with the two Indiana Jones doppelgangers pictured along with this post. My hope is to describe our trip in a new series of posts as time permits. First though, a brief update on my Dad’s health.

My Dad is now home from the hospital (and has been for more than a week) and recovering well. He’s certainly not back to 100%, but the recovery seems to be going as anticipated. He’s in pain and it interferes with his sleep and it is no fun by any means, but he is on the road he needs to be in and recovery seems to be going well, so praise God. He will talk to the doctors again today and get another scan, so we may know shortly (though probably not today) how effective the surgery was in killing the tumor.

Oh, by the way, this tumor was only the size of a baseball as opposed to his last nerf-football sized mass. That’s right ONLY a baseball!! My Dad grows some big tumors. Let’s hope and pray that is all in the past. Thank you all again for your prayers. They were a great comfort and much appreciated.

VACATION - Day 1

Boys are excited. Not regular excited. Not even, little boy excited. Wild monkey on speed who hasn’t eaten in two days about to be handed a banana excited. So, needless to say, there was screeching and loss of fur and that was just on the ride to the airport.

Then there was the airport, that endless font of pleasure and ways to annoy your parents and jet-lagged, weary travelers. It kicked off the first of many conversations that went something like:

Boy1 – Are we at Disneyland?

Dad – No, this is just the airport. It’s just like Disneyland except closer and without all the rides, characters and $27 french fries….no wait, they’ve got those. Oh and they are “freedom fries” anyway since the French are bad.

Boy2 – What? Freedom what? Why are the French bad? Are we going to France? Isn’t that too far? Do they speak Spanish there? What’s happening?

Dad – The French are bad because….

Mom (interrupting) – Don’t even think about it….

Dad – Nevermind, Daddy was just being funny.

Boy1 – Can I carry my own suitcase?

Dad – I think it will be too heavy for you little dude.

Boy1 – No it won’t. I’m Hulk. It’s not too heavy. Please, please, please, please, please, can I carry it?

Dad – Fine, here you go.

Boy1 – (Straining under the weight and struggling in vain to pull the suitcase.) – It’s too heavy, please, please, please, please, please, please, can’t you carry it for me.

Dad – No. And in fact, now you have to carry mine too.

Ok, so I didn’t really say that last line, but I did think it. Don’t get the wrong picture though. The kids were fantastic. Their mother has trained them well and they were excited, but behaved and pretty easy to herd around. Plus they loved everything about the airport which was also fun. They were, however perplexed by the following:

--Why would you walk on the moving sidewalk when it moves for you?
--Why doesn’t our house have large rotating doors?
--Why does Southwest allow family boarding after the A group, but before the B group and how do you get in A group?
--What does a Daddy have to do to get some freakin diet Pepsi around here. (ok, maybe that was just me, but enough Coke already).

The plane ride was a thing of joy and wonderment and the kids liked it too. When it was discovered that they would be serving apple juice and peanuts, they looked at me like they couldn’t figure out what heaven might have to one-up this experience.

The plane was followed by the rental car shuttle which included riding in a large van with no seatbelts which was…to quote G2….”AWESOME.” Then the rental car was awesome and the palm trees were awesome and the billboards for Hulk and Indiana Jones and Wall E were awesome. As an aside, the boys can do a dead on impression of WALL E’s robot voice. Fairly amusing really.

All of this was followed by driving on the 101 from Burbank to Thousand Oaks which was decidedly un-awesome. Thankfully, this was followed up by spending the evening with our good friends Sharon and Alan and their two brilliant and beautiful children who will remain nameless for security reasons. Seriously, they have no names in the name of security. It is really quite sad. But they are great kids anyway.

All in all the first day was a masterfully orchestrated (by my lovely wife), thoroughly satisfactory start to our vacation.

Tune in next episode for Jedi training, terrifying witches, height issues, sensory overload and all the magic of a child’s first day at the magic kingdom. And all for the cost of two years tuition with room and board at a private college. Sing with me now: “When you wish upon a star…….”

Update on Dad

2008-05-15T15:37:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note from the hospital. My Dad had his surgery today. It went well. They were able to go in with the scope, so they didn’t have to open him up. The surgeon feels good about how it went. There were no other tumors visible which was a pleasant surprise. It went as well as it could have. Praise God. Thank you all for your prayers.

Negligent Parenting

2008-05-08T16:37:00.000-07:00

Two 13 year old boys have been charged with breaking into their school and attempting to rape an assistant principal who was working at the time. 13. 13!!! It makes my stomach turn and makes me sad and angry and disappointed. It also makes me wonder, are we doing all we can as a society to keep things like that from happening?

One of the heavy burdens we have put on our legal system is the responsibility to mold society. Our legal system punishes unwanted conduct for the sake of justice and compensates the injured in the name of fairness, but as much as any other goal, our legal system is designed to motivate certain behavior we deem desirable. In the regulatory arena, that is the primary goal. We fine companies who pollute primarily because we want them to stop polluting.

In the civil and criminal arenas controlling behavior is only one of the three goals (at least 3) that I mentioned above. But it is with that goal in mind that I find myself wondering, when should parents be held civilly or criminally liable. Would it make the world a better place if parents thought they could be sued or put in jail if they made no effort to parent? What if using illegal drugs meant that you could be put in jail if your child committed a drug related crime? What if failing to read to your children could make you civilly liable if your child committed a crime up to the age of 30? Would more people read to their kids? Wouldn’t that be good?

Maybe you’re saying, “yeah, but what’s the connection between reading and crime?” Maybe nothing. The point is just to modify behavior. What’s the connection between your kid disobeying you and taking away their favorite toy? Maybe nothing, but if the kid wants the toy he obeys next time and that’s the goal. What if the goal was that parents read more to their kids or spend a minimum about of time with them in a week or month or don’t smoke around them, or whatever? Wouldn’t more people do these things if they knew they could be held responsible for their kids growing up to be criminals?

Even considering it should scare parents to death. After all, I mostly just stumble around in the dark as a parent and hope my children survive the experience (of course, thanks to my wife they actually thrive, but she’s pretty extraordinary). Can parents really control their children? Is it their fault when one turns out bad? Our sense of justice may argue for staying away from this. Our desire to compensate victims would be served to a small degree. But what about the power of the legal system to actually modify behavior.

For example, let’s say we agree that kids are individuals that are going to make their own decisions and even the “best” parents can raise “bad” kids despite their best efforts. But even then ask yourself if, as a parent, there is anything different you would do if you knew you could be held liable for the wrongs of your kids if they could be linked back to your decisions in raising them. Then, if the answer to that question is “yes,” ask yourself whether those changes you made would better society in general if they were made by more people. If the answer to that question is also yes, then you have to at least entertain the possibility that we may be missing a way to improve ourselves.

My guess is most of the people reading this blog try as hard as they can as parents as it is and neither they nor their children would benefit from the threat of legal action if their kid got into trouble. But would that be true in every home?

Really, I’m not for this at all. And I hate judging other people’s parenting since I am such a novice myself. Plus, I don’t think government has any business trying to dictate to parents the way they parent so long as they are not hurting their children in some tangible way. The government would be terrible regulators of parenting. I don’t want the government telling me I can’t spank or take their toys to my office because when is it going to be my turn to play with the legos already??? But when really young children do really horrible things, I have to ask what’s going on with the parents? And sometimes the answer will be, “nothing, it is all on the kid.” But sometimes, dare I say most times, the answer is, the parents have let that child down.

I think the best application for this line of thought is this. Between abuse, drugs, dead beats, kids having kids, hyper selfishness, immorality, Godlessness, and various other factors, I think many of our problems stem from parenting disasters. We don’t want to have to start putting parents in jail for the crimes of their kids. We don’t want government regulating how you parent. So, who can step in and provide education, support and love for the millions of parents who are failing and raising millions of kids who will terrorize society before failing at being parents themselves?

If only there was some organization built around the idea that all people have value and should be loved. Some place who believed that their mission was to help the people that need it most. Some place that thought God Himself had ordered them on this mission. Some place where people strove for morality and selflessness and supported the people around them when they were not strong enough in that pursuit.

That’s the kind of group I would want to take an active role in trying to help people be better parents. Of course, there are groups like this everywhere. I lead worship for one every Sunday. I hope we step up before we are all being sued for negligent parenting. Don’t think it can’t happen.

My Dad's Health

2008-05-05T16:12:00.000-07:00

We interrupt this blog inactivity with some news/information of actual importance.

It has been a while, but I think I should post an update on my Dad’s (pictured above in a very cool old picture my wife unearthed recently) health situation. This will just be a brief summary, so if you would like more details, please feel free to email me. If you are new to the blog or to knowing me, you may not know that my Dad was diagnosed with a relatively rare form of cancer a couple years ago. Successful surgery removed a tumor the size of a nerf football (sorry to be graphic, but it still blows me a way to think about) from his abdomen.

Unfortunately, all too soon, the cancer returned. My Dad has been living for several months now and maybe more like a year now that I’m thinking about it with multiple tumors on his Liver and one in his chest. There is a drug that has proven to be effective against this type of cancer that my Dad has been taking and the regular CT scans had been showing that the drug was doing its job and stopping the growth of the tumors and in some cases even shrinking some of them. With the exception of some nausea and some days of exhaustion along with some other relatively minor side effects, things were going quite well.

Then a couple weeks ago, we got some more bad news. One of the tumors on the liver is growing rapidly and not being stopped by the medication. In less than 3 months it has more than doubled in size and is now roughly the size of a tennis ball.

There are lots of reasons that is bad (as I’m sure you could deduce) even though the tumor has yet to cause any symptoms. First, it means doubling the dose of the medication which could ramp up the side effects substantially. Second, something else will have to be done to stop this tumor. Basically the options were/are surgery to remove it, try another drug that has rather awful side-effects, or go in with a scope, stick hot wires in it and burn it to death. Of these, that third option would be, by far, the preferred option.

Today, my Dad talked to the surgeon who seems optimistic he can go in with the scope and kill this thing without full blown surgery. So, while the discovery of this new tumor has been very bad news for the family, we got some good news today so praise God.

He will have the procedure on the 15th. If all goes well, he could be in and out in a day or two. If it doesn’t, the surgeon will surgically remove the tumor. That would be major surgery with something like a 3 month recovery time, so we are very hopeful that could be avoided. So, if you are the praying kind and would be willing, please pray for my Dad and the success of this procedure. And pray for my Mom as well as she supports my Dad through this. And pray for me as well. My Dad and I are close and I could use your prayers.

Also, if you are not the praying kind, you are really, really missing out and should really try to do something about that. Not the point of this blog post, but I’m just saying, email me or something because prayer is one of those rare things that is even better than advertised and it is really unhealthy to go even one more day without it. Just looking it out for you.

Thanks.

Making fun

2008-04-24T19:50:00.000-07:00

I love to make fun. I mean who doesn't like fun? So here is one way to make it as I recently posted to someone else's blog comments:

Try this out, just for fun tomorrow. Whenever anyone tells you some simple fact about their life or day, smile knowingly, nod your head and say “it takes two to tango, if you know what I mean.” No one will but at least half the people you say it to won’t want to admit it and that is funny.

For example,

"Hey, how's it going? I just got the best deal on a new speed boat."

"Well, it takes two to tango if you know what I mean...."

Or, just try adding “if you know what I mean” after some obvious thing, like: I’m going out to get some milk at the store if you know what I mean.” This will freak people out, trust me. Then you have a little fun at the awkward moment and later they make fun of you for being such a dork and everyone has fun thanks to you.

Sure you will get a lot of wierd looks and people will think you are completely insane, and no one will understand why you are so amused with yourself afterward, but it will be worth it to spread the fun.

Or maybe, that's just me....hmmm.....nah.

Warning: Knives are sharp and coffee is hot

2008-04-21T02:11:00.000-07:00

Both of my sons share many of my better qualities. Both are witty and intelligent to an almost alarming degree and both lead secret lives as ninjas. Like my youngest son, I too have these really cute freckles and could charm the spots off a leopard if I were in the need of spots (which of course I am not as I don’t even have room for all my stripes). And my oldest son has already begun to see the world like a products liability attorney.

Ok, in truth, unlike G2, I have no freckles to speak of and even less charm, but the last comment about my eldest is true. He brought me a Frisbee today that is your standard hard plastic Frisbee roughly 10-12 inches in diameter. It is made for or by the fine people at Colombia Sportswear Company and contains the following warning.

Remember, I’m not making this up and this is on a large, blue, hard plastic Frisbee.

“WARNING: CHOKING HAZARD – Small parts. Not for children under 3 years. For ages 4 and up.”

This spawned the following conversation:

G1: Daddy, look at this warning. Who would choke on a Frisbee?

Daddy: (laughing while reading). Good question, it is amazing what you have to warn some people against.

G1: I think if you aren’t smart enough to not put a Frisbee in your mouth, you probably aren’t smart enough to read the warning.

Daddy: (removing a large blue disc from his mouth) Come to think of it, G, I think you are right.

My son is well on his way to help me keep the world safe for corporate America as they carry their immense burden of trying to protect stupid people from themselves.

Also, both Gs would want me to remind you that we don’t say “stupid.” It is not good manners and if you say it you’re a dumb head.

PS, check out Randy’s blog to see the fee you have to pay for a good blogtigator these days.

Blogtigation

2008-04-10T10:00:00.000-07:00

It isn’t exactly and elegant term, but that is of little consequence given its likely paucity of use. However, "Blogtigation" is the term I’m coining to describe when a dispute comes up on someone’s blog through the comments, responding posts on another blog or the like. For example, if someone wanted to argue that is better for our society to have so many “reality” tv shows that feature people yelling at each other and responded to my post and then I responded and then we went back and forth, we would be in informal blogtigation.

Then, if each side got blog lawyers involved to help them settle the dispute you would be in formal blogtigation and be at real risk of being a huge dork and perhaps, with some luck at least mildly entertaining.

Recently I have been retained to serve as blog counsel in some blogtigation over the name of a certain blog further confirming what you already knew about me being a huge dork and possibly even providing some entertainment. At least, I was very entertained by the whole thing.

Here’s the background and a link if you want to check it out. Some of the folks in my blog circle have a friend named Brad. Brad started a contest on his blog to determine the name of his blog with an offer of a $10 Starbucks card to the winner. His friends submitted various options and a winner was chosen…Greg or “Stoogelover” for those who read my blog and its comments. Greg won with an entry that Randy had coined but not submitted. Blogtigation ensued over who should get the gift card.

Check it out over at www.bradpalmore.com. Scroll down to the post on April 7 for the full story and be sure to browse the comments for full entertainment. Enjoy.

Another Blog

2008-04-09T12:38:00.000-07:00

I just added a link to Ike Graul's blog called Trinisonic. I've been reading that blog for a while and should have added it long ago, but it takes me a while sometimes. Ike is a good friend and an amazing talent. I owe him for ever for agreeing to help me with my interest in writing music by arranging the first song I wrote and several others after that. Anyway, check out his blog when you get the chance.

I was just wondering...

2008-04-09T11:55:00.000-07:00

I would describe myself as naturally curious. Not in a way that leads me to soak up knowledge like a sponge and constantly try to better myself, but more in a way of I spend a lot of time wondering why things are the way they are. Here are a few of my recent ponderings:

1. Why are Americans fascinated by reality shows that feature some rude, angry person belittling some other person to the point that the person is in tears? American Idol, Hell’s Kitchen, that new show about dog groomers that has to be one of the signs of the end times. They all (as it would appear by the previews) rely heavily on this and are all popular (well I don’t know about the groomer show, it just started, but the format is so identical to the dozens of design, singing, modeling, etc shows before it, that it proves the point anyway. I don’t get it. Who are these people that enjoy that and why aren’t we putting them in jail or sending them to the arctic or something?

As I recently remarked to a friend: “Why would anyone want to watch "reality" tv? As I have said dozens of times, if I wanted to watch regular people being idiots and saying and doing stupid things, I already have my own life. When I sit down to watch TV I want to see beautiful people speaking the kind of eloquence that can only be gleened from a room full of sleep deprived Ivy-leaguers who live on coffee and vending machine ho-hos and dedicate their lives to making Jerry Seinfeld sound funny or Jack Bauer tough or twiggy East European fashion models who forsook their education for the runway like they have a PHD in physics. This is what I demand. I have beautiful smart people in my life (like my lovely wife and children for example) and I have drunken knuckleheads as well. When I sit down to escape which do you think I want more of?”

2. Who decorates for the rappers and pro athletes on MTV’s Cribs? If you watch that show (and you should at least once), you will see that there are lots of people running around with millions of dollars and huge beautiful homes that have less class than Paris Hilton in…..well, anywhere I guess. My wife’s comment about one home featured on that show was, “He didn’t hire decorators, he hired ‘taggers’.” That pretty much says it all. But you can tell that these things are not simply put together by the owners. Those guys would never go to the trouble of finding someone to paint a mural of them looking like Scarface or the like. I’m telling you there are decorators out there getting paid more than you and me to create some of the ugliest homes in America. How can that be?

3. Why do people on those basketball DVDs they advertise on TV state that JJ Redick is perhaps the best shooter of all time? What? He can’t get off the bench for a team not even contending for a championship and he’s the best ever? Sorry, I know I’m supposed to keep my sports talk over on the other blog, but I couldn’t help myself.

4. Why doesn’t every place that serves French fries, serve garlic fries?

5. Why don’t states have a state sandwich?

6. Why do women fuss about shoes and matching the shoes to the outfit and buy nice shoes, only to put on running shoes over their nylons with their business suit to walk from the office to their car, bus, etc.? They do realize we can still all see them when they are not in the office, right? Sure, it is more comfortable, but some of the same women that spend a lot of time and money on their clothes, presumably so they will look good or professional or whatever, then also destroy all their hard work by going outside with completely inappropriate footwear? Why? And to be perfectly clear, my wife would never do this. If you are someone who does, I’m sure you have your reasons, I would just like to know what they are

7. Why do men, who would never think of walking around out side in just their underwear, think it perfectly appropriate to go running in those awful, tiny, wispy, short running shorts? You know what I’m talking about, I know you do. Again, you realize we can all still see you even though you are running, right? In fact, we see you all too well. Do you think that you can run so fast, we won’t notice? Do you think we don’t mind seeing your pasty upper thigh just because it is more comfortable for you? Because, we mind.

8. Where do some people get the arrogance to sit back in judgment and nit-pick other people for their and others’ amusement? I mean, you talk to some people and read their blogs or whatever and they are always, “why do some people do this” or “why do some people wear that?” As if they know better what should be worn, eaten, viewed on TV, etc. It’s obnoxious. I just don’t get what drives those people.

9. Why does soda come in both cans and bottles for individual portions? I can see why you would need a bottle if you are buying a lot, but why do we need both for a single serving? Would there be an uproar if they did away with one? For the record, cans are better.

10. What happened to Nicholas Cage that has made it impossible for him to star in a good movie while it seems nearly impossible for Tom Hanks to star in a bad one? Is it really that hard to know the difference between a good script and a bad one?

Ok, that's all for now. Back to work.

Not All Slopes Are Slippery

2008-04-01T10:41:00.000-07:00

A good blog post sent to me by my friend Cheryl about slippery slopes reminded me of something I’ve been meaning to rant and rave about here for a while now. (Have you ever noticed that you may rant about something and may rave about something and may rant and rave about something, but while you will go off on a rant, you will never go off on a rave?)

In undergrad, one of my majors was in philosophy. Like all other college degree programs, this one had various requirements before graduation. You had to take modern philosophy, ancient philosophy and existentialism. You had to grow a beard and spend at least half the day scowling intently at no one or no thing in particular. You received extra credit for obscure literary or philosophical references tattooed somewhere on your body. You had to do a 150 hour practicum sitting on steps and pontificating over things like whether Plato used the Socratic method or if a philosopher speaks in the forest and there is no one there to hear him, does he really exist? You know, everyday stuff like that. I learned that there is probably no such thing as a triangle and that it is very difficult to properly define a table. Then I also learned some other stuff with less obvious practical application.

Additionally, I had to take the dreaded “Logic” class. Why was this such a dreaded class among philosophy students you may ask? There were a number of reasons. First, logic may not be the strong suit for someone who has chosen to spend an $80,000 education on a major that offers roughly no marketable skills….unless there is suddenly a market for people who can explain the difference between Plato’s philosopher king and Machiavelli’s Prince….(I’m still waiting).

Second, logic as a subject matter tends to quickly and disturbingly begin to resemble math. And math is to philosophy students as tofu is to carnivores. That is to say: quite distasteful. Finally, Logic was a dreaded class because you were required to learn how to write an ampersand which is the doohickey you know as”&”. Surprisingly difficult to write both quickly and legibly.

In Logic, (and this, finally, begins the real point of what I wanted to say), we also learned about various logical fallacies. For example we learned about circular reasoning which is a logical fallacy because circular reasoning is illogical. But there are a couple of fallacies we didn’t study that have invaded modern thought so perniciously that I find myself compelled to speak against them. Whether these are true logical fallacies I will leave to those who went for the whole beard/tattoo/scowl package discussed above. In my mind they are logical fallacies and since this is my blog, that’s good enough. So there.

At least since Franklin wrote Poor Richard’s, and probably since the first OT reading Christian landed in the “new world,” Americans have loved pithy sayings and proverbs. Little “truisms” (especially if they rhyme) routinely take the place of stodgy old relics like “thinking” and “judgment.” Don’t get me wrong, there is more wisdom in the book of Proverbs than I could muster if I lived a thousand years and the same is likely true about Poor Richard’s Almanac, but I often tire of people quoting some out of context, barely understood little diddy instead of giving some issue some rational thought. There are two such sayings that have a metaphysical bee in my epistemological bonnet today.

1. “That’s a slippery slope.”

We all know this saying. The idea is that if you continue a certain path to a presumed logical conclusion and that conclusion is bad in some way, then you shouldn’t get on that path to begin with because you will go tumbling bum over noggin down to that aforementioned bad conclusion. There is often great truth in this notion and regularly good practical application. It is not its use to which I object, but its overuse. There are a number of problems with this notion, but I want to rail against only one (would one ever “rant and rail”? ….hmmmm), by tossing out a pithy little saying of my own: “not all slopes are slippery.”

My issues stem from people using the “slippery slope” fallacy to defend their cowardice or to avoid giving something actual thought. Let me toss out a couple somewhat controversial topics to illustrate my point. (Disclaimer: I have and will again own firearms. I’m not really some lunatic peacenik who hates all guns). Organizations like the NRA (with apologies to my gun toting friends … (I find it always prudent to be diplomatic to the armed)), often make the argument that any law restricting the ownership of guns is bad, not because (allegedly) they are opposed to a world where everyone on your block does not own old-soviet, black market, semi-automatic assault rifles, but because this puts you on the feared “slippery slope” where you will soon slide all the way down to a point where you can not so much as wield a butter knife without being arrested.

Now, I will concede that you could follow a logical progression suggesting that if you allow the government to make laws restricting the use of firearms, the basis for that argument could always be used as the basis for further restriction until you reached the point where not only could you not own your own rocket launcher, but you could not even own a shotgun for hunting, fishing or protecting the chastity of your dependents. And I would never want that. However, just because you can follow a logical progression in your mind, does not mean such a progression will take place or that the people who want to restrict personal private ownership of large caliber machine guns, will automatically want to restrict the ownership of hunting rifles. And more importantly, the mere possibility of an overreaction should not keep you from making a move that is beneficial.

That would be like saying that you should never go down the path to the beautiful mountain lake because if you kept walking on that same path you would fall off a cliff. How about just deciding to stop on the path wherever it is best to stop. Shocking, I know.

But if you take something case by case (or gun by gun) to make a determination, you have to put in the work of coming up with a thoughtful, thorough, well-reasoned argument, as opposed to simply furrowing your brow and declaring “you don’t dare let them take your Uzis because it will put you on a…wait for it….’slippery slope.’” See, that way, you sound like you know what your talking about when really you have just suggested that we should never step to a better place because if we over step and run down to some different place altogether dire consequences will necessarily ensue.

Some of my other personal favorite illustrations from my life in the Church where this “logic” is used vigorously and prolifically, would include:

a. We can’t let women (fill in some act in the worships service such as serve communion) at Church because before you know it they will be Elders and demanding things like that the women’s restroom have couches….what’s that? They already do? Why on earth would you want to lounge in a bathroom? It’s madness I tell you, madness. Wait, what was I talking bout?....

b. We can’t accept that any passage in scripture is anything short of historical fact because then we would have to toss out the whole Bible as fiction. E.g., if Noah did not literally have every species of animal on the ark then Jesus never lived. Regardless of what you believe there, one does not necessitate the other.

To this notion of the slippery slope, I have to borrow from brilliant insight once offered by Rene Descartes himself who said, “Poppycock!!” …or something like that.

2. Everything in moderation

Like with the “slippery slope” fallacy, there is some truth in this one and just plain old good sense. Something which might be toxic in excess may actually be good for you in moderation. It also assumes a certain balance in life which for the most part is helpful. But the fact that it is often true, does not make it universally so.

For example, does God call us to be generous in moderation? To love in moderation? Was the love that saw Jesus sacrificed for us “moderate”? Should we care for our children in moderation? Should we give ourselves to God in moderation? Should we commit ourselves to our marriage or spouse in moderation? Should we really eat doughnuts in moderation? Even the freshly made ones? You get my point. There are certain things where extreme behavior is called for. If we seek only moderation, we will direct ourselves toward mediocrity and the sort of luke-warm life that is repellent to the faithful, bold and ambitious.

Balance and moderation is good when constructing a sandwich or deciding how much wine to drink or many other things we could easily name. But be wary not to become so enamored of the concept that you weed out all extreme behavior from your life. Certain things are just better and meaningful only if pursued in the extreme. I don’t try to moderate my love for my wife and kids (see the picture above...how could I?) or my dedication to God. My ego, selfishness, etc. unfortunately moderate those things more than I like, but I do not consciously seek moderation in those areas and neither should you.

In other words, “everything in moderation” is too extreme. We need to moderate our use of that “logic” or find ourselves on the slippery slope to mediocrity.

Tune in some day in the future when I will discuss everything-in-moderation’s ugly step sister, “the truth lies somewhere in-between.”

After 6 weeks off from blogging, a little story of my morning commute

2008-03-26T11:47:00.001-07:00

When I drove in this morning from Beaverton (which is a lot like Bosnia except for the government, economy, culture, architecture and geography), a van full of commandoes shot out the tires on my truck. I swerved and narrowly missed a group of penniless orphans crossing the road. Just then a grenade hit near the passenger door and the whole cab burst into flames.

I smashed the driver door window with one strong blow from the handle of my TEC-9 semi-automatic and dove from the flames. Guns blazed as I dodged the cross fire to plant myself between the evil gunmen and the terrified orphans. My head was bleeding from crashing my truck. My clothes were ragged and burned. I had taken two bullets in the arm and one in the leg. I was barely able to remain upright and struggled to draw enough breath to allow me to stand and fight. But fight on I did.....

This morning I fought to protect our freedom and our way of life and our penniless orphans. Seeing my inner strength that embodied all that is good in the human spirit, my adversaries could not help but be inspired and they laid down their arms and immediately declared their devotion to democracy, free market economies and the inalienable right to acquire hot, fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

Oh wait, what I meant to say was that I drove to work today and it was a little rainy outside. I just misspoke about that other stuff. I write and speak every day and I can’t be required to remember every detail of every event that happens. I just misspoke, alright? ALRIGHT?!?

There, ok, now I think I’m ready to run for President. I hope I can count on your vote.

Nu Blog 4 U

2008-02-11T09:54:00.000-08:00

I was listening to Prince or whatever he calls himself these days and was tempted to write this whole post like he does, but I decided the title would be enough.

Today’s randomness:

1. I have a new blog to recommend. My friend Cheryl Russell just started blogging and the link is in my list of blog links to the left. Even with the recent start, there is already lots of good stuff over there. She’s a Christian and budding author and apparently a samurai. Go check it out. You know I wouldn’t steer you wrong. Ok, I totally would, but I’m not right now.

2. Back to the goofily written title of this post, you can add to my list of pet peeves abbreviations to words that have no connection to the spelling of the original word. Some of my “favorites.” X-mas (the absolute worst); “’nuf said” (what word got shortened there exactly? “eenuf”?); “thru” (not a word, I don’t care if it is in the dictionary. You put that “gh” right back on there where you found it!!). I mean, c’mon, the language is complicated enough without us further messing it up. Eenuf already!

3. Tomorrow night I attend my first meeting of the newly created Portland Trailblazer Fan Board of which I am a new member. Every thing about that has me as excited as a 35 year old man who just got invited to be on a fan board for his favorite basketball team. I’m going to try to get that expression out there in hopes that it sticks. Best part is that the meeting is in the team locker room. If you think I’m not going to stand where Coach Nate stands and give a fake half-time pep talk, you are just crazy.

4. I will be glad when Valentine’s Day is over. I’m all for taking a day to celebrate love and happy to celebrate with my lovely wife. I’ve got nothing against the day itself, but I’m sick of all the men are stupid idiots advertising that comes with it. I’ve just heard one too many “this year, make up for the toaster you gave her last year with a diamond that says ’45 innocent Tunisians died so I could put us in debt to beautify your knuckle.’” This time of year the most popular joke is how stupid men are and how bad they are at romance and how we should all make up for being unfeeling, uncaring, unthinking jerks by spending two months salary on something that says, “I don’t want to actually get to know you well enough to determine what you might want the most, so I will just buy you some jewelry and call it good.” Don’t get me wrong. I’m not anti-jewelry. I buy jewelry and who knows, might have this year. It is just the constant anti-man sales pitch to which I object. Many men are bad at romance. We get it. I am routinely one of them. Many men are pretty good at it too. Guess what? The same can be said for women. Acting like all men should just concede that they are Neanderthals doesn’t seem like a helpful solution. Ok, I’m done…..for now.

My Dad is teaching a really, really, really good class on the book of Job right now. I mean, it is good. Seriously. I mean it. Really good. We came across a great verse (Job 14: 14-17) this past Sunday morning that I will leave you with. It is inspiring to see Job’s organic realization of God’s love for His creation:

14 If a man dies, will he live again?
All the days of my hard service
I will wait for my renewal [c] to come.
15 You will call and I will answer you;
you will long for the creature your hands have made.
16 Surely then you will count my steps
but not keep track of my sin.
17 My offenses will be sealed up in a bag;
you will cover over my sin.

God will long for us? Really? It is as incomprehensible as it is wonderful.

feelin the flow

2008-02-07T14:13:00.000-08:00

I know, I'm going crazy here with 2 blog posts in one day, but I couldn't resist sharing this picture.

G2 is seen here in his daily hulk transformation. When he's hulk, he doesn't just play the small green toy guitar. He becomes the small green toy guitar. The music flows through him.

He can often be heard around the house belting out that great American anthem:

"Bye bye Miss American Pie.
Drove the Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry
And good old boys were drinkin Pepsi and Sprite
Singin this will be the day that I die....
This will be the day that I die."

The myth of fingerprints

2008-02-07T10:55:00.000-08:00

Shorter post today. I thought it would be better if you knew up front.

I teach a business law class to junior and senior business students at a couple local colleges. I do it because I enjoy it and one of the colleges is a local Christian school I like to support. One of the things I have come to enjoy is how predictable people are in groups. Get a group of people together and you will always have certain personality types and people playing certain rolls. It is like the various versions of the expression that goes something like, every group of people has at least one person that the rest of the group makes fun of when they are not there. If you can not identify that person in your particular group it is because that person is you. ....or so the saying goes.

Anyway, every year I teach this class the "same" people sit in the same places in class, dress the same and make the same comments. They are actually different people, most of whom don't even know each other and yet the pretty girl sits in the same place, the goofy guy in the same place and the better students in the same place. Year after year I know exactly what kind of personality will sit in the front row or the right side of the second row, etc. In fact, if you walked in my class room and chose a seat, I might very well be able to guess what kind of student you are/were. The pattern is that consistent.

It is a pretty amazing phenomenon really. One offshoot of this is the way people respond to my instructions. I make my students answer my exams following a certain structure. I tell them what the structure is about 1000 times. I tell them and show them every way I know how. Then I tell them that it is mandatory with no exceptions. Then I explain that I know that some of them will ignore me and their grades will go down, using the implied dare as the cherry on top of my attempts to persuade them to do what I've asked. Every year, at least 10-15 % of the students will completely ignore these instructions and the numbers have been even higher than that in the past. It is not complicated. It is not difficult to do. And yet, some people predictably just do their own thing. It still amazes me. The most hilarious thing to me about it is that I actually tell them, “some of you will not do this” and I am right every time. Amazing.

I think the reality is that we are all more the same than we are different. Their are really only about 5-7 people in the entire world with a billion or so copies of each. We resist believing that, wanting to believe we are all unique. In a certain limited sense we are of course, but in most ways and including nearly all the ways it counts, we are the same.

I'm sure many who read this (as if many read this) will disagree. If you do disagree, I hope you will comment, so then it will be easier to know which of the 5-7 you are. I already know which type I am. I'm the type that declares his opinions as if they were obvious universal truths and then dares people to disagree. Needless to say, I'm not the most popular type.

So Much Going On

2008-02-01T10:45:00.000-08:00

Man, I wish I had time to blog, because there is so much going on right now.

I just started at a new firm. It is the firm where I started my career and I could not be happier to be back. To make it even better, after going through 16 different secretaries, I now am working with the best of the best and she decided to come with me to the new firm making a good situation that much better.

In other news, my lovely wife and I just got back from the Zoe worship conference in beautiful Fresno, California. Here were some of the highlights in mostly chronological order:

We left the kids with the grandparents and drove down. That’s right we drove the 12+ hours from Portland to Fresno. Apparently, we are just too stupid (and by “we” I mean “me”) to figure out that gas prices probably make flying cheaper, so then the only thing air travel has going for it is the time savings, convenience and lack of extra miles on the car. Good thinking by us. I love a road trip, but this was just dumb. That said, the drive was good. We got rained on a lot, but living in Portland prepares one rather well for those driving conditions. Best of all, though, was that I was “trapped” in my car with my wife for more than 12 hours with no kids or other distractions (except the road, other drivers, signs advertising for Krispy Kreme, etc.). It was great. I hope to get “trapped” like that more often. We don’t get that kind of time any more and all conversations end up being all of the things that we have to talk about with little to no time to just plain talk. On this trip we just talked and laughed and hung out like we were back in our early 20s. So, maybe it was for the best that we drove. In fact, maybe it was like in Exodus when God “hardened Pharaoh’s heart” , maybe God hardened my brain so I would forget that we have airplanes so that I would be forced to do what I should make time to do all the time, which is just sit and talk to my Wife. Yeah, I’m going with that theory.

I finally got to meet one of the guys I only know through blogging. Steve (or the Green Lantern logo as you may know him by his comments on my blog), attends the Church in Fresno where the conference was held. Turns out he looks nothing like Green Lantern and even had the audacity to show up not wearing that costume. Very disappointing. Fortuneately, he made up for it by being a really great guy and it was fun to get to meet him. My only regret is that we didn’t get to spend more time hanging out. I had hoped we could have lunch and then news of snow dumping in the mountains made us bolt out after Church on Sunday to try to make it home. So, Steve, if you read this, it was really good meeting you. I hope it won’t be the last time. Come up to Portland sometime and I will give you the world famous Josh Stump nickel walking tour of Portland. It should not be missed, though it actually costs a quarter.

Got some quality time with some of my very favorite people. My friends Jeff and Tara and Tony and Jennifer and their kids were all there. We even shared a hotel room with Jeff and Tara which I haven’t done in years. My guess is that after spending a couple nights in the same room as me, they feel about as smart about that decision as I do about not flying. Big mistake on their part.

The conference itself was very good. I came away with lots of good ideas for worship, good new contacts for arranging music and the renewed spirit that comes from spending a weekend praising God. Really glad I went.

Though we left early on Sunday to get through the mountains before an impending storm, we failed. It was raining so hard in the Redding area I actually saw animals coming two by tow out of the forest in an obvious search for a prophet and a large boat. A little ways into the mountains that separate the dark spiritual wilderness of California from God’s country in Oregon, all that rain turned to snow. It was something like that scene from Lord of the Rings where Saruman sends a storm to force the fellowship to go through Mordor, except that there were fewer hobbits on our trip and yes I know I’m a huge dork, but I love those movies, so there. At first, the snowfall was just pretty. Then like a Miss America contestant who discovers someone else is wearing the same evening gown, beauty turned into something quite scary. The snow started falling harder and then blew around in a pretty strong wind. Driving through it made it seem like we had just made the jump to lightspeed in the Milennium Falcon (if you are scoring at home that is a comic book reference, a LOTR reference and a Star Wars reference in the same post which is the holy trinity of dorkdom…plus I abbreviated to LOTR…I can’t be stopped).

We considered just powering through so we could get home before I had to be at work on Monday, but when spotting a single reflector on the side of the road was cause for major celebration as it was the only indicator in the last 5 minutes that we were still roughly on the freeway, we decided finding a place to stop the night that did not involve sleeping in our car in the ditch was first priority. Fortunately, we fairly soon came to an exit for the….let’s call it “cozy”…town of Weed.

We found a very nice hotel that wasn’t even obviously gouging weary snow-bound travelers and it had the bonus of being right next door to Silvia’s family restaurant that was run by a very nice Chinese couple that was happy to serve you Silvia’s famous meatloaf or General Tso’s Chicken. Immediately thinking up new material for my “Food Rules”, we ordered Chinese food. The new rules will be something along the lines of, when you are in a restaurant owned by people from China and all of the cooking staff are from China and you have the choice between meetloaf or Chinese food, choose Chinese food. Also, don’t order meatloaf. Meat was made to be eaten with a loaf not turned into one. Please don’t forget this.

The next day, having spent an extra day on the road and the extra money needed for a hotel room and the $3.40 per gallon in gas being charged in Weed, we drove the rest of the way home through snow and ice and patted ourselves on the back for how thrifty we were to decide to drive instead of fly.

Christmas Gs

2008-01-11T08:48:00.000-08:00

Peggy, your wish is my command.

Here are G1 and G2 at Christmas

National Treasure 2: The Book of Secrets

2008-01-09T09:31:00.001-08:00

Every so often a movie like this comes along. I don’t know why. I can’t explain it, but it always makes me feel like I’m from a different planet. It’s a bit like my dislike of watermelon. I guess I’m just hopelessly different in some strange ways. I’m sure my Wife would certainly “amen” that.

That brings me to the National Treasure movies. When I saw the first National Treasure movie, I did not like it. In fact, it ranks among the worst movies I have ever seen. I found it painful to watch. I used to love Nicholas Cage, who stars in the movie, as Raising Arizona is one of my all time favorite movies. Seeing him in National Treasure just made me sad since it was so so bad and it reminded me of how far his career had fallen. Then a strange thing happened. I met someone who actually liked the movie. Then another and another until I realized that I might be the only one who saw it that didn’t like it. I don’t know what the deal is. The same thing happened with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Those (at least the one I saw: the first one) were not nearly as bad as National Treasure, but I did not like it at all and the whole country went nuts for it.

I was honestly in shock that they made a National Treasure 2 and when I discovered that they had I figured this time the rest of the movie going public would see what I did. Alas, it turns out I am still some sort of misfit. Oh well. Just know this – if you liked the first one, you will probably like the second one. They are astonishingly similar. Same characters, same story line, same...well, everything except that now they are in hunt of the ancient lost city of gold instead of just a big room full of gold. In National Treasure 3 (as sure to happen as the sun rising), rumor has it they will be searching for the continuous water route that could take ships from the Atlantic to the Pacific through North America.

The National Treasure movies are generally premised on the idea that American leaders throughout this country’s history have left clues in “national treasures” such as the Constitution and Mount Rushmore that identify the location of massive and wonderful treasure that have escaped detection for the last 200 or so years. Nick Cage plays an Indiana Jones type treasure hunter who, along with his wise-cracking technical wizard sidekick, his improbably attractive wife and his confused, bumbling but brilliant father, generally make a living from Mission Impossible style break-ins to some of the most secure places in the world to find clues left by Ben Franklin and others to huge treasures.

It is a light action comedy, though I have heard some fans describe the movies as “tense.” It has the aura of giving historical insight, but trust me, it does not. There is little to no bad language, no sex or nudity and no bloody violence. It is really a pretty family friendly movie, so it does have that going for it. I feel the need to note that I’m not being sarcastic here. It is genuinely nice to see them make a big budget movie that can be enjoyed by people who want to avoid all that yuckiness.

My way of understanding the phenomenon of these movies is found in my view of all artistic endeavors whether movies, painting, music or any other creative output. I believe in all of these media there is an objective truth and a subjective reaction. I recognize that here again I part company with most people. Most people I talk with about this subject seem to believe rather strongly that “art” is purely subjective. There is no “good art” or “bad art”, there is only what you like and what I like.

Personally, I think that view insults the talent of great artists. I believe artistic talent is just like athletic or intellectual talent. It is varied in form and in quality. Some people are faster than others, some people are smarter and some people are better artists. That’s not to say that people’s creative expressions, even if lower in true quality, have no value, it is just that something I painted would not likely compare favorably with something Michael Angelo did.

In my opinion, not every creative outlet can properly be called “art” and not all creative expression is as good as the next. That’s a big part of why I like deconstructing and thinking critically about movies. Some writers/directors/actors do it well and some do not and I enjoy trying to see through to see where there is quality and where it is absent. I believe there is good acting and bad acting and good writing and bad writing in an objective sense. For example, Harrison Ford was both obnoxious and charming as Han Solo in Star Wars. Every scene he was in was enjoyable to watch because he communicated a believable character who was fun and interesting to watch. He used gestures, facial expressions, body language, varied delivery of his lines and many other things to convince us he was this egotistical space criminal sucked into a fight that wasn’t his own. The writing and directing were just ok at best, but his acting job created one of the most memorable movie characters ever.

By contrast Hayden Christianson who played the young Darth Vader in the newer Star Wars movies was AWFUL. The delivery of his admittedly terrible lines were wooden and stiff. His attempts to portray familiar emotions and personality characteristics were uneven and inconsistent. In the end, he was not the least bit believable or enjoyable to watch. Nothing rang true about him at all. The performance was objectively bad on an epic scale.

But there is another aspect of art. There is the subjective reaction of the person experiencing it. We are all different and react to things differently. There are at least a billion different factors that go in to why each of us enjoy certain things and the combination of factors is going to be different for everyone. I don’t think that’s a tough point to stomach so I’ll leave that and move on.

The curious thing to me is that the objective quality of “art” is only one of the factors that will determine whether an individual enjoys experiencing that art and is often not a controlling factor. Because this is a blog and not a philosophical treatise, I’m going to skip right past arguments about subjective response determining objective quality and keep trying to make my point.

In other words, whether something is good may have little to do with whether you like it. The world’s greatest chefs could create culinary masterpieces and any given person may still rather have a Whopper or a Taco Bell Chalupa. In my view, that does not mean that the work of the chefs is not objectively better, it just means your subjective reaction is being driven by something other than the quality of the food. This could be a very complicated discussion and debate, but again, it’s just a blog.

So, given all that, here is my take on National Treasure 2 (and the same goes for the first one). I believe it is a bad movie in just about every sense. The acting, writing, directing were all some of the worst I have ever seen. The unintentional comedy rating for this movie is off the chart as there were dozens of scenes that left me saying, “wait, you mean he meant us to take him seriously there?” The one truly redeeming characteristic of the movie is that the premise, no matter how far-fetched, is really pretty fun. It is wildly fun to think that there are secret clues all around us purposefully placed by brilliant men and women hundreds of years ago that could lead to treasure. It is fun in the Divinci Code and it is fun in these movies.

The objective problems with this movie are really too many to mention and honestly I think running through them all would become insulting to those who liked it and could possibly ruin what would otherwise be an enjoyable movie watching experience for people who like these films so I’m not going to do that here. The reality is that regardless of how “bad” I think this movie is, lots of people like it. And there’s no shame in that. Quality is just one factor that determines whether we like things and so we all have those things that are objectively lacking in quality that we nevertheless enjoy thoroughly. I loved the “Highlander” TV series. It was hokey and cheesy and I loved it. I like Justin Timberlake, corn-dogs and the movie “Desperado.” I could not make a decent “those things are objectively great” argument for any of those things but I love them anyway.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that for entertainment value, especially with movies, your subjective reaction is really all that matters. Never let some critic or anyone else for that matter tell you what you should or should not like. If you like it, you like it and good for you for finding something you like and who cares if it is objectively good! Whether it is a “good” movie is fun to consider and debate and discuss and I believe that by considering such things it is possible to heighten your appreciation and thus enjoyment for true quality but in the end it only matters that you liked it or did not. Personally, I think I could win an argument about whether National Treasure 2 is a “good” movie, but more importantly I just did not like it. But as I said, if you liked the first one, you should like the second one and since it is your 9 bucks, that is all that really counts. And since so many of you liked these movies, you will no doubt be rewarded with a 3rd and I will once again be the only one who doesn’t like it.

Of course if you liked these movies, you are probably thinking to yourself that it is awfully convenient that I get to just decide that what I like is good and what you like is just you liking something bad, but hey, it’s my blog.

I'm coming back soon I promise

2008-01-08T13:04:00.000-08:00

But until I do here's a couple things:

1. I have a new job. More on that in a future blog. I'm still going to be a lawyer in Portland dedicated to keeping America safe for large corporations, but I'll be doing it for a different employer.

2. Here's the kind of thing my roomate Alan and I would have done had Youtube been around when we were in college. http://www.costaricanproperty.net/ball.html

3. Reviews to come, but....

Do See - I Am Legend, Bee Movie, The Golden Compass (yes even if you love God), Marie Antoinette (DVD), Hollywoodland (DVD), Charlie Wilson's War.

Do NOT See - Alvin and the Chipmunks, National Treasure 2, Walk Hard or National Treasure 2.

Can't wait to see - There Will Be Blood - Title scares me, but not as much as DD Lewis in the preview. This is a must see.

4. I hope to see some of you in Fresno at the Zoe Worship conference. If you read this (or did when I actually posted) and we haven't met, I would love to put a face to a blog handle.

More later.

Hyenas

2007-12-12T09:03:00.000-08:00

Just a short post today. I started coaching my oldest son’s basketball league this week. Our first practice was Monday. Our team name is the Hyenas and a more apt team name was never given. I say that because 4 of the players are actual wild dogs, which really surprised me at first since dogs are not known for being good at team sports. Actually, it is because so far the thing the kids are best at is giggling like Hyenas. While that trait makes teaching the finer points of the “triple-threat” position somewhat challenging, I think it is great. My team appears to be made up of kids who are silly and fun-loving which, in my book, is exactly what you should be as a 7 year old.

Of course, we could go the entire year having a great time and learning about being nice to your teammates and that playing sports can be fun and never win a single game, but something tells me this team’s fanbase would be alright with that. I know I would be and if you knew me when I was younger (and by “younger” I mean earlier than a few weeks ago) you would never think I would make that statement. But my uber-competitive streak has slowly given over to the joy of seeing kids having fun. Of course, ultimately they will have even more fun if they win, but we can wait until their 8 for that kind of pressure.

If I thought they would get it, I might share this story to help reinforce my desire that they will bond as teammates. A player for the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA team whose Mom calls him Andy and I call “Side show Bob” because of his cartoonish hair, recently ended a prolonged contract dispute/holdout with his team. The holdout drew the ire of many fans of that team. He returned to the court last night as did injured megastar (on the same team), Lebron James…maybe you’ve heard of him. Well to everyone’s shock, Lebron did not start the game and instead came off the bench. When asked why, Lebron said that he requested to come off the bench and enter the game with Side show Bob so the fans could not boo without booing him as well. He said, “he’s my teammate and I had to protect him.”

Whether or not you sympathize with athletes in contract disputes, that was one very cool move by a guy whose ego allows people to call him King James. I already like Lebron, but now I really do. I hope someday some of my Hyenas will want to stick up for their friends like that.

While I was out.

2007-12-07T16:04:00.000-08:00

My blog squatters are back and since I am not confident I can hang with that kind of competition, I’m going to jump in earlier this time.

Work picked up and blogging opportunities have escaped me, so here’s some of what you missed:

1. We all saw Jerry Seinfeld’s “The Bee Move”. I have tried to find time to sit down with my boys and write a review with them, but have not yet made that happen. So, before I get around to that and before it leaves the theater, let me say a couple things about the movie. First, go see it. It’s good and well worth seeing. From my family’s experience I would say kids 3-37, at least, would like it. Second, if you like Seinfeld, then you should really have already seen it, I mean, c’mon. Third, there is a line in the movie where the adolescent bee hero of the film is trying in vain to get his parents’ attention and says something to the effect of: “I could say anything right now couldn’t I? I think I’m going to get an ant tattoo. I think I’m going to pierce my thorax. I think I’m going to get a gold tooth and start calling everyone dawg.” That is followed by the hand motions that Sammy Sosa used to do whenever he hit a home run back when people cared. For those of you who didn’t know, those hand motions mean: “I thump my heart in honor of the peace sign and point to the sky so everyone knows that I believe that the God I have ignored for years has decided to intercede in my homerun swing.” It is always a moving gesture.

Well, my 3 year old repeats the last part of that line about 100 times a day, saying “I’m gunna start calling everybody dawg” and flashing a complicated set of gang signs that would most likely get us firebombed if we wandered into the wrong neighborhood and he wasn’t so dang cute. Anyway, the Bee Movie is funny, but not half as funny as my youngest calling you dawg. Now if we could just dosomething about the gold tooth….

2. I also saw the movie “Hitman.” Hitman is based on a video game and that is about all you need to know. I’m not going to waste the time to do a full review. Just don’t bother. It has exactly two moderately cool action sequences, one leggy eastern European Bond girl in training and then….actually, that’s it. If that’s enough for you to plunk down 9 bucks and take 2 hours away from life then, more power to you, but otherwise, take a pass on this one. It does raise the interesting question of whether there has ever been a movie based on a video game that was a genuinely good movie. People keep saying “Tomb Raider” when I ask that question, so I guess the answer must be no.

3. Staying with movies, I feel the need to make a public service announcement about the movie “I Am Legend.” This movie is a remake of Omega Man which was a remake of some other movie I don’t remember which was based on a book. I’m concerned that the previews are very misleading. The previews make it look like the movie might be like Tom Hanks’ “Cast Away” but set in a post apocalyptic and abandon NY City. I haven’t seen it and I didn’t even see Omega Man, but I think it is more like Cast Away if there was a legion of vampire/zombies on the island with Tom. I could have that description wrong and I don’t mean that to be a spoiler, but I think Will Smith is going to be battling for his life against some kind of humanesque creature. I bring this up as a warning. I bet that movie starts out kind of calm and introspective which is what they show on the preview and ends up a violent action movie. Maybe that makes it more appealing, but I’m concerned that people like my Mom are going to go see it because hey it’s Will Smith and looks kind of cool only to discover that it’s really not what it appeared on the preview. You’ve been warned.

4. One last movie note. I am really excited to see The Golden Compass. I think it just looks spectacular. There seems to be a fair amount of controversy about this movie because of the apparent anti-religious intent of the author. I will admit to being somewhat amused whenever I hear criticism like this of a movie. I would never criticize anyone for choosing not to see a movie for any reason and especially if that decision was based on a belief that it would offend their faith or values. I am, though, sometimes critical of the seemingly arbitrary approach some people take to deciding when to care about the author and when not to. I mean, so many artists lead lives that are so counter to my moral principles and values, that there would be virtually nothing for a Christian to see or hear if he limited himself to only enjoying the creative works of people who are like minded. Mozart was famously immoral and I still enjoy his symphonies. The Golden Compass may be a little different in that the author of the books on which the movie was based has at least been accused of trying to promote his anti-religious agenda through his stories in the same way that CS Lewis tried to promote his religious opinions through his books….only different if you know what I mean. I don’t know if that is true or justified or whatever, but I’m pretty sure no movie is going to change the way I feel about God and if the worst you can say about a movie that is otherwise tremendous, is that it promotes a value system with which I disagree, well then, I would say you could say that about 95% of the tremendous movies ever made. Translation: I’m going to see this one.

5. Also, while I was off the blogging map, my buddy Jeff and I went to Atlanta. Jeff works for a prep school in LA that he has somehow managed to convince to fly him all over the country touring colleges so he can better advise his students on where they should go. If that’s work, then I just misunderstand the whole concept. Anyway, Jeff had the brilliant idea that I join him on a tour of Atlanta colleges and then we could hang out and catch some football.

We arrived in “Hotlanta” (the dumbest city nickname in history) on Thursday afternoon and somehow found our hotel in spite of every street or road in the city having the word “peach” in the title to cause maximum confusion for tourists. From there we walked down to Georgia Tech where they happened to be playing Virginia Tech in football. For Jeff’s research, we decided we needed to grab some tickets and see the game. After the game, we went to ESPN zone (or Heaven’s restaurant as I like to call it) where we spent the rest of the evening watching the West Coast NBA games. Faaaaaantastic.

The next day we toured Agnes Scott, a women’s college. There were no men allowed, but many of the women appeared to be compensating for the lack of masculine influence by deciding not to shave. Lovely. Then we went on to Emory which was absolutely stunning. Friday night we drove to Athens where it was homecoming for UGA. We watched a homecoming parade which someone from a foreign country would have no doubt understood to be a sacred ritual in the cult of the English bulldog. Those people take UGA football very, very, very seriously. I mean very.
Saturday we toured campus and went to see UGA play Troy with 90,000+ insane fans. It was spectacular. Great times.

Saturday night we drove back to Atlanta and back to ESPN to watch the Ducks (such a sad end to a great season) smack Arizona State around. What a day for a football fan. Almost too good to be true, but it was true and I still have the hot-dog and southern junkfood indigestion to prove it.

Sunday we went to watch the Falcons play the Niners. Always fun to watch football, but it was admittedly a bit of a let down after UGA. Plus the Niners are unwatchable and the dome where the Falcons play is a dump. Still it was great fun.

It was one of the best non family vacations I have ever had. Next year, I think Jeff needs to tour Ohio State or maybe Michigan. Here are some other observations:

a. People in Atlanta are obsessed with peaches and Coca-cola. Finding Pepsi in Atlanta is something like finding a double-breasted suit at Oregon’s anarchist convention. (Yes, Oregon has an organized meeting of anarchists….you figure it out).

b. Georgia Tech has a great campus if you are in engineering. Those science/math/engineering buildings were beautiful. If you want to major in Celtic Studies with a minor in folk dancing, please apply elsewhere. Oh, and brace yourself for poverty.

c. Georgia Tech football fans are to Georgia football fans as a 13 inch black and white TV is to a 72 inch state of the art plasma. I.e., quite lame.

d. If you are ever at a “Women’s College”, don’t call it a “girls’ school.” You will be cursed and demonized and not invited to taco day at the school cafeteria after your tour.

e. The students at Emory are better than you. They just are. Deal with it.

f. At all the tailgating that I witnessed you could always find this great beanbag toss game. I must have this great beanbag toss game. It is not optional.

g. If you can find an excuse to watch 3 live football games, 2 other full games on TV and parts of a dozen basketball games with your best friend in a single weekend and you don’t do it, well then you are lost my friend and no one can help you.

6. A lawyer in my office has a picture of a sign on a glassware store in Czechoslovakia and under the name of the store it says, “probably the best.” You have to appreciate that kind of honesty in advertising even if it does make you question why you would buy anything there.

7. I’ll end today’s post with yet more movie news. I saw a preview for the next Rambo movie. I don’t even have a joke here. Ok, maybe I do, I think for Sly maybe it was time to stop getting work done when there were more people that look like Sylvester Stallone than he does now. I mean when I first saw his face, I thought it was a new Texas Chainsaw Massacre preview.

More soon I hope.

Movie Review: No Country for Old Men

2007-11-19T11:12:00.000-08:00

The comedian Steven Wright, best known for his lack of enthusiasm, once said, "You know how it feels when you're leaning back on a chair, and you lean too far back, and you almost fall over backwards, but then you catch yourself at the last second? I feel like that all the time..." That’s how I felt for about 2 hours watching “No Country for Old Men.”

The villain in this movie is so mysterious and disturbing, so unpredictable except in his creepy, emotionless, homicidal determination, that this movie keeps you off balance and unsettled from the opening scene to the last. No matter what is happening on screen, there is a sense that at any moment, you may see something you wish you hadn’t, and that's just the villain’s haircut.

“No Country for Old Men” is the latest movie from Joel and Ethan Cohen who are without a doubt my favorite film makers. Their credits include Raising Arizona (one of the top 3 funniest movies of all time. I will not argue about this), O Brother Where Art Thou, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Miller’s Crossing, Hudsucker Proxy and others. Their movies are consistently filled with odd, engrossing characters, strange camera angles, first-person point of view action sequences, fantastic dialogue and at least 5 scenes that make you think “now there’s something I never thought I would see.”

While most movies have the depth and substance of the film on your hands left behind by an hour of munching movie popcorn, the Cohen movies are deep and complex and layered like ogres. The story is always just a part of what there is to see. No shot is wasted, no word spoken fails to reveal something about a character or a situation. Their movies are strange and quirky and so, I do not expect everyone I meet to enjoy them. But they are masters of their craft.

I know that many people don’t like to look beyond the story when reading a book or watching a movie. Many people don’t even want to believe or acknowledge that there is more going on. That there is purposeful foreshadowing and symbolism and themes and messages beyond the dialogue and simple action of the characters is repugnant to many people who believe either that (a) all that stuff is made up by English teachers to make themselves feel intellectually superior or (b) that thinking about that kind of stuff ruins an otherwise good story. But if you are inclined to appreciate that sort of thing, the Cohens offer the opportunity to really enjoy it in their movies.

You know….if you’re into that sort of thing…

Anyway, No Country for Old Men is based on a book by the same title written by Cormac McCarthy. The title is from a poem by William Butler Yeats called “Sailing to Byzantium.” Thanks to my buddy Sean for that nugget. You can read the poem at http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/781. Reading the poem will tell you absolutely nothing about the movie, but reading it after you see the movie does provide some food for thought….if you’re into that sort of thing.

The movie stars Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem’s fantastic haircut. Brolin’s character finds some money that doesn’t belong to him. Other people want that money, including Bardem’s character. Those people are not nice at all and go about killing everything they can as they pursue the money. Jones plays a Sherriff trying to make sense of it all something like Marge Gunderson in Fargo. It is a simple plot, but not a simple movie. For one thing, Bardem’s character is really, really spooky. He calmly carries around this air canister that operates some kind of bolt gun used for killing cattle. Bardem uses it for everything from breaking into hotel rooms to executing people who have the misfortune of getting in his path. It becomes one of the great devices in the movie, because there is something so unorthodox about it, just the site of it makes you nervous and uncomfortable.

Brolin runs with the money and Bardem pursues him like the Terminator on valium. But while that’s the story, that’s not what the movie is about. The movie is about, at least in part, the struggle of learning that age brings experience and certain wisdom, but no ultimate insight into the real state of the world and of man and certainly of evil. There are certain aspects of the human condition that defy understanding or conventional description. Sometimes, things don’t fit in any of the boxes we have created to categorize and understand our world. When you’ve lived a long time and seen a lot, and have many boxes to put things, and then you discover yet more that doesn’t fit anywhere, it can be overwhelming and unnerving, especially when the discovery is something terrible.

No Country was filled with signature Cohen dialogue and camera work and character development. It carefully avoided cliché and anything that would break it’s bleak, desperate mood. It captures you from the beginning and carries you along with a knot in your stomach cultivating a morbid curiosity and a palpable sense of dread. It takes a special kind of movie to pull that off. Maybe that doesn’t sound pleasant, and it wasn’t always, but if you enjoy movies for more than a sight gag, a fun story and a twist ending, then you may enjoy this one.
It was an excellent movie. Brilliantly acted, written and directed. It was one of the few movies I’ve seen this year where I felt like I got my money’s worth.

Here is some more information to help you decide if you want to see it.

--While this review may make it sound like a weird foreign movie, the movie’s plot is actually fairly simple, and straight forward. Even if you don’t want to dissect it, it is a pretty good cat and mouse story that could be enjoyed at a surface level.

--If it has any appeal, it is worth seeing on the big screen where you can really enjoy the camera work.

--There is some violence and disturbing images in this movie. To be honest, the dread of violence and disturbing images is actually worse than what is shown, but there are still some pretty graphic violence. If that’s not for you, stay away. If it helps, it is about on par with Fargo for violence, though there is nothing to rival the chipper/shredder scene.

--I don’t believe there is any nudity or sex in the movie.

--There is action in the movie, but some of the previews make it seem like an action movie. It is not slow by any means, but it’s not a true shoot ‘em up action flick.

--While I’ve talked to people who enjoyed the book, you don’t have to have read it to enjoy the movie.

--This is not a warm and fuzzy movie at all. I bring this up because lots of people, especially those of my parents’ generation (though not my parents actually), go to see anything that Tommy Lee Jones is in because he so often plays such a good, old-fashioned, moral character. Jones does play this kind of character, but this is a creepy, violent movie and I’m trying to help out anyone who would say “I just loved that Tommy Lee Jones in ‘The Fugitive’, he seems like such a nice man, I’m going to go see this movie where he plays a small town sheriff.” I’m telling you, unless you’ve seen movies like Fargo or A Simple Plan or A History of Violence and enjoyed them, take a pass on this movie.

--Speaking of A Simple Plan, that’s a good, good movie with roughly the same plot and a really profound message. If you missed that one and don’t mind some tension and violence, that’s worth going back and renting.

This was the “guys night at the movies” movie this week. Not sure what we might see next week. Maybe “Hitman,” though I have to say it looks like it has the potential to be really, really bad.

American Gangster

2007-11-16T12:31:00.000-08:00

What if you could take Scarface, mix it with New Jack City and do it all with the style and thoughtfulness of the Godfather? You would have a transcendent movie. It would take huge stars that can really act to pull that off. You would need people like Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. You would need a story like that of real life drug lord Frank Lucas. You would need American Gangster. Many of my very favorite movies are gangster films like The Godfather, Goodfellas, and The Untouchables. From the cast and the previews and what I knew of the real story, I really thought American Gangster had a shot to join these movies in that elite class of organized crime classics. Sadly, it fell well short.

It was, by no means, a terrible movie, it just wasn’t anything special and when you consider the potential it was certainly a disappointment. Basically, this movie was the big screen version of HBO’s shamefully ignored series “The Wire.” It copied the characters, the set up and even the basic storyline. It just lacked, the gritty reality, inspired writing and detailed plot development of The Wire. Oh, and the characters weren’t nearly as interesting. But for those of you who have seen The Wire, you can pass on this movie where Washington plays Stringer Bell, Crowe plays McNulty and the guy who played Stringer even makes a brief appearance no doubt thinking, we’ve done this better already.

I think Hollywood is in real trouble actually. I consistently see movies now that seem like a long episode of a TV show, but not any better than what is on TV. I think HBO has really raised the stakes and now if you are going to take on a genre covered by a show they’ve done, it is going to be very tough to improve on a full season or seasons with just 2 hours. It used to be that budget and more freedom to show adult subject matter gave movies an insurmountable advantage over TV, but now HBO and even other cable channels are outdoing the studio folks. Then add in the constant improvement in home theaters. No wonder we see an increasing number of movie stars moving to TV.

Anyway, American Gangster does star Washington and Crowe and was directed by on again off again Ridley Scott. I mean, he has lifetime credibility for Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator, but that’s holding up a mounting list of bad or disappointing films. Still, it seemed like a good combo. Washington plays a real life drug lord from the 1970s, Frank Lucas, who used America’s presence in Vietnam to get better, cheaper drugs and used the best principles of capitalism to put his drug dealing competition out of business. Crow plays the only honest cop in New York who ends up as the Ness to Denzel’s Capone.

Unfortunately, the movie leaves out what should have been the most interesting parts of the story. How did Washington’s character rise to power? How did he thwart law enforcement for so long? How did he get connected? Etc. There were just so many details raced by. It is possible to take a ton of material and still pack it into a great movie. Just look at the Lord of the Rings movies. But this movie failed to do it. There were some good scenes and some good acting, but honestly, the movie seemed like someone thought all they had to do was put Scott behind the camera and put Washington and Crowe in front of it and a good movie would happen. That doesn’t actually sound so dumb, but it is.

The movie was hamstrung I think by lack of direction. You can’t show someone’s whole life, so you have to decide what to focus on. Take on too many years or too many angles and you have to leave out too many details and the story suffers. They wanted to show the glamour and “cool” factor of Denzel as a super bad pimped out hustler, but to assuage their guilt over glamorizing the drug trade, they offered a few out of place shots of junkies in the slums. Instead of offering balance, they simply served as ugly photographs thumb-tacked to the bottom of a large painting. They didn’t offer a new perspective so much as served as an unpleasant distraction.

The acting was generally good, though a bit understated and the look of the movie was good, but other than that, this film missed about everywhere you could. Like I said, it was not a terrible movie as this review probably suggests, but just failed to distinguish itself in any way.
Here is some more information designed to help you determine whether you might enjoy this movie:

--This is not an action movie. The pace is pretty slow, so if you are going in hoping for guns blazing, stay home and rent Man on Fire or something like that.

--There is not a ton of violence and I don’t recall any sex scenes (though there may have been), but there are plenty of ugly images of drug use, some violence and some nudity, so if that ruins a movie for you, take a pass on this one. Language was somewhat harsh, but not too bad.

--It is long. 157 minutes to be exact.

--Despite many women having secret or not so secret crushes on Denzel, I don’t see this movie appealing to women much and both Denzel and Crowe look old and kind of paunchy anyway. Speaking of the actors though, keep an eye out for Lymari Nadal who played Denzel’s love interest. She was pretty and did a good job in a very limited role.

American Gangster was the movie I was most excited about this fall. Now that mantle is passed to “No Country for Old Men.” Surely, the Cohen brothers won’t let me down. I’ll let you know.

The World's Most Dangerous Drink

2007-11-15T17:06:00.000-08:00

....is RedBull and Vodka. You should never have that much energy when you are that dizzy. For that matter, I don't think you should ever intentionally be that dizzy, but I know opinions differ on that. RedBull and Vodka narrowly beat out straight gasoline for this year's most dangerous drink prize. The judges said that it was because RB and V tastes like a liquid sweettart thus enticing people to drink more than one, while Gasoline still tastes like gasoline, even if you have it "on the rocks."

Just thought you should know.

On the other hand. If you have ever thought it would be fun to run a marathon while slamming into things like walls and trees, then I strongly recommend the world's most dangerous drink.

He shoots, he scores

2007-11-13T15:24:00.000-08:00

My oldest starts in his first official hoops league next month. They had evaluations last week. It was a great Dad moment that I feel like sharing in the off chance I haven’t already told you this story. (WARNING: this post contains obnoxious parental bragging. Some content may not be suitable for nonrelatives).

A friend at work recommended that we try the “Upwards” basketball league for my 7 year old son. (Warnings about using the names of young children on the internet have led me to decide not to refer to my kids by name anymore so I’m going with G1 and G2 from now on.). Upwards is apparently a national Christian basketball league. It was described as very positive and well organized and for kids sports leagues, that is music to parents’ ears.

Last week I took G1 in to get measured for a uniform and to do evaluations. Every kid in the league goes through an evaluation and then the coaches hold a secret draft in an attempt to get the teams as even as possible. The evaluation was new territory for my oldest. He’s been to basketball camps a couple times, but never been in a league and never really had to play ball in front of people to show what he could do. That fact made me a bit nervous and him considerably so. He held my hand like it was the only thing keeping him from falling off a cliff.

Here are some cool and unique features about this league:

1. Practice times include a prayer and devotional.

2. The players are rewarded for memorizing verses in the Bible.

3. The players receive a mild, but attention grabbing electric shock if they shoot with two hands, look at the ball while they are dribbling or save the ball under the basket they are defending. Ok, not really, but it would sure make College and NBA hoops easier to watch if they did stuff like that….not that I would condone it of course….

4. For each game, the players are introduced one at a time as they run through a giant inflated tunnel with a smoke machine while NBA stadium music is played. My boy got so amped up just hearing that, they could have followed it with an announcement that each player must eat a bowl of broccoli and onions before each game and he wouldn’t have cared.

5. Everyone involved in the league so far has been alarmingly nice. I mean, not regular “they seem nice” kind of nice, but “wow, how can one person be so nice” kind of nice.

6. The league went from 250 kids last year to more than 500 this year. That’s a good sign.

There were more kids there than they were expecting and they were a bit overwhelmed. This resulted in lots of long lines, which is perfect for a nervous 7 year old let me tell you, and even better for 200 7 year olds all at one place. Finally, we made it into the gym where coaches were putting dozens of players through some drills. The first drill was a shooting drill. A player was asked to hit as many shots as he or she could from each side of the basket in a set amount of time. Then they were given the ball on the side and they would shoot, move to the middle, shoot, move to the other side, shoot and so on until time was up.

There were all kinds of kids there. Kids that looked like they had been handling a ball in the womb and kids that handled the ball like it was some strange delicate and dangerous object that should mostly be bounced off ones foot to the other side of the gym.

Now, I’m not the most competitive guy in the world. I’m only like 4th. But even given that, my primary goal was that G1 not be embarrassed. All the kids and parents would watch as each kid would perform these drills and I found myself getting knots in my stomach as G1 was approaching his turn. What if he missed all his shots? What if the other kids laughed? These weren’t major fears and it didn’t make me want to pull the plug on the exercise or anything, but these thoughts crept into my mind as I awaited the moment when all eyes would be on my little boy.

The kid in front of G1 was about 5’10’ with a full beard. When the coach asked him how old he was he took the cigarette out of his mouth and responded in a deep gravely voice, “seven.” Yeah, right…. Maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but he was a good 8 inches taller than G. He was much better than any of the other kids had been. He made 6 shots on the left and 8 on the right. Then he made 5 more on the shoot and move drill. Compared to the kids before him, that was Ray Allen like shooting.

I remember thinking, “great. G has to follow that kid?” Don’t get me wrong, I’ve played with G enough to know that he can make those shots, but it’s different when everyone’s watching so you never know. The thing is though, that even though I was nervous for him, I knew deep down that he would do well. I just knew it.

G stepped up and received the instructions and missed the first shot. As noted above, everyone in this league is ridiculously nice, so the coach rebounding for him, handed him back the ball and spent about 45 seconds going on and on about how it would be alright and to just keep trying, etc. You would have thought he had just blown the game winning shot in the championship game. As she handed the ball back to G and restarted the clock, I had to chuckle as he looked at her with a puzzled look that seemed to say, “yeah, I know everything’s going to be fine for me, but I’m starting to worry about you.”

That first shot that G missed was also the last one. In 30 seconds he made 11 shots from one side and 13 from the other. He made 12 consecutive and missed 3 in the whole drill including the shoot and move aspect. Our half of the gym all stopped and the coaches, parents and kids all stared as this skinny, short little kid casually sunk shot after shot after shot. When he was finally done everyone applauded. He was that only one that happened for. The mom standing next to me, not knowing that he was mine, turned to another mom standing nearby and said, “I guess we found the first pick of the draft.”

He moved from there to yet another line and when he got situated back in line, he turned around and found me in the masses of parents. He gave me a quick little thumbs up and a look that said, “don’t worry Dad, I got this.” He was great at the other drills too, though nothing compared to those first few minutes shooting the ball. We floated out of the gym together in excited anticipation of the season starting.

I don’t know if he will end up being a good basketball player. He’s short like me and fast like me (which is to say, not fast), but he loves it so who knows? I honestly don’t really care whether he becomes a baller or stars at something else. Regardless of what happens next, that hour in the gym was a blessing from God of greater value than all the gold in Fort Knox. Not because G hit all those shots, but because I got to see him succeed and revel in the joy of it. To see your kid approach something with confidence and succeed is about as good as it gets.

I have much more to post from the recent hiatus, but don’t have the time right this second.

Upcoming posts should include:

5 football games in 4 days: Football Nirvana in Athens, Georgia

The most dangerous drink in the world

How to work the tables in San Diego

Product Packaging: A world in crisis

American Gangster: Movie Review

Peggy and Tanya

2007-11-13T11:26:00.000-08:00

Thank you for blogsitting. My response to your comments can be found in the comments section that you guys have been running back and forth like your own ping-pong match of wackiness. Very enjoyable read. Thank you.

Update on Dad

2007-10-24T15:26:00.001-07:00

Quick post today.

My Dad went to see his oncologist today after his latest CT scan. Because things looked good before, he has not had a scan in 3 months which seemed like a long time to be honest. Well, it is all good news. The doctor reports that there are no new spots or lesions and that the existing tumors are shrinking. My Dad will not have to increase his dosage of the drug he is taking which would bring with it new and unwelcomed side effects, so this was the best possible news. He will have another ct in 3 months.

Over all, he continues to deal with some side effects from taking the drug, but they are relatively minor and in general, my Dad is doing quite well. Thank you to all who have been keeping him in your prayers. I know it has made a difference.
God is good all the time.

Today's Bullets

2007-10-19T13:43:00.000-07:00

• There is a new smoking tax on the ballot for voters under Oregon’s awful (don’t get me started) ballot initiative process which was created by people who apparently believe that people with no legal training, no way of understanding context, no conceivable way to become informed, who are astonishingly responsive to mainstream advertising and mostly apathetic about social policy are the best people to craft legislation for the state. (Oops, I guess I got started….) Anyway, there is a new tobacco tax up for vote and the campaign against it absolutely kills me (not like smoking would kill me, but still…). I mean the PR firm charged with defeating that initiative is fighting an uphill battle to be sure, but what they’ve come up with defines “lame.”

Basically, the only people on their side is a diminishing pool of smokers, many of whom don’t actually vote. Everyone else will likely fall into two camps: (1) I’m not sure why we should be taxing the bejeezus out of cigarettes, but hey more money for schools is more money for schools and I don’t have to be the one paying; or (2) I hate smoking and cigarettes and any deterrent (punishment?) is a good one and if we get some benefit out of it, great. So how do you convince those people that they should desire additional pocket money for smokers more than they should want more money for roads, schools and police? Tough one right? Well, the only answer is apparently to attack the fact that the new initiative would amend the Oregon Constitution. What? Amend the State Constitution? The horror!!! THE HUMANITY!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

That’s the general idea. So we now have ads where a nice looking couple is filling out their ballot and discussing with the kind of disgusted shock usually reserved for discovering a dead body in the back seat of one’s car, that someone has had the unmitigated gall to suggest that we actually amend the Constitution. Of course, there is no explanation for why that would be such a bad thing, but I guess they figured if the actors simply seemed outraged enough by it, then people wouldn’t notice that. Sadly, some people probably won’t. Great, great system.

Moving on….

• I think the craziest people are people who believe everyone else is crazier than they are.

• An uninvited software upgrade to my DirecTV DVR yesterday wiped my hard-drive clean. I had at least one episode of every show I was hoping to watch this fall and the season finales of two shows I was watching over the summer. I had specials on Larry Bird and Michael Jordan. I had my favorite episodes of Seinfeld and Arrested Development. I had the thing programmed to record everything just the way I wanted it. I had the menus and guides and filters and other options set up perfectly. In a split second, it was gone. It made me really angry. I am thankful there was no in-person customer service option available or I might be typing this from the prison library. When I cooled off a bit, I felt pretty foolish for getting so riled up about TV. So, to help avoid this kind of misdirected emotional response in the future, I am not reprogramming my DVR, at least not completely. I will reset the guides to make it useable. I will set it to record the shows my wife and kids like. Then I will also record the last two episodes of the Contender and 3 other shows. I will record Seinfeld and Arrested Development, because I frequently like to watch an episode right before bed and then probably Heroes since that is the one that is the most interesting to me at the moment. I’m washing my hands of everything else. We’ll call it an experiment and see how it goes.

• The best Philly Cheesesteak sandwich in the Northwest can be purchased from a cart in Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland. I’m having one now. Mmmmm, mmmmmm.

• My new favorite hobby is writing praise and worship music as some of you may know. I wrote another song this week mostly by humming on MAX. I wonder if there is a group of commuters out there who refer to me as “the crazy/annoying/weird humming guy in a suit”

• I’m pretty sure that my wife makes the best pumpkin seeds around and I am certain that it is the best part of Halloween.

• I am more excited than I should be that Brandon Roy is back in the Blazers’ starting lineup for tonight’s preseason game.

• The markings left on a silk tie by whatever juices come out of a Philly Cheesesteak sandwich are not temporary. I thought maybe you should know.

Ok, that’s all for today. Back to work.

Michael Clayton

2007-10-17T10:47:00.000-07:00

My lovely wife and I had a rare date night at the movies with some friends of ours Friday night and we decided to see Michael Clayton. I’m sure the fact that we encouraged our wives to choose the movie and this one happened to star George Clooney is a complete coincidence…..

MC was written and directed by Tony Gilroy who wrote the 3 Bourne movies and a few others before, but that resume piece alone was enough for me to be interested in this movie. Plus, I like Clooney. He’s a good actor and, as one of my blog buddies mentioned in a comment on this blog, he seems like the kind of guy who would be fun to hang out with even if he was much, much cooler than everyone else. The movie stars Clooney, Tom Wilkinson and Sydney Pollack.

I have to say first that I think the title was an inspired choice. You don’t name a movie someone’s mundane first and last name unless you are making a movie about a real person. There are exceptions, but the movie-going public is trained to expect a movie named Michael Clayton will be about a real-life leader of the IRA or something like that. This movie is not about a real person, but it puts that thought in your head to the extent you watch, thinking “wait is UNorth a real company?” “Did this really happen somewhere?” And the movie gets a boost of realism before it even begins. Good thinking there.

The movie is about a law firm defending a large chemical company who is being sued in a class action lawsuit by families injured by the company’s pesticides. Clooney plays the title character who is a lawyer at the firm that specializes in helping clients out of tough spots that may be more practical than legal. He's a "fixer." For example, if you need someone to track down a key witness or help get someone through customs or figure out what to do when a key employee gets arrested, Michael Clayton is your guy.

In this movie, the main lawyer at Clayton's firm who is defending the chemical company starts going a bit nuts and Clayton is called in to do damage control. Conspiracy and mystery follow. In some ways this is the modern American tale of corporate corruption along the lines of what was alleged in the book “A Civil Action.” In other ways it is a window into what happens when people lose their moral compass and get lost in a forest of greed, ambition and narcissism. For me, as an attorney, it was very compelling. I wrestle with some of the same issues presented in the movie and since it is precisely the type of law I practice, it was easy to relate to certain aspects of the movie.

The movie moves at a very slow pace and takes the time it needs to fill in the details of Michael Clayton’s life. You can see how the seemingly innocent circumstances of his life led him down a path of moral ambivalence. The movie is really about his struggle to find his way back to being a good person and doing what is right for the right reasons. In one particularly poignant scene that serves as a microcosm for the entire theme of the movie, Michael is trying to calm down the attorney who is losing it. The attorney has begun to feel guilty about representing the chemical company and the guilt is manifesting itself in insane paranoia. Clayton finds him and tries to convince him to get himself together and at one point attempts to reassure him by saying, “Arthur, I am not the enemy.” Arthur responds by asking, “Well then who are you?” In that moment you see that Clayton is lost in a kind of moral no mans land. Is he with the firm? Is he Arthur’s friend? Is he the representative of the company? Is he complicit in the bad acts of his client or is he simply doing his job? The movie is really about his search to get out of the grey area between doing what is expected or demanded and what is right and good.

That search plays out in the context of a pretty good suspense thriller. All of the movie making basics are covered well here. The acting is subtle and true. The writing is original and interesting and at times profound. The directing kept the story moving with moments of tense suspense balanced by uncomfortable contemplation. All in all, this was a very good movie if you are willing to watch a movie the way you read classic literature. If you are just looking for the action and witty dialogue to get your heart racing and give you a thrill ride experience, then this movie will likely disappoint in spite of some good suspense and action. But if you are willing to look beyond the first level and see how the action and dialogue present themes and questions in an interesting and thought provoking way, then this will be as good a movie as you will have seen in the theater this year. Of course, that assumes that the themes resonate with you in some way.

One more personal note. There was some level of authenticity in this movie that made me feel like I was at the office. Not to say that my clients are anything like the bad company portrayed in the movie or that I daily have to wrestle with contradictions between being a good lawyer and being a good person. It was just that the stress of the lawyers involved and the kinds of decisions they had to make and the consequences that would follow for them and others, was very real to me. They got that right. The same stress that plagues me virtually every minute of the day was palpable to me during this movie. So, while it was good, I’m not likely to watch it again. But, in this case I really think that could be just me.

Here are some other notes about the movie that might help you decide whether you want to watch it.

1. For an R rated movie, the violence and language is rather tame. There is no nudity or portrayals of sex other than some sexual dialogue.

2. The closest movie I can think of to this one is “A Civil Action” or maybe “Erin Brockovich,” but Michael Clayton is much better than either of those films and really only about the same thing on the surface.

3. I see this movie appealing equally to men and women, but I could be wrong about that. My wife didn’t care for it, but in the movie’s defense, it was very late at night when we watched it.

4. This is not an action movie. It is not a strange foreign film where nothing really happens and it drags on either. There is suspense and action and a good plot. But the movie moves slowly and that really bothers some people especially if they go in expecting something else. In other words, don’t go in looking for Danny Ocean.

5. I think it is worth seeing in the theater, but you probably don’t need the big screen to really enjoy it.

Overall, I would rank it as probably an 8.5 or 9 out of 10.

We Own the Night

2007-10-16T14:28:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday’s guys’ night out movie was “We Own the Night” written and directed by James Grey who is best known for having an exceedingly common name. Soon he will be known as they guy who made this movie, but to date I can’t really think of much that he’s done. The movie stars Joaquin Phoenix, Eva Mendes, Marky Mark Wahlberg and Robert Duvall. My favorite thing about the cast in this movie is the preview where it says “Academy Award nominee Mark Wahlberg, Academy Award nominee Joaquin Phoenix, Academy Award winner Robert Duvall and….Eva Mendes” Too bad for her. You have to hate it when you’re cast with a bunch of great actors and you find out marketing is going with the whole “look how many academy award winners we have” and you’re the only one without a nod. I think Eva should fire her agent immediately. I doubt it is at all his fault, but I think that’s how things like that get handled in Hollywood.

Before we continue with our regularly scheduled review, I have to ask, what’s with this title? Pretty lame if you ask me. The movie only served to give us the origin while making it even more lame. If the movie was about who owned the night, that would be one thing. Like if part of the story was that criminals had made going out at night unsafe and the police were taking back the night for neighborhood. It would still be a lame title, but would at least make sense, but there was nothing like that in the plot. Apparently, the title comes from some kind of slogan I saw on the badges of some of the NYPD officers. Their badges said “We Own the Night” across the bottom, but again, that doesn’t really have anything to do with the movie. It sounds like a bad Vampire movie to me.

Anyway, the movie is about Wahlberg and Phoenix who play white sheep/black sheep brothers and sons of Police Chief Robert Duvall. Wahlberg, with no funky bunch to be found, plays the good son who is rising in the police ranks taking after his Pa. Phoenix plays a guy who wears weird scarves and manages a night club where one of the flying Karamazov Brothers hangs out with the Russian mob. Eventually, the police target the mob and the club and Phoenix has to decide whether to be loyal to guys named “Jumbo” and “Vladislovikatovarovaskya” or to his family which he doesn’t care for that much and generally see him as a screw up.

I was excited to see this movie mostly because I really, really like the cast, except for Mendes who is a poor man’s Jennifer Lopez who can’t act at all. But Phoenix and Wahlberg I really like and Duvall is just never bad in anything he does. I think Joaquin Phoenix is one of the best actors of his generation, if not the best and I will likely go to see anything he’s in until that approach burns me too many times. I also like cop/organized crime dramas, so that combination made this the most highly anticipated movie of the fall for me so far except of course for “American Gangster” which has “instant classic” written all over it.

In the end this movie didn’t quite live up to my expectations, but it was still worth watching.

Things I liked:

The cast did live up to expectations. Everyone was very good except Mendes who never really established a believable or significant character despite having a role that really could have been something. In fact, because the plot was a bit ho-hum, the cast really saved and made this movie.

Three really cool scenes. First, there is a scene with Mendes walking in slow motion down the hallway with the smoke from her cigarette enveloping her exaggerated strut. Great camera work and composition. Unfortunately, it didn’t fit with the overall scene or the movie at all. It was this incredibly dramatic entrance to a casual party where people are just hanging out. It was really out of place. Too bad because it looked great. Would have been phenomenal in a music video.

Second, there is a car chase scene in the rain. You can’t see out of the windows or really ever get your bearings as to where you are or where the bad guys are or what and it keeps you tense and engaged. It is real and unnerving and the camera work and the rain make a relatively simple car chase one of the best scenes in the movie.

Third, there is a great scene where the good guys and bad guys hunt for and shoot at each other in some really tall grass of some kind. Or were they reeds? I’m not sure. They were like tall stalks of wheat except that they weren’t packed in tight like wheat or grass, but were more spread out. The effect was strange. They were loose enough that you could sort of see through them for a few feet, but tall enough and thick enough that visibility didn’t extend past that even though it seemed like it should. Plus they were blowing back and forth and constantly moving so you couldn’t tell what was wind moving grass and what was a person. It was pretty tense. It was just a simple scene, much like the car chase, but it really worked well.

I also liked the look and feel. It was set in the 1980s and every detail was addressed from clothes to cars to computers. The whole movie felt a little grey which fit perfectly with the story line since the whole movie is sort of about a cloud hanging over a situation where you know the downpour is coming and you just wait for it.

Things I didn’t like

The movie opens with the most gratuitous of sex scenes. The scene itself is actually directed well and comes across surprisingly and uncomfortably real, but it doesn’t add to the movie at all. You don’t learn anything important about the characters, it doesn’t add to the mood of the movie, you don’t care more about the people in the scene or their relationship with each other. My guess is the scene came about because they hired Mendes and then realized she couldn’t act and thought, “yeah, but she’s sexy, right? Let’s film a sex scene and toss that in so it’s not a total waste having her in this movie.” Well, it didn’t work. It was a total waste.

The story was very simple and very predictable. Not an original wrinkle in the whole movie. That’s tough to overcome. I’m not sure how movies keep getting away with this or keep convincing studios and producers that it’s ok. It’s as if, a band was pitching a song to the label’s A&R man and they said, “it’s to the same tune as ‘Hey Jude’ but we’re going to make it about a girl and call it ‘Hey June’.” I mean, no one would stand for that right? I know people cover songs and copy-cat styles in music too, but sometimes I wish in both industries the gatekeepers would say, “wait, that’s been done a thousand times, come back when you have an idea for something different.” It doesn’t have to be weird or twisted, just not what’s been done. Well, as far as the plot or story, this movie’s been done 10,000 times. They did it well this time, but there was nothing new.

Here are some other notes about the movie that might help you decide whether you want to watch it.

1. There is nudity, graphic gun violence and foul language throughout. There are also several scenes that are rather tense. It is not an especially violent movie or anything, but these items are there so if you don’t like movies that contain them, stay away from this one.

2. I would expect this movie to appeal more to men than to women as the central themes are presented entirely from the male point of view.

3. There is no real reason to not wait for video as the big screen doesn’t add enough to justify the added expense of the theater.

4. It is in the same movie genre as “The Departed” and “Carlito’s Way.”

Overall, the movie was maybe a 7 out of 10. It kept me awake and was, for the most part, well done. It just wasn’t remarkable and with that cast I was hoping for a bit more.

Tom Cruise Syndrome

2007-10-12T16:56:00.000-07:00

I was just reading a rant from the wife of one of the sports writers I read regularly. The writer is the Sports Guy who writes for ESPN.com and his wife writes a weekly rant in his football picks column. Anyway, she was going off this week about how she is sick of the show Grey’s Anatomy. Lost in her diatribe about various celebrity couples was a really underrated point about the entertainment world and celebrity worship. She explained that since finding out about the actors’ personal lives in the tabloids, she finds their performances less believable or is distracted by what she knows about the actors.

I think we can officially call this “Tom Cruise Syndrome.” Cruise had, for years I’m sure, been a complete whackjob. I’m sure that years before he was jumping on Oprah’s couch, he believed crazy things and had mixed up values and everything that he gets demonized for now. The only difference is that we didn’t know it about him. He had carefully protected his private life and so we didn’t know how loopy he really was. Then when he finally opened up and showed who he really was he suddenly became unwatchable as a movie star. I watched MI:3 thinking the whole time, about him jumping up and down on a couch and generally alienating everyone who knows someone who could benefit from mental health medication. He was the same actor, giving the same performance, but I couldn’t buy it any more.

I think celebrities generally overestimate their ability to overcome this. They often act shocked and appalled when people find out who they really are and then stop wanting to watch them pretend to be someone else. As if we’re wrong to discriminate against bad behavior and crazy life choices.

Whether it is a homosexual portraying a heterosexual relationship, or a devout peace activist playing a shoot ‘em up action hero or a racist jerk playing….well….anything, I don’t care how good the acting is, I just don’t buy it.

The interesting thing is that nearly all of our popular entertainment options probably exist only through willful blindness. We try really hard to convince ourselves that the stars we like are good people and really just better, cooler versions of things we like about ourselves or wish we could be. In reality, their lives are mostly a mess meaning they are (rash generalization) for the most part likely Godless, immoral, zoloft hating, couch jumping, pot smoking, neck tattoo having freaks. But none of that matters to us because until they throw it in our face, we pretend it isn’t true. The signs are everywhere but we ignore them so we can continue to enjoy our favorite shows, music and movies.

All of that to say, I’m really down on the paparazzi right now. Not because they invade the privacy of millionaire camera-hogs, but because they force me to admit the stars’ camera hogging isn’t their only pig-like characteristic. I would rather all movie stars be good people, but for now I would also settle for not having to see and read about how much they are not.

Maybe all of this is just reason number 1,536,345 not to deify our celebrities based on anything, but especially not their on-screen personas that so rarely, I'm sure, reflect nothing but their ability to pretend.

Pumpkin Rage

2007-10-11T14:02:00.000-07:00

Here is my younger son's reaction to his first official school field trip to the Pumpkin Patch. Horrified onlookers report that just prior to this picture, you could hear him mumbling angrily "don't make me angry, you won't like me when I'm angry."

Also, for anyone reading this that might care, there is a new sports post about the Blazer game Gibson and I attended last night over on my sports blog.

Random points

2007-10-10T16:36:00.000-07:00

My wife and are planning to attend the Zoe conference in Fresno in January. Anyone else who reads this thinking about going? I’m always on the lookout for opportunities to get to meet some of you in person.

Why is it that whenever I get injured playing sports, people always tell me I should stop playing sports? I bruised my ribs playing basketball last night and today people at the office keep saying things like “time to give up contact sports” or “aren’t you getting too old for that?” or “you play basketball? Really? You? Hahahahahahahaha” Other than that last response, I don’t get it. I love basketball. I love the pushing and shoving and grabbing and biting and that’s just at the drinking fountain between games. I hurt in some way every time I play and that’s just part of it. Why would I give this up? I mean, people may wish I would so they wouldn’t have to play with me, but I’ve never been that big on granting other people’s wishes.

Portland decided it needed another parking garage downtown so rather than adding additional concrete to the skyline, they tore down a building and dug a giant hole. The whole will become an underground parking garage with a park on top at street level. How cool is that? This is reason number 548 that I love living in Portland.

The Trailblazers get things started with their first preseason game tonight which would be exciting enough, but the great part about it is that I get to take one of my sons who absolutely loves going to games. Good, good times.
Ok, random post today, but that’s all I have.

StumpTown watches TV

2007-10-09T11:35:00.000-07:00

I will confess that I like watching TV. For fiction, I prefer TV and Movies to books. I know that makes me shallow and brainless and so on, but I felt it better to just come clean from the outset. That said, my schedule doesn’t really allow me to watch a ton of TV (though my wife begs to differ), especially if you don’t count sports, but I’m sure this post will have you thinking otherwise.

One more qualifier. TV, Movies and Music are creative, artistic endeavors (mostly) and like all of them, their quality or value is to some degree (not as much as people think, but some) subjective. So, I know that it is very likely that I will hate something that you love. I also know that this offends people. So, please understand that I mean no offense and in spite of my forceful opinions, we can still be friends if we disagree about whether a movie like Fever Pitch is worth watching.

Anyway, enough qualifiers.

I plan to watch more than I ever end up watching at least in part because from Sunday to Saturday, my evening schedule often looks something like this.

Sunday – various Church meetings followed by dinner with the family and then guys night at the movies – No TV except maybe an hour of football in the afternoon and some highlights after the movie while I fall asleep in the living room at 1:30am.

Monday – At home with the family – No TV before the kids are in bed at 8, except for MNF about once a month. Fortunately, my one time this month was last night. Terrible ending, but great game. Plus Marion Barber and TO both had off nights giving me a rare fantasy football victory which is always a bonus.

Tuesday – weekly basketball game – no TV except for maybe an episode of some show my wife doesn’t care about after I get home from ball and she is in bed.
Wednesday – weekly Bible study – Tanya and I usually end up watching something after about 9:30

Thursday – Thursday evenings are filled with meeting or social engagements or (when I’m teaching) classes on average 3 out of every 4 Thursdays. – I watch TV occasionally on this night just depending on schedule.

Friday – Date night/family night depending on the week – We watch recorded shows if we stay in after the kids are in bed.

Saturday – At home with the family. – See Friday night above.

So, there isn’t really all that much time to watch TV in the course of an average week. In fact, if I didn’t keep vampire hours, I wouldn’t watch much at all. As it is, staying up to 1 or 2 every night does free up some TV time now and again. But I get an hour or so of Football on Sundays and sometimes again on Monday nights and there are some weeks when we have fewer things in the evening and my wife and I will sit down and watch TV together, but most of my TV watching actually happens on Friday or Saturday nights when my wife and I used to rent movies. We don’t really watch movies much anymore, so instead when we are at home and wanting to just relax we turn on our DVR.

Basically, every year in September, I go through and schedule the DVR to record every show we like and every new show that I think we might like. Since it is nearly impossible to actually follow a TV show through changing timeslots and on again off again season schedules, the DVR has really become the only way to watch TV. Plus we can zip through the commercials which means that we can watch 3 “hour” long dramas in the time span that we used to watch a two hour movie.

Sadly, the technology has severely outpaced the quality of programming. I have HD satellite TV with a DVR that captures and records the HD picture and true 5.1 dolby digital surround and with most of the shows on TV, that is really just so much lipstick on a pig. (I’m leaving out sports by the way. Sports on my TV set up is fantastic, but isn’t really TV so much as it’s an important contribution to the fabric of our society, so we’ll just leave that out of the discussion)

For the past several years, in addition to the DVR, the biggest improvement in TV has been the DVD. I refuse to pay for HBO, but their TV shows are consistently head and shoulders above what the networks churn out. Well, now I can watch those great HBO shows on DVD so long as I can protect myself from water-cooler spoilers along the way. I only bring that up to explain why none of those shows are on this list.
But even though most of what comes on TV is garbage, every once in a while something really good or fun comes along. You know, shows like NYPD Blue, Law and Order, Seinfeld, Arrested Development, Family Ties, Cheers, Highlander, The Six Million Dollar Man, X-Files, 24 and if I thought about it more I would no doubt, come up with a few more.

So, with all of that said (and why again did I say it?), lets take a look at what’s on the Stump DVR these days.

1. 24 – Last season was pretty bad. I mean, a real step down. But it’s still Jack Bauer and I still get fired up to see just how bad a day one man can have. That said, if this season doesn’t greatly improve on the last and take the show in some new directions, this could be the last go ‘round for me and Jack.

2. Lost – This show was really losing me with a story that develops slower than Dick Clark’s aging process, but the season finale was a doozie, so I’m coming back for more when it starts again in January.

3. Grey’s Anatomy – This is my wife’s show. I don’t like medical dramas (though the first season of Chicago Hope was pretty good) because it’s about hospitals (which are dreadful) and gross body stuff…yuck. But I hear it is a good show (and the few minutes I’ve seen generally confirms that) and my wife digs it, so while I don’t watch it, it gets a very high protected ranking on the DVR prioritizer.

4. Private Practice – This is a new spin-off from Greys. Again, I don’t watch it for the same reasons, but my wife is checking it out. I think the report after the first episode was “pretty good.” I think the biggest draw back was that the character they spun off wasn’t that compelling, but I question whether there is really going to be a consistent audience to basically watch the same show but with characters they don’t know or care about, but we’ll see.

5. Heroes – This show, like Lost is much better in concept than in execution. The idea and some of the story lines are fantastic, but the show itself is a bit hokey. Still, I’m a sucker for high concept imagination kind of stuff even if it is cheesy in the delivery, so I’m back for another season. Year 2 is taking its time to find its way, but still has some pretty fun stuff going on, so I’m happy to have it around.

6. Law & Order – A classic. I’ve watched since the first season. Incredibly, it has never really lost its touch even through a complete cast overhaul and years on TV. Is it still on by the way? I haven’t seen any new episodes record.

7. Law & Order: Criminal Intent – Love Bobby, don’t like Chris Noth’s character (though he was good with Lenny on the original show back in the day), but this is consistently good mystery TV. Strange jump to the USA network this year, but as long as we get new episodes and the quality doesn’t drop, that’s fine with me. My DVR will find it for me.

8. Bionic Woman – I was really excited for this show. Six Million Dollar Man was probably my favorite show as a kid and I used to love the entire bionic family (yes even the dog), so when I heard about this show coming out I was excited. Then I saw the previews and saw they were trying to put a gritty “realish” spin on the show with sort of an Alias vibe and I was even more excited. Of course, I was also concerned. For starters, the first Bionic Woman was fine when I was 8, but would be pretty hokey now that I have matured to the emotional maturity of a 10 year old. Second, I really wondered how this show was going to be different than Alias which was really just a blatant rip off of Le Femme Nikita (which was a great movie by the way and a very underrated TV series). Well, turns out, it isn’t different than those other shows, it’s just worse. I don’t really like the new Bionic Woman all that well because she lacks that kind of sparkle that Jennifer Garner had that just makes you want to watch her even if what she’s doing makes no sense at all. Plus, as my wife pointed out, she has no chin. Plus the writing is pretty awful. In an apparent overreaction to criticism of the manipulative style of shows like Alias that contort the plot to play with your head, we get dialogue like:

Boss of secret black ops agency with unlimited funding: “Now that we’ve spent 50 million (talk about inflation!!) on you, you have to come help us save the world.”

Summers: Who are you anyway?

BOSBOAWUF: “We are a mysterious, black ops, underground, black bag, super secret spy agency defending the world against other secret rogue agencies that are bad and are trying to destroy the world for no reasons that we know of except for to defend their right to wear black exclusively in every circumstance.”

Summers: “Count me in.”

Really? I mean, at least in Alias, they kept us guessing a bit and invited us to use our imagination at least a little. Here they just spell everything out assuming the people watching are too stupid to know the difference. Worst of all, the bionics no longer make that cool noise when in use. So, as you can tell, the first 2 episodes didn’t thrill me. I have a 3 strikes rule for new TV, so if it doesn’t show me something in this next episode then it goes to a vote and will likely be removed from the DVR.

9. Shark – This is not a good show. The writing is just ok. The stories are rehashed Perry Mason/Law and Order plots and the acting is atrocious. That is, by everyone except James Woods, who is amazing. In fact, he carries this show all by himself and keeps me watching. And there are always a few scenes that are really well done. So, it stays on the list. Woods turns a waste of a show into decent entertainment.

10. Cane – This is another new one with Jimmy Smits (why did Bobby have to die? Why? Why?). I’ve only seen one episode but I liked what I saw. It may turn out to be too soap operaish and just an updated Dallas or Falcon Crest or something, but so far I like the cast and the look and the story, so this one has some promise. It is about a family who make products like rum from their sugar cane. The family seems to be part uber-rich business family, part organized crime and was pretty watchable.

UPDATE: I’ve been writing this for a while so last night I watched another episode of Cane. I really want to like this show. I like Smits and TV could use sort of an epic drama right now. But, alas, it is not good. Smits character is kind of weak and a bit stupid and you just can’t have that in a show like this. You need Stringer Bell or Michael Corleone or Tony Soprano in a role like that. You can’t have a guy visibly shaken over taking a hit out on a kidnapping murderer and then being stupid enough to use his name on a cell phone conversation. Come on. What did he skip corrupt patriarch school? Plus the writing is quite bad and I don’t generally like the direction the show is headed. It is still on the DVR for one more week out of respect of the memory of Bobby Simone, but it is not looking good for Cane.

11. Big Shots – Haven’t seen it yet. I heard bad reviews and it may get cancelled before I get around to watching it, but we’ll see.

UPDATE: I watched this last night. WOW was it bad. I mean WOW!!! That’s right it was all-caps and three exclamation points bad. Michael Vartan (the boyfriend from Alias was the only one in the show that gave something close to a credible acting performance and it seemed awkwardly out of place compared to what everyone else was doing. Dylan McDermott was so bad and sporting such terrible sideburns I found myself audibly moaning and beginning to become genuinely angry. The moment Tanya fell asleep, I turned this show off. It is about 4 business executives who complain about the problems that come with being rich and great looking. It’s like someone saw those Dockers ads from years ago that showed just the pants and thought, “let’s make a show about those guys and have them be really whiney and girly and amoral with really bad sideburns.” I see shows every year that I don’t enjoy, but it has been a long time since I saw a show as repulsive as that show last night was. Not since my regrettable decision to check out Nip/Tuck. I will never watch a second of it again.

12. The Contender – This is the one and only reality show that I watch. I will blog some other time on why I hate “reality” TV so much, but not now. The Contender may single handedly save boxing. It is a cheesy show, but the concept of the show and the tournament behind the show is compelling and fun to watch. Sugar Ray is so effeminate and awkward when delivering his lines that it is painful to watch at times, but the boxing is fun. I wish it was less edited and manipulative, but I still like it. Plus as a bonus, this year there is a guy from Portland. Unfortunately he seems like a complete tool, but it’s still nice for the hometown to get some love.

13. The Office – I like it. It’s pretty funny. It’s just not nearly as good as the original BBC version and I’m not sure I will ever get over that. Every time I watch it I remember how lame American TV can be.

14. My Name is Earl – Looks stupid. Sounds stupid. Is really, pretty smart in a stupid kind of way. Most importantly though, it is just flat out funny. Randy and Joy are two of the best characters on TV.

15. Back to You – This is the new sitcom starring Frasier and Ray Barone’s wife. I’ve only watched one episode and don’t usually record sitcoms. But it was pretty funny and made Tanya laugh outloud a couple times which is no easy task for a TV show, so I kept it on the list. It was pretty good, it just wasn’t remarkable. Nothing new here. My guess is that we almost never end up watching it.

16. Pushing Daisies – When I first saw Arrested Development, I turned to Tanya and said, “this show is too good not to get cancelled.” I had the exact same feeling watching Pushing Daisies. Please watch this show. Please. It is creative and fun visually and well written and acted and mostly just a whole lot of fun. I have only seen one episode, but I loved it. Loved it. Please watch this show. American audiences will almost certainly ignore it and doom it to early cancellation, so give it a shot early. It’s about a guy who can touch dead people and bring them back to life, but if he doesn’t touch them again (which kills them again) within a minute, someone else dies. So, he wakes victims just for a minute to find out who killed them so he can collect reward money. Also, he makes pies. It sounds morbid, but it isn’t really. It is just fun. Check it out. Please watch this show.

17. Chuck – Actually, this one didn’t even make it to 3 episodes. Not a bad idea for a show. Nerd is forced into action with beautiful action spy babe. It is sort of Alias from Marshal’s perspective done for laughs. However, it is too silly without being funny and except for a chase sequence in the first episode (which was outstanding), the action is dull at best. It didn’t show me enough in the second episode to get to a third. Plus, this show is going to be cancelled. Trust me.

18. Cyberchase – Gibson’s favorite show about some kids who get sucked into a computer Tron style or something. Anyway, it is a cartoon where they have to go around using math to solve problems and save the day. It is the kind of show that makes a parent think, “well if they are going to watch TV, at least it has some semblance of educational value.” It’s good.

19. Life – I’m still on the fence about this show. It is about a cop who is wrongly accused of a murder and spends 10 years or something in jail before being freed by DNA. Now he’s rich with a 50mil settlement of a lawsuit and a cop again and uses the self-help coping mechanisms he learned in prison to help solve crimes. The story line is a bit mundane and so I fear there’s not enough to keep me watching. That said, the guy is just quirky enough and the writing good enough to make the show interesting, so I’m giving it a full 3 episodes. I think it might be a sleeper in a good way.

20. Moonlight – This is a vampire show. I’m a sucker for vampire shows. I have no idea why since I don’t like gore. I haven’t seen it yet. Tanya doesn’t seem that intrigued and I keep the list of shows I watch without her pretty short. So, it’s facing tough odds of sticking around, but I’ll give it a shot at some point.

21. Prison Break – I have no idea why I keep watching this show. I think they may have brainwashed me with subliminal messages.

22. Friday Night Lights – If the Wire was the best show that nobody watched, then this is the current champion of that category and a close second to the Wire. Great cast, good writing and engrossing drama. It seems at first like it’s about high school or football, but it is really about small town life and the difficult decisions brought about by change. It is an excellent show and if you are looking for something new this year, grab the first season on DVD and then start watching the second and maybe, just maybe, they will keep bringing this one back.

23. Damages – F/X brought Glenn Close to TV for this show and I have to say I got hooked good and fast. It follows a first year lawyer working for a high profile plaintiff’s attorney on an even higher profile Enron type case against Sam Malone from Cheers who has mysteriously found a way to regrow hair…hmmm… Anyway, it is half flashbacks, half current time mystery and is very well done. It reveals the plot slowly, but fast enough that you don’t feel completely toyed with. The only issue I have with this show (and I haven’t seen the last episode(s) yet), is that I don’t see how there can be a second season given the way we’re going. But who knows? The first season was great, though if you haven’t been watching, you will have to wait for the DVDs. The show ran over the summer.

24. The 4400 – Another summer show, this one kind of had the idea for Heroes before Heroes came along. I mean, they are both basically ripping off X-Men anyway, so I don’t guess it matters. In this show 4400 people who had mysteriously disappeared over the course of the last 100 years show up all together at once not having aged. They appear in Seattle (for the coffee I’m sure) and each of them have a super power. The reason for this is vague in an X-Files like way, but it appears that they were collected from the past by people in the future who found a way to turn on the superhero gene in all of us and then sent them back to the present to make the future a better place. Got all that? Anyway, it is pretty entertaining over the summer when there is really nothing else on. Now I think you can get all the shows on DVD which is always a nicer way to watch a show anyway.

25. Burn Notice – Yet another summer show. The basic cable networks are catching on to something. The public networks don’t run new programming in the summer apparently believing that with nicer weather and no school, people leave their TVs turned of for 3 and half months. Turns out, that’s not true and the good people at USA, F/X and TNT seem to be catching on. Burn notice is about a blacklisted former spy that now must help out the innocent against local Miami baddies (A-Team style) while trying to figure out how he got “burned” (the apparent spy word for getting fired). It is light and usually silly and mostly just an excuse to show shots of the Miami beaches, but it is also surprisingly entertaining in a guilty pleasure sort of way. I’ll be back for more when it is on again next year.

26. Arrested Development – They show the reruns of this short lived but brilliant sitcom on the HD channel. I record them and watch whenever I can.

27. Seinfeld – See Arrested Development above.

28. The Black Donnellys – This show got cancelled and then sprung to life showing new episodes on the HD channel. This show was much too good for network TV and so of course it failed to gain an audience. Good show though.

29. NFL Primetime – But that’s sports so it doesn’t count remember

30. Journeyman – I think this show used to be Quantum Leap. The pilot was quite promising. It is about a guy who (with no explaination) blacks out and travels back in time on an apparent mission to write some wrong and (like in the 4400) improve the present…or future…or whatever it would be. It was well done and stayed away from the traps in this kind of show that make a show like this unwatchably cheesy like straining to explain all the supernatural stuff. I question whether this show will be able to capture a big enough audience to keep going, but I’m going to watch.

31. Various home décor/design and fashion shows – There are other shows that we record for my wife that include various shows about interior design and fashion makeovers. They aren’t the Fox style seedy reality shows, but are of the TLC “Trading Spaces” variety. Fashion and design are a personal and professional interest of my uber-talented wife and so she enjoys these shows. That said, I have found that if you can put up with the effeminate men many of these shows are pretty entertaining.

Of course, this list will be shortened significantly in the near future and half of what’s on this list at least will go unwatched, but that’s the scoop right now. To be honest, none of these shows hold a candle to the cable stuff like Deadwood, The Wire, Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Entourage, etc, but thanks to the DVDs, I can watch all of those too and stick to my basic cable plan.

Now that I’ve cleared the decks as it were, I will start trying to post actual movie reviews on this site when I see something worth reviewing.

Road Trip Music

2007-10-08T17:20:00.000-07:00

Just got a very good question from faithful blog reader and cherished StumpTown friend Peggy in the comments to my post about movies. She asked for advice in selecting music for a road trip so I thought I would offer the following.

I try to follow these simple rules when preparing road trip music. I hope they help.

1. The Radio station rule – try to find as many songs or artists that grab your ear when you are surfing through the radio. There are always those songs that, no matter how many times you’ve heard them, just click with you to the point that it is physically impossible to change the radio station when you hear this song playing. Those songs are like 3 minutes of your musical soul mate. The more of those songs the better. I just compiled a CD of such songs which include:

a. I love Rock ‘n Roll – Joan Jett (that’s right, so what?)
b. Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen
c. Kodachrome (sp?) – Paul Simon
d. Me and Julio down by the school yard (not the real name) – Paul Simon
e. Whiter Shade of Pale
f. Bye Bye Miss American Pie
g. Hey Jude
h. Cecelia

I just never seem to tire of listening to those songs, so they make good road trip songs.

2. The new music rule – Don’t bring anything you are hearing for the very first time. You want music that gets you fired up and comforts you and that you can sing along with. This is no time to break in a new sound.

3. The sing along rule – If it doesn’t make you want to sing along, then it is not worth taking with you in the car. Riding in the car is for singing along to the radio. I will not argue about this.

4. The variety rule – Try not to bring too many albums where every song sounds the same and is played at the same tempo. Driving gets boring. You need to mix it up. If you only have albums where all the songs are at a certain level, then make sure you bring a wide variety of albums and then play them like you’re a DJ at a radio station trying to break the record for most genre’s played in a 4 hour time slot. I like to start off with some good up beat pop like Sheryl Crow or go old school with the Beatles or Huey Lewis and the News. Then move to something more thoughtful and mellow like Simon and Garfunkle (ultimate road trip music), then when I’m falling asleep, crank things up with some Jay Z or Kanye West or maybe some Prince or Blackstreet.

5. The head bob rule – You need music that makes you want to move. If listening to a song does not make you at very least want to bob your head, if not jump on top of the car and start thrashing around like you’re in a Guns ‘n Roses video, then it is just not good traveling music.

6. The repetition rule – Don’t bring songs that repeat the chorus more than 4 times. Don’t bring things that repeat the same hook or rhythm over and over and over. It will drive you nuts.

Ok, that should get you started. Just for fun, here are some of my very favorite road trip albums (before the days of cd burning)
Graceland – Paul Simon
Simon and Garfunkle’s Greatest Hits
Odelay – Beck
The Globe Sessions – Sheryl Crow
The Black Album – Jay Z
The Chronic – Dr. Dre featuring Snoop Dog
Any album by the Zoe Christian singing group
Beethoven’s 9th Symphony
Anything by Eric Clapton
The Future – Guy
Bringing Down the Horse – Wallflowers
Touchdown – Stephanie Schneiderman
Prince’s 2 disc set with the weird symbol on the front
Any of the first 3 Cranberries albums

Good luck!!!

StumpTown at the Movies

2007-10-08T01:36:00.000-07:00

If you have been thinking recently that you are in desperate need of someone to tell you which movies and new TV shows you should like, this is the blog post for you. I’m going to basically dump my thoughts on some of the movies I have seen most recently and then add a brief review of the new shows I’ve managed to see this year thanks to the beauty and power of the DVR.

Movies

I basically see three categories of movies. 85% of the movies I see are with a group of my guy friends on Sunday nights. We have sort of a men’s movie night where we see movies that likely appeal mostly to men. That means we see a lot of shooting, explosions and slow-motion action shots and are kept current on all the latest and best fart jokes. It also means we don’t see any movie with a woman’s name in the title, no Drew Barrymore or Julia Roberts (is she still alive?) and we also avoid movies that would be better suited for dates with our wives or nights out with the whole family. Roughly 10% of the movies I see are movies that I watch with my 7 year old and my 3 year old. That means I see lots of animals, automobiles and other non-human things talking and generally acting like humans. Then the remaining 5% are movies that I watch by myself or with my wife either at home or at the theater and are pretty much limited to movies I’m inappropriately excited about and drag my wife to the theater for, and random movies we watch at home.

So, why did I tell you all of that? No reason really.

Here are some movies I have seen lately and some brief thoughts on each:

The Kingdom – Ray Charles and Sidney Bristow team up with Michael Bluth to investigate a bombing in Saudi Arabia. The movie is sort of what would happen if someone wrote “US/Mid East Politics for Dummies” and then decided to make it into an action movie…or was it a mystery? Hmmmm…. There is really lots to criticize about this movie from the cliché, preachy political statements to the ho-hum plot which was entirely devoid of twists or naturally occurring drama (meaning the drama came from the action rather than the plot). But the truth is that it wasn’t a bad movie. It just wasn’t a great movie. Some of the fire-fights and action sequences were pretty jarring since they were shot for realism and were pretty dang effective. One particular hand to hand combat scene with Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman and a huge Arab guy whose one fighting move was to lift Garner up and throw her horizontal against the wall (bet that was a fun day for her to shoot), was particularly gut wrenching. The look of the movie was right. The acting was passable if a bit flat. The story was just so-so, but the action kept the movie entertaining and while it no-doubt sounds like I’m pretty down on it, it was an entertaining night at the movies. Maybe more rental quality, but overall not disappointing. I do have to say though, that I’m glad to see Jason Bateman getting some run after the disappointing but predictable early demise of Arrested Development. He sort of does a less annoying version of Chandler Bing from Friends and is pretty underrated I think.

Shoot ‘Em Up – Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti and Monica Bellucci (why doesn’t she get more work exactly? Can we sign some kind of petition to get her a new agent or something?) headline this action movie. The title is the sort of “calls it like it sees it” gimmick that either leaves you with the next “Desperado” (a classic) or a warning that this movie is going to be terrible because the people who named it were not creative enough to think of a real movie title. Sadly, this movie fell into the latter category. To be honest, I’m still shocked it was so bad. I mean, really bad. Dung heaps on landfills thinks this movie stinks. But Owen seems to be a star on the rise that wouldn’t have to be in a movie like this. Giamatti seems like the kind of actor’s actor that would avoid this kind of junk. Alas, they instead chose to combine forces to lure me into seeing one of the worst things (not just movies, but all things) I have ever seen in my life. It would take Homer or Shakespeare to craft words that could describe how bad this movie is, so I won’t try. Just do not see this movie. Not out of curiosity, not just because there was nothing else at the video store, not for any reason. Please, I’m begging you, do not see this movie. Honor the loss of those 2 hours from my life by staying away. It is not cool. It is not funny (intentionally anyway) and is not pleasant to watch in any sense. I really can not say this enough. Since seeing the movie Transformers earlier this summer I have begun using it as the low water mark for movies. When talking the guys into seeing Shoot ‘Em Up with me, I told them, “I don’t know a lot about this movie, but hey it will be better than Transformers.” This movie made a liar out of me. If you like any of these actors, or you are not filled with violent self-loathing, just don’t see this movie. Ok, that’s all.

Balls of Fury – This is a movie with Christopher Walken about the seedy and often violent world of illegal, underground ping pong. How can that not be funny? I mean, read that again and tell me how that movie avoids being funny. Well it found a way. If someone had just stood in an empty room and spoken that first sentence to describe the movie and they recorded it on film it would be funnier than Balls of Fury. It wasn’t horrific like Shoot ‘Em Up was, but it was not funny…at all. I mean if you think Asian-American accents are hilarious even when the people speaking with those accents are not saying anything remotely funny, maybe you will disagree with me on this one, but the jokes don’t work in this movie and then you just have a movie about a fat guy who is kind of good at ping-pong. If you want to watch that, just go to some college rec center and sit there for a couple hours. What you would see there, regardless of what it was, would be funnier than this movie.

3:10 to Yuma – Maximus and Batman together in a Western. That made this one a can’t miss right? I mean, every movie I see this summer can’t be the cinematic equivalent of an ice pick to the gums can it? Mercifully, no. This was actually a very good movie. In fact, unless you really dislike westerns, there is no good excuse for not watching this one. It’s not terribly deep or complex, but it is well acted and well made and squeezes everything it can out of every scene. I really enjoyed this one, especially since the other movies I had been watching were so awful.

Superbad – You did not hear this from me, but this movie was funny. That is all I can say about it without either getting myself in trouble or feeling like I have to flog myself out of misguided religious guilt. It is vulgar and juvenile and senseless and ridiculous and funny. But you didn’t hear that from me.

Stardust – Described as an adult fairytale, this was a good date movie with my wife (and not surprisingly the date was better than the movie). The movie, though, was actually pretty good. Something was missing that kept it from being really good and it is tough to pinpoint, but it was pretty good. It was no Princess Bride, but I appreciated getting to see a movie that wasn’t either a sequel or just trying to prey off of some established genre. Worth a rental, certainly.

The Bourne Ultimatum – This was the third Bourne movie based on the books with the same titles. I thought the first one was a fantastic action movie with some of the best car chase and hand to hand combat scenes I have seen. The second one was an ever so slight step backward from the first, but still excellent. This movie, might have been the best of the three. Even though I liked the other two, they did not immediately become my favorite movies or anything, but with the third one adding to an already strong pair of movies, this has to be talked about among the best movie trilogies ever made. It is not on par with Godfather, Lord of the Rings, the Matrix or the first 3 Star Wars movies, but it is in the next tier with Indiana Jones (if you pretend 2 never happened) and the X-Men movies.

The Simpsons Movie – I have to qualify by saying that I am not a huge fan of the TV show. I have watched it some and it usually makes me laugh. I don’t dislike it, but it has never fully sucked me in. I wouldn’t go out of my way for it, but it is fine. The movie, though was better than I expected. Very smart at being stupid. It was a short, fun, really enjoyable movie written by some people who are clever enough to make stupidity original and smartly funny.

I Know Who Killed Me – This movie starred Lindsay Lohan and if I had really seen it there would have been 3 people who did. But of course I didn’t, c’mon. Give me some credit. What is the fascination with her about anyway? Not particularly talented and not particularly pretty and very, very messed up. What am I missing here? Never mind. Don’t tell me. It could make me think less of you.

Ok, so those are the movies I remember seeing at the theater this summer post Transformers. Transformers was so bad it scarred my brain and keeps me from remembering anything that happened before seeing that awful movie.
At some point, I also saw Fracture on video which is a small mystery with Anthony Hopkins that is worth checking out.

I’m still looking forward to seeing:

Eastern Promises (from the folks who made the very good (but very adult) “History of Violence.”

Michael Clayton (I’m sure big lawfirms would never do such things)

We Own the Night (lame title, but I love Joaquin and that looks like Scarface meets “The Departed” and I won’t miss that)

American Gangster (Crow, Washington, organized crime, released for Oscar buzz, there is roughly 100% chance I will see this movie more than once)

Ok, that was long enough. I’ll make the TV reviews a separate post.

What kind of person are you?

2007-10-05T15:06:00.000-07:00

So, here’s one… I’ve become interested recently in people’s perceived need to categorize themselves. As much lip service as we pay to avoiding stereotypes, people are anxious to stereotype themselves as much as possible. People identify themselves with other groups and it is a nearly universal way of describing oneself (from hair-color to coffee preference, people want to be “a ____”, more than just themselves). It is understandable given our social makeup, but can, like most things in life, also be amusing at times.

It becomes amusing when people attempt to categorize themselves to mask the undeniable fact that they are simply a whackjob. Like today, I was going to grab some lunch (a sandwich of course) and could not help but overhear one side of a cell phone conversation. A young woman was talking with the sort of projection that would make a classically trained stage performer proud, and discussing her marital issues with someone who, I’m sure, is now at least partially deaf.

In the middle of the conversation she dropped this little nugget: “I never wanted to think of myself as the kind of woman who calls their husband’s mother to complain after every birthday gift, but it has become a problem so that’s what I do now.” Wait, what? Is that a category of woman? Really? There is some subgroup of women out there who call and complain to their mother-in-law about lame birthday gifts from their husbands? If that is a “kind of” woman, I don’t want to know about it. I would rather just believe that this woman is not so much part of some commonly accepted category, but just, as noted above, a whackjob.

If it’s true and this is a category of woman in our culture, then I think we should treat every young girl like an at-risk youth in danger of being recruited for a gang. Lots of scared straight videos showing perplexed and bitter husbands trying to figure out why their mother is scolding them for buying their wife a perfectly good toaster oven. You know, stuff like that.

But I guess it is always better to be part of a group with certain characteristics than just admit that it is really just you who are crazy. And even if there are other crazy people like you out there, that doesn’t really make it any better for the rest of us.

Ok, moving on…..

I think I’m going to formally shut down my Entertainment blog (the one I have completely orphaned for months) and start posting some thoughts I have about movies and music and TV on this blog. There are several reasons and I know you want to know them so here they are:

1. I can’t really keep up with one blog while pretending to practice law, much less 3, so I’ve got to make some cuts somewhere.

2. I think I’m the only person who ever read it.

3. It might prompt me to be less neglectful of this blog.

4. Somehow the cool template I had got all screwed up so it looks like rubbish right now and I don’t have the time or know-how to fix it.

5. I want to make sure you, my faithful blog readers, do not miss out on any opinions I have about the entertainment world. My opinions on this subject are just far too important. (e.g., I don’t think that new Bionic Woman show is going to last in part because the new Jamie Summers has a strong right arm, but a really weak chin. You can’t have a superhuman action spy-babe with no chin. You just can’t. My wife was good enough to point this out to me. Now, see what you might have missed if I had chosen to only post that on my entertainment blog? Alarming, isn’t it?)

So, I’m going to post the long entertainment post I’ve been working on which may end up discussing everything from recent movies to new TV shows on here. So, in anticipation you may want to set aside a good 45 minutes of time you will wish you could have back to read it in the near future.

Am I on track here?

2007-09-28T13:29:00.000-07:00

I’ve surely blogged about this before, so this may be more of a follow up than a new post, but oh well. Just in case this all sounds too familiar, I've added a bonus picture of my adorable children at no extra cost. I feel moved to say something about one of our more critical national debates. I have been working diligently with the Republican National Committee to hammer out the official party line for them on this subject so they will be properly prepared for the presidential elections next year.
So, is it “on track” or “untracked”?

All my life I have used the expression “on track.” In fact, when I was only 6 months old I spoke my first sentence which was “Mom, I know I haven’t been sleeping through the night lately, but tonight I’m going to get back on track.” Of course, to the untrained ears of adults it sounded more like two grunts and a belch, but any self respecting baby would have understood me perfectly to be using the expression “on track.”

Until a few years ago, I had never even heard anyone use the expression “untracked.” Or if I had, I had just assumed it was someone trying to say “on track” and getting their tongue tied. However, in recent years I have come to realize people are actually saying “untracked” on purpose. At first, I was alarmed and even outraged. Outrage eventually faded to reluctant acceptance and now has re-blossomed into irritation.

If you have not heard or seen anyone use the word “untracked” in place of “on track” try reading some sports articles sometime. You can’t read 10 of them without seeing the word. As in, “The 49er offense has been among the worst in the league this year, but they are hoping to get untracked in their game against the Seahawks this week.”

It is time for us to take a stand against “untracked” and protect the ongoing use of the expression “on track.” It is our civic duty.

Here’s my issue with untracked. As used, getting “untracked” is nearly universally offered as a positive thing, as in my 49er example above. It describes breaking out of a slump or simply taking your activity to a higher level. In other words, it is used approximately as a replacement to “on track.” But just looking at the words, this makes no sense.

The “tracks” referenced in both expressions are no doubt a reference to train tracks or anything else that moves on rails or tracks which keep the vehicle or object moving in the desired direction. I am guessing that anyone riding on a train is going to side with me on this debate pretty readily. You see, to get or be “on track” in a train is the whole idea. Getting untracked? Not so much.

Untracked means you are not going the way you are supposed to be going. In fact it means you have busted loose of the very things that exist to guide you and are now careening down a wooded hillside toward a ravine. There is no control, no direction, no hope for the small forest animals that stand in your path. You are untracked and everyone will suffer for it. Aaaaahhhhh!!!! Oh the humanity!

In fact, if you are unfortunate enough to become untracked, your only hope is to get….wait for it….here it comes…. “on track!!!”

So, how can this ever be a good thing? Why would the 49er offense want to get “untracked?” Things are already bad enough. Right now they have been playing badly, but making some progress. If they become untracked, they will have no focus, no direction. It will be chaos. I mean ask yourself. if you were moving on tracks would you ever find yourself hoping to become untracked? I think not.

Alas, however, it gets even worse. Now people are using the expression when there is no sign that anything has been on a track in the first place. For example, I heard someone the other day say, “Yankee fans were happy to see Alex Rodriguez get untracked tonight against Tampa Bay.” The night before Alex got 3 hits. For the season A-Rod has put up ridiculously good numbers. He has to be the runaway favorite for American League MVP. So, what track was he on, that he should want to get off it? I mean, wouldn’t getting untracked against the Devil Rays mean he would go 0-4 with 3 strikeouts? This makes no sense, people!

So, as if it weren’t bad enough to be using the term untracked in place of on track, people are now using it when someone or something has not even been headed in the wrong direction. If you insist on using untracked instead of on track because it is the trendy thing to say and you have finally grown tired of saying synergy and paradigm and other trendy words, then at least use it only when the object has been on a “track” of some kind headed in a bad direction, such that coming untracked could actually in some sense be a positive thing. Of course, the expression still doesn’t work that well as even if you are on a train headed to Philly and you want to go to Seattle, coming untracked isn’t generally your best option. Unless of course, you are Jack Bower and the train is loaded with nuclear warheads that will detonate if the train reaches Philadelphia. But mostly, I don’t think people find themselves in that situation very often.

So, if someone has been in a slump, suggest that they need to get on track. If someone hasn’t been hitting or making their shots or showing up for work on time or staying sober or whatever, feel free to describe their need to get on track. But for the love of trains everywhere please reserve the word “untracked” if you must use it at all instead of on track, only for the most dire nuclear train headed to Philly sort of circumstances.

Thank you for your support.

Random Update

2007-09-26T12:46:00.000-07:00

Seems like time for an update on a few things.

First, the deck project. As you may recall (and you can scroll down if you don’t), I have undertaken to repair/replace/resurrect my deck. It was a large two story monstrosity hurriedly cobbled together by a crew of blind men about 30 years ago. I discovered that the main support beams holding up the upper deck, which is on the same level as the main level of our daylight basement home had roughly the structural integrity of marshmallow cream.

My father in law, who is an engineer and one of those guys who can build anything (I am decidedly not one of those guys) pointed out that I should probably not have his daughter and grandchildren frolicking (yes we’re big frolickers) about on a deck supported by large 4x10 sponges. So, he helped me develop a plan.

The beams were supported by 16 foot 6x6 posts which we believed to be secure, so we planned to leave those in place. The joists under the upper deck also seemed to be mostly free of rot and we decided to keep those as well, at least for now. Finally the lower deck felt sturdy, and we don’t use it as much so we decided to leave it alone too. So, we would build a temporary structure that would allow us to jack the upper deck up and take the weight off of the rotted beams so they could be removed and new ones put in their place. Then we could replace the deck boards on the upper deck and be done with it for this year. Easy as pie. I have no idea how to make pie.

Then we discovered that the posts were rotten and the scale and cost of the job went from “we can afford to do this if we put off some other home repairs and cut back our spending” to “we can afford to do this if we elude the FBI long enough to knock over every bank in town.” Very disappointing.

Then we discovered that as rotten as the beams holding up the upper deck were, the lower beams were in far worse shape by comparison. In fact, an inspection of the lower beams left us wondering if it was a magic deck being held up by a spell of some kind because clearly the beams could not be holding any weight.

So we had to develop a new plan. The new plan went like this:

Step 1 – curse the people who built the deck to this house and their family members and their descendants. If your gardens are suddenly overrun with locusts or something, you may be related to the guy who built our deck. Just a heads up.

Step 2 – call in every last favor with my friends and family to come over and help me tear out the lower deck (which wasn’t even supposed be touched this year) and devise a plan for replacing all of the structure of the upper deck without having to remove the upper deck.

Step 3 – enjoy the “benefit” of having a thoroughly rotten deck in that it is very easy to tear out. My friend Joe remarked that my 3 year old could have easily pulled the beams off the bolts pretending to hold them on to the posts. Though we both agreed that wasn’t a great idea. You should be at least 4 before you do that kind of work.

Step 4 – repeat Step 1

Step 5 – build a new permanent structure right behind the old structure. This meant putting up 11 new 6x6 posts and 11 new 4x10 beams, many of which were about 15 feet off the ground. This step led to the following:

--My good friends who helped me with the main construction on this step, to whom I am eternally indebted, gave up their evenings and Saturdays to help me get this done. We got everything in except for the last 2 beams. The process of putting the beams in place took a minimum of 4 people. Two would have to carry the beam up two separate ladders that were designed to slide 6 inches to the right or left when you were half way up just to scare the living bejeezus out of you. A third person had to jack up the upper deck using a bottle jack (or two) and a temporary post (or two). A fourth had to hold the post while it was being jacked and provide extra support for the new beam while it was waiting to be put in place. To be honest, it was really more like a 6 person job, but with 4 you could get it done. But you can only ask so much of your friends and when I reached that line I still had 2 beams to go. So, my brother Enoch came over and I took the day off and we decided it was a good idea for the two of us to try to do the work of 4 men with the only risk being that we might cause the entire upper deck to collapse down on us or at very least drop huge pieces of lumber down on our heads. Yet more evidence, that my propensity for stupidity is virtually unparalleled.

In the process, I injured my back; caused the temporary post to buckle and give way nearly smashing into me in the process; narrowly avoided knocking down half of the new beams we had put in place; and generally left myself just being thankful to be alive. But we got everything done, so all’s well that doesn’t end in maiming or death, right?

Step 6 – Replace the joists and lower deck boards

Step 7 – Remove the old, rotten structure for the upper deck.

Right now, I’m on Step 6. Today I call to get the estimate on cost for that part. Let’s hope it is substantially less than the 96k estimate for replacing the entire deck.

Here are a few other things going on in my life at the moment at no additional cost to you the reader:

1. The trial for the crazy lady I encountered on the MAX train has been postponed twice. It is now set for mid October. If it does in fact go to trial, I will make sure to provide a full report.

2. I’ve been enjoying a weekly “guys night at the movies” for a while now which has been great fun in spite of the fact that it has led us to see some of the worst movies ever (Shoot ‘Em Up, Balls of Fury…and more). But we also saw 3:10 to Yuma which I recommend if you like westerns. And if you don’t like westerns, what’s the matter with you anyway?

3. My oldest son Gibson is in his second year of Spanish immersion and now in the second grade. Incredibly, he is fluent and I still don’t speak a word except that I can say, “this is a red line train to Portland Airport, doors on my left” thanks to my MAX commute. How long do I have until he starts making fun of me without me knowing it? Has it already started?

4. My wife just successfully completed a move of the boys rooms. Rather than separate bedrooms, the boys now share a room with their beds and clothes where they sleep and then share a second separate room where they keep their toys and a desk and stuff. It has been a brilliant thing that was pulled off beautifully and included a very cool “Lightening McQueen” paint job in the sleeping room, complete with silver flames that go around the room and a checkered flag closet door. My wife is the coolest.

5. I am planning a trip to Atlanta with my buddy Jeff that has me very excited. He’s going there to check out colleges for “work.” He “works” as a college counselor for a very uppity uppity private academy in SoCal. We’re going to go to a game between the hedges and then a Niner Falcons game the next day. Should be good stuff.

Ok, that’s enough for now.

The day I tackled Billy the Kid

2007-09-24T16:16:00.000-07:00

A couple people have asked me about #74 on my list of 100 below, so here is the brief, can’t do it justice in words but completely true, version of what happened.
At Pepperdine, my dorm was located right above the track and soccer field. To get to my classes which I attended from time to time between pick up games, you could either curve around “dorm road” down to the main campus or you could cut down a steep hill that was never made for pedestrian traffic and cut across the track and the field and shave enough time off the trip to only be “cold stare from the teacher “ late instead of “why even bother at this point” late.

The track was never empty and as far as I know Pepperdine did not have a track team. It was filled constantly with female students trying to work off that second trip to the cafeteria soft-serve machine, male students trying to attract those female students and, occasionally, TV, music and movie stars who would come up from Malibu to the campus to work out, not wanting to throw away their millions on a membership at 24 Hour Fitness.

Madonna ran the stairs and would happily shove you down them if you had the nerve to be in her way. Woody Harelson would play pick up basketball and yell at you every time you shot even though he was a major ball-hog and besides I was just a better shooter and if he had spent less time running his mouth and more time playing some defense then,…oh wait…I’m getting off track….sorry about that.

And it was not unusual to see Luke Skywalker, Sandra D, or Potsie taking advantage of Pepperdine’s outstanding campus. Of all the “stars” who worked out there, however, none were more consistent than Emilio Estevez. Mostly in a grey sweatsuit and flanked by guys who reminisced about the times when they were younger and could not even tear a city bus in two with their bare hands, everyone’s favorite young gun ran on the track nearly every day. Mysteriously, the number of coeds running at those times increased nearly as much as the fabric of their workout clothes decreased. Strange phenomenon.

Anyway, one day I was particularly late for class. Not only was I late, but I was laden with a backpack full of books by Sartre and Kant that weighed a combined 250 pounds. I truly believe Sartre had a deal with his publisher where he got paid by the weight of his books. I sprang out of my dorm (back then, I “sprang” places) and on to dorm road. For a split second I thought about taking the civilized path to “why bother” tardiness around the curves of the road. But I have never been one to avoid an opportunity to run down a steep hill with no discernable path.

So I launched myself over the crest and down the loose dirt of the sun dried hillside leading to the track. As if the monstrous books in my pack sprang to life only to shove me harder down the hill I picked up speed until my legs were a mere cartoon like blur and provided approximately zero hope of being able to slow my descent.

As fate would have it, the Breakfast Club jock re-enters our story as he entered the path of a running, flailing college student racing down an impossibly steep hillside. I took one step onto the track and hit Estevez at full speed with the sort of bone jarring tackle that would make Ray Lewis wince. I wrapped him up and drove him into the grass of the soccer field. As I laid there contemplating what kind of world it would be with no hope of a Mighty Ducks sequel, I was suddenly snatched into the air by one of Mr. Estevez’ gargantuan “work out partners.” I immediately started apologizing and pleading for my life.

Thankfully, “Two-Bit” (as he was known to Pony Boy and Johnny and them), turned out to be a very nice guy and I was spared being torn limb from limb. We had an awkward exchange and laughed a bit about it before I decided to leave in advance of the gathering mob of angry (because they hadn’t thought of it first) female runners turning violent.

Of course, by that time I was too late to bother with class, so I went back to my room and popped in my well-worn copy of St. Elmos Fire.

Good times.

100 Things

2007-09-20T16:32:00.000-07:00

100 Things.

I’m stealing this from my buddy Ike who did this on his blog. Here are 100 things about me in no particular order. They are not the 100 most important or most interesting or most any other category. Just 100 things.

1. I believe the sandwich is nature’s perfect food

2. If I had half the charm of my youngest son or half the negotiating skills of my oldest, I would never lose another case

3. I hate the automatic, sensor driven faucets and soap and paper-towel dispensers. Mostly they just leave me standing in the bathroom waiving my hands like an idiot with nothing else happening. I prefer the days when we just got germs all over us and didn’t know it. The only thing worse are those real fabric towel loops. I’m sorry, but I’m not touching that.

4. Sometimes when I sit in my recliner with a football game on and chips, dip and diet Pepsi nearby on a Sunday afternoon I actually believe I am going to be bathed in light and hear angels singing in the background.

5. The Godfather trilogy is the best movie ever made. Citizen Kane is no longer even in the top 10. Come on people, get over it already.

6. My wife’s senior picture from high-school looks like it could be a current picture and I secretly am concerned that she may be a highly skilled, sword wielding immortal like from the Highlander movies and TV show.

7. Seinfeld is the best sitcom ever made, but Arrested Development is not far off.

8. I have almost everything I knew to want as a younger man.

9. I have learned more about Christianity from Kierkegaard than anyone who has written since he was alive

10. I have learned more about Christianity from my Mom and Dad than from Kierkegaard.

11. Right now I have no desire whatsoever to have pets.

12. I would rather be over than under dressed

13. Though limited skills and talent and the passage of time make it increasingly ridiculous, when I’m on a basketball court I believe that every shot I take is going in.

14. If I could change any physical feature of mine, other than those I can change like my weight, muscle tone, etc, I would not change a single thing in spite of the fact that I am not very physically attractive

15. I was elected President of the Black Student Union in college

16. I believe people are terrible judges of what makes them happy

17. I believe the tolerance of “minor” cheating in sports, like grabbing someone’s jersey when the ref isn’t looking is a major contributor to the cheating we care about like steroids.

18. I believe “creation” is not the opposite of “evolution” and I have never heard a compelling argument against either.

19. I would always rather have extra fries than desert

20. When you order wine or beer I will order Pepsi (even in a nice restaurant) and even though you will look at me like I am a child, I will not be ashamed

21. I believe yelling at players, coaches and refs through my television can affect the outcome of the game.

22. You can never have too many watches…or sneakers…or hats….or sunglasses

23. I believe the government is incapable of defining for me or anyone else what is marriage or a family

24. I would play basketball for 5 hours a day every day if I could

25. I recently came to understand that becoming a better father will mean changing who I am more than what I do

26. My favorite color is baby blue

27. For pure talent in pop music I believe there is The Beatles, Paul Simon, Prince and then everybody else.

28. Writing songs of worship has become one of the most important parts of my relationship with God.

29. I believe the reason I have never been good at math has more to do with a failure to understand why I should be than a natural inability to be.

30. I tear up 2 out of every 3 times I hear or sing the Star Spangled Banner
31. In pick-up basketball, if it wasn’t the sole reason you missed a shot or turned the ball over then it was not a foul.

32. I would rather go backpacking than go to Disneyland…and it’s not even close.

33. People believe me to be more serious than I am

34. I consider Beethoven’s 9th Symphony the greatest piece of music ever written, but the kind of music I most often listen to is Hip-Hop and Rap

35. My favorite sport is basketball, but my favorite sports team is the San Francisco 49ers.

36. My wife is the most talented person I know

37. Being a Christian without church is like being a hand without a body

38. The best comedy movie ever made is Woody Allen’s “Love and Death”, but “Raising Arizona” is not far behind

39. My Mom and Dad would make my make the list of my top 5 closest friends

40. My favorite superhero is the Green Lantern

41. I worry that I will not be able to give my boys as good a childhood in the city as I had in the sticks.

42. I hate cocktail hour

43. I have wanted to be an attorney since I was 12

44. I still think of myself as being about 24

45. HBO’s “The Wire” is the best show no one watches

46. Romantically speaking, I have only ever loved one woman

47. I am doing what I set out to do and am good at it, but deep down I believe I should be doing something else.

48. I am loyal to a fault

49. My two boys are very different, but not in the ways I thought they would be

50. One of my favorite dates was when my wife and I went to the shooting range and I got to fire a Thompson machine gun

51. I enjoyed elementary school (except for 4th grade), freaked out in middle school, disliked high-school, absolutely loved college and felt right at home in law school

52. I hate when people say they are babysitting their own kids. You can’t babysit your own kids. It’s called parenting for crying out loud.

53. I would write full time on my various blogs if I could earn a living doing it

54. I got harassed a lot for owning a Hummer, but I still really liked it.

55. The best coping skill I ever learned was to laugh at myself

56. I believe in life after death…and I believe that I will have it….and I believe it will be good

57. I can’t figure out why I choose to watch so many movies I know are going to be awful before I watch them.

58. I am the opposite of “handy.”

59. My favorite chips are those little round bite size Tostitos. It has to be the bite sized. They are much better.

60. I spend a ridiculous amount of time watching, reading about, thinking about, talking about and playing sports and I have never tired of it.

61. When I am in a beautiful, ornate cathedral, I can’t shake the feeling that God would have preferred that the time and money to build the building was spent on something else.

62. I don’t like the rodeo. I feel bad for the animals.

63. I like my beverages cooled just to the brink of freezing. No hot drinks….ever.

64. There has never been a week in my life that I have enjoyed more than my honeymoon

65. I am not captivated in the least by video games

66. I think dreams are what happens when our consciousness ceases to order our thoughts and emotions and nothing more than that

67. I do not like books or movies that portray adultery as romantic

68. I am confident that I could speak or write on any topic for any length of time or number of words, whether or not I know anything about the subject

69. I am still fascinated by flying in an airplane

70. Being in a forest makes me think of my Dad

71. I love our house

72. I like having pictures, but I do not enjoy taking pictures

73. I learn and recall more if I don’t take notes

74. I once tackled Emelio Esteves to the ground

75. My favorite games growing up were “guns” and “GI Joes” and I am one of the least violent people I know.

76. Hearing a song I wrote sung by my home congregation is among the proudest, most satisfying moments of my life.

77. My buddy Jeff, my uncle Chip and Larry Bird taught me everything I know about basketball

78. I like clothes and shopping a little too much

79. I don’t like going to bed before 1am or getting up before 10am

80. I have seen every James Bond movie more than once and read every one of Shakespeare’s known plays except for 2 of the history plays.

81. The best advice I have ever received came from my Mom

82. Friday nights and Sunday afternoons are the most important personal times of the week for me

83. I shoot a higher percentage from the 3-point line than I do shooting layups

84. Unless there is a ball involved, I do not like to run

85. Brad Pitt and Jim Carey should have won Oscars for 12 Monkeys and Man in the Moon

86. The BBC version of the show “The Office” is better than the American version and it is not even close….not at all

87. I pronounce Porsche, “por-shuh”

88. Logical fallacies and errors in grammar distract me from the point of the message

89. I don’t get all the hubbub about the band Nirvana.

90. Whatever it is, I probably like it better fried and with Ketchup

91. I wanted two children because I didn’t think I could keep one from thinking the world revolved around them alone and don’t think I am capable of adequately parenting more than 2

92. I despise telling someone what I want for a birthday/Christmas/etc gift nearly as much as I despise being told what someone else wants

93. For the last 10 years my favorite Pop music artist has been Beck

94. My boys bring me a kind of joy I didn’t know existed before they were born

95. I believe superstition in any form is a form of idolatry and insulting to God

96. In any room I can not be comfortable sitting with my back to the door

97. I can sleep soundly in virtually any position in any environment

98. My wife never believes me when I tell her that she is more beautiful than the various movie stars and models that we see in movies and magazines, but I would pass a polygraph

99. My jury trial record is 22 wins and 3 losses and I can remember every moment of all 3 losses

100. I would rather my TV have a DVR than color if I had to choose

Crime on the Rails

2007-07-30T16:33:00.000-07:00

I’ve been a civil defense lawyer, a plaintiff’s lawyer, a criminal prosecutor, an administrative hearings officer and even consulted with criminal defense attorneys. But in my decade of professional legal work, I have never been a witness in a criminal trial. With any luck, that run is about to come to an end when I will be called as a witness in a Harrasment trial in September. If I can not find a way to work the phrase “you can’t handle the truth” into my testimony I will have to consider it one of the biggest failings of my legal career. Keep your fingers crossed.

The crime (alleged) to which I was a witness took place in the dark, sorded world of MAX light rail travel. As you may know if you read this blog, I have already discussed MAX activity that should be criminal such as long, loud cell phone conversations and long, uninterrupted periods without bathing before riding MAX, but now comes the sinister true story of real MAX crime.

The worst part of this story is that it is all true. I find it is easier to make an event a good story when the facts are mundane enough that you can choose your own exaggeration. Not that I would ever intentionally mislead my “audience,” but a little puffery in the name of entertainment is a staple of anything worth reading. Sadly, no hyperbole is required in this tale or really even allowed the space to seep in. It is all too ridiculous to begin with to exaggerate. Still, it’s worth telling.

On a hot Portland afternoon (yes we have some) like any other I made the walk from my office building down to catch the MAX train for the ride home. As with any other day walking in downtown Portland I passed by several gaggles and flocks of crazy people who, when they are not busy with their chosen form of self-mutilation are roaming the sidewalks talking to unseen participants in their conversations who are, apparently, quite annoying judging by the angry tone of most of these folks. Still, for my money, the guy who looks like a dock worker in a skirt or the obese woman with the wig that looks like a terrier or even the overly-tanned, concaved chested really old guy yelling incoherently at no one in particular all seemed quite normal compared to the caustic woman I was about to encounter.

MAX was packed that day. I almost never get a seat, but on this day I barely had anything to even hold on to. That was ok though because people were jammed in around me such that I would have had nowhere to fall even if I lost my balance. If memory serves, it was the first stop after I had boarded the train when a man came on with a handicap assistance dog. I don’t know what the man’s handicap was. He didn’t appear to be blind or walking with a limp or inclined to think Dane Cook is hilarious, but he had a small dog with the trademark “is that dog stuffed?” demeanor and saddle blanket identifying him as an assisting dog.

On every MAX train there are designated areas where handicapped and elderly people get priority when it comes to seating. The signs clearly state that an able-bodied person is to relinquish the comfort of mysteriously stained formed plastic to allow a person for whom standing is medical risk, a place to sit down,….usually next to someone who has apparently traded their shower and other personal hygiene products for a double bacon cheeseburger with everything on it.

Now, just to provide a bit of background to anyone who is not from Portland, people from Portland are nice. We let people merge in front of us on the freeway. We greet total strangers in the street and offer assistance with no thought of remuneration. We generally tolerate people from California and would never allow our hotel heiresses (if we had them) to eat a messy hamburger while washing a car on TV. People in your state might be beautiful or smart or rich, but here we are nice. There are some exceptions of course, but for the most part, people here are nice.

All of that niceness means that people follow the rules on MAX regarding giving priority to the elderly and handicapped even when you can tell that they really, really don’t want to.

So, when the guy got on with an assisting dog and made his way quickly to the handicapped seating section, I expected that he would not even have to ask before some nice Portlander gave up their seat without a second thought. Clearly on this day I misplayed my yearly moment of optimism.

The guy and his dog made his way through the crowd to the special seats. The two seats were occupied by two well-dressed, middle aged, very normal looking women. The man with the dog addressed the woman sitting directly in front of him as she was talking on her cell phone. The man’s demeanor in making his request was extraordinarily calm. It was as if he had fallen asleep just prior to getting on the train, but managed to keep walking and talking.

The man with the dog said something like, “may I have your seat for my dog?” I remember his words because my first thought was that maybe the dog was handicapped and the man was going to have his dog sit up on the seat. Anyway it was just strange enough to draw my attention away from the various oddly dressed and adorned folks that rode along with me.

The woman looked up at him quickly and glared at him as if he had just asked her to remove her top. She barked, “NO!” as her only response. And then she went back to her cell phone conversation in a loud somewhat shrill voice that she was apparently convinced the rest of us wanted to hear.

Let me tell you, this did not go well with the nice Portlanders around the woman with the cell phone. People retaliated with a chorus of gasps, sighs, and tisk tisks that sounded like it was ready to move toward full blown booing and hissing like the woman with the cell phone was a villain in a silent movie. Quickly, one nice guy leapt out of the seat across the isle from the woman with the phone and offered his seat.

To my disappointment, the man with the dog did not in fact have the dog hop up on the seat, but instead simply sat down with the dog calmly and obediently curling up underneath him on the floor.

As soon as he sat down, the man with the dog took out a cell phone and called (I assume) Tri-Met (the local transit authority). In his semi-conscious calm, the man with the dog began to explain that he had asked a woman to give up her seat in the handicapped section and she had refused. The woman with the phone overheard the report and responded as if he had just thrust an active hornet’s nest into her socks. She went absolutely nuts.

First she yelled at the poor soul on the phone with her that some man was harassing her. Then she declared to everyone that “she worked for a lawyer and that she was going to call him right now.” She said it as if it would be really threatening and I remember wondering why anyone, the man with the dog included, would care in the least that she was calling a lawyer. I mean what was going to happen? Was she going to hand him the phone so the lawyer could bully him with logic? Maybe he could have bored him to death? Tough to say really, but she seemed to think it was a dramatic move.

The man with the dog continued his report and with every word out of his mouth, the woman with the phone became more angry and less rational. She began looking around to the others on the train looking at all of us as if to say, “can you believe the nerve of this handicapped loser.” We all responded in horror at the mere inference that we could be allied with her and quickly set about making comments like, “hey, this is your fault” and “you’re in the wrong here lady” and “how dare you wear those white shoes before Memorial Day.” You know, stuff like that.

That only ramped things up further. The woman called her “lawyer” and then hung up the phone with great satisfaction as if he had said, “I will be right down to intimidate all the people around you until they are all apologizing and agree to flog themselves nightly for a week.” But that wasn’t enough. She then started swearing and yelling at the guy until finally her insanity reached it’s zenith (at that time anyway) and she kicked the guy in the shin.

I can not properly convey how unprovoked this insanity was. The guy was ubercalm. His dog the same. She was just plain nuts.

The kick resulted in another phone call and complaint which resulted in the woman’s head beginning to rotate 360 degrees as she began spewing a mysterious green liquid and hissing in an ancient tongue.

The train stopped at my stop and I got off. To my delight, the woman with the phone got off and the man with the dog followed. As he exited he called to the woman, “stop ma’am, you are under arrest.” I was thinking, “oh wow, is this guy a cop?” No, even better he was attempting the oft discussed, but rarely seen citizen’s arrest. At this the woman fled up the stairs to the main parking area and began screaming for help.

“HELP!!!! HELP!!!!, THIS MAN IS HARASSING ME….HELP, HE’S INSANE, HE’S GOING TO HURT ME OR AT LEAST CREEP ME OUT WITH HIS MYSTERIOUSLY CALM DOG.”

It was quite a scene. At this point, the man with the dog, who was about as threatening as a caged teddy bear, just hung out near by continuing to ask the woman to wait there for the police to come. I was concerned that she might skew the facts against her would-be arrester and offered the man with the dog my business card in case he needed a witness. She began screaming at me “What are you doing? What are you doing? He’s evil, you’re all evil.”

I turned away just as her hair became snakes and she began turning other MAX riders into stone. Fortunately, I escaped.

Tri-Met has brought proceedings to ban her from riding the MAX or bus lines. And, in the interest of justice, a criminal complaint was filed against her for criminal harassment. It is set to go to trial in early September and yours truly has been called to be a witness.

I can hardly wait.

Here’s my dream scenario:

Defense Atty: “Isn’t it true, that when you saw this woman defending herself from this aggressive man and his vicious attack animal, you ordered a code red?”

Me: “What do you want from me, I’m telling you her head was spinning like a top!”

Defense Atty: “I just want the truth!!”

Me: “You….

Well, you know the rest. Hey, it could happen.

I’ll tell you how it goes at trial.

Good Dad News

2007-07-25T16:04:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note while I’m pretending to be taking notes at work.

My Dad had the follow up appointment with his doctor to review the latest CT scan which was done on Monday. The CT showed that God is healing my father and whether He is using Gleevac I will leave up to you to decide. Whatever the case, the larger tumors that my Dad has (primarily on his liver), are shrinking. The smaller tumors, which are not causing problems at the moment, seem to be stable or possibly shrinking. There are no new tumors.

Basically, this is the best case scenario. Additionally, the doctor discovered that my Dad had a sinus infection which his immune system appears to be handling quite well which is another good sign regarding his overall health.

Anyway, it is great news and a great relief to my family.

Praise God.

The Wiggles Principle

2007-07-17T12:08:00.000-07:00

If you are a parent with children between 2 and 10 years old, chances are you have heard of the Wiggles. This is not what happens when your barely potty trained 3 year old “really, really has to go.” This isn’t the uncontrollable urge that comes over kids whenever they are asked to sit still. No, The Wiggles are a group of four men who lacked the talent or notion to get a real job and so they donned bright primary color t-shirts, started mainlining sugar and caffeine and began singing silly children’s songs while showing off their inexplicable happiness.

Out of respect for you, the reader, I refuse to do research for this blog as the only place anyone does research anymore is the internet and unlike things on TV, everything on the internet is a pack of lies….unless it is on TV streaming over the internet, and then of course it is true. So, I could have some of my facts wrong here, but the Wiggles are 4 guys from Australia I think who sing children’s songs and have a kids TV show where they do skits and songs with the assistance of a person in a dinosaur costume and, since it is a children’s program, they of course also have a pirate. (do you think it was the murder, the rape or the general terrorism that made the pirate the perfectly suited historical figure for children’s entertainment? I’m torn.)

They also have a traveling show that I had the misfortune of taking my kids to see. Actually, at that time I think I only had one kid, which allowed me to learn the lesson and make sure that my second child was allowed to live a Wiggles-free existence. From what I can tell by the reaction of the thousands of people who flocked to the Rose Garden to see them, the Wiggles’ popularity is (or was at that time) approximately the same as the Beatles in their prime, if they had also cured cancer and brought lasting peace on earth. The people (kids and their parents) were crazy for this singing group.

(TANGENT ALERT: When did young American teen girls stop screaming uncontrollably and fainting at the sight of their favorite musicians? I see those clips of the Beatles and Elvis and people looked as if they are demon possessed. When did that kind of hyper epileptic behavior morph into dressing in black and piercing every inch of loose skin? I’m not sure which is more alarming, but I would like to know what brought about the change.)

Now, that a singing group would be popular is nothing new. And likewise, it is nothing out of the ordinary that there would be a popular kids show built primarily around silly songs. What makes the Wiggles truly extraordinary is that they lack any discernable talent whatsoever. Now to be fair, one Wiggle actually sings and plays guitar…if that’s really him playing (that’s one of 4 if you are scoring at home). Then one of them has a wildly amusing case of narcolepsy. The other two basically grin like they’re selling toothpaste, jump around frenetically and say things like “woo hoo hoo hoo.” Sadly, I’m not making any of this up.

They have some choreography that goes with the songs, but none of the guys can dance at all. They are not particularly good looking or fit or engaging. They are just 4 normal guys who sing songs about fruit salad and Capitan Feathersword, the pirate. Their show is not particularly educational and is in general completely nonsensical. They appear to have gone out of their way to avoid being clever or polished in anything that they do. From looking at the sets, special effects and costumes on their show, I would estimate the total production budget at about $48.00. I have complete confidence, that anyone reading this could find software to download that would create a TV show environment that appears more professional than the Wiggles.

So, just to recap that’s 4 guys who can’t really sing, dance or do anything well other than act happy, a couple characters with really bad costumes, no fancy sets, costumes or effects, silly songs, brightly colored t-shirts and a guy who falls asleep. And that, ladies and gentlemen is the formula for a children’s entertainment empire. No joke, the Wiggles are (or were at least) huge (see the 4th video to the left for confirmation...just astounding).

I learned some important lessons from my oldest son’s Wiggles period, but one lesson is so significant it merits it’s own principle. This is a principle of parenting so important that no parent should be allowed to leave the hospital with their newborn until they have demonstrated a full understanding of this concept.

Kids are easily entertained.

Maybe that seems simple and maybe even obvious, but we parents forget this all the time. Give a kid a present, he wants to play with the box. Buy your 2 year old something with bright colors and flashing lights and funny sounds and she would rather play with your keys or even the lent in their pocket. A series of connected metal bars sticking out of the ground in a park can entertain children nearly endlessly. The examples proving this rule are everywhere. We take our kids to Disneyland and of course they enjoy it, but if you are paying attention you realize that they seem to enjoy just being in the hotel room almost as much. If that hotel has a pool, even better.

Our tendency as parents is to overdo it for our kids. We throw them elaborate parties with ponies and clowns and Pixar characters. We spend thousands of dollars at giant amusement parks. We buy bigger and badder toys at an alarming rate. Time and money are treated as if they have no limits when we all know their limits are tighter than we would like. And then what do we discover after turning our life savings over to the Disney Corp? It is all for nothing.

You know my boys’ favorite activities? Wrestling with their Dad in the living room. Water fights with their mom on a hot afternoon. Making paper airplanes. Coloring with crayons. There are a few others, but they are in the same category. They require nearly no money, no particular talent, no travel, no $35 ice cream cones and no blinking lights and strange noises. Usually, it is just some attention from the parents combined with some simple frivolous activity.
That is the Wiggles principle. The Wiggles, are geniuses. They didn’t let their lack of talent stand in their way. They knew kids didn’t care if they sang like Josh Groban. They didn’t spend money on fancy sets and costumes because they knew kids don’t really care about that stuff. They didn’t spend hours coming up with clever lyrics to songs, because they knew kids are just as happy to sing: “Fruit salad, yummy yummy” until the adults in the room are trying to beat themselves unconscious with the remote control.

Kids enjoy flashy and clever, but they enjoy simple and fun just as much.

I got a good reminder of this principle this past weekend when my lovely wife and I took our boys to a large water/amusement park. We shelled out roughly what it costs to build a working space shuttle to go in the park, ride some rides, overpay for food and splash around in the various pools. The kids had a great, great time and so did we. I was thinking about how much fun it was and how worth it all the cost and travel had been and then I realized that as much as the boys liked the park, they liked jumping on the bed in our hotel room just as much. When we let them eat candy and then really ramped things up by wrestling with them on the beds in our hotel room, I am certain we eclipsed all the fun we had at the park. The boys would have been just as happy if we had driven 30 minutes away to a hotel and gone in and jumped on the bed for an hour and then splashed around in the tiny hotel pool for another hour.

It was a good reminder of the Wiggles Principle. We waste a lot of time and money trying to over stimulate our kids when all they really want is some of our attention and to get to be silly, which takes time, but generally no money. We would probably all be better off if the principle applied to adults too, but we have to practically be smacked upside the head by fun just to realize we are having it.

So now that my wife and I have once again learned the lesson of the Wiggles, how is it impacting our every day lives? Well for starters, we spent our trip home from Wild Waves Amusement Park planning next summer’s trip to Disneyland.

Hopefully the beds in the hotel are really bouncy because Disneyland is expensive.

Home Improvement

2007-07-12T15:19:00.000-07:00

Dear Blog Reader,

My humblest apologies for my prolonged absence, but I made myself a promise when I started this blog. That is, I promised myself that I wouldn’t turn it in to another responsibility in a life with about 8 too many as it is. I committed to myself that I would only blog when I felt like it and I wouldn’t feel guilty when I didn’t. Turns out, I’m only keeping the first half of that promise as I can’t manage to avoid feeling bad when I haven’t updated this silly blog, but I guess that personality trait may explain some of why I feel like I’m a bit over-laden with responsibility.

Today’s update is to announce my embarking on a terrifying, but necessary project to repair the aged and neglected deck surrounding my house. Mixed in with some Summer fun with the crew pictured here, I will be spending the rest of the summer working on my deck.

With any luck, I will keep you posted on the deck project at this blog if for no other reason than it is sure to produce comical stories that will be funny to everyone other than me.

I live in a medium sized house with a rather large deck. Our house is on the side of a hill so it is a daylight basement sort of arrangement (like many NW homes), with the main living area on the street level and the downstairs leading out into the back yard. We have a deck on the street level that goes around the entire house. In the back, it is about 18 feet off the ground with another deck below it at yard level.

The previous builders of this house/deck clearly held these truths to be self-evident and sacred:

1. A house should have a deck sufficiently large to hold the entire USC marching band.

2. Any deck more than 4 feet off the ground should have a railing that not only allows toddlers to pass easily through it, but actually invites them do so.

3. Treated lumber or weather protecting paint is for sissies

4. Building a large deck and building a one room log cabin made of tinker toys requires the same level of craftsmanship.

5. Walking the stairs from an upper deck to a lower deck should be an adventure not unlike crossing that old wooden bridge that gave out on Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in Romancing the Stone.

This deck building philosophy when combined with the previous owners’ belief that there is nothing wrong with a deck that a whole bunch of termites and carpenter ants can’t fix, has left our deck in ill-repair. It is still standing and will still support my weight, but it is long overdue for a facelift and that little nugget of home-repair delight will be my project for the rest of the summer and beyond.

The game plan is to take the project in stages as follows:

Step 1: Deny there is anything wrong with the deck
Step2: Fail to convince wife there is nothing wrong with the deck
Step 3: Stare at the deck for extended periods hoping that your focused energy will draw a lightening strike that will destroy the entire deck in a manner that is covered by home owners insurance.
Step 4: Go to building expert father-in-law to get a plan that is more likely to lead to a repaired deck than Step 3.
Step 5: Inspect the Deck to locate and identify all lumber that needs to be replaced and then mark the 4 small boards that don’t.
Step 6: Locate jacks that will allow me to lift the upper deck (18 feet off the ground) enough to remove large dry-rotted beams that appear to weigh approximately as much as Al Capone’s steel reinforced limousine.
Step 7: Add up all lumber and hardware needed to complete project and then marvel at how some boards and screws could cost roughly the same as an NFL Quarterback’s signing bonus.
Step 8: Jack up the deck, pop out the beams, put in the new beams, replace a few of the joists, lay down some new top boards, pat self on back for good work and take the rest of the morning off.

And, it’s as simple as that. Stay tuned. Should be exciting. We’ll set the over under on number of bones broken when I cause the deck to collapse on myself at 14 and adjust that number as the project progresses. Then, as my youngest brother was good enough to point out, when I get done doing all that work I will really just have what I already have with the knowledge that it might be safer assuming I haven’t actually made it more dangerous.

So, maybe you’re asking yourself, if I think this is such a big project, why don’t I just hire someone else to do it? I mean, after all I am some big fancy lawyer with money to burn right? Ignoring that hopelessly flawed premise for a moment, let me tell you why I’m doing this myself. When I first undertook to do this work, I got a pro to come give me a bid on what it would take to replace the whole thing, top and bottom. What would you guess? $5,000? $10,000? As much as $25,000? Surely not. That would be outrageous. I mean, it is just a wooden platform for crying out loud.

Try $96,000.00!!! So, basically, according to this professional deck builder, I bought a deck that just happened to have a house attached instead of the other way around.

So, hopefully, by the end of the summer, I will have no permanent injuries, and will be the proud owner of a safer, nicer looking deck that cost me slightly less than $96,000.

Keep me in your prayers.

Underrated

2007-06-14T16:57:00.000-07:00

I like lists. I don’t like them as much as VH1 or “E” likes them, but I still like them. Today I’m starting my list for most underrated human behavior. It won’t be a ranking, just a list. And it won’t be a complete list, just a start. I’m talking about the things that people do or could do that will have a much bigger impact on someone or something than they or a reasonable person might expect. I will save my list of most overrated human behavior for later, but let’s just say “tipping” will be on it. I mean, 95% of the time you tip someone that you will never see again for a service already paid for and rendered. What impact does that have given that it is expected? Sure it puts a few extra dollars in someone’s pocket, but people act like tipping big makes them big time. Ridiculous. I truly hate the modern tipping culture. Maybe you knew that already. And now, if you are someone who works for tips, I’m sure you hate me. Oh well….

The first things that came to mind when starting this list were common courtesies, so I’m going to start there unless something else occurs to me while I’m writing this. Here we go:

1. Holding a door. This is especially good if holding the door for someone also allows them to go ahead of you in line at the deli, movie theater, etc. It’s a nice thing to do and it never fails to get a genuine smile and thank. I think people really appreciate this more than you would think. Thus, it is on the list.

2. Have a good day. Another simple one, but with a particular application. Find someone who is in customer service and has to wish people a good day as a part of their job. Then near the time they would likely say it, quickly beat them to the punch and wish them a good day. This never fails to get a genuine smile and thank even out of the most jaded Post Office employees. In fact, just adding a “you too” when they beat you to the punch is an easy thing to not do, but seems to usually be very appreciated. I mean, who would think this would mean anything, but my experience tells me it means something.

3. Remember someone’s name. I’m terrible at this one, but just remembering a person’s name, as mundane at that seems, really makes a difference to people.

4. Greet a loved one at the door. When someone you love gets home from vacation, work, evening meeting, grocery store, whatever. Stop what you are doing, go to the door and greet them. I think people really dig this.

5. Send a note. Tell someone thank you or that they did a good job. When I get notes like that it picks me up for a whole day or more and reading it again picks me up again and it takes like 30 seconds to do.

There could be negative things on this list too, like showing up late, but I’m going to stick with the positive and solicit input from whoever reads this. What things do or could people do that have a bigger impact than you would think by the size of the task?

We Could All Use A Little Change

2007-06-13T17:02:00.001-07:00

As you can see, I've played around with my blog a bit in an attemt to spiff it up a bit and add some elements like video. The first video addition is my favorite music video of the recent past. Once I figure out how to load video I've filmed on here, you may never be safe from having to watch video of my children. Consider yourself warned.

I've also updated my sports site in a similar fashion.

Hopefully my Entertainment site will be next which will hopefully prompt me to actually post something there again.

Wussified

2007-05-31T14:30:00.000-07:00

Someday, this subject will take up an entire volume in my 50 volume manifesto that I am sure I could finish writing if only I had the courage and commitment to do absolutely nothing else. Ironically such a decision would contradict my own personal philosophies outlined in depth in the manifesto. So, I’ll just stick to a cursory treatment of a complex issue, blame it on the blogging format and call it good.

All of that to say, I have more to say, but just can’t find the time to say it…much less people who actually want to hear/read it.

Today’s rant? The wussifying of America’s youth.

Recently, Gibson’s small private school announced that it would be handing out awards for students at the end of the year. Predictably, this did not sit well with some of the parents who believe that no awards should be given unless every child gets an award. At that moment, I awarded those parents the first ever “Dash Incredible Award.” Don’t worry, I’ll come up with awards for all the parents.

In the movie “The Incredibles” (one of my all time favorites), Dash (a super-powered kid chafing at the instruction to hide his power from others) has something like the following exchange with his mother:

Dash: But Dad says our powers make us special

Mom: Everyone is special Dash.

Dash: Which is just another way of saying nobody is.

Great line. Now before you start thinking, “oh brother, this is just going to be another rant from a hypercompetitive Dad who is all about winning and achieving and making yourself better” I just want to assure you that you are absolutely right. This is one of those rants and I am one of those Dads.

I was not even done rolling my eyes at the parents mentioned above when a good friend sent me this (now 2 year old, but still applicable) snippet from USA Today:

Which games are deemed safe and self-affirming? The National PTA recommends a cooperative alternative to the fiercely competitive "tug of war" called "tug of peace." Some professionals in physical education advocate activities in which children compete only with themselves, such as juggling, unicycling, pogo sticking, and even "learning to ... manipulate wheelchairs with ease."
But juggling, too, poses risks.

A former member of The President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports suggests using silken scarves rather than, say, uncooperative tennis balls that lead to frustration and anxiety. "Scarves," he points out, "are soft, non-threatening, and float down slowly."

Let’s just hand our Country over to China now and get it over with. This national movement to falsely inflate kids’ self esteem by trying to remove all competition from their early life is unquestionably one of the worst things we have going right now. Right up there with guaranteed contracts in the NBA and Drew Berrymore movies. As I said, I have lots of thoughts about this topic, but here are the few I have on the top of the brain this morning.

First, we should be teaching our kids to be more competitive, not less. This is true for at least the following 3 reasons (there always has to be 3).

1. Telling kids that they are equal (without talking about God – see below), is a condescending lie they will see through immediately. Yogi Berra is credited with saying, “all men are created equal, some are just a little more equal than others.” Unlike many things Yogi said, that one makes quite a bit of sense and no one knows it better than elementary school kids. If you have the kids race and declare everyone a winner to avoid the feeling of loss all but one of the kids will have, it doesn’t keep them from realizing that little Johnny or Suzie was the first over the finish line. Kids know who are faster and smarter and better swimmers and who can jump the furthest, hang from the bars the longest, etc. If you try to keep them from events that prove these things, they will develop them on their own.

Our world has values. They are screwed up, but they are there. Telling a kid that it doesn’t matter if he or she are good or bad at the things the world values without giving them a credible reason why will just make you seem foolish. Kids know. They know that people cheer for people who do certain things well and can figure out that they will be cheered for if they do those things well and will likewise understand whether they can do them well or not.

Plus, taking the competitive nature out of early school environment only makes kids less equipped to deal with the rest of the world which is, in every way, a competitive environment. Never allowing a kid to feel loss or failure will not keep him from failing at sometime in his or her life, but it may very well leave him or her ill-equipped to deal with the failure.
Let’s stop lying to our kids and stop sheltering them so much that they can not cope with reality when it hits. Competition doesn’t only strengthen the strong, it provides the opportunity for everyone to grow stronger.

2. Competitive drive fosters achievement, discipline and self respect. I want my kids to achieve in their lives. Whether it is in ministry or their work or learning or whatever it is. I want them to achieve and want to achieve. If they don’t accept that as a value, they will not. They will be the guy from the parable, burying what God gave them in the ground for fear of losing it. They will be fearful or lazy or both and never reach their potential. To have that drive to achieve, one must embrace competition (on some level) both with other people in our society and even against things like time, age, one’s own limitations, history, etc. Show me someone who gets things done in their lives (whether in work or play or faith) and I will show you someone who is competitive, whether they are willing to admit it or not.

3. Teaching the value of competition allows you the opportunity to teach the good and the bad that can come from competition and allows you to credibly address the issues that people so fear when talking about children competing. I don’t want my kids’(or anyone else’s) spirit to be crushed or grow up believing that they can’t accomplish anything because they were chosen last for kick ball or never won at tug a war or didn’t get the “Best Speller” award in the first grade. I want my kids to be confident and have a high sense of self worth. But I don’t think you teach that by removing competition, you teach that by embracing it. If your kid never loses, how and when do you teach them that they are still good and loved when they lose? How do you teach them that losing in one thing doesn’t mean they can’t be great at something else? How do you teach them how to win without crushing their opponent? How do you teach them to be a good sport? How do you teach them when winning is important and when it is less important than someone’s feelings? You can’t teach those things in a vacuum.

Personally, I think the fear of the bad behavior that comes from competition has encouraged many to take the easy way out. Rather than doing the hard work of helping a child navigate the difficult world he or she is asked to compete in, some choose simply to try to convince the child that the world is different than it really is.

I want my sons to grow up knowing when winning is important and when it isn’t and how to conduct themselves when they win and lose and how to bounce back after failure. Those are not things that can be taught or understood outside a competitive environment and there is no good reason to try.

Second, trying to build someone’s self worth on something other than God is like building yourself a house made of sand on the beach below the tide line at low tide. It’s a flawed idea to begin with and it is only a matter of time before you find out exactly why.

People have worth because they are created and loved by God. We are created in His image to live a life that brings Him glory. Our value and worth are intrinsic and to a large degree independent of what we do except that our natural destiny is to serve and love God and our “value”, or self-worth increases when we commit ourselves to our calling to worship God and love each other.

Otherwise, we are worth no more than cattle or trees. If you take God out of the equation, then people are only worth what they can produce or achieve or become according to our culture’s values. That means, it does matter how attractive you are. It does matter how much money you have. It does matter how smart or athletic you are. And since all of those things are fleeting and sine there is always someone better, stronger, prettier, all of those things will fail you. If you are not beautiful, smart and talented, then you simply are not worth as much in this world as someone who is and no amount of lying to yourself will ever really convince you otherwise. So, to try to teach someone to have a healthy self-esteem without explaining that their value comes from God, is to doom them to a life of false hope, regularly dashed on the shores of reality.

If not for God, I would quickly realize that my thinning hair, my short stature, my intellectual imitations, my many other physical imperfections, mean that I am not as “good” as other people, and no matter how many times I tell myself in the mirror that “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough and dogonit, people like me”, deep down I will know that I am just not quite as good as the next guy, or at least I will have that nagging doubt and fear.
With God, I am valuable, and worthwhile “good” in spite of and sometimes because of those imperfections listed above.

God loves me and I love Him. That is my worth. Anything else is a sand castle with the tide coming in.

Truckin'

2007-05-29T11:13:00.000-07:00

I’ve been the “sports guy”, “that guy”, the “short guy”, the “old guy”, the “lawyer guy” and probably a bunch of other “guys” that I can’t even call to mind right now and even more that others say about me behind my back (oh yeah, and “paranoid guy”, I’ve been him too). But yesterday I became a different kind of guy. My family has never really had this guy despite my having 4 brothers. I’ve had friends who were this guy, but never really expected to be one myself. Yesterday, I finally traded in my reliable, but finally dying 1997 Honda CRV for a GMC Sierra full size pickup truck. So now, in addition to all the other guys I’ve been, I’m now a “truck guy.” Also, I have to say, it’s a truck guy’s truck. Not all rounded and pretty with glamorous accessories. It is perfectly boxy and seems to scream out “standard equipment.”

I’m still very new at this so I’m still trying to figure out what it all means to be a truck guy. Do I need a gun rack? How close am I to becoming a NASCAR Dad? Will the engine shut off if I play Hip Hop? Will a set of mud flaps with an improbably disproportionate reclining female silhouette come with my new license plates? Will I stop thinking cowboy hats worn in the city are silly?

(Movie quote interruption – Wayne’s girl – “Happy Birthday Wayne” – Wayne – “what is it?” – “It’s a gunrack!!” – “Why would I need a gunrack? I don’t even own a gun, much less many guns necessitating a gun rack.” Good stuff)

Anyway, the purchase of my truck (I keep saying “my truck”, but the reality is I think my wife is just as excited about its purchase as I am) is only one more drop in what has been a wave of practical decisions. It is really quite worrisome. First we sold our Hummer for a much less expensive (to own, fix, fill with gas, etc.) SUV. It is more practical in every way including that my wife likes it much more which has many very practical benefits for me. Then I finally abandoned Tivo for the much cheaper and thus more practical Directv equivalent (yes, I just claimed purchasing a new DVR was a practical decision. That’s how I roll…also, I say things like “that’s how I roll.”). And now, instead of getting some sports car or a convertible or something super flashy or fun, I got a solid, dependable, decidedly unflashy, truck.

Don’t get me wrong, It’s a nice truck and I admit I really like it, but it is completely practical. Good for hauling. Good for trips to the dump. Good for driving the kids around. Good for the bank account. Practical.

It is really quite disturbing. The one saving grace is that the stock stereo doesn’t even have a cd player which gives me all the excuse I need to purchase a new stereo and choose something less practical like a system that is set up for technology that I don’t even own yet or something like that. I mean if my day to day decisions all start making sense, I’m really going to have to do some soul searching.

Still, I like my new truck and may even like being a truck guy. I can help my friends move (yes that’s a plus. When you’ve had the charmed life I’ve had, if you don’t want to help other people, you might just be a genuinely bad person). I can haul the debris from my wife’s many home and yard beautification projects away. I can throw a couple lawn chairs and a blanket in the back and have great seats at a drive in movie theater. I can begin pretending those awful “This is my country” truck commercials were written just for me. The list goes on and on really.

Plus, there is something indescribably manly about driving a truck. I don’t really have “feeling manly enough” issues. My increasingly sasquatch-like appearance gives constant testimony to my Floyd Landis like Testosterone levels. Even still, you can be pretty girly and still feel like a man in a good old-fashioned GMC pickup. It’s pretty cool.

As I sit here typing this, I can’t help but wonder if a nice set of fog lamps and a lift kit aren’t in my future.