dramatically speaking

I've been thinking recently. It's never good when I do because, usually, something drastically changes in my life. This time, nothing's changing, but it's been thought-provoking. I've been considering drama as a part of life, and if it's either built-in to what we do or if we make it that way to keep ourselves interested in what's happening.

I'll flesh this out more later, but some variables along those lines:
- our upbringing - the family / friends we spent time with while growing up
- interests - what hobbies or pasttimes did we pursue in life - ie. dramatic arts, music, computers, watch television 24/7, etc.
- maturity - what stage of life are we in? Have we crossed into the maturity level of where we're supposed to be by now? ie. Can you handle college without making big things out of nothing?

There's more... but for now, any thoughts?

ring

... begin rant

Last night, I was going to be a good little boy and go to sleep before 10! That happened... Unfortunately, the phone rang around 10, just after I'd fallen asleep. I was awake. Then, although somewhat bitter, I decided to leave well enough alone and go back to sleep. I had just fallen asleep again when the phone rang again, this time around 10:20. Even moreso bitter this time than the previous, I decided to go to leave it alone yet again and try for a third time falling asleep. Success! Until 10:40 when the phone rang again. This time I was ticked, my room was cold, my blankets and sheets had snaked around me, and there was no way I was getting back to sleep for a while.

... why me?

I ended up sleeping in by about an hour and a half this morning, arriving at work an hour late... at least I had some extra time built up to move over to today.

My phone is now being unplugged after 10:00 pm every night... or so I say. Never call after 10 pm. It's just rude. You never know who you're going to wake up on the other end. If you do wake someone up, it'd better be an emergency.

... end rant.

the trip...

As promised, the map. Not as acurate as I'd like, but still pretty darn good for 1400 km round trip approx. Ps. Corrie's alive and well and was picked up by the right people on Saturday night.

road trip

Last Sunday at this time, I figured I was going to be home this weekend, enjoying sleep and just relaxing all cool, shooting some b-ball outside of the school... or something to that extent.

What actually happened was, I went home on Friday evening with Mike, Mary, and Corrie, and while Mike and Mary drove over to Port Urine, Corrie and I watched the Manchurian Candidate with Gord and Vanessa and then went to my place to sleep.

Saturday morning: up bright and early (6:15) to get over to Port Urine for 8:00 to drive to Fort Wayne, IN. 5 hours, 2 stops later, we arrive at Fort Wayne Vineyard Church for Ryan and Amber's wedding. It was a good wedding. Always fun to see people you know from afar and it was cool seeing them on their own turf rather than waiting for them to come up here.

We left the wedding around 6, drove to downtown Fort Wayne to drop off Corrie at a random Starbucks and tried to figure out what was happening with her until her ride showed up... Got that worked out (hoping that her ride actually came) and we were off towards home. Stopped for food somewhere near the MI / IN border (Possibly Coldwater), and then I started driving and drove the next 3.5 hours non-stop to my home. Long trip, fast speeds on the Interstates, Michigan is flat like a pancake... at least the roads have more curves than the 402.

Got to my house at 1 am, got up at 6:30, on the road at 7:30 and back to KW home at 10.

14 hours driving, of which I did 9ish. Long days, good times with friends, road trips are awesome. Map of trip coming when I get around to it.

T.

some call me tim

Others call me hey you. I respond to either some days.

I've been working a lot lately, well not more than usual because I'm at full time hours, but there's a lot of substance in those hours... I'm beyond my really big projects for October now and heading into my big projects for November, which include the curling fundraiser, creating and distributing and compiling a survey, and preparing to go to Winnipeg in a few weeks for 2 days.

On the IT front, I'm down to small jobs for now. I had large projects to keep me going for the past 1.5 months, but things are settling down now and I'm getting into more finicky jobs.

On the website front, it's been worked into my contract, so it's not on top of full time anymore, it's included in full time. This week was the first time I've really had dedicated hours to get things done for a while, so I got things done, and I'm quite happy with the results. To see what I've done, you can go to www.ebcollege.on.ca and first note the Colour the Future banner on the right. Then click on it. Then click on the Education Centre Link. Those are my 3 projects that I finished this week. There's more to come in the future, but for now, that's where my time took me.

I still enjoy everything I'm doing. I think each one is balancing the others out nicely. I don't think I could ask for a better job than this at my current stage of knowledge / skill.

But for now, it's bedtime.

out.

T.

tim vs. technology: part 4835

And so the saga continues... In the past, we've had:
- 2 mp3 players breaking within 3 months of each other
- cell phone getting "invalid battery" after 2 months
- 4 power supplies in my computer in 3 years
- frying a cd burner
- coming close to doing the same with the replacement
- my work computer sounding like it's going to explode
and more....

Enter the Zen. I went on ebay the other day (bad idea) to look at mp3 players. My old one only holds 30 songs and I was hoping to upgrade for cheap. Lo and behold, there's a Creative Zen there for reasonably cheap. I was going to hold off on buying it, but Gord encouraged the impulse buy, and in the end, I won the auction.

So the Zen arrives, and I get it figured out. All is well... until I try and figure out the removable storage portion of the evening. Bad idea. The computer can't recognize the device (it recognized the mp3 player part of it, just not the storage part), the player freezes, tells me not to unplug it, but wont turn off, can't find the proper driver for the computer, so I unplug it, but the device is still frozen, the power button does nothing, so I take the battery out and it turns off.

Upon turning it back on, the player began to load the media library, which is normal for a post-battery removal period, and then it freezes, half the screen goes blank, and the hadphones (not headphones - they weren't in the item description) start squealing... Uhoh.

This continues for about 10 minutes as I try and solve the problem through sheer Tim power... which is pretty much power off, power on, battery out, battery in, reset button, repeat.

No go.

Shoot. I broke an mp3 player I won on Ebay within 48 hours of receiving it. Good work, Tim.

So I sent a quick e-mail off to the seller to see if was covered under warranty.

2 minutes later, the player boots up fine and starts playing regular music.

Today's lesson after all of that is: Don't let me near your electronics. I'll break them, or cause great strife while getting it to work.

introducing

Corunna home... in colour. Google Earth has about 3 km in from the St. Clair River all the way down in good resolution. Take a look at all those swimming pools in Corunna.

http://maps.google.ca/?ie=UTF8&z=14&ll=42.882631,-82.436256&spn=0.032138,0.05785&t=k&om=1

I was having a bit of fun with my camera tonight... I really need to get out to some natural location that offers amazing opportunities for cool photos. I think I'll probably sit down some day with the manual and read through it thoroughly to make sure I know what the heck I'm doing when I get around to it.

Ah well, for now, enjoy the keyboard.

Far From Perfect: The Embodiment of Grace

A few weeks back I spoke in chapel. Here's the transcript. (It's long...)

My first year at Emmanuel, I had a roommate. It lasted for a grand total of one semester. His name was (and still is) Dave. Dave, at the time, was what could be termed an interesting person. In my eyes at the time, he lacked social skills, was not quick to understand body language or tone of voice, and had trouble articulating himself. We were two years apart in age, with him being straight out of high school and me out of another college. His actions were not what I expected my roommate’s would be and I can honestly say that I saw no similarities between us, other than we both had computers and were both male.

I can tell you that the semester was a rocky semester. I began to not like Dave and fear returning to our room because of the differences between us. There were times that I was so bitter and resentful that I was glad there were other people around, just to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid. Things were going downhill…

Until one night at dorm meeting, we were praying as a floor and one person mentioned while praying for me that my last name was Grace and thanked God for giving me that attribute. It struck me that my last name is Grace and I started thinking about how I embody that in my life. At the time, it was very little with Dave.

That is where God started to change my heart. I looked at Dave as another human being, created in God’s image, flawed by sin, yet still loved by God. I realized that by looking at the negatives you are not going to get to know a person very well, let alone learn to love them as a brother. Slowly, but surely, my attitudes changed.

Today, Dave and I are good friends. We’ve gone through enough together to have a solid relationship. I have a deep respect for Dave and although he might not be able to articulate well in speech (which has improved), his writing is astounding. He’s writing a fantasy novel right now, and I hope that I get a chance to read it when it’s complete.

Let’s think a bit about today’s society. What does it expect of us?
- We need to be done now in order to keep our job.
- The movie starts in 5 minutes or else we’ll be annoy the audience for disturbing their evening.
- You need to dress in a certain way to be accepted.
- The paper needs to be in by 4:30 or else you fail.
- You need to look like the people in the magazines or on TV or in the movies because that’s what perfection is.
- People may even cause you to think “does this dress make me look sexy?”

Some expectations are there to help us be ready to go into a society that rarely shows grace. I think it would be a great day if the ideal returned where patience was a true virtue that everyone had and there was room for our imperfections.

It is my belief, that as Christians, we are to show grace. Christ did. Look at all the things he did that no one else would do. He talked to Samaritans. Cleansed the unclean. Loved the unlovable. Served the unservable. Think about it. We deserve death, but here we are because of Christ’s death. It’s a really strange feeling, though, to get something we know that we do not deserve.

Jesus told a story of a boy who told his father that he wanted his inheritance now, which was the equivalent of saying “I want you to drop dead.” After running away, squandering his money, and falling face first in a pile of pig manure, the son came to realize the error of his way and longed to return home. He expected that he’d be shunned by his father, and was ok with that. If only he could have a warm place to sleep and some food on the table. When he returned, his father embraced him and threw a feast. Was this what he expected? How do you think the Prodigal felt? In What’s So Amazing About Grace?, Philip Yancey tells this story in a modern context. Let’s examine.

"A young girl grows up on a cherry orchard just above Traverse City, Michigan. Her parents, a bit old- fashioned, tend to overreact to her nose ring, the music she listens to, and the length of her skirts. They ground her a few times, and she seethes inside. "I hate you!" she screams at her father when he knocks on the door of her room after an argument, and that night she acts on a plan she has mentally rehearsed scores of times. She runs away.

She has visited Detroit only once before, on a bus trip with her church youth group to watch the Tigers play. Because newspapers in Traverse City report in lurid detail the gangs, the drugs, and the violence in downtown Detroit, she concludes that is probably the last place her parents will look for her. California, maybe, or Florida, but not Detroit.

Her second day there she meets a man who drives the biggest car she's ever seen. He offers her a ride, buys her lunch, arranges a place for her to stay. He gives her some pills that make her feel better than she's ever felt before. She was right all along, she decides: her parents were keeping her from all the fun.

The good life continues for a month, two months, a year. The man with the big car--she calls him "Boss"-- teaches her a few things that men like. She lives in a penthouse, and orders room service whenever she wants. Occasionally she thinks about the folks back home, but their lives now seem so boring and provincial that she can hardly believe she grew up there.

She has a brief scare when she sees her picture printed on the back of a milk carton with the headline "Have you seen this child?" But by now she has blond hair, and with all the makeup and body-piercing jewelry she wears, nobody would mistake her for a child. Besides, most of her friends are runaways, and nobody squeals in Detroit.

After a year the first sallow signs of illness appear, and it amazes her how fast the boss turns mean. "These days, we can't mess around," he growls, and before she knows it she's out on the street without a penny to her name. When winter blows in she finds herself sleeping on metal grates outside the big department stores. "Sleeping" is the wrong word--a teenage girl at night in down town Detroit can never relax her guard. Dark bands circle her eyes. Her cough worsens.

One night as she lies awake listening for footsteps, all of a sudden everything about her life looks different. She no longer feels like a woman of the world. She feels like a little girl, lost in a cold and frightening city. She begins to whimper. Her pockets are empty and she's hungry. She needs a fix. She pulls her legs tight underneath her and shivers under the newspapers she's piled atop her coat. Something jolts a synapse of memory and a single image fills her mind: of May in Traverse City, when a million cherry trees bloom at once, with her golden retriever dashing through the rows and rows of blossomy trees in chase of a tennis ball.

God, why did I leave, she says to herself, and pain stabs at her heart. My dog back home eats better than I do now. She's sobbing, and she knows in a flash that more than anything else in the world she wants to go home.

Three straight phone calls, three straight connections with the answering machine. She hangs up without leaving a message the first two times, but the third time she says, "Dad, Mom, it's me. I was wondering about maybe coming home. I'm catching a bus up your way, and it'll get there about midnight tomorrow. If you're not there, well, I guess I'll just stay on the bus until it hits Canada."

It takes about seven hours for a bus to make all the stops between Detroit and Traverse City, and during that time she realizes the flaws in her plan. What if her parents are out of town and miss the message? Shouldn't she have waited another day or so until she could talk to them? And even if they are home, they probably wrote her off as dead long ago. She should have given them some time to overcome the shock.

Her thoughts bounce back and forth between those worries and the speech she is preparing for her father. "Dad, I'm sorry. I know I was wrong. It's not your fault; it's all mine. Dad, can you forgive me?" She says the words over and over, her throat tightening even as she rehearses them. She hasn't apologized to anyone in years.

The bus has been driving with the lights on since Bay City. Tiny snowflakes hit the pavement rubbed worn by thousands of tires, and the asphalt steams. She's forgotten how dark it gets at night out here. A deer darts across the road and the bus swerves. Every so often, a billboard. A sign posting the mileage to Traverse City. Oh, God.

When the bus finally rolls into the station, its air brakes hissing in protest, the driver announces in a crackly voice over the microphone, "Fifteen minutes, folks. That's all we have here." Fifteen minutes to decide her life. She checks herself in a compact mirror, smoothes her hair, and licks the lipstick off her teeth. She looks at the tobacco stains on her fingertips, and wonders if her parents will notice. If they're there.

She walks into the terminal not knowing what to expect. Not one of the thousand scenes that have played out in her mind prepare her for what she sees. There, in the concrete-walls-and-plastic-chairs bus terminal in Traverse City, Michigan, stands a group of forty brothers and sisters and great-aunts and uncles and cousins and a grandmother and great-grandmother to boot. They're all wearing goofy party hats and blowing noise-makers, and taped across the entire wall of the terminal is a computer-generated banner that reads "Welcome home!"

Out of the crowd of well-wishers breaks her dad. She stares out through the tears quivering in her eyes like hot mercury and begins the memorized speech, "Dad, I'm sorry. I know..."

He interrupts her. "Hush, child. We've got no time for that. No time for apologies. You'll be late for the party. A banquet's waiting for you at home." (Yancey, Philip, "What's So Amazing About Grace", 49-51)

Both the girl and the prodigal received something they weren’t expecting. What is it like to receive something we do not deserve? Some people will take and leave the giver standing in the dust. Others will fake a thank you and then walk away to forget what just happened.

There are some, though, who understand what is happening and graciously accept the gift. They will not forget that moment or the kindness of the giver. I think the Prodigal would love his father all the more, although he may never understand why his father accepted him. The same with the girl in the story.

It is my understanding that we live in a broken world and that we are broken people. We all miss the mark in many ways. There once was a man who was the captain of a slave ship. This ship was on a voyage when a fierce storm came upon them. The captain tried everything and then at last, out of hope, he cried “Lord, have mercy upon us.” The ship was spared and the man converted. His name was John Newton, the author of Amazing Grace, which is said to have been based on this storm experience. I think Newton struggled when writing this song. It is full of truths that are almost incomprehensible. We deserve nothing more than death, but for some reason, God in his compassion has extended full grace to us, as we are. No ifs, ands, or buts. Here we are, far from perfect, and God is willing to love us, and even use us as instruments of his love to share with the world.

I want you to stand with me. Look around at those beside you. To your right and left. What do you see? Look beyond the person that woke you up at 3 AM with their LOUD music. Look beyond the person who took the last brownie. Look beyond the person that cut you off on the highway last week. See what God sees. Does it change anything? What does God see when he looks at us? Broken people, who are loved. Broken people who can make a difference. We are broken, but God alone can fix us.

I have a challenge for you; for myself. It is a challenge that may change the way you view and treat people. I cannot guarantee it will be easy. I cannot guarantee it will happen overnight. But I can guarantee that if you do this, God will transform your life. Things will be different. It’s a challenge to embody and to embrace grace.

I want you to listen to what I’m about to read. It’s a difficult matter, to give ourselves over to grace. Think of this as something to strive for. No one’s going to judge you if you fail. God won’t think any less of you. Just remember, there is always that amazing grace.

A Cry for Grace

Here I stand, far from perfect, knowing that God loves me despite my flaws.

Here I stand, willing to embrace grace - not only in accepting it from God, but showing it to others.

Here I stand, in the grace of God. I desire to live a life full of grace.

Lord, help me.

---

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see.

the bears had it in 2 hours

So Sawyer and Kate are trapped in the Zoo of Death. Jack's underwater with Juliana. And Henry's name is Ben.

I'm confused.

another day...

Watch the following in order.

http://blueballfixed.ytmnd.com/
http://blueballs2.ytmnd.com/
http://blueballtragedy.ytmnd.com/

Poor Lance Cacklefanny.