During our weekly trips to Kroger, while Erin peruses the fruits and vegetables, I make my way to the deli counter to carefully select the meat which will inevitably makeup my lunches for the following week.
Erin and I are both in favor of spending a little bit of extra money on deli meat. As I've grown older, I've lost my youthful exuberance for things like pimento loaf and the products of Carl Buddig. Therefore I try to select meats that are "non-slimy," to use an Erin term, and not pre-packaged.
So each week I pick a basic, but not too cheap, ham or roast beef for my lunches. On several occasions, I've heard people order "tavern ham" at the deli counter. This stuff is pricey (in the $8/pound range), so I haven't tried it, but this week I thought I'd give myself an early, pork-based Christmas gift, and oh my, is this stuff wonderful.
The ham in question is Boar's Head Tavern Ham. This is the Filet Mignon of the ham universe. So much flavor...so little slime. The perfect tenderness. Erin and I actually simultaneously called each other at our respective jobs, both wanting to discuss the greatness of this ham. Now I look forward to lunch everyday. Thank you Boar's Head.
Now about church. This week, I went to church on Sunday on my own, since Erin and the kids were all recovering from various ailments which would prevent them from entering most civilized countries. As I got dressed and ready to go, I realized how much I dislike going to church alone. (Due to my own ailments and traveling, I hadn't been to church in about a month, therefore I didn't feel right playing the "Get out of church free!" card this week.)
The basic problem for me is that I'm not very good at face to face communication, something apparently valued by other Christians. (Erin covers my deficiencies in this area very nicely, so when she's not around, I'm in a world of hurt. So much can go wrong for me in so little time, "Gee Mavis, I didn't realize you were still alive! Nice mole.") Therefore I left the house with just enough time to get to services so that I would minimize the mingling.
Historically, I have had an amazing knowledge of the streets and neighborhoods surrounding whatever church I attend. I know to the minute how many loops I need to make in order to kill six minutes. Occasionally I have fallen asleep in the church parking lot awaiting the passing of at least one opening song and perhaps a prayer or two.
This Sunday, I arrived just before things got rolling and took my seat at the back of the auditorium. A woman initially came in and placed her Bible a couple of chairs down from me, but when she returned to see "the alone guy" sitting at the end of the row, she shuffled a few seats down with a slight smile.
My least favorite part of any church service is the "turn, shake hands with thy neighbor, and try to ignore the festering wound on their person as you slowly pull your own, now sullied hand from theirs." It's even worse when you're by yourself, and you have a couple of minutes of chit-chat to kill. I discovered on Sunday that my identity in our new church is defined entirely as "the guy with the Chinese kid and the black kid." Until I mentioned that, I might as well have been the meter reader.
I don't blame anyone but myself for this. My answer to "So did you have a good week?" will always be, simply "Yes." And "How are the kids?" will always be returned with "Good." Therefore I don't expect anyone to know that I like 90's indie rock and have a penchant for tavern ham.
In a church made up 90% of families, I always feel bad for the few single guys around the room. For whatever reason, I think a stigma follows single guys at church, perhaps unfairly.
Any time the sermon involves drinking too much, you can sense the eyes slipping over to the 24 year old in wrinkled khakis, flipping through the maps at the back of his Bible. Same goes for sermons on pre-marital sex. You know those poor guys can feel the heat of the stares saying, "Stay the hell away from my daughter, single dude." I had this thought on Sunday as I glanced at Paul's 2nd and 3rd missionary journeys.
Following the service, I was the first one out the door. I was three blocks away before the preacher got to the back door for the post-service meet 'n greet. And when I'm without my family, that's just how I like it.
Showing posts with label church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label church. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
The Church Hunt
A few months ago, we embarked on a new challenge, a challenge we had yet to do as a couple: find a new church. We were both really sad to leave Common Ground, a church that had been my church home for ten years. Bret and I were married at Common Ground; we painted the walls at the new (now old building); we made dinner for the worship team; we (read: I) taught in the toddler room for years, and more than anything, we had friends that were near and dear to us.
But, with another house church (a group we met with weekly) coming to an end and moving in separate directions, Bret and I could not deny the pull and the desire to be involved in a church in Brownsburg. We knew we wanted to serve with, to worship with, to bump into around town with the people of Brownsburg. And, we wanted any effort on our part to help the people in this community.
So, with conviction but sadness, we left our church and have been searching for a church every week. It's been very enlightening for us to embark on this process together, as Bret and I process very differently. We made a list of every church in the area, crossed off the ones that were either way too big or way too small (like "didn't have a class for Grant" kind of small), and then started visiting. We'd visit one church, then another, then go back to the original, then a new church and so on. We prayed a lot.
In the end, we have landed on a new church home: The Bible Church of Brownsburg, and I am so excited to plant somewhere, even if it is new and hard. It's very different (in some ways) from our old church, which can be a hard adjustment, but we're confident that we've made the right decision. Our new church is small (70 families total), centered (on what really matters: the person and work of Christ), challenging (but it's good to get smacked around a little with challenging stuff), and in here in Brownsburg (about five minutes from home).
It's really a leap for me to be in a church so small, a church where everybody really does know everybody, but I'm excited to get my feet wet. We will forever think fondly of our friends at Common Ground; it's been sad and hard, but we knew it was the right choice to leave, and for awhile we were so concerned that we'd never find another church home (like when we went to the church with four families), but we did. We're thankful and excited!
But, with another house church (a group we met with weekly) coming to an end and moving in separate directions, Bret and I could not deny the pull and the desire to be involved in a church in Brownsburg. We knew we wanted to serve with, to worship with, to bump into around town with the people of Brownsburg. And, we wanted any effort on our part to help the people in this community.
So, with conviction but sadness, we left our church and have been searching for a church every week. It's been very enlightening for us to embark on this process together, as Bret and I process very differently. We made a list of every church in the area, crossed off the ones that were either way too big or way too small (like "didn't have a class for Grant" kind of small), and then started visiting. We'd visit one church, then another, then go back to the original, then a new church and so on. We prayed a lot.
In the end, we have landed on a new church home: The Bible Church of Brownsburg, and I am so excited to plant somewhere, even if it is new and hard. It's very different (in some ways) from our old church, which can be a hard adjustment, but we're confident that we've made the right decision. Our new church is small (70 families total), centered (on what really matters: the person and work of Christ), challenging (but it's good to get smacked around a little with challenging stuff), and in here in Brownsburg (about five minutes from home).
It's really a leap for me to be in a church so small, a church where everybody really does know everybody, but I'm excited to get my feet wet. We will forever think fondly of our friends at Common Ground; it's been sad and hard, but we knew it was the right choice to leave, and for awhile we were so concerned that we'd never find another church home (like when we went to the church with four families), but we did. We're thankful and excited!
Monday, January 19, 2009
Other Church
On Sunday, we visited a church that isn't our "home" church. I sang in the Indianapolis Children's Choir as a kid, so I've visited my fair share of churches and synagogues, but I still find visiting a new church to be both entertaining and horrifying.
The church that I grew up in was very conservative. There was a hitching post out front, and the bathroom featured a special dryer for "thy longeth beard." Erin, on the other hand, grew up in slightly less conservative worship environments that featured things like instruments, women and electricity. The diversity in our upbringings always spurs interesting conversations when we attend a new church together.
Sunday morning we pulled into the parking lot and made our way to the front door. Things get tricky for me right off the bat. First off, I had us walk the length of the building in sub zero temperatures to go into an entrance that I thought was near the children's classrooms -- despite there being an indoor, heated walkway that traversed the same path. I did this because I will always risk frost bite over prolonged human interaction. Therefore rather than say, "Hi, my name is Bret, and this IS my first time here" fifty times over the course of 30 feet, I'd rather freeze my ass off, say my greeting once, and follow it up with "Where's the classroom for two year olds?"
We trotted back down the hallway and deposited Grant in his Sunday school classroom. Grant was "the black kid" at Sunday school this week. As usual, there were no tears and hardly a backward glance to make sure we had agreed to return to pick him up. Grant just headed for the nearest group of kids and began playing gleefully. I'm glad he's so social. It makes life much easier. I always dread working in the toddler room at church and having to deal with the two year old who screams and removes various pieces of their parent's clothing as they get dropped off in the classroom. That's always delightful.
Erin and I headed for the main sanctuary and carefully chose a seat a few rows from the back. About 30 seconds after sitting down, the door greeter tracked us down and provided us with some reading material about the church. To be fair, he was one of the better church greeters I've encountered, despite finding us twice within our first few minutes in the building. He was kind, not pushy, and provided me with some genuinely useful information.
Worship time at a new church is always full of questions. Will I know any of the songs? Can I pass on the collection plate without getting a scowl from some old lady who doesn't realize we're new? Will everyone suddenly kneel without warning? Will there be any live animals involved? Is there enough padding on this seat to keep parts of me from getting all numb and tingly, but not so much as to put me to sleep?
The service at this particular location was pretty typical. At one point, the lights did go dim and then completely off for a few seconds for no apparent reason. I took it as the "2 minute warning" and luckily, I was pretty much on target.
During the invitation song, several couples made their way to the front of the sanctuary. At my church growing up, if you made your way down front during the invitation, there was either a body in the trunk of your car, or you fornicated with an elder’s wife out back during a pot luck. You didn't go forward because you wanted prayer about an upcoming medical test or your grant aunt Edna had a growth on her neck. At this new church, you had to go forward if you wanted to become a member of their congregation. I found this interesting, although I was disappointed that I didn't get to witness a public shaming of one sort or another.
All in all, I enjoyed our experience, and I think it's good to see what other churches have to offer on occasion. If there had been one, I might have stuck around for a pitch-in. Casseroles and desserts often say more about a church than a sermon.
The church that I grew up in was very conservative. There was a hitching post out front, and the bathroom featured a special dryer for "thy longeth beard." Erin, on the other hand, grew up in slightly less conservative worship environments that featured things like instruments, women and electricity. The diversity in our upbringings always spurs interesting conversations when we attend a new church together.
Sunday morning we pulled into the parking lot and made our way to the front door. Things get tricky for me right off the bat. First off, I had us walk the length of the building in sub zero temperatures to go into an entrance that I thought was near the children's classrooms -- despite there being an indoor, heated walkway that traversed the same path. I did this because I will always risk frost bite over prolonged human interaction. Therefore rather than say, "Hi, my name is Bret, and this IS my first time here" fifty times over the course of 30 feet, I'd rather freeze my ass off, say my greeting once, and follow it up with "Where's the classroom for two year olds?"
We trotted back down the hallway and deposited Grant in his Sunday school classroom. Grant was "the black kid" at Sunday school this week. As usual, there were no tears and hardly a backward glance to make sure we had agreed to return to pick him up. Grant just headed for the nearest group of kids and began playing gleefully. I'm glad he's so social. It makes life much easier. I always dread working in the toddler room at church and having to deal with the two year old who screams and removes various pieces of their parent's clothing as they get dropped off in the classroom. That's always delightful.
Erin and I headed for the main sanctuary and carefully chose a seat a few rows from the back. About 30 seconds after sitting down, the door greeter tracked us down and provided us with some reading material about the church. To be fair, he was one of the better church greeters I've encountered, despite finding us twice within our first few minutes in the building. He was kind, not pushy, and provided me with some genuinely useful information.
Worship time at a new church is always full of questions. Will I know any of the songs? Can I pass on the collection plate without getting a scowl from some old lady who doesn't realize we're new? Will everyone suddenly kneel without warning? Will there be any live animals involved? Is there enough padding on this seat to keep parts of me from getting all numb and tingly, but not so much as to put me to sleep?
The service at this particular location was pretty typical. At one point, the lights did go dim and then completely off for a few seconds for no apparent reason. I took it as the "2 minute warning" and luckily, I was pretty much on target.
During the invitation song, several couples made their way to the front of the sanctuary. At my church growing up, if you made your way down front during the invitation, there was either a body in the trunk of your car, or you fornicated with an elder’s wife out back during a pot luck. You didn't go forward because you wanted prayer about an upcoming medical test or your grant aunt Edna had a growth on her neck. At this new church, you had to go forward if you wanted to become a member of their congregation. I found this interesting, although I was disappointed that I didn't get to witness a public shaming of one sort or another.
All in all, I enjoyed our experience, and I think it's good to see what other churches have to offer on occasion. If there had been one, I might have stuck around for a pitch-in. Casseroles and desserts often say more about a church than a sermon.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Convicted by the Kid
A few weeks ago we discovered, somewhat to our horror, that Grant now recognizes the lovely gray and blue brick behemoth that is our local Wal-Mart. Grant wanders around the house saying, "Shopping? Shopping?" while pushing his little shopping cart, so we've convinced ourselves that we've tought our child about pushing a cart rather than outright consumerism.
This past Sunday, Erin and I made an agreement to sleep in as long as possible. Grant had been sick all weekend and therefore not sleeping, which led in turn to us not sleeping. We had also been a part of a church retreat on Saturday for the duration of the day, so we were all more than a little bit tired.
After sleeping in, having a bite of breakfast, and doing as little bathing as required by the health code, we piled into Big Whitey (our beloved Kia minivan) to grab a few groceries at Wal-Mart.
As we pulled into the parking lot Erin, always the overly proud mother, said to Grant "Where are we, Grant?" With little hesitation, Grant responded in a questioning tone, "Church?" As we walked to the front door, he repeated it several times, "Church? Church?"
Leave it to your kid to call you out on sleeping in on Sunday...
This past Sunday, Erin and I made an agreement to sleep in as long as possible. Grant had been sick all weekend and therefore not sleeping, which led in turn to us not sleeping. We had also been a part of a church retreat on Saturday for the duration of the day, so we were all more than a little bit tired.
After sleeping in, having a bite of breakfast, and doing as little bathing as required by the health code, we piled into Big Whitey (our beloved Kia minivan) to grab a few groceries at Wal-Mart.
As we pulled into the parking lot Erin, always the overly proud mother, said to Grant "Where are we, Grant?" With little hesitation, Grant responded in a questioning tone, "Church?" As we walked to the front door, he repeated it several times, "Church? Church?"
Leave it to your kid to call you out on sleeping in on Sunday...
Monday, September 10, 2007
I hope this guy doesn't charge much
Regarding the fact that people just paid top dollar for new iPhones when a $200 price break came just days later, CNN had the following quote:
"If they told me at the outset the iPhone would be $200 cheaper the next day, I would have thought about it for a second -- and still bought it," said Andrew Brin, a 47-year-old addiction therapist in Los Angeles.
That's a bit like having a one-eyed optometrist or an AA sponsor who works for Budweiser, isn't it?
In other random thoughts, Erin and I were responsible for helping out in the toddler's room at church Sunday morning. Toddlers are an interesting age to me. They walk around on two feet, eat pretty much normal food, and seem as though they should be able to carry on a normal conversation. But then you sit down with them and they try to pull your eyelid over your forehead or pee on you. They're like little aliens.
In previous toddler room experiences, I've been less than effective. I'll wander around and eventually sit down to play with a group of them, and usually after a few minutes, they've overcome me and are hitting me with toy hammers. I don't know if they're old enough to understand, "One more hammer and somebody's taking a punch" or if I should say, "No, no. That's not what we do with hammers. Those are for furniture."
This time around was much more successful, and I can attribute it fully to having Grant (who despite being eight months old is large enough to seem like a toddler.) I have a much better understanding of these small humans after just a few months of absorbing Grant-drool, and I was actually pretty effective this morning at playing with, feeding, and avoiding being abused by the kids.
On the way home, I told Erin that I still feel like I'm urine soaked after having twenty different diapered kids sit on my lap, and she just smiled that half smile which says, "Oh good. Then you're still crazy."
"If they told me at the outset the iPhone would be $200 cheaper the next day, I would have thought about it for a second -- and still bought it," said Andrew Brin, a 47-year-old addiction therapist in Los Angeles.
That's a bit like having a one-eyed optometrist or an AA sponsor who works for Budweiser, isn't it?
In other random thoughts, Erin and I were responsible for helping out in the toddler's room at church Sunday morning. Toddlers are an interesting age to me. They walk around on two feet, eat pretty much normal food, and seem as though they should be able to carry on a normal conversation. But then you sit down with them and they try to pull your eyelid over your forehead or pee on you. They're like little aliens.
In previous toddler room experiences, I've been less than effective. I'll wander around and eventually sit down to play with a group of them, and usually after a few minutes, they've overcome me and are hitting me with toy hammers. I don't know if they're old enough to understand, "One more hammer and somebody's taking a punch" or if I should say, "No, no. That's not what we do with hammers. Those are for furniture."
This time around was much more successful, and I can attribute it fully to having Grant (who despite being eight months old is large enough to seem like a toddler.) I have a much better understanding of these small humans after just a few months of absorbing Grant-drool, and I was actually pretty effective this morning at playing with, feeding, and avoiding being abused by the kids.
On the way home, I told Erin that I still feel like I'm urine soaked after having twenty different diapered kids sit on my lap, and she just smiled that half smile which says, "Oh good. Then you're still crazy."
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Memorial Day
How is it possible to have a three day holiday weekend in which you don't even spend enough time at your own home to mow the grass?
Such was our Memorial Day weekend. I'm not complaining. We got to see nearly every member of my side of the family for approximately 11 seconds each, and we got to see some of Erin's extended family for around 8 seconds each. Pretty successful, given the timetable. I think we put about 400 miles on Big Whitey which cost us about $100, so that's depressing. On the upside, Grant delighted his road worn parents by sleeping completely through the night last night. I thought the wife had taken a nip off the bottle this morning she was so giddy. Hopefully this will become a trend.
The weekend started with a wedding for some friends from church on Saturday in Bloomington. Erin and I were both in the wedding. Erin was chosen to say a prayer, and I was asked to read (!). I spent several minutes before her prayer trying to coach Erin into saying something enlightening. She kept giving me all this business about praying for God's mercy and grace. I told her that God's mercy and grace could be best shown through a mercifully short ceremony followed by a graceful after-wedding buffet, which did indeed turn out to be true. The reception was at a lovely Italian restaurant in Bloomington called Tutto Béne, which offered a cozy atmosphere ensconced in exposed brick, couches, and high ceilings. Apparently the place was a factory at one time and more recently a muffler shop. The restauranteers have done a nice job exercising the exhaust fumes. I was excited to find out about this place, since every time we eat in Bloomington we end up at Texas Roadhouse or the Olive Garden. I have no problem with either of those restaurants (both will feed me until I'm sweating, which is my criteria for fine dining), but it is nice to take in a local experience from time to time, and I have no doubt we'll return to Tutto Béne in the future.
Sunday we attended a high school graduation party for one of my cousins. She made it through high school with a diploma and without a child, which is always a source of pride for us Hoosiers. Now she's off to Indiana University to study hard and discuss conservative politics with her fellow acadamians (her parents read this, you know). Congratulations, Kate! Your accomplishments are helping make up for the rest of us!
Yesterday we had lunch with some of Erin's extended family from California who join us each year for the Indy 500. Having grown up in Indy, I'm always fascinated by people's devotion to the Big Race. I've never attended the event and have generally writtten it off as merely a source of traffic tie ups and hearing loss, but others think it's the greatest thing since "all you can eat." In any case, it was fun to introduce Grant to more family.
So for the rest of this week, we intend to lock our doors, unplug our phones, and hide out in our house watching "24" and whatever shows up from Netflix. Please don't call after 8pm.
Such was our Memorial Day weekend. I'm not complaining. We got to see nearly every member of my side of the family for approximately 11 seconds each, and we got to see some of Erin's extended family for around 8 seconds each. Pretty successful, given the timetable. I think we put about 400 miles on Big Whitey which cost us about $100, so that's depressing. On the upside, Grant delighted his road worn parents by sleeping completely through the night last night. I thought the wife had taken a nip off the bottle this morning she was so giddy. Hopefully this will become a trend.
The weekend started with a wedding for some friends from church on Saturday in Bloomington. Erin and I were both in the wedding. Erin was chosen to say a prayer, and I was asked to read (!). I spent several minutes before her prayer trying to coach Erin into saying something enlightening. She kept giving me all this business about praying for God's mercy and grace. I told her that God's mercy and grace could be best shown through a mercifully short ceremony followed by a graceful after-wedding buffet, which did indeed turn out to be true. The reception was at a lovely Italian restaurant in Bloomington called Tutto Béne, which offered a cozy atmosphere ensconced in exposed brick, couches, and high ceilings. Apparently the place was a factory at one time and more recently a muffler shop. The restauranteers have done a nice job exercising the exhaust fumes. I was excited to find out about this place, since every time we eat in Bloomington we end up at Texas Roadhouse or the Olive Garden. I have no problem with either of those restaurants (both will feed me until I'm sweating, which is my criteria for fine dining), but it is nice to take in a local experience from time to time, and I have no doubt we'll return to Tutto Béne in the future.
Sunday we attended a high school graduation party for one of my cousins. She made it through high school with a diploma and without a child, which is always a source of pride for us Hoosiers. Now she's off to Indiana University to study hard and discuss conservative politics with her fellow acadamians (her parents read this, you know). Congratulations, Kate! Your accomplishments are helping make up for the rest of us!
Yesterday we had lunch with some of Erin's extended family from California who join us each year for the Indy 500. Having grown up in Indy, I'm always fascinated by people's devotion to the Big Race. I've never attended the event and have generally writtten it off as merely a source of traffic tie ups and hearing loss, but others think it's the greatest thing since "all you can eat." In any case, it was fun to introduce Grant to more family.
So for the rest of this week, we intend to lock our doors, unplug our phones, and hide out in our house watching "24" and whatever shows up from Netflix. Please don't call after 8pm.
Monday, April 09, 2007
The Horrors of Social Interaction
On Sunday, our church and another local church had a combined Easter service at Clowes Hall. This is the one opportunity each year for all 800+ people who usually attend one of our three services on a given Sunday to all be in the same room at the same time. Pastries and coffee were available, and people were invited to mingle for an hour or so prior to the service. Now this is sort of a nightmare for yours truly, because if I know one thing about myself, it's that I'm a fairly crappy mingler (is this really a word?). My usual approach might be to show up about 15 minutes prior to the service and mingle briefly before nervously heading for the cheap seats. In this instance, Erin had to be present an hour early since she was one of the scheduled toddler teachers for the morning. (Teacher is probably a loose term, in this case. She spent two hours cleaning refuse from the tails other people's offspring; not a job I will volunteer for without coersion.) This left me with few options, so I began circling. What I discovered is that the best guy to mingle with at such an event is the guy shelling out the pastries. Not only is he always available, but he's providing me something with which to stuff my face, leaving me inable to converse without crumb spewage. So I repeatedly circled back to his table, each time pretending I'd never seen his selections before, choosily grabbing whatever I hadn't already sampled. (Now I know at least one of the elders from our church reads this, so he can contact me later to verify just how much I really ate and bill me appropriately.) Luckily after several pounds of danish, my sister and brother-in-law arrived, providing me with someone safe with which to converse.
All of this got me to thinking about a prior awkward mingling experience. When I was in middle and high school, I was a frequent user of local BBS's around Indianapolis. That sentence hopelessly dates me, and for those not in the know, BBS's (Bulletin Board Systems) were a precusor to the Internet. User's used their home computer to dial over the phone into someone else's computer, where programs and e-mail could be exchanged with other users of that BBS. There were dozens of BBS's in the area, and occasionally, some brilliant computer nerd would get the idea to have a BBS BBQ, allowing for the BBS users around town to meet face to face with other, previously faceless, BBS users they might "know" from around town. There were several flaws with this plan.
First off, computer users are, by defintion, not socially adept or compatible creatures. They sit around at night staring at dimly lit computer screens, praying it will someday lead to a chance encounter with a member of the opposite sex. (The "opposite" part of that sentence frequently backfires, given the anonymity involved in BBS usage.)
Second, one of the primary tennets of BBS usage was that you had to continually pick fights with the other users, just to keep the "conversations" going online. (This frequently involved a lot of profanity, often from middle school students masquerading as adults.) This brings up the third problem.
Much like the Internet today, you frequently were misled regarding the age and/or gender of the people you were dealing with. This can create an ugly scenario during a face to face introduction. You thought you'd been chatting with 25 year old Mary when actually it was 52 year old Marvin. And finally, the ratio of actual males to actual females on BBS's was approximately 1000 to 1.
All of this should be creating an image in your mind of a group of men of varying age (and perhaps one unfortunate looking woman) hanging around a strangers house on a weekend, none having ever met before, none having any real understanding of social cues, all having stayed up until approximately 4:30am the night prior fiddling around on the BBSs, all now trying to mingle in an impossibly awkward situation.
For whatever reason, I subjected my buddy Eric to one of these things while we were in high school. I have no idea, really, what we were thinking. We both had girlfriends, and all our presence at such an event could do was degrade our already damaged social status, ensuring that those girls would most assuredly ditch us if they found out we had attended such an affair. I don't think we stayed long, but through some break in logic and the space-time continuum, after seeing this gathering of Indy's most rabid computer users, I still decided to go into Computer Engineering. What I guess I failed to understand at the time was that this meeting was a glimpse into the future, as it looked very similar to virtually all of my undergraduate engineering classes -- with a slightly better male to female ratio. Yet another brilliant decision by yours truly.
(For those who've read this far, there will be more pictures of Grant up soon. I'm well aware that me rambling is only a distraction from the real reason for you checking our blog. The only immediate Grant update is that following our lovely Easter service at church and Easter dinner with the grandparents, around 8:30pm last night, Grant decided to attempt to wake the dead on his own for approximately an hour. The boy has lungs. He was his usual, cheery self following a bath to remove the beads of sweat he was soaked with while screaming his head off. Ah, parenting...)
All of this got me to thinking about a prior awkward mingling experience. When I was in middle and high school, I was a frequent user of local BBS's around Indianapolis. That sentence hopelessly dates me, and for those not in the know, BBS's (Bulletin Board Systems) were a precusor to the Internet. User's used their home computer to dial over the phone into someone else's computer, where programs and e-mail could be exchanged with other users of that BBS. There were dozens of BBS's in the area, and occasionally, some brilliant computer nerd would get the idea to have a BBS BBQ, allowing for the BBS users around town to meet face to face with other, previously faceless, BBS users they might "know" from around town. There were several flaws with this plan.
First off, computer users are, by defintion, not socially adept or compatible creatures. They sit around at night staring at dimly lit computer screens, praying it will someday lead to a chance encounter with a member of the opposite sex. (The "opposite" part of that sentence frequently backfires, given the anonymity involved in BBS usage.)
Second, one of the primary tennets of BBS usage was that you had to continually pick fights with the other users, just to keep the "conversations" going online. (This frequently involved a lot of profanity, often from middle school students masquerading as adults.) This brings up the third problem.
Much like the Internet today, you frequently were misled regarding the age and/or gender of the people you were dealing with. This can create an ugly scenario during a face to face introduction. You thought you'd been chatting with 25 year old Mary when actually it was 52 year old Marvin. And finally, the ratio of actual males to actual females on BBS's was approximately 1000 to 1.
All of this should be creating an image in your mind of a group of men of varying age (and perhaps one unfortunate looking woman) hanging around a strangers house on a weekend, none having ever met before, none having any real understanding of social cues, all having stayed up until approximately 4:30am the night prior fiddling around on the BBSs, all now trying to mingle in an impossibly awkward situation.
For whatever reason, I subjected my buddy Eric to one of these things while we were in high school. I have no idea, really, what we were thinking. We both had girlfriends, and all our presence at such an event could do was degrade our already damaged social status, ensuring that those girls would most assuredly ditch us if they found out we had attended such an affair. I don't think we stayed long, but through some break in logic and the space-time continuum, after seeing this gathering of Indy's most rabid computer users, I still decided to go into Computer Engineering. What I guess I failed to understand at the time was that this meeting was a glimpse into the future, as it looked very similar to virtually all of my undergraduate engineering classes -- with a slightly better male to female ratio. Yet another brilliant decision by yours truly.
(For those who've read this far, there will be more pictures of Grant up soon. I'm well aware that me rambling is only a distraction from the real reason for you checking our blog. The only immediate Grant update is that following our lovely Easter service at church and Easter dinner with the grandparents, around 8:30pm last night, Grant decided to attempt to wake the dead on his own for approximately an hour. The boy has lungs. He was his usual, cheery self following a bath to remove the beads of sweat he was soaked with while screaming his head off. Ah, parenting...)
Monday, July 24, 2006
More Indiana Trek
Another weekend, another long drive for the Hawkins family. Yet again this weekend, we set out exploring various campsites for Erin's big camping trip in a couple of weeks. By the time it's all said and done, we'll have checked out more campgrounds than Lewis & Clark. On Saturday, me and Sacaja-wifey headed down to the Indian-Celina Lake Recreation Area in the Hoosier National Forest. We had hiked around Indian Lake on the Two Lakes Loop back when Erin received a grant to hike all over the state. Our sole memory of this experience was that it was really hot and extremely bug ridden. I just remember hiking along continually swatting insects away from my face. Given this exquisite memory, I was oh so excited to return to the lakes.
Prior to our arrival at the recreation area, we decided to do some canoeing on the Blue River courtesy of Cave Country Canoes. Erin plans to begin her big camping trip with a float down the Blue, so since we were in the neighborhood, we decided to give it a whirl. It's kind of hard to see on this map, but we took the half day trip on the upper portion of the river, just north of the outfitter's Milltown base. We had a great time, and the weather, which had rained on us all the way from home down to the southern end of the state, ended up being perfect while we were on the river. We were successful in keeping the canoe upright during the whole trip, but we did hit one set of rapids that left me soaked. All in all, we had a very nice trip, and I'd highly recommend the experience to anyone looking for a canoe trip in southern Indiana. Not only is the scenery on the river itself beautiful, but watching our fellow canoers chasing wild turkeys along the shore, smashing beer cans on their foreheads, and wearing bathing suits that MIGHT have fit back when Dukes of Hazzard was on the air made it all that much more fun.
After our canoeing experience, we drove on down to the recreation area to look for camp sites. This has turned into a very stressful endeavor for Erin. Originally she had planned on having the trip at Land Between the Lakes, and its combination of scenery, the lakes, hiking, and relative remoteness made it ideal for her trip. The only problem was getting chaperones to commit to being six hours away from home for the week. So the solution was to move the trip to Indiana, and recruit yours truly for at least one night of chaperoning. It didn't seem like it would be hard to find a patch of Deliverance country in Indiana on which to camp, hike, and swim in a lake. But it has turned out to be difficult to find all those things along with a somewhat secluded camp site. In any case, she found the perfect campsite near Celina Lake on Saturday, only to find that it was already reserved for the dates she needed. Just as the weeping and gnashing of teeth set in, I suggested we head south a few miles to Tipsaw Lake. As we approached the turn for Tipsaw, we noticed that the road sign for the lake pointed to the right. To the left, it pointed to the Branchvillle Correctional Facility. Maybe Erin can offer a craft session on making a shiv. While not quite as ideal as the sites she found on Celina, the sites we saw at Tipsaw could do the job. In the end, I think Tipsaw will be the winner, but there's at least one more weekend of driving available between now and then, so we'll see what happens.
After leaving Tipsaw Lake, we headed up the middle of the state to have a look at Patoka Lake. Neither of us had ever been to Patoka, and while Erin had already checked out the potential camping availabilities and decided they probably wouldn't work, we figured since we were in the general vicinity... Patoka is big, remote, and from what we saw on Saturday, covered with boats and jet skiiers. Erin has a fixation on eventually owning a lake house, and Patoka would be a candidate, but it's a long drive from Indy. We'll see... I have enough trouble maintaining our main house.
From Patoka, we headed for home via French Lick. I was interested to drive through French Lick to see the renovations being done to both the French Lick Springs Resort and West Baden Springs Hotel. If you've never been to these two hotels, you really should stop in if you're ever in southern Indiana. The West Baden Springs looks like something that belongs on a mountain top in Europe, and it originally was referred to as the Eighth Wonder of the World. Currently both resorts are being restored, and an adjacent casino is being built. I was surprised by the amount of work being done, especially on the French Lick Springs. All the streets around the hotel are torn up, and it looked like every window in the place was out. The new casino sits right out in front and to the side of the original hotel, and it looks relatively huge as well. Here's a link to pictures of the restoration, and here's another link to a webcam of the restoration site. It'll be exciting to check this place out in a couple of years, since my whole life, the area surrounding these two rather amazing structures has looked like a study in decay. I was sad to note that my favorite liquor store in Indiana -- French Liquors -- had apparently closed. Au revoir, French Liquors.
Following French Lick and dinner in Bedford (yes, we were THAT hungry), we headed for home. Here's a map of our route.
We broke the 300 mile mark for yet another weekend. I've gotta get me a hybrid if we're going to keep this up. I love my Hyundai, but it chugs gas like a '76 Grenada. Hopefully we're done with the cross state treks for a while, although I do have to say that I've enjoyed seeing some parts of the state that I haven't seen previously.
The trip was the big part of our weekend, but on Friday night we made another trip to Rustic Gardens with some friends from church. Yours truly won this round, beating his charming wife by many a stroke. Our friends found the place as bizarre as we did, but I think everyone had a good time. Mini golf was preceded by dinner at the Fountain Diner, one of our favorite little hangouts in Indy. We had our wedding rehearsal dinner at the Action Duckpin Bowling alley upstairs, so it's always sentimental to go back down there.
On Sunday, our parents all returned from their cruise in the western Carribbean. We were glad to have everyone back, and Erin's parents didn't seem to mind that we slept at their place and ate the majority of their food. It sounds like they had a great trip, and Erin's aunt and uncle got me a T-shirt which begs, "Where the hell is Belize?" You gotta love that.
Prior to our arrival at the recreation area, we decided to do some canoeing on the Blue River courtesy of Cave Country Canoes. Erin plans to begin her big camping trip with a float down the Blue, so since we were in the neighborhood, we decided to give it a whirl. It's kind of hard to see on this map, but we took the half day trip on the upper portion of the river, just north of the outfitter's Milltown base. We had a great time, and the weather, which had rained on us all the way from home down to the southern end of the state, ended up being perfect while we were on the river. We were successful in keeping the canoe upright during the whole trip, but we did hit one set of rapids that left me soaked. All in all, we had a very nice trip, and I'd highly recommend the experience to anyone looking for a canoe trip in southern Indiana. Not only is the scenery on the river itself beautiful, but watching our fellow canoers chasing wild turkeys along the shore, smashing beer cans on their foreheads, and wearing bathing suits that MIGHT have fit back when Dukes of Hazzard was on the air made it all that much more fun.
After our canoeing experience, we drove on down to the recreation area to look for camp sites. This has turned into a very stressful endeavor for Erin. Originally she had planned on having the trip at Land Between the Lakes, and its combination of scenery, the lakes, hiking, and relative remoteness made it ideal for her trip. The only problem was getting chaperones to commit to being six hours away from home for the week. So the solution was to move the trip to Indiana, and recruit yours truly for at least one night of chaperoning. It didn't seem like it would be hard to find a patch of Deliverance country in Indiana on which to camp, hike, and swim in a lake. But it has turned out to be difficult to find all those things along with a somewhat secluded camp site. In any case, she found the perfect campsite near Celina Lake on Saturday, only to find that it was already reserved for the dates she needed. Just as the weeping and gnashing of teeth set in, I suggested we head south a few miles to Tipsaw Lake. As we approached the turn for Tipsaw, we noticed that the road sign for the lake pointed to the right. To the left, it pointed to the Branchvillle Correctional Facility. Maybe Erin can offer a craft session on making a shiv. While not quite as ideal as the sites she found on Celina, the sites we saw at Tipsaw could do the job. In the end, I think Tipsaw will be the winner, but there's at least one more weekend of driving available between now and then, so we'll see what happens.
After leaving Tipsaw Lake, we headed up the middle of the state to have a look at Patoka Lake. Neither of us had ever been to Patoka, and while Erin had already checked out the potential camping availabilities and decided they probably wouldn't work, we figured since we were in the general vicinity... Patoka is big, remote, and from what we saw on Saturday, covered with boats and jet skiiers. Erin has a fixation on eventually owning a lake house, and Patoka would be a candidate, but it's a long drive from Indy. We'll see... I have enough trouble maintaining our main house.
From Patoka, we headed for home via French Lick. I was interested to drive through French Lick to see the renovations being done to both the French Lick Springs Resort and West Baden Springs Hotel. If you've never been to these two hotels, you really should stop in if you're ever in southern Indiana. The West Baden Springs looks like something that belongs on a mountain top in Europe, and it originally was referred to as the Eighth Wonder of the World. Currently both resorts are being restored, and an adjacent casino is being built. I was surprised by the amount of work being done, especially on the French Lick Springs. All the streets around the hotel are torn up, and it looked like every window in the place was out. The new casino sits right out in front and to the side of the original hotel, and it looks relatively huge as well. Here's a link to pictures of the restoration, and here's another link to a webcam of the restoration site. It'll be exciting to check this place out in a couple of years, since my whole life, the area surrounding these two rather amazing structures has looked like a study in decay. I was sad to note that my favorite liquor store in Indiana -- French Liquors -- had apparently closed. Au revoir, French Liquors.
Following French Lick and dinner in Bedford (yes, we were THAT hungry), we headed for home. Here's a map of our route.
We broke the 300 mile mark for yet another weekend. I've gotta get me a hybrid if we're going to keep this up. I love my Hyundai, but it chugs gas like a '76 Grenada. Hopefully we're done with the cross state treks for a while, although I do have to say that I've enjoyed seeing some parts of the state that I haven't seen previously.
The trip was the big part of our weekend, but on Friday night we made another trip to Rustic Gardens with some friends from church. Yours truly won this round, beating his charming wife by many a stroke. Our friends found the place as bizarre as we did, but I think everyone had a good time. Mini golf was preceded by dinner at the Fountain Diner, one of our favorite little hangouts in Indy. We had our wedding rehearsal dinner at the Action Duckpin Bowling alley upstairs, so it's always sentimental to go back down there.
On Sunday, our parents all returned from their cruise in the western Carribbean. We were glad to have everyone back, and Erin's parents didn't seem to mind that we slept at their place and ate the majority of their food. It sounds like they had a great trip, and Erin's aunt and uncle got me a T-shirt which begs, "Where the hell is Belize?" You gotta love that.
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Harvest Party Gone Wild
Last night was our first annual Hawkins Family Harvest Party. A few things to be noted:
1. There was a strict plan of attack and schedule, complete with pumpkin carving, Charlie Brown Halloween cartoons, haunted chili cookoff and a haunted hayride. We had just a FEW problems with said schedule: the hayride line was FOREVER, the Notre Dame v USC game won out over Charlie Brown, and the haunted chili cookoff started at 5 instead of 7. I would like it noted by all that it was not my fault about the chili. As proof, I have provided the link to the city of Brownsburg's own site:
http://www.brownsburg.com/Haunts/Frontpage%20templates/halloween.html
Please note near the bottom the schedule of events. See. There. I told you so.
2. Needless to say, our good friends have good spirits, and we had a good time anyway. Good. There.
See attached pictures:
http://bretanderin.shutterfly.com/action/pictures?a=67b0de21b3233290c487
I have to admit, that I think my Math inspired pumpkin (which quickly became the engineer nerd pumpkin--ah, poor Bret) was waaaaay cool, especially his PI ears.
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