THIS is a recipe for "chili beans and turkey sausage" that Elizabeth and I have had twice. We love it. It's really good. And really easy. We don't do the tomato and cucumber salad that it mentions at the end. Also, it has you prepare rice, but it doesn't instruct you on how to serve the rice (I assume it means to pour the chili over the rice on your plate), but we've actually found that eating the chili out of a bowl works best (it's thinner than a real "chili" -- more like a soup), and we add the cooked rice to the bowl. The rice thickens it up and adds some flavor.
Good stuff!
That's all.
June 30, 2010
June 28, 2010
Nothing at all
I'm laying in bed, nursing a minor skin irritation and playing games on my iPod Touch (or as some people call it, to my utter frustration, "iTouch"). I'm blogging from my iPod just to see if it can be done at all efficiently. The answer, in case you're wondering, is sorta. :)
June 25, 2010
Explaining things.
I like to explain things too much.
For example, I often find myself wanting to add pages to this blog, so I'll start creating an "About Me" page or something like that. I begin typing and before I know it I've provided so much detail, and so many disclaimers about my blog that any reader would just think I was insane.
Or, how about another example: Not long ago I ventured the idea of starting a West Wing blog (from where I would blog my way through the television series, episode by episode). Since then, I've been working on setting one up. I keep adding pages to it so that I can describe the exact process I will be using, or writing disclaimers about my lack of political expertise, or explaining how at first I was going to write one type of blog, but now I've decided to do it a different way... All kinds of information that is simply evident to anyone who reads the blog itself.
It's as if I don't believe in the phrase "it goes without saying." I just want to say everything by way of explanation.
(I mean, look at this post, for crying out loud! I'm even explaining details about how I explain too many details!)
For example, I often find myself wanting to add pages to this blog, so I'll start creating an "About Me" page or something like that. I begin typing and before I know it I've provided so much detail, and so many disclaimers about my blog that any reader would just think I was insane.
Or, how about another example: Not long ago I ventured the idea of starting a West Wing blog (from where I would blog my way through the television series, episode by episode). Since then, I've been working on setting one up. I keep adding pages to it so that I can describe the exact process I will be using, or writing disclaimers about my lack of political expertise, or explaining how at first I was going to write one type of blog, but now I've decided to do it a different way... All kinds of information that is simply evident to anyone who reads the blog itself.
It's as if I don't believe in the phrase "it goes without saying." I just want to say everything by way of explanation.
(I mean, look at this post, for crying out loud! I'm even explaining details about how I explain too many details!)
June 23, 2010
Chandler on homosexuality
The videos below are from a seminar that pastor Matt Chandler gave at his church, The Village Church in Dallas, on the topic of homosexuality. The first 1.5 hours is Chandler's teaching, and the last video (a little over 35 minutes) is Chandler taking questions from his audience via text message. I've referenced this pastor before because I think he's one of the best speakers/preachers I've ever heard, and he's engaging and entertaining, and more full of grace and love than just about anyone else as well.
Even though it's about two hours' worth of videos, I would strongly encourage you to take the time some evening (instead of watching a movie?). His teaching goes far deeper than just addressing the issue of homosexuality. It left me more convicted of my own sin and my need for repentance than any sermon I've heard in a while.
Culture and Theology: Homosexuality - Part 1 from The Village Church on Vimeo.
Culture and Theology: Homosexuality - Part 2 from The Village Church on Vimeo.
Culture and Theology: Homosexuality - Q&A from The Village Church on Vimeo.
Even though it's about two hours' worth of videos, I would strongly encourage you to take the time some evening (instead of watching a movie?). His teaching goes far deeper than just addressing the issue of homosexuality. It left me more convicted of my own sin and my need for repentance than any sermon I've heard in a while.
Culture and Theology: Homosexuality - Part 1 from The Village Church on Vimeo.
Culture and Theology: Homosexuality - Part 2 from The Village Church on Vimeo.
Culture and Theology: Homosexuality - Q&A from The Village Church on Vimeo.
Art
I believe that there is actual truth in the world, and that some things are good and some things are bad regardless of what an individual might think about them. But when it comes to art I'm completely in the dark.
I have no idea what makes some art "good" and some "bad." A year or two ago I saw a couple of news stories about some 9-year old "prodigy" who completed these "brilliant" and "beautiful" paintings that sold for thousands of dollars. To me it looked like the kid had used paint to scribble on a canvas. If I had painted the exact same things, mine wouldn't have sold for 10 cents at a garage sale.
I remember almost none of the stuff I learned in elementary school art classes. What I remember the best was when we learned how to draw a person's face. We learned that a person's head is more of an oval in shape than a circle. I also remember learning that the eyes sit roughly in the middle of a person's head -- about even with the ears (as opposed to way up at the top of the face, which is where my stick-figures' eyes always had been). After I learned these things in elementary school, my drawings of peoples' faces got a lot better. But Pablo Picasso probably would have failed elementary school art, because he never really seemed to care where facial features were supposed to go. Yet he's a famous artist whose works still sell for crazy amounts of money all over the world. Why?
My ignorance of "good" art is not restricted to paintings or visual arts either. It extends to music. I like to consider myself somewhat knowledgeable about music, but at times I feel like a complete moron. I watched Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" music video the other day. Whereas most people apparently see a revolutionary and artistic video performed to a groundbreaking song and musical style, I see a complete whack-job wearing the most non-sensical costumes that seem to be designed around two objectives: 1) making Lady Gaga as naked as possible without being censored on television, and 2) ugliness (and I'm talking about the costumes, not the woman wearing them).
Let's not limit ourselves to music and paintings. What about audio-visual arts like movies? I can be just as stupid about those! When the movie Sin City first came out I went and saw it in the theater with a group of my friends from college. If I hadn't been dependent on my friends for a ride home, I probably would have walked out of it. It was awful. In my opinion it had less of a plot than if I had shot home video of a drunk guy stumbling down the sidewalk. As far as I could tell, it was mostly about sex and violence. I didn't understand it, and I regretted spending money on a ticket. But on the way home, my friends and I were discussing it. One of my more intelligent, more cultured friends tried to explain to me how artistic and creative the movie had been. I told him that I could throw mud on the wall and draw a monkey out of it and you could call it "artistic and creative," or you could just be upset that I had thrown mud all over an otherwise clean wall. I guess I don't understand who decides where the line is between a stupid waste of time and a priceless masterpiece.
Part of what's frustrating is that oftentimes I do see rather subtle things in a song's lyrics or a movie's cinematography that make me think I have at least a slight eye for artistic things. One example is the final, climactic, dramatic scene in one of my all-time favorite movies, A Few Good Men. Colonel Jessep (Jack Nicholson) enters the courtroom to take the witness stand, and the camera angle is from below, looking up at him, and through some kind of lens that makes him look almost larger than life; proud, extremely powerful, and intimidating. By the end of the scene, after Jessep has exploded on the witness stand and gotten himself into all kinds of trouble, the camera angle looks slightly down on him, making him appear weak, and almost inconsequential. In the last 20 minutes of the movie he goes from a big, bullying, tough-guy, almost super-hero to a weakened criminal who's under arrest. It's one of the things I LOVE about movies. A filmmaker can rouse emotions and responses from the audience that would not come from just the dialogue or the action. I consider it very "artistic." I can usually tell what makes one photograph better than another. I can go to an art museum and really enjoy myself, but I'll probably linger at only 5-6 different exhibits that seem to attract me. The vast majority will probably not make much sense to me, so I'll glance quickly and move on.
But surely an artistic work's "goodness" or "badness" is not simply a matter of subjective opinion, right? Is Lady Gaga a great artist only because a lot of people happen to enjoy her music and videos? I find that hard to believe. Somebody educate me.
I have no idea what makes some art "good" and some "bad." A year or two ago I saw a couple of news stories about some 9-year old "prodigy" who completed these "brilliant" and "beautiful" paintings that sold for thousands of dollars. To me it looked like the kid had used paint to scribble on a canvas. If I had painted the exact same things, mine wouldn't have sold for 10 cents at a garage sale.
I remember almost none of the stuff I learned in elementary school art classes. What I remember the best was when we learned how to draw a person's face. We learned that a person's head is more of an oval in shape than a circle. I also remember learning that the eyes sit roughly in the middle of a person's head -- about even with the ears (as opposed to way up at the top of the face, which is where my stick-figures' eyes always had been). After I learned these things in elementary school, my drawings of peoples' faces got a lot better. But Pablo Picasso probably would have failed elementary school art, because he never really seemed to care where facial features were supposed to go. Yet he's a famous artist whose works still sell for crazy amounts of money all over the world. Why?
My ignorance of "good" art is not restricted to paintings or visual arts either. It extends to music. I like to consider myself somewhat knowledgeable about music, but at times I feel like a complete moron. I watched Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" music video the other day. Whereas most people apparently see a revolutionary and artistic video performed to a groundbreaking song and musical style, I see a complete whack-job wearing the most non-sensical costumes that seem to be designed around two objectives: 1) making Lady Gaga as naked as possible without being censored on television, and 2) ugliness (and I'm talking about the costumes, not the woman wearing them).
Let's not limit ourselves to music and paintings. What about audio-visual arts like movies? I can be just as stupid about those! When the movie Sin City first came out I went and saw it in the theater with a group of my friends from college. If I hadn't been dependent on my friends for a ride home, I probably would have walked out of it. It was awful. In my opinion it had less of a plot than if I had shot home video of a drunk guy stumbling down the sidewalk. As far as I could tell, it was mostly about sex and violence. I didn't understand it, and I regretted spending money on a ticket. But on the way home, my friends and I were discussing it. One of my more intelligent, more cultured friends tried to explain to me how artistic and creative the movie had been. I told him that I could throw mud on the wall and draw a monkey out of it and you could call it "artistic and creative," or you could just be upset that I had thrown mud all over an otherwise clean wall. I guess I don't understand who decides where the line is between a stupid waste of time and a priceless masterpiece.
Part of what's frustrating is that oftentimes I do see rather subtle things in a song's lyrics or a movie's cinematography that make me think I have at least a slight eye for artistic things. One example is the final, climactic, dramatic scene in one of my all-time favorite movies, A Few Good Men. Colonel Jessep (Jack Nicholson) enters the courtroom to take the witness stand, and the camera angle is from below, looking up at him, and through some kind of lens that makes him look almost larger than life; proud, extremely powerful, and intimidating. By the end of the scene, after Jessep has exploded on the witness stand and gotten himself into all kinds of trouble, the camera angle looks slightly down on him, making him appear weak, and almost inconsequential. In the last 20 minutes of the movie he goes from a big, bullying, tough-guy, almost super-hero to a weakened criminal who's under arrest. It's one of the things I LOVE about movies. A filmmaker can rouse emotions and responses from the audience that would not come from just the dialogue or the action. I consider it very "artistic." I can usually tell what makes one photograph better than another. I can go to an art museum and really enjoy myself, but I'll probably linger at only 5-6 different exhibits that seem to attract me. The vast majority will probably not make much sense to me, so I'll glance quickly and move on.
But surely an artistic work's "goodness" or "badness" is not simply a matter of subjective opinion, right? Is Lady Gaga a great artist only because a lot of people happen to enjoy her music and videos? I find that hard to believe. Somebody educate me.
June 16, 2010
Coaching
I love baseball. I love watching it, I love playing it, and I'm sure with a little more time and experience, I'll love coaching it.
Right now the "coaching it" part is kind of frustrating. I'm an assistant coach of a 15-16 year old rec league team. Most of the kids on our team do NOT seem like they've played much baseball before. Some of them don't have a clue about the most basic rules (didn't realize I needed to teach some of them what it means to "tag up"). Also, we were allotted about 4 1-hour practices prior to the start of the season. And now that games have started, we no longer practice at all (so even though we see more things to work on each game, we have no time to actually work on them). Evidently, rec league baseball isn't a very serious affair around here.
It would also be easier if I were the head coach. My head coach is great (he's an assistant pastor at the church where I work). We get along fabulously, and I think he's doing a good job of trying to impart some baseball knowledge while not taking the thing too seriously. But being an assistant coach means I feel uncomfortable being very assertive about things. It would just be easier to be in a position where I could command the team a little more (and I'm not at all suggesting that I would make us any better... I'm just saying that for myself I would probably feel better about the job I'm doing if I were in charge).
My dad was the only baseball coach I had until high school, and he was very good at it. He also had a slight advantage though, in my opinion: He started coaching us at 5 years old and continued with pretty much the same group of kids for about ten years. He helped us from the ground up. When we were 15-16 we knew baseball because we'd grown up with it and had been coached well. Now I'm trying to coach 15-16 year olds who have the baseball experience and knowledge of probably 7-8 year olds (with a few exceptions, of course).
Anyway, my points here, to sum up, are: I love baseball. My current coaching gig is a little frustrating. My dad's a great coach, and I want to coach like him someday.
P.S. We've played one game. We lost 10-7. Found out that this level of ball is determined solely by the quality of the pitchers. We had a great pitcher for 4 innings, and we were winning. Then we put in a not-so-great pitcher, and we were suddenly down 10-2. Fortunately, they put in a not-so-great pitcher in the 7th inning and we scored five runs to make it moderately close. Interesting.
Right now the "coaching it" part is kind of frustrating. I'm an assistant coach of a 15-16 year old rec league team. Most of the kids on our team do NOT seem like they've played much baseball before. Some of them don't have a clue about the most basic rules (didn't realize I needed to teach some of them what it means to "tag up"). Also, we were allotted about 4 1-hour practices prior to the start of the season. And now that games have started, we no longer practice at all (so even though we see more things to work on each game, we have no time to actually work on them). Evidently, rec league baseball isn't a very serious affair around here.
It would also be easier if I were the head coach. My head coach is great (he's an assistant pastor at the church where I work). We get along fabulously, and I think he's doing a good job of trying to impart some baseball knowledge while not taking the thing too seriously. But being an assistant coach means I feel uncomfortable being very assertive about things. It would just be easier to be in a position where I could command the team a little more (and I'm not at all suggesting that I would make us any better... I'm just saying that for myself I would probably feel better about the job I'm doing if I were in charge).
My dad was the only baseball coach I had until high school, and he was very good at it. He also had a slight advantage though, in my opinion: He started coaching us at 5 years old and continued with pretty much the same group of kids for about ten years. He helped us from the ground up. When we were 15-16 we knew baseball because we'd grown up with it and had been coached well. Now I'm trying to coach 15-16 year olds who have the baseball experience and knowledge of probably 7-8 year olds (with a few exceptions, of course).
Anyway, my points here, to sum up, are: I love baseball. My current coaching gig is a little frustrating. My dad's a great coach, and I want to coach like him someday.
P.S. We've played one game. We lost 10-7. Found out that this level of ball is determined solely by the quality of the pitchers. We had a great pitcher for 4 innings, and we were winning. Then we put in a not-so-great pitcher, and we were suddenly down 10-2. Fortunately, they put in a not-so-great pitcher in the 7th inning and we scored five runs to make it moderately close. Interesting.
June 10, 2010
Question for my West Wing-ers
A significant percentage of the people who read my blog are also big fans of The West Wing (I think). So if you belong to that group, I have a question for you: Would you read a WW-themed blog?
My wife and I continue to watch The West Wing on DVD somewhat regularly, and we are nearing the end of the 7th (and final) season. When that happens, we usually just start right over at 1 again and work our way back through the series. I thought it might be fun THIS time to blog through the series, with general thoughts/observations/funny quotes/favorite parts of each episode. Would that interest any of you? Of course, my hope would be to hear YOUR thoughts/observations/favorite parts of each episode too through comments and stuff. Like a little community of WW lovers who can discuss it and argue about it.
Now, before you freak out, here are a few disclaimers: First, what I am talking about would be an entirely separate blog from this one (so those of you who couldn't care less wouldn't be bothered). Second, though this idea might imply that we watch 2-3 episodes of the show per night, that's actually not true (it was at one time in my life, and in our marriage, but it's not anymore). We actually kind of tend to go in spurts. Sometimes (on rare occasions) we might watch 5 episodes in a week, but other times (more common), we might go three weeks without watching one. The blog posts would come about as frequently as the episode-watching.
(I might end up doing this even if nobody says they're interested... because I would personally enjoy such an outlet.)
What do you think?
My wife and I continue to watch The West Wing on DVD somewhat regularly, and we are nearing the end of the 7th (and final) season. When that happens, we usually just start right over at 1 again and work our way back through the series. I thought it might be fun THIS time to blog through the series, with general thoughts/observations/funny quotes/favorite parts of each episode. Would that interest any of you? Of course, my hope would be to hear YOUR thoughts/observations/favorite parts of each episode too through comments and stuff. Like a little community of WW lovers who can discuss it and argue about it.
Now, before you freak out, here are a few disclaimers: First, what I am talking about would be an entirely separate blog from this one (so those of you who couldn't care less wouldn't be bothered). Second, though this idea might imply that we watch 2-3 episodes of the show per night, that's actually not true (it was at one time in my life, and in our marriage, but it's not anymore). We actually kind of tend to go in spurts. Sometimes (on rare occasions) we might watch 5 episodes in a week, but other times (more common), we might go three weeks without watching one. The blog posts would come about as frequently as the episode-watching.
(I might end up doing this even if nobody says they're interested... because I would personally enjoy such an outlet.)
What do you think?
June 2, 2010
Catastrophe! (and crispy treats)
I just read an article about how this huge oil spill thing has completely hijacked President Obama's agenda, and now he's really going to struggle to get things done he wants to get done, and how this might end up defining his presidency and all that kind of stuff.
I wonder when along the way everyone started believing that a given president's 4- or 8-years in office were going to be hassle-free. People act all surprised and disappointed when difficult things come along. "Man, it's too bad this oil spill happened. Now President Obama can't fulfill all of his other goals." "Gee whiz, that hurricane Katrina really sucks. Now President Bush has been knocked completely off his game plan."
Of course, similar problems/disasters/disruptions have happened during just about every U.S. president's tenure. We act like it's some big shocker that bad things happen and presidents have to deal with them, but shouldn't that be one of the more important factors we weigh when deciding for whom we are going to vote? It just seems silly to me that so many otherwise intelligent people seem completely blindsided when something doesn't go as perfectly as their original plan intended.
In other news, guess who just made rice krispies treats...
I wonder when along the way everyone started believing that a given president's 4- or 8-years in office were going to be hassle-free. People act all surprised and disappointed when difficult things come along. "Man, it's too bad this oil spill happened. Now President Obama can't fulfill all of his other goals." "Gee whiz, that hurricane Katrina really sucks. Now President Bush has been knocked completely off his game plan."
Of course, similar problems/disasters/disruptions have happened during just about every U.S. president's tenure. We act like it's some big shocker that bad things happen and presidents have to deal with them, but shouldn't that be one of the more important factors we weigh when deciding for whom we are going to vote? It just seems silly to me that so many otherwise intelligent people seem completely blindsided when something doesn't go as perfectly as their original plan intended.
In other news, guess who just made rice krispies treats...
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