No new pix, so i thought i'd show y'all one of the FIRST digital pictures we ever took. I gave Karen a digital camera for her birthday in 2001, and this was taken On That Day! Awww... we're so cute!
Recently we've been getting "referrals" from some pretty off-color sites. Referrals are SUPPOSED to be information of where people are seeing links to your site, and sites from where they're visiting you. But Karen and i are fairly certain that not many porn sites would see much value in linking to us. My theory was that these smut-peddlers are after Google Rank. The Google search engine ranks sites based on how many sites have links TO that site. So a site with TONS of links to it will get a better position in the rankings. It turns out that it works. Unless Google catches you, and then you disappear from the rankings.
Karen and i removed the "referrals" section of our front page (i'd done it a while ago since nasty sites got referrals to me pretty quickly) and blocked the IP's of the offenders. So we'll not be getting hits from them anymore. We're still getting "referrals" from more porn sites. Sigh. ___more___
I wonder if it works, so i just now bit the bullet and searched Google for two words that comprised the URL of one of the "referral" sites. The sites that came up were porn, (judging from the keywords - i didn't need to look at any of them) and the first five pages of results did not include that particular URL. So maybe Google is putting the smack down on them! I hope!!!
Yesterday, curious about how Google does its thing, i went to Google Watch. Interesting stuff! Google's whole business ideal is summed up thus: "Don't be evil." I guess Google Watch is dedicated to keeping them accountable to that.
And that led me here - "the best published synopsis of The Bell Curve". I remember hearing about the highly controversial book from my super-smart sociologist father, but couldn't bring myself to invest much brain time into it - i was busy making my car stereo louder or chasing girls. Rather unsuccessfully, if i recall. So if you don't want to read a whole book, at least read that synopsis.
I'd like to end this post by saying how I AM IN LOVE WITH OUR CHILDREN!!!!! Katrina and Houston are just the most precious little things I've ever seen! Houston was getting overwhelmed by the many people over at his grandma's house, and so i took him into the basement to watch a kid's movie. So he sat contentedly on my lap watching Toy Story 2, making comments. "Oh! Sad! Bicycle! He's happy! Oh chicken!" Then Katrina was brought down to me, and so then i had one kid on each thigh. Houston put his arm around Katrina and hugged her three times spontaneously, Katrina was happy to just sit, and i was in bliss. We're just so blessed by God! There is just no other way of looking at it! Praise Him!!!
I’d like to make my comment, mainly to say that you need to learn how to close your tags. And to say that I like kids. Yay! -- richard (URL) - 01 June '04 - 20:53
tag closed. I used a >/i> accidentally. That was the problem. -- juanito (Email) (URL) - 01 June '04 - 21:32
just some pix
I'm over at Karen's parent's house posting from dialup! But it seems to be working okay.
AND, i've got a dirty-diapered baby on my lap who needs attention soon, so this will be a short post with mostly just pictures.
Yesterday, Jim, Eric and I went to "Egypt" to ride bikes. Jim is the most fit of us, so he got some mad sweet air, some of which i captured in above's picture. It's way cooler looking in real life. ___more___
I got up with Katrina and Houston this morning, and just after changing Katrina i went to find Houston, who had wandered off. This is what i found. He had gotten the pancake mix from the shelf, gotten up on the chair, poured dry mix into the pan, and was ready to pour oil on top of it! He's a bright kid, and independant! The analytical, emotionally detached side of me wonders how well he'd do if somehow Katrina and him were stranded somewhere. I almost think he'd survive okay... physically at least.
This is what i was talking about with "shaking head pictures". So we took a couple WITHOUT actually shaking our heads, and with no flash. Here they are are. Sweet, huh?
There's Eric with his bad self. He didn't crash once.
There's me with my mad tight air grabbing ability. I was the only one who wore long sleeves and pants, thinking how valuable they'd be when coming into violent contact with Mother Earth. Even though i did crash once (right over the handlebars - it was sweet) i didn't get injured as much as Eric, who got a scrape on his calf from the pedal and blistered hands.
Me and my narcissisticism gotta take a bunch of self portraits. So there's probably the most dangerous one. I was looking backwards, about to go down a big hill thing. I was actually thinking, "if i crash doing this and hurt myself, i'll never hear the end of it". Whew, i'm okay. This one is long and skinny, so i'll put a popup to it. Pretty cool.
Pastor Rob talked today about God's creation, and how it's like a SONG, and we can lead the best lives by living in HARMONY with the way that song is! God singing to create and renew the universe is something that really appeals to me - i think it has been mentioned here before.
Subjectivity of time continued
I haven't set up my computer yet, so no picture. Sorry! No, you're not entitled to a picture every day! It's a PRIV, not a RIGHT! Listen, your anger is not my fault! Oh... wait... i'm not at work...
But i just replied to a very interesting discussion over at our slow, leisurely forums, and realised that i never continued writing about the subjectivity of time. But Andrew talked about St. Augustine's Confessions, from which i quote book 11:
Is it possible, O Lord, that, since thou art in eternity, thou art ignorant of what I am saying to thee? Or, dost thou see in time an event at the time it occurs?
We sinned, we confess and regret it (and the consequences of the sin of others), we enjoy communion with God in the present, and we look forward to the future, which holds more complete communion with God.
That Saint Augustine was one smart fella, even though he has an annoyingly pretentious writing style. "Thee", "shalt", "from whence". Come on! Give it a rest... it's the Oh-oh's for cryin' out loud!
But what is time? Does our sinful condition somehow contribute to our perception of time? Were we in perfect (wholly complete) communion with God, we would be absorbed in contentedness? Not needing or wanting to contemplate yesterday or the future, only the perfect glory of God of the MOMENT? However, on earth we seem to observe time progressing for everybody at the same rate. Time passes for the content and discontent alike. And ignoring the past and future does not make them cease to exist. ___more___
I guess i'll finish by contemplating the MOMENT. The "moment" is really the past. Not only do all my senses detect things that happened in the past (nerve impulses, sound, and light all travel at non-infinite speeds) but my nervous system takes time to process the information. So we're all irrevocably living in the past. Dang it. I knew there was a reason i can't throw away my knit neckties.
So where does my "moment" exist? I guess it's just where my consiousness catches up to the "real world" - whatever reality God gives it. I wonder if short people or people with quick reaction time (can process the "real world" faster) live less in the past than me? How can we communicate or even understand that the other exists if we're living in different moments? What if my "moment gear" skipped a cog and i was suddenly living a half second out of synch with the "real world"? That would suck. Good thing that doesn't happen. Not as far as i know, at least.
Can anyone read this???
Hello???????
oh no...
at least the internet responds to me. I'm off to start at Book One of my homie Saint Augusteezy's Confessions.
hmmm…I’m not sure how to respond, but I am out here listening! I feel sorta dim when I read what you write sometimes! On the other hand, I’m not much of a visual learner, so I don’t think I really take it all in! We’ll have to chat! ok- bye! -- Beth - 29 May '04 - 22:33
Beth, you’re not dim! I think you’re really smart, especially when we talk about God and Christianity. and no, i’m not kidding, i really think you’re really smart. -- juanito (Email) (URL) - 01 June '04 - 02:05
packing up...
It's late, and i'm going home. But here's a couple more pictures. That one was all the main people at the LAN party, besides Greg, and here's my car, for my trip here. :) And of course here's the TheSysAdmin, as he likes to be called. Go TheSysAdmin!!! Seriously, a great friend, and along with me, the dominating force in the last few rounds of the LAN party!
can i hear the ol’ classic UT sound over here now? “UNSTOPPABLE!” -- richard (URL) - 01 June '04 - 20:56
laaaaan paaaarty
DAVE!!!!!! yeah, we're at the LAN party, and having fun fragging each other. So far we've played Call of Duty, but only with four people. We've also taken shaken-head pictures, but we weren't shaking our heads. So they are funny. I might post more pix like this heavily modified one later. Fun social interactions - i have not laughed this hard for a long time.
Hmm...
I gotta say how much i LOVE having a new installation of windows! it's SO NICE to have things running so silky smooth. I promise to only install the most necessary codecs and applications.
So it's really late, so i'll just post two pictures i've been working to get scanned in. These are from the only roll of infrared film we've shot. Infrared photography uses normal black and white film that has been treated with an extra emulsion or some crap so it's more sensitive to IR light. Not heat, just light, the light just beyond that which we can see. Or... ever are likely to see. You gotta use a deep red filter on your lens that blocks a great portion of the normal spectrum, allowing the IR to really stand out. Vegetation appears white, the clear blue sky appears very dark, making landscapes quite surreal. Skin turns marble like, almost translucent. Portraits can look pretty amazingly sweet. Doesn't Karen look young????? So cute!
Right, well, i'm going to bed. Got a LAN party tomorrow at my buddy Richard's house. It will be fun, and my next post will be from there.
that reminds me, i should reinstall windows sometime. -- richard (URL) - 28 May '04 - 14:04
sorry that picture of Karen was so big. I edited it to make it smaller, but my weblog must have already decided to make the picture one THOUSAND some pixels wide, so now you’re getting a big, low-res picture. Deal with it, okay?!!?? -- juanito (Email) (URL) - 28 May '04 - 16:05
actually, it pops up normal small size for me now. -- karen - 28 May '04 - 22:00
Reinstall!!!
I'm about to reinstall windows, so this will just be a quick note to say that Houston has started becoming a fan of playing games on the computer! So far, all games he enjoys are totally educational, like the Elmo letter game and the coloring book. What's educational about coloring? I dunno, but he make the dolphin one totally black, then said "Dark-in-here". Funny and so cute.
Houston also gets really excited about something, so when he says, for instance, "We saw the ducks", he'll say it with an over-abundance of exhalation... kind of hard to describe, but he's definately SUPER EXCITED, and again, it's so cute.
For an entertaining little read about using oil-rich strains of algae to renew our nation's fuel supply, go here. Seriously. I read the whole article.
Y'know... stuff...
Keren brought over this teeny weeny camera her parents got. It's really small. And light. And takes really bad low-light pictures. Normal light pictures are probably bad too, since it is 640x480 resolution, 0.3 megapixels... but it's fun! So that picture is one i just took and modified heavily with GIMP. Here's another... i was gonna use this for the pic up there, but have had plenty of ME ME ME pictures on here lately. So if you're looking for a $30 gift for a technophile geek who has a computer, don't hesitate to get this little toy!
Thank you for visiting, Beth and Keren and Mark!!!! I like friends.
If you like 3D games and are interested in open source software, check out CUBE, it's a game and game engine (the software that makes a 3D game work) that's open source, fast, and pretty good looking. Another free to download game, (but not open source) is Wolfenstein Enemy Territory, a free multiplayer shooter that emphasizes team play. Here's a list of download sites.
Okay, that's all for today. You are dismissed.
Silly resident
That's a picture of a kid at work. The only way i dare to post it is that - even unaltered by my favorite free image processing program - it's totally and absolutely unrecognizable. You can tell it's a person, probably a girl, but that's it.
So today i was in the kitchen with a couple kids, and she (the pictured girl) said "Hey, your eyes are aqua! I never noticed before!" and i thanked her for the compliment, and told her abou the time Karen made me feel very nice when she said my eyes are the color of the clear tropical sea we saw while honeymooning in Mexico. The kid said "oh, she said something romantic??!?? Hahahaha!!!! Your eyes are the color of water that hasn't been ... pooped in!!!!! Ahahahahahahaha!!!" and that's really how she laughs. Sigh.
Being at home was lots of fun, Houson and i danced for probably almost an hour listening to a UK Breakbeat cd. UK Breakbeat is a really sweet sub-sub-sub-genre of techno/dance/house/electronica. Very good driving rhythms, samples, with exremely cool rolling, hard hitting bass lines woven through the music. And of course no words (blech... words...) to tell you what to think or feel. Best listened to on a good system.
CHURCH!!!
That's a picture from behind John Ball Zoo's waterfall. And my little car got 30.4 miles per gallon this fill up. I can't seem to break beyond the 30mpg barrier, but will try building a retractable proboscis that can clamp onto the rear bumper of semi trailers. That would save some gas.
I took the kids to the Bethel Pentecostal Church and Abundant Life Center this morning. I was expecting a "spirit filled" service, and had deduced that it was going to be a mostly African American congregation. These two presuppositions did not really prepare me for the experience.
First, the production values there were remarkable. The gospel choir did their stuff, and it was very loud, like, rock concert loud. Chest thumping loud. And they pulled it off. I found myself swaying and clapping not just to adapt, but because i was compelled! The only person i saw with dreads (besides me) was the second drummer, and they switched DURING A SONG, and THEY DIDN'T SKIP A BEAT! Skill!!!
About an hour and a half into the service (after i had stood up with the other seven visitors to be clapped at - the residents didn't stand, but being of the skin tone to blend in, they got away with it) the pastor got to the pulpit, and proceeded to teach from Psalm 42; the passage from which the song As The Deer Panteth... comes. And it was very moving, very loud, very entertaining, and very long. The congregation got very involved, shouting "Preach it!" "Jeeeesus help us!" and my favorite, "Substitute" when the pastor was looking for that exact word to describe how Sprite is compared to water at actually quenching serious thirst. It was a short passage expounded on at length, and to very good effect. I can quote the King James Version now, ten hours after I heard the sermon. Other interesting things that happened; two people got up to throw cash on the stage during emotionally explosive moments of the sermon. We clapped for a kid who won a local boxing match. A kid was graduating from high school and got clapped at while the lady doing the announcements talked about how when she was a kid, that was the norm, but nowadays with broken families and crime on the streets, it's getting to be a big deal. The congregation was asked to wear white to next weeks services, but "bone or off-white" would be okay. I really enjoyed myself. Highly recommended, but maybe wear inconspicuous earplugs.
Then Karen and i went to Mars Hill tonight; the six o'clock service. We sat with Keren and Beth, which was very cool. Keren is excited to be getting involved in GEM, which - in case you can't figure out what they are from the hideous website - runs missionary kid school in Germany where Keren's gonna be doing a Resident Director type job.
The music at Mars Hill was great, and the words were easier to read (Bethel had a big LED display - the kind you used to see in airports - to show the words) and more what i'm used to. Being a member of the choir (a reference to a sermon where we were told that), so i can say with honesty that our choir is not as well polished as Bethel's.
There was much more scripture in the service, more philosophical content, we touched on post-modern thought, the nature of God, the nature of reality and other stuff. All of that appeals to me, but i know it would have bored the kids from work to distraction, nay, insanity!
I got all personally excited by Pastor Rob's teaching, because it fits with some of what has been going on in my head over the past couple years. Like, what is reality, and how does it relate to our faith? Chrisitians have been known to try to prove that there is a god, coming from the presupposition that there may or may not be a god. This is more absurd (from our perspective) than arguing that existance exists. Descarted said "I think, therefore I am", and worked his from there. At the most basic, we do have to admit that our (but noone else's) consciousness does indeed exist. So reality exists, and from John 1 we learn that Jesus was and is involved in creation. Rob said "Jesus is how God made the universe". I've mulled over that passage and wondered if the universe exists only as much as God is thinking about it, from galaxy clusters to photons and subatomic particles. God is intimately involved in the ongoing existance of not only the sparrow that falls or the (natty dreadlocked) hairs on my head, but in what makes matter matter! Physicists talk about atoms, subatomic particles, quarks, and STRINGS! I think about God singing in infinite harmony, making the universe EXIST with the very vibrations of His voice! Now that, to me, is a beautiful thought. God is singing the parts of the atoms of my body into existence. With this in mind, one can see how evolution, no matter how much it tries to explain God out of the picture, cannot, since God is instrumental to the very substance of reality, and if some species changes, it's not random mutation, it's an act of CREATION - God directed and implemented.
Right..... anyway, we talked about question asking, how any RELIGION that discourages question-asking is a dead end. If a seeker seeks long enough without "selling out" or settling for answers that are untrue, he or she will "find" God. It was really good. Rob dissed moral legalists. He dissed post modern people with minds so open their brain falls out. He even contrasted Islam thought on Allah versus our thought on God, which may have relieved many who were worried that he was gonna lend more credence to other religions that deny the deity of Christ. More credence than the "all truth is God's truth" which probably unsettles some - "What??? we don't have all of Truth in our own little part of Western Michigan???"
Do you think God still laughs about Phlogiston ? As a scientist I can tell you most certainly that we do not KNOW what we know… it’s only our best guess with the available information. Questions don’t have requisite answers. The failure to produce an answer to a question is not inherently failure. It is a lack of understanding. Had we the ability to answer ALL questions, we would BE God. Obviously we are not, so some questions without answers are okay… even with Google.
I loved Rob’s sermon on “the leap”... the idea that not choosing God IS choosing something else. Expressing admiration for the depth of faith of the Atheist in the belief that “this is all there is.” I really think that someday, when we see it… if we get to see it… which I hope we do… the whole equation will be much simpler than we’re making it out to be. -- Eric (Email) - 24 May '04 - 12:14
I'm cool!!!
Look at me. I'm so cool. I am an enormous show off. Let me show off how much of a show off i am by clicking that link down there!!!
Since this is on a pretty slow uploading server (which may be down right now, but probably not since if you are reading this, then it's up and connected) you might want to click this recursive link and then keep reading THIS page to give all the images time to load.
Right, since you are waiting for the images to load in the background, I'll go ahead and apologize for any time that i may have linked to a site that had a bunch of obnoxious popups. See, i use firefox for my browser, and it doesn't let popups through. So if you wanna browse popup free (and faster and with better features, but you gotta figure out how to install plugins) do download that bad boy!!! Well, it's not really a BOY, since it's software, which being just a bunch of ones and zeroes is as genderless as anything can get. Furthermore, it's not bad, it's actually really good.
Okay, the images have probably loaded, so go read about me showing off!!! ___more___
Yeah, so here's the first picture. Me looking pretty studly with the ball bouncing there, and my baggy pants and skater shoes. And there's my sweet ID badge hanging from the string which is connected to my pocket. I'm setting up a sweet show-off move to be photographed by my helpful assistant, named Hadassah.*
I'm eyeing the basket, and got a firm grip on the ball. Whatever the sweet, awesome shot is going to be, you know i'm going to be soaring through the air like Michael Jordan full of helium-enhanced Wheaties!!! Whoah!!! The coolness just exudes from my pores like a hummus addict's garlic scented sweat.
Hmm, it seems to be falling apart here. I've clearly overshot the basket and am trying to figure out what to do with the ball and my right leg. There's no way i can be sure where the ball is going to go, and my leg looks like it's asleep and i don't want to make it all tingly when it hits the ground. Also, the sole of my right foot is almost half covered by my pant cuff. The hazards of wearing super cool dude clothing (you know... like i wear).
Yeah. Here's where it all falls apart. Note the absurd sprawl. The reach, as though i AM dunking, but missed by three feet. Look carefully at the ball to see the blur lines - that ball is going to arc right over the hoop without anything but atmosphere touching it. I'm almost kicking my left hand with my left foot. It appears as though i should collapse from unbalance following this picture, but as i recall, i landed fine and uh... Hadassah... let up on the shutter button at that picture and started laughing hysterically.
Well, now you know how much work it is to be as cool as me. It doesn't pay very good, though.
I tried that baggy pants thing to be cool like you, but I got them home… and they fit. Ugh. Anyway… with regard to binary, all software seems to be BOY software… but the 1 is male and the 0 female. -- Eric (Email) - 24 May '04 - 12:43
so i could describe code to you like this… “boy girl boy boy girl boy girl girl boy girl boy boy boy girl girl boy” and as long as you don’t wear a fiftysix waist, my pants would probably be baggy on you -- juanito (Email) (URL) - 25 May '04 - 09:32
Sure… rub it in. Some guys are just “big-boned.” ;) -- Eric (Email) - 25 May '04 - 10:35
Silly Girls!
Beth and Karen were doing that when i got home tonight. Hee hee hee.
Right, so not much else makes it into the news today...... work... i wonder if drafting a tanker truck with its less-frontal-area punchthrough saves as much gas as drafting a big box trailer semi.
Ooh, here's a link that may take up hours and hours of your time if you let it. They describe the site as "an irreverant history magazine", which probably makes it fairly more accurate than the proper, aloof texts we read in school. I mean, history is about PEOPLE, and who can not be described more accurately with a touch of irreverance? Mother Theresa? She's probably it. And Jesus... but you know He's gotta have a killer sense of humor and shameless irreverance of self-important legalists. "You brood of vipers!" And of course an irreverant take on history makes it more interesting.
Right, so like i said, i'm 194 pounds now, so here's what i look like now. Karen suggested that i wear tight pants and shirt for that picture, but i kind of decided not to, especially since as soon as she mentioned tight pants, Beth (sitting next to her like in the picture) freaked out and said "NONONONONO" because she remembers one time at Young Life Club at Wedgwood when i wore super tight (like, butt clinging tight) pants, and she felt very violated. Sorry Beth. And i have absolutely NO IDEA how these girls can walk around with their bodies all squeezed into these outfits... ugh it must be so uncomfortable!!!.
I thank God for my good health, and nice to be even MORE healthy!
Dreads
There's a more recent picture of Antony. He's my little brother, and besides my cousin Jason, the only white person i know who has dreadlocks. And to clarify that i am way cooler than both of them, i had them first, so nyeah nyeah you two! Yeah? So what if i'm thirty two years old and didn't have to check with my parents first! What??? Shut up, i am not immature!!! Takes one to know one, Mister Poopy-Pants.
Ahem, ahem... sorry.
Right, well Karen already referred to this in today's post at her site, but it was really pretty funny. I was chatting with Antony, and wanted a recent picture of him with his dreads, so he sent me a pic of him looking like an angst ridden teen with clown hair. I guess it's not permanent, it's oil pastels crushed up and smooshed into his dreads, but it's pretty sweet in my opinion. A little dirty looking... but i'm starting to think about budgeting a little each month until i can afford a box of hair bleach and a bottle of burgundy or cherry permanent dye. ___more___
Right, so anyway, i told Antony he should knot the ends of one of his dreads, and he wondered what i meant, so i sent him this picture, and while i was editing it with the GIMP, Houston saw the pic on my monitor, pointed and said "Graham's poop!!!"
AAAH!!! The kids already make fun of dreadlocks by calling them "dookielocks" (which is a googlewhack all by itself at the moment), but they generally are able to say that my dreads are small and clean enough to avoid looking like poop. Apparently my son doesn't agree.
Houston calls all poop Graham's poop, by the way. I think we've taught him strenuously to avoid contact with "Graham's poop" which may be lying around in certain parts of the yard, and so he calls it all Graham's. How the bear at the zoo can produce Graham's poop and not just bear poop i don't know.
On an unreated note, i now weigh less than two hundred pounds. Yay. First time in quite a few years! Now to get enormously muscular so that my self image fits what i actually look like...
Pictures of colored dreads and graham’s poop (or whatever)... but no picture of the sub 200# physique??? Disappointing. A link to an Arnold Soundboard in honor of your accomplishment! :) (Sorry for the cussy ones… not all that nice, but the other ones are funny to hear) -- Eric (Email) - 21 May '04 - 10:30
i love dreads = ) hot hot hehe -- TRasha (Email) - 05 January '06 - 11:12
Isn't it ironic...
Here's a picture of Antony, my now-dreadlocked brother. He's a great little brother, and he was in the movie we did called "Captain Sarcastic and the Ironic Man". Antony was Captain Sarcastic, my brother Josh was The Ironic Man. I was Mr. Tight Pants.
Right, so anyway, we woke up this morning to Alanis wailing about how "ironic" it is to die the day after winning the lottery or having bad weather on your wedding day. Whatever. Granted, irony is a concept that eludes easy description. Most short definitions reduce it to a kind of highbrow sarcasm, but it's richer and deeper than that. But Alanis is not describing irony, she's describing unfortunate events. It's a beautifully ironic that she wrote a whole song about irony, but got it totally wrong. And in that sense, yes, Alanis, i agree, it is ironic, don't i think.
Here's another great irony that i encountered yesterday. We had this dude come over to help us with our budgeting and stuff, and we wanted to find out how much interest we're paying on our car loan. So he took the nearest piece of paper, wrote what i'd need to ask on it, and let me see it. I called the local Citi Financial branch, asked about the loan, and how much interest we're paying. "Well," the man on the line said, "it looks like you're paying 13% interest on your loan." I asked another question, and he said "Right, the first mortgage on your property." to which i replied, "Uh, i think you are thinking of the wrong John Moore."
After a short but akward pause, he said "Let's pretend I never said any of that." Turns out we have our loan somewhere else.
What's ironic? The financial advisor dude to whom we were talking is employed by a branch of Citicorp, same as the local Citi Financial, and what scrap of paper did he hand me with the info jotted down? The privacy agreement that specifically prohibits the sort of wanton, unauthorized dispersal of information. Sweet irony, huh?
For the record, the total lack of irony in Captain Sarcastic and the Ironic Man was intentional, and ironic.
Urban Folk Literature Critiqued
In art classes (of which i misguidedly took many in college) when they talk about "folk", they are talking about an expression of the life of a people in a community. As such, folk art (music, literature, quilts or whatever) is not "ART" (that which seeks to communicate the intangible) but is more like a craft. So, when one enters a community and sees expressions of the way things ARE in that community, it can be considered a Folk Expression.
As an aside that may make me unpopular with certain of my readers, the reason i don't really like Folk Music - Peter, Paul and Mary or John Denver for instance - is that it's artificial folk. Like, did Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. REALLY jump on grandma's feather bed? Did Peter or Paul REALLY get a toy that went zip when it moved and pop when it stopped? I THINK NOT!
Well, with Karen and her digital camera's help, i'm ready to dive into an area of Folk Art not yet exposed! I will expose it, and further than that, critique it! Those with sensitive dispositions, the weak kneed or the legally blind may not want to continue!!! ___more___
Let's dive right in and look at the longest opus. Here's the writing as it appeared.
Transcription: I don't want no Drama with no babymammas
This is an eloquent expression the trepidition felt by today's urban young man feels when approaching a comitted relationship. One can speculate as to the alternatives this author sees for himself. Is he gay? Is he seeking relationships with only babydaddies? My range of experience limits my knowledge of the slang used when referring to a same-sex male partner by today's urban youth, but "babydaddy" is probably not it. Additionally, urban youth culture is one of the few remaining bastions of anti-gay (but certainly not anti-lesbian) ideals, so the author probably is not excluding women in general from those with whom he wants no Drama. The most likely interpretation of this poetic expression is that the author sees Drama and babymammas as coexisting by necessity, and wants to maintain casual relationships with numerous non-exclusive female partners. Besides the double negative, the lack of terminal punctuation and the superfluous capitalization of the word drama, this work scores high on the technical scale.
We have already brought up homosexuality in the modern urban setting, and here's a didactic piece informing - possibly accusing - the reader of being gay. One might wonder upon what authority the writer bases this assertion, and indeed, in my case it is a false statement. Perhaps the author means the three words to be insulting, springing from a dislike of all literate people. He or she wants to accuse all able to read of being gay. One must assume, therefore, that the author is illeterate and that this piece was dictated, and jotted down by someone who is either openly gay and sees nothing wrong with the statement or is a friend of the author and is somehow exempt from being gay. Or the stenographer was a girl, in which case being gay is a definate plus, but only if very hot.
This is the shortest work we'll look at today. It may even be the title to a work lost, obscured, or in another location. It says "baby gurl", and judging from the penmanship and spelling, it is an amateur piece. It's powerful in its message, using no extra frills (besides the quirky spelling) to get across the core concept. Baby Girl. The word baby as seen here does not mean infant, it means "dear", "cherished" or "cute". So some young woman who fits one or more of the criteria of being dear, cherished or cute, may have seen this tribute to her, and was gladdened by it.
The pain of a spurned lover has been the muse for countless works of art throughout history. Here's a gritty look at the sentiments of someone who has found comfort with another. Maggie Is Better than You. The emotion leaps from the words like live shrimp leaping from the surface of a hot frying pan.
This mysterious scrawl eludes interpretation. Fuked is not a word. This may be a foreign language peice.
Folk art has always been a rich source of deeply heartfelt, genuine cries of sorrow and pain. Blues music is the prime example. Perhaps this two line masterpeice expresses the shock felt by the author as he or she learns of their uncurable condition. The hastily scrawled exclamation point implies that this is the first time the author has declared this, and perhaps is still either in denial or has a sharp-edged attitude of defiance about the disease. As though to say "I have herpes, and what are you going to do about that?" The impromptu energy of this work seems to flow unhindered, while the extra little line near the ascender of the letter h seems to indicate that the artist wanted to do it right. Energy and attention to detail are strong assets in any form of cultural expression, and the art of this corner of urbia is no exception.
Here's an urban haiku that introduces illegal substances into our discussion. Sex + Weed is all I need
The plus symbol is often written thus to denote the word "and", in which case the verb is in disagreement with the subject, and should be replaced by the word "are". Perhaps, though the author means to say "The sum of Sex and Weed is all I need". This interpretation may be strengthened by the choice to capitalize the words sex and weed, as though to refer to them as concepts, not a literal act and substance. The notion that "sex" in the poem refers to gender can be easily discarded, since urban culture marginalizes the eunuch or hermaphrodite (having no, or excess, gender) even more than gay men. So we're left with a statement that substantially means to say that the author only needs sex and weed. This invites us to speculate; to accomplish what end? To survive? One needs food and water, neither of which is included in any aspect of sex or weed, unless "weed" refers not to cannabis, but to some form of food. Perhaps to maintain a sense of self-worth? To stay free from boredom? Folk art is often clear about these matters, so the evasiveness of this piece is refreshing, rare, and very interesting.
Our last example of the poetry of today's gritty urban youth is this quadrasyllabic gem. It may be the oldest piece, judging from the weathering it has undergone. It says "Smoke ME out Please!" Here we see a dangling preposition, followed by the adverb "Please". So we're left to conjecture; out of what? Household pests are often smoked out of their habitats, a drug user may consider him or herself getting smoked out of their mind. Perhaps it's a plea on behalf of cigarettes or more potent cigars - "Smoke me outSIDE, please!" When taking into account the interest today's urban youth take in mind altering substances, one must entertain the thought that the statement is an invitation for the reader to somehow cause the author to become smoked out. The subject "You" is implied in statements like this, and would fully read, "Will you smoke me out of my mind, please!" Unless one can devise a way to control the authors breathing functions, this is patently impossible. It's conceivable that the author is connected to a ventilator, and thus could be administered mind altering smoke through the device, but the likelyhood of a patient connected to a ventilator being in the park to compose urban poetry on playground equipment is practically indistinguishable from zero. Perhaps we'll never know the true intention of the author of this work, and maybe he or she would prefer it that way.
Thank you for joining me on this journey through Middle American Young Urban Culture, and I hope we have learned about the environment and mental state of today's youth. I know I have.
Art, indeed. I find the verb disagrement in the “Sex + Weed” piece to be quite evocative. The intent of the error, if it is an error at all, suggests that the author sees “Sex + Weed” as a compilation capable of fulfilling the base requirements of Maslow’s Heirarchy. Self Actualization may not be far off for this individual should “Sex + Weed” be provided. Fascinating. -- Eric (Email) - 19 May '04 - 12:03
AHAHAHAHALSMIWX (laughing so much I can’t type) Maslow’s Heirarchy – that’s classic. Watch this site for upcoming high quality framed prints of this artwork. -- juanito (Email) (URL) - 19 May '04 - 13:23
Sadly, I really think there is a profit to be made here. :) Maybe it’s just too much business school. Look out e-bay! Here comes “Urban Folk Art.” It may even show up as a whole new category. -- Eric (Email) - 20 May '04 - 11:06
You crack me up!
Is that an original enough line/poem for your astute ramblings? Could you analyse that? “You” as the viewer and “crack” (made to be chipped and less that sound, or a variety of illegal substances used in the undergorund drug culture- – -which? ? ?) me up. Dangling preps again. . .Oh the dastardly grammar police are at it agian. -- mummu (Email) - 22 May '04 - 22:36
I hope this is a joke! -- RE - 10 December '05 - 10:40
FUKED, yes is not a word perhaps it was meant as f*cked? Well gobbed smacked- my names goff and I’m off! -- GOFF - 10 December '05 - 10:43
Your critique of these pieces is quite refreshing, and I mean that genuinely – whether you intended your writing to be satirical in nature or not, I still derived a great deal of pleasure in reading it. It put me in mind of a particularly poignant piece of urban art down at the skateboard park where my son used to take skateboarding lessons. I don’t have a photo of it right at this exact moment, but the gist of the piece was as follows: “Weed causes amnesia and other things I can’t remember.” The delicate balance of irony in this piece was what made it so delightful – it was at once a condemnation of the recreational use of marijuana, and at the same time a lament for the damage such use has done. I sensed the writer’s great personal turmoil over a habit he had no desire to break (and one which he had been engaging in for some time, judging from his colloquial and familiar use of the term “weed” to describe marijuana), which was nonetheless having a disturbing and all-too-evident detrimental effect on his short-term memory. -- Steve (Email) (URL) - 06 June '06 - 18:49
Karen style entry
But not NEARLY as good.
See, i worked this morning, and Karen worked tonight, so we saw each other walking through the lobby of the building, passing the two kids off like a baton in a relay race. Or the responsibilities in a tag-team wrestling match. Or the blame in politics. Whatever.
But i got to watch the kids! It went great! I was excessively tired from lack of sleep, and so while watching Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie, i fell asleep on the floor where i'd been cuddled with Houston for the whole two minutes fifty-two seconds he'd tolerate that. Houston kind of does whatever he wants while movies are going on, so he played and goofed off, pretty much staying out of trouble until i was awoken by the base of our papasan chair which was crashing down on my head. So i only got about half an hour of sleep. Say Lah Veee. C'est la vieuxeauxux. Whatever.
Right, so later we went outside and the kids played in the sandbox, except Katrina who sat in her chair cooing like a baby. Then Houston needed a bath to wash the germinating weeds out of his scalp, so while he was standing naked in front of the mirror, he discovered his bum!!! Pretty hilarious! He would twist one way, then swivel around the other, saying "bum! bum! bum!" I was LOL'ing. Or, the one i made up: LSMCGAXW which stands for Laughing So Much Can't Get Acronym Right.
Katrina's dedication
Being members of a mostly "Baptize those who are of the age of accountablility" type church, we had a Dedication Service today for Katrina! It was really cool, but this time was a lot different than when Houston was dedicated, because Houston was a lot more rambunctious and distracting than the first time he attended one of those. Regardless, it was touching and important. Katrina really is a gift from God, and we're incredibly blessed to be her caretakers for the moment, but really, she belongs fully to God, and everything we do to bring her up is a service to the Lord. Praise, bless Him for letting us have her in our family!!!
And Keren postponed her trip to Colorado JUST FOR US!!! Thanks Keren! And have fun in the tall mountains of the big CO!
Um, we watched Lost in Translation yesterday. The "we" part is becuase Karen was physically there, but there weren't enough gunfights, hilarous jokes or intensely emotional moments to keep her from surenderring to the "Sleep of the New Parent". I really liked the movie, because it made me miss Asia very much. My friend Rachel is in Korea right now, and i am very jealous of her too. Oh well. Maybe someday we'll go back. The other reason i liked it is that i found that i found the relationships very believable, and confusing. I have had times when i've been confused by relationships (hi, i'm juanito, i'm a recovering teenager) but am really lucky to have a wife who understands and will talk to me about ... uh... pretty much everything. Except sometimes she gets a glassy stare and nods and says "uh huh" when i talk about computers or science or cars.
Sorry about the glossy stare thing…uh…what were you saying? -- karen - 16 May '04 - 22:45
Dude, ... had no idea. Sorry we missed it (the dedication, not the movie). Katrina really is a blessing to us all. -- Eric (Email) - 17 May '04 - 18:28
well….. i don’t think we see the dedication service as “important” as if she were getting baptized. Like, we’d probably have invited my parents if she were to be getting baptized, but i think Karen and i are ever so slightly of the infant baptism school. S’okay though. -- juanito (Email) (URL) - 17 May '04 - 21:58
Still important, though. BTW Ozerik Juanito used to be a googlewhack and is no longer. You must be getting popular! :) -- Eric (Email) - 18 May '04 - 09:51
With the warmer weather, i've been noticing a... uh... cheese like odor when getting in the warm car. Well, we thought it would be a good idea to clean the car thoroughly, but the carpets and seats were relatively clean, if cluttered, and there were no spilled milk stains or blackened bananna peels (although i KNOW what that smells like), so yesterday after letting Houston carouse in the muck, i decided to clean out his car seat.
Source of aroma found.
So, adivce, desassemble, disinfect, scrub and otherwise clean out kids car seats at least once a year. In related news, check out this site about Scientology. Pretty interesting stuff.
we also have our first ever (in this house) infestation of insects! MOTHS!!! we have no clue where they are originating, but will be reorganizing our cupbords soon! They are SO ANNOYING!!!
Aliens and cute people.
I was thinking about "Music to Frag By", and about the rule about prepostions going before something or other. Well, with a phrase like "Music to frag by" you have to assume some things before you can fully ascertain what it means. You're supposed to assume this phrase and word order, which has only one meaning: "Music by which the listener is to frag". One could convolute the phrase by making absurd assumptions and make it meaningless: "Music to frag by the watermelon" or "Music to frag by chopping it into pieces". Right, so the rule makes much more sense now.
Thanks for reading this far: this is where it gets interesting.
The Vatican employs astronomers to, you know, astronimize stuff, and one of the questions often posed to these dudes is "If we find extra-terrestrial intelligence, what ramifications would that have for the church?" I guess this question has been around for a very long time, and some answers have been brought to my attention by this post at Slashdot. Gotta click the thing there to see my thoughts... ___more___
Right, so here's the articles i found most interesting. Well... they are the only ones i read all the way through. Interview with Brother Guy Consomething-or-other, and even better, Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial. Good questions. Karen and i have pondered these questions, and decided that God can do pretty much whatever He feels like. Questions like would Adam and Eve's sin have made aliens be born with a sin nature? I'd say yes, the whole universe fell. Or could the Son of God visit multiple planets? and if so, would the outpouring of the Spirit wait until the death of that particular messiah? or would God make it happen simultaneously, which makes a bit more sense to my flawed reason, or was Jesus the only incarnation of God's Son (obviously on earth, you Mormons and Rastafari, but also in the universe)? And did other intelligences know about it or must they rely on general revelation and our eventual evangelization to be saved?
All questions touched upon in those articles. Guy sounds fairly wishy-washy when speaking about other religions, like all "There's validity in all faiths" which is most assuredly true since all truth is God's truth, but validity does not mean "a way to salvation". To give Brother Consolmagno the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he's trying to be "all things to all men" and not alienate his more post-modern scientific peers...
I gotta thank Karen for buying so much good stuff for so cheap today. Brand new name brand clothes for me (XXL, no less!), clothing for the chil'ren, a set of really cool books, and VERY COOL, a Garvin eTrex!!! Which i hasten to point out was totally her purchase and her choice. She likes gadgets! I'm the envy of married nerds everywhere... but she still uses a ball mouse!!! I tell her it's obsolete, but she's like "I like my mouse!" Sigh. She is the best, though.
Right, so you may be wondering what's up with the pic at the top of this post. Well, it occurred to me as i went to a very abbreviated goodbye get-together for Rachel, our ex-Activity Therapist (and astonishing Canadian) that i'm very lucky to be surrounded by such beautiful people. The people in that picture and indeed everyone with whom i work, are really very attractive and beautiful (besides Rick, Dave, Dave and Jason, who are handsome) and pleasant to be around. I always think people i know are better looking than some random stranger on the street, but even if i didn't know them, i'd appreciate their, you know, outward beauty.
It bothers me that compliments and statements of affection or even appreciation are so akward. Maybe it's just me, but i feel odd telling someone (besides my honey Karen) that they are beautiful. And that i love them. I love a great many people, but my family is the only group that hears me say it. I have been trying some new things at work, like acting more emotional to more effectively respond to the kids. Well maybe i'll try telling people i really like them, and i think they are beautiful. If you are reading this, chances are i really like you and think you are beautiful (or handsome)... so if i don't get up the guts to say so... y'know...
and by the way, i know it looks like i'm holding a drink and a cigarette in that picture up there, but really it's a cup of fruit and a fork. It was delicious, thanks Michelle, and yeah... i did it on purpose.
I love you, and I think you’re beautiful, too… and I haven;t been drinking fruit or anything. :) -- Eric (Email) - 17 May '04 - 18:25
your cool i think ur awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -- Rodney - 14 March '06 - 14:37
May 13th:
It's may thirteenth. Katrina turns three months old today, and it's the third anniversary of the passing of one of the best friends i've ever had, TIM WETZEL! Katrina's age is a reason to rejoice, and the opportunity i had to be part of Tim's life is also cause for rejoicing. We look forward with eager anticipation to when we'll see him again in heaven, so whevever i say "used to" or "was" i mean does and is, but not, you know, HERE, right now.
We met Tim at wedgwood. He worked at the boys unit right across the hall from where i work now, and did Young Life club with me. Tim and i met for real at Young Life club, where he and his twin brother Aaron (with whom i'd already become aquainted) were volunteer leaders. My first impression of him (them both, really) was probably the most common one: "TAAALLL!!! Baggy clothes. Hmm, bump on his chest...? Cool guys!" My very first foray into the realm of extremely ridiculously baggy jeans was when Tim let me wear some of his for the first YL club i was part of, where i was Guy (or "Man"), Dude and Dude's friend. They both told me i was a crackhead. Later that night, as Karen and i were leaving, i mentioned my computer, and Aaron was like "How fast?" and i was like, "I've got a Celeron 300A overclocked to 450MHz and a TNT2 video card" and he goes "Over-WHAT??? to HOW FAST???" and Aaron's and my friendship has been cemented ever since. Tim didn't like computers yet, so he kind of made fun of us that new years party (the 1999-2000 one) when we were all playing multiplayer games. ___more___
dove and nails Karen knew Tim from working on the same campus, and she immediately liked him a very much amount, so when he came over to burn copies of his band Task At Hand's demo CD (music available here) she was of course fine with that. Eventually, Tim saw the folly of his "not liking computers" thing, and got an AMD K6-2 450MHz system with a Rage Pro Turbo AGP card backed up by a Voodoo2 PCI 3D-only card.
So then we started having little mini-LAN parties, where Karen and i would take our computers over to his apartment and connect to each other and play mostly Midtown Madness, but sometimes Unreal Tournament. He was always the best person to have at a LAN party, so friendly, patient, funny, and so on! I miss him a lot.
Right, so some of the most dear memories i have of Tim (Tymmdogg): he invented the term CYBERJOCK, which means "a person who is very good with computers, but is not a jerk about it, helping those less knowledgable with patience and courtesy, like a nice jock who is willing to help the less athletic but with computers, not sports." That sticker on the back of his van was the first cyberjock sticker ever, and he liked it a lot. We made it with silver retroreflective tape and black sign stickers. His tattoos were a permanent statement of his strong faith in God: the hebrew words for grace and emmanuel, a cross, a dove and nails, and a big old Jesus Fish or Icthus, which Dave Wildey did with a "jailhouse gun" that he made, and finally a trinity knot. Tim would use his body ink as a way to evangelize, particularly to those who seem magnetically attracted to tattoos and magnetically repulsed from church.
Another cherished memory was from a LAN party. Tim's cherished little brother, Richard, had a complete junk Acer computer with specs so pathetic, that typing them would seem obscene. We went upstairs to where Richard was already set up, and Tim went over and started disassembling his computer. I think he even started unscrewing the CD-ROM drive before Richard turned it off. Richard said "Uh, what are you doing?" and Tim told him, "Oh, can you power down your machine?" so Richard obliged. After removing the only parts worth anything, (CD-ROM, hard drive, memory, Voodoo2 video), Tim picked up the machine and carried it downstairs where - in front of Richard and all of us - Tim lobbed the computer into the air, watching it crash to the parking lot. Richard really liked having his Very Own Computer 'cause he was, like, twelve, so he repeated "Uh, what are you doing?" with a concerned grin on his face. I'm not sure when he deduced that there was something better in store, maybe when Tim handed him the baseball bat. Richard smashed and smashed, watching with glee as CMOS chips, chunks of circuit board and jagged wrinkled shards of metal flew through the air. Eventually a twisted chassis and box of microchips were all that was left, which went into the dumpster, and walking back upstairs rewarded Richard with a much faster system than he'd walked down with. I don't remember the details - it might have been a Celeron 566 that would do 850MHz. I put the parts together, and Tim, me, Rick Senior and Dave and maybe others chipped in to pay for the new hookup. Richard is still using the case today, although it looks somewhat different, and now contains a water cooling system. The look on Richard's face when he saw the new machine was absolutely amazing. I think i almost cried. Seriously.
That was one of Tim's favorite pictures of himself, because as he put it "I actually look cool!" Hmm... yeah, he always looked cool to those who knew him. He loved people. Karen told him once that she wished he'd quit smoking, because she wanted him to live to be really old. Tim told her that he wasn't going to die of smoking related disease, he was going to die doing something he loved. I guess God told him that much, because that's what happened.
He loved music as well, going everywhere with his guitar, and being part of a band for most of his adult life. Shade of Grace, Cephas (perhaps the most successful of his bands) and Task at Hand are the ones I know of. He recorded his first all-by-himself song, Music to Frag By (which should be Music by Which to Frag, but that was before my obsession with prepositions) with nothing but his super cool electric guitar and computer. He just kind of FIGURED IT OUT, which impressed me no end. He went on to make two VERY well done industrial mixes based on movies, Transformers, and Aliens. I've never met anyone who could figure stuff out like he could... i mean, i'm pretty good, but i never met myself. Heavy music really spoke to Tim. In his van, he'd crank really aggressive, fast tracks and just go nuts, pounding the wheel and saying "so much energy!" He really liked punk, particularly covers of 80's songs. John Denver was a favorite... Bill Maloney and the Vigilantes of Love were also a favorite... but more favorite. Tim introduced us all to Brian Regan, the funniest comic alive. I remember one Tuedsay night, Tim played some of Brian Regan's stuff, and Travis was seriously almost falling off his chair laughing so hard. I think he did fall off his chair one time.
I told some people at work today that it was the third anniversary of Tim's death, and they were very sympathetic. But i rejoice and praise God that i got to be part of Tim's life here on earth. Sure, i want him here still, and i would love to be able to have him know my kids and share in my life. But what we've got - all of us - is pretty amazing, and when we share it with others, we're taking part in what we shared with Tim - love, fellowship, Godliness... i dunno, maybe i'm not making much sense, but i think about Tim, and i'm glad, not sorrowful. Tim was an earnest follower of Jesus, a faithful friend, always honest, never hurtful, like, First Corinthians 13, the love chapter describes well the way Tim lived his life. I can only seek God's help to live my life the same way!
i’m pretty sure it’s the fourteenth, but i guess the official date has no true meaning. i’ll give ya a call sometime tonight, and maybe chill over there a little tonight before i head out for the night. -- richard (URL) - 14 May '04 - 06:01
mpg
When gas went up to 2.089 dollars per gallon, i started drafting semi trucks. Whenever i could, i'd get on some big trailer's bumper and enjoy the feeling that i was saving pennies per trip! Yay! So, i'm getting a solid 30.1 miles per gallon, mixed driving.
So, i was pondering how girls get pregn... no, wait, i'll start over.
I was thinking about what leads up to girls falling into the pattern of extramarital, irresponsible sexual activity. Young girls are having babies at a ridiculous rate. Our neighbor girl (who we like a lot) is the only one of her friends who is not/has not been pregnant. This is a pretty big deal. Losing one's virginity is not something that happens by accident, like losing your keys. You gotta get in states that would be fairly uncomfortable in most other situations.
This whole issue is a big deal for me, now that Katrina and Houston are getting older, and i want to be fully prepared to teach them THE MOST EXCELLENT WAY (you know, according to God's Word).
So i decided to tell my theory to a couple girls who were in chatty moods, and we were on the subject of teen pregancy anyway. It, and the response, follows. ___more___
Right, so here's what happens in the case of girls. I'm mostly discounting how teen boys get sexually irresponsible since it's an established fact that males are fundamentally irresponsible, and there is no less sexual thing in creation than an adolescent boy. So, girls: a girl is in the middle of her insecure, akward teen years, and yearns for acceptance and popularity. Some kid, friend, acquaintance, lab partner, invites her to a party "some people" are having at someone's house. At first she's not comfortable with the scene, but people show more acceptance for her if she's got a Bartles and James (tastes like yummy kool-aid) in her hand. She goes to a few parties, and learns that jello shots go down nice, that margaritas are yummy, and eventually the lurking Teen Boys decide she's hot enough to get drunk and in bed.
And it happens. She wakes up or comes to in some state of undress in a bed with a weird feeling, you know, and realizes that now she's one of Those Girls!!! So with nothing left to lose, she goes on with her lifestyle, parties, makes out, sleeps around, and eventually ends up a teen mother with severely restricted options ahead of her.
This scenario assumes a reasonably functional family, with a pair of well-intentioned parents. Throw in disfunctional family relationships, chaotic parenting from a single parent and his or her temporary partners, drug and alcohol abuse in the home, sexual abuse, rape, and who knows what else - and you've got a kid far more at risk for ending in this situation. Forced to sell yourself to feed your kid.
One of the girls said "That's just how it happened with me" and the other one kind of agreed, and said she knew others with similar stories.
This has to stop. Children need stability, love, nurturing. I see the results of chaotic, dangerous upbringings every day at work. It's not a good thing. Each new child is a creation of God, and is a blessing, a miracle, a wonder. Never a mistake. But we're living in a society where the least qualified individuals are having the most kids.
I read The Little Black Bag a long time ago, a sci-fi short story written in 1950. It mentions the human race splitting into sub-genera - the super-stupid and the super-intelligent - and the super-intelligent ones forming a sort of meritocracy over the stupid masses, but are no longer being able to reproduce. That caught my attention, and has continued to do so. And i want to say earnestly that i'm not a snooty jerk elitist who thinks every teen mother is a "super-stupid". On the contrary, i yearn for everyone to have the opportunity to grow up, learn, develop and become a healthy person, free of ignorance and prejudice, and this is less easy when you haven't graduated from high school and have a kid for which you're responsible, OR you are a kid whose mother drops you off at your grandmothers house to to to school. Again, those who do find themselves unmarried mothers (and i know and LOVE some who have) have my awe and respect for making it work. It's hard enough with two!
I just hate the fact that American culture has come to the point of accepting that this is just going to happen, and is pretty much okay with that. RAGE!!!
Topic for next long rant: how culture is an artifact (something made by humans) and not a creation of God. As such, it can be critiqued against God's standard.
oh yeah... a Google search for "The Little Black Bag" gets you some of the text - stolen of course - but including the ideas i referenced.
Day Off :)
Today we went GEOCACHING!!! FAQ Totally entertaining! We borrowed a friend's GPS device, and set out, figuring out how to put a waypoint in while driving. A few impressions: GPS units don't work like compasses, you point the thing and the needle swings. They tell you what direction you are travelling, not what direction the unit is pointing. This is cool because you can orient the thing any way you want, including up and down. Another; twigs and little innocuous branches that hang from trees seem magnetically attracted to dreadlocks, and HURT. Ow. In vaguely related news, this guy sent me the cutest letter today thanking me for, um, "bustin' those dreads on me man!" It's great to be appreciated! You're Welcome, Jason!
Mark's GPS is more expensive than the one we're likely to get, but this one is good enough for the author of that Geocaching site, so it'll prolly be good enough for us.
Yeah... and Karen also let me sleep in this morning until ELEVEN O'CLOCK!!!! I was so well rested today! Thanks, honey!
Dude… geocaching sounds awesome! How intriguing. You also did a spiffy job on Jason’s dreads. Fine work. I finally have my DSL back. It was out for nearly two weeks. Ugh! I feel like I need to catch up from not reading your posts.. although the forums have been strangely quiet. :) Let me know how you like your GPS receiver when you get it… it may be the ultimate gadget… the map that has the moving “you are here” dot on it. Too cool. -- Eric (Email) - 14 May '04 - 15:33
Silly Katrina!
Hee hee hee. You can create your own. Lots of fun to mess with! er... lots of fun with which to mess.
I worked this morning and took care of Houston and Katrina this evening. Full time mothers like Karen really deserve enormous amounts of credit - mad props. It's a huge deal being able to take care of little ones when you are super tired! And Karen came home at nine thirty and immediately cleaned up Houston's mess - something that's pretty much always done already when I get home at night! Thanks, Karen!
I had some super-interesting conversations with my coworker Rachel. She's very interested in politics and the repressed and marginalized. She had a great deal to say about my desire to go homeless. She suggests I volunteer one night a week at Dégagé Ministries downtown. That's probably an important prerequisite to, you know, getting dropped off in Kalamazoo with nothing but a copy of my licence and the clothes on my back.
Happy Mother's Day!!!!
There's Karen and Katrina! I'm very blessed to have Karen be my baby's momma. What a good baby's momma. What a good MOMMA!
Right, well, here's threegoodlinks for you on mother's day. That last one is great - FREE, uncomplicated image hosting. I don't know how they can do that without losing money.
Work was bad, partially because of which day it is. I tried yelling at a kid, sort of. She was yelling really loud that she should punch me in my mouth, and had screamed at me - after i had gotten the first few syllables of the phrase "Please don't be so rude" out of my mouth - "DON'T SAY PLEASE RIGHT NOW!!!", so as she was walking off through a crowd of kids, i tried to holler with frustration in my voice "Hey ____ STOP saying you're going to punch me in my mouth!!!" Later i asked her how that had made her feel, and i dragged out of her some lucid thoughts on the interaction. I might be trying more of that in my approach to the girls... not sure.
Oh well. Very Tired. Gotta Sleep. Must work at 6:30AM.
girls are mean. get used to that. -- richard (URL) - 12 May '04 - 21:16
well sure, but not THAT mean. at least they shouldn’t be. -- juanito (Email) (URL) - 13 May '04 - 12:53
SBOMU
Old friends. By which one usually means friends that have been friends for a long time, not, you know, OLD friends. Although with my aching knee and back and popping joints when i sit up in bed, i'm starting to feel the effects of age in my body. Praise God that i'm getting better and better at sports!
Sam is my oldest friend (in the above-clarified sense). We befriended each other in, uh... 1984, twenty years ago, when our family had just moved to the jungles of Peru. The jungle was hot, humid, and teeming with life of all kinds, and Sam knew more about that life more than anyone i'd met. Since then, he's been a constant friend of the highest caliber. Ask him anything about Spanish or linguistics (or Tolkien) and he'll answer swiftly with unswerving accuracy.
Today we went to the zoo, which was several SBOMU's of fun. SBOMU stands for Standard Barrel Of Monkey Unit. I made it up. Hopefully it catches on better than saying "W.E." instead of "whatever". Tim Wetzel and i tried really hard for probably over a year to get that one rolling, and only two people even know what it means, let alone USE it. Although the story i made up about a kid who AWOL'ed from one of the units at Wedgwood and was living under the elevator but was never found and there is still a gallon of milk missing from the milk fridge every week - i heard that one in the wild recently. Well... a kid asked me if it was really true. And there was a real life case of a runaway living under an elevator, so it's certainly possible.
Right, so the zoo rockes, and it's so late i can't put any pictures up. As though anyone reads my site and not karen's - here's her undoubtedly superb post of the day's events. I ain't read it yet... i'm finna do so as soon as i post this. 'night!
Just a picture
Beautiful, huh? Karen and Houston loved walking around outside last fall looking for exceptional leaves. Arranging them on our scanner yielded some beautiful pictures! That is a little section of a 3,500x2,500 (almost 10 megapixel!) picture that Karen made. One of God's little clues to us that there is a Creator, and He cares!
So how about that Friends finale? I didn't watch it. Zzz is a good read. They have slowed down some, the dude who did most of the articles doesn't do it as much anymore, but it's still a great site to read the articles. Some weeird stuff.
Sorry, boring post
What a cutie. Today we went to the Barn Sale, a neighborhood famous yearly event involving really cheap stuff. It's fun to look through other people's castoffs imagining what use you could get out of them. There was a sewing machine that looked really old and reliable, but had exposed wire all over, so they threw away the wire part.
Check out these things. Here's the FAQ - they are little coin sized things with two wires sticking out, and they get really cold on one side, and really hot on the other. They are not peltier devices, which i did use to cool one of my processors. Peltiers are much less efficient than normal compressed refrigerant (called vapor phase change cooling) setups like in your fridge or a/c, so they aren't a good option for large cooling jobs. Coolchips, however, are much more efficient than vapor phase change systems, and will be able to cool an entire room with two square inches of actual cooler thing. The equipment to move all this heat (or non-heat: cold) around will be much larger than two inches square, but will still work really well! This is going to make fridges and a/c units much cheaper to buy AND run! Pretty heh... heh... cool, huh?
MMMMMMMeat!
That chunk of animal is part of a backstrap that Brooke's dad gave to me when i helped him and Travis process a deer Travis had shot. The backstrap is pretty much the best cut, besides the tenderloins, which are on the other side of the spine from the backstraps. Here's an entertaining and informative article on the subject. I was cooking potatoes and carrots on the grill as well, and i didn't start them in time, so they needed more cooking by the time the meat was done to a PERFECT just-pink center. So by the time i did get them off the grill (i guess i should have taken them off and covered them when they were perfect) they were Well Done, and not as juicy as they would have been, but still were among the very best steaks i've had.
Almost makes me interested in going out with Todd or Eric to kill Bambi.
The next part is pretty gross so you might not want to read it. ___more___
About killing... when helping to process that deer, i was confronted in an immediate way that this was a living thing that was made not living by a human who shot it with a gun. Not even a big gun. There was the wound, the broken rib, the bruised muscle, the air bubbles of when the deer tried to breathe through punctured lungs. Not a pleasant thing to think about. I enjoy video games where plenty of shooting and fragging (dying) goes on, and i've gotten used to the idea that in video games you can get all better by absorbing a health pack or something. I've never seen an actual gunshot wound, and in reality, the deer got shot through the chest and it killed her. There was no white box with a big red cross on it lying nearby to run over which would heal her up. She got shot, and died a few minutes later.
I would like to take some of the Wedgwood boys to help process a deer. Especially the ones who may brag about having been shot, or shooting someone else, or the gamers. Would either give them insight, or they would think it was the coolest thing they'd ever seen because they're sickos who get a kick out of inflicting pain. Meh, who knows.
Genius test!
Hey! Go take that bad boy! Here's the link! I don't think it's very accurate.
yo.. i guess stupidity isn’t contagious…
hehehe.
i got comments on my site too. -- richard (URL) - 04 May '04 - 16:24
whoah
like usual, this picture has NOTHING to do with the post.
Right, so i was chillin up in class at Wiggedywood drawing up a test: "Juanito the Genieus's Test to See if You Are a Genieous Too", and they turned on a Toby Kieth cd, and this song came on, and all i heard was "Man, we lit up your world like the Fourth of July", i was like "what?", and then the part about the Statue of Liberty shakin' her fist? How about or most shockingly offensive: "You'll be sorry that you messed with the U.S. of A. / Cause, we'll put a boot in your a- / It's the American way"
What in the world????? I'm sure this is not really news, the song was written just post-9/11, but even back then i felt enough sympathy for "them" that this song would have repulsed me. And i've learned from work if nowhere else, that violence does not solve problems.
So what do you think we should do with the colony country of Iraq?
I was totally gonna write about something else. Maybe thinking about politics squished it out of my brain. Oh well. ___more___
Oh, i know what it was! "The American way" is not to put boots in a--es, at least it's not MY way, and i consider myself an American. This brings me to what we heard about in church Sunday: what it means when the word Christian becomes an adjective. I am a Christian, but i am embarrassed by Christian TV, some Christian literature, and manyChristianideas.
Oh well. P.O.D. rocks!
Hey Juanito- did you ever read that U2 book? some of what Rob said reminded me of them a lot! Ok- so I’m obsessed! I totally thought that the end of that sermon would have been the best time to sing a U2 song! Oh well- I still sang one in my head! (get it, one?!?) -- Beth - 03 May '04 - 23:08
nope, it’s sitting right next to me. I’ll have to read it starting TODAY!!! It’s called WALK ON The Spiritual Journey of U2. Karen mentioned U2 also after the sermon. -- juanito (Email) (URL) - 04 May '04 - 10:01
Contagious
Yesterday i put a picture of MY present for Karen as the picture... and it was her birthday, so here's today's pic. Happy birthday plus one day, Karen!
We chilled at Karen's parents, and i busted some dreads up in Jason's head. It took MUCH longer than i'd anticipated, but was kewl doing somebody elses dreads. The technique i used was almost like here but instead of knotting the ends like this dude recommends (and would have probably worked if i'd tried it), i told Jason's mom to put rubber bands on the end to keep the dreads from untangling. I think we'll see him again soon, and am looking forward to seeing how they turn out when more tame. Here's a cool counterpart to the pic of jason. He said he wants dreads because i have them. Flattering!!! :) Contagious.
On Karen's camera, there's a picture of Jason with the shocks of tangled hair poking way up, and the very next pic is his mom with a funny mixed expression of incredulity and distaste. here they are. Hee hee. ___more___
Karen's grandpa is a really awesomely cool guy. Besides saying "Some other time" when Houston grabbed his foot and said "Kick soccer ball???", he told hunting stories involving shotguns. He talked about a Browning Automatic (I thought he was talking about a BAR), and that it was fully automatic. Wow. I don't know if i understood correctly, but one of the only fully auto shotguns i've heard of is the Jackhammer, a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Except in video games. Far Cry players will have seen the Jackhammer by the dozen, even though only two working prototypes exist. Pretty insane gun there.
Yeah, i always write way more than i intend to, so i guess i'll quit now.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAREN!!! We've been married almost ten years, and i have not once forgotten! This year, i even had her present ready on the day! That's it up there. It's a quilted pillow cover that i made copying a technique that karen did first. And then we cleaned (very satisfying for Karen to have a cleaner house), then we went out with Keren and Beth who really did an AWESOME job planning and executing a really cute series of events that led to the big gift of a membership to the Meijer Gardens where we can now go anytime we want to for NO EXTRA COST!!! We both thank you guys so much.
We saw Mean Girls, which didn't have anything to do with the mean girls i'm used to. It was cute and funny.
Oh... the title refers to Karen's birthday, May Day, mayday, from M'aidez, French for "Help me!" See??? ___more___
And later we talked about heaven, and what it will be like. I said it would beanarchy (the word comes from Greek meaning absence of government) while Karen said it would be a theocracy. We had lots of interesting points, agreeing finally that human words cannot describe what it will be.
One of the coolest ideas was that it will be as impossible to sin then as it is to exceed the speed of light for us now. Moral Laws will join the laws of physics in unbreakability!!! I'm certain the laws of physics as we know them will not exist, maybe they will be replaced by the laws of glorifying God!!! How much fun will that be? Look at how much fun we have with the laws of physics now; gravity, lift, thermodynamics, conservation of momentum... some of the most fun stuff has everything to do with physics, and we're still dealing pretty much exclusively with what Newton could describe! Can't wait.
Here's another vanity search... my name gets ME for the first two results. I'm so vaaain, i probably think the whole internet is about me...
Sing it Carly! I actually am quite impressed that you are on google! You’re cool! -- Beth - 02 May '04 - 06:23
Politics and Work
I hardly ever talk about politics since I think almost without exception politicans are liers and crooks, and i don't often talk about work since i jealously guard my brain-time, and want to keep as much of it for the things in my life that are really imprtant (Family, God... computers).
Well, i'm breaking custom. I saw Ralph Nader on an Arab American news show today, and he seems like a genuinely concerned, honest guy who wants to do the right thing. I've heard him described as a "consumer advocate" and other stuff, but this is the first time i'd seen him or heard anything of substance that he has to say. He shows disillusionment with the big two-party system, basically saying that both the GOP and the Demos are wooing the corporate dollar so they can pay for campaign expenses and "insipid TV ads".
Yeah, so I'm gonna vote for the Natrual Law Party since they are the most hilarious to me, but Mr. Nader for President. Yeah, maybe I'm "throwing away" my vote, but at least i'm voting. I used to not vote because politicians viscerally repulse me.
Both parties "wooing the corporate dollar" fits right in with our National Religion of Materialistic Consumerism, by the way.
Read on for Work!!! ___more___
It was terrible today, because last night there was a big problem with all of the girls who went to Young Life club, and this morning we were dealing with the fallout. We're moving our program in some directions that leave us no longer managing the group with tools we've used in the past (restraining kids and tossing them into a locked room) and asking them to manage themselves using tools that they have not yet developed (self control, manners, cooperation).
And recently I've been a major target for rudeness and aggression, mostly verbal but at least once physically. This has left me perplexed, since my non-verbals are without fail calm, peaceful and quiet. I've observed pretty much every other staff (all of whom i give incredible mad props to; we do a practically impossible job) allowing emotion to make their voice louder, higher, or other non-verbals beyond a point where i'd personally be comfortable with.
I pretty much never talk about work, but today since i was stuck there an extra hour and a half, Karen asked me how it went, so i told her. She gave me insight, thus helping me solve a problem - a very non-female thing to do. Instead of saying "I too know what it is like to be targeted by demented teenagers" - which she most certainly does - she told me why stuff was going on, and some ideas to fix it!!! She's sensetive to my emotional needs!!! Yaay!
Right, so when the girls display so much ANGER that they are throwing stuff and calling people all kinds of rude names and i intervene with a calm, quiet but serious tone, that probably makes them feel like their display has not been effective, as if their feelings are not valid. A person who is angry wants to see and feel that they are being angry for a reason, that somebody is understanding and responding to their anger with anger. Nobody wants to get in a deeply emotional discussion with a person who is emotionally blank. This works both ways, you don't want to express your undying love for someone who deadpans "And I love you too, wife", in the same way, nobody wants to scream at someone "I hate your m-f-ing guts you f-ing a-hole shut the f- up talking to me before I kick your a-" at someone who responds "Please don't be so disrespectful to me." A lover wants to see love on the face of their beloved. Does a hater want to see hate on the face of their enemy? Well, I love the kids at work with the love of God, who put His image and breathed life into each one of them. So they are not going to see hate on my face.
I certainly show other emotions; concern, happiness, joy, sadness, love, and even anger (precalculated and meditated - at situations like racism and sexual abuse), but I can not tie into destructive, hateful emotions.
We've set it up so that deescalation takes priority over compliance. The biggest danger is that escalation (going off) becomes the Licence to Not Comply (do whatever they want).
Nice job summarizing the insights gained from this experience, Juanito. (For others reading this comment, he and I work together, so I know quite well what he’s talking about. I was there for that “extra hour and a half” that he was stuck at work, slogging through the emotional firestorm that we had to contain if not extinguish…
Modulating the precise emotional response that helps conflict get resolved is a delicate, often exasperating art, especially when it seems to fall on one side of the conflict to “get it right” while the other side feels free to do what it feels like with little or no responsibility to make it better or assist the other. And that’s often how it seems to us doing this kind of work. In my opinion, though, that’s the burden of the peacemaker, one that Jesus knew quite well – He had a message of forgiveness and reconciliation that many of those who stood to profit from hatred and division didn’t want to hear. For the youth in our program, they are still convinced that aggression and raw power is the way to get results in this world, and they’re surrounded with “proof” that this is indeed the case. They’re used to the aftermath of bitterness and destruction that this relational approach typically leads to. Our task is to help persuade them that there really is a different, and better, way to go through this life. But there’s a lot of resistance we have to work through. I’m glad that God is gracious to give us occasional relief and encouragement along the way! -- Dave Blakeslee (Email) - 03 May '04 - 09:50
Well being one of the people at work that observes this attack on Juanito frequently, I have to say it is disheartening to see this basic lack of respect. Not, I don’t respect you as an authority figure. It is, I don’t resect you as a human being. -- Keren - 04 May '04 - 21:58
It's may thirteenth. Katrina turns three months old today, and it's the third anniversary of the passing of one of the best friends i've ever had, TIM WETZEL! Katrina's age is a reason to rejoice, and the opportunity i had to be part of Tim's life is also cause for rejoicing. We look forward with eager anticipation to when we'll see him again in heaven, so whevever i say "used to" or "was" i mean does and is, but not, you know, HERE, right now.
We met Tim at wedgwood. He worked at the boys unit right across the hall from where i work now, and did Young Life club with me. Tim and i met for real at Young Life club, where he and his twin brother Aaron (with whom i'd already become aquainted) were volunteer leaders. My first impression of him (them both, really) was probably the most common one: "TAAALLL!!! Baggy clothes. Hmm, bump on his chest...? Cool guys!" My very first foray into the realm of extremely ridiculously baggy jeans was when Tim let me wear some of his for the first YL club i was part of, where i was Guy (or "Man"), Dude and Dude's friend. They both told me i was a crackhead. Later that night, as Karen and i were leaving, i mentioned my computer, and Aaron was like "How fast?" and i was like, "I've got a Celeron 300A overclocked to 450MHz and a TNT2 video card" and he goes "Over-WHAT??? to HOW FAST???" and Aaron's and my friendship has been cemented ever since. Tim didn't like computers yet, so he kind of made fun of us that new years party (the 1999-2000 one) when we were all playing multiplayer games.dove and nails Karen knew Tim from working on the same campus, and she immediately liked him a very much amount, so when he came over to burn copies of his band Task At Hand's demo CD (music available here) she was of course fine with that. Eventually, Tim saw the folly of his "not liking computers" thing, and got an AMD K6-2 450MHz system with a Rage Pro Turbo AGP card backed up by a Voodoo2 PCI 3D-only card.
So then we started having little mini-LAN parties, where Karen and i would take our computers over to his apartment and connect to each other and play mostly Midtown Madness, but sometimes Unreal Tournament. He was always the best person to have at a LAN party, so friendly, patient, funny, and so on! I miss him a lot.
Right, so some of the most dear memories i have of Tim (Tymmdogg): he invented the term CYBERJOCK, which means "a person who is very good with computers, but is not a jerk about it, helping those less knowledgable with patience and courtesy, like a nice jock who is willing to help the less athletic but with computers, not sports." That sticker on the back of his van was the first cyberjock sticker ever, and he liked it a lot. We made it with silver retroreflective tape and black sign stickers. His tattoos were a permanent statement of his strong faith in God: the hebrew words for grace and emmanuel, a cross, a dove and nails, and a big old Jesus Fish or Icthus, which Dave Wildey did with a "jailhouse gun" that he made, and finally a trinity knot. Tim would use his body ink as a way to evangelize, particularly to those who seem magnetically attracted to tattoos and magnetically repulsed from church.
Another cherished memory was from a LAN party. Tim's cherished little brother, Richard, had a complete junk Acer computer with specs so pathetic, that typing them would seem obscene. We went upstairs to where Richard was already set up, and Tim went over and started disassembling his computer. I think he even started unscrewing the CD-ROM drive before Richard turned it off. Richard said "Uh, what are you doing?" and Tim told him, "Oh, can you power down your machine?" so Richard obliged. After removing the only parts worth anything, (CD-ROM, hard drive, memory, Voodoo2 video), Tim picked up the machine and carried it downstairs where - in front of Richard and all of us - Tim lobbed the computer into the air, watching it crash to the parking lot. Richard really liked having his Very Own Computer 'cause he was, like, twelve, so he repeated "Uh, what are you doing?" with a concerned grin on his face. I'm not sure when he deduced that there was something better in store, maybe when Tim handed him the baseball bat. Richard smashed and smashed, watching with glee as CMOS chips, chunks of circuit board and jagged wrinkled shards of metal flew through the air. Eventually a twisted chassis and box of microchips were all that was left, which went into the dumpster, and walking back upstairs rewarded Richard with a much faster system than he'd walked down with. I don't remember the details - it might have been a Celeron 566 that would do 850MHz. I put the parts together, and Tim, me, Rick Senior and Dave and maybe others chipped in to pay for the new hookup. Richard is still using the case today, although it looks somewhat different, and now contains a water cooling system. The look on Richard's face when he saw the new machine was absolutely amazing. I think i almost cried. Seriously.
That was one of Tim's favorite pictures of himself, because as he put it "I actually look cool!" Hmm... yeah, he always looked cool to those who knew him. He loved people. Karen told him once that she wished he'd quit smoking, because she wanted him to live to be really old. Tim told her that he wasn't going to die of smoking related disease, he was going to die doing something he loved. I guess God told him that much, because that's what happened.
He loved music as well, going everywhere with his guitar, and being part of a band for most of his adult life. Shade of Grace, Cephas (perhaps the most successful of his bands) and Task at Hand are the ones I know of. He recorded his first all-by-himself song, Music to Frag By (which should be Music by Which to Frag, but that was before my obsession with prepositions) with nothing but his super cool electric guitar and computer. He just kind of FIGURED IT OUT, which impressed me no end. He went on to make two VERY well done industrial mixes based on movies, Transformers, and Aliens. I've never met anyone who could figure stuff out like he could... i mean, i'm pretty good, but i never met myself. Heavy music really spoke to Tim. In his van, he'd crank really aggressive, fast tracks and just go nuts, pounding the wheel and saying "so much energy!" He really liked punk, particularly covers of 80's songs. John Denver was a favorite... Bill Maloney and the Vigilantes of Love were also a favorite... but more favorite. Tim introduced us all to Brian Regan, the funniest comic alive. I remember one Tuedsay night, Tim played some of Brian Regan's stuff, and Travis was seriously almost falling off his chair laughing so hard. I think he did fall off his chair one time.
I told some people at work today that it was the third anniversary of Tim's death, and they were very sympathetic. But i rejoice and praise God that i got to be part of Tim's life here on earth. Sure, i want him here still, and i would love to be able to have him know my kids and share in my life. But what we've got - all of us - is pretty amazing, and when we share it with others, we're taking part in what we shared with Tim - love, fellowship, Godliness... i dunno, maybe i'm not making much sense, but i think about Tim, and i'm glad, not sorrowful. Tim was an earnest follower of Jesus, a faithful friend, always honest, never hurtful, like, First Corinthians 13, the love chapter describes well the way Tim lived his life. I can only seek God's help to live my life the same way!
the actual date is May 14th. But the date is not the important thing. -- juanito (Email) (URL) - 15 May '04 - 11:19
Well juanito I finally came across your blog after you mentioned it. This section is something that had me crying at work which made me look strange. I know I don’t show much in the way of emotions to some people but if you could ask tim he would tell you that is just me on the outside. In all reality I miss tim alot after my stepping out of Cephas Tim was the only member to reach out and apologize for making me want to leave. It was not to long after we met at denny’s to have this disccusion he went to be with the one he loved most. I heard crap from some for being so upset and saying I was showing out. I truely was not I was very hurt not only had I lost someone that had admited he was wrong for treating me a certian way and had become close with me again but I was in the midst of a divorce that tim had been trying to help me through. He was strong and he also help me to not blame God for what was happening in my life I was struggling alot. You know not alot of people knew tim the way I did heck I took him to see his second non christian concert the first being john denver. WHERE DO I TAKEHIMBIOHAZARDANDSLAYER HA! Tim looked truely fightened but we got to meet Evan,Billy, and Bobby from biohazard we had a good time. I think the thing that makes me miss him most is the super bowl he and I would go to the store buy a bucket of fried chicken and 3 sixpacks of lemonade and watch the super bowl together.Man I miss him I am sorry for taking up so much space. I just push this stuff to the back of my head all the time and reading this just compeled me write. I miss him very much -- Jason Moore (Email) (URL) - 05 October '04 - 15:52
oh yeah that photo of him playing was prolly the best time I ever had in that band rocking the basement of the first asembly of God in traverse city with six feet deep, and feast eternal. Man! -- Jason Moore (Email) (URL) - 05 October '04 - 15:56
thanks for the comments. Being a friend of Tim shaped me more than most things in my life. He was and is a great person, who i miss deeply, and am eager to see again. -- juanito (Email) (URL) - 05 October '04 - 22:42
no juanito I have to thank you for having a tribute to someone who made this world a better place to live. I am definately a better person for having known tim, and long for the day I can give him an ooggie! -- Jason Moore (Email) (URL) - 07 October '04 - 15:57
aaaa2zzz -- pip723pec (Email) - 26 April '09 - 22:10
Juanito the Genious's Test to See if Your a Geenius too.
hey bro, it’s been awhile since i’ve visited the site. after taking your test i haave discovered that i’m apparently the smartest thing with gills. -- deathwarrior (Email) - 22 July '04 - 17:50
ROFLMAO!!!!!
That is all. -- Steve Drost (Email) (URL) - 14 October '04 - 16:36
aaaa2zzz -- pip723pec (Email) - 26 April '09 - 22:11
and no, i’m not kidding, i really think you’re really smart.
I’d like to make my comment, mainly to say that you need to learn how to close your tags. And to say that I like kids. Yay!
-- richard (URL) - 01 June '04 - 20:53
tag closed. I used a >/i> accidentally. That was the problem.
-- juanito (Email) (URL) - 01 June '04 - 21:32