Ramblings 2005-12-20
A few thoughts from the weekend
- In response to one of the youth kids receiving their driver's license on Friday, I pulled out my own license to show everyone my picture from when I was 16. Apparently I'm either a young-looking 27, or I was an old-looking 16, since everyone agreed that I looked exactly the same. I'm betting on the latter, since it's been a running joke my entire adult life how I typically look older than I really am. The youth kids had a cookie design contest and then a white elephant $5 or less gift exchange (best gift: one of those super-soft travel pillows filled with microbeads, funniest gift: nail clipper shaped like a football). See Chris' xanga for all the details and photos.
- Gonna be going through Celebration of Discipline with Sam from the youth group starting in 2006. It's been at least a year since I've read it, so it'll be good to be reminded of the spiritual disciplines I've found to be so helpful in my spiritual growth. The ones that resonate most closely with me are Meditation and Simplicity.
- Celebrated JT's early birthday on Saturday with a surprise dinner at Chevy's and then headed up to the City for a night of live jazz music at Jazz at Pearl's. For the club, I needed to borrow a jacket to attain the "business casual" standard for entry. This sparked a new conversation amongst my friends about how I need to invest in some new clothes, like a wool coat that would be more appropriate for "dressy" occasions than my typical windbreaker or ski jacket. Heh... as far as I'm concerned, "business casual" = jeans and a T-shirt. It's what I do my business in!
The club had a two-drink minimum, so I ordered one $9 cocktail and a bottle of water ($4). The cocktail was some kind of vodka mixed with chocolate flavor - not too bad, but a bit stronger than I expected. Couple of my friends seemed quite surprised that I actually purchased alcohol.
I've been listening to more jazz the last month or two, mostly Miles Davis and John Coltrane, and I'm beginning to get a feel for what I like and what I don't like in the genre (even though I still don't have the context to "get" the different styles or nuances, like how to appreciate improvisation). I'm not a big fan of horns, outside of the sax, and I tend to be favorable towards piano and upright bass sounds. The bass player at Pearl's was flinging his 7-foot tall monster around pretty good.
- After church on Sunday, was thwarted from our weekly hoops game by pouring rain, so a few of us set up instruments in the sanctuary and jammed for a few hours. I spent most of my time on bass guitar, which was a blast. If I start playing it more often, I'll have to build up the calluses on my index and middle fingers of my right hand.
- Watched "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" in the evening with the youth group. Having recently read the book (I'm now on The Magician's Nephew in the series), I had a pretty good idea of what to expect going into the movie. The filmmakers did a pretty good job, I think. While the commercials might have you believe that it's "Lord of the Rings Lite," the battle scene at the end was really not all that important in the grand scheme of the movie. They did a good job transporting the viewer through the wardrobe to the magical world of Narnia. The little girl playing Lucy did a marvelously natural job expressing wonder and delight (according to reviews, they actually blindfolded her and brought her onto the snowy Narnia set, capturing her honest astonishment on camera after taking off the blindfold). Some parts of the movie were awkward or unintentionally funny, at least to an adult viewer, but overall it did a good job of capturing the feel of an intelligent childlike fantasy, with some Christian symbolism. They did inexplicably leave out my (and many others') favorite line of dialogue from the book: "Is (Aslan) safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he is good. He's the king, I tell you." I'd give the film a solid B to B+ - certainly worth seeing in the theater, but not worth seeing more than once in the theater like the LOTR movies were.
- Quote of the day: "I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it." - Harry Emerson Fosdick. Do you agree or disagree?
Off to Vegas. Go Bears!
- In response to one of the youth kids receiving their driver's license on Friday, I pulled out my own license to show everyone my picture from when I was 16. Apparently I'm either a young-looking 27, or I was an old-looking 16, since everyone agreed that I looked exactly the same. I'm betting on the latter, since it's been a running joke my entire adult life how I typically look older than I really am. The youth kids had a cookie design contest and then a white elephant $5 or less gift exchange (best gift: one of those super-soft travel pillows filled with microbeads, funniest gift: nail clipper shaped like a football). See Chris' xanga for all the details and photos.
- Gonna be going through Celebration of Discipline with Sam from the youth group starting in 2006. It's been at least a year since I've read it, so it'll be good to be reminded of the spiritual disciplines I've found to be so helpful in my spiritual growth. The ones that resonate most closely with me are Meditation and Simplicity.
- Celebrated JT's early birthday on Saturday with a surprise dinner at Chevy's and then headed up to the City for a night of live jazz music at Jazz at Pearl's. For the club, I needed to borrow a jacket to attain the "business casual" standard for entry. This sparked a new conversation amongst my friends about how I need to invest in some new clothes, like a wool coat that would be more appropriate for "dressy" occasions than my typical windbreaker or ski jacket. Heh... as far as I'm concerned, "business casual" = jeans and a T-shirt. It's what I do my business in!
The club had a two-drink minimum, so I ordered one $9 cocktail and a bottle of water ($4). The cocktail was some kind of vodka mixed with chocolate flavor - not too bad, but a bit stronger than I expected. Couple of my friends seemed quite surprised that I actually purchased alcohol.
I've been listening to more jazz the last month or two, mostly Miles Davis and John Coltrane, and I'm beginning to get a feel for what I like and what I don't like in the genre (even though I still don't have the context to "get" the different styles or nuances, like how to appreciate improvisation). I'm not a big fan of horns, outside of the sax, and I tend to be favorable towards piano and upright bass sounds. The bass player at Pearl's was flinging his 7-foot tall monster around pretty good.
- After church on Sunday, was thwarted from our weekly hoops game by pouring rain, so a few of us set up instruments in the sanctuary and jammed for a few hours. I spent most of my time on bass guitar, which was a blast. If I start playing it more often, I'll have to build up the calluses on my index and middle fingers of my right hand.
- Watched "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" in the evening with the youth group. Having recently read the book (I'm now on The Magician's Nephew in the series), I had a pretty good idea of what to expect going into the movie. The filmmakers did a pretty good job, I think. While the commercials might have you believe that it's "Lord of the Rings Lite," the battle scene at the end was really not all that important in the grand scheme of the movie. They did a good job transporting the viewer through the wardrobe to the magical world of Narnia. The little girl playing Lucy did a marvelously natural job expressing wonder and delight (according to reviews, they actually blindfolded her and brought her onto the snowy Narnia set, capturing her honest astonishment on camera after taking off the blindfold). Some parts of the movie were awkward or unintentionally funny, at least to an adult viewer, but overall it did a good job of capturing the feel of an intelligent childlike fantasy, with some Christian symbolism. They did inexplicably leave out my (and many others') favorite line of dialogue from the book: "Is (Aslan) safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he is good. He's the king, I tell you." I'd give the film a solid B to B+ - certainly worth seeing in the theater, but not worth seeing more than once in the theater like the LOTR movies were.
- Quote of the day: "I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it." - Harry Emerson Fosdick. Do you agree or disagree?
Off to Vegas. Go Bears!
posted by Bob at
11:54 PM
1 Comments:
go bears!
see you soon
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