The Salad Days

Frigid
Numbing
Bone chilling
Severe
Frostbite Warning
Wind Chill
Bitter
Arctic Blast
Alberta Clipper
Use this time to clean your basement
Weekend warm front brings highs in the 20s
Snow Advisory
Accumulation
Make sure your skin is not exposed
Subzero

If anyone wondered why I am a quasi libertarian (I know, I know, all of you are on pins and needles) who views the impending takeover of the medical industry by our government with suspicion, check this out:

http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis.asp

I lose no sleep over socialism, knowing that it is a very minor issue compared with issues God cares about. The issues God does care about will never be solved unless His people decide to combat them in each of their own ways. But this piece is freaking hilarious. None of the things he describes are immoral, but it is funny how inefficient and cumbersome the status quo can actually be.

Today at work, I had someone ask me how I am always so cheerful when I work 50 hours a week, and then have to go home to three kids.

I'll admit, I get tired. There are trade offs for every decision we make. But more often than not, the tired part is because of work, and the kids at home give me the strength to combat my world.

Jack is turning into a hobbit. His car bed is starting to remind me of Frodo's Hobbit Hole. He enjoys the comforts of life, and doesn't ever seem to be in a hurry. He's at that age where every sentence he says sounds amazing to his parents, and every thing he does seems special because it's his first time.


Corrie is suddenly a little girl. She understands things in new ways every day. She's reading. And she has a very special place in our hearts. Not unlike the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, she's been with us the longest. She was born in Illinois, and has lived in three states in her almost 5 years of life. She remembers so much too. She'll say things, and I have to remember what she's talking about. She also can recite large portions of Winnie the Pooh, and is delighted by the fact that I can as well. Here's a picture from our father-daughter frolic in the newly fallen snow on Christmas day.


And Wesley is another reminder of the fleeting uniqueness of infancy. Tonight, I was putting his siblings to bed, and I could hear him fussing. After I was finished, I went into the living room and picked him up, and the crying ceased. He just wanted to be held. How simple it is, and how wondrous.


I say all this despite the crappy pants and the challenges to my and Steph's authority. How great of a mirror they are into our own relations with God. What a great reminder of his grace and mercy.

And oh how I wish I could sleep until 10:30 tomorrow morning :)

What is it, you ask? It's our furnace. Currently, it's 3 degrees and falling, and this beige box here is the most precious thing we own right now.

You bet I have an insurance policy on it. For 15 bucks a month, I am assured that if anything happens to this baby, I get another one.

The US Pond Hockey Championships begin tomorrow in our backyard, and I'm wondering that it may be too cold for ice hockey. Yes, too cold for ice hockey.

But this weather is an essential part of being a Minnesotan. The pleasures of summer are tempered by the reality of winter. And the harshness of winter is combated by a beige box and the spirit that refuses to cancel a hockey tournament despite the danger of frostbite. The phrase I hear is that the coldest days of winter are our payment for how glorious our summers are. Nothing could be truer, or more Minnesotan.

So another Holiday Season is behind us. Since I believe strongly that there are two holidays celebrated in December instead of merely one, I can be sad that one of them is over, while being relieved that I have made it through another Holiday Season. Now, we settle in for some months of cold, snowy weather. The mercury is supposed to be below zero in a week, so we will be finding indoor alternatives in our activities.

One thing that it looks like will be taken care of is the selling of our old car. We are waiting for a gentleman to come pick up our old car today, since we finally went ahead and bought a minivan for our increasing family. May I just add that my wife and I are not cut out to be salespeople? I will be relieved when this is over, though happy with the extra money that we can put away.

Steph and I celebrated another anniversary on Tuesday. Each year gets better, and I am happy with who God gave to me. We celebrated a week ago with dinner and a movie (Italian dinner, and Juno was the movie), and on the actual day we decided it would be appropriate to celebrate with our kids.

We are going to CA again for the first time in awhile next month. Some school called "Biola" (someone told me my family has a connection to it-I remain skeptical) is celebrating its centennial, and we look forward to seeing family and friends. We also look forward to introducing Wes to some folks who haven't met him, including his Uncle and cousins.

It feels like we are settling in here in Minneapolis once and for all. Our family is (probably) complete with three kids, we are in our home, and we have a car in which to haul everyone around. Though so much has changed, things seem eerily familiar. I don't know what that means, but it sounded cool.

My parents bought me the Indiana Jones Trilogy on DVD for Christmas. The interesting thing about it was though it was on my Amazon wishlist, I still had never sat through all of the second installment of that Trilogy, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. When I was 9, this film came out and I was very excited. I had watched Raiders of the Lost Ark and loved it (though it was in the safe confines of our home with appropriate scenes edited :) ). I was very excited when Temple of Doom was released, and disappointed (but totally trusting in my parents) when my folks wouldn't allow me to see it. I can remember the buzz when it came out about how violent it was, and I remember thinking to myself, "I won't be allowed to see it."

5 years later, I saw and enjoyed Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but had no desire to see Temple of Doom because of what I had always heard about it.

Well, my vote is now in, and it is a good piece of work. My parents were totally right in not letting me see it. Had they done so, they would have been up in the middle of the night dealing with my nightmares. They knew me, and they knew there was no way I could handle the dark intensity of this film. It is clearly intended for mature audiences. But what amazed me upon watching it now was how relatively short the horrifying scenes are. Though they are troubling and violent, they are the climax of the film, not the entire setting. The film is like a slow descent into this hellish world, and the adventure for Indy is how in the hell (almost literally) is he going to get out. It gets weirder and darker until it reaches its nadir in the Temple of Doom. Then Jones and his entourage complete their mission, and Indiana Jones is a wiser man (supposedly).

Make no mistake, this is the weakest of the three films. The heroine is good for a few laughs, but spends way too much time screaming. It makes sense that Jar Jar Binks came from the same mind. Though George Lucas gets stuff right so often, sometimes there are misfires, and I think the woman in this film is too whiny and takes away, even though she's supposed to be there for comic relief. Also, the whimsy of the 1st and 3rd films is missing. Though this film is strong (the action never lets up, and the sets and conceptualizing of the piece are extraordinary), it lacks the sort of wink that the other two have.

All in all, it is a good addition to the whole mythology. The trilogy as a whole completely buys into a supernatural view of the world, and that fascinates me. Yes, it is fantasy, but fantasy in a somewhat real world. The folks who raid the Ark in the first film are not aliens, but Nazis, a people who actually existed. In Last Crusade, the Nazis again serve as the villains. In Temple of Doom, the setting is a colonized India where the British are a presence. In a post enlightenment world, the complete belief these films have in the supernatural fascinates me. Indy is not a victim of parlor tricks in the temple of Doom, the cult has genuine evil power. The Ark and the Holy Grail are seen to have power in the other two films. I am not saying these pieces are theologically sound, but their worldview seems different than the world in which we find ourselves.

Long story short, I give this message to my parents: good call when I was 9, and thanks for the great Christmas gift! :)