*gurg*

Today was Tuna Noodle Casserole day in the cafeteria at work. Not a good day for the olfactory senses.

I need to get out of here.

Listening to the press conference to introduce UCLA's new football coach, Karl Dorrell, I couldn't help to both be impressed and disgusted. Disgusted by the media's unrelenting questions designed to bait him into bemoaning the "racism" in the hiring practices for coaching positions; and impressed with the way he refused to bite by emphasizing the importance of hard work, preparation and determination. I mean how insulting is it to have some victicrat fishhack stand up and ask you how you felt about the fact that your interview was considered by many to be a "token" interview because the university had to look good in the eyes of the Almighty Affirmative Action. Geez, like the man hasn't earned his current position. He took the question in stride and said that if it was a "token" interview he was going to make sure that there would be a second one.

I think I'm going to like this guy and frankly I don't care what color he is, if he can get Cory Paus to pull his head out of his stinker and actually become a Division 1-A QB, then he's the right guy for the job!

O.K. Guerrero, next up on the chopping block: Steve Lavin

Top Albums in 2002 (in descending order)

5. Tom Waits, Blood Money: I debated putting this down since I haven’t heard “Alice” yet
4. Norah Jones, Come Away With Me: Perfect background music for beer-sloshed late-nights with friends. Her songwriting is eh, but her delivery more than makes up for it.
3. David Gray, A New Day at Midnight: Beautiful, a great follow-up to White Ladder.
2. Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head: Not as many crowd-pleasers as “Parachutes” but these guys know how to write a freakin’ song. They’re starting to scare me with their pretentio-activism, ala U2 but hopefully cool heads will prevail.
1. Beck, Sea Change: Hands down the greatest artistic achievement of the year. If you don’t have it…get it.

Honorable mentions go to White Stripes’ “White Blood Cells” which I couldn’t list because it was released in 2001, (even though it never left my CD player for most of '02) and Andrew WK’s “I Get Wet”, straightforward, ham-fisted, unashamedly cheesy rock’ n roll. The sonic nutritional value of a deep fried twinkee slathered in chocolate sauce, but its fun, fun, fun!

I have a feeling that I would really, reeeeeally like Wilco’s "Y.H.F" but I haven’t gotten around to listen to it.

Any others I have may have missed in my ignorance? Oh and Christine, don't list Justin Timberlake's solo album as one I "have to hear". No, no I don't "have to hear it". :-)

Hmmmm..that now makes it three (3) co-workers over the week who have approached me with some varient of the following statement:

"Your wife is so beautiful and sweet...how in the heck did she end up with you"?

OK enough morbid introspection...

I'm currently working through Jordan's "Primeval Saints", a book I find as fascinating as it is frustrating. Perhaps someone can explain to me Jordan's thinking that the Tree of Knowledge was only prohibited to Adam on a probationary status and that as he grew in communion with God, God would lift that ban and Adam would be allowed to eat from it. While its an attractive argument on the surface, I'm having trouble reconciling it with the text. Does Jordan see that from the fact that at the consummation of history we will be allowed to eat from the TOK or what?

On the other hand, I find his discussion about Noah and Ham's rebellion utterly satisfying. I had always wondered what exactly the sin of Ham was and why Shem and Japeth walked backwards into the tent with the robe on their shoulders to cover Noah's nekkidness. The robe was a sign of judicial dominion, Ham was trying to get his brothers to join in to usurp the royal authority that God gave to Noah. His brothers, wisely, rejected him and they walked backwards with the robe on their shoulders in order to show their support for Noah (the shoulders being a sign of support in Scripture). His insights on the Tower of Babel ("one speech" = lit. "one lip" = one anti-God ideology) are equally good. Wonderful stuff!

My Mom is right. I am more concerned about myself than others. I am selfish, often thinking of myself and what I want first and foremost without counting the cost of the sacrifices that others might make. The best picture I can come up with is to liken it to a yacht plowing through the ocean, oblivious to the smaller boats that are overcome in its wake, struggling to readjust themselves as the waves die down.

God help me...I need to change this.

On Sunday we had the Stoddards come to our church for a presentation on their missionary endeavors to Berlin. By the end of the day, Karlene and I were ready to jump on board the next flight to Germany. David and Eowyn came to our church for the first time in 2000 to give a presentation and Karlene and I struck up a bit of a friendship with them during the potluck lunch afterwards. Both Liam and Caleb were about the same age and Karlene really seemed to hit it off with Eowyn as they bonded over mommy/baby stuff. Karlene and Eowyn carried on a short-lived e-mail correspondence which really seemed to have an impact on her. I mean here were a young couple like ourselves, with a young family, also like ourselves, and they were giving up the comforts of the support of family and friends in order to go halfway around the world in order to minister to a land where over 88% of their citizens openly profess to be atheists, where there are more dogs than children and where the divorce/single parent family rate is higher than America's (if you can fathom that).

Anyway, they came back again last week, Liam and Caleb, both now 2 years old, played together and Karly and Eowyn talked for awhile as well. David gave me the whole rundown of what was happening in Berlin. To our shame and chagrin, we realized afterwards that there were no lunch provisions made for our guests. What's more we had plans as well, totally forgetting that they were coming that day. I was livid at the hospitality committee of our church, but then realized that the anger was misplaced. I should of anticipated their arrival and made plans with them in advance. I mean, I'm the guy at church always going on and on about covenant hospitality and the joys of the fellowship with the Body of Christ and here I am allowing a young family to make the 2 hour drive back to Escondido without any type of food or fellowship to send them off with. We ended up driving around the parking lot of the restaraunt we had referred them to but couldn't find their van. I drove home, fuming at myself, vowing to not let that happen again.

Once I got home I started to think about missions. To my surprise I started to get on a "Keith Green guilt trip" about having money and resources and not being willing to give it up to starve for Christ in a foreign land. I then shook myself back to reality and realized that the mission field here in California is still ripe. Yes there are many churches and yes there is a strong evangelical bent in So. Cal, but it manifests itself mostly in Baptistic conservatism and rests in politics rather than a covenantal worldview that submits to Jesus Christ in every area of life. My desire is to see the concept and vision of the parish be recaptured in Southern California. We have hundreds of churches within a five mile radius of us, but you can count on one hand the churches that are making a visible impact for Christ in the community. My focus and prayers need to be directed into that and if YHWH wills for us to go to the foreign mission field, He will make that desire burn and open up a way for us to go.

Anyway just some meandering thoughts...

I'm a horrible human being and co-worker. Today was the day where our group was supposed to exchange Secret Santa gifts at the office. I got two $15 gift cards for Target, a box of chocolates and a bunch of Christmas cards.

What did I get my Secret Santa? Nada, I forgot all about it.

So I'm on the phone to my wife, whispering the wish list of my secret Santa and pleading with her to go shopping today for the gift. My co-worker took it all in stride, but I still feel awful as I'm the only maroon who forgot about it.

As I stated in the last post, the last few days have been quite hectic. They are the type of days where you go to sleep at midnight and wake up at 6 AM. Now, don’t get me wrong, those are usually my hours, but normally there would be a break in the day for blogging and/or other types of relaxation.

Friday night my group at work decided to hold our own Christmas party at Lucille’s. Over the last few months I have spent some quality time and money with their ribs, chicken and slow cooked tri-tip steak. It has quickly become my restaurant of choice.

Excursus: I made an exciting discovery…instead of just mixing regular granulated sugar with the hot tea to make sweet tea, you first make a simple syrup (5 parts sugar to 3 parts water) and then add it to the tea. This could change everything!

At any rate it was a fun night cut short, because Karly and I had to clean up for the Christmas party on Saturday. So we get home and Karlene promptly fell asleep while I made a Christmas mix CD for the party. Here was the mix:

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – Coldplay
Blue Christmas – “Big E”
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer – Jack Johnson
Christmas in Hollis – Run DMC
Santa Baby - Madonna
Little Drummer Boy – Neil Diamond
Oi to the World – No Doubt
Christmas Time – Smashing Pumpkins
O Holy Night – Enya
Santa Claus is Coming to Town – Booker T and the MG’s
Baby Its Cold Outside – Dean Martin
The Christmas Song – Nat King Cole
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – Flaming Lips
Mele Kalikimaka – Nick Hexum (guy from 311)
Ave Maria – Chris Cornell

Saturday was pretty fun. The first part of the day was pretty much running around the house, shoving dirty clothes, toys and other doo-dads into closets while mopping, vacuuming, sweeping, scrubbing as much as possible. Throw into the mix a trip to about five different stores and you have our day from 9 AM to 3 PM. If the success of the party is determined upon how many people stay after the suggested end time, then I guess you could say it was a big hit. We served nachos with all the fixins, various cookies and candies and a big mama of a cheesecake from Costco that is still languishing in our refrigerator (I like to think that the produce inside is scared of it). Also included was eggnog with the Captain Morgan Spiced to make it palatable (I’m not the biggest eggnog fan), Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and many, many sodas with a full bottle of Jose C to give it an extra BAM!

We had a white elephant gift exchange among our friends. I got a crystal clock from my bud Alan (who said “Umm, if that was your wedding gift to us then I’m sorry”) and a set of sake glasses from my friends Dave & Vicky. I gave away my treasured copy of “Amillenialism Today” by William Cox.

Excursus: This was the version put out by P&R before they hired a graphics designer, y’know, the one that couldn’t fit the word “Amillenialism” on one line so they had to hyphenate the “ism” right under the word “Amillenial-“. Seriously, words cannot do justice to its sheer ugliness.

At any rate, Vicky received that little treasure which prompted her to give me a look as if to say “You know you’re an idiot, right?” I still chuckle fondly at the memory.

Oh, I have to go to lunch now, so I’ll finish up later…

So who's going at midnight tonight?

Whew, many things to post, very little time. I'l try and sum it all up tomorrow. Suffice it to say I've got 50 more pages to read in my text before class tonight.

Pray for me! :-)