Honestly, I don’t know exactly what I am thinking/feeling right now. I feel some awkwardness. This is natural since I am in a transition. (Tomorrow I start at Orchard Road full time.) It is exceptionally weird for me since I am fairly socially sensitive. i want to know where I ‘fit in.’ Right now, I am having to meet a bunch of new people and begin relationships. That is fun and exciting. But I am a person who prefers comfort and routine. This is all new.
(Listening to: Phil Wickman: Self-titled upon Sean’s recommendation; love the style, will listen to for the next couple of days to pick up lyrics and feel. It is relaxed, but not boring. Definitely chill/work to music. Maybe worshipful, don’t know.)
Something I am currently learning/noticing in my life is that I do not like to be criticized. (All the people who know me at all are chuckling to themselves and rolling their eyes right now.) But seriously, I don’t like it at all. It makes me want to launch into people with my mouth and let them have it. Automatically. That is not right. I need God to take that from me. It is ego, stubbornness and ego. Lord, help me.
Finally, did you know that I have used the same deodorant everyday since 2002? It is true. Old Spice High Endurance Deodorant Mountain Rush. Everyday. I do not get anything else. I do not think about getting anything else. I do not want anything else. That is that.
Also, I don’t have to be at the office until 7:45ish now. That is awesome. I will probably feel like I am sleeping in all the time.
(THIS IS NOT A PICTURE OF MY HAND)So, I have now gone to the doctor to have him look at my hand. Guess what? I have a hairline fracture in my fourth (ring) metacarpal bone in my hand. It is a weird bone to have a fracture in because it is right in the middle of my hand. The doctor told me that there wasn’t much we can do about it, except wait. However, he told me that it could very easily turn in a break (like shown above) or the bone could just shatter if I continued to play softball, specifically hit softballs with a bat. If this were to happen it would almost certainly mean surgery on my right hand. This is not an appealing option to me, so I will be forfeiting most of my fall softball season, until I get the free and clear from my doctor. Hopefully in 4-6 weeks. So, I am on the DL. Suck!
Filed under: Rockstar
Your very own R2-D2!
From the site:
A full 6.44 metersprojection of any (digital) material. Artoo lets you use DVDs and CDs with his own integrated player. Connect external devices through video and audio ports (analog and digital), project photos and videos directly from memory cards, USB-flashdrives and with the interal iPod dock, even from your iPod photo or video!
Stereo and surround sound can be enjoyed through integrated 20W speakers. A fully motorized design which allows remote control of Artoo with the Millennium Falcon remote. Move Artoo Forward, Reverse, make him Turn Left, Turn Right and Rotate his headunit. Tilt the legs and ceiling projection is possible! The remote lets you control all of Artoo’s movements, video and audio functions, and gives you full control over the iPod’s menu which can even be projected.
R2-D2 and the Millennium Falcon remote have light and sound effects.
Ummm… holy crap!
Filed under: Uncategorized
Ok, funny story happened last night. I hope that I can do it justice. Last night I had a group picnic with the worship team. It was a gorgeous night and they held it at the park right down the street from my house, so I was able to just walk down there. It is always fun to just hang out at a park with some friends!
Now to the fun part. I was horsing around with a couple of the kids there. When out of no where this other kid, from our group, probably 9 or 10, comes walking up and kicks this other kid in the shin really hard. (They are about the same size, so it was alright.) So I start messing with this new-comer and playfully kickbox at his shin. Well, at the first slight contact this dude throws himself on the ground and starts crying. It was a total soccer-player move. All of us just froze and watched him. Everyone realizing that this kid is psycho. So after about 10 seconds of this madness, he gets up and dramatically limps away to see his mom.
So I move on and am now standing off to the side talking to a friend, when POW! This kid has come back and grabbed a handful of ice and plowed me in the back with it. His eyes are all crazy and he is seriously mad. So, I do the mature thing and reach down grab some ice and start pitching it back at him.
This goes on for a minute, escalating as these things usually do. Until I get serious with him and peg him, hard, with a golfball size piece of ice in his left calf. This time he goes down, gripping his leg and is now in pain. So, again, I do the adult thing and peg his other leg.
Now he slowly gets up with murder in his eyes. And walks away, doesn’t even stop at at the picnic shelter and heads straight to his family’s van.
That’s right. I am a bigger punk than a 9 year old.
Filed under: Baseball
Here are some stats I dug up after being tipped by Denis Prager.
This is a comparison of the three home run kings and how they did it.
Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs over 22 seasons in 8398 at bats. This averages out to 32.45 a year and 1 home run every 11.77 at bats.
Hank Aaron hit 755 home runs over 23 seasons in 12364 at bats. This averages out to 32.83 a year and 1 home run every 16.38 at bats.
Barry Bonds has hit 757 home runs (so far) over 22 seasons in 9777 at bats. This averages out to 34.41 a year and 1 home run every 12.92 at bats.
These are interesting numbers to me. The Babe was great! 1 home run every 11 at bats! That is astounding and he was consistent over 22 years when medicine was not nearly as advanced as it is now. He drank, cussed, chewed and definitely went with women who did the same! He is the Bambino. For ever. I am going to try and dig up some Babe Ruth stories (that are appropriate for my blog) and get them up. He was truly a legend!
EDIT: (More stuff)
Great ESPN Article summing up his life and career.
Filed under: Morning
Today I accepted a new position at Orchard Road Christian Center as the admin for their Catalyst Student Ministries Department! I start two weeks from tomorrow. I am fired up to be a part of a burgeoning student ministries that works with youth, young adults as well as full-time interns. This is a great opportunity for me to continue walking in what God has for me. I am excited and I am sure that I will post more later!
These are my boys! We are in the semi-finals. Next week we play back to back and if we win both, we will be the champs. Wish us luck! And come out and cheer if you can!
Interesting post from my friend Brent
One of the great successes of the Starbucks franchise is that they have succeeded, not just in marketing a product, but an image and possibly even a community.
Starbucks is one of the few major companies that is fairly lenient about giving away their products. If you know someone who works at a Starbucks, chances are, you’ve received a free drink at one point or another. While this seems counter-productive to the more pragmatically minded folks, it actually makes great sense because when someone sees you walking around with the famously branded cup with a smile on your face, they’re going to want a coffee drink they didn’t realize they were craving until they saw yours.
Starbucks furnishes their facilities with comfortable couches and chairs and music. In other words, they’re not just selling a product, they’re selling an atmosphere. What’s interesting is that they are selling an atmosphere that is both welcoming and a bit intimidating. How many people knew what a “Barista” was before the Starbucks invasion? They use their own language and expect you to adapt, knowing that once you do, you’ll feel like part of the “in” crowd and the experience will be all the more meaningful to you.
In other words, while maintaining a welcoming environment, part of the appeal of the Starbucks experience is that they are (or were) “other,” they used words that other people didn’t use and they were making drinks that (at one time), no one else was. Instead of dumbing things down to make them mor “accesible,” Starbucks understood that part of the allure was the sense of being a bit different. Of course that no longer holds true as there is nearly a Starbucks or copycat on every corner, but Starbucks has, at least in a sense, helped set the standard for this trend.
As far-fetched as it might initially sound, I’m becoming convinced that part of what the success of Starbucks teaches us is that there is a balance between being “other” and welcoming. It does not have to be one or the other.
I excerpted, please be sure to read the whole thing.
Filed under: Baseball; Rockies
Last week the Rockies played extremely well at home in a very important homestand. With the division leading Padres and Dodgers in town, it was important for us to win some games, both to make a strong advance in the division, as well as continue to develop confidence that we are a team that can win.
Out of the 6 games played (Friday night’s game was rained out) we took 4. That was very strong for us! We ended the week 3.5 out of first. Last night we took the first game from the Devil Rays as the Giants and the D-Backs helped our cause by dropping the Padres and the Dodgers. We wake up this morning still 3.5 our (Arizona has now assumed the division lead) BUT I feel very confident that the D-Backs will hit a slide here shortly and drop fully out of contention. Leaving us to fight out the division with LA and San Diego.
The main thing that would help us is consistent victories on the road. But, if you know the Rockies at all, that is not something we do very well. Bad Altitude has this:
As of right now, the Rockies are 30-21 at home (which projects to 48-33 assuming they are relevant enough to need to make up every lost game) and 23-30 (35-46) on the road. Which leads me to conclude: Nothing has changed. Humidor or not, the team still leaves its confidence behind whenever it ventures outside of the Mountain Time Zone. Hey, I can relate, I feel the same way sometimes, but if I were a ball club I assure you I would have won more than one playoff game in my lifetime. Sometimes you just have to buck up and go with your fears (just like in Batman Begins, which is what I watched for the first time during the rainout Friday night).
Despite the fact that the humidor has had the intended effect of making offensive and pitching statistics from games at Coors slightly more adherent to realities elsewhere (and really, as I’ve argued many times before, trends in ballpark construction have made Coors-like conditions rather more the rule than the exception, see Houston, Cincinnati, Arizona, Philadelphia, and so on) the Rockies still have a crisis of confidence when it comes to taking care of business on road trips. It seems to me like the obvious solution to this problem is a manager with more authority to lead than Clint “405-487” Hurdle, but look what happened the last time the Rockies hired a manager with genuine gravitas — Jim Leyland lasted one miserable year. Just long enough to earn our eternal hatred but not quite long enough to impress upon the players that whether or not Coors Field has mystical powers, it’s the players’ responsibility to go win series in Phoenix and San Diego and Washington too.
So what else can I say other than what I’ve been repeating all year? Until the Rockies can put together a team capable of going .500 on the road, they’re not legit. After the day off today, Colorado will confront clubs in Atlanta and Florida that are not any qualititatively better than their own. Maybe now is their time, but the tremendous weight of past history leaves me skeptical.
I completely agree.
Last night David Elijah Budd was born. He is gorgeous. (I will try to get a pic up later.) He is small, as most new-borns are, 5 pounds 10 ounces. It was interesting to be there and just look at him. One of the siblings made a comment that impacted me, “It is amazing how much you can love someone so much when they just came into the world.”
It was an honor to be able to see the baby. They allowed me to hold him and bless him.
There isn’t a lot to say except that children are a blessing. Thank you God.
Pray for the family!
Josh Brage 