Monday, January 31, 2005
Required reading
Alan has consolidated a list of some great conversations that have been evolving very recently in regards to church stuff.

Read them all if you know what's good for you.

posted by Peter at 3:20 PM
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Saturday, January 29, 2005
101 things
1. With a batch of fresh-out-of-the-oven, homemade chocolate chip cookies, I can be bribed to do just about anything.

2. I was born Tuesday, December 12, 1978 in Tulsa, OK.

3. Coincidentally, that was also my dad's 25th birthday.

4. In high school Spanish class, I was assigned the name "Pedro." The nickname has stuck ever since. Everywhere I've ever lived.

5. I lived in a blue house on 12th St. in Sand Springs, OK until the 9th grade.

6. My family then moved approximately one mile away where my parents still live.

7. I graduated from Charles Page High School in 1997.

8. I graduated from Oral Roberts University in 2001.

9. I received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature with a minor in Biblical languages (Greek/Hebrew).

10. I am one of the few blessed to be employed utilizing both of these skills as an editor of Reformation-era documents.

11. I have been an Associate Editor with Ad Fontes since October 2003.

12. I am an oldest child, with a brother two-and-half years younger and a sister six years younger.

13. My brother, sister-in-law and sister are all nursing majors at Oklahoma University.

14. Me, I can't stand the sight of blood, which is why I spent my college years in the library.

15. I have bathed in the Baltic Sea.

16. I have ridden a motorcycle through the dirt roads of Kousseri, Cameroon.

17. I have stood at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe.

18. Countries I have been to: Mexico, Canada, Finland (if the Helsinki airport counts), Estonia, France, Cameroon, Chad.

19. Baseball is the only sport that captures my attention.

20. I have witnessed a future major leaguer hit for the cycle while he was in the minor leagues.

21. I have been present to see a ninth-inning, 3-2, walkoff grand slam.

22. In 2002, I purchased a partial season ticket plan for the Seattle Mariners.

23. A home run once landed two seats to my right. That's the closest I've ever come to a batted ball during a baseball game.

24. I have attended home games in Seattle, Baltimore, Colorado, Cincinnati, Texas, Kansas City, Atlanta, St. Louis, and Chicago.

25. My first concert was Steven Curtis Chapman with Susan Ashton and Out of the Grey. I was probably 14. Back when Steven Curtis had a mullet.

26. Along with a friend, I once made $50 playing dc Talk cover tunes outside the Mabee Center before and after one of their shows.

27. My most recent concert was Over the Rhine.

28. I once fell asleep at a Black Heart Procession concert. I then proceeded to miss the last Metro train out of the city which cost me a $40 cab ride.

29. The first music I remember purchasing was the soundtrack from Cocktail. Had to have that Kokomo tune.

30. The last music I purchased was From a Basement on the Hill.

31. Some of my favorite films include Magnolia, The Empire Strikes Back and The Big Lebowski.

32. My senior paper was entitled "Mythic Archetypes in Modern Film". Think a Joseph Campbell-ian analysis of The Matrix.

33. I have seen 211 of the IMBD Top 250 movies of all time, including all of the top 100.

34. I enjoy cinema of all kinds—foreign, art house, silent—and prefer films with interesting characters I like.

35. Since graduating college, I have lived in six different zip codes.

36. I lived in Sand Springs, OK for 18 years from the time of my birth until time for college.

37. I then moved to Tulsa, OK where I lived for 3 years. (I moved back home for my junior year.)

38. I lived in Everett, WA from July 2001 until May 2003.

39. I then lived in the suburbs of Northern Virginia from May 2003 until August 2004.

40. Presently, I am a seminary student in Wilmore, KY pursuing a Masters of Divinity degree.

41. In the 8th grade, I was a top ten finalist in the Oklahoma State Geography Bee.

42. I have studied at various times Spanish, Russian, Greek and Hebrew. I can speak none of them.

43. I am fascinated in learning where stuff comes from.

44. The nationalities that compose my family tree include English, Irish, German, French and Cherokee.

45. Unlike every other American male born in the late 70's and early 80's, I never owned a video game system. I suck at video games to this day.

46. Dad finally broke down and bought us a Nintendo once he discovered a teach-yourself-piano program that worked only with that system. This was long past the time that the 8-bit Nintendo system was cool. Several years later, since I’m a nice guy, at Christmas time I donated it to a “less fortunate” family—not a homeless family, contrary to urban legend.

47. I did not drink my first beer until I was 25.

48. Were it not for a seminary ethos statement, I would presently be nursing a cold bottle of Hoegaarden.

49. In 7th grade, I won $50 in a Christian Women's Temperance Union essay contest. I think it had something to do with why illegal drugs are bad.

50. I have never smoked anything. Except for the competition.

51. My parents met and married while attending Oklahoma University.

52. My mother's father was raised in New York City, where he followed the daily exploits of Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth and the rest of Murderer's Row. He was stationed in the Philippines during the World War II. Afterwards, he was employed by the Department of Transportation in Washington, DC. He was transferred to Oklahoma City while my mother was in high school. He died when I was a senior in high school.

53. My mother's mother originally hails from Pennsylvania. She presently resides in an assisted living facility in Yukon, OK.

54. My father's father was born and raised in Oklahoma. During the Dust Bowl days, his family moved to California. He was the only one to move back to Oklahoma. He served as a minister in the United Methodist church for 40 years. These days he's enjoying retirement seeing the country with his RV and Jeep Cherokee.

55. My father's mother was born in Indiana. She is rarely seen without her black lapdog Sally.

56. My father is a UPS driver, minutes from retirement. He prefers drawing, painting and making use of inter-library loans to delivering brown packages. He studied speech and drama in school and once portrayed Thomas Jefferson in OU's rendition of "1776".

57. My mother is an elementary school teacher at a private Christian school. She gets a wild kick out of organizing large fundraisers at church.

58. I was married from September 2000 until June 2004.

59. I never took a drama class, but my senior year of high school I portrayed 5 different characters and had three lines in the school's production of "Damn Yankees."

60. My sophomore year of college I was a chorus member in "Oklahoma".

61. I also portrayed Rosencrantz in a one-act version of "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" the same year. The drama teacher praised my director for my comic timing. Thus, I quit my dramatic career while I was ahead.

62. I took piano lessons for three years while in middle school.

63. I taught myself how to play guitar beginning the summer after my freshman year of high school.

64. I once wrote a song for a girl. Don't ask; I don't remember how it goes.

65. The longest book I have ever read cover to cover was David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.

66. My favorite book that I read in college was Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.

67. In the 5th and 6th grade, my brother and I shared two paper routes in our neighborhood.

68. The average age of our neighborhood while we were growing up was approximately 65.

69. Thus, my brother and I spent many an hour playing one-on-one baseball in the backyard (with a tennis ball and aluminum bat), basketball in the driveway and football whenever it snowed.

70. I purchased a factory set of 1989 Upper Deck baseball cards for $40. As I was 10 years old, yes, I opened it and manhandled each and every card.

71. The first pack of the above mentioned set contained the mythic Ken Griffey, Jr. rookie card, which I sold several years later at a baseball card show for $36.

72. Because of the above financial decisions, I cannot recommend coming to me for financial advice.

73. I feverishly collected baseball cards from 1987 until 1993. They are all still in the closet of my boyhood room.

74. The crown of my collection was an assortment of 250+ Rickey Henderson cards.

75. I played Salvation Army basketball from fourth grade until sixth grade. In seventh grade, we actually had to try out for the team.

76. I played Little League baseball from third grade until sixth grade. In seventh grade, we actually had to try out for the team.

77. I served as sports editor for my high school yearbook as a junior, and a senior editor as well as sports editor my senior year.

78. Several of my photographs appeared in that senior yearbook.

79. I scored a 33 on my ACT and a 1280 on my SAT.

80. Call me cold-hearted, but I find domestic pets of most kinds to be an irritating hassle.

81. I once saw Steve Largent in an airport.

82. According to the all-knowing Myers-Briggs, my personality type is "Counselor-Idealist" (INFJ).

83. If I could have a superpower, it would be to fly. Or to be invisible. Or to be able to instantaneously transport myself from one location to another.

84. I have required glasses and/or contacts since I was 12.

85. American states I have not been to: Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont.

86. I wrote in essay on biblical aesthetics that was published in the college arts journal.

87. Previous places of employment: HiCorp (warehouse grunt), Prairie Production Company (warehouse manager), Old Navy (fashion engineer), Finales Restaurant & Cabaret (waiter), FMG (office manager), Interchange PMP (customer service representative), Rainbow Home Cleaning Systems (regional service manager), MedWare (medical transcriptionist)

88. My great-great-great-great-great grandfather was a cousin to Abe Lincoln.

89. I have never learned to ride a bicycle.

90. I remember Dad purchasing our first computer when I was in the 2nd grade. It was an Apple IIc.

91. I have been in three car accidents. None of them serious. None of them my fault.

92. I have been pulled over once in my life. For taking an HOV-only (high-occupancy vehicle) exit from the freeway. We will not even discuss the brilliant idea of HOV-only exits in Northern Virginia.

93. My first car was a gray 1985 Isuzu I-Mark.

94. I have been quoted in the Seattle Weekly regarding my opinion of the Seattle Mariners.

95. My favorite authors from my English Lit days were John Donne, Gerard Manley Hopkins, T.S. Eliot and Ernest Hemingway.

96. I have been to the emergency room once. I fell asleep with my contacts in a scratched my cornea. Searing pain. I’ve made it a point never to need the emergency room again.

97. I have had one surgery. Out-patient.

98. Some favorite foods: A patty melt from Mike’s Hamburger Palace, General Tsao’s chicken from Wah-Mei, cheese fries from Outback, a roast beef sandwich slathered in Arby’s sauce, chicken pancakes and cherry beer (a.k.a. crepes and Kriek) from L’Enfant, warm chocolate chip cookies with ice cold milk. Pretty much anything with a side of honey mustard. Except the cookies.

99. When I was eight years old, I got my foot stuck in the escalator at Sears. It was a traumatic event as some maintenance dudes had to cut my shoe off my foot to make the escalator functional again. I did get a free pair of Chuck Taylor high-tops out of the deal, so all was good.

100. Here is how you get to my library.

101. Clay Aiken has a fanclub. Why can’t I? Oh wait. I do.

posted by Peter at 1:52 AM
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Friday, January 28, 2005
Just to be fair
In high school journalism, we learned to tell both sides of the story. So just to be fair, I found a recent interview with Dave Bazan and his relationship with Christian music:

"Pedro the Lion Rocks Indie" (via Northbay.com)

"Christian music is retarded," he says. "The point of it is foolish and the implementation of the craft is cut-rate at every turn."


Thanks to Jason, here's a link to a preview of the new side project with Pedro drummer TW Walsh:

Headphones

Last links on Pedro. Ever. I swear.

And Becky sent this link to an article on Christianity and the arts, too:

"Art and the Christian"

posted by Peter at 8:38 PM
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Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Pedro on the arts, pt II
The conclusion to yesterday's transciption of David Bazan's (Pedro the Lion) monologue on Christianity and the arts, from Cornerstone 2001:

*****

I’m sorry it’s too much, that’s why I’m trying to write an essay, but the bottom line is, in my opinion, I think the way it has been going--and I’m quoting or paraphrasing a guy named Michael Horton--but the way that it has been going, when we attempt to subvert the creative process and impulse by adhering to a slogan that we’ve already decided “This is what I want this song to be about,” or “This is what I want my music to say or whatever,” it undermines several things: Creativity in general, which is God’s personality in us, which I believe is a sin.

Also it undermines the power and the belief that the Holy Spirit lives in you and has control over your life to a certain extent in that he is a voice of reason and compassion in you. And also attempting to sloganize the Gospel, I think, degrades it to the point of the most unprofound thing that there is. When you turn on Christina radio you hear… it’s literally the same thing over and over again. And a lot of it are tidbits of truth I grant, but I think, just like when… I don’t know if you have girlfriend or you’re married, or you have a boyfriend… I tell my wife I love her all the time. And it’s not necessarily a good thing, because I say it too much without actually putting it into action and she gets pissed at me. She’ll tell me, “Don’t say that again until…” Just because you wear stuff out through taking it for granted, and just like, “Oh well, I need a new song so there’s this one concept theologically that’s been regurgitated over and over again and so I’m going to go ahead and do it.”

Ultimately the challenge is to each one of you as consumers and to those of you who attempt to create art, really push the boundaries and take risks that the Gospel allows us to do. It’s really important that, uh… it’s really ridiculous… And you know, I’m up here and I see the holes in my songs and all the safe little things that I do, and I really think it’s ridiculous that there’s not a lot of good music to listen to that’s not just regurgitated musically and lyrically the same stuff over and over again. We should be creating things that are risky and new because we have the Creator that lives in us and it’s all for his glory if it’s done in faith, so I just encourage you guys to throw off the shackles of Christian culture and of Christian industry and attempt to do something that’s not dumb or whatever.

And I’m in it too, that’s why the record is taking so long because it’s kinda sucking right now or whatever.

[following performance of the hymns "Be Thou My Vision" and "Fairest Lord Jesus"]

I also wanted to make a comment regarding those songs and songs like it. Part of what I hope to include in the essay is how I believe that we have a really warped understanding of what worship is, that worship is something that happens when we can all sing together in words that we know or whatever, but if everything that I’m doing up here isn’t worship to God than it’s super pointless. I just want to make sure… I think that it’s just really important that we really think before we use words, and especially Christian words so misused over and over again. I appreciate comments of thanks about playing hymns. I think that they’re really beautiful, but you know, they’re not any more worship than anything else or they shouldn’t be. And if they are there’s a real big problem. Sorry to be weird or whatever.

posted by Peter at 1:43 AM
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Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Pedro on the arts, pt. I
In July 2001, the kid brother and I attended the Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, IL. It was there that I first witnessed Pedro the Lion. Just recently through a friend I've found a bootleg copy of that show. I get a little fanboy-ish about having bootlegs of shows I've actually been to. Just to hear myself yelling "Play some Skynyrd!"

At this particular show, David Bazan spoke at length regarding the relationship of Christianity and the arts, and subject near and dear to my heart. So since I've got an audio copy of this now, I thought I might transcribe it out for the blog. It's going to be a two-parter as Dave gets a little wordy.

And don't forget: Pedro the Lion, Tuesday, Feb. 8, Singletary Center, University of Kentucky.

******

Well, I was going to say this later, but I might as well just say it now to conserve time. There was this, uh… I've been kinda working on this idea. I was trying to have it done for last year, and then I failed. And then I tried to have it done for this year, and then I failed again, which isn’t super new to my thing or whatever. But, it was an essay about Christianity and the arts. And in lieu of having it done and passing it out with all of the units that we’re trying to move, I was just gonna say something because I think this may be the last Cornerstone we play for a little while. If they’ll let me I’m gonna try and come back and present that thing but it’s a little too complicated to get into. But at any rate.

Aw shoot, I was sitting going to the bathroom figuring it all out in my head, and, well, the gist of it is, just as a challenge to you guys and to me and to all of us as consumers and as a challenge to all of those of you and us who are also artists, there are a lot of different factors that come to play and have caused—what in not just my opinion but I think a lot of the leaders of the church and a lot of artists in the church--what’s become a pretty severe ghetto of thought and creativity and artistic expression in the Christian church.

It is something that I think is a result of a great many things. But, the first and most important thing is I think it is a result of misunderstood connection with God and self and what His personality is and who he has created us to be, having been created in his image. There are several things, and I won’t talk about all of them. But this is actually going to end in about thirty seconds.

But, the first is that creativity is his personality. A lot of people, and I was one of them… I used to get really freaked out about people talking about art for art’s sake until I realized what art’s sake was and that is God’s glory. And that’s the thing, I think in Romans it’s pretty clear that everything that God has created points to his existence--the beauty of our bodies, the beauty of all the different systems in our bodies, the beauty of the earth, although we’re undoing his creation relatively quickly, you know all these things. And another thing is that he’s created us in his image and the beauty of that.

******

Part II to come later...

posted by Peter at 1:11 AM
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Monday, January 24, 2005
Humble pie
From Habits of the Mind by James Sire:

The paradox of humility is that the more one strives to be humble, the less one succeeds. So how is humility acquired? Listening to your friends respond honestly to your best thoughts is a relatively easy if painful way. But rereading the Sermon on the Mount is even better, if more devastating. Can you do so and remain proud? Immersion in Scripture, meditation on the mind and life of Jesus, active participation in a specific community of faith: these are the best ways to humility (124).

posted by Peter at 2:18 PM
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Things made new
Jeana's got the redesign of The Seminary's blog up and official now.

The URL redirect hasn't quite kicked in, but you can find it here.

posted by Peter at 2:14 PM
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Sunday, January 23, 2005
Interplanetar Travel
Words fail completely in communicating the sharp contrast between my present home in Wilmore, KY and my previous one in Northern Virginia. At the risk of sounding extrememly geeky, it's something akin to traveling from the Shire to Minas Tirith.

I arrived Friday evening just in time for rush hour traffic on the blessed Beltway. Six hundred red brake lights staring back at me like the eyes of six hundred glaring demons in the night.

Friday, my car was so covered in salt it looked like a very large, dirty snowball. And then it snowed--about four inches in two hours on Saturday. Now the effect is complete.

Dan, Rich and I spent the day snowed in on Saturday, but we braved the inclement weather to find dinner. We settled on the Dragon House Restaurant. The only other patrons in the restaurant were a pair of ping pong players going at it on a professional-looking table. I felt like I'd walked into a movie. And this was some center of the underground table tennis world. At any moment I expected some Chinese mafia to walk in. But there was only the waiter with the General Tsao's chicken. My imagination still thinks he was something more than just a waiter.

I'm here for the next two weeks to visit friends and collect the rest of the stuff I left here back in August.

Most Random Sign of the Roadtrip:
"Noah's Ark Being Rebuilt Here"

Which leads me to wonder: Do the good folks of western Maryland know something the rest of us don't?

posted by Peter at 5:07 PM
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Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Return to the J.C.
Hell, I figure if Orange County merits the definite article, then Jessamine County certainly does. We can certainly stand toe-to-toe drama-wise.

I made it an 11-hour day (shh, don't tell mom) from Sand Springs to the J.C., making New Circle Road just in time for Lexington rush hour traffic and pulling into Wilmore just as the sun slipped below the horizon. No drama. A clear, sunny, frozen drive.

The drive is entirely flat until you reach the Kentucky border. There hills have been blasted out to make room for a level highway. Amongst the rocks have accumulated large icicles like long, ivory tusks.

The faces of a thousand walruses petrified in the rock wall.

Dad would have stopped to take a picture.

All that to say, I'm home safe.

posted by Peter at 1:36 AM
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Saturday, January 15, 2005
So this is the new year
...or how I'm spending my January vacation.

So this is the new year
And I don't feel any different
The clanking of crystal
Explosions off in the distance

The weather.com says it feels like 16 degrees outside. It is lying. It feels much colder than that. Then again, I am a total wuss when it comes to the cold. It feels exactly like it did outside when I left Kentucky nearly three weeks ago--last year.

So while Alan was gazing dreamily outside his window, I was careening down I-64 like a bowling ball between bumpered lanes, bouncing from one snowdrift into another. It was a single-file drive from Louisville all the way to the Illinois stateline. The drive should have taken an hour and half. Instead, it took me six hours, and I found creative ways to wedge my car in various collections of snow no less than four times. Thus, by the time I finally escaped the tundric clutches of southern Indiana (I was later told it was the worst snowstorm southern Indiana had seen in almost 70 years), it was already nightfall, and I was far from even halfway to my Oklahoman destination.

I stayed overnight in what may be the world's most disorganized Super 8. It was grand fun, and I arrived in Broken Arrow just in time for Christmas Eve at Grandma's.

Being such a creature of rhythm and routine, being here has completely thrown me off anykind of schedule whatsoever. The week after Christmas I did nothing but work while watching movies, and really, did you really want to hear my thoughts on the Return of the King documentaries and Seinfeld trivia? I had high hopes of accomplishing much reading and writing and deep reflection, but nothing of the sort has happened. It has been a creatively dry three weeks. I just feel so obligated to spend my time in the presence of those people that I rarely have the opportunity to see. And to that extent I do not regret it. But it does mean that the writing on here gets put on hold.

So this is the new year
And I have no resolutions
For self-assigned penance
For problems with easy solutions

I'm not one for cheap resolutions. It just sets me up for failure. The cultural tradition of choosing January 1 as the day of setting unrealistic goals I cannot meet is a foolhardy one, I believe.

That said, I do think it is an opportunity to reflect over the past twelve months, think about what made it a good year or a bad year. This is a good thing to do. Personal inventory time. It was an amazing year. I can look back and without one single ounce of shallow cliche or cynicism say that God is good. Overwhelmingly good. But that needs its own post.

And I bought a pretty girl flowers for Christmas. Could not remember the last time I purchased flowers. Just why exactly did I do this, I wondered not-out-loud? Well, because I could. And because I like her. And because a pretty girl should never go through the holidays without flowers.

So everybody put your best suit or dress on
Let's make believe that we are wealthy for just this once

Apparently I was a good boy this year. Santa brought loot. Mostly books and movies. Got some board games, too, so I can entertain the smalltown seminary locals. Grandma bought me The Five Books of Moses, a new translation and commentary by Robert Alter. It was one of those moments where you open a present and you and you alone understand the coolness of the gift. Your eyes are wide as saucers, while everyone else stares, "Uh huh." I'm just weird, man.

Christmas at the White House is a pretty low-key, laidback affair. Christmas Eve is spent across town and Grandma White's house. She's big into games, games involving gag gifts and the like. Dad's sister and her family were there. Three total cousins and a family friend I didn't know, along with our family of six. And this is a tiny condo Grandma and Grandpa have.

Christmas morning is then spent at home with the immediate family. Typically, the kid brother and sister wake at the buttcrack of dawn and wait impatiently for me to rustle my lazy ass from slumber. This year they serenaded me with Christmas carols outside my door at 9 in the morning. Then we rad the tree and split the presents into everyone's individual piles and open them all one by one. It was the first time to experience this ritual with my brother's wife there, and it was my first in about five years. Excellent times.

Lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
As thirty dialogues bleed into one

Dialogued with my parents' pastor the other day on the prospects of United Methodist ordination. Still trying to work out that decision-making process, and got good information about the differences between "elder" and "deacon" ordination. Got the phone number of the Disctrict Superintendent to initiate the initial candidacy process. Left him a message to call me back next week. Still, it's a decision requiring a calling and a lot of prayer. And I'm so bad at that.

I wish the world was flat like the old days
Then i could travel just by folding a map

I love movies. I suppose if you know me, you already knew that. I love stories. I love the ways movies make me feel. I love that experience of sight and sound, that feeling unexpressable.

Kid sister sat me down last week and we watched Garden State together. I don't get what she gets that movie. Because I'm the one whose 26-year-old guy, coming "home" for the first time significantly in five years, not really knowing where "home" is really anymore.

Everything changes. My old room has become dad's art studio and office. I couldn't find any of the old stores in the mall. There's a crappy Chinese buffet where the McDonalds used to be. Suddenly there's one of those Turbo Wal-Marts in my smalltown. Don't get me started on the shockingly distasteful name of the new gas station in town, Kum-n-Go.

If there were anyone from high school I wanted to get together with, I wouldn't know how to get in touch. Nearly everyone I knew from college has scattered to the four winds. And good for them. My siblings wisely opted to attend college two hours away. So basically any return to Tulsa and Sand Springs is for the benefit of my parents.

The big question everyone keeps asking: "Where are you going to live after seminary?" I have no flippin' idea. I don't really know where "home" is anymore.

No more airplanes, or speedtrains, or freeways
There'd be no distance that can hold us back.

So I built myself a shelf for my growing movie collection. All those hours invested in watching Trading Spaces has paid off. I painted it two different colors and distressed it myself and everything. I used a real hammer and nails, too. Be impressed.

There'd be no distance that could hold us back
There'd be no distance that could hold us back

I love my parents. Seriously. They're wonderful people. But three in their constant companionship has its moments.

We got dad a digital camera for Christmas. More accurately, we gave him cash so he could pick his favorite one out himself. The next week he spent completely consumed by the quest to find the perfect camera. Every magazine. Every website. Every store. He finally picks it out. It finally arrives in the mail. Now he won't stop taking pictures. Of everything. The six of us were driving through Norman last week, crammed into one car, and facetiously I point, "Hey, that church would make a great picture." Rolling my eyes. Dad: "You're right!" He stops the car in the middle of the road. Gets out, starts trying to figure out best to shoot in the dark. Cars are now honking there horns, since he is blocking traffic. I love dad. But please make him stop taking pictures.

Last week the seminary president coincidentally spoke at the church here. Mom is determined to meet him, so after the service she rushes us out, up the elevator to the pastor's office. She then proceeds to introduce herself, and then introduce her son. Thanks mom, but I'm quite capable of such social rituals. No need to hold my hand at this point.

I love my parents. I really do. Can I come "home" to Kentucky already?

So this is the new year
So this is the new year

So the car CD player that has given me such fits since summer is finally fixed, or rather, replaced. It became such a fiasco I am never offering my business to Best Buy again. You see, when I took it in again right after Thanksgiving, they removed it from my car with the mounting brackets still attached. They shipped it then to Louisville and called a month later to say it wasn't worth fixing and they would replace it at no cost. So I go down to Lexington the week of Christmas, get a new player, drop off the car for a few hours to wait for installation, and then receive a call: "Where are you're mounting brackets? We can't install with those pieces." Well, I reply, you meatheads shipped my friggin' mouting brackets to Louisville. "Oh." So they offered to order the pieces themselves from Toyota and call me. This was two days before I was driving halfway across the country.

It's been a month and they still haven't called. So I broke down and purchased the pieces myself for $18 and now can listen to cd's in my car again. I'll be demanding a reimbursement Tuesday at the Lexington Best Buy. Come check it out. But I will be charging admission.

And Monday morning I shall be departing Oklahoma back to Kentucky. Then Friday, I will once again hit the road and embark through the wild country of West Virginia en route to our nation's capital to visit friends in Northern Virginia and Maryland for about ten days.

So this is the new year
So this is the new year

posted by Peter at 1:22 AM
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