May the Force be with You

I don't think I even need to make much of a comment on this.

http://www.uspsjedimaster.com/main/vote/view_stamps.html

Vote for your favorite; the winner will become a genuine USPS stamp.

Spare time

When I'm given the opportunity to speak with musicians I respect, I try to learn more about their influences, so I ask questions like "What CD have you listened to recently that I should pick up?" or "What book have read recently that you liked?" or something similar.

Last month, when Andrew Peterson (www.andrew-peterson.com) was in town, he recommended (among other things) "Jayber Crow" - a book by Wendell Berry. It's "The Life Story of Jayber Crow, Barber, of the Port William Membership, as Written by Himself." The local library had a copy available, so I picked it up and read it.

Wendell Berry is one of the writers who is (apparently) successful in multiple genres. He's a prolific essayist, novelist, short-story writer, and poet. When someone writes that much with a fail level of popularity (or publishability), they tend to be kind of ho-hum in all areas, but I found Jayber Crow to be fascinating and well-written. It's the best book I've read in a while.

I know you're thinking "How exciting can a book about a barber be?" The answer is not very, but compelling and enjoyable nonetheless.

If you've got spare time (and you must since you're reading this), you should check it out.

Early Track Season Results

Saturday was the first major track invitational of the year, and things look good for my team. The boys were missing several top runners for college visits, and we still placed 12th out of 19 teams at the Liberty Lancer Invite.

1600m runner Mike S. won handily with a time of 4:33 - 3+ seconds faster than his race at the same meet last year. Our best 100m runner ran 11.34. Our Pole vaulters placed 3rd, 7th, and 9th. We have a freshman who ran 52.98 in the 400 (placing 5th) and also 23.65 in the 200 (9th). We also had a freshman run 11:11 in the 3200 (16th).

The girls team placed ninth and had new school records in the 300m hurdles (4th place in 48.2 seconds - by a freshman) and in the triple jump (32'11.5" - 2nd place). We also had a high jumper place 6th (with a jump of 4'10"). Also, our returning state champ shot putter pre-qualified for state.

On other fronts, Alum Russ Winger (class of '03 and state champ in shot and discus that year) placed 2nd at the NCAA indoor championships in shot put with a toss of 67' 4" (a personal best by over a foot) which makes him a three-time All-American and ranks him 11th in the world in shot put!

It looks to be a good season.

Coffee-house band gig

The coffee-house-playing cover band I'm in (Running With Scissors) has a gig this Friday at the It's a Grind on Fillmore and Centennial from 7-9pm. Come have some good coffee and listen to some (hopefully) good music. Hope to see you there.

When young men's thoughts turn...

According to the church calendar, the year looks like this: the year begins with Advent, then goes to Christmas (12 days), Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, and then "ordinary time" until the end of the church year.

Lent -- the forty days leading up to Easter -- is supposed to be a time of reflection upon our own unworthiness and our consequent need for a savior. Traditionally, people fast as a part of their penitential reflection and as an imitation of Christ's 40-day fast in the desert. Catholics (and some "High-Church" protestants) give up meat on Fridays during Lent, and some Christians ("high-church" or "low-church" and even no-church) give up something else for Lent - chocolate or television or whoknowswhat. The idea is that you're fasting from something that is allowed but that might be a distraction from your spiritual life. Perhaps you'll even kick the habit for good (they say it takes 30 days to establish a new habit, so 40 days should really do it). Instead of giving something up for Lent, other Christians add something ostensibly good for them to do, perhaps one of the other Christian disciplines – charity, meditation, prayer, etc.

It's interesting to me that Lent coincides with spring, that time of year when men's thoughts (young men's especially) are easily distracted. They turn their devotions away from church and piety and towards another obsession: basketball. March Madness is a time-waster par excellence. It continues the extravagance of Mardi Gras clear through to holy week, giving us one more opportunity to ignore the call to reflection.

For Lent last year, I gave up the NCAA tournament. I always have enjoyed the excitement of college basketball, and I’m sure I missed some exciting games and some fabulous performances, but I can’t say that I missed it. And I think I’ll do it again this year. Instead of being glued to my TV watching the #16-seed University of Small School Undertakers get trounced by the #1-seed Big-School Leviathans, I’ll make sure I get my work done and done well, tempting though the round ball may be.

Don't Stand So Close to Me...

$50 per ticket actually means:

$50 for Full Price Tickets
$4 for "Facility Charge"
+ $11.15 for "Convenience Charge"
_______
$65.15 per seat

plus $3.35 ("Order Processing Fee")

for a grand total of $133.65 for two seats to The Police reunion tour at the Pepsi Center.

This had better be a good show!