15

After cooking and eating a hearty meal of grilled BBQ pork chops, spiced potatoes with steamed carrots and broccoli, I decided to take a trip to Borders for a little Rob time. Cleaning reponsibilities come first of course, so I flip on some White Stripes and proceed to unload and reload the dishwasher and put the food away as I groove to blues-punk.

BTW, If you have a spare 12 bucks, go down to your local Best Buy and obtain this CD. It's a succesful fusion of De Stijl and WBC while not sounding like a rehash. Jack White is Robert Plant, Son House and Iggy Stooge rolled into one giant reefer of blues. Get it and inhale. [/pretentious music critic].

OK where was I, oh yeah. The Dodgers are losing 2-0 in the bottom of the 5th as I turn into the Borders parking lot.

The Los Angeles Dodgers...making Triple-A pitchers look like Cy Young since 1996.

Entering the store, I head right to the CD section. Reach the listening station, slip on the headphones and select the new Cat Power CD. Wow, very impressive! Sad and haunting, much in the vein of Sea Change. Acoustic Sarah McLachlin is probably the best way to describe her sound. Mental Note: purchase this album.

Next on the list was the new Turin Brakes album. The promo compared them to Coldplay and Badly Drawn Boy (so how could I resist?) though as I listened, I thought more of Jeff Buckley by way of Moby. I have to say that it was excellent and I wondered why I hadn't heard of them before. Next came the remastered Electric Warrior (great fun) as well as another listen to Nick Cave's Nocturama.

By that time, the clock struck 9:30 and the closing announcement comes over the intercom.

"Attention Borders customers
The time is now 9:30 and Borders will be closing in half an hour
Please bring your final purchases to the cashier.
Or, if you like, go ahead and purchase a latte at the cafe.
Maybe a cookie.
Or you can just hang out if you want to."

I love this place!

I rush to the religion section and look for an ESV Bible. Not finding that, I looked for the new NT Wright book which I found. Crack it open and run over the table of contents. Oh yes, I will buy this...but not tonight ($39.00 WOOP!). I attempt to leaf through The Challenge of Jesus, yet with the specter of 10 PM looming over my head, I find it hard to concentrate so I place it back and leave my haven.

Next stop: Hollywood Video, where they are playing the new Harry Potter movie (illegaly...shhh) and ask if they have the new Wilco movie to rent. The guy prys his eyes off of Dumbledore, looks at me for a moment and shakes his head. Then, as if to read my mind, he decides to look it up anyways. Nope, not there. I move on.

Off to Blockbuster, I hear on the radio that the Dodgers lost 2-1, the lone run being scored on a wild pitch in the 9th. Leave it to the Doggies to let the other team's screw ups be their sole offensive production.

Come to Dodger Stadium to see the Dodgers pla-....hmm, hey we're giving away free blankets on the 17th, you'll want to be in for that won't you?

Turns out Lackluster doesn't have the movie either, but I do get to see the Lakers tie the bow on a good thrashing of the Queens. PLAYOFFS HERE WE COME!!!

I get home and join Karly in finishing up the last installment of The 1900 House. Ugh, the good old days weren't always good. You could smell the funk coming off of those poor souls. Good series though, I'lll have to catch the rest of it.

All in all, a good night of relaxation.

;-)

A minister told his congregation, "Next week I plan to preach about the sin of lying. To help you understand my sermon, I want you all to read Mark 17." The following Sunday, as he prepared to deliver his sermon, the minister asked for a show of hands. He wanted to know how many had read Mark 17. Every hand went up.

The minister smiled and said, "Mark has only 16 chapters. I will now proceed with my sermon on the sin of lying."

Mmmmm, can't wait to try this.

"7-Eleven Inc. will stock its own private-label beer starting this summer...Santiago, which will begin to appear in 7-Eleven cold vaults in June, will be sold for $5.99 a six-pack. The price is lower than many other brands, including Mexican import Corona, with which Santiago is packaged and brewed to compete."

The warhawks at National Review keep up their high pitched screeching!

From Jonah Goldberg (thanks Harry):

""Washington's admonition against entangling alliances was based in a fear that the rest of the world would mess up the good thing we've got going here...The problem with this point of view is simple: Times change...Liberal critics of Bush's foreign policy have denounced it as 'radical' and 'unconservative.' And to a certain extent that's true. It is radical and it is not conservative - in the small-c sense - to up-end apple carts across the globe. But philosophically, there is nothing 'un-Conservative' about what President Bush and the rest of us are proposing. Conservatism means to conserve that which is valuable...Similarly, because we cherish liberty and the rule of law at home, it may be necessary to impose it abroad."

The Price of "Compassion"

From Ron Paul:

Here are some examples of what ended up in the "war funding" bill:

• $3.2 billion for an airline bailout – even though the airlines always seem to be troubled and always feel they deserve tax money. If we bail out the airlines, why not the hotels, restaurants, and rental car agencies that have been affected by 9-11 and the war in Iraq? Why not every industry that's suffering?;
  
• $125 million for congressional security, to make sure members are safe even if the country is not;
  
• $11 million for salaries and expenses for the House of Representatives, who already approved a pay raise for themselves last fall;
  
• $250 million for Department of Agriculture grants;
  
• $69 million for something called the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust;
  
• $5.5 million for the Library of Congress;
  
• $6.8 million for the Congressional Research Service and General Accounting Office;
  
• $100,000 for the U.S. Court of International Trade.
  
  The bill also includes $8 billion in foreign aid, which is especially egregious given the state of the American economy. How can we ask taxpayers to send billions abroad with things so tough for many here at home?
  
  The $8 billion includes:
  
  
• $1 billion in "economic assistance" for Turkey, even though they refused to let America use its bases to stage our assault on Iraq and have only grudgingly allowed use of its airspace;
  
• $700 million for Jordan;
  
• $500 million for Egypt;
  
• $127 million for Afghanistan;
  
• $1 billion in for Israel;
  
• $175 million for Pakistan;
  
• $170 million to train the "Afghan National Army";
  
• $406 million for Jordan
  

Creed
(no, not the crappy nu-metal group)

There's a good discussion going on at Amos' blog regarding the Apostle's Creed and it's use of the phrase "He descended into Hell" referring to Jesus post-crucifxion, pre-resurrection soul. I had personally wondered about that for a while now and after reading some of the comments, I don't think I have a problem with the more modern substitution "he descended into the grave".

What I have a problem with, however, is the substitution of "holy universal" church rather than the "holy catholic" church. My church makes this substitution (on the rare occasions we recite it *sigh*) and it drives me flippin' batty. When we come to that part, I usually resist and say "catholic" right on cue. What can I say, I'm a rebel. :-P

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always took the term "catholic" to mean atemporal as well as worldwide. That is, the church past, present and future, both in heaven and on earth, not just on the earth, which is the connotation that I get from the term "universal".

Sorry, but I'm not going to play these Rome-a-phobe games. In my opinion, anybody who defines the term "catholic" in the Creed as "Roman Catholic" has a bit of growing up to do.

DST vs. the Snooze Button

The clock said 6:30 AM, the body said 5:30 AM

Guess who won out?

Last Sunday at my church, the diaconate met with a man whom we have been helping out financially over the last few weeks. Our diaconate is a fairly experienced group of men, but lately we have been stumped with a run of characters with questionable circumstances. To say that we have had to shed a lot of naivetee over the last year, would be putting it mildly.

It seems that the people we have helped are unwilling to take measures to get out of the mess that they have put themselves in. They choose to blame their current standard of living on circumstances and other people rather than take the time and discipline to change their lifestyles. A lot of the people who we have helped have succumbed to the poverty mentality, "Why should I change my lifestyle when I'm living alright on the taxpayer's dime?". As a result we have been getting burned pretty badly by people who take and take and take and when we finally confront them on their lifestyle or habits they disappear.

So I'm a bit disheartened. I don't want to cast people away who genuinely need our help, but at the same time I want to uphold the standard of "if a man don't work, a man don't eat". I wish there was a way that we could say, "Listen, we want to help you as much as we can, but you have meet us halfway and be willing and ready to make some changes as well". There's nothing fundamentally wrong in saying that is there?

I wish the answers were easy.

Well I guess it's about time that I mention the Dodgers.

At 3-5 it's hard to say that we're lighting the world on fire. I knew that at the beginning of the season we weren't going to get by offensively, but I thought that for sure that our pitching would be good enough to give us a substantial shot at the postseason. That said, I thought that we had significantly improved by getting rid of the twin out machines known as Karros and Grudz. Fred McGriff was a definite improvement over Karros and heck, throwing the bat boy out to hit for Grudz would be an upgrade.

Man who'da thunk that the Giants would come out like gangbusters and go 7-0 so far? Dusty Who? Jeff What? I'm not overly optimistic about knocking the Giants out of the top spot but I do think that we have a good shot at second place and the wildcard as Colorado is playing way above their mile-high heads. Yes, I still think that we have a legitimate shot at the playoffs if we can get a little more consistency out of our offense.

But to do that, the Dodgers have to get over the nostalgic romance they have with small ball. I'm an Earl Weaver/Billy Beane type of guy. Away with this talk of manufacturing runs, the days of the sacrifice bunt and stolen base are over. Yet the Dodger officials stubbornly maintain that this is "the Dodger way to play the game". Fine, great, but it's not going to win us championships anytime soon.

The Dodgers also need to improve their plate discipline. A few windmills like Jordan and McGriff don't bother me as long as we have the other guys being more selective at the plate. I don't know where we came in as far as walks and pitches per at bat but a team OPS of .729 is simply pitiful.

It's also time to pull the plug on the Adrian Beltre project. Dump him for some mid to high level prospects.

In approximately two hours, Cabes turns three years old.

I still remember that day, cramped in a delivery room for the first four hours of contractions. Karly, after having enough of the tight quarters, demanded an upgrade to the more spacious room with all the bells and whistles and a nice view. I thought about telling her that this wasn't Burger King, you can't supersize upon request, but the look on her face stayed my tongue. We secured the room, but by the time we could move into it, she was already well on the way to delivering. Ready or not, Caleb was coming wid a quickness. Karly remained firm, it was the big room or bust and no way did I want bust.

Being no way she could get up and walk to the room, it was up to me and three beefy nurses to get the job done. We kicked off the restraints of the hospital bed and got that bad boy rolling. Now, hospital beds are beguilingly heavy, at the time I had no idea that it would be a four man/nurse job. One nurse got at the head of the bed, two at the feet to steer and I was at her side. Little did I know that it would require more nurses than that to keep it on course....WHAM!, the bed rolled to the side and pinned me against the wall. Air left my body as my insides were pulverized to sausage filling. "Straighten up, push away from the wall", growled the nurses. Not willing to be shown up by three Nazis in rubber ducky surgical gowns, I mustered my strength and got the bed back on course.

Rolling through the halls, I noticed all the other ladies in waiting, at the beginning of their natal journeys. Eyes filled with hope and joy, turned quickly to pants-crapping terror as they heard the shrieks coming out of my drug-free (anesthiesiologist got held up) wife. Turning the last corner, I could feel the bed slip off course again. Closing my eyes, I braced myself for the inevitable...WHAM!! I was about to tell the nurses to get another delivery room free as I was about to give birth to my liver, when their merciless voices commanded me to get the bed rolling again. thus I did and we made it to the room.

We got into the room, the requisite tubes and monitors were taped on and we were ready to rock. One of the nurses, (we'll call her Nurse None-Too-Bright) suggests some local anesthetic for Karly, which at this point is like holding a raw chicken over an alligator pit. Of course she takes it and goes groggy THEREFORE SLOWING THE WHOLE PROCESS DOWN AND PROLONGING THE DELIVERY. The other nurses yell at her some for giving her the drugs, ver-r-r-ry professional, and by this time I feel more qualified to deliver the baby than they.

Fifteen minutes later, I am holding my 10 lb. purple and red faced baby boy. It turns out that he came out too fast and was bruised, poor baby. He's magnificent to behold and I look over at my wife, beautiful and sleepy. The next day Joshy comes to visit his baby brother and holds him quietly (one of the few times we found Josh speechless). The picture of Josh holding Cabes is one that I'll keep in my memory bank for a long time.

Happy Birthday Caleb.