Random Monday Morning Brain-Clearing Thoughts

I mentioned in an earlier blog that, due to the Rangers malaise that set in about mid-June I started keeping up with both the Dutch soccer league as well at the British Premier soccer league. I chose two teams to be "my teams": Feyenoord in the Dutch Eredivisie (mainly because I found out that their fans have this bizarre tendency to set fires in their own stadium) and Arsenal in the British Premier (they had cannons on their logo). Oddly, Feyenoord is in 2nd place after 6 games and Arsenal leads the league after 7. Having Fox's Soccer Channel hasn't helped, but it's nice having games on at 6AM when I wake up due to the time change.

I can't believe Sonic's bit with the two guys, or the guy and his wife (the two girls have yet to make me laugh) in the front seat of their car at the drive-in, hasn't gotten old yet. I laugh out loud at just about every new one.

The traffic in our little burg is going to get ugly...or should I say uglier? Especially in the area near our church where the new shops opened. Saturday, I had to run to Lowe's to get some oil for the mower and the intersection of 2499 and 407 (Texas has these things called Farm-to-Market roads with numbers, which I'm not sure I understand fully the history behind them, but it has something to do with the reality that we were once a rural community and these roads were needed) were packed beyond what they normally are packed on Saturday. This also caused back-ups all over the place on the side roads...of which I sat in traffic looking at the building I needed to get to for about 5 minutes...just inching along until I could get to the turn lane. Granted it was Saturday...but it also gets bad around 5:30PM. And, manalive our church gets hung up in it as Wednesdays we have lots of late arrivals and I've yet to have a wedding rehearsal start close to the 6PM starts. I've already altered my normal side road routes for even more remote ones to get to my church during peak hours.

My friend Pastor Mike may not wake up today after the week he had last week. He'll never tell you, so I will: He was preaching in our main services this week, which is always labor-intensive for staff. But this week, he was asked to perform not one, but two, memorial services for families who lost loved ones...which are loving labor-intensive ministries. Have a very long nap today, Mikey. You won't regret it.

I'm at the point where if I don't go to the gym on the day I'm supposed to ("I'll just go tomorrow and back the entire schedule up one day") I feel guilty. I think that means I've successfully changed my habits.

Of course, I feel the same way about blogging when each and every day last month I thought about quitting The Diner. Sure, there are lots of benefits with this kind of community, but there's a lot of energy I wonder if it wouldn't be better transferred to something more creative. But then, if I didn't have this little pasttime, my head might explode with all this stuff rattling around until I let it out. Living out loud, especially in my profession, has some drawbacks and creates a lot of tension when I'm as transparent as I am on this blog. I mean, I don't know any other way to live my life than honest transparency--to a certain degree, anyway, that I can self-censor here--but it makes lots of people uncomfortable. It's a price I'm willing to pay, apparently. I guess after over 4 years of daily blogging, that habit won't change much.

There was a "free weekend" of Showtime and The Movie Channel on my cable system and I totally missed it. In retrospect, it's unlikely I would've watched anything anyway, but I can't stand when I miss out on free stuff like that. It's kinda like when you go to some outdoor festival and Chick-Fil-A was giving away free sandwiches and you didn't know until they were all gone.

My car's mileage has hit one of those markers where I'm supposed to take it in for service. I know I need an alignment, but the service deal is such a whip to me. I mean, I kinda have to trust the mechanics if they tell me something I didn't know was "worn and needs replacing" and there's the whole "are you going to drop it off or are you staying?" dilemma because it'll be somewhere between 3 hours if you just stay, but if you don't stay you've got to arrange for subsequent pick-ups and drop-offs. If you stay and want to read or something (free wireless, anyone?) it's too loud because they've got a TV there and it's always on some channel where it's happy-shiny "good morning" shows leading into some lame game show which leads into some soap opera and you can't change the channel and it's too hot outside to leave that little room. Such a beating.

I've learned that if you really want to stir up a Sunday School class and you're in the book of Esther, you can get everyone pretty involved in the discussion if you start with, "Hey, so what, precisely, is the role of Christians in the culture?" People will bring up the Founding Fathers and the Constitution after class with that one. Granted, there aren't many concrete conclusions, but the class was involved, man.

Our national movie-theatre chain has about 4 theatres reserved for something called "AMC Select." These are movies that are not very mainstream but are generally they type of movies you might see at Sundance or SoHo or Toronto film festivals that are high-concept stuff. I like the idea, but the national chain has the various films at various theatres...and none of the ones I want to see are at the mall closest to me. I'd have to drive to Northpark (40 minutes) to see the ones I want to see. There are bigger problems in life, but I'm hoping they'll rotate to our theatre in the next week or so. Maybe I should just ask a manager?

One week until I'm off to San Francisco to see my family. I gotta say that the week before and week after vacation are always twice as much work, but I really don't care about that this time around. It'll all get done...somehow. Someway. It always does.

Well, gotta lot of piddle stuff to do today...car, pick up my new glasses, honey-do's, etc. Let's be careful out there, kids.