A Little Humor...

I don't usually post twice a day, but I completely forgot about this little clip that Mark Pratt showed me the other night, and it's really quite hysterical. It's a guy on the phone calling a buddy of his and he witnesses an accident. You'll have quite the laugh listening to it as well. Trust me, it's funny.

My Home

For the next 3 weeks, I have the house. It's just me and the cat running the whole place. I'm sure my mom is terrified. She kept telling me that she wanted it all to look the same as it did when she left...I don't know why she's personally so worried about it. It's not like I'll be calling up all sorts of people to have wild parties out here and everything over the next few days...or will I?

That reminds me of a classic story from the days of 1106 where the Murphy's and some other good friends lived for a year. It involved the "Shaggin' Wagon", a Friday evening, and some girls at Harding. Seeing as the 1106 guys were taking it easy on this particular Friday evening, they decided to go out and about in Paul's affectionately remembered minivan. It was amazing how long that van ran for them. I think it's still going somewhere. At any rate, they all piled in to the van and went driving around. I think some of them might have even had some goodwill suits on (although I might be confusing that with another story). As they were driving, they happened across the girls laundromat on campus, and seeing as there were a number of women inside doing their laundry (on a friday night?), they thought they might go in and ask them if they'd like to go and hang out for a while. How serious they were about this proposition, I don't really know, but it elicited a classic Harding response. After the question was asked if any of them would like to go out and party and have some fun, one of the girls said, "We don't party here". Dejected, the guys in the shaggin' wagon had to spend the rest of the evening by themselves. At least, that's how I remember it being told. You'd have to ask P-Murphy himself for the actual account. Mandi and I frequently joke about "not partying" in mockery of that whole story. I mean, I know sometimes you just have to get the laundry done...but really. And who wouldn't want to hang out with the guys from 1106 anyway? Well, maybe not the present occupants, but the ones from 2 years ago were certainly top-notch.

The song that's in the player now reminds me, however, that my home is not this earthly place that we inhabit at the moment. Our home is with God and Christ, and that one day we will be reunited with him. It's essentially the same theme as the classic hymn "This World Is Not My Home" but...rockified? And different lyrics. Here they are:

This place is many things, but I'd never call it home,
It's just a building in a city, everywhere I go
This place is many things, but I can't call it home,
Home is the place you are and I just wanna let you know

And I've done a few things I wasn't proud of,
I've said a few things that hurt you,
But you're still the only one who fills me up,
And every night spent alone, was worth it

You are my home, you are my everything, when I feel so alone,
You are my home, you are my shelter, when all my hope is gone

And I've seen many things, but they don't look like home,
They're just the bright lights from a city glowing all night long,
And I've seen many faces, but they all look the same,
Home is the place you are, and I just wanna let you know

That I've done a few things I wasn't proud of,
I've said a few things that hurt you
But you're still the only one who fills me up
And all the tears that we've shared were worth it

You are my home, you are my everything, when I feel so alone,
You are my home, you are my shelter, when all my hope is gone
You are my home, you are my everything, when I feel so alone,
You are my heart, you are the one, when it all comes undone
When it all comes undone, when it all comes undone

At times it's difficult to remember that we are supposed to be in the world but not of the world. My home, for eternity, is with Christ. Mandi, I hope the title made more sense to you this time around.

Long Time Gone

It's once again been quite a while since I've done any type of update on here. It's been an interesting couple weeks. I had an interview last Monday for a job here in Knoxville. I feel like it went well, but it will be at least another week before they are able to officially hire anyone, due to restrictions and EEO requirements forcing them to leave job openings open for at least a week. So, if they decide to hire me, I won't know about it for at least another week, if not 2 weeks or so. In the meantime, I guess it's more applications and searching until I hear one way or the other.

I also got to spend the weekend playing some ultimate with most of the guys from Harding that I played with for a couple years. It was fun, tiring and hot, but all in all good times. It was great to see guys like Luke and Will Dockery, Rufio, Brett, Jordan, Whit and others that I hadn't seen since about the same time last year for the most part. We ended up getting 4th place in the tournament, which wasn't bad, although we did pretty much fall apart in the last game that we lost, going from leading 7-3 to losing 15-12 I believe. The only things missing were the Murphy boys and J. Bland. One of these days we'll have to try and put together a "Master's" team of some sort and get everyone together and play a tournament. I don't know if that would ever be possible, but it would certainly be fun. And I would be remiss if I didn't give mention to the Park Avenue CoC who allowed about 35 odd players to stay at their building and use their facilities, in addition to preparing all of us dinner on Saturday evening. Their kindness and hospitality were greatly appreciated.

My parents are leaving on Thursday morning for Japan. Dad will be gone for 3 weeks, and mom will come home a week and a half later. They will be touring through different parts of Japan, and then spending about a week at my Grandmom's place in Tokyo. It should be a good trip for them, and if you could pray for their safety it would be much appreciated. At the rate that they're going, next year they'll both be gone for a month, and then who knows how long after that. So I'll have the house to myself for 3 weeks and have to take care of everything around here. Should be fun stuff.

I've been trying to think of a favorite moment from this past weekend relating to the frisbee, and I'm having a hard time of it. Outside of playing again with guys like Luke, Will and Kevin Chastine, there isn't really any stand-out moment. I guess my best personal moment was after dropping a pass that led to a score for the other team, I came out the next point, caught 4 tough passes, and made the scoring touchdown pass all while completely owning my man on offense. I guess that running over the past few weeks paid off after all.

Play It Safe

I have good news on the job hunt front. The other day, a church friend that works at UT sent me an email about a research group that works on things related to soil erosion with world-wide implementation of ideas that they have formulated. They're currently looking for someone, and so he gave them my name. I talked with a member of the group briefly today, and they are wanting to interview me on Monday. So...if everything goes well, I might have myself a job in the next few days. It looks like fairly interesting work, I'd be in a research group, and be doing something that's being used everywhere in the world. We'll just have to see how it goes, but it's looking promising at the moment. No sense getting ahead of ourselves though...

I feel I have been remiss, being an avid soccer fan, to have not made any mention of the FIFA Women's World Cup that is currently going on in China. The best women's teams from around the world are competing in their soccer championships. Action picks up again tomorrow morning. While we're on the soccer theme, this past week saw the return to action of the national teams as Euro 2008 qualifying began again in earnest. England impressed, posting back-to-back 3-0 wins to revive their chances for qualifying, while France was stunned by Scotland at home. Most of the other results went according to plan. In addition, the US played Brazil in a friendly, with the final score being 4-2 to Brazil, and starting next week, the UEFA Champions League picks back up for the 07/08 edition. All sorts of exciting stuff.

Seeing as how I've not really got anything else to say, I'll call it quits.

Things Better Left...Unseen?

The other day, after dinner, dad said that he was going to the church to play some basketball. I had asked who all would be there, and he wasn't entirely sure but that a friend of ours had said he should come out and play for a while. Dad was a pretty good player back in the day, but it's been quite a while since I've seen him go play b-ball. Well, having not run yet yesterday, I figured I'd go along as well as it would be a good little bit of exercise. So I ended up going, and it turns out that they don't play full court. A league here in Oak Ridge plays a half-court 3-on-3 style game, where you play to a certain score, usually 25 or 30 or so. It turns out to be a good workout, but for the older guys, it's essentially 3-point shooting practice since the game-plan is to pass the ball around, and hit a 3 at the first opportunity. Maybe once every 10-15 possessions or so someone will drive the basket, but that's about it. I still got myself a good bit of high-intensity running in though, since I would just chase the ball around. At any rate, I talked with Mandi later in the evening, and mentioned that I'd attempted to play basketball, which anyone that knows me would know that it's a lost cause. But she said she couldn't even picture me trying to play. Which got me to thinking of other things that I didn't want to ever have to try and picture or see myself attempting...

1) Basketball
Reason that I shouldn't be pictured attempting this - I'm Asian. Enough said

2) Visual Art
Reason that I shouldn't be pictured attempting this - Have you seen anything I've attempted to draw? Be thankful if you haven't. I might be the worst pictionary player in the world, and if you can't even draw to get someone to guess what you're attempting in that game...well, you're bad.

3) Ballet/Gymnastics
Reason that I shouldn't be pictured attempting this - Does this really have to be spelled out?

4) Bodybuilder
Reason that I shouldn't be pictured attempting this - Well, besides the fact that it's disgusting, I sure can't think of why this would be your objective in life. And have you seen the female ones? If they need a commercial about what drugs can do to you...

That's about all I can come up with at the moment in between attempting to find jobs and such. If you've got suggestions, I'd like to hear them. Tonight, it's wings and a movie with the guys from church. 3:10 to Yuma is on the schedule, and Wild Wings Cafe is the dinner. Should be quite the evening.

Reaching Out...

Yesterday, for our small group meeting, we went to a new group that was being started by some of the older members and more knowledgeable teachers that would focus on having an environment to allow people to bring friends or acquaintances to a non-threatening bible study. Our group went along just to help support the leaders and to have a few people there, since a number of our usual group were gone on either vacation or personal reasons. Essentially, the point of the group as defined by them is to have a place where people can bring questions or things that they want to study, and that will be the objective for the day. That way, if you meet someone who you don't feel would be comfortable in an intense study within a particular group, you can bring them there and allow them to dictate more of the direction if they should feel so inclined. I think it's a good idea, and it would do well for new Christians or people seeking to learn more. However, I don't know if that's how it will end up working in practice.

The main problem that I had with what was discussed last night dealt with the mind-set of the people that are going to be leading it. After a prayer and some of the usual chat when you've got people together, we got into some discussions. Well, the older people got in to some discussions while I sat back and listened. Now, I respect the older members of the church, as I feel like they have unique wisdom and insight, but I also feel like a lot of what they say is based on traditions, and that they go to Scripture in order to support their traditions. People were saying that if it's not expressed in the Bible, then they won't go along with it, but then they go on to make assumptions about things that are said in order for it to fit their view. Is that not contradictory? Maybe it's just me...

The main point of the evening was talking about unity. Do I think that unity is a good thing and that we should strive for it? Absolutely. But it comes to the point of what you define as unity. My impression was that unity, for the majority of older people was that everyone should become CoC. Stereotypical of Coc, but clearly evident here. They spent probably about half an hour talking about how some of them grew up in the Baptist church, and how they now felt that they had to go and show them how they were wrong and we were right. Are you kidding me? When I think of unity in regards to religion, I think of Christian unity. Not CoC, Baptist, Catholic, or any other type of unity. If you think that unity is making everyone believe what you believe so that there aren't differing ideas, that's not unity.

And then I got to thinking about how that type of discussion would have worked had there been someone there visiting or seeking to learn. What would their impression have been? Probably that we view ourselves as holier than thou and that it's either our way or no way, and if you can't accept that, then we will ostracize you and not give you the light of day until you come around to what we think. It seems to me like that is not a good way to go about reaching out to people who perhaps have never heard the Gospel.

What ever happened to things such as grace? Is it our right to take the place of God and decide who is right, who is wrong, who is saved, and who isn't? Yes, we need to stand firm in our faith, and we need to teach those around us that do not know Christ. But there needs to be love and understanding to go along with it. And you need scriptural back-up. Not tradition, with scripture turned in the direction you want it. I don't claim to be right, or to know everything. For all I can tell, I might be way off on my own island in the middle of nowhere. But at least for me, the idea of unity being everyone to CoC or in the wrong...that misses the point. And to me, it's concerning if that's the type of mindset that people leading this group are going to take.

It's Just An Illusion...

I've always enjoyed magic. Way back in 1991 I saw my first magic show on TV. It was a David Copperfield special, that he used to run every year. Dad had watched them, and this was the first one that I was able to watch, or that I was interested in watching. A few years later he came through Knoxville, and my family went along to see the show. I don't remember a whole lot about that first show, except for his entrance and exit. The entrance was done in an empty box, along with a motorcycle. The finale was him riding that motorcycle onto a lift that took him up about 20 feet above the stage. The bottom fell out of it, and he reappeared about 3 rows behind us on the motorcycle. Needless to say, I was impressed.

I always looked forward to the specials, and for a while there were a number of magic shows on TV just at random. I even got myself a magic book that did some sleight of hand tips and tricks. About a year ago, Copperfield came back through Knoxville, so of course my family and I had to go. There were a bunch of new tricks, a number that we had seen in his last TV special. The most impressive of these dealt with audience members. In one, they take one audience member anywhere they want in the world. Whether they really do go to places like the Caribbean or Hawaii or not is up for debate, but it's sure believable and amazing. The other involves bringing 13 audience members up to the stage and making all of them disappear, and then reappear in the back of the auditorium almost instantly. If you get the chance to see him live, I would highly recommend it.

At any rate, all of that since I decided to put up one of his best illusions. It's portrayed as an escape, but it's really one of the best illusions that I've ever seen done. If you've not seen it before, you're in for a treat.

Blessed Are The Meek...

An interesting thing happened this past week at church. Actually, at 2 churches. There's the one that I attend in Knoxville, and then there is Highland View in Oak Ridge where I grew up. Last week due to a number of circumstances, Mandi ended up going to church in Oak Ridge, while I went to Knoxville. The OR church had a guest speaker, their last in a summer series that they've been having for a number of years. I don't particularly remember what Mandi said the main message was about, but she mentioned that they talked a good deal about the passage dealing with turning the other cheek (Matt 5:39), and that the meek will inherit the earth (Matt 5:5).

As Mandi related this particular part of the lesson, and what it was that bothered her about it, I realized how much it bothered me as well. The speaker for the evening had talked about how difficult it would be for him to turn the other cheek if someone were to come up and threaten him and his family. He also talked about how it'd be better for someone that would break in to his home and attack his family to not be there when he got home, since he might be inclined to not show restraint. What?!? I wasn't there, but the way Mandi explained it made it seem as if the speaker would rather come home late after everything had happened, and give it a few days before doing anything about it. Luckily for him, apparently his wife wasn't in attendance.

She was also there for class on Sunday morning, where they were apparently following up on this subject, or at least it turned to it. The idea of meekness came up, and one of the ladies who teaches the younger children began saying how difficult it is for her to teach children the concept of turning the other cheek, and taking things without reacting. I don't know, but it just seems like the church wants a bunch of people that will just take anything regardless of who it might be harming.

It was quite the coincidence, however, when at church on Sunday in Knoxville, the exact same message was coming up, but with a completely different view. Our preacher addressed the idea of turning the other cheek in a way that I hadn't heard before. He stated that the idea of being struck on the cheek is like that of an insult, as a cultural type of insult. Therefore, turning the other cheek does not refer to allowing someone to just pummel you with punches, but that you do not react to someone that is hurling insults at you. You don't fight their insults with insults of your own, but rather you take them, and allow them to spew venom without reducing yourself to their type of mentality. I hadn't heard of it approached in that manner, but it appeals to me much more than the idea that everyone in the church should simply allow someone to run all over them and take advantage of them while we stand by and do nothing.

The other passage dealing with meekness required a definition of the word. What do you think of when you hear the word meek? I picture some pansy guy that can't do anything, and everyone is able to do whatever they want to him because, well, he won't do anything to defend himself. Here's the very first definition from Merriam-Webster. Meek: 1) enduring injury with patience and without resentment. I hadn't thought that someone described as meek could have a chance at having something good to describe them. But that's exactly what is being described in the passage. The meek will inherit the kingdom. This doesn't mean people that just roll over and give in to everything, and let everyone else run all over them. No! It means that people that can endure the hardship that will come, those that can handle the ridicule of claiming Christ, that can "turn the other cheek" at those that would mock, they will inherit the kingdom.

I found it incredibly refreshing to hear that message on Sunday, especially in contrast to the ones that Mandi heard. Why does everyone in the church feel like we should all just take everything, never defend ourselves, or each other for that matter, in times when anyone in their right mind would defend themselves? How can a speaker get up and say that if someone were to break in to his home and attack his wife that he had better be gone before he gets home since he might react badly? Jesus didn't come here and hope that he didn't offend anybody. He didn't just take things that were clearly wrong, and just allow it to continue out of "meekness". Is there a time to be humble? Of course. Does that mean that the church should be made of women, and as my preacher put it, effeminate men? I sure hope not.

Boomsday

Every Labor Day weekend here in Knoxville, there is a festival known as Boomsday. I'm not entirely sure how it originated, but 20 years ago, the people of the city of Knoxville thought that it would be a good idea to hold a fireworks show down on the Tennessee River. It's actually quite the deal, if you're brave enough to deal with the excessive traffic. There are vendors and live music all down the river-front all day long, and from about 9:30-10:00, you are treated to the best fireworks display that I've ever seen. The fireworks are shot off from the Henley Street Bridge, which is closed for the entire day to allow for set-up, as well as from the adjacent Baptist hospital, and another bridge a short distance away. The show is set to music that is broadcast over the radio. This year, there were fireworks that exploded in the shapes of cubes, smiley-faces, and stars, they were lit and hanging from the bridge in a type of waterfall, they were shot down in to the river where they then exploded up out of it...basically it was an assault on the eyes and ears for 20 minutes. And it's spectacular. If you're ever in the area by chance during Labor Day weekend, set aside a few hours on Sunday evening, and come see it. Should you come, pick your seat wisely, as being too close to the river might not be all that great. Mandi and I were across the street from the river, and up the hill a little ways, and during the sequence where the fireworks were being shot in to the river, one of the flares that exploded up didn't go quite as high as it probably should have. This resulting in a flaming ball coming down right in the middle of all of the spectators on the street. This particular one happened to land about a foot in front of these two ladies, who managed to jump out of the way right at the last minute. They proceeded to continue backing up after they managed to calm themselves and get back on their feet.

I really wish that I had some funny story related to fireworks, but there's not all that much to draw from. I think I've got two of them, both from a while ago, and given how terrible my memory is, I could just be making it all up for all I know. The Boren's used to live right up the street from us, and we'd be over there frequently visiting, and playing with their kids. Well, at some point we thought it'd be fun to shoot off bottle rockets, so we got a whole bunch of them and some old glass coke bottles and went out to their front yard to fire them off. Well, we started off with them on the ground, but quickly decided that it'd be more fun to hold the bottle so we could aim where they went better. Let's just say that the idea sounded a lot better in principal than in practice, as I think we managed to shoot a number of bottle rockets directly in to their neighbors garage and in to pretty much every tree within 30 feet around their house. It was fun though.

The second one comes from high school, when a group of friends were out during the 4th. We had just grilled out and eaten, and decided that we should shoot fireworks. Now, the city of Oak Ridge has a ban on fireworks within city limits, but since they were out in the outskirts, we figured we may as well shoot them off anyway. So we went down the street a ways, and found a patch of (what we thought was) dirt. So we go and light the fuse on this big box of fireworks (not too much unlike what they've used at camp for the "big show"), and back up and wait for it. Well, they go off alright, but one of them doesn't do as well as it should, and ends up shooting up, spinning over, and going right in to the dry grass that's right next to where we set it up at. Well, there's still a good portion of the box to go, and for all intents and purposes, it looks like the grass is catching on fire. Luckily, it doesn't catch too much, and we put it out once the box emptied. We decided maybe we should hold off on the rest of them. We walk back, and pass a cop on the way. Either it was just sheer coincidence, or someone called us in.

At any rate, you can't ever go wrong with some fireworks entertainment. Just be careful of the neighbors house, or some flammable grass being nearby.

Minesweeper: The Movie

I'm shamelessly stealing this from Taylor, but I thought that it was funny enough to merit it. This is for everyone that's spent a boring morning at work or school playing the classic game minesweeper. Posts of more substance later.