I'm back

Sorry for the drop off in posts. The faster internet is back and so I'll post more. Since I posted last not much has happened. I did get to see Facing the Giants and I recommend it to anyone. It's a really good movie.

To make up for all the lost time I'll share some fun with you. I found out today that China is trying to correct it's Chinglish. China has had a problem with the interpretations on many signs. Read this article from the Wall Street Journal. Make sure you check out the slide show and then you can search for more examples. I've seen some really funny ones. This morning on Headline News they showed some examples from menus. My favorite was Husband Wife Lung. Sounds yummy.

Dungy and Daniel

Daniel chapter 1. No lions real or costumed. Daniel was taken from his home, family, everything he knew and was placed into a different culture. There they tried to make Daniel like everyone else. They taught him the language. They taught him the literature. They changed his name from a name that glorified God to a name that glorified a false god. They also tried to change his diet. "Daniel resolved not to defile himself". He refused to become like everyone else. He stood up for what was right even though it made him different than everyone else and people didn't think he'd succeed if he was different. The chief official was afraid that he'd look worse than the others. Daniel and his 3 friends ate veggies and drank water for 10 days and looked better than the guys who ate steak and drank wine. Being willing to be different and staying true to God didn't hurt them but instead helped. Tony Dungy is similar. He entered the coaching culture that taught that guys must be tough and tough on players. I've met these guys in ministry. They tell you that you aren't to be friends to the people you minister to. Instead you must be an authority figure. Dungy came to coaching with the idea that serving God came first. Family was second. Football came somewhere after those. That was different. He also came with the idea that you don't have to curse/bully/humiliate (sorry flashing back to my high school football experience) to get players to play for you. You could be a Christian and a nice guy and coach football. Dungy wasn't afraid to be different in a culture that didn't value the same things that God values.

Super Bowl thoughts

Wooooooohooooooo!

As I drove home last night, by the way it was 6 below zero, I was thinking about what Ken had told me earlier in the week. "the sad thin[g] will be if 'you win' sunday, you will discover the meaninglessness of it all" I'm not trying to bash Ken at all. Ken is my friend. So I was contemplating what he had said. I've decided that this Super Bowl was far from meaningless. Jesus Christ was glorified and praised last night. Tony Dungy used every opportunity to give praise to God. On a personal level, I celebrated with a brother in Christ. I'm happy for Dungy. I'm proud of how he represented Christ. Also on a personal level this Super Bowl was a great opportunity for my family. We bonded over the whole thing. We wore Blue and White together through the playoffs. We walked through the house saying "Go Colts". We wore our jerseys. We talked about how Dungy was a good modern day example of Daniel chapter 1. I'm afraid that this whole experience has made a difference in my life. But I think every experience makes a difference in my life. I'm glad this one was a positive one that glorified God.

I think that anyone could have won the Super Bowl MVP. Everyone played good last night. I would've loved to see the o-line get it. Manning had plenty of time. The running game worked. The o-line blocked great. You could argue for Rhodes, Addai, Sanders, Manning, really any of them.

I was sitting next to a Jr. Higher when the Bears went up 14-6. He was a Bears fan. He yelled in my ear "What's the score now Pastor Paul, what's the score now Pastor Paul". I reached over and patted him on the cheek. I had nacho cheese all over my hand from the taco I was eating. He had nacho cheese all over his cheek. He didn't say much the rest of the night. I'm not one to rub it in, but I also don't like to take it either.

Slow internet

Sorry I haven't posted more about the Super Bowl this week. I really am pumped but our internet has messed up and we only have way slow dialup right now. It's not worth waiting for. So I'll have more soon hopefully.

Hello Super Bowl week!

Oh man how great would it be to be there. Last year Dan and I attended the Super Bowl festivities in Detroit. That was a great time. We're 5 days away from the Super Bowl this year. I'm pumped. I watched the Colts news conferences last night. I'll see a little of the stuff during lunch today. Oh and by the way. I get pretty excited for the Super Bowl every year. I watch the media days and stuff every year. Not just this year because the Colts are in it. But hey. The Colts are there.

Go Colts!

State of the Union

Ok so I watched the speech last night. I don't have the normal thoughts but here is what I noticed.

1. Nancy Pelosi's mouth never stopped. Was she sucking on a cough drop?

2. Dick Cheney looked like he almost fell asleep. I don't think he was paying attention.

3. I think I heard the President say that he believed in global warming? I don't follow politics much is this a change?

4. Dikembe is really really tall.

5. Great idea to cut gas use by 20% but how are you going to do that? And if you figure out a way to do it why pick a number as low as 20%?

6. Why do we need to do more drilling when the President proposed cutting our oil usage?

7. If we double the Strategic Petroleum Reserve where are we going to put all that oil? The reserves are almost at capacity now. Capacity is 727 million barrels and right now we are at 688.6 million barrels. Doubling the capacity sounds expensive.

Wow

Ok this is going to be patchwork.

1. I'm glad I was wrong on how the game should go. I'm glad the Patriots were classy at the end. They had a great run and stretched the Colts to the limit.

2. Wooooooooweeee. What a game for the ages. Linemen scoring, great comeback, bad calls, a sweetheart of a story. I watched it in my chair, standing up, on my knees, everything except for upside down. Sheesh. I can't wait to watch it again on NFL Network.

3. Manning was incredible in the second half. The defense came up big at the end of the game.

4. At the end of the game I ripped off my jersey. I then ran outside and did a front flip into the snow. It was cold and wet. That was way dumb.

Television

I like to watch T.V. But I watch different things than apparently normal people watch. I have never seen an episode of American Idol or Survivor. I've never seen Greys Anatomy or ER. I've never watched 24 or Lost or Prison Break. I have seen NBA games from before I was born. In fact I've seen them multiple times and I still yell at the refs. I've watched boxing on ESPN Classic. I've watched mini golf championships, dart throwing championships, strongest man competitions, I love to watch curling. I will watch some non-sports t.v. I like Seinfeld reruns. I watch Mythbusters sometimes. But give me a choice and I'll take sports (even games I've already seen) almost every time.

Colts Patriots

Ugh. It's only Wednesday. I don't want to listen to sports talk or read sports media cover this anymore. I will of course watch and read much more. I'm sick of the Patriots. I will not even attempt to hide my disdain. I'm sick of the genius talk. I'm sick of the golden boy. I'm sick of the dynasty. I want the Patriots to lose. I want them to look bad doing it. I want a response from them like the Pistons response to losing to the Bulls in 1991.

I'm excited and scared of this game all at the same time. I'm ready for the Colts to win and take their place among the greats. I'm also scared. The stinking Patriots. I hate the Patriots. I'm scared of what will happen if the Colts lose. I may cry. I may have to give up sports media forever. I may have to drive 2 hours to find a White Castle. Hey that's tempting if they win too.

I think that's enough from me right now.

Invincible

Last night was one of those nights. Sometimes I get these awful headaches where pretty much all I can do is sleep. I got one of those yesterday morning. I slept as much as I could that afternoon and felt a little better that evening. So I sent Steph to rent a movie. I don't do that often. It's not that I don't trust her to pick movies. It's that I don't trust her to pick good movies. Last night she hit a homerun. She came home and said that she rented a football movie based on a true story. My mind instantly went to a movie I'd heard about with the Rock in it. I have a rule. Don't watch a movie with the Rock in a starring role. But then she said it was Invincible. It was a pretty good movie. It had its slow parts. But it was clean and inspirational. It made me want to watch Rudy. It made me want to play some football. It also made me wish that he had played for the Colts. If he had I'd probably buy the movie. It was good.

iPod

My sister got me an iPod for Christmas. At first I wasn't so sure about it. The instructions included didn't help me at all. The itunes store was so bogged down I couldn't do anything. But now I have changed my mind. The thing's great. I have a fm transmitter for it so I can use it in the car or with any of the radios in the house. I have 203 songs on it and it'll hold a ton more but I'm running out of ideas. Now I'm looking forward to getting the running thingy for it. It'll keep track of my runs and store all the info online. That could be neat. I'll let you know. Thanks Tam!

Sports

I'm a huge sports fan. One of the biggest fans that I know. I'm not Stump the Schwab material but I follow pretty closely. Here's my problem. And I've probably whined about this to you before. My teams don't win championships. You may tell me that championships are overrated and I should be happy to cheer for teams that have winning records. I tell you that it's easy for you to say that because your team has won a championship. Let's look at the history. I became a serious sports fan when we moved to Indy. Before that I was too young to really get into it. I went to a Monday Night Colts game back in the late 80's and was hooked on them ever since. They haven't been to a Super Bowl since I've been a fan. I became a Notre Dame fan when we started going to games in 1989. The year after they won the championship. I've cheered for the Pacers since we started going to their games in the early 90's. They went to the finals once and I was so thrilled that we flew a Pacers banner from the top of the bell tower of the old school house we lived in. They lost to the Lakers. I don't know what it is to win a celebrate a championship. Sometimes I feel I never will.

Go Irish!

I am ready for some football. I tend to grow more optimistic right up until game time. Man, ND could use a bowl win.

New Years resolutions

I don't usually make resolutions. Last year I started running. This year I'm thinking about making a sports fan resolution. Help me decide.

1. Go to a sporting event for each major sport. I'm thinking a year of at least one game each of NCAA basketball, football, NBA, MLB, NFL, and I haven't decided if NHL is a major sport or not. This may be difficult because Sundays are hard and I've never been bored enough to go to a NHL game before.

2. Go to a decent Bowl game. That of course rules out the Motor City Bowl.

I'm also open to suggestions. What do you think?

Me as an elf

My mom gets a little bored sometimes. Here's her latest creation.

Paul the Elf

Under Construction

I've decided to make a few changes to the blog. Blogger has made a ton of changes and I guess they want me to too. So I added a couple of things like labeling my posts and added some links to some of my friends pages. I may change some more.

Deep thought

So I've been thinking some about the idea that we cannot come to knowledge objectively. It seems that there is some wrestling going on between postmodernism and modernism in the Christian world. Some see it as a bigger struggle than others. It seems to be popping up in a lot of my reading lately. For instance I'm reading a book today that was given to me a couple of months ago. It is "Christ Our Mediator" by C. J. Mahaney. Before getting into his true subject Mahaney has decided to weigh in on this subject some. As the first chapter moves along he says some things that frustrate me. See I tend to be more of the thought that we cannot know things objectively. That we do subjectively filter them through the lens that we see the world through. He starts of by telling us that feelings and emotions cannot be trusted. "It would be fine to follow our feelings if we could always be sure they're faithful to reality. But they aren't; their perspective on reality typically has huge blind spots." I have no problem with that statement. Our feelings do tend to blur our view of reality. So he goes on to say that we should read the Bible and find the objective truth. "The humble are those whose first response to objective truth from God's Word is not to ask, 'How do I feel?' but to say, 'I'm not going to let my faith be determined and directed by the subjective and the experiential. Instead I confess openly before God that I will believe the objective truth of His Word, regardless of how I feel.'" Here's my problem. I believe that absolute objective truth exists. I don't think I can know it objectively or fully. I believe that I filter everything through my lens (culture, experience, sin...). I'm a little wary of some of the things he's saying but I can see some of his points. We shouldn't base what we believe on what we feel. I know he's trying to tell me that postmodernism and it's subjectiveness isn't where the Christian should be, but I'm used to that type of thing. He ends every chapter with "suggested words of prayer for you". Well, the ending of the first chapter pretty much has me ticked and thinking about just putting the book away. "Thank You, Father, for directing my attention upward and outward to objective truth, and away from self-centeredness and enlavement to subjectivity. I turn away from self-focused arrogance and toward You - to receive forgiveness for that arrogance. I direct my faith toward You and Your Word, for You alone are worthy."

What is more arrogant? To think that I taint truth subjectively through my worldview or to think that I can separate myself from all of that and think that I can know truth objectively?

Merry Christmas

Hey we had a good time down at the Weaver Plantation. Hope you had a good time! I just want to thank God for Christ and Christmas!

Bowl season

The college football bowl season started yesterday with a blowout. I didn't watch though. I was watching Rocky III. Me and a friend decided to watch all 5 before we go watch the new one. Laugh all you want. But I'm getting well versed in Rocky trivia.

Neat article

I know some people that read my blog aren't fans of the Mannings. This is a neat Manning story. I'm a wimp and all and get teary eyed at lots of sports stories. This one got me too.