presentsense

Random brain-droppings on Ted Haggard...

Wow...so many things I feel about the mass media exposure of Ted Haggard's "gory details" last night, first on HBO, and then on CNN. It's hard to put this into essay form, so I think I will bullet out the things one by one...

• Ted Haggard is a sinner. I am too. We don't sin the same way, but he's no worse than I am. He's just more exposed.
• Alexandra Pelosi is Ted's (unlikely) friend, and she played on the emotions of sympathy and compassion in her audience last night by emphasizing the way Ted has been shunned by his faith community. The shame here, though, in my estimation, is on the faith community, not Pelosi. To insist that Ted leave the state of Colorado is an abuse of already non-biblical authority. Ted complied, it would seem, to salvage for his family a modicum of hope that they would get back to the life they once knew, or at least some of it.
• The fact that Ted is virtually un-employable outside the church further illustrates the co-dependence that churches and pastors have on each other, and begs questions like - "What other secrets are being systematically covered up in congregations all over the world?" or "How many church leaders are struggling with unmentionable sin or hypocrisy, lying about it, and being eaten alive from the inside out - having their families destroyed in the process - out of fear of exposure and the subsequent feeding frenzy of cannibal 'Christians'?"
• Gayle Haggard doesn't have much else to lose, and stands to gain a lot if things are handled well, but make no mistake - she is faithful and supportive, and walks out her marriage vows in a remarkable way.
• Ted's pointing to childhood "gay sex play" as the reason for his homosexual urges today won't help gays gain acceptance, or even tolerance, in the evangelical church.  It will just add fuel to the "pray it out of 'em" mentality.
• I for one believe Ted when he said he bought meth and then didn't use it. It takes a certain amount of guts for an otherwise clean-cut white-bread Christian man to take a drug like meth. I imagine he chickened out on that one. He admitted that he bought it, so he's not trying to hide from the authorities on that count. I'm just saying I believe it.
• Ted is from Yorktown, Indiana (very close to my hometown of Anderson). My Dad told me he thought that was true when we were back there for the holidays, and I just confirmed it on Wikipedia. His dad was a veterinarian who cast out demons on the side. True story.

That's all for now. I am following this story very closely, and may have something more coherent to say soon. Stay tuned.

toofaches

It's been an interesting couple of days here on the ranch. Stephanie developed a tooth ache a few days ago that got progressively worse. She was alternating advil and tylenol every two hours but nothing was really working. She got in to see a dentist yesterday who didn't do much to help. They took x-rays and rooted around in the tooth enough to find out that she has infection and decay underneath an already root-canaled and crowned tooth. (#15 - molar - if you are playing along at home). I wasn't there, but Steph made it sound like the dentist actually pulled the crown back, looked, and then put it back on (not sure if that's possible). The dentist clearly was not sure of the diagnosis, so she gave Steph a script for penicillin and vikes and sent her to an endodintist. Next Wednesday (not gonna work).

Vikes don't really work for Steph, so she literally writhed in pain all night last night. This morning, I called the dentist to tell them we need a new plan. We want the tooth out, not fixed. Evidently, the dentist doesn't pull molars, so we now have an appointment at an oral surgeon at 2:15 today. I will be going with her to make sure the doctor gets the job done. Stay tuned.

Please come tell me if you suffer from eye floaters

Read these two articles and let me know if this is something you experience:

http://www.eye-floaters.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floater

I have had these as long as I can remember, but I can't say that I ever remember talking to anyone about it, including doctors or optometrists.  I figured it happened to everybody. Now I am not so sure. I put this post up as a bit of a social experiment. If you don't have this condition, you will totally think these websites are a joke, but if not, you will totally get what they are talking about.  Comment here and let me know how crazy or alone I am...

Jermaine's last day at work???

If I only had the Nerve...

My goal for today...

...is to be a better witness for Jesus than Oprah is for weight-control.

Luke and Leia and ethical conundrums. (or...Two Births and a Funeral)

Hayden (8 yrs. old) asked me last night who was older, Luke Skywalker, or Princess Leia. I told him that I thought they were twins, so they were the same age. He reminded me that even with twins, one is born first, and of course I conceded his point and said that I didn't know who was older. (Some Star Wars nerd must know the answer - surely they wrote it down somewhere). Anyway, conversation between me and Hayden over, my mind started racing to find far reaching implications.

So here's the thing: First, let me say that I know that since Luke and Leia are of the opposite sex, then they must be fraternal twins, right? Which means that their conception likely did not occur in the exact same nanosecond, so one must be older than the other, but it would be empirically impossible to tell which was older.

If however, they had been identical, the biology presents an interesting "other" situation. Basically, I'll put it this way: Identical twins occur when a growing zygote splits into two separate embryos. This happens at a distinct singular moment in time. Before this singularity, one zygote exists, and after, two embryos exist. So, which of the resulting twins is older (in the Christian/Chinese sense)? The answer is that they are both the same age. But then, life began before that, right? - at conception. Well then, what happened to the life that gave rise to the two lives at the singularity? Was it a separate "other" life? I would contend that it was, and that therefore, again using the life begins at conception logic, that a funeral is in order for the life that somehow ceased to be at the split.

If you wanted to take the converse approach - that one of the lives began at conception, and that the second one was formed "out of" the other, what would we have then? One gives rise to the other? One would not exist were it not for the other? One life depends on the existence of the other and a freak mutation? Is this ambiguity the reason that the majority of Americans SAY life beings at conception, but PRACTICE (through dates of birth) that life begins at birth?

Freaking dogs, and the freaking things they freaking do!

So, knew this day would come, just not this soon. I am going to have to tell Vickie that she is adopted. That dog led me on a 90 minute chase around a shopping center last night beginning about 8:30 PM, and ending sometime after 10. I wanted to shoot over to Blockbuster, and she hopped in the car to go with me, and I thought, "no big deal, she likes to go on short rides" (that was my first mistake). As I was pulling out of the driveway, I realized I did not have my phone, but I thought, "no big deal, I'll be back in 15 minutes." (second critical lapse in judgment).

An hour and a half later, I come screaming home to find my totally freaked out wife standing on the front step, about to get in the car herself and drive toward Blockbuster, herself knowing that she would find my van flipped over in a ditch somewhere along the way, and me muttering something about angels and white lights while my car fills with murky wet death.

These are the moments that take years off our lives, you know?

So anyway, Vickie is adopted. No one knows who her father is, and her mom gave all of her brothers and sisters up at birth. We found her at a doggie-orphanage, and we only picked her because we liked the looks of her fur markings. Feel free to pass the word along. I couldn't care less if it hurts her feelings.

Lessons learned:

• Never let the dog get in the car, if you intend to open your door at your destination.
• Never leave your phone at home, no matter how short you expect the trip to be.
• Don't chase a dog that's running away from you. That makes them run farther and faster.
• Don't own a dog that runs faster than you.
• Carry some yummy treats in the glove compartment at all times, or a tranquilizer gun.
• When someone asks, "Is that your dog?" say, "No, it was here when I pulled up. I am just trying to get it in the car for its own safety and the well-being of my fellow citizens."
• Don't try to walk into Blockbuster in hopes that the dog will follow you and you can grab her collar, especially if there is a two year old girl just inside the doors of said Blockbuster.
• People will tell you they are "dog-people' until you need help with your dog.
• A dog wagging its tail at a time like this is proof of just how stupid it is. My tail was clearly not wagging.
• Dumpster corrals behind abandoned fast food restaurants are not a good place to corner a loose dog.  They know what you are trying to do.
• Dogs don't like gumballs, no matter how noisily you shake the bag.
• No one cares if your cat, hamster, or turtle is running around a parking lot at 10 o'clock. I am getting the kids a turtle.
• When you stop chasing a dog and feign disinterest, she will jump into the car, put her head in your lap and start licking your hand. This is NOT the time to return affection. This is the time to start a week-long silent-treatment and online character assassination crusade against the dog, after you tell her what a stupid bitch (look it up) she is.

Resolution 2009

Last year, I believe I made two resolutions and posted them here on this blog:

Listening to my iTunes Library all the way through

Not buying anything "brand new"

OK, so on the latter, we did pretty well. I don't have any numbers to crunch on it, and we did lapse a bit at Christmas once again, but throughout the rest of the year we pretty much stayed on target. I can't think of one CD or Book that I actually bought for myself brand new. I did acquire quite a bit of downloaded music and used CDs. But most everything - including this snazzy iMac on which I type - was bought used or refurbished.

So on the former, I did not succeed, but I did not fail. I started the year with some 9,000 or so tracks to listen to, but then I changed computers, and in the process of that, the play counts on every track in my library were wiped out, which left me with 14,000 tracks, all with zero play count. So I started over, and got that number down to around 5,000 by 12/31. Technically, that means I did listen to at least 9,000 tracks, just not the list I had originally identified. So by special dispensation (by me to me), I have carried that goal over to 2009.

As for a new goal - here goes:

I would like to discipline myself to write one new song each month of 2009. That's it.

On creativity

Lately, it's been a real struggle for me to get motivated about my job. Like most jobs, it's stressful, of course, and as with many jobs, that stress is not counter-balanced with physical activity, so most of the stress gets internalized, and that's not good for me. I get that. I am working on strategies to deal with that aspect of it. You do realize of course that the entire fitness industry is a result of the fact that our economy moved from being based on physical labor primarily (farming, fishing, building, hunting, trapping, etc) to knowledge work and other sedentary pursuits (computer and phone-based jobs). If you plowed your forty in the morning, there was usually no need to hit the gym for a spin class in the afternoon, but I digress.

On a spiritual level, I think my problem can be closely tied to the fact that what I do for a living is rarely - if ever - creative. Over the last two years, my role has been primarily focused on resource management - matching up new engineering requests with available engineers. Shuffling work around. The only thing I do that could even be remotely considered creative is working with spreadsheets. I know that whatever I do I should do to the glory of God, but spreadsheets are not was I was created for. I don't think too highly of myself - trust me on that - but my talent is not nearly maxed out by choosing a new font or making the critical decision of whether or not to Center justify. I know what I do adds value to my team, my boss, and my company, but I am having a real hard time finding proof that I am adding any value to me, beyond my paycheck.

How about you? Are you a creative type? Does what you do for a living exercise that talent? If not, are you frustrated with it? What do you do about it?