Just Another Sheep

What a day. Iowa shuts out Syracuse, 35-0, Akron trips up Ohio State just enough to freak the Buckeyes out, and Michigan falls to Oregon. I love being a Hawkeye fan. Now I just hope the Badgers call pull off a victory against UNLV.

One three hour seminary class with Dr. Fuller: $519.00

Textbooks for aforementioned class: $42.00

Three chances to get Dr. Fuller soaked in a dunking booth: $1.00

Seeing Mrs. Fuller throw a bullseye and dunk her absolutely shocked husband:

Priceless.

…and even then I’d be a few miles short of the actual distance from Denver, CO, to Houston, TX. I know this because I actually DID drive the approximately 1140-ish miles between those two cities, and can testify that it’s a REALLY—LONG—WAY.

For those of you who don’t know, my sister and brother-in-law met at school in Denver, and after she graduated this last spring decided to relocate to TX so that she could do an MA at Rice, which had kindly offered to pay her for just such a purpose. We’re a close family, so naturally my folks, younger sister, and I all volunteered to come out and help get them, and all their worldly goods, to that “whole other country” that takes up so darn much of ours. How great an adventure it proved to be…

I should’ve known it was going to be a weird week when my connecting flight in Charlotte was delayed by 7 hours due to the fact that we had no flight crew. I think a couple passengers actually volunteered to fly the plane, which was at the gate, but no go–I mean, you know how touchy airlines are post-9/11, right? Remember the good old days when any old school superintendent or marine biologist could commandeer the cockpit? Yeah, neither do I, but a heck of a lot of grumpy passengers seemed to… Anyway, long story short, by the time I actually got to Denver, it was 2:30 a.m. EST, and I was zoned, having helped out with a wedding all weekend and then done a shift in the nursery Sunday morning before leaving Sunday afternoon. I managed to finally climb into bed at around 4:30, so Monday “morning” was a late one.

Most of Monday was spent cleaning the apartment, packing stuff in the truck with my dad (a veritable genius when it comes to practical geometry, among many, many other things), running errands, and squeezing all leftover objects into the folks’ van. In retrospect, we all should’ve slept more, though I’m not sure it would’ve helped. Our only glitch that day occurred when my parents discovered our motel had been magically “overbooked,” resulting in their having to give up their room and move to a place across town. Yay.

Tuesday dawned bright and early, and we all climbed into the cars for a long (12) hour day of driving. The caravan consisted of two sedans (one Honda, one Camry), Mom and Dad’s mini-van, and a Budget truck. After careful consideration, it was decided that wagon-train order should go Budget-Camry-Honda-van; I spent most of the trip driving one of the latter two. With four cars and only six drivers, it was guaranteed to be grueling, but there was always the hope of a short switch-out when we got tired, so we were optimistic.

We hit the road. We drove fast–really fast. And then, two hours after we started, after just having gone through a construction zone, and resuming a speed of about 82 mph, I saw a huge cloud of dust erupt from somewhere in the vicinity of the Camry, being driven by my married sister, and the truck immediately between us. And then huge chunks of tire begin flying back towards me, followed by the sight of my two sisters weaving around in their lane. A scary minute later, Heids had pulled off the road–followed by my mother and I, who both had to jam on our brakes to get over behind her on the shoulder–while the moving van, which was in front, had to turn around and come back. Diagnosis? Exploded (and I mean really torn up) right rear tire; Dad took one look at it and pronounced that the steel belt in it had saved my sisters’ lives, at which point I think Heids started to cry. She’d done a really good job driving it out, but it’s just scary, you know? So it’s two hours into the drive and we’re already on the side of the road, unpacking the trunk to get to the spare so that Dad can put it on the car. Here he is, wearing my bandana so that he doesn’t get a sunburned head. An effort in futility at some level; CO = high elevation, so we all ended getting burned beet red anyhow.

After the change, we drove slowly to Pueblo, 20 miles down the road, and spent three hours there while the Camry and Honda between them received six–yes six–new tires. A bit behind schedule, and strongly resembling cooked lobster in color, we departed for the next leg of our journey, which took us through beautiful southern Colorado…

…and northeastern New Mexico, a land I’d never had the pleasure of visiting before. Apparently it’s the land of enchantment, and I guess it did turn me into a newt. I got better…

Seriously folks, if you like majestic topography, GO to NM. There are plenty of beautiful bluffs to look at, and the skies are so big you feel as though your car might rebel against gravity and be swallowed up into them.

Now, obviously I didn’t take these pictures while driving; my mom would’ve killed me, after all, if she’d found out…No, after I’d driven the first few shifts my youngest sis decided to give me a break, so I rode with her as we made our way through such scenic places as Des Moines, NM, population one old truck and a pronghorn. Unfortunately, I think we also found the only near traffic jam in the whole state; while she was attempting to merge back from a “slow right” lane onto the regular two lane highway, we were nearly run over by a little red Mustang, necessitating an emergency evasion maneuver onto the shoulder which nearly caused a pile-up of Honda, van, and Budget truck. (Yep, this is still Day One).

At about this point, in middle of nowhere southwest, I began to feel yucky. You know, swollen throat, headache, chills, etc, to the point that I was wrapped up in a tablecloth I found in the back seat to keep warm even though the air in the car was completely off, I was in jeans, and New Mexico is…hot. And then…and then I started to feel sick to my stomach. I hoped it would go away. It didn’t, and by the time we stopped across the TX border to get dinner at McD’s and fill up the vehicles, I was forced to bolt to the bathroom and, er, technicolor yawn. I, of course, did not tell anyone this, as my sisters weren’t feeling up to driving given the catastrophes of earlier in the day; sick or not, there was nobody to drive for me, so I washed my face and walked back outside pretending I was fine. Once back in the car (alone) I set myself up with my jug o’ Sprite and begged God to get me through the next four hours of driving so that I could pass out at the motel. He did, and I did, basically sliding right out of the car onto the asphalt of the parking lot. I was sick as a dog, but my folks had brought meds for just such an eventuality, and promptly drugged me off to dreamland. It was great.

Day Two was–thank goodness–much less eventful in the majority, though even longer, as we rose later than we’d hoped to and had 13 hours ahead of us to begin with. No longer nauseous, but still feeling a bit cold-y, I was soon back in the driver’s seat, and drove most of the day; here’s a picture of my view for the majority of the ride:

After what felt like a million miles of…nothingness (there may be beautiful parts of TX, but we didn’t see any), myriad gas stations, a Sonic bathroom which boasted the biggest beetles I’ve ever seen, and six times through the Michael Card tape left in the car I was driving (iPod batteries don’t last forever, you know…), we arrived in Houston at 3:30 a.m., whereupon we were promptly almost run over by some escapee from a mental institution (or maybe it was a teenager?) driving–what else?–a truck the size of Detroit. Eventually we found our motel, though, and after some confusion about parking (have I mentioned I despise pre-pay parking lots??) and discovering my folks’ credit card wasn’t working at the check-in desk (the card company having decided it must’ve been stolen, given that Mom and Dad had been using it in NOT-Iowa…sigh), we finally crawled into bed at 4:30, knowing we had to be back up at 7:15 so that we could get apartment keys from an office that didn’t open until 9 while somehow unloading the truck…somewhere…, as it had to be returned to Budget by 10. Or so we thought.

We got up at 7:00. Not happily, but we were up. And then, after we were all dressed and ready to go, we discovered that due to a misunderstanding, the truck didn’t have to be back that day at 10. Nor at noon. Nor that day at all, for that matter; nope, it was due the following day at 2. We all fell back asleep; sorry if you were one of the folks who tried to get ahold of me during that part of the trip–I slept right through all calls that morning.

After that, though, the trip was pretty non-descript. You know, unpacking, losing some car keys, finding some car keys, trying to get credit card stuff straightened out, spending a million years at Target picking up necessities, getting lost in Houston with my sister and brother-in-law… For all the craziness that this trip was, though, and for all the fatigue I think it left us with, I really enjoyed the time with my family, and hey, as family moves go, this was low-key. Think I’m kidding? Ask me about it sometime. Now I just have to gear up for the next one…in two years Heids and Brit are moving again. To Minneapolis. *Weeps.*

Ok, Ok, I know it’s been a LONG time since my last blog entry, and I offer no excuses. But if my readers (all 3 of you) can hold on for just another day or two, I promise to have an entertaining and picture-filled entry for your enjoyment up here soon. It’s been an eventful last couple of weeks…

Hope everyone’s summer’s been going well.

This last weekend I bought a fish–a Siamese Fighting Fish (a.k.a. a Betta fish), to be precise. He’s a red/purple/blue/black Veil Tail with long, flowy fins and is named Dolph Lundfin, christened in honor of the very B movie actor Dolph Lundgren, veteran of such cinematographic masterpieces as Rocky IV and Showdown in Little Tokyo (which ironically I saw in China about 15 times–on a bus). For those of you who’ve seen Dolph the man, I ask you, could you name a fighting fish for anyone else? I mean other than “Admiral Ackbar,” of course, who naturally ended up being the namesake of my roommate’s new fish. Here’s a picture of Dolph in all his fishy glory, though the water kept my camera from doing justice to his vibrant color:

It’s been interesting being a pet owner again, even of such a small, hands-off pet as a fish, because a surprisingly large amount of pride and satisfaction flows from taking care of another living creature. Obviously this desire to love and provide for a totally dependent being exterior to oneself is most strongly and profoundly reflected in child-rearing, but I think it’s also significant that many/most humans experience an impulse to have and nurture other living elements of creation, whether the object(s) of that tending (and tendency) be a vegetable garden, some beautiful rosebushes, a puppy, a horse, or just a humble fish. We as humans are commanded in Genesis 1’s “Cultural Mandate” to have dominion over the earth and subdue it, and I think humanity’s fundamental (if subconscious) understanding of that first assignment is demonstrated by our attachment to and fascination with the things that grow, walk, creep, run, and swim on this planet.

This “instinctive” attachment to creation may perhaps also help us to understand what it means to be made in God’s image. Obviously the “image question” is a really huge topic, and I won’t attempt to even scratch the surface of the discussion, so what follows is the most cursory of thoughts. It’s been held that if we assume (and I grant you, this is a large assumption) that our resemblance to God is more than some structural attribute in our character which mirrors an element of His, if it implies more than just an ability to experience relational connections with Him and with others who bear His image, the conclusion reached is that we must reflect His character in our function on this planet, that is, in being its stewards, God’s administrators, His plenipotentiaries on earth. God enjoys creating, and we are privileged to enjoy being a part of the ongoing creation of all things–He has set the creation order in place, and given man an innate desire to promote the fluid continuance of that order. (Of course, this natural tendency is tainted by sin, to the point that many people are terrible stewards of the natural world in which we live, but as far as my limited knowledge extends, there aren’t many who enjoy the wanton destruction of nature.) Our desire to have, understand, and foster the extension of God’s remarkable creation is a demonstration of His goodness to us, for what a blessing it is to be part of His world, and to have been given such an awesome responsibility in being His regents. The fact that it’s possible to experience happiness at seeing a small finned creature frolic around in a bowl full of fresh water and plants I believe provides significant testimony both to one of man’s most fundamental purposes as well as to the Lord’s generosity in allowing us to take active roles (and pleasure) in the running of this world.

I hope all of that makes sense. It’s not meant to be a terribly insightful theological discussion, merely a commitment to “e-paper” of the few predominant ideas which have been (pardon the pun) swimming around inside my head recently. Thoughts? Critiques? Advice for new fighting fish owners?

Spam has just gone too far. This afternoon, when checking the cache (because there’s ALWAYS a ton) in the blocker I’ve got installed on this blog, this was the scintillating advertising awaiting me: “Canadian government pottery 15.” Whaa?? I didn’t know our northern (bureaucratic) neighbors were in the business of fashioning clay into usable and/or fashionable vessels. Perhaps “15″ indicates the number of pots produced per day? I’m so lost.

It would seem that the name Amnesty International has now become a misnomer… According to an article by Ryan Anderson in First Things, not only has AI rewritten its neutral position on abortion to include an explicit statement that the notion of reproductive rights entails the right to an abortion, it’s also done what it can to conceal the change in its ethic. Yuck. I highly recommend checking out Anderson’s article.

The schoolyear has officially finished up, and as always I find myself both relieved and filled with a sort of anticlimactic stillness. After weeks of reading, writing, cramming, testing, papers, quizzes, presentations, and no sleep, it’s always difficult to believe that that annual period of relative calm known as summer has at last made its appearance. I have sorely neglected the upkeep of this blog, but do have some ideas brewing for future posts; for tonight, however, they’re on the back burner as my fevered brain struggles to regain its full function (which, sadly, isn’t much to speak of in the best of times). To those who have been gracious enough to stop by, may your summer be one of safety, relaxation, and continued learning. I look forward to getting back into the swing of full-blown blogging soon.

I believe I have just had a near-death experience, for tonight I survived an assault by one of the world’s most dangerous and deadly animals: a black jumping spider. Unfortunately enough (for him), in the midst of his arachnid wanderings, this chap became lost and very unwisely decided to enter my abode.

Now, had a snake, or a rat, or nearly any other type of loathsome creature (yes, including IRS agents) succeeded in gaining entrance to the apartment, I would have been much less upset. Oddly, I am neither disgusted nor frightened by reptiles nor rodents (nor for that matter government officials as a rule), but spiders are a completely different story; when I look at a spider, all I see is red. And this fellow in particular was no looker.

He was about the size of a kayak, had a flame thrower, sported a nefarious mustache and green cape, and was waving his enormous legs at me in a most threatening and agitated manner. Ok, really he was black, hairy, naked (can a spider be naked?), and about the size of a green grape, just crawling across my ceiling looking shifty and being severely aesthetically unpleasant, but still…

It was to his misfortune that he entered the apartment of a 3rd-level black belt spider-killer, because I just cannot countenance arachnids. My method for dealing with them has become more subtle as I’ve aged, I admit, and I do quite a bit less screaming now when confronted with an 8-legged fiend, but the ultimate result of any contact between me and a spider has typically been the same; in true Braveheart fashion I begin to foam at the mouth, lose all sense of rationality, and–in this state of elevated adrenaline–enter a murderous rage which has previously always resulted in the demise or banishment of my enemy. Tonight was no different.

I should note that the lack of a picture above reflects my inability to find a photo which adequately depicts the wickedness of the dread beastie that barged its way into my living room tonight. And alas, as I was in process of simultaneously working to destroy the intruder and panicking because of its very presence, I did not find the time to take a picture of the villain myself; I begin to think that even if I could have, I certainly would not wish to inflict mental terror on my readers by posting it on the web (ha ha ha. All right, lame joke) for everyone to see. It is my prayer that there will not be spiders in heaven, for if there be, I can only hope that human glorification involves receiving retractable RAID cans in one’s arms…

Have a mentioned yet that I loathe spiders?

In case any of you have been contemplating seeing the movie “Ghostrider” and wanted a seriously abbreviated review, here it is, for your reading pleasure:

Ghostrider: WORST comic book theology EVER. Seriously.

When it comes to the point that you can’t determine who the good guy is in a film because the conflict is between the devil’s hellfire-empowered slave and the devil’s demon son, you know you’ve got yourself, well, something screwed up. And interestingly, when Ghostrider’s not hunting down the up-and-coming demon, he uses his “Satan-curse” powers to, um, fight evil (whaaaa?); of course, as everyone knows, the only truly guilty people on earth are killers and biker thugs, so most of society’s safe from him. But just in case that’s not confusing enough for you, at the end, right as “Old Hob” is about to keep a promise (sorta missed the motivation for that, I confess), the Rider says he’s going to use his own power against him, leaving the devil thwarted and angry. I know the movie’s based on a comic book and all (and let me say, yes, I am a comic fan, and no, I’m not a subscriber to the demon-around-every-corner Frank Peretti philosophy), but I do think that trivializing demonic evil in film is sort-of a bad idea. So while Ghostrider met all the qualifications of an acceptable action movie, for me (at least), it was hard to wade through all the bad theology to appreciate that.

Dissenters? Supporters? Other comic book-related thoughts?