It's been brought to my attention that if you tried to click on the links at the bottom right, they did not take you to the intended place. My apologies, the problem is now fixed, check out some of the cool sites and blogs.

I'll admit I was wrong about the oil prices, I never thought they would get this low again. But it seems this is about the furthest we will go. An OPEC rep today said that prices had leveled to a rate acceptable to consumers and producers. I read through the lines to say that this means the drop is over, get ready to pay this rate for fuel, give or take a dime or so. I guess I can live with it, but I sure miss the rate of just under $2 from last year.

Back to the BCS, another thought. Even a playoff system would not be perfect, as no matter how many teams you take, there will still be some who are arguing they should be in. If you take four, the fifth will be mad, if you take eight, number nine will complain, and so on. My number is eight, cut out some of the patsies, reduce the conference schedule by a game, every team plays 11 games, keep the bowl system, but the top eight teams enter a playoff. My reason is that it gives teams one slip, maybe two in some circumstances. I don't buy the argument that ESPN keeps giving me that the entire season is a playoff, lose and you are disqualified. My problem with that is a situation such as Georgia's today, they played without their QB and one of the best if not simply most valuable players in the country, and narrowly lost to a very good FL team. This should not disqualify them, but it will. The same with Miami, they lost an ugly game early to FSU, now they are out, even if they beat VT next week. Give every team one slip up, we'll know the top eight at the end of the year, and let them play it out. No classes would need to be missed as they could play the week after Christmas, the week of the New Year, and then a final playoff the first weekend of NFL playoffs, maybe that Friday night or something. Couldn't this be worked out? Imagine the ratings and payout for this, and the two teams remaining still play only 14 games. Most teams now play 13 anyway, what is one more game?

Interesting piece from Vox:

College is worthless

From The Wall Street Journal:
William Strauss and Neil Howe have recently argued in the Chronicle of Higher Education that with tuition and the resulting debt reaching surreal levels, and colleges and universities failing to reverse the post-1960s collapse of academic standards, parents and students are increasingly skeptical about the value of a college education.Parents born after 1961, Messrs. Strauss and Howe have found, experienced that collapse of standards in their own college educations and are determined not to tolerate another overpriced and underperforming disappointment for their own children. This is the generation that "propelled school choice, vouchers, charter schools, home-schooling and the standards-and-accountability movement."

These parents will be more likely to treat higher education as a market, in which smart buyers exercise discretion.If you're going to blow $100k, you'd do better to buy your 18 year-old a Ferrari and let him drive that to his next job interview. Chances are, he'll get a better job armed with an automotive marker of success than with a degree.

What the upset little college kiddies, whose angry missives show up here from time to time, don't understand is that their vaunted educations don't mean a damn thing anymore. So, you've got a 3.8 General Prize for Attendance, so what? I have spoken with individuals holding economics majors from major universities who have never heard of John Maynard Keynes, I have spoken with political science majors who have never read Plato's Republic or Marx's Communist Manifesto, much less Cato, Aristotle or the Federalist Papers. English majors who can neither read nor write effectively are as ubiquitous as Philosophy majors incapable of rational thought and foreign language majors who can't actually speak the language they have supposedly mastered.

An art director at a major game studio once complimented the art in our game and asked me how such a small development house had managed to acquire such a strong art team. Our answer was pretty simple. We gave the prospective artist a piece of paper, a pencil and told him to draw something. If he could do it well, we hired him. Most of the time, they couldn't and we didn't. I seldom bothered to look at resumes, much less diplomas or transcripts.

Colleges these days produce pieces of paper, not educated individuals. Unless you wish to work for a government or in a government-regulated profession - medicine, the law, hair-dressing - there is no longer any point to wasting four to seven years in a university system, and going into debt to do so.

Learning and education are tremendously important, but they have increasingly little to do with paying money to an "academic institution" for a piece of paper falsely claiming you know something that you demonstrably do not.

Staying with the BCS scam from earlier in the week, why do we always demand on saying one team is number one "because they won it last year and they'll stay number one until someone beats them." In our current system, that is simply ludicrous. With the stakes as high as they are, if a voter thinks one team (Texas or VT) is better than USC, they better vote that way, or the strand of integrity left in the system is gone. The best team is the best team, one is not better than the other due to last year's team. And let it be known that I do think USC would whip VT or Texas, as much as it hurts me to say that. But if you don't think they are the best team, you'd better not vote them there.

We started watching "The Terminal" tonight, very, very, very slow starting movie. At least we got a reprieve when Lisa had to go upstairs to feed Kendyl. It better start picking up soon! In the meantime, "The Truman Show" is one, good movie.

I just heard a great quote from Michael Reagan. It turns out that since passing the smoking ban in DC was so easy, a city councilwoman is going to propose that they ban drinking as well. He responded by saying that if we are going to expect people to pay for our health care, they are going to tell us how to live as well. Everyone thinks this is such a good idea, national health care, but it's going to set things off when it happens. Couldn't be a worse idea.

I hate the White Sox, but my hats off to Chicago for what is an inevitable World Series crown. I do happen to be an Ozzie Guillen fan and El Duque is simply amazing. Good work guys!

I'm taking the under on their number of wins next year, I'll say they'd be lucky to play .500 ball.

The schedule disparity in the NFL is simply absurd. Take a look at the following comparison:

Eagles - Record: 4-2
Opp. Record: 19-20 (record not that astounding, but take a look at the opponent, Atl,
SF, Oak, KC, Dallas, and SD, adn all teams gunning for them as
defending NFC champs along with TO saga - SF hurt them,
Oakland is an underrated 2-4, no gimme at all)
Chargers - Record:3-4
Opp. Record: 26-18 (only Oakland with a losing record, see above)

On the other hand:

Colts - Record: 7-0
Opp. Record: 14-30 (only J-ville has winning record)
Bengals - Record: 5-2
Opp. Record: 17-25 (only played Pitt with a winning record and lost)

The numbers don't lie, and yes, I am rooting for the evil Patriots next week Monday!

The last few nights as I've been flipping through the channels I've caught a few older Jennifer Lopez movies, "Enough," "Money Train," "Anaconda." It's kind of funny watching her pre-JLo and seeing that back then, she was really just "Jenny from the block," a far cry from what she has turned herself into now.

This from my professof, I kind of liked it:

Party Time

When we reduce God to a system of thought or, worse, to an honorable and serious version of ourselves, we violate Him.


The rationalism of our day - and the centuries preceding us - has turned the wildly free, flamboyant, and ebulient Creator into a sombre, intelligent, and generally manageable shotgun rider.

In our sedate theology, He fights off the bandits when our stagecoach comes under attack, but generally sits quietly, hands off the reins. We invite Him on board for the ride, precisely because we can trust Him to sit fairly still and cover our tail in case of trouble. He's good to have riding beside us, eyes peeled for the Bad Guy.

The thought that our heavenly Father might be an outrageous reveller or a wild artist who thrills to splash color across the universe like a painter with an endless canvas, is unsettling to say the least. Yes, He may call for the fattened calf to be killed for a celebration, but He is far too dignified to dance heartily. He would surely prefer to sit regally on a throne than make mud-pies and laugh with children.

As we create Him in our image, we restrain Him in the same ways that we ourselves feel restrained, and in so doing we lose wonder and freedom.
Catherine of Siena, a 14th century Italian mystic, sounds almost blasphemous to suggest that God is "pazzo d'amore, ebro d'amore " - crazed with love, drunk with love. God, crazy? God, giddy? Is not self-control and seriousness the ultimate goal of life? Isn't unbridled exuberance a sign of youthful immaturity? Can we really apply these terms to God and remain respectful?

The cosmic cop barely breaks a smile in our theology. Could He possibly enjoy football (or better, cricket)? He never relaxes. He is ever alert - and therefore, ever tense. His watchfulness denies his playfulness.

And so, our theology takes on moribund tones. Our intimacy with Him becomes measured by intensity not levity, by seriousness not celebration. Could it be that the artists and mystics, the playful children and the poets, the laughing and the light-hearted have more to teach us about God than the weary rationalist, burdened by the seriousness and stress of the world?

Bring on the color, the laughter, the dancing, the music, and the extravagant celebrations. Perhaps as we see the Father in this light, we'll find permission to revel in life a little more ourselves.
In HOPE -

What a terrible day of football. There's not much I don't like in the NFL, I don't have allegiances to any team except the Cowboys, I tend to like players over teams, etc. However, I absolutely hate the Manning Trinity and Mike Holmgren, while I love the Cowboys and have an appreciation for the Broncos. That's why I was so upset to see both the Boys and Denver winning late as I left my in-laws, only to come home and see both teams had lost, allowing crazy comebacks. I'm saying it right now, if both Mannings are in the Super Bowl I am not watching, and the only way I will watch one is if I like the other team and will root vigorously for that team. Go Boys!

I opened my big fat mouth last night in my online discussion and, in response to my reading and various posts of others, wrote that while the writer of Hebrews does encourage/command us to continue meeting in Christian community, "I don't think Christ or any of the apostles would be happy with our form of living out this command today." Of course I was called to the carpet, asked what aspects of Church Jesus would be least excited about today. Here is my response:

Not that I'm innocent of any of these, but...

How similar we are to the Pharisees;
How we exclude those who Jesus ministered to;
The amount of money we spend on buildings while "not having enough money in the general fund to meet a physical need";
Our lack of discipleship, preferring to go through the motions rather than truly follow Christ;
Our dualistic worldview;
Expecing people to come in rather than going out to get them;
Our focus on the Great Commission to the detriment of the Great Commandment;
How we bend Scipture to fit our needs;
How we have gone to bed with political parties (on both sides of the spectrum);

Those are just a few. Of course I do believe some of these are just a part of human nature, but many of these could be fixed if we would take a deep look inward and worry more about expanding the Kingdom than growing our churches.

A few thoughts while perusing some magazines last night:

I find it very interesting, as Time reports, that young Germans are all of the sudden becoming less interesetd or involved in social issues and beginning to look inward at their own country. Basically they are saying screw our idealism, we need jobs and things are just too regulated and too highly taxed! They are becoming much more conservative, even as it pertains to marriage. It seems the social welfare state just isn't what it's cracked up to be.

These words, also reported by Time, should scare every Westerner: "Daddy, I want to be a martyr. Can you get me an explosive belt?" Those words from the mouth of a nine year old son of a man who trains suicide bombers.

I'm probably late in reporting this, but "ubersexual" has taken over "metrosexual" as the ideal man. This man seems to be able to balance both worlds, talking literature one minute and breaking down sports the next. Some examples given are Bill Clinton, George Clooney, and Bono. Rush Limbaugh was left off the list and is not happy about it.

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I completely agree with the Sports Guy:

Yet another question: Is A.J. Pierzynski the most annoying professional athlete in recent memory? He's like the Rick Barry of this generation -- everything he does seems annoying for some reason, even his interviews. You can see why the Giants and Twins couldn't stand him. I don't even think he's a bad guy, he's just one of Those Guys. If you played at a $25 table in Vegas with him, he seems like the guy who would say stuff like "Wow, you're way up right now, huh?" and scream "Whammy!" every time he was dealt a blackjack. And he wouldn't even know he was being annoying, so his friends would think of convoluted ways to ditch him, stuff like, "Hey, A.J., I'm gonna go walk around, get some air, I'll be back in 10 minutes" ... and then they would scurry to another casino. That's A.J., right?

He and David Eckstein may by the two most loathed players in MLB. Have you seen Eckstein's arm, how does he get the ball to first?

The UPS guy delivered two prized possessions today, the Alicia Keys "Unplugged" DVD and "Now I Can Die in Peace" by the Sports Guy.

I mentioned last week how I participate in an online discussion weekly. Just today there was a post on some of our reading where the person quoted Lewis and Willard with some great quotes (albeit paraphrased). First, from Lewis:

...we try remain ourselves, and keep all of our self focused goals and yet also try to be the types of people Christ called us to be when in fact that is the very thing Christ warned us we could not do...

How convictingand true, one of my major problems of living in this culture while having my heart in the Kingdom. Now, from Willard:

...most problems in contemporary churches can be traced back to the fact that most of it's members have not yet decided to follow Christ...

What does that say to pastors and lay ministers about their ministry? It bette say something or they are ignoring a huge problem.

BTW - yesterday went great, a few meltdowns but nothing major, even went to the KHS vball game, both girls were angels. Don't I feel special...

I feel bad as I write this as I'm not one to take this issue lightly, but when Job wrote that he made a covenant with his eyes not to look lustfully at a woman, do you think he had any idea what the pictures of Cameron Diaz look like in Entertainment Weekly?

On another note, I'm becoming accustomed to being a family man. I always turned on that idea, preferring the "rugged individualist" and the cosmo type male. However, after just a few months of being the father of two adorable girls and a few weeks of spending time at home with them, there's really no other place I'd be. Give me a few times a week for coffee with the friends, the occasional west coast or Africa trip, and I'm perfectly content playing at home with the gals. Oh, the surpises life brings you!

I'm reading Kempis' "Imitations of Christ" and finding it amazing on one hand and boring on the other. I just can't get into this classical lit other than the occasional soundbite. Here are a few from my reading last night:

The glory of a good man is the testimony of a good conscience. Therefore, keep your conscience good and you will always enjoy happiness... I've been using this one in coaching, it's crazy to think of pressure in high school sports, especially at the girls level, but it exists, for sure in the community. Therefore this proverbs take on additional meaning for me, work hard in all you do and whatever the outcome, your conscience is clean.

A man must fight long and bravely against himself before he learns to master himself fully and to direct all his affections toward God. I'm working on this one and have a long way to go.

Why do you look for rest when you were born to work? A friend of mine was explaining to me last year how everything we do in life is meant to make our lives easier, when that may not be the Kingdom way. How true!

Always take the lowest place, and the highest will be given to you, for the highest cannot exist apart from the lowest.

To many the saying, "Deny thyself, take up they cross and follow Me" seems hard, but it will be much harder to hear that final word: "Depart from me,ye cursed, into everlasting fire." WOW! I'm convicted and speechless.

It sucks when all your teams are eliminated early from the playoffs. Go Angels!

Well, I survived my first full day of daddy day care without incident. A few meltdowns here and there, but for the most part we had a great day. Pretty uneventful. I don't want to sound arrogant, but I think I've got it figured out, the key is to stay ahead of the game. For Kendyl, you have to feed her before she's hungry and put her to sleep before she's tired. It sounds weird, but that's how she works. If she starts getting fussy and you are not ready to feed or nap her, you are in TROUBLE! The same with Maiya, and I need to be more on the ball with her because so much of my time in the day is devoted to Kendyle, if she needs to eat or go to the bathroom, I need to be ready, and those can't be times when Kendyl is in need. It's quite a balancing act but I'm getting used to it. (Watch, now tomorrow it'll be a disaster of a day, I sure hope not!)

One last item, I watched "Crash" last night, and if you have not seen it, go out right now and rent it. I mean that. I don't know if I have seen a more powerful movie in my life, and I've seen "Hotel Rwanda" and I thought I'd never see a more powerful flick. I won't ruin it for you, but in toward the end I had to stop the movie and go upstairs to hug my daughter in my sleep, you'll understand when you watch it.

I'm in the beginning of my first full day of a stay at home dad. Things got off to a good start, Kendyl ate well and is ready for a little nap and Maiya is being a sweetheart and eating breakfast as I write. Let's hope the rest of the day goes so well. More updates as I get the time...

Now that I have started my next online class, each week I will be participating in an online discussion with 13 others plus the professor. This week's discussion is based on a quote from Thomas Merton in a required read for the course, "Contemplative Prayer." He writes:
…meditation and contemplative prayer, is not so much a way to find God as a way of resting in him whom we have found, who loves us, who is near to us, who comes to us to draw us to himself (p.29).

Our discussion is then based around our reaction and thoughts on this quote. Most of the posts have dealt with us finding God in prayer or, to the contrary, God making Himself available to us. It's kind of hard to explain, I've taken it as us finding God not through our work but by His grace. I've also chosen to respond in the following way:

I've believed for some time that in the evangelical world, we understand that we are saved by grace, but we practice Christian life to the contrary. We feel that if we don't act in a certain way, do things like the (Christian) culture does, don't go to church or become a member of every committee, that we lose God's favor, maybe even that we lose our salvation. For many years I lived like this and bought into this lifestyle. But just recently I am learning more and more about the love of God, who He is and who we are in Him. I know this analogy is probably overused, but its really shed some light on God for me. I have two daughters and love them more than I can speak. When they do wrong, do they cease to be my daughters? Of course not! Am I waiting for them to disobey me so I can punish them? Quite the contrary! How many times is God referred to in Scripture as our Father, this is who He is, this is His character. He is our Father, we are His children, heirs to the throne! It seems we've gotten the paradigm all mixed up and it has affected our relationship with Him, mine anyway.

How does that relate to prayer? I believe here Merton is introducing us to a way of thinking about prayer that fits along these same lines. I know that I tend to think about prayer as reading a laundry list of wants and needs, of what I do rather than who God is and how He desires relationship with us. Merton seems to be saying that prayer is more of resting in God's grace and love than what we do or what we say in our time of prayer. I kind of like it as it seems to speak more to the essence of God's character and the Christian truths and life rather than what I grew up to believe was true.

In any case, in light of all of this, one classmate questioned this, writing My first response was, "does this mean God could choose not to come to us?" That's a little scary when you think about it. We have heard God may wait to answer, but not come to us?

A lady posted the following response, It may seem scary, the idea of God being able to choose not to come to us . . . but why would he? If he chooses not to come to me (according to his definition of coming, not mine), then perhaps he is not the God I want to serve? and I agree, for the fact that, as I responded, You're right, God is not in the business of not wanting to come to us, it's not in His character of Who He is.

You're probably totally confused by now, but my point is that we must look at the character of God in these questions and circumstances. The Bible says that God is good, all the time. He loves us no matter what. Grace is available to all, where sin abounds, grace abounds even more. God is love. I could go on forever. In light of questions like these, we must first understand the God we serve and seek and answer the questions or at least base our discussion from this foundation.

I just had what may have been the best half hour of my life. I was playing around with my iTunes, downloading some music, transferring some songs from CD's, etc. when Maiya came and wanted to hang with me. She likes listening to music so I played a few songs and then we watched some Alicia Keys videos. Then I put some Hip Hop songs on and we danced. Lisa finished feeding Kendyl at that time so she joined us and we had a "dance party" according to Maiya in our basement. Then Maiya wanted to show Lisa how we cuddled watching the videos and then Maiya had to slow dance with me, I held on to her while she laid her head down on my shoulder. Precious! It was supposed to be a date night with Lisa and I but Kendyl didn't cooperate. I couldn't think of any better way of spending an evening with the family!

I'm really getting into some old school Pearl Jam, I can't stop listening to that song "Black."

Speaking of that, it's weird how certain songs and certain things I do remind me of specific events in my life. For instance, every time I hear "Black" I think of riding the bus to our junior year high school football game at Hilbert, the toughest game of the year, and we were instructed at the railroad tracks before the town, there was to be no talking. At that time "Black" came on the radio and set us off! It's a weird song to get fired up to, but we sure did! Likewise, whenever I hear "Oh Boy" by Cam'ron I think of being in Cali three years ago taking my first seminary block (I was listening to an R&B station and they played it over and over and over...). That annoying song "Barbie" reminds me of deejaying for the Mert Man and Lush Man's birthday party a while ago (speaking of the Mert Man, I flew with him on Saturday to Cincy, we reminisced and he talked about another bash, I'm in if he does it!). Two others, whenever I pour a glass of OJ I think back to when we went skiing to CO with two other couples. They came in at midnight and we left at 4:30am, I had OJ ready for the morning. Last, whenever I put clothes in the hamper I think of two friends from Madison who we met at our summer in CO, I have no idea why. There's more, but I'll spare you. I know, commit me to the psych ward!

Hockey?

Someone forgot to tell me hockey was back in season. I found out watching Sportscenter? Now I have to write and beg ESPN again to put a disclaimer at the bottom of their shows so I can plan to change channels:
WARNING, HOCKEY HIGHLIGHTS WILL RUN IN 5 MINUTES, PLAN ACCORDINGLY!

My prof wrote this in his weekly correspondence, I really like it:
When Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman (Jn 4) or the leper (Mk 1) or the tax collector (Lk 19) or the adulteress (Jn 8), He focused on their future potential not their past failure. He encouraged them to new lifestyles rather than berated them for old ones. He offered forgiveness not judgement. He replaced shame with dignity, embarrassment with worth, and brokenness with hope. He still does!

WOW! What a week! Let me reflect on the past seven days:

Monday: My first day of paternity leave, began the day in Madison celebrating our anniversary, rushed home in the afternoon to attend the Powder Puff game (junior vs. senior girls in football, a Homecoming tradition) and tried to get some rest and love on my children.

Tuesday: Pretty uneventful day, had coffee in the afternoon, hung out with the kids.

Wednesday: back to school, came home after, picked up Maiya, went to Homecoming parade to collect candy in the wind and rain. Then we went over to a gathering for the church we are attending, I have never felt more out of place in my life. Did I write on this already?

Thursday: another day of school, weights with the athletes after, came home, held Kendyl while she slept, went to the volleyball game, interviewed the coaches after, then out to the bonfire to chaperone and organize. Got home, wrote the article for the game, out at around 11:30.

Friday: I'm not working Fridays until after Thanksgiving, but since I needed to be there for the pep rally I thought it wise to work the entire day. Spent most of the day organizing, pretty fun time. Came home after to prepare for the football game. I've never seen anything like this, with 4 minutes left Kimberly had the ball on the 40, running out the clock. They called a pass play on 3rd and long and the QB got hit, fumbled, and it was returned for a TD. The score went from 17-7 to 17-14. They went three and out, muffed the snap, and Fondy recovered on the 1. Two plays and they were down 21-17. They couldn't get past the 50 and rather than 5-1 and a guaranteed playoff spot, they are now 4-2 with two tough games left. Came home to hang with the family and pack for the weekend.

Saturday: Woke at 4 to get to the airport to catch my flight to SoCal. Great flight, I like Delta, I hadn't flown them in a long time. Got in at around 10:30, was heading to hang at the beach until my meeting in the afteroon, when I got a call that I should head right to Riverside to hang with my friends until the meeting. We had lunch (I ate way too much and got really groggy) before driving to the Tumaini dinner. Helped set up, had a wonderful evening, got back at 10pm, I don't think I've ever gotten to sleep so fast in my life.

Sunday: Woke this morning at 7:30, went to breakfast, all day Tumaini board meeting, then drove to Pasadena to check out Fuller (Dr. Mutunga is a graduate) and then to Mosaic for church. Pretty cool, I was really excited when I got in to see the people and the anticipation of worshipping God, but that soon waned when I heard McManus speak. I thought it was going to be good as we read the beginning of Phil 2 but then didn't talk about that passage again. He went on about ambition, the spirit of the message was good, he was funny, but his exegesis was terrible and I hate that! He was referring to examples in the Bible of people with ambition and listed Joseph (OT), Daniel, and Moses. He said Joseph was a slave but rose to be second in command in the Egyptian empire because of his ambition. Same with Daniel, a slave but rose to be second to Nebuchadnezzar because of his ambition. Finally, Moses was raised in a foster home but was third in the Egyptian kingdom because of his ambition. I don't know what Bible this guy is reading, but I don't see this as a result of their ambition. For goodness sake, Moses did everything he could not to lead the people, but by the power of God took Israel out of Egypt. These men may have been ambitious, but they relied on the power of God to do what they did, nothing else.

And now I sit at a Starbucks on Wilshire Avenue waiting for my flight and totally wiped out. I leave at 11:59 and hope I sleep the entire time!