Flaws

They're not just for walking on in your house, office, apartment, or
other enclosure.

It seems that I'm really good at seeing my own flaws. Lately, other
people have been interested in pointing out some of my flaws to me, as
though I were somehow unaware of them. I'm so glad people are so
interested in me now that they feel I need to work particularly hard in
these areas. I suppose that I should work on these.

But really, I don't need others to point out my flaws. I'm quite
constantly aware of what I do wrong, what I'm incapable of, and where I
fall far short of any kind of perfection or even adequacy in many areas.
These things are always before me, rarely if ever sinking below the
periphery of my consciousness. As time progresses, the tally on the
negative side grows ever fuller, while the only thing on the positive
side that grows seems to be cobwebs. That's not entirely true, of
course, as the only positive thing I do is lead Bible study Sunday
mornings. But that's not anything about me, and it's all about God. I
merely try to remain open to the Spirit's leading in this. And I guess
that's worth something.

Still, though, I don't know why I can't hold on to anything positive in
my life. Part of it is never having gotten any kind of positive
reinforcement growing up, so much so that the little bit I receive now
is like throwing a drop of gasoline into a 55-gallon vat: it's there but
disappears rather quickly, effectively doing nothing. I can see for
others all the great things about them, but for me... nothing.

I had a whole litany of things related to this, but, alas, the train has
left the tracks.

Welcome Home!

I've been away at the parents house in MS (that's Mississippi, not
Missouri). It was a fun time and a much needed rest. I drove back today,
and I'm pretty tired and wiped out. Clark (the cat) enjoyed the trip, or
at least he appeared to enjoy it. He just goes to sleep on my lap and
lets me pet him the whole way.

A new year is coming up. I'm not sure what's in store (who is?), but I'm
really hoping 2005 is a better year than 2004. At least I'll stop being
40 in May of next year, so maybe I can get out of this horrible
useless/worthless funk I've been in. I want to lose weight (I really
need to lose weight). I want to get out of debt, but barring winning the
lottery, even a nice-paying job will not allow me to get out of debt in
2005 (I'm only looking at what could be realistic for me to get, not a
$150K/yr job--that would rock!). Don't start down that rocky road of
debt: it's the gift that keeps on taking.

Anyway, I'll have to figure out what I want to do. I don't set New Years
Resolutions, but I probably should set some goals, said setting of goals
coincidentally occurring at the beginning of the year.

That's all I feel like writing at the moment. Enjoy yourselves, and
maybe, just maybe, I'll be a little more prolific in blogging.

News

Please pray for this
Missing Boy.

Randomness

My parents bought me a new washing machine for Christmas. I finally got
it Wednesday (long story). I love my new washing machine. I think I'll
marry it.

In an effort to allow the people to finally deliver the washing machine,
I've done a little cleaning up. Wow, it's amazing how much a little
cleaning up can make a difference.

Untitled, of Course

I hope to make this a short one. Though anything posted is better than nothing, right? Or you might think I'm really better off not adding any more inanity or banality to the world. I wouldn't blame you. And yet I kvetch on.

My last two or three postings I've dictated with my VR software. Physically typing is so much more cumbersome, especially when you have to type almost everything twice. Everything gets done twice with my VR software, but the extent of my involvement is saying, "Correct that <pause> Choose 2". Much less tiresome than typing everything twice.

Movies of late:
Girl, Interrupted
Excellent movie. Having gone through depression (and maybe still in its throes), I can relate to what was going on.

The Great Santini (1979)
Also a pretty good movie starring Robert Duvall. Some of the scenes are pretty intense, even by today's standards.

Magnolia
What's it about? It's about three hours. Really. I'm not sure how much better to describe it. Tom Cruise did an excellent job, though he was his usual angry young man. Though his character espoused many things I totally disagree with, not all of what he said was necessarily bad or untrue. Who does decide that men are automatically bad or wrong? There were lots of interesting parts to the movie, and I'm not sure I would classify this a "good" movie yet, but I can see that it has its charm and might make it into my collection one day. I think the funniest part, at least to me being a comic book fan, was when Tom Cruise was standing there posing in just his underwear talking about being Batman or Superman. I just laughed at the image of the traditional view of superhero garb being realized on someone saying he was a superhero. (That's for those of you who didn't make the connection.)

Music:
I recently bought some CDs, the first in several months:

Fat Boy Slim
<can't remember the title>
Fun stuff, though I've heard most of the songs elsewhere.

U2
How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
Pretty good stuff from the Irish lads, though one of the songs seems anti-Semitic to me, that Israel should just unilaterally stop defending itself. Maybe I'm hearing it wrong. I'll have to check back in on that one.

Matt Redman
Facedown
Worship music like I like it, with an edge. Again, not just cookie cutter "worship" genre music.

The Donnas
<can't remember the title>
"Chicks who rock". Lots of fun.

Apt Core
Apt Core 2
Not the album I was looking for. Either a different Apt Core album, or I'm looking for a Cathedral of Sound album. Update 12/17: I just realized this album is on backorder from BMG, so I haven't heard it yet. It's amazing what you can convince yourself is true sometimes. Stupid BMG for not carrying a greater selection. It's taken me months to be able to find four CDs I wanted to buy. (Of course, not having that much money beyond comics and DVDs might have a little to do with it, too.)

Okay, so this turned out longer than I anticipated. They always do.

A Fun Night

I met with my friends Mikal, John, Alberto, and Doug at a local
Starbucks. Not the one on that block, but the next block from there.
Yeah, that's right, that one. Oh, no, not that one; you're thinking the
one two blocks down. It's the one on the western side of the mall, not
the northwest corner.

Anyway, it was fun to just hang with some friends with no agenda, no
planned curriculum. Just five friends getting together to bum around.

We will pick a better venue than Starbucks next time. We are Baptist,
after all, and food must be consumed!

An Answer of Sorts

Finally, another posting in a seemingly decreasing interest in writing this blog. It's not that I'm not interested in writing the blog, but when I come up with things to write I nowhere near computer. And by the time I get to one where I can actually write (meaning when I get home), I've completely forgotten anything I had thought about writing. I've had thoughts about Thanksgiving, going to see National Treasure, the death of Dick Ebersol's and Susan St. James' son in that horrible plane crash, the sheer lack of ability to write, and I'm sure there were many other things that I could have written about but never got to. I have a little micro cassette recorder that isn't being used right now, and I should put to use. It's not that you're interested in reading it, but that I'm interested in remembering it.

Anyway, we had our Men's Life meeting yesterday after skipping a week for Thanksgiving. I don't know how much I've talked about this group, but we've looked at father wounds, the too-attached-to-Mom wound, and the all-alone wound (which truly applies to me). Then yesterday, we talked about the final wound, the wound that almost everyone invariably has: the depravity wound. Right offhand, I can't speak too much about it as far as what it means; this was the first of three meetings about it. What we did talk about, however, really hit home. One of the passages we read was Rom. 7, where Paul talked about not doing what he knew he should and doing the things he knew he shouldn't. Other than teaching Sunday school, I can't think of anything positive in my life, nothing worthwhile. I breathe oxygen pretty well, and I have a semi-impressive DVD collection. Other than that, I'm pretty stumped.

For several months now, I've been aware of this darkness within, this darkness that I can't seem to overcome, and apparently a darkness I haven't seen fit to let God into sufficiently to take care of it. I'm really looking forward to hearing more about this because this darkness is just really killing me. It's debilitating and, and I can't imagine hating myself much more than I do. I know God loves me, but it's not a matter of love him. I know God declares me worthy, and that is where my main failing comes. I cannot see anything of worth of my life, and it seems to me that there should be something I can look at, something I can see or point to that I can declare to myself, "you have demonstrated worthiness". And maybe that's part of the problem, that I'm trying to find this, and it's the wrong thing to look for.

I'm such a mess, and I certainly see no way out of it under my own power.

News to Me

Well, I got a new assignment at work today that will involve doing some Excel VBA programming. I stopped by Barnes & Noble to see what they had to offer me. There was a pretty cool book for $10 that seemed pretty helpful but not deep enough for what I will need. The only other book was $50, and that was just way too expensive to spend on one book right now. Maybe I'll check at Micro-Center tomorrow. I was also looking for a magazine that doesn't appear to be around anymore. While I was wandering around, they made some announcement about some guy who would be talking in a few minutes, and they mentioned a book signing, which immediately told me that it was somebody I did not need to listen to it. I don't really follow any authors that are alive, at least none that would be making an appearance at Barnes & Noble.

Well, the setup for the book signing and lecture was right next to the computer books, and if you remember from the previous paragraph I went into the store to get a computer book. So the guy starts his lecture while I'm thumbing through the Excel books, and I'm only paying half attention to what he's saying because I'm trying to see if the book will be of any use to me. And then he makes some statement about writing a novel in 30 days. My curiosity is piqued because I'm interested in writing a novel. At this point I've just discovered the $50 book and decide instead to listen to the lecture.

As I'm listening to him speak and telling us the benefits of attempting to write a novel in 30 days, I become intrigued. You see, I have been having ideas for many novels running through my head for years, but I just can't seem to get started on any one of them. And for the past few months, say three or four, well really since I turned 40--and even six months before then--as I've been trying to figure out what is the point of my life (since it pretty much seems to be a waste so far), I keep coming back to a still small voice that tells me that writing will be my salvation, so to speak. And tonight was just like a major wake-up call. I must write because I can no longer not write.

Anyway, the program is National Novel Writing Month, and the website is www.nanowrimo.org. The speaker for the evening was Chris Baty, pretty much the founder of NaNoWriMo, as it is affectionately called. So, as he was talking I was trying to figure out how I would get started in December. I figured that would give me almost two weeks to get ready. Then I realize that the national month is November, not December. Next year, I'll be expecting this and can devote the entire month of November to writing the requisite number of words per day (1667) to reach the 50,000 word novel size. For now though, I've committed to writing 2000 words a day beginning Nov. 19th until the end of November. If I am so inspired I might continue on until I hit the 50,000 word mark. But even if I don't complete this, the joy will be in actually writing something, something I haven't been able to do except here in these blogs, preparing my Sunday school lesson, and the bit of writing I do at work (being a technical writer forces me to do some writing, but the purpose and focus is completely different).

I already know the beginning of my novel: "Daisies." I know, I know, what in the world can write about daisies? Trust me, with my stream of consciousness mind, I think I can come up with something. We'll see what turns up.

28 Days Later

I was inspired to watch 28 Days Later after reading the graphic novel, The Waking Dead. For what it's worth, the similarities between the two are that they're both about zombies, and the main character wakes up in a hospital that happens to be deserted. Apparently, that beginning is actually from a book or movie entitled, Day of the Triffids, though this is about multiple types of generic monsters rather than just zombies.

About the movie: Jim, played by Cillian Murphy, wakes up in a deserted hospital and then finds out the city (London) seems to be just as deserted. He encounters zombies, non zombies, neighbors, rats, and military personnel in his quest to discover this strange new world. Note that not all of these meetings are friendly. One of the friendlier meetings results in hearing a radio transmission indicating there's a cure for the plague, that salvation can be found at the coordinates given in the broadcast. The merry band of survivors begins the quest to Manchester, which, upon arrival, they discover is in the midst of blowing up, or at least Manchester proper. The coordinates given lead them to a military base on the outskirts of town, but this base appears deserted as well. Then the fun really begins.

28 Days Later has nothing to do with the movie starring Sandra Bullock in a rehab center. The title comes from the caption for the second scene, which indicates the time period since the initial outbreak of the zombies.

My take: Not being a general purveyor of all things zombie, my only point of comparison are the movies Night of the Living Dead and Resident Evil. It's safe to say that Night of the Living Dead is certainly the granddaddy of zombie movies and arguably the best of the lot. Mr. Boyle, the director, takes some liberties with zombie lore, but he seems to make it work in this instance. The source of the zombification is explained at the very beginning of the movie, an explanation that lends credence to the changes Mr. Boyle made. The story concerns itself with survival in an impossible situation, and asks the question of whether or not traditional rules apply in such a bizarre situation.

Things I liked: I liked seeing another movie from the same man that brought us Trainspotting. While Trainspotting was a very grotesque movie in certain spots, it was very well done, very well acted, and it certainly serves to ward people away from drugs. The music was pretty darn good, too. I like that 28 Days Later focused on the people, not the gore, though what would a good zombie movie be without some kind of gore? And I really like that he tried something different with this movie, that he tried to step away from some of the conventions of zombie movies. What he elected to do differently helped the movie step into a class of its own, one that really allows it to shine. Purists will disagree.

The music really served the movie well. While Jim is trying to get his bearings in this new world he has awakened to, the beautiful music works in contrast to the ugliness of the situation. Angelic voices, ghostly melodies, even pop riffs, all work together to show the disparity between what you want and the reality of your situation. It's almost a nostalgic reminiscence and a hope for some better future that is far different than what can be seen in the current circumstance.

Things I Didn't Like: I did not like some of the cutting techniques used in the editing. Some of the scenes were very much from the MTV style of quick cutting where you cannot focus on anything in particular; instead, you're supposed to get some kind of feeling from all the scenes you didn't see put together. I also found the ending a little bit hokey, almost too clean cut in comparison to the rest of the movie.

Recommendation: If you like zombie movies, or even if you're just remotely interested in them, you should see this movie. If you do not like intense scenes or bizarre situations, do not even bother renting this movie. The movie is thought-provoking in that it asks the questions of what makes us human, who becomes our friend or our neighbor, and what rules can possibly apply when the entire fabric of society has been torn asunder. If you can handle it, by all means watch this movie. (I have not seen any particular Christian overtones in the movie, but that doesn't mean there are none. That it's well done and thought-provoking is sufficient for me to recommend.)

A Thoughtful Thought

This is the main body of an email I sent to one of my friends at church who happens to be an associate pastor. He's always been helpful about sounding things against, and he certainly has wisdom beyond his years. He treats me as an equal, which spurs me on to aim higher in thought (he is truly superior in intellect--this is not knocking me but elevating him). Not for the sake of the intellectualism of it all (though I can stand a shot or two of that once or twice a decade), but because it encourages me to want to be better. I think it's that whole "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another" idea. <self-deprecation>I have no idea what he gets out of the deal.</self-deprecation> I'm grateful he's around to challenge me.

I have a friend who's interested in reading my teaching on the book of John, and I was sending him email with my latest lesson before teaching as opposed to after teaching (as you can see, I finished quite late). I was including a note that I thought this lesson in particular was one of my best efforts at writing as a whole, all duly inspired by God of course (as I'm sure I've noted to you before, as well).

One of the things I've found frustrating is not being spontaneously inspired at the reading of Scripture. In particular, when I'm reading for teaching, I don't get much directly. It seems some of the time, I get none until I'm actually in class. (I remember one time that what came out of my mouth was nothing I had down on paper apart from some basic facts and verses.) But mostly, the inspiration comes while writing it down, and then it just flows. And I had this thought:

Sometimes, inspiration comes from the reading, and sometimes it comes from the writing.

I found that quite insightful and rather consoling at the same time. That kind of ties in with art being 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration, which defies the typical 80-20 rule, but you get my drift.