Green Bay

So here I am watching Green Bay vs. Philadelphia on Monday Night Football. I never understood Green Bay. Green Bay Packers: Wisconsin’s only NFL football team. Green Bay isn’t even a metropolis of Wisconsin. Milwaukee deserves one more than Green Bay. But then again, Milwaukee is so close to Chicago, they really should be rooting for the Bears anyways.
I don’t understand their choice of stadiums. I can remember watching those cold commericals in the 80s touting relief for colds caused by Green Bay Packer home games. Domeless stadium. Chill of the Wisconsin winter. People, build a domed stadium like everyone else in extreme weather areas.
I’m all for getting away from the oversaturation of NFL football in metropolitian areas. NYC has 2 teams (Giants and Jets). So does San Francisco/Oakland (49ers and Raiders). Do they really need 2 teams in their metro areas, while other states like Alabama and Nevada don’t have a NFL football team? Does it really come down to money, rather than being geographically fair? Alabama could support a football team. And I’m sure Las Vegas could to. Why not spread the NFL excitement around?

Reborn to Be Wild

I caught last night’s King of the Hill. Good stuff. In this episode Bobby joins a Christian youth group, which happens to be a bunch of skateboarders. Initially Hank encourages it. However later on, when Hank sees that this group doesn’t fit into what he is expecting, he discourages it.
Some interesting quotes from the show:

[Hank is dropping Bobby off at the church youth group.]
Bobby: I can’t believe you’re making me do this. It’s so uncool.
Hank: You know what’s not cool, Bobby? Hell.
Peggy: Maybe it’s just me. But I’d rather Bobby be in a Christian gang than one of those murdering gangs.

Bobby:
[saying grace] I want to give a shout out to the man that makes it all happen. Props be to You for this most bountiful meal that sits before us. Ok check it. God you got skills. You represent in these vegetables and in this napkin and in the dirt that grows the grain that makes the garlic breadsticks that are on this table today. Yes! Yes!
Hank: Ok Bobby, God appreciates the support, but I’m sure He wouldn’t want the pot roast to get cold. Now let’s wrap it up.
Bobby: Sure thing. Thanks J-man. Peace!
Hank: [to Pastor K] Can’t you see you’re not making Christianity better. You’re making Rock-n-Roll worse.

Hank:
[to Bobby, after showing him a box of out of style fads] I know you think that stuff you’re doing now is cool. But in a few years you’re gonna think its lame. And I don’t want the Lord to end up in this box.

It was interesting watching Hank’s reaction to all of this. I’m pretty familiar with this type of new way of getting youth interested in Christianity. It’s not necessarily always a bad thing. Youth ministers need to be able to present Christian lessons using relevant language and life applications. I think you can take it to extremes (hence Bobby’s less-than-reverent prayer).
And like Hank, I do feel that many times these Contemporary Christian artists are not making Christianity better. They are making Rock-in-Roll worse. I believe in a certain amount of reverence for worship and praise. Not in the concert and mosh pit type atmosphere presented in some Christian Rock concerts.
I am concerned that some of this new style of trying to be trendy with Christianity will only backfire. Soon kids will see Christianity as a passing fad and will not have root in it. Basic understanding and reverence for God will keep this from happening.

Entertainment Tonight

I don’t know what it is, but I cannot stand Entertainment Tonight. Comes on right after Letterman and if I’m not paying attention I end up watching it, instead of Nightline. On tonight’s ET: Regis babysits Kelly Ripa’s kids. Ugh. Anything with Regis and babysitting I can do without.
Nightline, on the other hand, is much better. Informative. Sorta a intellectual 20/20 before 20/20 was dumbed down just like every other TV news magazine since 60 Minutes. Nightline spend an entire 30 minutes on a subject without trying to squeeze in 2 or 3 stories like some television news magazines do these days. Plus they don’t spend an extra 2 minutes telling you what’s coming up next before going to a commerical. “What’s up next” is just a filler segment because some shows (ET) have no substance and have to find something to do with their show.
So when it’s 11:30PM, I switch to Nightline if I’m paying attention. I wish I could tell Tivo to change the channel anytime ET comes on.

More Wonder Years Quotes

It’s been a while since I last posted. So to keep everything interesting, here’ s some more Wonder Years Quotes which I’ve compiled.
Episode: “Pilot”
“A suburban junior high school cafeteria is like a microcosm of the world. The goal is to protect yourself. And safety comes in groups. You have your cool kids. You have your smart kids. You have your greasers. And in those days of course you had your hippies. In effect in junior high school who you are, is defined less by who you are than by who’s the person sitting next to you. A sobering thought.”
“It was the first kiss for both of us. We never really talked about it afterwards. But I think about the events of that day again and again and somehow I think Winnie does too whenever some blowhard talks about the anonymity of the suburbs or the mindlessness of the TV generation. Because we know that inside of each one of those identical boxes with its Dodge parked out front and its white bread on the table and its TV set glowing blue in the falling dusk there were people with stories. There were families bound together in the pain and struggle of love. There were moments that made us cry with laughter. And there were moments like that one of sorrow and wonder.”
Episode: “Swingers”
“Brian Cooper was the first person I ever knew who wasn’t old who died. I guess we all have that moment when we realize that someone who is basically a kid can cease to exist. And we’re never the same after that.”
“Like women all over America, my mother confronted tragedy and death with cold ham and Jello salad.”
“Maybe we both realized that growing up doesn’t always have to be a straight line, but a series of advances and retreats. Maybe we just felt like swinging. But whatever it was Winnie and I made and unspoken pact that day to stay kids for a little while longer.”
Episode: “Our Miss White”
“It was a strange and passionate time. Some of our dreams dissolved into thin air. They almost seem comical now. But some of our dreams are lasting and real.”
Episode: “Whose Woods These Are”
Maybe every human soul deals with loss and grief in its own way. Some curse the darkness. Some play hide and seek. That night Paul and Winnie and I found something we almost lost. We found our spirit. The spirit of children. The bond of memory. And the next day they tore down Harper’s Woods.
Episode: “How I’m Spending My Summer Vacation”
“The Last Day of School: It was kind of a solemn moment. 8 months of relentless education were finally erupting in a blast of summer madness.”
Episode: “Square Dance”
“Some people pass through your life and you never think about them again. Some you think about and wonder what ever happened to them. Some you wonder if they ever wonder what happened to you. And then there are some you wish you never had to think about again. But you do.”
“In 7th grade, who you are is what other 7th graders say you are. The funny thing is it’s hard to remember the names of kids you spent so much time trying to impress.”
Episode: “Math Class”
“The transition from Summer to Fall is a tricky one. Like astronauts returning from space, we had to re-enter the atmosphere of school carefully, so that the sudden change in pressure wouldn’t kill us.”
Episode: “Moving”
“There was a time when the world was enormous…Spanning the vast, almost infinite boundaries of your neighborhood. The place where you grew up. Where you didn’t think twice about playing on someone else’s lawn. And the street was your territory .that occasionally got invaded by a passing car. It was where you didn’t get called home until after it was dark. And all the people, and all the houses that surrounded you were as familiar as the things in your own room. And you knew they would never change.”
“Thirteen is a crazy age. You’re too young to vote, and too old not to be in love. You live in a house someone else owns…But your dreams are already somewhere else.
You face the future armed with nothing but the money you’ve earned from mowing lawns, and a nine-dollar ring with a purple stone. And you hope against hope…that’ll be enough.”
Episode: “Journey”
“After all if growing up is war, then those friends who grew up with you deserve a special respect. The ones who stuck by you shoulder to shoulder in a time when nothing is certain when all life lay ahead and every road led home.”

Puff Daddy: America’s favorite pseudo celebrity.

When does a person actually become famous due to something they did, rather than because someone says they’re famous? America’s favorite pseudo celebrity is Puff Daddy…P. Diddy….Sean Combs. Some of his greatest achievement include:
* Making money from Biggie Smalls’ death by using new lyrics to an old song ( “Every Breath You Take” by Sting )
* Redoing (ruining) such classics as Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir.”
* Dating J-Lo.
So now he’s running in the NYC marathon and donating money he raised to charity. How quaint. Am I the first to ask what exactly has Puff Daddy done that would warrant so much media coverage? He is unoriginal. Makes up new lyrics to old songs. Dates drama queens. And America responds by buying his albums.

Center Chapel Retreat

The retreat with Center Chapel was good. We had 13 people up at the lodge Friday night…the others being out trick or treating. I had some of Gallatin’s Rebel Rouser lasagna (still warm after the 20 minute drive). Yum. For the first time I was able to finish it.
It seemed just lonely. Perhaps even at bit calm or quiet Friday night with just a handful of people there. Then again when the rest of the crew arrived, there wasn’t as many as in past years. Sometimes we have 50 or more. This time we had 41 at the most.
So the Whispering Pines lodge is pretty sparse. They really need to get in some couches or something. Plastic chairs are rough. But the tables are pretty light. Easy to move.
Besides the main lodge they’ve got other various cabins nearby along with a pool, volleyball court, and lake with canoes. It was upto 78 degrees in November and they had a water balloon fight that afternoon. Whodathought?
Throughout the summer this camp is used as a summer camp. I read some of the graffiti on the cubby holes of the cabins…wondering what exactly the inside jokes were. Also wondering how summer camps at the Whispering Pines are. I think there is alot of potential for the camp. The lake, the pool, the volleyball court. But the lodge is so sparse…at least in retreat times…that it makes me wonder how things are during the summer. Surely they bring in more furniture.

Friday Five: Halloween

1. What was your first Halloween costume?
When I was 6 months old, my parents dressed me in my sister’s infant clothes for Halloween. I don’t even want to remember that.
2. What was your best costume and why?
Like I said, I don’t think I ever had a really good costume. Usually it was some lame mask.
3. Did you ever play a trick on someone who didn’t give you a treat?
I can honestly say that I have never toilet papered someone’s house.
4. Do you have any Halloween traditions? (ie: Family pumpkin carving, special dinner before trick or treating, etc.)
Not really. When we were younger, my sister and I would go over to my grandparent’s house on Halloween. Just to show them our costumes. She’d always give us Juicy Fruit chewing gum.
5. Share your favorite scary story…real or legend!
I don’t have any scary stories.
I do remember how they’d have a Fall Festival at my elementary school. Along with a haunted house. Sometimes they’d put the haunted house in the cafeteria. Sometimes on the stage in the gym. Once it was in an unused portable. Just a very few times I gathered enough courage to go through the haunted houses. I don’t remember too much. Mostly just skeletons with strings and someone jumping out scaring you at the end. That’s it.

Halloween

Oh yeah. Halloween. One of my favorite childhood holidays. It was one of those strange customs where you get to dress up in funny costumes and your neighbors give out free things. The whole concept seemed awfully alkward, or at least a bit strange especially in this day and time, where we don’t know our neighbors. Parents always tell you don’t take candy from a stranger, yet on Halloween it seems ok to take candy from your neighbor who you barely know.
I think parents were afraid of drug dealers who might put drugs in candy. I never exactly heard of anything like that happening. At least not in Halloween candy. My parents always warned me not to go to certain houses in our neighborhood because of this fear.
So ironically it was fear that has downgraded Halloween to a shell of what it once was. That and people who equate Halloween as some devil’s holiday. In reality you can make anything evil. Christmas, if taken the wrong way…say being greedy for more and more presents…could be made evil.
I really liked Halloween, but I never really had a cool costume. Once I was a ghost. Another time it was one of those lame commercial Snoopy costumes. I really should have started planning for Halloween at least a month before, and not the day before. Then there were always those teachers who would assign a load of homework on Halloween. Shame on them.

Me on a local news clip

Here’s the video of me on Channel 2. I was loading Spam for the Church of Christ Disaster Relief. The video makes me look stupid. I was holding out the Spam for the men in front of me to load into the boxes.
All 4 news stations were out there. I’m pretty sure the Disaster Relief folks called them out there. I got the most airtime with Channel 2. Not even shown on the other channels. Foxnews just sent a camera crew. No reporters. James Lewis with Channel 4 was out there, although he didn’t appear in the clip that I saw.
We could have used more people out there. We were short about 30 people someone said. We needed about 3 more people on the spam line. 1 to load it. 1 to hand it to the loader. And another one to push the spam cans up. Anyways I hope those fire victims out in California get the much needed relief with these supplies we loaded.