CurtBlog : General

This guy gets it

skills0 — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 11:55:38 GMT

Some really great musings on what's wrong with the evangelical church (and why we should love it and stick it out anyway).

Here's a good introduction to where he's coming from.

some wedding photos

skills0 — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:47:39 GMT

Anne continues to upload wedding photos to her Flickr account and we should be getting the whole batch before too much longer...

Getting settled

skills0 — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:17:16 GMT

Well, after this past weekend we can finally walk around most of the condo again. Most of our wedding gifts are put away and there has been much reorganization, donations to Salvation Army and the traditional post-wedding buying of the furniture. In our case, a pantry from Ikea to store our ever-growing collection of food and stuff to make it with and a couple of nice big dressers for the bedroom from Dania.

I am also trying to discover my inner handyman and even figured out how to use a hole saw attachment for my cordless drill. I finally got Kame (the turtle) an aquarium off Craigslist (a much larger 55 gallon variety) and the lid wasn't quite high enough for the basking light. So it required a 1 1/2" hole, which turned out rather nicely. Small steps.

We also finally got some plants in the ground and have once again resumed our yearly battle with squirrels, who think our plant containers are solely meant for them to bury nuts. Little em-effers. Hate those things. And for any of you that think they are just so cute, we'll send them over to eat up your plants and see how you like that. Go back to the forest, you little tree rats.

An Evangelical Who Gets It

skills0 — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 16:09:19 GMT

Interesting blog post today about Rev. Richard Cizik, head of the Washington office for the National Association of Evangelicals. This guy rocks and he gets it about environmental issues. And it's just icing on the cake for me that he is pissing James Dodson and other right-wingers off. It's about time we have people who aren't practically nutcases speaking for evangelicals.
It's nice to see the tide starting to turn among evangelicals in small ways. We are starting a discussion group at our church for those of us who care about these things. I was amazed and heartened by how many people are thinking about climate change, sustainability and other issues.

Quick Update

skills0 — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 11:41:17 GMT

With planning the wedding, life has been even crazier than usual, so I haven't had a ton of time to blog. So just a few quick updates on various odds and ends. Really enjoying the new Patty Griffin Children Running Throughalbum a lot. If it's possible, she's gotten even better on this one. I'll have a full review up on BlogCritics before too long. Also enjoying UK R&B sensation Amy Winehouse Back to Black, although I had to order that one from Amazon UK. It's available in the US now.

Kristin and I finally saw Children of Men a few weeks ago and boy is it a compelling film. Really dense in both imagery and ideas. Quite thought-provoking, although unrelentingly brutal in the bleakness of its mood and emotionally draining. Highly recommended.

In other news, Kristin and I made our first batch of homebrew beer and it should be ready to try this weekend! It's quite a fun thing to do for the most part, although you really have to worry about sanitation and that's hard for me, being a messy cook and all that. Kristin has an easier time with that, since she works in a biochem lab and is used to sterilizing things, so between the two of us we do okay. We'll see how the beer turns out, but we are already thinking about our next recipe which will probably have to wait until after the wedding.

Marching over the cliff

skills0 — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 11:35:30 GMT

So in his latest harebrained scheme, our magnificent ass of a president and his Legion of Doom have decided in their infinite wisdom that all the war in Iraq needs is more soldiers. This is the equivalent of putting another story on your house after you've already built it directly on a flood plain. at least the roof is higher in case you need to climb up there and wait for rescue. This war is never going to be winnable in any sense of the word, there have already been too many civilian and American soldier casulties for any sane person to call it winning. This administration is marching America off the cliff in every area that matters (war, energy, tax reform, environment, poverty, education, art, civil liberties) and the next election can't come soon enough for me. The sooner these bums are out of office the better. I hope this latest plan backfires so badly that no Republican has a chance of winning in 2008 and I only hope it doesn't take a lot more bloodshed and death to make it clear this approach is fatally flawed (no pun intended).

Don't feed the birds

skills0 — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 11:36:00 GMT

So I was walking to work this morning and over by the river someone had put out a big pile of feed pellets for the pigeons. what the heck are they thinking feeding these ~~birds~~ sky rats? Who are they ... PETA-wannabees ... thinking they are being kind to nature? These birds carry disease, are overpopulated, crap on everything and are just generally annoying in public places begging for food. Newsflash: you aren't saving the planet when you feed city pigeons. We should import an elite squadron of fighter eagles into the city to take care of the problem once and for all. But fortunately or unfortunately, eagles don't thrive in urban environments while pigeons have adapted just fine to become the rats of the sky. But please people, do your part and don't ever feed the pigeons. Feed other wild birds as much as you can, like blue jays, cardinals and chickadees, but not pigeons. And please don't feed squirrels either, they are evil and must be destroyed. And judging by the ones in my neighborhood, appear to be overeating if anything.

Is this what getting old feels like?

skills0 — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 11:15:47 GMT

So Monday I had one of those exercise stress echo tests. Due to the major bad voodoo in my mom's side of the family for heart disease (Grandfather dead from heart attack, uncle dead from heart attack, you get the picture) and mom's heart surgery last year, I asked my doctor if it would be smart just to check out the ticker and he agreed. More of a baseline than anything, we didn't expect to find anything bad yet. So I went in Monday early in the morning having had nothing to eat or drink (including coffee), so it was just a joy. The people were nice enough and I didn't have to wait long, ended up joking around with the techs a lot. They start off with an ultrasound of your heart, so that was kinda cool because if I turned my head just right I could see the monitor. Man, our hearts work hard, it looks like the thing is just going to town. Almost violent really. But you have to hold your breath while they take the shots, which is hard enough, but get this. You also have to do it right after you get off the treadmill wheezing and gasping for air. Sounds easy, right. I don't know how the old folks do it. The treadmill program lasts for 20 minutes, but the tech said she has only seen 4 or 5 people make it through the whole thing in the 2 years she has been there. I of course thought I would do okay, since I'm younger and I run, etc. Made it to 13 1/2 minutes before I had to quit. It's pretty challenging because you have all this stuff hanging off you, they are taking your blood pressure on and off and you have to hold on to the bar in front of you. So definitely the most awkward running position possible, especially with the incline. There are 2 techs and a cardiologist watching the whole time, so you definitely feel like a lab rat. I guess this must be what it is like to get old, being poked and prodded and stuck before a live audience. But everything looks good and my blood pressure stayed pretty stable, so the medicine seems to working just fine. All in all, an interesting experience to say the least.

She said yes

skills0 — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 19:37:00 GMT

That's right, Kristin and I are engaged. Late Saturday night/early Sunday morning we went on our 4th edition of the LATE ride. The LATE ride is a early AM bikeride through various parts of Chicago that benefits the Chicago Park System and generally draws about 8000 riders. This event has a lot of history and memories for us, so I thought it would be the perfect occasion to propose. I first did the ride in 2003 soon after I met Kristin and soon after I moved to Chicago. I had just started travelling to California for work, so I still didn't know people very well. A group from church was going and I thought it sounded like a lot of fun. On that first ride, Kristin and I ended up riding together for quite a bit of the ride. Between racing ahead of the others and trying to beat each other (4th grade flirting in retrospect), we had a fairly serious conversation where I talked to Kristin a lot about my background and past. I think it freaked her out a bit, but she also was intrigued and was a great listener. This was well before we started dating, but I already thought she was really cool and wanted to get to know her better. On the 2004 ride, I had just quit traveling and was back in Chicago and we had been through quite a bit of back and forth over whether or not we should date. We emailed a ton while I was traveling and had some really good phone conversations as well. So on that ride we were flirting a lot, much to the disgust (and amusement) of our friends. and a few months later we were officially dating. And then last year we did the ride as a couple and actually had a bit of an argument at the end and ended up having a really good conversation about it and talking about some cool things. Anyway, there are more details, but you'll have to ask me because I'm not going to post them here.

The ring barely made it in time as they finished setting it Saturday morning and I had to sneak up to pick it up without Kristin knowing. I figured at some point she would be looking through my bag for something, so I hid it in a little plastic baggie inside the plastic case of a tire repair kit. Good thing too, because she went through my bag looking for my phone at one point. The sun was coming up as we were finishing the ride and we almost stopped to watch, but we were so nearly done we decided to finish. We walked over to Buckingham Fountain where there were tons of people scattered about and found a spot that was at least somewhat private to watch the sunrise. And that's when I asked her and she said yes (once again, you'll have to ask if you want more details).

Although we were fairly exhausted and didn't get much sleep, I had made reservations for the evening at Spring to celebrate. Kristin was radiant and beautiful despite the fatigue and very excited when she found out where we were going. She didn't know until we were walking up to the restaurant. We had also visited Green Zebra which was created by the same chef and really enjoyed that. We had a delightful waiter who was very funny and charming. We didn't want to drink too much since we were already half asleep, but we did want some wine. So he just paired some half glasses with our appetizer (grilled octopus) and soup (heirloom tomato gazpacho) and then a full glass with our entree. Kristin had the sockeye salmon and I had scallops with oxtail. Both were just amazing. Then the waiter treated us to glasses of moscato to celebrate and we had this delectable chocolate peanut butter bar dessert with homemade peanut butter ice cream. yum. what a day, what a day.

There are a couple of pictures on Flickr and I'll be adding more before long.

Is what we've been told the truth?

skills0 — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 10:47:00 GMT

I have to admit I'm a bit of a conspiracy buff here and there. It's kinda interesting tracking through the inconsistencies around major events like the JFK assassination, Waco, etc. But ever since the events of 9/11, there have been a lot of things about that day that bugged me. Stuff just doesn't add up. Here are some examples. How does fireproof steel, solely through a building/jet fuel fire, fail after less than an hour when most of the jet fuel was expended outside the building and steel doesn't even start softening until over 2000 degrees? Did you know there is not a recorded incident of any skyscraper being brought down by fire and there have been a bunch with fires worse than the ones from the planes. When you look at Pentagon footage, where the heck is the plane? And why is the hole so small? Planes don't vaporize in a jet fuel explosion, have you ever seen a crash when that has happened, except in the movies? Speaking of that, where was the plane in PA? Again, nowhere to be seen. Just a tiny bit of wreckage here and there. And how do people make cell phone calls from the crusing altitude of a jet, even if it was flying low. You can't get reception up there. There are a lot of things from that day that don't add up. If you have had questions about these types of things, check out the documentary Loose Change on Google Video. Even if you are a total skeptic, you should at least give the first 15 minutes a watch and see if you can stop watching. There are some questions out there that the government refuses to answer and a lot of us are wondering why. Thanks to Dale Baker for pointing this out.

Weekend in Buffalo

skills0 — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 10:42:14 GMT

This past weekend Kristin and I were in Buffalo for our friends' Sean and Becky's wedding. Although I can't say I'm a big fan of Buffalo, we had a really good time and got to meet some cool new friends. Here are some highlights of the weekend:

Meeting some cool people among Becky and Sean's circle. Also had a chance to get to know some people better that we already knew.
Getting Duff's buffalo wings with Kristin. Very tasty wings, although not quite a hot as we were expecting. Excellent flavor though.
Sharing a Friendly's Reese's Pieces sundae. We both grew up with Friendly's in the northeast and never get to have it anymore since they don't have stores around us
Finally going to Canada and seeing Niagara Falls from the Canadian side. Rode the Maid of the Mist boat and it is pretty breathtaking being right up close to the falls.
Visiting the Butterfly Conservatory just north of the Falls, it's quite a bit bigger than the one at the Chicago nature museum where Kristin volunteers. There should be a bunch of cool pictures up on Flickr soon. The most interesting moment was when an owl butterly decided Kristin's eyes might hold some tasty nectar and attached itself to her forehead, probing around with its .

Great N.T. Wright article on The DaVinci Code

skills0 — Fri, 19 May 2006 11:14:42 GMT

If you've ever wondered why I'm such a huge N.T. Wright fan, look no further than this great article talking about the problems of The DaVinci Code. It's also a great introduction to the core themes of Wright's theology, for those of you who don't have the interest or patience to read his doorstop, hundreds of page treatises on the subject like I do.

The Grand Experiment

skills0 — Fri, 12 May 2006 10:44:00 GMT

Over the last year, I've been casting an increasingly worrisome eye at my Comcast bill, which just keeps creeping up every 6 months or so. I have both cable modem and a digital package with HD, so I'm embarassed to say my bill runs over $100 a month easy. Lately this has just seemed more and more excessive, especially considering I'm often complaining about my lack of free time. Between church stuff, girlfriend, other friends and just keeping up with everything else I'm interested in, I really would be better off without so much TV as a distraction. I mean, I grew up without a tv, much less cable, but cable has gotten to the place where I think of it as another necessary utility like gas or electric. And that is obviously absurd when you think about it. Plus I have a Netflix subscription too, so it's not like I don't have other stuff to watch. I don't really watch much cable anyway, mostly it's Comedy Central and Food Network and couple other things here and there. Besides, a lot of TV programming is showing up online (legally from the networks) and you can always go the BitTorrent route anyway.

So anyway, I've been thinking about OTA (over the air) HD programming for awhile now. I bought my tv a bit too early to get a built-in tuner (and the first gen ones kinda suck anyway), but for the price of one month's cable bill I can theoretically buy an HD receiver and get free tv after that. Chicago is a great market for HD OTA programming, maybe the best in the country. The big question is whether I can pick it up with an indoor antenna or if I'll need something on the roof. So I'm going to give it a try. I haven't had a landline in ages, but DSL has gotten to the point where it is almost troublefree and cheaper than cable modem. Certainly sufficient for my needs and a stark contrast to my first Bellsouth DSL experience that involved barely supported NT 4 drivers for a PCI modem. Besides, it looks like I'll need a line for alarm monitoring if the burglary problem in our neighborhood continues.

So Monday I'm getting a phone line hooked up and DSL is supposed to be on Tuesday. At that point, I'll finish out the season (got to see the finales of Lost, Alias and 24) and then Comcast is going bye bye. I figure I don't watch much tv in the summer anyway (I hate baseball and everything else is reruns), so I should have plenty of time to figure this out. May involve getting an antenna installed on our condo roof (which I think I can get approved), but that's still cheaper longterm than paying cable every month. Everything old is new again. I remember as a kid before cable was around everybody had a big antenna on their house. That's going to start happening again as I think all new tvs have to start coming with a digital tuner built-in. And sooner or later this switch-over from analog to digital broadcasting will happen. At which point I hope to be ahead of the curve getting free HD programming to my heart's content.

RE: Visualize credit card debt

skills0 — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 15:01:41 GMT

I'm currently trying to get my credit card paid off (again) as well as my car loan. I have a pretty good awareness of how long credit card debt can hang around if you don't attack it aggressively, but sometimes it's hard for people to think about. This little app will show you visually how long it will take you to get your card paid off. you can use both a payment of your choosing or a minimum monthly payment scenerio. The minimum monthly outlook should be enough to make anyone think twice about going that route.

All around smart fellow John Maeda has whipped up an application that'll help you get a handle on your credit card debt. I've had a problem understanding credit cards since the first time I was...

[Via Lifehacker]

Chicago's sucky snow response

skills0 — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 11:40:00 GMT

Yesterday it started snowing around 2PM and snowed pretty hard until late into the evening and we ended up getting about 6-8 inches. Just my luck, Kristin and I had to drive somewhere after work and we fully expected it to be a pain, but we at least expected the major streets to be open. I ended up taking a bunch of side streets to avoid traffic because the MINI actually does great in snow as long as it isn't too deep, between the snow tires, traction control and antilock brakes.

In about 2+ hrs of driving around last night, we saw one city plow out and that was on a side street. None of the major east-west streets on the North side that we were on were plowed or even salted as far as we could tell. Not Lawrence, not Foster, not Wilson. Didn't look like Kimball was plowed either and Pulaski certainly wasn't. What the heck, especially after the city was on the news the night before bragging about how ready they were for this storm. This is the kind of crap I expected in Nashville, which had maybe 3 plows for the whole city, but here? They are usually better than this. What the heck am I paying all these taxes for? They certainly don't ever seem to have a shortage of parking enforcement officers ticketing people for the most inane things imaginable, but they can't plow the streets. Why don't they put the parking enforcement staff to work shoveling sidewalks, it would be nice to see them do something that's actually useful for a change. But I'm not bitter ... [:P]