Absorbing other people's moods

On last week's This American Life, there is an episode about the personality types that negatively affect workplace behavior--The Jerk, The Slacker, and The Pessimistic/Depressive. Some guy did some research and found out that when you have one of these people in a group (any group), they consistently and dramatically bring the entire group down. This goes against the grain of contemporary research that says that a group tends to make individuals conform to the group dynamic. This research suggests that, for at least these personality types, it goes the other way.

This is interesting to me because the last few months I have been noticing just how much I absorb other people's moods. When I am with happy people, I am happy. When I read a happy or at least hopeful story or book, I am content. By contrast, when I read an upsetting story, I am upset. When I am with a complainer, I get into a bad mood. When other people aren't doing their job, I don't feel like doing mine. I totally absorb other people's moods. It doesn't happen for long--I don't keep it in me for days, but it is able to shift my mood for at least a couple of hours and up to a day. (The same is true for positive interactions.)

And this happens despite my awareness of this, despite my attempts to build emotional boundaries, despite my attempts to intentionally counteract the "bad mood," and despite using contemplative practices like meditation. I've noticed that awareness and emotional boundaries and intentionality and meditation really HELP, but not nearly as much as when I avoid those situations in the first place.

I also see this happening with my interactions with Dean. For example, several times I have noticed that, if I am tired or cranky, and I am close to Dean, he tends to suddenly get very tired or cranky too.

I'm not yet sure what all of this means. But it raises lots of questions for me. Like:

• Is "escaping" the bad stuff a good thing? (it doesn't seem so) And if so, how?
  
• how do those in the helping professions stay centered? I am by nature pretty good at detachment, but if this is happening to me, surely it is happening to folks in the helping professions even more
  
• Was Norman Vincent Peale on to something? (although I still think that the extreme version of that, like The Secret, is still way out there).

I find myself wanting to spend much more time intentionally absorbing "good moods" or at least finding ever more effective ways of counteracting the bad moods.

What's humane?

This is a heartwarming story: Meet Forrest Hump

Here is how it starts:

The camel’s dark oval eyes were glazed, the lids only half open. He lay on the ground in his pen, his mangy flanks quivering with each labored breath. That November morning, Roger, our animal director at Boys Ranch Town, a 145-acre farm for troubled boys on the outskirts of Edmond, Oklahoma, had come to me, worried. “I can’t get him to stand,” he said. “He’s rubbing holes in his skin by dragging himself around.” Now I watched anxiously as the vet I’d called looked the camel over. Despite arthritis and wobbly joints, the exotic creature had become an integral part of our program since he was donated to us a couple of years ago, teaching the boys the responsibility of caring for an animal, and even starring in the scene with the wise men in our annual drive-through Christmas pageant. He was as friendly as a great big puppy, and the boys loved Forrest Hump, as they called him. Finally, the vet finished his examination. “Your camel has progressive, degenerative joint disease,” he said. “He’s not going to get better. The humane thing would be to put him down.”

I've never quite understood why "putting down" an animal with generative joint disease is "humane" [human], but forcing a human with painful generative joint disease to go on living is humane, and assisting them towards death is murder. I don't know who is right, I only know that it doesn't make sense. You'll have to read the story to see how they decided.

So unexpected

Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds; Teenagers Who Make Such Promises Are Just as Likely to Have Sex, and Less Likely to Use Protection, the Data Indicate

Really, who would have thunk that pledges wouldn't work?

Planet Earth

Last night, Dean and I watched a marathon of Planet Earth. It's something that I was vaguely aware of a few months ago (mostly for beating out Kathy Griffin for an Emmy). But last night we watched it on Discovery-HD. I just have to say that it is absolutely an amazing show!!!! And on HD it is just incredible. I'm stunned by the manhours it must have taken to shoot.

Below is part of an episode that I found on youtube. Compared to the HD version, this looks like total crap. But it's the best I could find to show you what I mean.

Catching Up

Been a while since I blogged. Since I'm busy, this is actually pulling together some emails I've sent out to friends in the last few days and turning them into a blog post.

Christmas went well. We spent the day at Dean’s mom’s house. We got there at about 9 and had blueberry coffee cake for breakfast. As we visited and snacked on munchies (mostly candy, which I had to stop after a while cuz it was making me sick), we watched a bit of the Disneyland Parade. (Dean loves parades; I don’t care for them much). We opened prezzies at about 10. Dean was caught completely by surprise by the hdtv I got him. I got mostly books and DVDs. People just raided my amazon wish list and gave me stuff from that. Which is fine by me. One neat thing I got was one of the Lego sets. I know it sounds totally stupid, but I love putting Legos together. It’s very relaxing without the glue and mess of model ships or whatever. Anyway…

Dean’s mom forgot to put the ham in the oven in the morning, and she didn’t discover it until after we had opened prezzies, so she had to get that in the oven. So, we were late having lunch/dinner. We normally have it at 1pm, but this time we had it at about 2:30. It was still great tho—ham, scalloped potatoes, fruit salad, pumpkin bread, and vegetable casserole. Yum! I went into a post-dinner coma almost immediately afterwards and snoozed on the couch for about a half hour.

We finally got home at about 3:30 in the afternoon and just lazed about the rest of the day. Yesterday, we spent most of the day setting up the new HDTV (which required a trip to radio shack for cables and the cable company to get an HD cable box), and totally re-arranging the family room furniture. I totally love the new arrangement. It’s very cozy. And the tv is awesome. Dean has really been enjoying it.

Sunday I preached at church. My sermon topic was “Christmas Wish.” The scripture text was Luke 11:5-13. I showed the short film “Santa’s Little Helper,” which you can find on iTunes here http://www.jgsfilms.com/ . It’s an 11-minute film about a woman whose Christmas wish is to find true love that goes on a blind date with what turns out to be one of Santa’s elves. There are a couple of “PG” moments in the film that might get people bad mouthing me to the pastor, but I don’t care.

After the short film, I briefly discussed two of the questions that the film raised for me: (1) what is my Christmas wish for 2009? I developed the idea that sometimes I think I am asking for bread, when it turns out I’m really asking for a snake, and being thankful that God doesn’t always give me what I think I want. I also developed the idea that often I do not know what I want or need, and that this is an opportunity to spend time with God asking for God’s insight and wisdom for my life. (2) am I willing to ask, seek, and knock? Just as the main character in the film had to take an active part in making her Christmas wish come true, so I have to be willing to go beyond my comfort zone, to ask, to seek, and to knock, and to be aware of the opportunities that God brings to me. And if I am not willing to take that risk, then at least I might be willing to ask for the strength and courage that I need.

I closed by noting that we rarely give ourselves the time and space to ponder these questions. So, my Christmas gift for them was the gift of time and space. At the end of my sermon, we had 5 minutes of quiet, allowing the congregation to ponder these questions, or any other questions that the film raised for them, and allowing them to bring their thoughts, questions and responses to God.

This is the last sermon I’m doing for a while. At least 6 months. I find them very emotionally draining to do. It is very hard to be interesting, clear, thought provoking, caring, and challenging/transforming without judging all at once.

Bankers get bad securities for bonuses

This sounds like a GREAT idea!

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/22/rediker.bonus/index.html

Credit Suisse, just announced that it would pay its bankers up to 80 percent of their 2008 year-end bonuses in the form of what The Wall Street Journal called "an illiquid group of junk bonds, mortgage-backed securities and corporate loans" instead of cash or stock, as had been the norm throughout the industry.

CS effectively told its bankers that this year, instead of getting paid money, they would get paid in kind -- the same kind of over-leveraged, securitized paper that caused much of the crisis in the first place.

Computer viruses

My computer was crippled all day yesterday as I struggled with a computer virus that nothing could detect. McAfee didn't detect it, neither did Spybot Search&Destroy. After tracking it down manually, I found 3 parts of it, and got rid of it, only to find that some other part I couldn't find kept restoring it. It was vicious. Searches of google for the .dlls (kazepala.dll, gadibure.dll, hokovinu.dll and others) revealed almost nothing. I finally found one product that could detect it (PREVX), but when it tried to remove it, it completely hosed my computer, making it totally unbootable.

So then I had to restore my computer back to the manufacturer's original OS - (XP SP1), losing 4 years of updates. And wouldn't you know it--I STILL had the stinkin' virus!

Finally I managed to get rid of it. I'm not entirely sure how. But it involved an awful lot of trickery using a combination of Recovery Mode and restoring good pieces of the registry in Recovery Mode (not an easy thing to do!) and unlocking and deleting suspicious DLLs. I found at least 7 in the end.

Finally, I got it up and running and spent the rest of the night restoring it back to XP SP3. Now, less than 24 hours later, I got ANOTHER virus! Holy smokes! I can't believe it. This one McAfee detects (some of), but can't quarantine or remove.

Part of the virus is AntiVirus 2009 (which is not really an anti-virus, but an evil trojan). I've disabled most of it, but some of it is still hidden away in places I do not know.

Spybot S&D's resident portion was able to detect the foul move to update the registry, but when I denied the update, somehow, the virus managed to do it anyway, modifying my startup routine to force the load of the virus on boot-up. For a while, my browser was locked into going only to Amazon.com no matter what I typed in. It also caused the resident portions of McAfee to crash and kept main program of Spybot S&D from starting. Again, I managed to restore a good registry, and then tried to go back to a known restore point, but that failed. It seemed to work well enough to get rid of whatever portion had hijacked my explorer.exe and other critical pieces of the OS that aren't part of the registry. But I'm not sure yet how much of the virus is left over.

Before this latest round, I had re-checked all my security and javascript settings, and they were all good, but somehow this one got in through a rogue javascript containing the virus/trojan that McAfee and SpyBot both allowed to download and start. Very frustrating.

I'm re-running the latest McAfee, Spybot S&D, Stinger, and PrevxCSI. So far no luck, but it's not over yet. McAfee just released another update, which I can't seem to download. But I'm going to keep trying.

And yes, I know that everything I just said means absolutely nothing to 99% of the people who will ever read this. But anyhoo....

UPDATE: Just a brief update in case somebody stumbles on this and having the same problem as I did. Three things have really helped:

1) Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware has been the only thing to detect and properly remove the malware I had. And it's free to boot. w00t!

2) The principal cause of my infections is shady javascript and/or java that downloaded, without my permission, their programs and ran them. How they were able to do this without violating every java and javascript security policy, I don't know. Doesn't matter. What seems to be helping now is a FireFox Addon called NoScript. By default it blocks everything. So, it is a bit of a pain to teach NoScript was to allow or not allow. But it's pretty easy to allow, block, permanently allow, and permanently revoke the ability for scripts to run. So far I am liking it.

3) I now have a complete copy of my registry in an accessible place that makes it far easier to restore my registry in recovery mode if I have to. Why Windows makes it so impossible to restore the registry in recovery mode, I don't know. But at least I have it. Here's a website that taught me how.

Weekend

Dean sang a solo at church this morning -- Mary Did You Know. He was quite good, especially since he only got one 20-minute practice with the accompanist yesterday. I didn't realize how good he sings, because I can't hardly hear him when he's in the choir. He sang while another church member did a liturgical painting. All-in-all, a very good service.

Later on today, we're going to go out and watch a matinee and then head over to Target to get some dog food.

Update: Looks like Tammy recorded it. Dean's singing in the background. The painter is Staci Ashcraft. The accompanist is Gary Keller.

Sunset over Kansas 12/19/08

A Christmas Carol

For the third year in a row, Dean and I are going to see A Christmas Carol at Spencer Theatre. This year, we are taking Dean's mom and her partner with us for the first time. It's gonna be fun!

Maddoff is no big deal...

By now we know that Maddoff was running the world's biggest Ponzi scheme for 13 years AFTER SEC officials were alerted to him by whistleblowers with mountains of evidence.

It's way bigger than Enron (about $14 million), to tune of between $30 and $50 Billion (with a B). But somehow, it's no big deal. Just one big shrug. We've been here before. We're already in a world of hurt, what's one more? Maybe if the economy hadn't collapsed so completely that the Federal Government is handing out bonds at 0% interest, this would be more shocking.

But somehow it's not. Somehow we knew that all the legislation passed after Enron wouldn't make a difference. And it hasn't.

So that's laissez-faire capitalism at work. Frankly, I'm ready for some socialism.

Dawn over Kansas 12/19/08

Obama invites Rick Warren to give a prayer

So apparently Obama has invited pop-pastor Rick Warren to offer a prayer during the inaugural. And certain liberal bloggies are going absolutely frothing-at-the-mouth insane about it.

Some mistakenly think that Warren is nothing more than Dobson-lite (I don't think so, but he's certainly still in evangelical-land). Others point out Warren's support of Prop 8 as the reason why he's a completely unacceptable choice to give a freakin prayer.

What I don't understand is why people continue to think that Obama is more liberal than he is (which also goes for his chosen Cabinet too). Obama went on Warren's show--(er, church service), was anti-gay marriage, pro-Prop 8, pro civil unions (as Warren is [sort of-he took it back]), and praised Warren's work. I see Obama as moving in more or less lock-step with his stated positions. But somehow, some folks in the blogosphere are expecting Obama to act like Dennis Kucinich. Time to wake up. No matter who said so, Obama has never been the most liberal senator in Congress.

Muslim Arrested Over Head Scarf In Courtroom

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

A head scarf landed a Muslim woman in jail Tuesday after she refused to remove it during a hearing at the Douglasville Municipal Court.Lisa Valentine, also known by her Islamic name, Miedah, 40, was arrested for 'violating a court policy of no headgear', Chris Womack, deputy chief of operations for the Douglasville Police Department said on Wednesday.


This just blows my mind. If this is not a violation of this woman's civil rights, I don't know what is. As I understand it, ordering a Muslim woman to take off her hijab is like ordering a Christian woman to take her blouse and bra off. Surely this woman's religious obligation to where a hijab is greater than the judge's right to set court policy.

Baby It's Cold Outside

Seriously! It's like -8 degrees with the windchill. Burrrrr!!!

Most Notable Quotations of 2008

Author Fred R. Shapiro's

Most Notable Quotations of 2008

http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300107982

1. "I can see Russia from my house!" — Sarah Palin on her foreign-policy credentials, as satirized by Tina Fey, NBC "Saturday Night Live" broadcast, Sept. 13, 2008

2. "All of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years." — Sarah Palin responding to Katie Couric's asking her to specifically name newspapers or magazines she reads, CBS News interview, Oct. 1, 2008

3. "We have sort of become a nation of whiners." — Phil Gramm on Americans concerned about the economy, quoted in Washington Times, July 10, 2008

4. "It's not based on any particular data point, we just wanted to choose a really large number." — Treasury spokeswoman explaining how the $700 billion number was chosen for the initial bailout, quoted on Forbes.com, Sept. 23, 2008

5. "The fundamentals of America's economy are strong." — John McCain, interview with Peter Cook on Bloomberg TV, Apr. 17, 2008

6. "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." — Department of the Treasury's proposed Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, Sept. 2008

7. "Maybe 100." — John McCain on how many years U.S. troops could remain in Iraq, response at town hall meeting, Derry, N.H., Jan. 3, 2008

8. "I'll see you at the debates, bitches." — Paris Hilton, video responding to John McCain ad attacking Barack Obama as a celebrity, Aug. 2008

9. "At a time of great crisis with mortgage foreclosures and autos, he [Barack Obama] says we only have one president at a time. I'm afraid that overstates the number of presidents we have." — Barney Frank, remark to consumer advocates, Dec. 4, 2008

10. (tie) "Cash for trash." — Paul Krugman on the financial bailout, New York Times, Sept. 22, 2008

10. (tie) "There are no atheists in foxholes and there are no libertarians in financial crises." — Paul Krugman, interview by Bill Maher on HBO's "Real Time" broadcast, Sept. 19, 2008

One Solitary Life

OneSolitaryLifeMovie.com

Speechless

A short film (18 min) about a man with cerebral palsy taking a speech class.

Big man loses big weight

This was an interesting story to listen to. I like the fact that the man went to China and got into a program that didn't allow him to cheat.

I recently watched a documentary about 6 different obese men and women who went into programs like this in America and in the U.K., but in every case, they all had opportunities to cheat, and so they continued to gain weight even in the inpatient setting. Some had spouses/significant others who brought them food, sabotaging their progress. Some were able to call for delivery Chinese or pizza, etc. And the program directors basically took the position that whatever the patient wants to do, they can do.

NAE's Richard Cizik resigns

"WASHINGTON — A top evangelical leader has resigned his post following an uproar over a recent interview when he said he supports civil unions for gays.

The National Association of Evangelicals says the Rev. Richard Cizik quit Thursday as the group's representative in Washington.

The announcement follows Cizik's Dec. 2 interview on National Public Radio's "Fresh Air" program. Cizik said on the show that he backs same-sex civil unions and made other comments that the evangelical group says don't reflect their values.

Cizik had already made enemies of some evangelical leaders because of his high-profile fight against global warming."

Richard Cizik was also one of the signatories on that bogus NYT Prop 8 ad I mentioned earlier.

On NPR, Cizik said, “I’m shifting, I have to admit,” the Rev. Richard Cizik told NPR. “In other words, I would willingly say that I believe in civil unions. I don’t officially support redefining marriage from its traditional definition, I don’t think.”

I have to admit, I don't get the semantic thing about "civil union" vs. "marriage". And I think the whole idea of a "traditional definition of marriage" is entirely bogus anyway. There is no such thing. Marriage has been constantly redefined over and over again. And in the 10-12th centuries, you could find a sacrament of gay marriage in the catholic liturgy.

Anyway, it sucks that Rich Cizik has lost his job.

Ho hum (tm)

A pretty ordinary day today. Got crabby at work because I deployed an update to the corporate website that brought the site down for a couple of minutes after hours (as it always does). Coincidentally, another group working on a separate problem was using my website as a passthru to their system. When my site went down for those 2 minutes, they freaked. So I "got in trouble" for not informing them of the deployment (which is not in my procedure to do anyway, but now I have to). So, now I have to add 4 more people to the list of 6 groups that I already notify when I deploy an update. And I can almost guarantee that the next time I deploy, one of those 4 people will write back to me asking why I'm telling them.

In other news, Dean and I had a yummy dinner that we made together--Guava and Rosemary glazed chicken with saffron and currant rice.

And I am STILL procrastinating from working on Souljourners. I am at least 3 papers and 2 books behind now. I am just not motivated right now to work on it.

Jon Stewart & Mike Huckabee

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mike Huckabee Pt. 2

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Soul Care: The Gift of the Word-Made-Flesh

So I just got back from presenting the latest Soul Care retreat at church. This week's theme was The Gift of the Word-Made-Flesh. I began with the blessing Beannacht by John O'Donohue. Then I showed the short film Ousmane. After a brief discussion of people's reactions to the film, we ended with an adaptation of a litany of the Word Made Flesh by Joyce Rupp.

There were more people this week than last week, even though a couple of people from last week could not be there this time.

I think it went reasonably well, but there was something missing. I'm really not sure what that something was.

The second session had no attendees, so I left early. It didn't have attendees because the people who were in it last week were in their prior meeting 20 minutes longer than usual.

Next week will be the Gift of Story.

Sick

Have not been feeling good today. It started after lunch. I originally thought that my lunch made me sick, but I realized later that it was my kidney acting up. Late in the afternoon I was really feeling awful.

I took some meds (antibiotics and vicodin for the pain) and I feel a whole lot better. I spent a bunch of time watching some short films from Spiritual Cinema and reading I Am Legend. The two shorts I watched were Ousmane and The Elephant's Egg.

Ousmane is a story about an illiterate African orphan who goes around town blessing people in exchange for alms. At the end, all the money he gets from alms he gives to a man to type a letter to Santa Claus asking for blessings on the people who gave him money. It's a very cool short. I can't find Ousmane online, but here's The Elephant's Egg, a very surreal film about a man's pursuit of love.

They're Lining Up

"The telecommunications industry is racing to persuade the incoming Obama administration to add as much as $33 billion in government incentives to an economic stimulus package that could be enacted soon after Inauguration Day."

...

by David Hatch from National Journal Online

Yup, the industries are just lining up to get a piece of the free pie. First banks, Second autos, Third telecom. Fourth, I predict, will be major hospitals. They are already tapping on the doors of the states, and the states are pointing them to Congress.

This bailout is such a big mess. I really hate it. And I really hate how Joe Blow taxpayer is getting nothing but a poke in the eye.

Change to blog appearance

As you can see, I've changed the background of the blog. For some reason, I was starting to have a hard time reading the text with it black. So I'm going to be experimenting with some changes. Let me know what you think.

Ron Sider and Prop 8

One of my favorite books on social justice is Ron Sider's "Rich Christians In an Age of Hunger." It is simply one of the best books ever on the Christian call to help the poor.

And so I was really sad to read that Ron Sider is on the wrong side of Prop 8, and signed a bogus NYT ad decrying the “violence and intimidation being directed against the LDS or ‘Mormon’ church” by opponents of Propostion 8, and specifically tying AIDS to homosexuality (even whilst denying making that tie).

I never would have thought to read Ron Sider's name next to William A. Donohue's. Other signers, like Chuck Colson and Roger Scruton I understand (although Chuck Colson has not had kind things to say about the LDS church, so there is a certain hypocrisy there).

Oh well. Moving on....

Patented Genes

Hey, did you know that private companies can patent your genes? I didn't. But apparently so.

I want to get a patent for the gene that makes blue eyes. That way, anybody who dares to have blue eyes will have to pay me money.

"You can't fix stupid." -- Ron White

This American Life

Been listening, at Michael's suggestion, to the latest This American Life, which is about Carlton Pearson. This is a pentecostal preacher who stopped believing in hell (or, more accurately, in the traditional teaching of hell), and embraced a kind of universalism.

There are many things that interest me about this story. Here's just one:
T.D. Jakes, one of Carlton Pearson's proteges, criticized Carlton as a heretic. But what is interesting to me about that is that T.D. Jakes is non-trinitarian (he appears to believe in modalism).

So, Carlton Pearson disbelieves in hell, which makes absolutely no appearance in the Nicene Creed, or any creed of the early church, save for one word in the Apostolic Creed ("he [Jesus] descended into hell"), completely loses his flock and is trashed regularly for a year or more in conservative magazines to which his flock subscribes and bookstores that his flock shops, and is widely and openly criticized by prominent pastors, eventually losing his church.

But T.D. Jakes denies a fundamental tenet of Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christianity, denies the Nicene Creed (as well as the Apostolic, Chalcedonian, and Athanasian creeds), and yet is considered the most influential black pastor in America with a flock of 25,000+.

WHY?

UPDATE:Here's a second reaction. One of the things that the interviewees talk about is how -- now that they are on the other side -- how insensitive they were to other people's faiths. Now that they have people who walk up to them and tell them that they are going to hell because they go to Carlton Pearson's church, they understand how insensitive they were to other people when THEY were the ones who went up to "non-believers" and told them that they were going to hell unless they believed what they wanted them to believe.

UPDATE 2: A third observation: I see again why God provides a Dark Night. I very much identify with Carlton Pearson's statement that said that if he KNEW where he would end up, what pain he would go through, when he started, he wouldn't have done it. So thank God for the dark night, for the mystery, for the cloud of unknowing which leads us where we would not want to go, until we get there.

CA Trip - Day 4 - Disneyland

I finally got my pictures from Disneyland put up. Disneyland was awesome. Perfect weather. Not too crowded. But definitely much more crowded than SeaWorld was. The Pirates of the Caribbean ride seemed to be the one that was the most "ornate" in terms of animatronics and so-forth.

But my two favorite rides were the Haunted Mansion, which was done up for Christmas (according to Tim Burton's A Nightmare Before Christmas) and the Winnie the Pooh Ride.

We didn't see very many characters out and about. No Mickey, Minny, Goofy, or Donald. Maybe they come out later in the day. We spent all day there, but we left before sundown and so we missed the fireworks.

The only thing I didn't like was the cost of the food. It was OUTRAGEOUS. A turkey sandwich with a tiny side of baked beans (about 1/2 oz) and a personal size pizza cost $40. Ouch!!

I wasn't able to take too many pictures just because the situations I was in didn't allow it (the rides just go too fast to be able to snap pictures). But I tried on a few occasions and got a couple of decent shots.

I found a video on YouTube about the Haunted Mansion. It's really worth a watch.

Weekend

Busy weekend. On Friday, Dean and I were treated for dinner for our birthdays by Michael at Free State Brewery. Yum! Late night though--we didn't get home until midnight. That's waaay past my bedtime!

Saturday Dean and I went Christmas shopping, then in the evening we saw Madagascar 2 at the theatre. Much fun! The plot was nothing like what I expected, but was still nice. And the animation just keeps getting better. Plenty of funny lines.

This evening we're going with Dean's mom and partner to Christmas Vespers at Baldwin UMC. Dean once performed in this annual event when we went to college at Baldwin. But this is the first year that his mom is seeing it.

Russian Orthodoxy

I read today that the leader of the Russian Orthodox church died.

And that reminded me of a time a year or so ago that I visited an Orthodox church for a vespers service. Boy was it strange! It wasn't a mass, but rather a week day vespers. So I knew that it would be mostly psalms and probably a reading or two and perhaps some intercessions.

What I didn't realize was that I wouldn't be able to participate.

Here's what happened. The priest stood at a podium with 3 women (one with small children in tow) and they all chanted psalms from a large office book. They used a tuning fork to get the right pitch (and they were absolutely spot on). But what was most interesting is how fast they were chanting! They were literally chanting the words as fast as they could possibly go. And when they got done with one psalm, they didn't pause for reflection as they do in the Benedictine monastery, they just went right on to the next one.

After a 20 minutes of listening to chants going at a frenetic pace, I realized that I was not going to be able to participate in any meaningful way in this service, and I was literally the only other person there, so I just got up and left.

Some day I still hope to go to a large Orthodox church for mass.

Proposition 8 The Musical

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Soul Care

I hosted the first Soul Care: 30 Minute Retreats yesterday evening at St. Paul's UCC, our temporary space while we're recovering from the church fire.

I planned 3 short meditations:
1) how our parents influenced who we are
2) how we have a message and a gift for the world
3) how God has been shaping us

sandwiched between opening and closing prayers and song.

It went reasonably well. I did it twice, once at 6:30 and once at 7:30 (well, actually 7:45).

The meeting space was good--spacious with plenty of seating, and I think I was able to create an intimate space with a small altar, comfortable music and scented candles. But the noise was rather disruptive. This was especially true in the second one, when the children were done with their program and were basically running around unsupervised. Coupled with the noise from the practicing choir, and a couple of adults having a very audible argument in the next room, it was very hard to shut out the noise and focus on the meditation. At least one of the participants reported having to cover her ears with her hands.

The first one had about 6 participants, all from our church. The second had 5, all from St. Paul UCC church. None of the people who I thought were going to attend the 7:30 did, so I am very thankful that the UCCers showed up.

I talked with Michael afterwards, and he suggested that my group switch rooms with his, which is in a more remote part of the church. Plus it has a TV, so I would have a way to show a short film (which I want to do in the 3rd session).

Fires

When Dean and I were on vacation in CA, about 5 separate fires raged throughout southern CA. We experienced mostly smoke and falling ash. On that Friday, Mount Calvary Monastery, an Episcopal Benedictine monastery (Order of the Holy Cross) burned down to the ground. Here is all that is left:

Work

Work has been incredibly busy. I've been busier these last 2 weeks than I have been the last 2 months. I've had weeks of work piled on me that all has to get done right now. Very stressful!

The good news is that I got most of the hardest stuff done today.

Obama's picks

So...I was impressed by Obama's economic picks. He really seemed to be focused on getting the best minds on the job.

Less impressed by Clinton at State, Gates at Defense, and Richardson at Commerce. Those seem fundamentally political nods instead of the best people for the job. And I'm worried about the egos.

Black Friday

So, this is the first year that I've participated in Black Friday.

I wasn't impressed. Really. There were some deals to be had, but not nearly as good as I anticipated for getting up at 6am. The best deals were for the most expensive items. $2500 refrigerators were only $1800 for example. But most of the stuff I saw was only 10-15% off. Not the huge discounts I was anticipating. And everything I saw could be gotten online for either the same price, or even a little cheaper. I even came back home once to double-check some online deals. If it weren't for the shipping charge (which a lot of companies were waiving), I wouldn't have bothered to buy anything at all in a real store.

The best deal I got was for a shirt that I bought for a toddler that my small group adopted for Christmas. The $16 shirt was on sale for $6, which is 63% off.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Had Thanksgiving dinner at Dean's mom's house. It was Teri, Ellen, Dean, myself, Tony, Grandpa, and cousin Howard. Howard bought this big turkey table top that took up like half the table!

We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes stuffed in an orange (that was Howard's contribution), green bean casserole, fruit ambrosia salad, and rolls. I'm probably leaving something out, but that's all I can remember.

For dessert there was pumpkin pie, gooseberry pie (that Elva made), apple dumplings, and chocolate-cherry cake left over from my birthday. I had the apple dumplings. These were the ones made by the church during EudoraFest. Yummy!

Later in the day, we played several games of Scattergories. Teri one one game, Howard won two, and I'm not sure who else won (I know that I didn't win any). We also watched tons of episodes of House because there was a marathon going on.

Now I'm home and too tired and too stuffed to do anything else. I left my book there. I'll have to go by tomorrow to pick it up.

Happy Thanksgiving

Dean's Vacation Pictures

Here are links to Dean's pictures from our vacation.

http://travel.webshots.com/album/568943186plNaEa
http://travel.webshots.com/album/568943711YtUwGU
http://travel.webshots.com/album/568938924tHizCk
http://travel.webshots.com/album/568944313SYNrpd
http://travel.webshots.com/album/568947794AvpHMt

CNN getting lazier and lazier

One thing that is really starting to irritate me is how CNN is writing stories online. Each day they write some tidbit of a story (for example, 5 sentences about how historically quick Obama's transition team is forming the Cabinet), and then attach it to some old story (in this example, a long story about how invasive Obama's vetting is) and make the whole thing look like it is new.

It irritates me to read the same story over and over again just to get 2 or 3 additional sentences of news. They've been doing this for months, but it's getting worse.

Church on fire

Our church caught fire in the sanctuary today. Dean was the only person in the building. We don't know how extensive the damage is yet, but it apparently it is mostly confined to the chancel. Even then, there will be thousands of dollars of damage.

We're not allowed back in yet, and I don't know when we will. Not sure if we'll have to cancel services or not.

Update: smoke damage in the fellowship hall. significant fire damage in the sanctuary. Electricity is out. Trustees are estimating about 2 months before damages are repaired.

Update 2: Still not letting anyone into the building today. Dean is sort of working from home until further notice.

Update 3: It's been 3 weeks since the fire started. Dean and Pastor Michael are set up in temporary offices. Service Master is working on cleaning all the smoke damage. Repairs have not been started. Insurance has not yet completed their investigation (I guess they are waiting for forensic tests to come back), so they have not released the site for repairs to begin. We are worshipping at Warren-McElwain Eudora Chapel again for the past 3 weeks. I'm predicting that we will not get back into our church until summer next year.

CA Trip - Day 3 - San Juan Capistrano & Lake Elsinore

So on Day 3 we drove up the coast on I-5 from San Diego to San Juan Capistrano. The fabled place where swallows go...and they really do. Apparently in March. I love the name "San Juan Capistrano." Something romantic about that name.

Anyway, we visited the mission there and learned a lot about its history. It's a beautiful place -- in between the original walls, naturally aging, they have beautiful courtyards and gardens. The bells you see above were rung not only for prayer, but for special occasions, especially funerals. So, when people heard a certain bell rung, they would run to their neighbors to find out who died.

The mission is still active -- there is daily mass there, along with an assigned priest. There is also a "basilica" (which doesnt look like a basilica) next door, along with a school. So the Catholic Church is very active in this area.

After we saw the mission, we drove through the mountains along Ortega Hwy, a winding road up and down the mountains that reminded me of the Bear Creek mountain roads of Colorado through Morrison and Kittredge going towards Evergreen. As we came down the mountain, we saw Lake Elsinore there in the valley of the mountains with a small city surrounding it. It looked very picturesque--the kind of place you imagine in TV shows like Northern Exposure or some such.

We got there early, so we went to the local outlet mall and hung around an hour or so until evening. Then we spent the evening with my brother, his wife, and my neice and step-neice (is there such a thing?). It was very nice. We went to dinner at a cool asian-fusion restaurant and shared entrees family-style.

Afterwards, we went back to their house and watched t.v. They watch a lot of the new broadcast t.v. shows that I never watch. I can't even remember their names. But it was fun. They've done a lot with their house, and it's inspired Dean and I to do some work on ours. I'm finally going to paint the bathroom downstairs, and we've already done some things to spruce up the bedroom.

I uploaded the pictures for this part of the trip, which you can see here.

The uploader farked up about two dozen of the pictures, so I will have to tweak those and re-load them. I won't get to it until Sunday at the earliest.

Keith Olbermann on Prop 8

Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are the best voices on non-fiction teevee right now.

You See, I Want a Lot

You see, I want a lot.
Maybe I want it all:
the darkness of each endless fall,
the shimmering light of each ascent.

So many are alive who don't seem to care.
Casual, easy, they move in the world
as though untouched.

But you take pleasure in the faces
of those who know they thirst.
You cherish those
who grip you for survival.

You are not dead yet, it's not too late
to open your depths by plunging into them
and drink in the life that reveals itself quietly there.

Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Hours

CA Trip - Day 2 - San Diego Zoo

So on the second day of our trip, we went to the San Diego Zoo. Beautiful place. Zoos are some of Dean and my favorite places to go. San Diego Zoo is really big, but maybe not as big as Omaha Zoo (not sure).

My favorites are always the bears -- brown bears, polar bears, grizzly bears, any kind of bears. Dean's favorites are usually the monkeys. Well we saw plenty of monkeys. Only a couple of brown and grizzly bears. But the polar bears were great. There were 2 in their exhibit and they were actively playing at dunking each other in the water. They were obviously having a lot of fun. And they were HUGE!

There was an awesome panda exhibit. Dean and I discussed how at the Washington D.C. zoo, the big draw there is the pandas. But they have a really crappy exhibit (indoor, with hardly any "natural" looking stuff), and when we went, the pandas were so still that I initially blew by them thinking that they were diaramas.

Not so at the San Diego Zoo. They have 3 pandas: dad, mom, and baby. Dad was asleep, but mom and baby were playing around with each other and having a great time. They were in a really great outdoor exhibit that was very natural looking and gave them plenty of stuff to interact with. When we got there, the zookeeper had just put some honey on a log, and baby was licking off the honey. I guess that's her snack. While we were there, they had a zookeeper there giving us a running commentary that was interesting, and not too intrusive.

We also saw more birds in this zoo than anywhere else. They have like 4 aviaries, and even in places where they don't have an aviary, they have birds.


The weather, again, was perfect. Which reminds me -- San Diego Zoo is really well shaded. There are trees everywhere, and wherever there isn't shade trees, they have an awning to provide some shade. And there's plenty of places to sit down and rest too. I also appreciated the escalators and the special "less steep" path that they put on the map.

We also rode the tram all the way around the zoo. Some of the large outdoor animals I don't really get into, but it was nice to drive by them.

Towards the end of the day, there was a live sea-lion show that was a lot of fun. Dean says that he liked it better than the Shamu show at Sea World. I don't think it was THAT good, but it was still nice. I'll have some video clips up later on in the day for that.


So we spent all day at the zoo, and then went back home to Howard's for dinner. Howard tried to get dinner on the table earlier this time, but it was still 8:30 before we ate (at least we got to have a snack!). He made a yummy, savory roast beef. I can't even remember what he served with it. But I do remember stuffing my face again. And going to bed stuffed. Ugh.

You can see all the pictures for Day 2 here.

Beluga Whales from Sea World

Short video from Sea World - beluga whales swimming under water.

Change & Growth

"Change and growth takes place when one has risked himself and dares to become involved with experimenting with his own life."

-- Herbert Otto

Dialog on racism

This is a must-read blog post responding to those awful racist chain emails.

SoCal Vacation - Day 1 - Sea World

I couldn't blog pretty much the entire time Dean and I were on vacation, so now I have to catch up during this week to tell you all about our trip.

Day 1 we arrived in San Diego at about 10am. Dean was still getting over his cold (yich!), but managed to not be totally miserable on the flight (except that his ears refused to pop for hours after the flight). We were picked up by Dean's 2nd cousin Howard. He took us on a very brief tour of the area because the airport is right next to the dock where the cruise ships and various shops were. He showed us some of the new art that has been put on display near the dock, including this one:

We also stopped at a memorial to Bob Hope that was really interesting. Next we had brunch at a local restaurant. I had the cherry pancakes (yum!) , Dean had the blueberry pancakes, and Howard had an omelette.

Then we went to Howard's apartment (he lives downtown) and met Bernadette, his "roommate". Bernadette is actually a 60+ year old former client of Howard's and very eccentric.

Next, we went on our first attraction - Sea World! It was a lot of fun, but we were obviously in the off-season. Not only were there hardly any crowds, but there were very few shows playing. For example, Shamu, which normally runs about 10x/day in the summer, only ran twice the whole day -- once in the morning before we arrived, and once at 4:30 in the afternoon, just before closing.

The weather was absolutely fabulous. Mid 70s and clear skies. At Sea World, we saw some beautiful beluga whales, manatees, flamingos, dolphins, penguins, and lots of fish. My favorite part was the "Aquarium Del Mar," a beautiful salt-water aquarium with really brightly colored fish and coral. I got tons of great pictures. One of them was this strange creature called a Reef Stonefish:

Towards the end of the day, we saw the Shamu show, called "Believe". Basically it was about how we can do anything as long as we believe in ourselves. Yada yada. Kinda cheesy. But the show was still good. There were 3 killer whales in the show making the jumps and making splashes.

I'll have video up tomorrow. In the meantime, you can look at all the pictures from Day 1.

After we were finished with Sea World, Howard picked us up and took us back to his place. It was really nice of Howard to shuttle us around. It kept us from having to rent a car in San Diego. And it saved us about $200 to stay at his apartment instead of in a hotel. So we were willing to put up with certain inconveniences.

Like the fact that Howard wanted to cook dinner, but didn't get around to having it ready until about 9pm. That's about 4 hours later than when Dean and I usually eat! We were STARVING. But when we finally did get dinner, it was delicious. He made roasted chicken stuffed with apple and rosemary, steamed asparagus, and mashed potatoes. Yummy!

Then it was off to bed for us (stuffed to the rafters.... I'm really ornery about how much I eat before going to bed. I don't like going to bed on an empty stomach, cuz I can't sleep if I'm hungry, but neither do I like going to bed completely stuffed. Oh well!) We slept well. Or at least, I did.

Soweto Gospel Choir

Yesterday, Dean and I spent the day at Union Station and Crown Center. We watched a 3-D film about dolphins and whales. The show was educational, but the production values I thought were quite low. Just not the colorful and inspiring show I was hoping for.

Today, Dean and I saw the Soweto Gospel Choir at the Lied Center. 100% opposite--very colorful, very positive, very inspiring performance. Dean really liked it. Here's a clip:

Very sad

One of the blogs I read regularly is by a young man who just came out to his parents (they basically confronted him and he admitted it). His parents reacted by kicking him out of the house. It's all very sad and angering.

Update: It's been a month since I wrote this blog entry. Since then, 2 more young men whose blogs I read have been thrown out by their parents. It's really very sad.

I don't think so

Maybe I'm just not feeling really gracious right now. Maybe I'm just tired and cranky and reading too many blogs.

But isn't it funny how, now that conservatives have lost, there is this outcry to put an end to all the fighting and just get along (and put goopers in cabinet positions, make McCain Secretary of Defense, pre-emptively pardon Bush and Cheney, cancel all investigations, yada yada).

It's like they beat the shit out of you every single day for 8 years, and now that they've lost, they want to shake hands and say, "no hard feelings right? can you give me a job?"

FUCK YOU.

Funny

Be Melting Snow

Lo, I am with you always means when you look for God,
God is in the look of your eyes,
in the thought of looking, nearer to you than your self,
or things that have happened to you.
There's no need to go outside.

Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself.

-- Rumi, excerpted from "Be Melting Snow"

Tolerance

I learned a new thing about tolerance.

First, some background. I used to say that I was a very tolerant person. By that, I thought I meant that I was open minded, able to agree to disagree, able to let people have their own way.

But then, I realized, that I really am not very tolerant. I am completely intolerant of fools like Sara Palin. I am intolerant of the idiots who voted for Prop 8. And I am totally intolerant of people who want to rape the environment and not look back. Yes, in many ways, I am very intolerant.

But recently I listened to a teaching on patience. In it, the author spoke of 3 facets of patience: persistence, tolerance, and acceptance. And in the facet of "tolerance" she said that when we are confronted with the unacceptable, patience is born out in tolerance for the process of change. That is, tolerance isn't saying that the unacceptable is acceptable, or that everybody is right. Rather, it is being patient with the time needed to bring about change. That is real tolerance.

Wow. That I think I can do. I hate that folks voted for Prop 8. But I think I can at least try to be patient--tolerant for the process of change.

Water Wars

Hopeful news on Prop 8

Vote by Age
Yes No
18-29 (20%) 39 61
30-44 (28%) 55 45
45-64 (36%) 54 46
65+ (15%) 61 39

So maybe this means it's just a matter of time....

Ted Stevens

Just more proof that some people live in another universe than I, convicted felon Ted Stevens, guilty of violations of his elected office, is in the lead for re-election.

I don't get it. Nope. Don't get it.

Both Happy & Sad

There is no doubt that I am very happy that Obama has won. It's a great thing. Truly historic and amazing. And when you look at the exit polls, you see that Obama won every single demographic except one: white men over 65.... (:))

But what is sad about the election are the ballot initiatives:

ban on gay marriage in AZ, CA (probably), and FL. An end to affirmative action in NE, and gay couples can't adopt/foster parent in AR.

So what happens to those like Ellen DeGeneres who got married in CA? What happens to those who have already adopted or are foster parents in AR? Will their children be taken away? Very sad.

Obama President

YAH!

Voting Against Your Interests

Of all the stories told this election cycle, the one that I think really hasn't been told is this: how Joe the Plumber, Tito the Builder, and Jen the security guard all are supporting McCain against their best interests.

Joe the Plumber admits that under Barack Obama, he would get a tax cut, and he would not under McCain. Tito the Builder will suffer under McCain's immigration policy. Jen the Security Guard wants McCain as commander-in-chief despite the fact that McCain will keep the Iraq war going on as long as possible.

I don't know why people vote against their interests, but it's fascinating to see.

Palin closet Socialist

Can't make this up:

The state that she governs has no income or sales tax. Instead, it imposes huge levies on the oil companies that lease its oil fields. The proceeds finance the government’s activities and enable it to issue a four-figure annual check to every man, woman, and child in the state. One of the reasons Palin has been a popular governor is that she added an extra twelve hundred dollars to this year’s check, bringing the per-person total to $3,269. A few weeks before she was nominated for Vice-President, she told a visiting journalist—Philip Gourevitch, of this magazine—that "we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs."

The Birds!

Early this morning while Dean and I were going to breakfast, we saw a huge flock of migrating birds. 'Twas neat. This is the second time in a few months that I've seen a really big flock of birds flying by.

We have a birdfeeder out back, and Dean says that the birds are pigs.

McCain on Economics

Talking Photo Booth

SNL Bush endorses Palin

Crappy embed isnt working. Here's the direct link:
http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/update-thursday-bush-endorsement/783981/

Train to Tokyo

Pretty

This is Mill's Lake at Rocky Mountain National Park, one of my favorite nature places. It's a bit of a hike to get to, but worth it.

campaign word of the day

Today's political campaign word of the day is, "troubling."

As in McCain spokesman's statement that, "Obama's record-breaking fund raising is very troubling." Or "Obama's association with a domestic terrorist is troubling."

Taxes

Riddle me this Batman....

How come when McCain wants to cut taxes, it's great, but when Obama wants to cut taxes, it's welfare??

At work today

Customer: Please delete this entire web page, we don't need it any more.
Me: Are you sure you want to delete this entire page? It has links to A, B, C, D, E, and F. Are you sure that I can delete all of that??
Customer: Oh, goodness no! Just delete A & B. Keep the rest. Sorry about that.
Me: Okay. I deleted A & B.

[next day]

Customer: I see that B has been deleted. Did you do that when you were deleting A?
Me: You asked me to delete A & B. That's what I did.
Customer: Oh, I meant delete A and keep B. Sorry about that. Can you fix that?

Me (to myself): Hrrmph.

Consumer-Driven Health Insurance Sucks...

Until I went to CIGNA, I've always been on a PPO. Even when PPOs were bad, they've never been as bad as the HRA plan that I have now. With CIGNA, I can't choose a PPO. HRA (Health Reimbursement Account) and HSA (Health Savings Account) are the only options.

So here's how it works:
CIGNA tosses $750/year into an account for me (and another $750 for Dean).
When I go to the doctor, CIGNA pays the bill up to the $750 limit.
After that, I have to pay 100% of the bill up to $4,000 (the deductible)
After I pay the $4,000, CIGNA starts chipping in again, at roughly 80%.

So here's the situation I'm in: Dean and I have been to the doctor a couple of times and got a few prescriptions. No sweat, but I burned through the $750 pretty quick. Then, one of my blood tests came back with a high creatine count (0.7 when 0.1-0.3 was normal), which indicates poor kidney function. So that took me to a specialist. Since I only have 1 kidney left, it's pretty important to stay on top of these things.

The specialist recommended a CT Scan. I've had these before--they are no sweat. It took 10 minutes start-to-finish. But the bill!! OUCH!!

I now owe $2,000 to the hospital and the radiologist to pay for that 1 CT scan (which, thankfully, turned out negative...I think...the nurse had a hard time interpreting it for me).

I'm supposed to see the specialist again in November for more follow-up tests. At this point, I am probably going to put it off to the new year (when I get another $750 from CIGNA). I just don't see being able to afford another $2,000 for another test this year.

So -- this is how consumer-driven health insurance works, and now I know it first hand.

It lowers the cost of health insurance by forcing customers to have to choose between getting the health care they need and risking that 1 kidney they have left because they can't afford the 10 minute test to check it. It SUCKS.

The Success of Failure

THE SUCCESS OF FAILURE
If there is anything that strikes terror into the soul of the sincere it is fear of failure. To be a success in something marks the measure of our worth. It gives us honor on the street corners of the world. It gives us stature among our peers. It gives us a sense of invincibility. But one of the central questions of life may well be how to tell success from failure.

It’s not so simple a task as we are inclined to think, perhaps, at the first toss of the question. Failure, we know, is unacceptable. We do a great deal to avoid it. We do even more to hide it. But the real truth is that there is a great deal of failure in all success: Winning pitchers lose a good many baseball games. Scientists can spend their entire lives mixing the wrong compounds, writing the wrong formulas, testing the wrong hypotheses.

The problem is that there are two faces of failure, one of them life-giving, the other one deadly. I have seen them both.

The first face of failure I saw in the life of an internationally recognized writer who, first intent on being an English professor, studied at Oxford but failed. I gasped at the very thought of it. But she spoke about the loss of those years and that degree with a laugh and a toss of her head: “Luckiest thing that ever happened to me,” she said. “Otherwise I’d be in a small college someplace teaching writing. As it is, I’m doing just what I’m supposed to be doing.” I thought about the remark for days. Here was a woman who knew the place of failure in our eternal quest to be ourselves.

The second face of failure I saw in a woman with great musical talent who, discouraged by the difficulty of her early studies, dropped out of music school and never studied another thing in her life. She died disgruntled, underdeveloped, and trapped within the boundaries of the self.

Clearly, failure may, in the long run, be the only real key to success. The first step to becoming what we most seek may well be indifference to dashed hope and perpetual disappointment and the depression that comes with reaching for guinea gold and grasping only dust.

But if that is the case, then we must develop the capacity for failure in a society that glorifies success but gives short shrift to the forging of it. We must learn to recognize, to value, to prize all the endless attempts it takes to do what we want to do but which for us is still undoable.

– from Seeing with Our Souls: Monastic Wisdom for Every Day by Joan Chittister (Sheed & Ward)