Happy whatever-it-is-that-you-want-to-call-it Day!

I was sitting at my desk at work today when a co-worker approached me.
"You know," He said, "Here in California, we wash our cars."
"That's nice." I said.
"You should do that on the weekends."
"I work all week. I don't want to spend all of my weekends washing my car just because California has nasty mud-rain."
"Well... I know in Alabama they don't believe in washing their cars."
"Nope, it doesn't stop raining long enough for us to. We're united in by our dirty cars."
"Well, not here. Welcome to California!"

I'm convinced that the guy who parks in the garage across from mine lives in there. When I left for work today, he was under his black sports car working on it or perhaps just banging the underside with tools. When I returned from work (after the sun had set) he was still in there, this time polishing the batmobile with gentle, precise strokes. I seriously think he either has a horrible marriage and is hiding out with his car to avoid the beast in his apartment, or obsesses over his car in the hopes of winning over the little ladies. Either way, he needs to loosen up. Or at least go home every now and then. That way someone will have the golden opportunity to steal his batmobile and cure him of his obsession. Everyone wins!

A while ago I think I blogged about how Wendy is an ice cream snob. She won't settle for good quality inexpensive ice cream, but just the best for her. Well, I have a confession to make. I'm a Chinese food snob. I only like good quality Chinese food. I absolutely hate those ghetto Chinese places. If it isn't a sit-down-and-tip-the-server type, the chances are that I'll hate it. Strangely enough, Wendy doesn't like those kind. She only likes the ghetto places. At least I get to eat good Chinese food every month with my work!

p.s. The almond cookies are way better than the fortune cookies.

I'm just glad that I didn't have to swallow any of my statements concerning the Angels.

So far our adventures with cable have come to a bad start. Brandon insists each movie is quality, while I beg to see what else is on. He's still slightly pouting because I refused to endure such hits as Free Willy 2 and Super Mario Brothers. Second rate movies were not what I had in mind when we decided to get cable.

Almost time to start another week, and I've managed to catch Brandon's cold. It's no fun to spend most of your day lunging for kleenex. I like the time change because it feels like I get to sleep later, but I hate knowing that it'll be dark when I leave work. That just makes it feel like your day is gone, which I suppose it is, but sunlight fools you into thinking otherwise. Okay, gotta finish cooking dinner before Brandon finishes off the Oreos. Peace out, yo.

Drumroll, please. And here they are, the pictures from our San Francisco trip!

It's 6:30pm, and Russ' party started three minutes ago. We're going to be fashionably late.

Wendy asks, "What's the Score?" Brandon replies, "It's not important." "They lost didn't they?" "Yup."

Have you ever seen worse pitching? I don't know if I have. I'm sick, and this wasn't the best way to end the day. :-(

Since Seth is back here at work from his three week hiatus, we decided to go to an old favourite for lunch: Baja Fresh. I like their Dos Manos burrito (dos manos means "two hands" in Spanish, and this burrito is so big you need two hands to eat it) because I'll save half of it for a later time. The reason I wanted to blog about Baja Fresh is not because I like their food, but because Wendy has given us good reason to make fun of their name. Wendy, who is not from California and has minimal familiarity with Español, kept calling the place "ba-ja-fresh." She pronounces the "j" as a jay and not as an aitch as they do in Español. So after I informed her of the correct pronunciation, she began calling it "Bahahahaha Fresh"—like its a wicked laugh or something. She's cute. From now on I call it "Baja Fresh" with a jay for fun. Irregardless, it's still a fun place for lunch.

Brandon's so funny. He swears he hates pickles. However, every time I eat a pickle, he always wants a bite. Then he puckers his lips and makes a terrible face, declares that pickles are disgusting, and that he doesn't understand how I can eat them. I adore pickles. My favourite kind are the cheapest, sourest brand at the store. They're by far the best.

Hey Mike and Sarah, did you guys catch the game last night? Actually I only posted this because I had something important to post, but by the time I had logged into blogger I had forgot what it was. Must have been really important, huh?

Corporate America's greatest scam. It's greater than Martha Stewart and Enron combined. You know what I'm talking about. It's the McDonald's Big 'N Tasty. This thing is neither big nor tasty!

After fiddling around with the television antenna for twenty minutes, I was finally able to get a viewable picture of the baseball game of Fox 11. Baseball seems so much more majestic when its your hometeam in the world series. The Angels were the team that I was first familiar with. I have fond memories of going to the Anaheim Stadium as a young child. Finally they've made it to the world series. Of course I was giving Wendy the play-by-play against her will as the Angels win the game. She'll come around some day.

I just can't daydream like I used to. At one time, I could entertain myself at work for long spans of time when things got slow without the aid of a book or magazine. Not anymore. I think I've become dependent on reading. Since I've been working as a receptionist, I've read so many books. Many of these books were passed on from other people. "Here, read this; you'll like it" they say. Some of those books I pretended were articles from The Onion because the level of stupidity and ignorance matched that satire perfectly. Other books just bored me so much that I couldn't even focus on them enough to stop reading the same paragraph over and over. I like to be told stories, not lectured to. I suppose that's something I never grew out of from childhood.

I discovered one author I found to be hilarious and genius, but I won't mention him because that would be like me recommending him, and I refuse to take up that sort of responsibility. I learned my lesson recommending movies to other Christians. Anyway, I read every one of his books. Then I reread them. Finally I memorized all the stories and realized it was time to move on. Now what? In other words, read any good books lately?

This House of Prayer seems more like a house of beating.

We went to a preview of a movie last night because it was free. Since it was kind of a scary movie, Wendy spent half the time looking at the back of the theatre, asking me what had just happened.

Talk about an election. Every last one of the 11.5 million people who are elgible to vote in Iraq, voted for Saddam Hussein. How wonderful it must be to be a dictator of his capacity.

As Brandon said, we're back from our lovely weekend trip. I had a wonderful birthday, and Brandon did everything possible to make it perfect. I love him so much, and I'm very thankful for him. San Francisco was great- we got to see a lot of stuff and enjoy quite a few crazy people. You just can't get the good crazy people outside of the city. Anyway, now we're back to work and the usual routine. Actually, that's not true. No, Brandon's working late for the first time ever I believe, and I'm doing laundry before 7 pm. I'm also doing the dishes. Well, okay, the dishwasher is. It still counts. I'm also trying to decide whether to watch The Simpsons DVD or SpongeBob.

Lord Byron is dozing in his tunnel. Brandon and I decided on our vacation to get a second hamster to punish Lord Byron for not loving us. We're going to name it a name more noble than Lord Byron, like King Edward or something. After all, two hamsters can't hide in the tunnel at once. One of them will have to learn to like us.

Happy birthday to my love. We're back, but I'm not done spoiling her yet, because we're about to go out to dinner. She's the sweetest girl in the world, and it's so wonderful to be married to her. We'll blog pictures from our trip in a bit.

Hey everyone, we're in San Francisco—blogging from an internet café on Pier 39. So far we've had such a wonderful time. We have seen so many great sights, including the scary bush man at Fisherman's Wharf. We'll give more details and show pictures of our trip later. Unfortunately we have to drive the long way back tomorrow to go to work on Monday, but it's been the best weekend we've had since our Honeymoon.

As you can tell from the time stamp, we're up at an ungodly hour. Yes, this is an ungodly hour. For it is these times when the unrighteous works of the wicked are abundant. For it is these times that the light is unable to expose them. Our Lord, himself, even declared, "They hate the light because they want to sin in the darkness. They stay away from the light for fear their sins will be exposed and they will be punished" (Jo 3.20). Well, enough about this ungodly hour. We're leaving soon to drive along the California coastline to San Francisco. You know, the GG Bridge, Alcatraz, Embarcadero, TransAmerica, Fisherman's Wharf...the whole bit.

Despite I Am Sam, I'm still a great Beatles fan. Today we were able to get 2 Beatles DVD's for $2.99 each, and I'm in heaven!

Well, Brandon and I have been working on getting Lord Byron unshy. He's learned to dart for his tunnel whenever we come near, and he's even learned to sleep in the tunnel upside down just in case we catch him by surprise. Oh, but he eats a lot. He dines inside his food bowl, eating enough so that he can deliver a poop jackpot when one of us catches him. I did however, see a humorous sight tonight. He was asleep on his back, all stretched out revealing his white belly, when he heard me laughing above him and instantaneously was inside the tunnel. Sigh. Maybe he'll grow out of it.

We're skipping town for my birthday! Sorry to disappoint, but we won't be throwing a big birthday party at our crib.

The way I can tell if someone is my age, or born just a couple of years after me, is by asking them if they remember the gameshow Press Your Luck. For some reason I'll say, "No wammies...no wammies...no wammies...big bucks...no wammies...STOP!!!!!" If they don't recognize that, they weren't born in 1980 or earlier (for the most part).

Today it's one year since Brandon and I first talked on AIM. We realized that a lot of people contributed to our meeting, and knowing that we're putting way too much thought into this, we'll list everyone who helped. Comment if we forgot about you!

Blake started blogging and got Russ into it as well. Russ started Seth off blogging. Steve got Brandon a job where Seth works, and Seth started Brandon off blogging.

My mom bought me a computer. Erick put that computer together. Rich got me started blogging on Dead Yet Living and into using AIM. Scott blogged a rather wiggity blog exactly one year ago today that Rich had to delete, and that started Brandon and I off on our first conversation.

So there you have it. Now we're happily married and raising a hamster.

I thought it was important to let our blogland readers know about our little one. Lord Byron became a member of our family yesterday. I'd been wanting a pet forever now, ever since I moved away from my beloved fatty cat. So, since my birthday is next weekend, Brandon took me to Petsmart to get a pet. At first I had my heart set on a hermit crab. However, Brandon was grossed out by them. So, 5 minutes before closing time at Petsmart, we picked out Lord Byron from the hamster cage. He's a short-haired Syrian. They told us at the store that if we didn't like the hamster's personality we could return him. I'm hoping he gets less skittish, because the best pictures I could get of him were all blurred. He spends most of his time in his yellow tunnel that connects to his pent house where we can't get him, and I'm hoping that will pass. Silly Lord Byron. Oh yes, and I have to give credit to both Russ and Blake for the collaborative work in coming up with "Lord Byron" as a name. Here are a couple of pictures of our sweet little hammy.

I just found out yesterday that my friends Andy and Amanda had their third child last week. This is the couple that has the most well-disciplined and sweet kids that I've met so far, and I'm sad I won't be able to see their new son. Sigh. Yes, I do get homesick.

Seth stole my shoes. Okay, he didn't really steal them, but the other day he strolled into work with a new pair of the same type of shoes that I own—only his were black. I called him a thief, and he told me that he had no idea because mine were so old and worn out. Needless to say, I was finally able to convince Wendy that we should go to Payless ShoeSource and get me a new pair of ghetto shoes. I actually found a pair that didn't look too much like the imitation brand that they are. After showing them to Wendy, I was rewarded with a great "No!" Two can play this game—so I thought. I found the ugliest things on the shelf and showed them to my sweet wife, expecting her to be repulsed by them. She responded with an "Okay," and the next thing I knew I was paying twenty bucks for shoes. In the end, I think I like my ghetto shoes.

Bleh! I hate the Amber Alert System. It slows traffic terribly... Not to mention how it seems like it's now hip to be kidnapped. Okay, okay, I'm not an insensitive person. Surely some of these cases were serious and all. It's just that.. I really don't like traffic.

This was funny, but not that funny.

<rant>Am I in the wrong profession? I could be making over a hundred grand a year for doing what? Let me start over. Twenty-nine ports have been shut down between San Diego and Seattle. Ships are lining up along West Coast because of these closures. What is the cause? The greediness of workers and the evils of the union. The western states are now facing economic challenges during war-time because these longshoremen refuse to be satisfied with much more than they deserve. They can't come to an agreement with the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA). The workers on the ports decided not to strike, yet instead of a strike they began to slow down their production. Only a small fraction of their work was being completed and the PMA would not stand for that—they locked the workers out. Now there's zero productivity. The lines of ships continue to increase. The estimated cost of this fiasco is between one and two billion dollars per day. All because these longshoremen won't be satisfied with better working technology, assurance of their own jobs, and an increased salary to make their average wage around $120,000 per year. Wait, they don't even work full days. They don't even work 40 hours a week. They have two people for every person needed. Isn't it about time that we do away with these needless unions and turn over these jobs to the private sector. If these workers aren't satisfied with their $120,000, few hours, and job assurance, then they need to learn what it is to compete for a real job—working long days and not making a fourth of what they're used to. They are acting so selfish by placing their petty wants before the our economy. BTW, aren't unions so anti-American? Don't they go against capitalism?</rant>

To contradict the seriousness of the blog below and the comments in the blog below it, I'm going to write about stuff that I feel won't offend anyone.

I adore gummi bears. We bought one of those snack-a-mania jars of them, and it makes me happy. When I was a little kid, I refused to eat the maimed and disfigured bears because it just seemed like they wouldn't taste as good. Now I know better. It's all the same except when it comes to color: red are the best, and then clear. Green is just yucky.

So anyway, my birthday is October 13th, so all of you who want to send me a gift have plenty of time to mail it to me. In return for a gift, I will think highly of you and perhaps blog about how great you are.

In response to some of controversy of my last post's comments about the Scriptures being written in a male dominant era, here is a section from a paper I wrote.

The New Testament was revolutionary in its approach towards women.

In the Graeco-Roman world it was a commonly accepted that women were not equal to men. In many cases women played a subordinate role in relation to their husbands (Plutarch, Advice to Bride and Groom, 142 d-e), and apparently the "normal fate of [a Greek] woman was to be despised and oppressed" (Albrecht Oepke. "gunh." ed. Gerhard Kittel. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. (v. 1) trans. Geoffrey Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1964. p. 777). Though the Romans held a higher view of women than the Greeks, equality in the sexes was still found wanting.

Palestine was no different. One of the sayings at the time by Jewish men was, "Blessed be He that He did not make me a Gentile; blessed be He that He did not make me a slave; blessed be He that He did not make me a woman" (See Ben Witherington, Grace in Galatia [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998] p. 271). In contrast to this statement, Paul said, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3.28). Paul was making a statement that asked for a radical change in both the Graeco-Roman and Palestinian-Jewish ideals. Comparing Galatians with other writings in the Pauline Corpus, it is evident that Paul was not abolishing the difference between male and female, but was liberating them from their suppression of inequality.

The apostle Peter makes a distinction between the roles of male and female. In 1 Pet 3:1-7 he exhorts the wives to be submissive to their husbands, and then urges the husbands to honor their wives. Similarly, Paul commands the wives to submit to their husbands, and that the husbands should to love their wives in the same way that Christ loved the church (Eph 5:22-33). Both Peter and Paul endorse the idea of equality, but they also simultaneously make a distinction in gender roles.

Because of the equality established in the church, women had the ability to play a major role in the ministry of the first century. In Romans 16:1-2, it is evident that Phoebe, a servant of the church, came to the aid of many, including the apostle Paul himself. In his letter to the Philippians (4:2-3), Paul mentions Euodia and Syntyche who are among those who labored with him in the gospel. Philip the Evangelist had four virgin daughters who prophesied (Acts 21:8-9). Priscilla, the wife of Aquila, was one of Paul's main co-laborers (Acts 18:2, 18, 26, 1 Cor 16:19).

Needless to say, I believe in equality. My statement—as it is—stands true. The sacred writings were truly written during a male-dominant era. This doesn't mean that Scripture is "tainted" or "skewed." It remains the Holy Word of God, even inspite of the era in which it was composed.

Some person at our wedding reception had the audacity, the nerve, the humour(?) to sign our guest book and place a Scripture reference after their name. Well, okay, so the verse is Proverbs 5:19. Verses like this surely demonstrate that the sacred writings were truly written during a male-dominant era.