Labor Day Meme

Not enough for a Roundup, so here's the Friday Five...

1. Tell us about the worst job you ever had. That'd be my days as an "alley coordinator" at Red Lobster. An alley coordinator dresses the plates before they go out, make sure the salad-making station is stocked up, etc. The job itself wasn't horrible...I just didn't seem to click with the culture: there were understood ways of doing things that I never really picked up on until I got something wrong. I'd taken the job to relieve our very strained budget (I was a full-time student, and Coffeewife was already working 7 days a week), and it just brought more stress for me personally.

2. Tell us about the best job you ever had. I like my gig as a pastor well enough. But growing up, I'd have to say my summers at a place called Chickmaster. This is (or was...last I knew they'd been majorly cutting back) a factory that made incubators, and I worked in the plumbing department, assembling a lot of the pieces that helped control temperature. The job was so versatile...I wasn't stuck doing the same thing for more than a couple days. And I was home by mid-afternoon.

3. Tell us what you would do if you could do absolutely anything (employment related) with no financial or other restrictions. Earn a Ph.D or D.Min (depending on what is required) and find a seminary professorship gig in homiletics.

4. Did you get a break from labor this summer? If so, what was it and if not, what are you gonna do about it? My only vacation this summer happened way back the first week of June, when we spent a week at Ormond Beach, just outside Daytona. It was our first experience with a long car ride with Coffeeson, but he did okay. The weather was excellent all week, the Wings won the Stanley Cup, the three of us took walks (with Coffeeson conking out every time in his harness). A great, relaxing week.

5. What will change regarding your work as summer morphs into fall? Are you anticipating or dreading? It's a confirmation year, so there's a bunch of extra stuff right there. I also pick back up with the senior highs. Those are the two biggest work-related additions. I've pretty much already been doing all the other things I'll do this fall. I'm also contemplating leading my Consistory through Appreciative Inquiry...but I'll need to study up on how to do that first, and I can't wait around for one of Alban's ridiculously-priced workshops.

Bonus question: For the gals who are mothers, do you have an interesting story about labor and delivery (LOL)? If you are a guy pal, not a mom, or you choose not to answer the above, is there a song, a book, a play, that says "workplace" to you? Office Space. I worked at a place like that. And it's been my experience that the people who don't think that movie is hilarious are people who've never been there.

Fall Transformation Meme

Every year nowadays, I tell myself that this will be the year I finally just kick back, relax, and enjoy the summer months. And it's always around the middle of July when I say to myself, "Okay, I'm sick of this crap. Come on, September." There are many transformations that I anticipate as fall approaches, and it just so happens that it's the subject of the GalPals' Friday Five this week...

For this Friday's Five, share with us five transformations that the coming fall will bring your way.

1. In November, I'll celebrate the four-year anniversary of my call to my present church. I always consider this a big deal, and I probably anticipate it a little too much all year long leading up to it. Whenever this date rolls around, I undertake a good deal of reflection about where I've been and where I'm going, and I celebrate another full years' worth of experiences.

2. I've lived in this area of Ohio off and on for over 20 years, and I've always treasured how this area looks, feels, smells with the arrival of fall. As much as living among cornfields can drive me nuts sometimes, the fall months amplify for me what makes rural and small-town Ohio wonderful: flatbed trailers of pumpkins for sale along country roads, corn mazes, the smell of leaves burning, the high school marching band practicing in the distance, the deep and wide acreage of reds, oranges, yellows and browns. Fall colors around my white clapboard-now-sided church is especially irenic for me. I always look forward to this transformation.

3. The transformation of our house. This parsonage has an attached garage, as in the garage shares a wall with the rest of the building. However, there is no door in said wall. Such a thing has made rain and snow lots of fun to traverse as we run along the side of the house, fumble with our keys, and finally throw open the door to get inside. Not to mention the added fun of carrying a car seat with an infant during all of this. The property committee recently approved a project to put in a door in order to make our garage truly attached, and it's scheduled to happen sometime this fall.

4. Sleep training, rice cereal, and teething. These are some of the joys of parenthood that we will begin this fall. But this will also include the hiring of a nanny for a few hours a week for those days when neither of the Coffeeparents can be home (there'll still be plenty of time spent with CoffeeGrandparents, too).

5. I personally transform from being in more of a baseball mood to being in more of a college football mood. While I will still enjoy watching how the playoffs will shape up (and rooting against the Yankees and Red Sox the whole way), the Tigers and Indians are not poised to be a part of October unless Detroit goes on a major tear (read: basically goes undefeated while Chicago and Minnesota collapse). So I anticipate Saturday afternoons and I hope that this transitional year won't be all that bad.

Bonus: Give us your favorite activity that is made possible by the arrival of fall.

A Blog Name/Blogging Meme

1. So how did you come up with your blogging name? And/or the name of your blog? Philosophy Over Coffee is something I always list on "interest/hobbies" sections for internet username profiles. It made it on my ministerial profile, too. I figured that it'd work as a blog title, too. Plus I like the vibe that it gives, like I'm just talking/typing in a coffeeshop, shooting the bull.

2. Are there any code names or secret identities in your blog? Any stories there? I just have Coffeewife, Coffeeson, the CoffeeInLaws, Coffeeparents, etc. They're pretty straightforward. Every once in a while I refer to one of my alma maters as Small Town Varsity Blues High School...because if you didn't play sports, you didn't matter.

3. What are some blog titles that you just love? For their cleverness, drama, or sheer, crazy fun?
A Church for Starving Artists - because it really does feel sometimes like artists are starving in the church
Michigan Against the World - because it's certainly felt like that lately

4. What three blogs are you devoted to? Other than the RevGalBlogPals of course!
A Church for Starving Artists - a mainline pastor reflecting on how to bring postmodern/missional themes to the Frozen Chosen. A woman after my own heart.
Letters From Kamp Krusty - a hilarious blog, usually critiquing the way we "do church"
Internet Monk - a very thoughtful commentary on church, theology, life, and baseball. At one point, I wanted this blog to be like iMonk's. But I can't devote that much time to this.

5. Who introduced you to the world of blogging and why? No one in particular. Through various online forums, I found Chuck Currie (whom I more or less knew in seminary). His was the first blog I started reading. I clicked on a few of the other blog links on his site, and eventually decided that I wanted to do this myself.

Bonus question: Have you ever met any of your blogging friends? Where are some of the places you've met these fun folks? I meet up with Jeff Greathouse every month or so with the local Emergent cohort...we actually live close enough that we could do lunch or coffee at either of the thriving metropolises in which we live. Last summer I met Kirk and Jeff at General Synod. I won't count the bloggers that I knew before they started blogging.

A July 4 Meme

In an effort to lighten the mood, here's the GalPals' Friday Five...

1. Barbeque's or picnics ( or are they essentially the same thing?) When I think BBQ vs. picnic, I think that the major difference might be that a BBQ is held in someone's backyard while a picnic might be at a park or pavilion. Or maybe it's all just semantics. I do prefer hanging out at someone's house or hosting more than the pavilion, though.

2. The park/ the lake/ the beach or staying at home simply being? Just a get-together at my or someone's home is enough for me.

3. Fireworks- love 'em or hate 'em? Probably just "like." It's nice to cap off a special day with them, but I don't go nuts over them.

4. Parades- have you ever taken part- share a memory... When I was in 7th grade, I marched with the band and was assigned the cymbals. I remember having to switch my hand positions every few minutes because the straps kept cutting off circulation to my fingers. Once I switched to snare drum, these parades were much more enjoyable.

5. Time for a musical interlude- if you could sum up holidays in a piece of music what would it be? A remixed version of "Joy to the World" using samples of "Auld Lane Syne," "The 1812 Overture," and "Thriller."

Summer Reading Meme

I've been hitting my 365 Albums project pretty hard (Week 1's selections posted tomorrow), plus my new little housemate doesn't like me to get in more than maybe ten pages of a book read at a time. So here comes the RevGals' Friday Five to remind me how neglectful I've been of my reading the past week or more.

1) Do you think of summer as a particularly good season for reading? Why or why not? I do quite enjoy sitting outside in the early evening with a book and beverage, and church stuff usually lightens up. This summer, however, hasn't really produced opportunities for the former, partially because the latter hasn't been true. Also, again, there's the matter of Coffeeson wanting me to pay attention to him. So usually, yes. So far this year, no.

2) Have you ever fallen asleep reading on the beach? I don't read on the beach, but I have nodded off while reading in bed or on the couch.

3) Can you recall a favorite childhood book read in the summertime? The one that I can remember is There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom by Louis Sachar. And lots of Christopher Pike.

4) Do you have a favorite genre for light or relaxing reading? I greatly enjoy collections of short stories. Also, do the Sandman comics count as a genre?

5) What is the next book on your reading list? I've been reading Founding Brothers for weeks now (Coffeeson, ten pages, yadda yadda). When I finally finish that, I'm going to re-read High Fidelity by Nick Hornby.

A Meme About Stuff

There really is more actual content coming, but I've yet to be able to sit down and compose it.

1. What was I doing 10 yrs ago? I had just finished my first year of college and was off to work in an incubator factory for the summer. It was actually one of my favorite jobs that I've ever had.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):

~Take Coffeeson to the doctor for some fun shots
~Start writing my sermon
~Take communion to a homebound church member
~Excercise
~Find a ride to Progressive Field for Friday

3. Snacks I enjoy:

~Doritos
~Reese's cups
~Diet Mountain Dew

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire: Pay off loans, pay off other people's loans, start a Coffeeson college fund, give to NAMI and AIDS research, buy a laptop

5. Three of my bad habits:

~Worrying
~Putting off returning voicemails and e-mails
~Cracking my knuckles

6. 5 places I have lived:

~Farmington, MI
~Brimley, MI
~Galien, MI
~Tiffin, OH
~St. Louis, MO

7. 5 jobs I have had:

~Library page
~Plumbing department in an incubator factory
~Heidelberg College Ambassador (read: tour guide and student go-fer)
~Camp counselor
~Pastor

8. 5 peeps I wanna know more about: The fact that the word "peeps" was used here absolves me from having to list anybody.

Two More Things and Then I'm Really Gone for a Week

First, an announcement:

Today, Coffeepastor weighs 190 pounds, back down from 198 two weeks ago. I met the goal that I'd set for myself a few weeks back.

Here's my secret: fish, chicken, salad, fruit, exercise. No fast food, limited sweets and soda.

Boo yah. Slightly leaner me.

The next goal is 185.

I rule.

And now, to mark the beginning of summer, here's a meme:

1.) What first tells you that Summer is here? Memorial Day. My church has a cemetery, and our local American Legion does a brief service to mark the occasion, with me playing a part. I usually attend a cookout somewhere after this. It's a good and distinctive way to kick things off.

2.) Name five of your favorite distinctively Summer habits or customs.
Baseball - Tigers and Indians on TV, and hopefully a game or two at Jac...uh...Progressive Field.
Sitting on my back stoop looking out amongst the slowly sprouting corn and the setting sun, usually with a book and some kind of beverage.
The Sweet Shop - the local ice cream stand. I love me some Reese's Cup blizzardy-type goodness.
Daytona - a week at a condo owned by the CoffeeInLaws.
Dave Matthews Band - it's not an every-summer thing, but we do it when we can...and we will this year. It'll be my third time seeing them.

3.) What is your favorite smell of Summer? Even though it usually causes me to sneeze, I love the smell of freshly cut grass. This is closely rivaled by the smells at the ballpark.

4.) What is your favorite taste of Summer? Either the Reese's Cup ice cream thing, or a beer and a dog at a game.

5.) Favorite Summer memory? My cousin and I used to spend nearly the entire summer at our grandparents' house in New Jersey. Usually in the midst of this, we spent a week at Long Beach Island. But mostly it was the two of us on bikes all over the neighborhood, listening to music, buying comic books and baseball cards, drawing, watching girls, camping out. I'd look forward to this trip all year.

HT for the meme goes to Nachfolge.

Friday Five - Destinations

Haven't done enough to warrant a Roundup, so I'm playing along today...

Name five places that fall into the following categories:

1) Favorite Destination -- someplace you've visited once or often and would gladly go again I had an awesome time in New Orleans last year, between the work I did and The Best Cup of Coffee Ever at the Cafe du Monde. I keep waiting to hear if another trip is being organized, but nothing yet. Honorable mention goes to The Big House in Ann Arbor...anyone got some extra tickets?

2) Unfavorite Destination -- someplace you wish you had never been (and why) My junior high school. I pretty much hated every minute that I spent in that place. My hometown has been tearing down a couple of the old elementary schools, and I hope that place is next. I'll set up a lawn chair, pop a beer, and gleefully watch every second of it.

3) Fantasy Destination -- someplace to visit if cost and/or time did not matter I've never been to Cooperstown to see the Baseball Hall of Fame. My more exotic choice would be Sweden or Greece.

4) Fictional Destination -- someplace from a book or movie or other art or media form you would love to visit, although it exists only in imagination Well, I gotta go with Eternia on this one. Gotta go meet He-Man and Teela and Man-At-Arms and visit Castle Grayskull. Grayskull would be the centerpiece of my trip, really. I hope they'd let me have a tour, what with it being enchanted and mysterious and not well-lit and all.

5) Funny Destination -- the funniest place name you've ever visited or want to visit I've been to Hell, Michigan. There's nothing there but a novelty souvenir shop with things like baseball bats (bat out of Hell) and t-shirts that say, "I've been to Hell and back." It was quite silly.

Moving Meme

HT to Nachfolge. Further thoughts on fatherhood eventually.

1. How many times have you moved? When was the last time? 9 times, not counting to and from college each year. The last time was in November 2004 when we moved from our freaking sweet St. Louis apartment into the parsonage of my current church.

2. What do you love and hate about moving? I love nothing about moving. I have more stuff than I think I do, I don't have enough boxes, I put too much into one box and can't lift it or I waste space in another box, the house begins to feel like an empty shell as things are carted out and if I still have to live there in that state for a while longer, there's a certain melancholy that hangs over everything. In conclusion, moving has been, is, and always will be a pain in the ass. If I could name anything about the moving experience that I do love, it'd probably be the excitement of moving into a new place. Unless that place sucks. And a few places I've moved to have sucked.

3. Do you do it yourself or hire movers? I've only had movers once, and that was because my church paid for them to bring me here. It was fantastic. A couple people came in the day before and boxed everything up, and then it was loaded on the truck. It was easily the least stressful move I've ever been a part of.

4. Advice for surviving and thriving during a move? Hire movers. If you don't or can't, then start packing early, do it a little bit at a time, and don't sweat it too much. And if you have to remain in your old place for a time even after most of your stuff is in your new place, try to get out as much as possible so that empty shell feeling doesn't drag you down too much.

5. Are you in the middle of any inner moves, if not outer ones? I'm a father. So everything associated with that is my inner move at the moment. More on that another day. And because of that big inner move, I don't dare attempt many outer moves at the moment.

Bonus: Share a piece of music/poetry/film/book that expresses something about what moving means to you. The only thing that comes to mind at the moment is the movie Cheaper By the Dozen. It sounds a little corny at first, but I think the combination of the parents attempting to follow their big dreams while their kids try to make the adjustment to a stark new beginning is speaking to me right now.

Time/Transitions Meme

From the RevGals:

1. If you could travel to any historical time period, which would it be, and why? The 1950s, so I could catch some baseball games while guys like Mantle, Williams, DiMaggio, Kaline, and Feller were playing.

2. What futuristic/science fiction development would you most like to see? The thing they do in The Matrix where they can upload programs into your brain. Like, here, sit in this chair. Okay, now you know how to tap dance. That'd be sweet. The downside is that we'd all be escaped pod people from giant farms tended by evil robots, but if we could do it without that part, it'd be cool.

3. Which do you enjoy more: remembering the past, or dreaming for the future? I do these about equally, I think. I think back to my time in St. Louis a lot, and I've been looking back to remember my experiences as a PK to try to understand what Coffeeson might experience. But I also spend a lot of time wondering where I'll end up location-wise, career-wise, and what I'll need to do to help provide some stability for my family through it all.

4. What do you find most memorable about this year's Lent? The snow. It's really managed to foul up both some programs and my mood. But besides that, I might remember this Lent more for attending our Monday night baby classes. I'm awesome at diapering and swaddling, just so you know.

5. How will you spend your time during this upcoming Holy Week? What part do you look forward to most? Community worship on Tuesday, Maundy Thursday, church open for meditation on Good Friday. I actually love the feel of the church on Good Friday. Not many people stop in, but the paraments are gone, the communion table is bare, there's music playing...it's a very calm, symbolic time.

Wikipedia Birthday Meme

Since Sundays in Lent don't count and since I turned 29 yesterday (which I celebrated by officiating a funeral), I thought I'd share this birthday meme:

1. Go to Wikipedia and type in your Birthday Month and day only. February 23

2. List at least 3 Events that occurred that day.

~1455 - Traditional date for the publication of the Gutenberg Bible, the first Western book printed from movable type.
~1836 - The Siege of the Alamo begins in San Antonio, Texas.
~1903 - Cuba leases Guantanamo Bay to the United States "in perpetuity". Hm.
~1945 - World War II: During the Battle of Iwo Jima, a group of United States Marines and a commonly forgotten US Navy Corpsman, reach the top of Mount Suribachi on the island and are photographed raising the American flag. The photo would later win a Pulitzer Prize.

3. List at least 2 important Birthdays

~1685 - Georg Friedrich Handel, German/British Baroque composer (d. 1759)
~1868 - W.E.B. DuBois, American civil rights leader (d. 1963)
~1940 - Peter Fonda, American actor
~1963 - Bobby Bonilla, former baseball player

4. List at least 1 Death.

~1848 - John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States (b. 1767)
~1965 - Stan Laurel, British born actor and comedian (b. 1890)

5. List a Holiday or Observance. (if any)

~Catholicism - Feast day of Saint Polycarp of Smyrna (died 155)

Stupid 123 Book Meme

Since everyone else is doing it, and I felt left out and/or had nothing better to do with my Sunday. And I officially lifted it from Even the Devils Believe, but you can find this meme on maybe half the blogs on my sidebar...

Instructions:
1. Grab the nearest book (that is at least 123 pages long).
2. Open to p. 123.
3. Go down to the 5th sentence.
4. Type in the following 3 sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Okay, this comes from Edith Hamilton's Mythology:

"Still, when the great Queen of Olympus begged for her aid, she was awed and promised to do all she could. Together they planned that Aphrodite's son Cupid should make the daughter of the Colchian King fall in love with Jason. That was an excellent plan--for Jason."

Aw, and it's all Valentine's Day-ish. Or whatever.

Meh.

Lent Meme

Sundays don't count. This comes from the GalPals.

1. Did you celebrate Mardi Gras and/or Ash Wednesday this week? How? In addition to what I'm doing on this blog, I've given up fast food. So on Tuesday for lunch I had a large Whopper meal from Burger King. That's as Mardi Gras as it got. I led a service on Ash Wednesday, scant in attendance but meaningful nonetheless.

2. What was your most memorable Mardi Gras/Ash Wednesday/Lent? My freshman year of college, when I first started reading stuff about the historical Jesus and had my faith world turned upside down. I'd joined a friend in giving up TV that year, so there was plenty of extra time to read and reflect. Ever since then, I've associated Lent with heavy reflection and usually giving up something that'll mean something.

3. Did you/your church/your family celebrate Lent as a child? If not, when and how did you discover it? We celebrated it as much as anyone else. My brother and I always gave up something like chocolate or Oreos or soda or something. But at that point, I knew it much more as a simple tradition than for the meaning behind it.

4. Are you more in the give-up camp, or the take-on camp, or somewhere in between? Yes. I've always been in the give-up camp, and only in the past few years have added some things. I think it's cleansing and eye-opening for people to give up something that we think we need for a season...it keeps us honest and shows us where we really stand with this or that craving, addiction, or frivolous expenditure. My attempt to give up the internet last year and then my scaling it back to giving up blogging proved that to me.

5. How do you plan to keep Lent this year? No fast food and undertaking the Big Serious Blogging Experiment, both of which are shaping up quite well so far.

Class Meme

As seen at Nachfolge. I'm supposed to bold all the statements that apply to me. I noticed that #26 is missing. Somewhere along the way, somebody didn't like that one I guess. I don't know what to do with this information afterwards. There's no scoring guide or anything. I guess I just need to Be Aware.

1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers. (Um...I guess)
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home. (My dad's a pastor, too)
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.
9. Were read children’s books by a parent.
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18. (Piano and drums)
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs (My grandfather started a mutual fund for me pretty much right after I was born)
16. Went to a private high school
17. Went to summer camp
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18.
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels.
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18.
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them. (Where's the question about having ANY CAR AT ALL?)
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child. (If you count all the stuff I brought home from school and Mom hung on the fridge)
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home.
25. You had your own room as a child. (Out of the five houses that I lived in after my brother was born, I had my own room in two of them)
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school.
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college.
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16. (Back when I was maybe 4, and then I didn't fly again until college)
31. Went on a cruise with your family
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up. (Mostly history museums with anamatronic dinosaurs and such)
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family. (I didn't know how much they were, but I knew that I would be yelled at if I turned it past 68)

RevGals Book Meme

What book have you read in the last six months that has really stayed with you? Why? Today I'll go with Shopping for God by James Twitchell, which details the way churches market themselves and sell their message. Surprisingly, this book is devoid of cynicism and relates observances of typical practices in the American religious marketplace from a marketing point of view. Now I recall his points quite often when planning or observing church activities.

What is one of your favorite childhood books? Frog and Toad. Any of them. I read them all the time when I was little.

Do you have a favorite book of the Bible? Do tell! The book of James. A superb reconciling of faith and practice that has been ignored by the church WAY too long. Only a superficial glance will result in dismissing it as advocating "works-righteousness." All due respect to Martin Luther, but he got that one wrong.

What is one book you could read again and again? I've read BBT's Leaving Church and Richard Lischer's Open Secrets a couple times each, and I probably will read them again.

Is there a book you would suggest for Lenten reading? What is it and why? Borg and Crossan's The Last Week for a deep treatment of familiar Lenten texts. Bonhoeffer's Meditations on the Cross for more of a devotional emphasis.

And because we all love bonus questions, if you were going to publish a book what would it be? Who would you want to write the jacket cover blurb expounding on your talent? I've actually been thinking this week about what might go into a book on pastoral spirituality. It would be different from a theology of call or of the pastoral office. I'd make it more of a book about maintaining a sense of God's presence in the midst of ministry's daily tasks and frustrations. It'd be related to call, but not an extensive Willomon type of treatment. I'd have a few ideas about the blurb, but I'm not going to share them here. This could end up being a real thing.

A Year-end Meme

HT to fellow tattooed pastor Lutherpunk...

1. Will you be looking for a new job? I believe not.

2. Will you be looking for a new relationship? No, I'm pretty well locked into this one. Happily, might I add.

3. New house? We've started to talk about it, but probably not.

4. What will you do different in 08? I think the rest of these questions will answer this one.

5. New Years resolution? To eat better and exercise more. You know, the usual. And maybe to get over my disdain of talking on the phone and catch up with long-distance friends and family a little more regularly.

6. What will you not be doing in 08? Huh?

7. Any trips planned? The big one will hopefully be Daytona in June. My usual trip to St. Louis is looking iffy.

9. Major thing on your calendar? The birth of my son.

10. What can’t you wait for? The birth of my son.

11. What would you like to see happen differently? I'm gonna go the superficial route here and say a Tigers World Series win and this being the year Michigan breaks its Sweatervest losing streak.

12. What about yourself will you be changing? Well, sleep patterns for one. And probably another slight ink-based skin alteration.

13. What happened in 07 that you didn’t think would ever happen? My fledgling senior high ministry started to grow legs.

14. Will you be nicer to the people you care about? I always try to do that.

15. Will you dress differently this year than you did in 07? I will continue to perfect my Casual Pastor look.

16. Will you start or quit drinking? I don't exactly throw them back nowadays, so I probably won't change much here.

17. Will you better your relationship with your family? Assuming this means nuclear family, then always. But I'm sure I could improve everywhere else, too.

18. Will you do charity work? I hope so.

19. Will you go to bars? Probably not, unless it's to the restaurant side.

20. Will you be nice to people you don’t know? I try to most of the time.

21. Do you expect 08 to be a good year for you? I don't expect stuff like that. But there are some good indications and I'm always hopeful.

22. How much did you change from this time last year till now? Not that much, I don't think. I've started to think about my career in a new way in light of my new little family...certain things becoming a little more real in that department that were only theory earlier. If you think about "mercenary coaches" in college football, who move at the whiff of something better...I can't be a "mercenary pastor." And I'm just now discovering what that means. I didn't have that strong of a sense of a need for stability before.

23. Do you plan on having a child? Um...yeah.

24. Will you still be friends with the same people you are friends with now? I think so. Like Lutherpunk, I don't have that wide of a circle.

25. Major lifestyle changes? Didn't we cover this one?

26. Will you be moving? If I won't be taking a new job and we won't be buying a different house, then what do you think?

27. What will you make sure doesn’t happen in 08 that happened in 07? The one thing that I wish hadn't happened in 07 was out of my hands to begin with, so I can't make sure that that doesn't happen.

28. What are your New Years Eve plans? I've been invited to one or two places, I've thought about hosting people here...it's up in the air.

29. Will you have someone to kiss at midnight? If she gets home from work in time.

30. One wish for 08? That I don't screw this up.

One way to look at it...

You Are Likely an Only Child

At your darkest moments, you feel frustrated. At work and school, you do best when you're organizing. When you love someone, you tend to worry about them. In friendship, you are emotional and sympathetic. Your ideal careers are: radio announcer, finance, teaching, ministry, and management. You will leave your mark on the world with organizational leadership, maybe as the author of self-help books.

The Birth Order Predictor

Um...not an only child. I've read someplace that siblings born six years apart or more could basically count as only children, but I think that applies to the younger one than the older one.

The analysis isn't too bad. They nailed my career, so they get points for that.

"Stuff I Hate About the Holidays" Meme

The least favorite/most annoying...


1) dessert/cookie/family food - plum pudding. The few times I have encountered it, I recall that the taste, look, and consistency all strongly resemble poo.

2) beverage (seasonal beer, eggnog w/ way too much egg and not enough nog, etc...) - I guess I'm not that experienced in specifically "Christmas beverages," because I can't think of any besides eggnog. So I'll just say that concoction where you mix sherbert, 7-Up and fruit punch. Why not just, you know, have fruit punch? Why turn it into this weird bubbly frothy unnecessary thing? You couldn't, you know, just give people a choice between fruit punch and 7-Up and then have sherbert for dessert? You had to mix them all together? You wanted that much of a taste sensation, or maybe you were that indecisive? Or, like, you could get fruit punch your first time through the line, and then when it's time for a refill, then you get 7-Up? You don't think that's, like, excessive at all? Maybe a little too much? Not concerned about, like, giving someone a sugar coma or anything? You're pretty selfish, man. Stop the madness. Just pick one.

3) tradition (church, family, other) - Is it too early to rag on New Year's? If not, the whole concept of next year being that much different than the past year is stupid. Okay, get together with some friends, but don't fool yourselves. Also, Coffeewife and I have only spent maybe three of them together ever. Otherwise, she works or gets home after midnight or some other thing that helps contribute to me having nothing but negative opinions about this overrated holiday.

4) decoration - when people just wrap a bunch of lights around the trunk of a tree. I get that maybe you weren't tall enough to actually put them in the branches, but maybe that should just deter you from trying at all. String them along your porch railing or something instead.

5) gift (received or given) - One time I got two copies of the same CD, so I turned around and gave one of them to my brother as a birthday present. He knew right away. It was a little lame. But you liked it, DIDN'T YOU?

BONUS: SONG/CD that makes you want to tell the elves where to stick it. - "Feliz Navidad." The nasally voice, the goofy musical style, the stupid novelty of playing it...it must be stopped. In conclusion, I hate it with the fire of a thousand suns. Thank you.

100 Things Meme

It's pretty self-explanatory. 10 categories with 10 items each. I did this one over the span of a couple days, as my attention span allowed. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that this meme comes courtesy of Nachfolge, the newest addition to the bloglist.


I have lived
1. in five different parsonages, including right now, for a grand total of about 16 years of my 28-year existence.
2. in a duplex.
3. in the other side of that duplex.
4. in three different states: Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri.
5. in a shoe-box apartment on the campus of Eden Seminary, which seemed to shrink exponentially after I got married.
6. in a college dorm room only one out of the four years I was there.
7. in various on-campus houses the other three.
8. in a rented fixer-upper house the summer before my senior year of college with three frat brothers, my eventual wife, and one frat brother's now-ex-girlfriend.
9. next to a guy from Ghana whose apartment always smelled funny from his cooking.
10. in the staff house of a UCC camp.


I have witnessed
1. a nut fall off a tree, roll across the road, and get smashed under the tire of a passing truck (it was much cooler than this sounds).
2. kittens being born.
3. a policeman put a wounded deer out of its misery.
4. the death of an elderly woman in the ICU.
5. a school of fish swimming around me in the ocean.
6. a storm rolling over the hills in South Dakota.
7. some weird stuff happen in the haunted Lemp Mansion in St. Louis.
8. a fan run across the outfield and then get clotheslined by a security guard at a Phillies game.
9. back-to-back state basketball championships won by my high school.
10. Jerry "The King" Lawler walk through the Cleveland airport.


I have heard
1. Dave Matthews Band in concert twice.
2. a seminary professor detail the phases of menopause during a sermon in chapel, a moment that has lived on in infamy among my classmates ever since.
3. enough razzing by Buckeye fans to last a lifetime.
4. our baby's heartbeat.
5. the University of Michigan marching band in person.
6. Bach's Toccata in D Minor used as a worship postlude. That was cool.
7. my confirmands tell me that church is boring.
8. my cat meow for her freedom after accidentally being shut in the closet.
9. a roomful of snoring during my week in New Orleans, which caused me to seek out earplugs.
10. the wind blow so hard up where my house is located that I've wondered if we're under a tornado warning.


I have lost
1. 20 pounds in seminary after gaining 35 (I did lose that other 15, but found it again).
2. my Michigan tie.
3. lots of mechanical pencils.
4. a bunch of notebooks full of drawings.
5. a good friend in a tornado.
6. any inkling I may have had that "traditional" worship is the only true form of worship.
7. lots of games of euchre.
8. my prescription card.
9. my copy of the movie Necessary Roughness.
10. any pretense that Church As We Know It is the only right way to do it ever.


I have found
1. a vintage leather dress jacket at a thrift store (I call it my "pimp jacket").
2. that Chipotle is pretty much the best restaurant ever.
3. that if you give them space to ask, youth have a lot of questions about God.
4. that emerging church stuff can be applied in a mainline context.
5. that playing my drums helps me solve a lot of problems.
6. that it is indeed possible to successfully curb "job restlessness."
7. that fair trade coffee actually tastes better than Folgers.
8. that it's possible to see my seminary buddies more than once a year at the reunion.
9. that I'm more a big-city person than I thought I was before I lived in St. Louis.
10. that disciplined diet and exercise of the non-half-assed variety actually causes you to lose weight! Who knew?


I love
1. my wife.
2. the thought of being a daddy.
3. Detroit and U-M sports teams...and the Indians.
4. my Chocolate phone.
5. french fries.
6. my guitar.
7. vanilla bean cheesecake.
8. my cats.
9. reading.
10. blogging.


I can
1. roll my tongue.
2. sing all the words to "Baby Got Back."
3. swing dance.
4. only grow good full facial hair right under my bottom lip (the "soul patch," for the uninformed).
5. play guitar.
6. apply the figure-four leglock.
7. twirl drumsticks.
8. operate a popcorn sprayer.
9. drive stick.
10. draw Garfield.


I loathe
1. Ohio State.
2. sweatervests.
3. Ohio State sweatervests.
4. every Taco Bell commercial ever made.
5. internet pop-ups.
6. "music" that's nothing but seemingly random noise that people insist is some kind of high art.
7. the New York Yankees.
8. committee meetings.
9. Maroon 5.
10. Ohio State.


I hope
1. that I don't suck as a father.
2. that Michigan's next head coach returns the program to glory...or at least beats the Buckeyes.
3. that my church might help younger people find something genuine and exciting about Jesus, even if that means (GASP~!) changing something.
4. that my wife and I still find time to be my wife and I after the baby's born.
5. to go back to New Orleans some day.
6. to live in Michigan again some day.
7. to get my third tattoo in the next few months.
8. that I don't move too often during my ministry career.
9. that Ohio State gets embarrassed again if they make it into the NC game.
10. that the Detroit Tigers finish what they started in 2006.


I am trying
1. to finish this meme.
2. to lose 5-10 pounds.
3. not to worry too much about being a parent.
4. to figure out ways to bring the church into the 21st century.
5. to decide on whether I'd like to pursue another degree, and if so in what and from where.
6. to finish my Christmas shopping.
7. to get a crib out of my car.
8. not to get too upset at the cat who keeps pooping on the floor instead of in the box.
9. to keep up with the laundry.
10. not to sweat the small stuff.

You're Exactly Right

Your Inner European is Swedish!

Relaxed and peaceful. You like to kick back and enjoy life.

Who's Your Inner European?