the other side of nowhere

what's your name fool?

Just in case anyone was wondering, my Mr. T name is

FOOL

Go to the Mr. T name generator to find out what your Mr. T name is.

This comes from the Brunching Shuttlecocks, a discontinued site that I find to be hilarious. From time to time I will post links like this one, which is the second funniest thing I've seen today.

what do these stones mean?

I've been thinking a lot lately about what I want to teach my children about God. I think the most important thing is for Jesus to be real in their lives. But how does that happen? I think it comes through Jesus being real in my life. If my kids see that Ashley and I have a REAL relationship with Jesus they will see that he is real and wants to have the same kind of relationship with them.

In Joshua, right after the Israelites crossed the Jordan river into the promised land, an elder from each tribe placed a stone from the Jordan in the middle of wherever they settled. This way when their children saw the stone they would ask, "What do these stones mean?" and the parents could explain what God had done for them.

I want to have a memorial to what God has done in my life. Maybe it won't be something physical, like a stone, but there needs to be something real that my children can see in me that will show them who God is. The good news is that I am a living stone being built into a spiritual house with Jesus as our capstone. My prayer is that Jesus would be real to me so people around me (especially my kids) would see this and the power of the gospel that transforms my heart might work in them.

Thank God for his grace, otherwise my kids would be in big trouble.

dude, where's my horseless carriage?

I saw Ken "Documentary is my middle name" Burns' new film the other day. It's called Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip. The film recounts the story of Horatio Nelson "Nelly" Jackson, the first person to drive a car across the North American continent and then freestyle rap about it. On a $50 bet he drove his Wynton Vermont from San Fransisco to New York in less than 3 months. He took a bicycle mechanic with him to fix the car (it seems that they don't make cars like they used to, and thank God for that) and picked up a dog along the way. Anyway, I recommend seeing it if you have the chance.

The story is really interesting and told with the help of many notable actors, such as Tom "to infinity and beyond" Hanks, John "Northern Exposure" Cullum, Tom "We'll leave the light on for you" Bodet, and George "No more ballyhoo" Plimpton.

What's incredible to me is that the first trans-continental car trip was only 100 years ago. And only six months before the Wright brothers had an adventure of their own. (On a side note the Wright brothers were also bicycle mechanics. It seems that any important invention in the early 1900's was built by a bored bicycle mechanic. Strangely, I don't think there were very many advances in bicycle technology until the late 1900's, when the rocket scientists got bored.)

So thanks to Nelson, Sewall, and Bud, kids around the country can set out on meaningful road trips to find themselves, or maybe just for breakfast in Canada.

i don't belong here

It turns out that Radiohead was worth every penny of the $800 my sister spent to get there. The show was pretty dang spectacular. And i think it was the perfect environment to see them:
drizzly rain. 20,000 kids that look just like me wearing dirty old abercrombie shirts. And the band puts on a great concert. Thouroughly entertaining. i suggest that you see them if you get the chance.

i was definitely impressed with the way that Tom was able to get everyone in the entire ampitheater to lean back with each AHHH on Creep, like we were all getting ready for a collective sneeze. Music is pretty powerful. Or maybe we're all just really prone to manipulation. Either way, i had a great time.

clutching at straws

So my sister erin is in town so we can go to the radioheadshow tonight. But the clutch on her escort is toast so she's spending the day sitting in the auto shop until my beautiful wife can pick her up. And now we have to figure out how we're all going to get to the show since we had a highly coordinated plan and now we're a car short. Lots of stress, to the tune of $450 just for labor. All i know is that the show better be pretty dang spectacular. At least it's going to be wet. And by the way, if anyone wants to buy 1 lawn ticket for tonight, let me know before 4pm.

Erin's weblog (xanga) makes me very glad for moveable type.