Self-Imposed Exile

There are some stores that I should just know better than to go into - if I go into them, I'm not getting out of them without significant damage to my wallet.

The Electric Fetus is such a store.

I went in with three things on my list. Three things because if you buy at least 3 CDs there at once, you get a 10% discount on all of them. Which makes me feel not as bad about buying 3 CDs at once, because I'm saving money. . .erm. . .yeah, that's it, saving money by buying in bulk. . .

I was also hoping they could help me track down something else that I had heard and liked but am having trouble sourcing.

Turned out, they had only one of the three CDs I was looking for, and the guy I spoke with was useless in helping me track the other thing (I'm finding the upside of watching a Glee-esque German telenovela is that it's introducing me to some good new music; the downside is that the stuff I'm not familiar with is European and not so easy to get hold of here in the States).

But if you buy three CDs at Electric Fetus, you get a discount on all of them. And I had one lowly CD in hand.

So, I perused around a little, and found a lot more than 3 CDs I was interested in buying. And some of them were even on sale, at really good prices. And since they are CDs I'm ultimately going to buy anyway, I might as well get a good price on them, right?. . .

The moral of the story, kids, is that I've got a lot of great new music to listen to.

And I'm banishing myself from the Electric Fetus for at least the next six months.

Seriously - friends, public, if you see me in there before 2012 consider this your permission to drag me out of the store, by the ear if necessary.

The Changeup

Alright, I've received enough feedback about the new font being too hard to read, so I'm trying this instead. I really liked the "Covered By Your Grace" font and didn't want to lose it completely so I've basically switched the post title font and the post text font.

Your feedback is once again welcome.

And as long as I'm asking for feedback - is anybody else having trouble reading the banner? It should say

"The Mad Preacher Liberation Front
. . .practicing resurrection daily."

That's what I see on my screen whether I'm in edit mode or simple reading mode (aka not logged in), but I have at least one friend who is only seeing the "The" on the first line.

Oh No He Di'int!

Andy recently took our winter vs. summer debate to the blogosphere and managed to knock both winter and the Great Lakes as he did it.

As I sweat just sitting here in the 80 degrees Fahrenheit with 87% humidity that is still going on at midnight (which, sadly, does feel *slightly* better than the 84 degrees Fahrenheit with 90% humidity that was midnight around this time last week), I feel the need to defend winter's honor.

So let me tell you a bit about why winter is the far superior season:

+there are no bugs

+there are no ticks

+there is no outdoor mold or pollen

+dry cold winter air is crisp and refreshing and easy to breathe. humid hot summer air is suffocating

+water freezes over and snow covers the ground, making everything traversable with the right equipment

+you CAN still grow food in winter in these things called greenhouses, and when the things are done growing, mother nature provides you a free all-natural icebox so that the things you have grown don't spoil. In summer you've got to eat fast or do things that generate even more heat in order to preserve your food

+if you are cold you can always pile on another layer of clothes or blankets, put another log on the fire, or move around. conversely, in the summer you can be sitting absolutely still in front of a fan in your birthday suit, and still be uncomfortably hot with not much more you can do to make the situation better (outside of immersing yourself in cold water or searching out someplace with air conditioning)

+a worst-case scenario in winter is hypothermia, where you feel cold but then you feel warm and just fall asleep. a worst-case scenario in summer is heat exhaustion/dehydration, which involves a lot of headaches, cramping, and puking, among other things. I will take my chances with hypothermia over heat exhaustion any day of the week

+the sun still shines in the winter, so you can soak up plenty of vitamin D during all the good times and social events like going skiing, sledding, or ice skating with your friends

I could keep going, but I don't think that's necessary.
Clearly, I win this argument. :)

I will concede Andy three points. Summer is good for the long days, for swimming uppadalake, and (naturally) for baseball. These are the three things that make summer bearable to me. That, and knowing that the State Fair comes at the end of it. But that's really about it.

I will also concede that much of my defense of winter is particular to Upper Midwestern winter, not Mid-Atlantic winter, so he lacks the life experience to truly understand what I'm saying. Just like I'm pretty sure he doesn't understand the whole "the Great Lakes are like oceans" thing because his main experience of the Great Lakes is Lake Michigan as seen from downtown Chicago.

Having been to the oceans (Atlantic and Pacific, not to mention the Baltic Sea) and to the Great Lakes, I maintain the Great Lakes are like the ocean, only better because they are freshwater.

And having lived through several summers and winters in both the Mid-Atlantic and the Upper Midwest, I maintain that winter is the superior season, hands down, both places.

That's my side of this debate, and I'm sticking to it! :)

30 Days

. . .until the happiest place on earth once again magically appears just north of the Midway.

SO. STINKIN. EXCITED.

Oh State That Will Not Let Me Go

When I moved from MN to PA, the state of MN was entirely convinced that I had actually moved away. I got a PA driver's license, transferred the title to Hermes, registered to vote, got a local library card, started paying PA taxes on my PA paycheck, and I didn't have to do anything else to prove myself or reassure MN that I had, in fact, left.

The same cannot be said of my move from PA back to MN.

I did all the same things in the process of moving: got a MN driver's license, transferred the title to Hermes once again, registered to vote, got a local library card, started paying MN taxes on my MN paycheck. And in March, Union County, PA, mailed me the bill for the occupation tax (yes, this is a tax you pay just for breathing air and occupying space within the county - it costs $5 for the year, $4.90 if you pay the tax within the first month of receiving the bill). Note they didn't just forward the bill, it came back to them and they had to ADDRESS A NEW ENVELOPE TO MINNESOTA to send me a bill for occupying space in Pennsylvania (which I had not done since August). Having to mail this sucker to another state was not enough to convince them I had really moved - I had to send back a copy of my new driver's license and swear on my honor that I had really, truly moved out of the state (I am honestly surprised they didn't require a notary to verify the signature, or a blood test to certify it was me and not my evil twin who had moved).

I thought that was the end of it.

Then today in the mail I received another letter from Union County, this time from the board of elections, to the effect of "We see you have a Minnesota address. We're not sure if that's in Union County or not - can you please verify whether you still live here."

?!?!?!?!?!?!?! WTF ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Oh Pennsylvania, we had a great run, don't go making it all awkward now with these tax and voter registration shenanigans. I know it's hard, I miss you a lot too, but seriously, it's time to let me go.

Drunk on Books

I've always jokingly spoken of my book collecting as an addiction - turns out such joking is not so far from the truth.


(Here I am getting a fix at one of my favorite bookstores in the entire world: The Strand in New York City. I also highly recommend Powell's in Portland, Oregon, and Loome's in Stillwater, Minnesota).


Hat tip to Josh for the link.

Tragically Unhip

It's beginning to feel like everybody I know has spent the summer:

1. going to Holden Village

and/or

2. going to the U2 concert

I have done neither of these things. I'm starting to feel like I'm missing out. . .


And now for something completely different:

I was on call this past week and ended up fielding a LOT of unusual stuff. . .like, if I didn't know any better, I'd almost suspect Dan May had figured out how to get revenge for all the times he covered for me and I openly encouraged my folks to call him at midnight to request an emergency hamster baptism, ask him a deep dark meaning of life question, practice reciting the books of the Bible in order, etc.

Hmmm, I didn't think he had any power beyond Appalachia but I may have underestimated the extent of his reach. . .

Tips For Young Pastors

This would fall under the category of "things they don't really teach you at seminary." Though, in fairness, I'm not sure how they would really teach this at seminary.

But just so you know, there's the gospel you preach in the worship service, which you have been carefully tending to and thinking about and crafting since the moment you read the appointed texts for that Sunday and started formulating both your sermon and the full scope of the service.

And then there's the gospel you preach to the person who walks into the building 10 minutes after the service has ended, whose life is currently pretty messy, who came to their wits end and didn't know where else to turn, so they've come to you. And as you listen to their story, you realize the sermon and the service you just finished leading could have spoken pretty powerfully into the messiness of their situation, if only they'd shown up an hour earlier. But they didn't show up an hour earlier, they showed up now, 10 minutes after it was all over, and they are looking to you, now, in this moment, for a word of life and hope and light in a world that is overwhelming them with death, despair, and darkness.


You need to be prepared to preach the gospel in both situations.

Sermon, Write Thyself

Wait for it. . .



. . .waaaaaait for it. . .




Really? Nothing?


I figured it couldn't hurt to try. You miss 100% of the shots you never take, right?

If only I'd accepted that scholarship to Hogwarts instead of Luther, it just might have worked. :)

Ah well, back to my trusty legal pad, then. . .

Best 4th of July Ever

Independence Day is not anywhere close to my favorite holiday, but for some reason it always proves to be one of the most memorable ones in terms of the day's events.

I've experienced a number of memorable 4ths, including but not limited to: one hosting Adri and Martina during their very first visit to America, two in the nation's capital (as a teenager marching in the National 4th of July parade with the Flaketown Marching Band, and as a young adult living in DC), one driving back to Minnesota the day after Sarah and Rob's wedding (btw, Happy Anniversary yous twos!), and two as an ex-patriot (one with friends in Ottendorf-Okrilla, the other observed with fellow ex-patriots in a French bar in the Kunsthof of Dresden's Neustadt).

But today I got to celebrate the 4th with the bambino, on her very first day in Minnesota. And what made it the best and most memorable ever was the smile on her face and the excitement in her eyes when she realized it was Auntie C who had just walked in the door.

Every time I think I couldn't possibly love this kid any more than I already do, she goes and opens the door to a chamber in my heart that I didn't even know existed.

Arguments I Don't Hear Much Part 1

This came out of a conversation about marriage equality that I was involved in on facebook earlier in the week and just haven't had time to post here yet. But there are a couple arguments that I only ever seem to hear myself making, and I don't think they're bad arguments, so I'm trying to spread them around. :)

Part 1 is the political argument. Part 2 will be the religious argument, a post for another day. But here goes:

So, to my mind there are many things flawed about this marriage amendment fiasco (like, when is it ever a good idea to leave civil rights up to the whims of the majority? Seriously, somebody give me a case study from history where that turned out to be a good thing. . .). But perhaps most flawed is its method (says the girl who's been studying methodology for a month).

Because, as previously noted on this blog, gay marriage is already illegal in MN. And the vote before us is a vote to keep gay marriage illegal in MN. By analogy, it's like holding a statewide vote on keeping the common loon as the MN state bird (for those woefully ignorant of all things Minnesotan, the common loon is already the state bird).

If the vote "wins" (more people vote for it than against it) - nothing changes. Gay marriage was illegal before, gay marriage is still illegal after; similarly, the common loon is the state bird before, and the common loon is still the state bird after.

If the vote "fails" (more people vote against it than for it) - still, nothing changes. We won't wake up the next morning and suddenly gay marriage will be legal because a majority voted against keeping it illegal. Just as we wouldn't wake up the next morning and find the common loon is no longer the state bird because a majority voted against keeping it the state bird. Other legislation (or judicial ruling or executive order) would be required to make any change to the status quo.

The whole design of this vote is so flawed. . .

And yes, I have to admit, an entire month spent rejecting or failing to reject null hypotheses helped lead me to this argument. (gulp!) Statistics proved somewhat useful after all.

What a Day Costs

This is fantastic and horrifying all at the same time. Sadly, I don't know how to embed vimeo, so you're just going to have to click the link to check it out.

But it reminds me of a post I intended to make a couple months ago - I had to estimate a yearly budget for a grant I was applying for and was shocked to discover that, as simple and barebones of a life as I think I lead (and I think by most American standards, I'm living pretty simply), it still takes $29,000/year just to keep myself sheltered, insured, transported, fed, and clothed.

In MN the federal poverty line for a family of 4 is $22,350.

How in the world are people supposed to make that happen?



Thanks to Nick Clark for the video and Mary Hess for pointing me to it. In her frustration with the state government shutdown, Mary is going to continue posting videos from this Minnesota Without Poverty class assignment, so keep checking her blog if you'd like to see more.