lame stories from some lame guy in a storage unit in downtown SLC

I apologize to my loyal readers for my lack of posts lately. I would say that I have been busy, which I have, but I actually have been working less lately. Not too long ago the company that has contracted us to work decided it was time to start looking at saving money on the 2.2+ billion dollar project, and one of the ways in which they can do that is by limiting our hours. I did not argue one bit when I was told by my tool supervisor. It has been so nice to have a little extra time these days. It has amounted to about two hours more per day with my family, which has been extremely nice. I catch some crap from some of my other co-workers who are now working 55+ hours, but I remind them nicely that when they were getting 35-40 in December-February, I was getting 65 or so. It is my time to rest. And I am thankful.

So the time at home has been great. The kids never cease to amaze me in their antics, actions, and in how much they have grown (in numerous ways) since we have had them. Janine often tells me of the boys interacting with each other, but today I watched them eating breakfast and just was amazed at the way that they talked to each other and interacted with a Diego video that happened to be on. It was quite hilarious, to be sure. They are all great kids. I was able to go to the library with the boys today, which was pretty fun. They are so much more independent than they were even just a couple of months ago. They look around at the books and videos and play with the toys in the kids area with hardly any notice of me as I collect the books and videos for the week. Juan, especially, walks around like he is a little man. Not just any man, but the one who owns whatever building we happen to be in. Little man. I think that they like talking about the prospect of going somewhere as much as actually going, too. They are like running commentators of everything that happens during a day. If I could broadcast it, you would all know exactly what was happening at any given moment of the day because they are always talking about it. Well, as long as people can understand their Spanglish.

Shirley has been an incredible help around the house, too. She seems to relish in the responsibilities we give her, and has really taken to doing dishes. She has such a helpful attitude in so many ways...it is refreshing. Even tonight she volunteered to read to the boys, which freed us up to watch The Office. She has been enjoying school as well. She was telling me today that she thinks that she has five friends, and then she proceeded to list them all. She is always cracking us up. She was messing around with the portable dvd player, executing anything she wanted to do with ease, so I told her she was smart. "I know," was her response. And she is very smart and very funny. I like to brag about our kids.

So I am irritated with the O.J. nonsense. At work there is a break room that we frequent when we are waiting for particular tools to be ready for us to work on, so we had major downtime the other day. Well, in this break room are three big, flat-screen tvs that are always blaring Fox News. Okay, right away it is not my favorite news channel, but I have disdain for all news channels anyway, so it wouldn't matter if it was msnbc or cnn either. Anyway, this particular day, for three hours straight, they had news on O.J. I am revolted. He is celebrity, and that is the only reason why his ridiculous life is even news. Apparently it sells, though, as I look at the people who stare at the tvs for their whole break or lunch. They watch looped news (sort of news, anyway) as if their very lives hang on the balance. I am disgusted. Can we hear something real? I know that no corporate news channel is going to put on any real news, but do we have to listen to ridiculous lawyers on retainer with Fox News tell us about the implications of O.J.s actions? AND THE PEOPLE WATCH IT. THEY LOVE IT. THEY ARE ADDICTED TO CELEBRITY. Look at the tag lines on your email when you sign out; what does it say? Who is on it? Celebrity. It sells. People want a vicarious life or a voyeuristic life or a life at all, so they hang on the threads of celebrity. I despise it. I want real life. Not celebrity. Not reality tv (could there ever be more of a misnomer?). I want original thought, original opinion, not to be told what is newsworthy by some corporate goon who knows that the general public is full of idiots who believe that O.J. Simpson is news. Get out of my face.

NHL preseason started. I am excited, to say the least. I have hope for the Flyers after their busy summer. The thought has crossed my mind many times to travel across the continent just to watch some Flyers games this year, but I am not sure how much of a reality that thought is. I have been checking into their game in Denver this year, as that might be more of a possibility, but we'll have to wait and see. What I do know is that I really miss watching the sport, and again the corporate goons tell us that we don't want to watch it, so it gets stuck on some half-baked sports/outdoor cable station that I don't get. Makes me want to drop the gloves. Go Flyers.

Sixplex. The idea lives. Inquire within. Communal living. There has to be a better way than the way it is done. We need to find ways to make less of an impact, to live in a way that we feel God calling us to live. I know that the comfortable regular lifestyle is not it. I admit, I love the perks: computers, digital recorders, driving places. But there has to be ways to do that stuff and be less of a nuisance to the planet. There has to be a way to tell the world that this stuff, really, means nothing. So we continue to search for the best way to say it. So communal living still lingers, hanging on, surprising us by being a topic of conversation and a thought of specific direction that seems to be an underlying prompt to us since the discussion first began two years ago. How long do some ideas hang on before they fall to the wayside? If this has not fallen away yet, is it just an idea? What is God calling us to do? We wrestle all the time. But we know that we do not feel comfortable just being status quo, just going along as if our actions have no repercussions elsewhere that we cannot see, that we cannot touch. I am challenged every day by my conscience, by the Holy Spirit, and I know that it might not be conventional, the direction that we go, that we lean, and we might be called crazy or idealists, but why not? Who's to say that we shouldn't live alternate lifestyles? Who's to tell us that we are wrong? I am not Noah, but I know that people laughed and mocked him...

I am going to go eat cereal now.

Damien Jurado. Saw him for the fourth time recently. That guy is amazing. I recommend anyone who reads this to get an album. Check out his music online. I told him a story that my sister Jo told me about seeing him in Portland. He just looked at me like I was an idiot. I'm sure that he wants to hear lame stories from some lame guy in a storage unit in downtown SLC. I know that's why he comes here. I am such a nerd.

I am really going to go eat cereal now.

buying tents

So tonight was the first Kids Club of the year. I have to say that it went very well. We had 55 kids who showed up, and could have had more had we let in the five or so latecomers (they need to get there before 7 or else they would just show up whenever). It was a lot of fun to see all the kids brimming with excitement as they stood outside the door. Janine had installed a new format for running it, and I thought it was a great success. We were able to break up into small groups and spend time with the kids asking questions in their respective age categories. It was a lot of fun. I was with the 1-2 grades, which wouldn't have been my first choice, but I really enjoyed spending time with them. So much so that I signed up for the same group next week. It is just so nice to get back into the swing of things with Kids Club and with our small group meetings (which will start this Friday). I am often times frustrated by church and church related things, but when I see the kids who are just thirsting for attention and who are so excited to spend time at Kids Club, I am always refreshed. It was a good night. Thanks to Traci for watching the boys so I could go.

I ran the other day. Not to the fridge. Not to my favorite chair. No, I ran on the Jordan Parkway with my buddy Josh. I am realizing that if I don't put some sort of exercise into my life now, it will be very likely that I never will. So I told him that I would be interested in running with him when he goes out (he runs the SLC half-marathon every year). We started with the goal of a short distance of 2-3 miles...which is not my idea of a short distance. Short distance to me is more like the 50 yard dash that I ran in third grade...quick and to the point. His idea: 2-3 miles. So we ran. And ran. And ran. He let me set the pace, in his gracious nature, and I have no idea how to set a pace so I ran too fast. And became tired quickly. So we walked some and ran some more. It seemed very warm out, older folks were speeding by me, kids on tricycles, crawling babies, snails...everything. But in the end I ran about 3 miles and walked one. Josh's memory of the mile markers (they are different in every "city" that we enter and we were actually in two different cities) was a little off, so we ran a little more than he anticipated. It was good, though, even though I paid for it for the last day and a half; I was pretty sore. I will go again, but was "rescued" this week by my boss "needing" me to work. But I ran.

Work continues to roll along with me staying at the same place that I have been for the last 17 months. I am not complaining at all, though, as I continue to enjoy my time down there. It has been busier in the last couple of weeks, which has been very nice. There was some talk of us leaving at the end of August, but the end of August came and went and we remain there, biding our time, enjoying the autonomy that this job has offered. I certainly would love to stay in some aspect down there, but I am not sure how realistic that option is right now. We'll see what happens.

As Janine noted in her blog, we feel like we are settling in more and more as a family. I have truly felt recently that we have been able to hang out with people like we did pre-adoption again. I am not really sure how it has all worked out, if it is just my perception, or if it is a natural progression and adjustment that we have gone through, but it has just been very nice to hang out with people again as much as we have. Brad, Traci, Janine and I used to do so much together, and we did after Joel was born and when we came home from Colombia with our three kids, but recently we seem to have found our groove again, and some of that is very much attributed to the kids being able to play with each other, to go off to basements and monkey around while the 30 somethings discuss all sorts of things. As Kids Club has been refreshing, so has this, what I see as rejuvenated, hanging out time.

The Ducks won. So did Penn State. Other than that, I chuckle that Michigan lost and hope that all Utah teams lose this upcoming week. NFL starts this week, and like Jimmy cracking corn, I don't care.

There are times that I get really frustrated with lifestyle choices, that I think that our form of Christianity is so intertwined with western culture, with the idea of capitalism, consumerism, that I feel like the only true answer to it is to rebel against it. But in what form does this rebellion really make itself manifest? It is a question that we wrestle with daily, in all the choices we make, and it is not easy. I am often a romantic in my ideals, dreaming big of things that we could do, ways in which we could live that would be counter to the things that we feel are damaging to humanity and to the natural world, which in turn we feel that God is entrusting to the very humanity that pillages itself and the natural world. So we dream of alternate living. Some sort of off-the-grid thing. I still think about it a lot, think about in what ways we could live the life that we feel we are supposed to live, how to make that transition, where it will be, what it will look like. I am often confused and always tempted to just stay in comfort, to get cable and just watch sports or music, to ignore God's call to live in a certain way. It would be so much easier, but I just can't shake the feeling that we are supposed to somehow be different. To look different. To live differently. In that case, I guess this blog might just end abruptly someday when we move into our canvas tent...

...maybe I should go buy that tent...