The coming of fall

The coming of fall

The shadows are lengthening earlier in the day, the trees are changing color, and the air is just a tad bit cooler in the morning as we come up on the brink of the last quarter of 2005. I like the fall season... perhaps partly because here in California, we don't really have a fall season per se... just "spring" and "summer." Still, I enjoy the imagery and symbolism of the preparation for and coming of death in the fall and winter, with the hope of new beginning in the spring. In a way, it's kind of a microcosm of Christ continually putting to death the old self in his people and building up the new body.

I'll be preaching the sermon at this Sunday's service. Preparation has been a bit slow, mostly because there's so much I could, so much I want to say. If you could, I'd appreciate any prayer for God's direction and refinement over the next few days as I hopefully am able to not screw up His Word. I'll be preaching on the tentative sermon title: "The Magnificence and Mystery of Creation." I'll perhaps post some notes sometime next week.

Last Sunday in Sunday School, Esther taught on the account of Jesus washing his disciples' feet. The thing that always stands out to me most is Peter's initial reaction when his master gets down on his hands and feet - in short, "No way!" I think that I fall into this mindset almost by default, perhaps partly due to an Asian upbringing - most of the time, I would rather serve than be served, not out of any noble sentiment on my part, but because I don't want to feel like I then owe something to the other person ("bu yao ke chi"). However, it's important to learn how to be humble and appreciative enough to accept service as well as to give - because if no one is accepting service from another person in a way that honors God, then it provides that much fewer opportunities to serve another.

Picasa is an excellent and free image-editing program. I've been using it to go through the pics I took for my vacation to Spain, and it gives you a lot of freedom in enhancing some pics and rescuing some other ones with minor flaws. I think I'm probably not much of a purist if I'm editing my shots, but hey, it's fun!

Thus far, I'm aiming to take the train to work four out of five days this week. It's actually been quite refreshing making the brisk 10-minute walk to the station in the morning and reading Scripture on the 25-minute ride to the office, even if driving would cut the overall commute time by more than half. There's something that feels good about not burning gasoline and making better use of our communal resources, when we can. I even ran into an old men's group member, Kevin, on the train yesterday, on his way to Yahoo. I'm thinking that on future train rides, I could listen to sermons while sitting on the benches.

I've idly been thinking about getting an iPod. It usually takes me a lot of energy to overcome the inertia of getting into new technology (I was still faithfully listening to and using cassette tapes as late as junior year of college), but I know that eventually I'm going to get into digital music, and it wouldn't hurt to begin slowly transforming my 150+ CD collection into mp3s. Also, I need some way of backing up my pictures and other personal documents on my laptop, since the laptop doesn't actually belong to me. If there's a better, more scalable, and higher value solution to handle my issues (hard drive backup, eventually getting into digital music), I invite all the tech geeks reading this to give me some advice :-).

Chris has purchased season 1 of "Lost" and now I'm getting into it. It's been quite the distraction this week as I've been trying to work on the sermon though... heh. "Alias" starts up again this week and may or may not be worth continuing to follow... I guess we'll see soon enough.

I think I may have been bit by the fantasy football bug. I knew nothing about football coming into the season, and I still don't know much, but I'm now reading the occasional fantasy column and checking out the waiver wire every so often. Any FF experts out there want to give me some advice on my team? 10-team Yahoo league:

QB: Kerry Collins / RB Edgerrin James / RB Clinton Portis / RB Brian Westbrook / WR Steve Smith / WR Keenan McCardell / WR Michael Clayton / TE Courtney Anderson / K Rian Lindell / DEF Baltimore / BN Ben Roethlisberger / BN Ashley Lelie / BN Travis Taylor / BN Cedric Benson / BN Steve Heiden

Back in the race

Jumping back into the race - but where am I going?

This has been a whirlwind of a week. Readjusting after coming back from my first vacation in two years has been a little bit surreal, since I can't remember the last time where I was able to so completely leave behind my life here. This was my first voyage off of the North American continent in nearly twenty years (I've been to Canada and Mexico), and after a few days of walking on foreign soil, I could feel the stresses and mindfulness of work responsibilities, ministry responsibilties, maintaining/keeping up with people, even being conscious of stuff going on in the world and local news (particularly sports), just fade away. Even if I wanted to worry about how things were managing at work or at church without me around, I couldn't. All that I had to think about was what we were going to do that day, and I found that mentality awfully appealing.

To use a geeky analogy, seems that the closest approximation would be rebooting a computer. You know how after letting a computer run for a really long time, a whole mess of background zombie processes build up and consume system resources, to the point where even if the system is still working, it's a little bit slower and more susceptible to a crash? I think that's pretty much what I was like after two years without a vacation. My mind is running a lot more cleanly now that things have been flushed out.

(I can almost hear you thinking, a) "That's just about the geekiest analogy I've ever heard," and b) "Bob's only now figuring out the purposes of vacation?")

However, it has meant several days of getting back up to speed with work, ministry, people, and life in general. While reading through hundreds of emails, catching up on blogs, talking with people in person and online, it's occurred to me that in a sense, this is like the beginning of the rest of my life (kind of a duh statement if you think about it). Meaning, I have just about nothing concrete planned for the rest of this year. I reflected on this towards the end of the trip - earlier this year, I was struggling with a decision whether to go to grad school across the country this fall. Ultimately, I decided to stay, and some of the benefits of staying were the opportunities to go on missions to Mexico and vacation to Spain with friends. Combined with moving out into the new place, it's been quite the eventful last few months for me. Thing is, I no longer know where I'm going or what I'm looking forward to - so much of my year has been dominated by wrestling with decision-making, missions, moving, and vacation. What's next? This is something I'll be putting more thought into in the coming weeks - prayers are appreciated. I'll do my best to communicate where I am on the journey.

I finally felt more like I'm moved after going with Hanlin and Chris to grocery shopping this week. I'm pulling out all the old college tricks - clam chowder as pasta sauce, microwaveable chicken nuggets, Lingling dumplings from Costco, baby carrots to snack on, bags of broccoli all set to stir-fry with garlic, and of course my egg quesadillas. Only a matter of time before fruit smoothies and microwaved "baked" potatoes with cheese and Bacos re-introduce themselves into my diet. If anyone has suggestions to broaden the repertoire, please post a comment :-).

Pleasant discovery of the week - I've discovered that a VTA train station is less than a mile away from the house (probably a little over 10-minute walk) and the train stops smack dab in front of my office. Europe reinforced my enjoyment of taking fast public transportation like trains, so I'll have to figure out how many times a week I can take advantage of my Cisco free travel pass while saving on astronomical gas prices (I had to fill up with premium today, and it cost nearly $50!).

Weird personal realization of the week - apparently I'll be singing at the wedding of a couple of friends in 2006, after having led worship at numerous weddings in the past 3 years and presenting special music at one. I was actually asked to lead worship at another wedding recently by a college friend who I hadn't seen since college days, and asked based on observing me at a previous one (I had to decline due to vacation). If you had asked me 5 years ago whether I thought I'd ever be lending my voice to such a special occasion in people's lives, I'd have never even entertained the thought. God definitely has a sense of humor.

Check out the Spain blog for pics and stories from the trip. I am one of the delinquents who has yet to contribute content, but I've got a few in mind.

We're back!

The return

We're all back! Point your browsers to the official London & Spain blog for recaps of what we did, pics, and stories. I'll probably post more personal reflections, observations, and lessons learned here.

That was a lot of fun.

Edit 11:30 pm

Wakeup today: 8 am London (12 am PST)
Bedtime today: 11:30 pm PST
Total consecutive waking hours (no naps on plane): 23.5

In the mind of this rookie traveller, I believe I've done due diligence in staving off jetlag. Good night world.

Leaving on a plane

Leaving on a jet plane...

Adios, muchachos!

More Mishmash

More Mishmash

EDIT: Chris has posted a virtual tour of our new place in this post.

"Who knew that recreating could be such hard work?" - Calvin to Hobbes. Classic comic strip.

Well, I'm not exactly recreating yet, but in gearing up for my first real vacation in 2 years (and my first time off the North American continent in almost 20 years!), I'm finding that I know nothing. Seems that every day, a more experienced traveller will casually ask a should-be-obvious question that I had no clue about. I need a Travellers newbie (n00b) 101 course or something. Fortunately I'm making use of a couple of packing lists I found online: Rick Steve's, and Enjoy Europe's part 1 and part 2.

Combining this with an increased workload trying to get things set to go at the office, and trying to make sure all the ministry responsibilities will be taken care of, and unpacking and cleaning the new place, I'm in a constant state of tiredness with a nightly bedtime of 2-3 am every night this week. I'm so looking forward to finally getting on the plane and leaving everything behind for a while.

The Spurs are loaded. Who'd have thunk that one day, good players would take less money to play in San Antonio? Credit Popovich, Duncan, and everyone else in the front office and the roster for making a top-notch organization that people want to be a part of. Sheesh, the Spurs reserve unit (Van Exel - Finley - Barry - Horry - Rasho) would probably make the playoffs in the Eastern Conference. I like the two new additions because there is no Payton-Malone-on-the-Lakers illusion of entitlement, where the chemistry of the ballclub was so affected that in the playoffs, the old guard actually approached Jackson and asked to put in the old starting lineup. No, in San Antonio, everyone knows their role.

In lieu of actual content in this post, I found the following wordplay to be brilliantly clever... not surprising considering it's the Mensa Invitational. I think Danny is a Mensa-level intellect. Anyhow, if I don't write in this space again for a few weeks, check back for some Spain memories, along with a long-overdue part 2 of reflections from Mexico.

My favorites are in italics...

The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter*, and supply a new definition. Here are this year's winners:

1. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

2. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

3. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stop bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

4. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

5. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

6. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

7. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

8. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

9. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

10. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

11. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

12. Glibido: All talk and no action.

13. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

14. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

15. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

16. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

And the pick of the literature:
17. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.