And where do you see yourself in ten years?

This is a question that I have been asked twice in the past month in different job interviews. I always have to laugh. I tell my interviewer "This isn't going to sound very good, but I don't know where I'll be in ten years." And if my high school guidance counselor knew that I was saying that, she'd probably be a bit mad.

Sorry Mrs. Reider. It's true. I don't have any long-term goals. I used to, when I was younger. When I graduated college, I decided that in ten years I would be working in human resources for The Walt Disney Company. Well, this is year number ten and I haven't reached that goal yet. I just don't have tangible goals like that anymore.

Does that make me the guy who doesn't know what he wants to do with his life? The guy that has no direction? I don't think so. I know what I want to do with my life. I want to serve God. I don't know what he wants me to be doing in ten years, and I don't pretend to know either. But I know better than to try to plot out my future.

So I don't know where I see myself in ten years. But I'm perfectly okay with that.

Happy Memorial Day

Never forget the sacrifices that were made. Not just for our country, but also for our faith.

Is there an Antichrist alive today?

Woo boy! This is an interesting proposition. Today I read a book called The Copper Scroll. It was fiction, but it, like the four books preceding it, talks a lot about prophecy. There was a paragraph that caught my eye. Please keep in mind that the following is fiction, but it's an interesting thought nonetheless.

"...Since nobody knows when Jesus is going to return - Jesus said even He didn't know; He said only His Father knew - that would mean that Satan doesn't know either. Which means Satan has always had to be prepared for any eventuality. That means that for almost two thousand years, he's had to have at least one antichrist on the earth, in position, ready to go, in every generation since the resurrection."

So how 'bout that, huh? It's a strange thought, but couldn't it be true?

How Long?

So I was reading a Max Lucado devotional at my chiropractor's office today. And it was talking about one of David's most favoritest questions to ask God. If you've done any reading in the Psalms, you know what the question is.

How long, O Lord?

And from there he starts his whine. But I don't wanna talk about whining today. I want to talk about that question, and in particular, a question that Lucado brings up.

What if next time you asked "How Long?" He actually offered to tell you. Would you want to know? Would you want to know how long it would be before you got married? Before your friend received salvation? Before the darkness would fade? Would you really want to know? And if you did know, what would you do with that knowledge?

I don't think I want to know. Because then, I wouldn't have to lean on Him so much. It sounds like a very sunday-schoolish answer. But I have a lot to be thankful for, for the situation I am in. Sometimes I play the "what if" game. What if I had gotten married right out of college? Would the relationship that I have with my parents be the same? Would I have had the opportunities that I've had with my friends? Or what if I had attended a different college? Who would be my friends today? I play the "what if" game, then I realize how futile it is. It doesn't matter. You can't dwell on "what ifs." God has blessed me in the situation that I'm in right now. Would I be interested in a trade? No. I don't think so. Because I wouldn't be the man that I am today.

So I will continue to ask "How Long?" But I don't want to know. Because I think it's in that waiting room, when we're praying and seeking and waiting, that we grow most rapidly.

Thoughts?

FYI for the locals

Author Philip Yancey is speaking at Messiah College's commencement on Saturday. He's written a bunch of good books. Admission is free and open to the public.

Great Idea

While reading The Washington Post today, I came across a story about four congressmen who agreed to take on a food stamp budget for a week to see what it's like to live on food stamps. Representative Jim McGovern is one of the participants and he and his wife set up a blog. Check it out here.

Do Not Fear*

*Part of the impetus for this entry is my current reading of The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis.

I would reckon that one of the key tools in the enemy's arsenal is fear. How easy is it for us to fear? What if I'm stuck here forever? What if she never talks to me again? What if the test comes back positive? What if I can't afford the repairs? What if?

And that fear will produce other side-effects. "What? You're not married yet? What's wrong with you?? If only you had better hair, or straighter teeth." That's the devil talkin' right there. He knows which buttons to push and his kind have button-pushing classes where they learn what buttons to push and when to push them.

But the only way that fear can have a presence in your mind is if you've put up a "Tenant Wanted" sign in your mind. If you give him an inch, he will try to take as many miles as he possibly can. That's his job. That's his life.

Don't let him. Greater is He that is in me. Ya gotta believe that.

Movie Review: Year of the Dog

Saw YotD earlier today. I was going to go see it with my aunt, but she couldn't make it. I'm glad because I would have felt bad for suggesting this movie. The trailer was pretty misleading. There are spoilers ahead.

Have you seen the trailer? Looks like a charming little rom-com, no? That's what I thought. John C. Reilly chasing Molly Shannon, who's actually interested in Peter Saarsgard. And it had dogs in it. Everything's going well until Shannon's character (Peggy) finds out that Saarsgard's character (Newt) is vegan. And it's all downhill from there. She goes vegan and then goes PETA vegan. The first part of the movie showed Peggy as the strong rock among a sea of friends with all sorts of dysfunctional behavior. By the end of the movie, she's the dysfunctional one.

Molly Shannon did a good job in her role. I really believed that she was off her rocker. Reilly and Saarsgard played their supporting roles decently. And I thought the movie was well-done.

But I didn't like it. I'm going to give it a "4" on the 10-point scale. It's redeeming qualities were two-fold: 1. It gave me a good glimpse into what people experience when they lose a pet who's loved, and 2. It showed me how easy it is to allow things of this world to get in the way of our Kingdom responsibilities. And I really liked Pencil (the dog).

Mom's Day

In honor of Mother's Day, I'd like to direct you to a little something I wrote for my mom two years ago.

Click

YotD

Just a quick note to let y'all know that Year of the Dog opens tomorrow at the Midtown Cinema. I'm looking forward to it.

Weekend Getaway: Hours 9-25

Pickin' up where we last left off.....

9:00pm - We've cleared out of the Westfield and walk across Market Street to our hotel. Lines are still deep at the Cable Car turnaround, but we're headed to bed. I notice someone setting up a drum kit on the sidewalk. *I should take a couple of minutes to explain that b/c we were only in town for a day, we decided to keep our bodies on EST as much as possible. So while we were going to bed early (per Left Coast standards), we were also waking up early.
10:00pm - Trying to get to bed. Can't. Person who set-up drum kit is now playing it. Hotel doesn't have air conditioning, so if I close the window, I'll fry. I close the window anyway. Still hear the beat. Might as well be cool while I suffer, so I open the window back up.
11:00pm - The drumming continues and my rage mounts. At least the bed is firm.
12:00am - The drumming stops. Sleep commences
1:00-am - 5:59am Sleep
6:00am - Wake-up and make our way out to the Cable Car turnaround. We're the first people there.
7:00am - We find ourselves at the top of Lombard Street just a few minutes after seven. It is blissfully quiet and we take our time taking pictures and walking down the street.
8:00am - We complete one round-trip on the Hyde-Powell line and decide to get some breakfast. My pre-trip planning brought us to Sears, home of the Swedish Pancakes.
9:00am - Breakfast out of the way, we hit the Cable Cars and ride up and down California Street.
10:00am - We reluctantly get off after our last ride and head into the hotel and check out. We head down to the BART station for the ride back to the airport.
11:00am - We make it to the ticket counter by 11:45, but the line is long.
12:00pm - We meander through security and make it to the gate by 12:30. But they're not giving us any real food on the plane, so I make a dash for a Chicken Caesar Sandwich (that happened to be on awesome parmasean-herb bread). We board the plane.

Thus ends my whirlwind weekend. I have to thank God for taking care of the big details (like allowing us to get on the plane to and from San Fran) and the small ones (Mexican Chocolate Chip Cookies) and for forgiving me for the rage I had. Also thanks to the photographer for coming along on for the fun.

You can see some more photos here.

Weekend Getaway, Hours 1-8

So a friend and I hopped a plane a couple weekends ago and found ourselves in beautiful San Francisco. We had been trying to get to Savannah, GA, but that didn't work out. So we headed to Frisco.

I had never been out there before. I've been to Cali, but only to that part of the state where the stars are extra bright. So this was a whole new ball of wax. And those two cities couldn't be more different (they could, but I thought that phrase best captured my feelings). We had about 26 hours on the ground, so here's the hour by hour break-down.

12:00pm - On the ground and headed to find BART which is our way into the city. One of the reasons we chose SF was because we didn't really need to rent a car.
1:00pm - We make our way into the city and check ourselves into our hotel.
2:00pm - It's hot and I didn't bring any shorts. And the photographer spilled tomato juice all over himself. So we head to Marshall's.
3:00pm - After a nice lunch at Westfield (I had a crepe!) we went out and caught a streetcar and rode up Market Street and The Embarcadero and Pier 39.
4:00pm - We saw the Pier 39 seals and decided to take a little cruise.
5:00pm - Our cruise took us out under the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz. I took a ton of pictures.
6:00pm - We had very ambitious goals of actually walking to the bridge and then walking across it. This did not happen. Instead, we headed to Ghiradelli Square, specifically to find Frjtz'. If you are at all familiar with my search for frites, you know how this turned out.
7:00pm - Still hungry, we decided to head back downtown to catch some dinner. But we decided to take the Hyde-Powell Cable Car back. Unfortunately, catching the car at the turn-around involved a 30-minute wait. But the ride was glorious!!
8:00pm - We made it back to the Westfield and sat down to eat around 8:30 (I had the Curry Chicken from a Thai place). I finished up with some Stracciatella-flavored gelato.

And that was the first third of my trip. I'll try to get the rest of the trip up by the weekend.

Movie Review: Spider-man 3

So it's been a while since I've been to a movie worth reviewing. And it's been a while since I've even been to the movies. But I saw S3 tonight and I'm here with your review.

SPOILERS AHEAD

S3 continues the on-again-off-again relationship of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson. Things are getting a bit more serious and Peter seems to have the notion that MJ is "the one." But this is Spider-man we're talking about, so we need some baddies. The addition of Sandman and Venom are the baddies, along with "son of Green Goblin."

Tobey MacGuire continues to do an A+ job as Peter Parker/Spidey. However, once he starts rockin' the black suit, he goes all emo. Seriously. He starts combing his bangs forward and seems to add a little eye-liner. And he acts very un-Peter Parker (doing stuff that was reminiscent of Jim Carrey in "The Mask"). That was a little weird. But what are ya gonna do? Venom will do that to you? I still don't much care for Kirsten Dunst, but I thought that this film was the best of the three for her. James Franco was eh, but I thought that Thomas Haden Church did a good job as Sandman. Good enough that I felt empathy for him. Topher Grace did a good job of bringing the Venom character alive, but I liked Church more. Critics said that there were too many bad guys in this movie, and while I think you can make that arguement, I think the storyline held it up pretty well.

And here's what suprised me the most: The recurring theme in this movie of forgiveness. It was something that almost all of the characters seem to touch on throughout the course of the movie. And it may have just been me, but I think that Venom is a dead-ringer for the devil. But that's a topic for another day.

I'm giving this movie a "7." It was good, but could have been better. Some of the camera-work during the action-scenes was dizzying. It was hard to follow at some points. I was also a little disappointed at how the movie ended. And it was a tad on the long side (long enough to make me start thinking about my review during the movie). But it's a fun superhero movie that I would see again (but probably not until it makes it to the West Shore Theatre - which will probably be sometime next month).

Things that make me smile

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I just saw something on the telly that inspired this.

*Sunsets
*Rabbits
*Jennifer Garner dancing to "Thriller" in 13 Going on 30
*Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
*Puffy Clouds
*My mom's home-fries
*Small children laughing
*Paula Deen
*The word "FREE"
*Percussion
*The smell of meat on the grill