Yup... Grandpa died.

I got the call last night at 12:45am and chatted with my dad for about half an hour. He wants to fly me up to Butte on Grandpa's frequent flyer miles to do the memorial -- I'm honored.

Sounds like I'll be going up on Thursday evening and coming back on Friday or Saturday. I really need to have some sort of weekend, so I'm hoping I can get back Friday, but these aren't the kind of things you can really just plan around your schedule -- kind of a deific haha on all our best laid plans.

Fuego and Ginger I were going to go camping with Some-of-the-time-girlfriend from Thursday to Saturday... now we're not.

Fuego would like to be able to go too (I did propose to her in Grandpa's kitchen on Christmas night 2002, and she and he got on wonderfully), but the family can only afford to fly Bro-head and I out, so neither Cocktail Monkey nor Fuego will be able to go.

Speaking of Some-of-the-time-girlfriend, his cat Teo will be bording with us for a couple of weeks while he's camping...it's like an extended kitty slumber party for Fred (unfortunately, that means Ginger is the "little" sister who gets mocked and teased and tormented by Fred's friend until he goes home again -- yet we know she loves it ;o)

I'll post today's sermon below... I'll have to post the one from Tuesday the 18th tomorrow (I wrote that one at work, so I don't have it here at home). If I get comments to the effect that they're desired, I'll post some archives of previous sermons as well (I think I have about six to ten of them saved from St. Oldchurch's and seminary).

Sermon from Sunday 30 July.

Readings: (only preached on gospel this week) John 6:1-21

Last week in his sermon, Father Rector talked to us about faith and action in the gospel of Mark's rendition of the feeding of the five thousand. Today we hear John's version. Very similar to Mark, John tells us, in the first part of today's gospel, the story of a miraculous feeding based in the same faith and action themes that Father Rector preached about last week. But we hear a different emphasis in today's Gospel. While Mark emphasizes that Jesus taught the crowds all day and then fed them when it grew late, John gives us a different perspective on the story, and along with the continuing story of Jesus walking on water, teaches us a different lesson.

In John's version, the feeding takes the main emphasis. Jesus takes the opportunity to teach the disciples (and the people) about the abundance of the kingdom of God by intentionally setting them up with an impossible question: "Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?"

Understandably flabbergasted by Jesus question, Philip is the first to state the obvious fact that there is no earthly way they could possibly buy enough bread for everyone to even get a mouthful, much less satisfy their hunger.

Andrew, trying to point out the hopelessness of the request, says "there's a boy here with five barley loaves and two fish… but what are they among so many?"

Where the pivotal moment in Mark's version of the story was Jesus telling the disciples to go and find out how many loaves they had, this is the pivotal moment in John's telling.

A boy – a child – it seems, has enough faith to offer what he has in service to those around him. Acting on this young boy's faith, Jesus gladly accepts his offering, blesses the impossibly insignificant gifts, and proceeds to feed all five thousand people, collecting 12 baskets full of leftovers at the end of the meal.

The differences in John's story are fairly minor on the surface, but looking more deeply, we find that they are fairly significant in what they emphasize. Jesus' emphasis on the feeding in this version of the story stresses the importance of the amazing abundance of God's kingdom, as well as our access to it, but John also slips in an aspect that none of the other three gospels include – an aspect that teaches us something very important about humankind, the disciples, and most importantly, ourselves. Between the feeding and the disciples departing without Jesus, John tells us that the people recognize Jesus as the messiah. But, misunderstanding Christ's purpose, they seem about to take him by force and set him up as king – so Jesus departs from them and goes back up the mountain by himself.

Whether it be the crowds, the disciples, or even us today, we miss the point when we, seeking a central figure to elevate, fail to see what Jesus is teaching us in this story. What is achieved through the faith of one individual, who seems to fall into the background of the story, is the central importance of today's gospel. Always seeking to point out Christ's tendency to turn the system on its head, John stresses that the loaves and fishes came from a boy. A child acting through faith accomplishes what twelve men who have witnessed countless miracles in Jesus' presence cannot – he, it seems, is the only one in this story who gets that it is US that make the miracle happen. It takes the innocent faith of a child, untainted by knowledge of human frailty and limitations, to step out and teach the disciples what God's kingdom is truly about – seeking in faith to serve those around us through hope and love by offering what little we might have in the here and now. Through this boy, John drives home the point that children – considered as the lowest in the traditional hierarchy of family and society – not only have access to the kingdom of God, but can teach all of us a lot about what Jesus was about. Like Father Rector was saying last week, whatever any of us has to offer, impossibly insignificant as it may be, is more than enough for God to use to demonstrate the awesome abundance of God's kingdom in our midst. And through this faithful giving, we ourselves can witness the miracle of God's abundance. But, as John demonstrates through the crowds and through the disciples, simply looking to a central figure to make it happen isn't enough.

John tells us next that when evening came, Jesus' disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.

Following on the heels of this miraculous feeding, the disciples – as a group – leave Jesus behind on the mountain and row five miles out to sea where they get caught in a storm. The next time they see Jesus, they see him with new eyes…

I grew up with stories from the Bible, I was baptized when I was a baby, I had a whole collection of children's Bible storybooks, I went to Sunday School, I even helped teach Sunday School with my mom when I was in fifth grade. I had it all figured out. Jesus was God's son, who sat up in heaven in the clouds next to God – who had a big white beard – and looked down on earth from a safe distance away. It was a neat and tidy faith that fit comfortably into a Sunday morning and wasn't too much of a bother the rest of the week as I played with my friends and went to school to learn about science and human wisdom. The problem was that over time it was also easy to leave behind. God was too distant to really matter to my life in the modern world. I left the church after I was confirmed in sixth grade, searching for something I didn't know how to find and not really even knowing what I was looking for.

Six years later I found myself, through no fault of my own, I assure you, at my best-friend's Episcopal youth group. Though he had literally tricked me into agreeing to go, I reluctantly found that I enjoyed myself and that I wanted to go back. A few months later (having become a regular at youth group), I found myself, again through no fault of my own, at a youth retreat called Happening (called "Search" in this diocese). Happening and Search are spiritual retreats planned and led almost entirely by youth for other youth who have not experienced the retreat before (it's essentially a teen version of Cursillo). In my own story, Happening was one of those pivotal moments after which I would never be the same. Much like the boy in today's gospel, I brought my impossibly insignificant offering of a confused and searching heart to that weekend and learned first hand about the abundance of God's kingdom. Through the personal stories of my peers, learning to trust and live in Christian community with them, through music, scripture, and the amazing outpouring of Christ's love that I experienced that weekend, I was truly fed for the first time in over six years. I saw God with new eyes, and it was simultaneously terrifying, life changing, awe inspiring, and indescribably amazing to find God not somewhere at a safe distance, but living, breathing, and working in my own life.

Having climbed into my little boat and rowed away for six years from the Jesus I knew, I suddenly saw him walking out across the sea to meet me where I was, and it was as if I was seeing him for what he is for the first time.

There is something significant about the sea that marks transition in how the disciples see Jesus. Matthew, Mark, and John each use these stories in similar ways, but again, John throws a little twist into the story that makes us think.

After witnessing the abundance of the Kingdom of God, and seeing Jesus evade the people trying to make him an earthly king, the disciples leave with some rethinking to do. John's use of darkness to signify turmoil, confusion, and hardship is appropriate to what the disciples must be experiencing as they row out to sea. Finding themselves in a storm, they shortly thereafter see Jesus walking on the water and are terrified until they hear his voice saying "it is I; do not be afraid." Other gospel versions of this moment justify the disciples' terror saying they thought it was a ghost, but I believe John does not do so for a specific reason. It is as though the disciples are seeing Jesus for the first time for what he is. He is not an earthly ruler. He is not a mighty warrior. He is the steward of God's compassion, mercy, love, and most importantly, he is demonstrating, through his life and work, the kingdom of God. But perhaps what is most frightening – and is why I believe John points out the misconception of the crowds and why he sends the disciples off alone in turmoil – is that Jesus expects the disciples to be able to tap into that same incomprehensible abundance and do it as well.

I have seen many examples of the abundance of God's kingdom since Happening. Coming forward from that moment of clarity, I found myself no longer able to deny God's call to me to strive in every part of my life to live into that same abundance that five-thousand (…and twelve…) people experienced on a hillside by the sea of Galilee – simply because a small boy believed that his gift of five loaves and two fish could somehow help feed them.

As Father Rector challenged us last week, so too are we challenged by John this week to step out in faith and act, however insignificant we think our gift may be. But even more so today, John reminds us that this is the same challenge that each of us accepts in Baptism when we agree to "proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ," "to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving [our] neighbor[s] as [ourselves]," to strive "for justice and peace among all people," and to "respect the dignity of every human being." As Christians, we are called to continue to work as Christ's body in the world. Much like Jesus' disciples, we are put in charge of continuing to bring about the abundance of God's kingdom today. If this sounds a little scary, we're given the image of the disciples alone on the stormy sea, terrified when they realize what Christ is really all about, yet convicted of their faith and moved into action that continued to shine forth when Christ sent them the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. If it's more than we think we can handle, we're taken back to that small child who, just as Father Rector called us to do last week, stepped out in faith – that impossibly insignificant as his gift was, somehow God would make it enough.

God grant us the courage to bring our gifts before you in faith, and through our efforts, small as they may seem in the face of impossible odds, may we help to bring your kingdom near. In Christ, Amen

Fuego and I went to see "An Inconvenient Truth" this afternoon... awesome!

I have been putting off restoring my '66 Mustang for a lot of years now because of the environmental impact of putting another V8 on the road -- and the financial impact of only getting around 12-20 miles per gallon!

Having watched this film, I'm pretty much convinced of my previous concerns... thus I spent about six hours this afternoon researching electric conversions for gas powered vehicles =o)

While it will be considerably more expensive to restore the Mustang as an EV (around 10-15k instead of 5k), I will have a uniquely awesome modern classic that I can be very proud to take to the streets.

Performance wise, EVs can easily top 100 mph, and by today's standards, can easily have a range of over 100 miles. They are also capable of doing 0-60 in about 4.5 seconds (in case you were concerned that I'd be taming one of America's great muscle cars), and with the added use of ultracapacitors and regenerative braking systems (see, I have been studying), it will easily outperform it's gasoline internal combustion engine (ICE) counterparts. Of course, there is also the updating of the brakes, heater, AC, etc. that I would have to do anyway, but, with an EV, things like AC don't pose a threat to performance the way they would in ICE's (horsepower is drained every time you add another pulley and belt to an ICE... not so with EVs).

As you can see, I'm pretty excited about it right now... I'll have to get back to you when I get the estimates from the conversion experts (I really don't want to do it myself with a car that's as important to me as the inherited '66 mustang!).

In the meantime, I'll continue driving the life out of my 1990 Integra... which at 225,000 miles still gets an average of 30 mpg in town and up to 40 highway (better than many of the less economic hybrids out there! ;o)

For more information that you can shake a stick at, check out: Advanced Electric Vehicle Conversion Project, or for a quick look at a lot of projects (including a 66 rag top just like mine), check out the EV Conversion Photo Album.

Well... Grandpa isn't doing so hot. Probably won't last more than another day. I went out to visit him this spring when he was on his third pneumonia of the year. He's been fighting small cell lung cancer for about six months (possibly longer), and since the chemo almost killed him the first time around, he hasn't really been able to do anything to treat it.

It was great getting to visit him, he asked me to bring him communion, which was probably the first time he'd had it in about twenty years (quite an honor!), then I was there long enough to see him home from the hospital before I had to go back home again. I pretty much knew then that it was the last time I'd get to see him.

He's been in and out of the hospital since then, the pneumonia never really goes away and the cancer has been spreading to the rest of his chest cavity and his abdomen.

I spoke with him briefly today to let him know I loved him and to say goodbye again. He's still lucid, though he's on morphine to help with anxiety and such. I don't know if they'll ask me to do the funeral or not... I kind of hope for the latter, but I would (of course) do it if they asked.

He was a WWII bomber pilot who flew over thirty missions (life expectancy was about ten to fifteen). He once got shot down over the English Channel and landed the plane so well that it floated for ten minutes before it sank to the bottom (everyone got out alive). Another time he was shot down over enemy lines and spent ten weeks hiding in hey fields and traveling by night to get over the border into a friendly country... just so he could get put back in the air for more missions.

As a grandfather, he was wonderful! He's the only grandfather I had growing up as my mom's dad died when she was four. Lot's of great memories!

Well... off to toast Grandpa's life! (Join me if you've got something aged, alcoholic, and tasty!)

Sermons!!

It occurs to me that this might be a fun place to put up some sermons... so I'm going to.

This one was from the 9th of July (I'm not going to post more than one at a time -- just gets too long!).

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The readings for this Sunday were: 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10, Psalm 123, 2 Corinthians 12:2-10, and Mark 6:1-13.

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The first time I was asked to preach at my home parish after going away to seminary was in my final year at The Church Divinity School of the Pacific. It had been two and a half years since I had last been there, and while excited for the opportunity to come back to preach, I was also terrified that people would be thinking – who does this man think he is? Isn't this the acolyte, the son of Guinevere? For the past two and a half years, I had been studying diligently in preparation for ordination. I had by then taken the majority of my courses, I had been a leader in my seminary community, I was even the head sacristan (which means I was in charge of preparations for our 16 weekly worship services in the seminary chapel)… I was just one semester away from being ordained. But I had been none of these things when I left St. Mark's. I very carefully prepared my sermon for that day, knowing I would be getting up in the front of the church on our sacred day to teach the people… today's gospel reading was quite prevalent in my mind. Would they grant me the authority to teach amongst them?

We see in today's readings, three different examples of a community's response to authority… each leader is different, and each is in a different time period, but the common thread is that in each case it is a group of people connected by their faith and reacting together.

In the case of David, we have a military leader, blessed by God with great prowess in battle, great skill in strategy, and great faith. He is charismatic, youthful, and has recently been made King of Judea – set up against Saul who is still King of Israel. After a long battle between Saul's armies and his own, David has gained more and more of the popular support, resulting in today's reading with the people of Israel inviting David to become their King. Saul is dead, as is his son Jonathan (David's beloved friend), Saul's other son Ishbaal has agreed to give Saul's daughter to David in marriage (thereby substantiating David's claim to Saul's throne), Ishbaal's main military advisor has been killed, and just before today's readings, Ishbaal himself was killed by men who tried to claim a reward with David for the assassination only to be condemned by David for the callous slaughter. Unlike Jesus' hometown associates, David's people acclaim him and ask him to be their king. They recognize his gifts, they recognize God's blessing and anointing of David as ruler over all of Israel, and they lift him up from within their midst to be their king.

In Corinthians, we see a conflicted community. We enter the story in the middle of a three-chapter-long rant in which Paul defends his missionary status and gospel message against those whom he disdainfully calls "super-apostles." The community, which had originally accepted Paul's message and leadership has apparently been entertaining other ideas coming from leadership sources other than Paul – in his absence, they seem to be seeking new leadership and falling away from Paul's teachings. In today's readings, Paul has entered into a prototypical schoolyard debate tactic and is mocking his opposition. In "foolishness" he boasts as his opposition boasts, but Paul, of course, does it better. (Sort of like the old argument of whose parents are cooler ending with "oh ya? Well my Daddy's a ninja!"). It is one guess that the "thorn" in Paul's flesh may actually be a specific opponent in his ministry.

In our Gospel reading, we have a third example of a community responding to authority. Jesus stops by his hometown in the whirlwind tour of miracles and parables of Mark's gospel. Maybe he hasn't been home since his baptism in the Jordan, maybe it's been longer than that… whatever the reason, his hometown remembers him simply as the carpenter son of Mary. When he shows up in the synagogue on the Sabbath teaching, they question his authority, they question his teachings, they question his wisdom, and they question his ability to perform miracles. Precious few, it seems, even entertain the thought that he may have acquired gifts since leaving home that he could now offer to them, and ask him to heal them (which he does). Even Jesus himself was amazed at their unbelief.

[pause] Thankfully, my fears about preaching at St. Mark's were in vain. Much like Amy's first experience presiding here last week, my sponsoring community was wonderfully attentive and supportive, and (as it must have been for Amy) the overall experience was both exhilarating and amazing.

It seems that part of the puzzle of how a community will react to God's authority as acted out through individuals (or communities for that matter) lies in how radical the agent's message is. In the case of David, the people knew very well what to expect. David had been acting as God's agent since he slew Goliath as a boy, and had continued to act in expected ways from that time until his reign as king began. Paul was more controversial than David… a less expected message of God's kingdom and Good News came from his ministry. It was compelling and amazing, but also confusing. When other authorities with a similar message came, it was easy for them – while new in their faith in Christ – to be led astray from Paul's teachings. It wasn't necessarily even that they were rejecting Paul's teachings, but believed that they were augmenting them in his absence.

Jesus, on the other hand, was truly a radical. His life and ministry from the time of his baptism to the time of his death (and even more so beyond his resurrection) were diametrically opposed to the systems of domination and oppression that characterized the patriarchal hierarchy of Judaism, Rome, and most of the world in his day and age. Jesus' message of radical love (loving your neighbor – i.e. the warring clans at your borders as well as your clans-people – as yourself), radical inclusion (even including Samaritan women of questionable reputation), radical re-conception of family structures (family as defined by those who love and respect us and believe as we believe rather than who we're born into), and radical conception of God as dwelling within us and being a God of grace and healing and love was all too much for his hometown. Others who never knew his humble beginnings might be able to hear God's word in the message of the Word made flesh, but his hometown associates know all too well how and where he grew up, who his family is and what his assigned trade was before he started his ministry. To them he was far too ordinary and far too familiar to carry God's sacred word – especially with a message as radical as Jesus preached!

Amy and I, similar to David's experience, were already raised up by our communities to go through the ordination process. Our homecoming after serving in other communities was a fulfillment of our communities' hopes for us rather than a contradiction. Our receptions, accordingly, were joyful and receptive.

Looking at the opposite extreme, there has been a lot of talk in the Anglican Communion over the past few years about the nature of authority. Bishop Gene Robinson's consecration would probably be closer to the radical end of the spectrum in terms of homecomings. In the wake of The Episcopal Church in the United States' confirmation of Bishop Robinson, our authority was called into question both Biblically and Hierarchically, and we have continued to be shunned and scolded for what have been called our theological "innovations."

In setting out to give the theological reckoning that the Anglican Communion requested, we responded as a Church with a document called "To Set Our Hope on Christ." For those unfamiliar with the document, it provided a 135 page explanation of our theology and discernment around the question of recognizing the gifts of people in committed same-gender relationships.

Within the document, Peter's mission to the gentiles from Acts is cited as an example of a time when the Christian Church questioned the availability of God's grace to a group that it considered completely ineligible. Through Peter's witness to the outpouring of the gifts of the Holy Spirit on this group of Gentiles, which he baptized without consent of those in Jerusalem, he brought the church to a new understanding of God's grace and definition of who can be included in the kingdom of God. Making the leap to the present conflict, the document voiced its hope that the witness of our own Episcopal Church to the fruits of the spirit present in the life and ministries of people in same-sex relationships might again enable Christian truth to be perceived afresh for the whole community. We move forward in our Anglican identity today under the leadership of the world's first female Anglican primate, unsure of our future together, but knowing that just as even Christ was found too radical and even offensive to his home community, so too are we called to be true to God's truth as revealed to us – even in the face of rejection by our hometown associates. Although Jesus was amazed at his hometown's unbelief, I can't help but think that he had some suspicion about how his message would be received there. After all, he grew up there. He knew this community's limitations, prejudices, and collective idiosyncrasies, just as they knew his history and family. He doubtless grew up going to the same synagogue where he stood up to teach on that Sabbath. Yet in spite of all of this, the Good News for us lies in the fact that knowing their hearts and minds, Christ brings them the Good News anyway. He stands up in front of his family and childhood community and tells them about the kingdom of God. With reckless abandon for his reputation, he stands firm for what he knows is God's truth. Some of them even listen to him and come to him later for healing.

The Good News in Christ Jesus is that the reign of God is within our very grasp. When we, following Christ's example, love enough to let go of our prejudices, fears, and preconceptions about grace to share the amazing truth of God's radical love with those around us, we are living out God's reign – "Rejoice for the kingdom is near" isn't a metaphysical mystery so much as a tangible reality that we have been placed in charge of as Christ's body in the world.

For our own community's part, we continue to struggle for what we believe in as a Church, and whether or not the wider church is ready for our revelations of God's truth in the radical inclusiveness of God's kingdom and love, may we all strive to continue to follow Christ's example of steadfastness to God's radical truth and love, and by so doing, become instruments of God's reign.

In the words of the Psalmist, "Have mercy on us, O LORD, have mercy, for we have had more than enough of contempt." Amen.

Fuego and I went to the gym two days in a row this week... we're hoping to eventually get it up to five, but I must say we're pretty excited just to have gotten this far.

I get to preach again on Sunday, and I'm happy to say that I finished today, so I actually get a weekend tomorrow and Saturday which is great!

Distracted... watching Fellowship of the ring... more later.

Some-of-the-time-girlfriend house sat for us while Fuego and I were out of town this weekend... Fred and Ginger LOVE Uncle SOTTiG! They couldn't have cared less when we got home -- which is great for them... But not very heart-warming for us =o(

Some-of-the-time-girlfriend stayed for the night, so we got to hang out with him -- yay! Fuego and I love Some-of-the-time-girlfriend too!

He left before I got home from work last night, but we did get to have some Great vegetarian Chinese food and some decent sushi with him, and we played Tony Hawk Underground 2 until about 2am whilst drinking Tekate (we got a 30-pac on sale for $16! -- I feel so trashy and adolescent ;o)

Tonight Mel-the-Great is here for a surprise visit... it's fun to be the stopping point for so many great friends!

Forgive me, blogspot, for I have... oh wait, blogspot doesn't care =o)

A quick catch-up...

- Last Tues I preached my first mid-week sermon (I'll get to do that once or twice per month).

- Thursday I worked a "half" day so Fuego and I could meet with a realtor to see about buying a house in December! Sounds like we'll need some help to get a 20% down payment together so we can afford to make the house payments on my salary... not a bad deal, but now we have to figure out where to get it from! Technically we'll be able to pay it back after the first year or two when the property value appreciates (then we can refinance and pay back the loan out of our appreciated equity). So we're checking in with St. ECWIW's, the diocese, the national church, and our families to see what help is out there.

- Friday Fuego and I drove out to Oakland to hang out with Sadu Crobinhobin -- YAY!! We went to Drakes for yummy yummy beer, went back to Sadu's house for yummy yummy wine, and watched TV... while that may not seem very glamorous to most of you, it helps if you know that Fuego and I don't have cable in D-town, so all we watch is stuff you can get on DVD. While it's pretty cool to not be faced with the option of TV at our whim, it's also pretty cool to get to go somewhere that has it =o) Jane's flight was delayed, so she didn't make it home until 5am... we got to say hi in the morning, but otherwise I didn't get to hang out with her (lucky Fuego got to... stupid lucky fuego *grumble* ;o)

- Saturday was Marc Andrus' investiture as Bishop of the Diocese of California! I got to vest and process with the rest of the clergy, and got a great seat for the ceremony -- it was pretty sweet. After investiture I drove up to Bodega Bay for a retreat with some awesome teens from St. ECWIW's. Had a great time, but missed Fuego =o(

- Sunday Fuego and I drove back home to the 112 degree heat (nice, eh... pant pant - thank God for AC!)

I'll be preaching again on Sunday, hoping for a visit from Mom and Bro-head... we'll see.

Fuego and I finally made use of our gym membership tonight... I'm hoping this is the start of a trend, but one day hardly constitutes a trend, so I'll have to let you know in a week or two.

As a reward we had grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner -- and I had a grilled penut butter and jam sandwich with my grilled cheese... because it's good... no it really is... have you ever tried a grilled penut butter and jam sandwich? It's not like it was a grilled penut butter, hot sauce, and curry sandwich! (That works better with cheese on a grilled tortilla as a quesadilla.)

Then we had chocolate milk for dessert -- yummy!

I don't know what the net health benefit for the day will be, but it sure tasted good =0)

Fuego and I went out to see the new "Pirates" movie tonight! We had a great time overall, but it led me to the conclusion that there needs to be some medium through which we can base our movie selections aside from the critics (who frequently love movies I think suck and hate movies I think are good wholesome entertainment -- ok, so maybe not wholesome). Thus I present you with the first installment of...

THE GARNABUS' MOVIE REVIEWS

Cars -- good. You leave feeling relaxed and know you've had a good time. Fun, simple, you know how it ends by the time you get to the half-hour mark, but you still want to sit there and watch your expectations come true. A couple of unexpected twists in the subplots keep it fresh and fun. Great for kids, or even just the young at heart.

The Break Up -- I won't say it sucked because it was well acted and believable... but it was too much like real life, you just want to say "how about you try COMMUNICATING." Kind of like watching a train wreck. Two people in love screw everything up because they can't communicate. Here's a piece of sage advice for anyone in a relationship that they want to have go somewhere -- learn how to be honest, how to be yourself, how to communicate, and how to discuss disagreements (or how to "fight" as most people call it). This movie made me cry -- not because it was sad, but just because I know too many people like this couple of schmucks! You just want to grab them and shake them by the end of the film. You do not leave feeling relaxed or energized, but rather frustrated and angry at our egocentric society that never teaches anyone how to communicate effectively until it's too late... so no, I didn't enjoy this movie.

Friends With Money -- I will say this sucked. Let's just leave it at "Friends" and you'll have a much more enjoyable time and will have only wasted a half hour of you life that you won't get back. This isn't even worth a half-price rental when the store is out of everything you actually wanted to see. (If you saw this and liked, it, I apologize for harshing your good time.)

The Lake House -- I liked this movie despite Keanu Reeves (aka Ted Theodore Logan regardless of the role he's playing). The plot was a new twist and you don't really catch on until a good hour or more how it will end -- and you still want to watch to see how it will turn out. Definitely worth a matinee, perhaps worth full price depending on how sappy of a love story you want to pay for (this is certainly a chick flick, but at least it's a pretty good one).

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest -- Great action, a bit darker than the first Pirates, well worth watching... BUT the ending (which I won't spoil) feels more like the middle of a longer movie. This was a bit disappointing and left me feeling quite unfulfilled by the whole experience. Of course, it will all be resolved in the third installment of Pirates (whenever that comes out!). This is a movie that is very worth seeing, but for my part, I will enjoy it more when I have them both on DVD and can watch them back to back (sort of like the middle movie in any trilogy -- Star Wars, Matrix, Lord of the Rings, etc.).

Dwarf Beard -- What can I say, it was Goofy hair day at Day Camp (at least the kids liked it ;o)

I love my job! I've dreamed of having a job like this since I was five years old (no really, I told my parents when I was five that I wanted to be a "minister" when I grew up), and it's everything I could have ever hoped it would be. This isn't just because I've only been there for a week, I've done this kind of work for a lot of years, just never having been paid for it or having been ordained. I give at least some of the credit to St. ECWIW's -- it is a pretty amazing place.

I won't say too much more... don't want to talk about work too much ;o)

Wow... busy week! Let me catch you up.

Wednesday the 5th was my first day at work in the office! It was great getting to start setting up my office and get to put some more of my geekware to good use. Thanks to Captain Technology I acquired a licensed copy of Readerware (awesome)... which allows me to scan my books into the computer using a barcode scanner (came free with the software), and then it looks up the book online and downloads all of the relevant information about the book into the database. It automatically alphabetizes the list and has options for checking books out to people. There are also versions available for movies and music... and since I'm kinda' geeky about technology (or had you guessed?) I got the combo package with the optional Palm Pilot extension added in for good measure =o).

Thursday was my Friday (not so long of a week after the holiday, eh?), so I scanned in some more books, got my payroll stuff set up, got myself a new email address for work, figured out how to reset the password on my voicemail (since the person before me changed it and didn't tell anyone what it was), recorded my new greeting, and had a meeting... the end.

Friday -- ahh Friday! Friday Fuego and I took Ginger to go camping with Sadu Crobinhobin and Jane (of "Jane's Blog"). We went to Big Basin in the Santa Cruz mountains and it was just amazing! Aside from copious amounts of good wine and beer, we also had great food and great company. I got to MacGuyver ("who?" my YG kids would ask) a grill since the fire circle didn't include one... okay that's not exactly true. There was a grill of sorts, but it would have been next to impossible to get the fire close enough to the edge of the circle to make that three inches worth of welded metal grating actually cook anything. So I bent some roasting forks, hung two of them between the truncated grill stump they offered and the edge of the fire circle, then suspended another between them, allowing for two more to be suspended from that one to the lower edges of the fire circle. We then placed a grill that resembled a cookie cooling rack on steroids on top of the fork suspenders. After a failed prototype involving less bending of the forks, we had a successful grill which we used for dinner! (and there was much rejoicing -- yay). I was kept up Friday night by the sound of what could only have been raccoons gnawing away at our unopened food bags in the food locker and sharpening their claws on the box housing our remaining wine (NB: it wasn't boxed wine, but rather just wine which happened to be stored on its side within a box... wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong idea ;o). I woke up with some trepidation the following morning, unsure of just how much clean up would be required from the nocturnal invasion, only to find that nothing appeared to have been touched. ?? Finding a small rodent poop in the wine box, we surmised that it must have been a much smaller creature than a raccoon -- and since we liked the cute little chipmunks we saw scampering about, we decided it must have been them (a convenient naivete).

Sadly Fuego and Ginger and I had to leave at 2pm on Saturday so we could get home in time for me to write my first sermon at Saint Episcopal-Church-where-I-work's (Yay!).

I must say that one of my favorite parts was watching Ginger go completely nuts down at the creek! She ran, she leaped, she bounded, she splashed, she dug in the water, she blew bubbles, she grabbed huge tree roots and tried to pull them out of the water -- basically she had a puppygasm of fun. Dog's rule.

Sermon yesterday went great! It's always difficult preparing a sermon for a new community, so I was up preparing it until about 2am with Fuego asleep on the sofa (her favorite spot). One long Sunday later (including a pizza dinner welcome from the youth group -- they even baked cakes!) I was home again and very ready for a long overdue sleep.

Perhaps I failed to mention (okay not perhaps) that I did get a replacement Palm Pilot!! It wasn't free as a trade-in on the deceased one, but it did qualify as a professional expense (thanks St. ECWIW's!!), so I was able to get it on Thursday after work (sweeeeet). So I was up until about 4am on Friday morning upgrading software to account for the new OS and transferring my precious data to the new Palm Tungsten E2 (fitting since E died -- how did they know?). It has some fancy new features, but overall it is pretty much the same device except for the obvious difference that this one works. I may get the other refurbished and give it to Fuego.

I decided to try to wake the Palm Pilot from it's persistent vegetative state tonight... perhaps this alone is evidence of some masochistic tendency.

First I checked my email and found a response from Palm's techies... The first time I emailed they suggested doing a hard reset and removing all data from the Palm -- "third party application conflict" they suggested. So I did this... when it didn't work I wrote to let them know it didn't work. Tonight when I checked my email I found a new tech person had reviewed my problem and had decided that I must not have done what the first person told me to do... so he repeated the same advice.

Thus I decided that it was time for some drastic action. I cajoled the recently deceased back into life, found a series of button presses that pretty much worked some of the time to get it to start up and wrote to Palm again... my response is below (ever read the story about the guy and the little bars of soap at the London Hotel?):

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Hi again,

The fatal exception continues to occur without installing anything after the hard reset. I don't have time to even try synchronizing after renaming the back up file because the device itself ceases functioning before that can happen. I have now successfully erased all information off of the Palm Pilot and the problem still persists before I get to try the hot sync ... thus it seems to me that it must not be a third party software conflict.

When I reset it now it flashes the Powered by Palm splash screen repeatedly with an accompanying speaker noise that sounds like a skipping CD. If I apply pressure to the top of the device (pinch the molding above the top of the screen) it stabilizes to a solid splash screen but proceeds no further (and the sound cuts out). Then when I reset it again the power turns off and it sits there doing nothing. It sometimes works to get the power to turn back on again if I press another of the buttons along with reset or do another hard reset, or some combination of these options (other times this still doesn't work and it sits there lifeless). I have now once gotten it to stay on without giving me an error screen, but then when I try to click on something it's frozen and none of the buttons work (including the power button)... thus I have to reset again and start the process anew.

Ah... I've gotten a new Fatal Alert: "MemoryMgr.c,Line:3726,Non-word-aligned handle" (Reset)
Hmm... clicking the on-screen reset button doesn't work... back to the beginning...

Soft reset... nothing... soft reset while holding the memo button... nothing... soft resent while holding the task button -- powers on... splash screen and freezes. Reset. Repeat previous process -- power on... splash screen, loaded screen, select date and time screen, click done, fatal exception. Soft reset... nothing... repeat process -- power on, fatal exception before splash screen... reset... nothing... repeat process (I think you get the idea.)

I did this with and without the memory expansion card in the machine as well. I also mixed in a few more hard resets to see if it would make a difference. Nope.

I'm at a loss here... would you like to trade me for a new one so you can do research on it... maybe it's possessed =o)

Thanks for your continued help.
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If nothing else, maybe they'll at least get a laugh out of it and quit trying to give me the same advice again.

Geek toys have landed... I repeat, Geek toys have landed!!

LED light-bulb currently fills the carport with a comforting bluish white glow...
Binary clock blinks happily away on my desk at work...
Bottle-opener rings -- work great (so awesome!)...

And for the topper, I have just received an update from Captain Technology that links to the ... [drum roll with trumpet fanfare] ... "MEGAZOOKA"!! It's the original "Airzooka" with added intimidation factor, double grip, trigger, and -- oh ya -- a laser sight (nice).


Thanks Captain =o)

LOOOONG weekend! We've had guests (although different ones) every day since Thursday... Sunday was my first day on the job -- so great! Muddy and his Fiancee came up from Fremont, Grasshopper and family came down from Sacto, Mom came up from Fremont (Fuego came from home ;o) all for my first day. After the second service there was a reception in our honor (kind of weird and scary for an introvert), with goodies and LOTS of people to meet and greet. It was really pretty amazing. Muddy, Grasshopper, and entourage came over for a BBQ afterward with much laughing and fun... then Mom and Mike came up today to see the new place and tour D-town for the day. Gotta love the Mom!

Tomorrow we find out what all the 4th Hooplah is in this area... apparently people come from all over to be here! More visits to come -- the looong weekend continues. (So does the muscle pain). And all the while, the Palm Pilot lies in its open casket for the wake... how long is the mourning period on Palm Pilots?

Ever notice how the day after you use some underused muscles they give you the false impression that you're going to be fine, only to discover on the second day that the muscles in question have organized a mutiny against you?

Some of the time Girlfriend, Mel the Great, and Husband-in-law were up on Saturday for a visit... good fun =o)

Husband-in-law came primarily to show me around the Gym that Fuego and I just joined. By "showing me around," I should say that he devised and perpetrated a clever coup against my upper body. He had me try out each isolation machine, working the muscles to that nice burning point, then had me try out free-weight versions that worked those same muscle groups. We did biceps, triceps, lats, pecks, and several other muscle groups in my shoulders and back that I don't know the names of... but which have introduced themselves today.

It's a great kind of pain, since I earned it... but I think I'll keep it down to two muscle groups per day from now on (ow).

Thanks HIL =o)

A slow rendition of taps echoes across our small living room... on the other side the sparsely furnished room a small table cradles the remains of the once proud device. As the lifeless little silver body lies there in silence, the unspoken eulogy of it's life passes through my mind. Thousands of appointments kept, thousands of timely alarms - always on schedule, hundreds of phone numbers - with birthdays and such, pictures, movies, our DVD library, class notes, task lists, weather, driving directions... even the finances all kept in order. It is a sad day. On its deathbed, it allowed one final sync to ensure that nothing was left unfinished, ensuring a legacy for the next generation. I will miss my Palm Tungsten E.