Archives for July, 2005
Mark’s 4th Birthday Party
I was going through some pictures from last year on Flickr. I found this picture of Wendy and I couldn’t help noticing what a babe I married. I also can’t help but notice that after a year our neighbor hasn’t fixed our fence either.
club church
Who’s pulling your strings?
Contextless Links
- Vegas is running out of water
- How Costco became the anti WalMart
- How American Airlines flew back into the black :: Listen to their employees. How radical is that?
- Frank Gehry in Wikipedia
An update on Resonate Journal
Some of you have asked how the Resonate Journal is coming along. Here’s the skinny.
- We have a logo, masthead, and design that should work for us for the next couple of editions.
- Submissions have come in quickly and we have some excellent articles for the premiere edition. In future editions we will be talking with Len Sweet, Brian McLaren, and Tony Jones from south of the border. We will also be talking to others from all over the world.
- There are some excellent voices from Canada and they are coming from unexpected sources. The journal will be Radically Canadian to steal a phrase from the Canadian Football League.
- Some have inquired about advertising. Since we don’t know what our traffic will be like (will anyone read it?), we are using Google Ad-Words until we have an idea of what the traffic will be like. Then we will probably follow the PGA, NHL, and others and try out Ad-Brite to handle our advertising for us.
- I have developed more appreciation for how hard it is to publish a webzine. Questions of permissions, copyright, and submissions are a big job, even for a small webzine. I have a lot of respect for Karen Neudorf and Beyond Magazine for the job of putting together a print magazine.
- If you would like to help, let me know at
. To be let know when the Resonate Journal launches head over to the website and sign up for our e-mail updates.
Medication
I take around 30 pills a day to control the diabetes and the pain. Most are for the pain. Last night I got home late and fell asleep without taking the pain medication. I woke up at 5 a.m. and thought I would die I was in so much pain. I couldn’t walk. I felt parts of my body that didn’t exist which made made it hard to function. I hurt inside and out. As I struggled to take my medication I realized for the first time how sick I had become and it scared me horribly. I just sat down here and realized that I am now a slave to my medication. It kind of hit me that the pain is going to be lurking behind me forever. It also reminds me that my medication is what keeps me going now.
On a good note I am going back to work on Tuesday. Our savings kept us going but those are gone and I am not quite ready to accept the fact that I need disability. I may have been down but I am not out. Wendy and I have promised each other to play tennis twice a week and go biking. The good news in all of this is Wendy is a horrible tennis player so my ego should be helped, that is unless she beats me.
Jones Black Cherry Cola
I have been railing about how much I hate diet sodas lately. I have been trying some out and have aquired a taste for Diet Coke and Diet Coke with Lime. The other day Leighton gave me some Sugar Free Ginger Ale from Jones Soda as well as some Black Cherry Sugar Free Jones Soda. Both were really good but it was the Black Cherry stuff that really suprised me.
I still don’t enjoy Diet Pepsi but will drink it if there isn’t another option. It isn’t bad but it isn’t that great to me but I am sure there are several million users that disagree with me. For me it is the caramel that gets me. It seems a little too much.
The diet is going well. Yesterday I put on a Denver Broncos jersey I haven’t fit into since I just started at Lakeview Church. I think I have lost sixty pounds since I was working there. It feels good. Despite all of my talking in this post about diet drinks, I am working pretty hard at drinking two to three litres of water a day. Nothing like some really cold water on a hot day.
The Game
The Ottawa Renegades beat the Saskatchewan Roughriders. It’s my fault as everytime I have watched the Riders play (always in Edmonton), they have lost.
Neelon Greene was horrible as quarterback. 3 interceptions, some fumbles, and some dumb plays. There was six Roughrider turnovers. It was pathetic. He threw an interception on a shuttle pass. Former Grey Cup winner Marcus Crandle came in and played better and at least got the Riders into the end zone.
Our seats were by the university section. There was a none stop convey of people heading down the aisle for beer which lead to an expected fight later in the game that we had a good view of. Too much testosterone + girls to impress + beer = fight. The guys behind us were drunk as the game started and drank non-stop during it. I got doused with beer but that was nothing what Leighton had to go through. He may need counselling after they kept fondling him throughout the fourth quarter. He head, his back, his chest. It was really funny because it happened to him.
It was Leighton’s stag as he is getting married Monday. I hope Nealon Greene’s second half performance wasn’t an omen for LT and Carol.
Totally different topic but these Rider hockey jersey’s look really good.
Enjoy Pepsi
An old sign on a corner grocery store in the south west section of Saskatoon’s inner city. Obviously from the condition of the sign and the store not enough people enjoyed Pepsi among other things. I am off to the Rider game tonight so enjoy the evening. Will post a load of pictures tomorrow.
wendycooper.net: My parents
Wendy has an excellent post about Jerry and Gloria Reimer. Despite Gloria arguing with me and more ofteh and not being wrong ;-), they are family to us.
Flickr: Leighton and Carol’s Wedding
What’s this? It’s a Flickr group that some of us have set up to post some photos of Leighton and Carol’s wedding this weekend. Some bachelor party pictures, some rehersal pictures, and maybe even some wedding pictures. Hopefully LT and Carol will even post some of the photographer pics here as well. It’s a big weekend and we are all excited for them.
Riderville
Mark was taken to the Saskatchewan Roughriders store today. I was looking for a jersey or a shirt as I am heading down to Regina and Taylor field to watch the Riders hopefully beat the Ottawa Renegades. I have always watched the Riders play in Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton and have never seen them win a game so this could be a first. Mark and I were just browsing when I saw a “Saskatchewan Roughriders Locker Room” sign and then a kids jersey. The next thing you know, Wendy and Mark were wearing green and I was putting a Rider Locker Room sign on Mark’s door.
On the way home, Mark is wearing his new Green and White jersey (actually it is the away one so it is Green and Black) and waving the sign so people would know he is a Roughrider fan and he was asking if our friends were Rider fans. When we got to Jerry and Gloria, I said that they were Winnipeg Bluebomber fans. Mark’s reply was, “I thought they were good people.” I said that they were but they get confused sometimes. Mark isn’t allowed to say “losers” or “you suck” but we made exceptions if he is talking about the Winnipeg Bluebombers.
I am a big CFL fan. I enjoy the NFL (I am typing this wearing my Denver Broncos jersey) and am under no illusion that the CFL is a better game then the NFL, the atheletes are far superior but we do enjoy our game up here the same way NFL fans enjoy theres. Perhaps what made me a fan was one of the few good memories I have with my father and that is that he would take me to the occasional CFL game in Edmonton and Calgary when I was a kid. In Edmonton we would wander around and do stuff like sit in the highest seat and then try to get down low but one time we went to Edmonton and saw Edmonton lead by Tracey Ham beat the Toronto Argonauts. After the game you are allowed to go onto the grass field at Commonwealth and players chat with the fans. Tracey Ham had a bucket of mini footballs and he tossed me one. I don’t know if they do that anywhere else in the CFL or NFL but it made me a fan for a long time, no matter what the team. There is probably a lesson the NHL could learn there.
The other thing is that I don’t talk very much about being a dad here but I love shopping with Mark. Mark was kind of stunned when I picked up the jersey for him and told him that the Rider Locker Room sign was for him. He loved the whole experience of hanging out with Dad and always lets me know it. For him he always knows that there is a chance that we could do something unexpected and he can’t wait to tell Wendy about it (it kills him to go Christmas shopping or getting a suprise for Wendy or Lee and he can’t tell them). Wendy works one in four Sundays and can’t come to Spiritwood. Those Sundays with Mark are hilarious. Generally Wendy packs a suprise snack for us on the road and Mark is the custodian of the cooler. The entire trip he is asking, “Dad, can I get you some more coffee?” or “Dad, would you like a Diet Coke?”. For some reason he is a lot free to ask things when we are on the road together. Not serious things but “can we go explore this town?” and things like that. Now not only is he a cool son, he is an obnoxious Saskatchewan Roughrider fan. My life is good.
Why a M.Div?
Ever since we have talked about the idea what forty books are essential for a Personal M.Div, some of us have been debating what an M.Div is supposed to do. An extremely high percentage of pastors say they were unhappy with what they learned with seminary and it did a poor job of preparing them for the pastorate or for ministry in general.
So what is an M.Div supposed to do? A lot of the books on the list are quite pragmatic. Is that what a M.Div needs to be or do we strive to teach theology and spirituality and hope that it you aquire the skills in ministry (and survive your first pastorate)?
I asked the question, you give some answers.
The Opposite of Free Love
Dispatches from the World of Human Trafficking by Jennifer Goodson.
The social workers and I climbed carefully up a narrow stairwell to a residence hall about as wide as a balcony on a cheap hotel. Dogs that seemed drugged lay in our path. The smell of urine choked the air. I was introduced to Cybi, who pays 35 rupees (71 cents) a day for a bed in a small room with several other men, women, and children. She is required to have sex with at least ten clients a day. On festivals and holidays, the number is more likely to be twenty. When Cybi was a virgin, she might have commanded 10,000 rupees (US$204). But after that first customer, her price fell to 2,000 rupees (US$40). Now she is worth about 50 rupees (US$1) per sex act. The day we arrived, she found out that she had AIDS.
It continues with this
The CIA believes that fifty thousand women and children are being trafficked into the United States annually. Most of them are believed to be forced into prostitution. The CIA has documented cases of Latvian women who have been trafficked into Chicago; Ukrainian women who have been trafficked into Los Angeles and Maryland; and Japanese women who have been trafficked to Hawaii. In many cases, these women are moved frequently to prevent traffickers from being detected, to provide clients with a “fresh” supply of women, and to prevent trafficked women from developing attachments to customers who might become sympathetic and report the case to authorities.
The author is so right when she says this
Trafficking in persons is not a women’s issue—it is a human issue
The Reimer’s Trip to Asia
small ritual: what an aw/ec event actually is
Steve Collins has a great description of how events like a labrynth, art cafe, rave, and alt worship fit in or don’t fit into the church. Of course there are diagrams.
Our Cabin Weblog- Recently listened to music
- David Gray – Be Mine October 19, 2008
- David Gray – December October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Knowhere October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Real Love October 19, 2008
- David Gray – Last Boat To America October 19, 2008
- Recently additions to my library
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