Car doctors and trash

I haven't showered yet today (don't worry, I will soon). Elizabeth and I have taken our car in to one of its TWO appointments with the car doctors this weekend. It's got a couple of problems and we need to fix them before we road-trip to Omaha next weekend. After dropping our car off this morning, we're basically stranded here in our apartment until we get the car back tomorrow. We did some house cleaning and some apartment cleaning too. My favorite part was returning a big wooden chest to the yard in which it belongs. See, every time there's a large piece of furniture by our dumpsters, we have to call in a bulk pickup to the trash company, and they charge our building $50. That's fine with us if it's one of our residents whose garbage it is, but this morning we saw an eviction taking place across the street and someone's possessions were strewn out all over their yard. A couple of hours later one of the wooden chests that had been sitting in the yard had been brought down to our dumpster and abandoned. That's NOT okay, because now we have to pay for other people's trash to be taken away... So Elizabeth and I picked that chest up and walked it right back across the street and set it in the now-empty yard. They'll have to find some other suckers willing to pay to have their garbage disposed of.

Grace

(for the record, my wife agrees with my "busy bees" post below)

I'm reading a book by Philip Yancey called What's So Amazing About Grace? because I tend to get very irritated with people very easily. I get mad when I'm driving because most people are terrible at driving -- and it's not that difficult of an activity. I get mad at work because most people lack either common sense or a sense of decency (and the problem is exacerbated by the fact that I have a higher standard for the students, faculty and staff who most frequently visit the bookstore, and who are surprisingly inconsiderate), or both. I get mad at the store because I tend to a) know exactly what I need and where to find it, eliminating the need to lolly-gag in the aisles, and b) be considerate enough to make every reasonable effort to stand off to the side out of the way when I need to take time for decision-making or consulting my wife.

Having said all of that, I'm working really hard this semester on seeing people through the eyes of Jesus; as creatures molded by God who he loves very much. I'm not that great at it yet. People still tick me off.

Busy bees

I wish I knew how life got so busy. Elizabeth and I usually have a week-day off from school and work, but with furniture falling apart, a car that needs constant care, and classes that require (no joke) 10-15 hours of homework per week, we could use a couple more of those days off!

A Weekend in Breckenridge

Below are some pictures from our trip to Breckenridge in August with Elizabeth's family.

Liberal arrogance

For as much as I love The West Wing, I feel like I'm starting to become more and more sensitive to the political aspects of the show that I don't like. I'm sure it's my heightened sense of awareness due to the coming elections. In the episode we watched the other day Josh is frustrated with republicans who won't vote for a bill he needs to pass. Among the contrasts he lists between the two parties is that "one wants to save social security, the other wants to privatize it." I don't know anything about social security, but I find it a little antagonistic and elitist to suggest that in the republican mind the goal is not to save social security.

In another recent episode a female air force pilot was in trouble not because she was having an affair with an inferior (married) officer, but because she was ordered to stop and did not. Everyone on the show (except Leo) seemed to be disturbed by her predicament and thought it was wrong that she be punished. Toby's opinion is that we've invested a lot of money into teaching her how to fly a plane which she does very well, so he'd choose having her do that rather than caring who she sleeps with.  When Charlie is asked what he thinks he says, "I don't think you can reasonably ask someone to control who they fall in love with." The whole time I'm uncomfortable because I think the characters completely miss the point. First of all, I'm not a fan of the lack of moral conscience they all seem to have. I'd like to point out to Charlie that no one is asking anyone to control who they fall in love with, but that having an affair with a married man, and continuing to do so after being told to stop is two counts of wrong.

The underlying frustration that I'm continuing to find not just in the show but in the Democratic party in real life is their elitist attitude. I've experienced enough very conservative groups of people, and I think that whatever you might say about them, they believe, for the most part, that Democrats want what's best they just strongly disagree with how to accomplish it.  Democrats, on the other hand, seem to have a much haughtier view of themselves. The attitude that is portrayed is that Republicans are not merely ignorant but bad people.  They're not out to make things better but to win.  Democrats, in their own view, are simply better people. This attitude can be found on television and in the liberally biased print media (I read it in Time Magazine every week). I'm pretty much sick of it.

Pacifism

Can someone help me understand pacifism?  I'm just a little lost.  First of all, I don't know how extreme the word is.  If you're a pacifist, does that mean that you simply disagree with declarations of war?  Or does it mean that you believe all violence is wrong (including punching a guy in the face who's beating or raping a pregnant woman in the alley)?  Either way, I'm pretty positive I'm not a pacifist (watch Tears of the Sun and try to make a case for it), but I feel like it's one of those where I know a lot of people that I consider to be smarter than me who are pacifists, and that makes me wonder if I should be one.  So I want to be a little more informed.

A night with Coors (the stadium, not the beer)

Last night Elizabeth and I went to a Rockies game (the Rocks won 3-2) for free (a friend bought tickets for a group of us and wouldn't let us pay him for them).  It was a lot of fun.

We sat in the Rock Pile (the cheap bleacher seats way out beyond center field).  Usually that's where Elizabeth and I end up, because when we're paying for tickets, that's what we can afford.  It gets a little irritating out there for me, though, because the people you're sitting with are often much more interested in starting "the wave" than in what's happening on the field.  Or it's a collection of teenagers who would rather flirt and talk about their social lives than notice that David Eckstein and Matt Holiday are really enjoyable players to watch.  The highlight came sometime around the 5th inning.  There was a guy about three rows below us who had knocked a few back and who was desperately trying to get the Rock Pile fans to help him get the wave to go all the way around the stadium.  He would turn and face us and yell, "One!  Two!  Three!  YEEEEEEEAAAAAHH!" as he'd get people going.  Then he'd repeat it.  Not long into this spectacle, we noticed that his zipper was down.  Not just a little bit, but all the way.  We laughed for a few minutes as we tried to get his attention to tell him.  I guess he just thought we were excited about doing the wave.  Eventually my friend Mark was able to point it out to him and he turned red and zipped it up.  We all laughed for about 15 minutes.

The really cool part was when the game ended and we were invited out onto the outfield to watch the post-game fireworks.  The grass on the field was, I swear, softer and cleaner than our carpet.  We laid on the grass and watched the best fireworks show I've ever seen a baseball team put on.

Last year at this time Denver was buzzing about the Rockies because they were in the middle of a huge win streak that would eventually lead to a World Series appearance.  This year the Rockies are way out of the playoff race.  Still, being a part of the team's last home stand of the season was really fun.  When I've been to other baseball games that have fireworks afterwards, it seems that about half of the fans leave before the show.  Last night I would guess that 90-95% of the fans stayed right where they were.  A baseball crowd watches fireworks the same way they watch a game -- with cheers and applause, rather than the oohs and aahs you usually hear at the 4th of July.  Before they started sending fireworks up above the scoreboard, they played an end-of-season tribute on the video screen that was made up of Rockies highlights from the season.  It was weird to me how intimate the whole night felt.  Last year everyone in town was on the Rockies bandwagon, because they were pulling off a historic run to the playoffs and then the World Series.  Last night I got the feeling that the only people in the world who were interested in the Rockies were the few thousand of us sitting there at Coors Field, celebrating the last 6 months with a 3-2 win, a video, and some pretty sweet fireworks.

We're going to the game tonight too, but there won't be fireworks after the game.  It should still be fun.

Cheap baseball rules

This weekend Elizabeth and I are going to two Rockies games (one Friday night and one Saturday night) for a total of $2.  That's an average of $.50 per ticket.  Be impressed.

New Cowboys blog

I've started a new blog (linked to the right as "Valley Ranch" under "Blogging Buds") for football (specifically Cowboys) posts. I understand that for many of the two or three people who read this blog, all the football posting I'm likely to do in the coming months might be annoying, so I'll write about football in a separate place where you don't have to be notified all the time.

Romo moment

One of the most amusing parts of the Cowboys' big division win last night over the Iggles was the post-game interview Tony Romo did with ESPN's on-field reporter.

Reporter:  Early 2nd quarter fumble in the endzone, what are you thinkin' when that happens?

Romo:  Darn it.

Super-Amazing Girl!

She's smarter than you.  She's been to more places than you.  She knows more famous people than you.  She gets more free stuff and therefore owns more than you.  She's had more experiences than you.  She's played more sports more competitively than you.  She's won more awards than you.  She's been in more clubs and organizations (and probably held leadership positions in all of them) than you.  She's accomplished more and overcome more adversity than you.  She has higher aspirations and worthier dreams than you.  And she's done all this while having been alive fewer years than you.  If you ever forget any of this, never fear, she'll always be there to remind you -- usually right in the middle of any sentence you attempt to squeeze into a conversation, lest you actually complete saying anything regarding that on which she cannot best you.  Who is she?

SUPER-AMAZING GIRL!

AFC/NFC debate

I think I'm just about ready for people to stop the "the AFC is so far superior to the NFC" talk.  Last year in NFC/AFC games, each team won the exact same amount.  Oh, and it was an NFC team that won the Big One at the end over the "immortal" Patriots.  After week 1 in 2008 the NFC leads 3-1.  And those NFC wins were over two of the AFC's top contenders (San Diego and Indianapolis) and the third was over an almost certain playoff team (Cleveland).  All three games were also played in the AFC team's home stadium.

I'm not going to argue for the dominance of the NFC, but it's not quite as clear cut of a line as most AFC fans would like to think it is.  Don't forget that the toughest division in football by FAR is the NFC East.

Pretty Pissed

For about three weeks now I've been jazzed about the NFL season kicking off. I've been even more jazzed that the Cowboys' week 1 game against Cleveland is what's called a "nationally televised game," which means that everyone gets to see it unless you actually live in one of the other cities who have teams playing at the same time (in this case, San Diego, Charlotte, Phoenix, or San Francisco).  Today at approximately 2:21 pm MT when FOX was supposed to cut away from the end of the Seahawks-Bills game to the Cowboys-Browns game (as had been advertised for more than a week)... they instead cut to the Chargers-Panthers game.  Considering that a) Dallas is closer to Denver than San Diego is by more than 300 miles and b) Foxsports.com reported a story on the NFL's biggest fan bases which included both Dallas and Cleveland in the top 10 (but said nothing about San Diego or Carolina), I'm wondering why my team's game is not being shown.  It's ridiculous.  If you're not going to show it, fine, but you damn well better not advertise for a week that you are.

Obama's at it again

Obama likening getting pregnant with contracting an STD.  Apparently, babies are "punishment."