Animals, Angels, and the rest

We're catching up, slowly but surely. Here's the next batch of completed entries (I'm up to 47 hours of work at this point, btw).

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Father’s Day has come and gone.

I finally decided to buckle down yesterday and buy my dad’s present from the collective children, which included gift certificates for movies and Famous Dave’s, some chocolate-covered cherries, and a new game, The Last Word. I had never played it before, but it seemed to have a decent enough premise, so I bit the bullet. After church and a lunch of steak, corn on the cob, and baked potatoes, my family sat down to attempt this new game. The goal is to be the last person to say a word that starts with the appropriate letter and fits in the appropriate category before the buzzer goes off. It really is that simple too, and we had a good time playing it. Quick rounds too; we were able to fit in three boys vs. girls rounds in probably an hour at most.

Another game of hand and foot ensued at the end of the day, following a trip to Motley for a grad party. It was extremely close, especially going into the last round, but dad pulled out the victory with a big dumpster dive that created multiple clean books. I came in third for the second game in a row, both being behind Abby and within a few hundred points of the champion. Oh well, it was a nice way to cap off Father’s Day for everyone, especially dad!

I started reading Rob Bell’s “Sex God” tonight, and it’s pretty good so far (I’m through the introduction and first two chapters). The subtitle is “Exploring the endless connections between sexuality and spirituality,” and that really says it all. The first few chapters highlight the creation of man and what is significant about the narration in Genesis. Pretty basic stuff so far, nothing too Earth-shattering, but solid nonetheless. I might hold off on Half-Blood Prince for a bit to see how this goes.

Monday, June 18, 2007

So… much… work.

I got up this morning and started work at 7:30. Our job was a wood job, which I usually enjoy doing because it’s kind of like fitting a puzzle together. Even though it is harder on my body than a normal carpet day, the reward is greater both creatively and financially (wood jobs are some of the best money-makers in our field).

This job, by all accounts, should have been better than usual: the wood was 5” wide, rather than the typical 3 ¼” pieces, and the room was pretty wide open with very few tricky cuts. All the makings of a “gravy” day, in the words of my dad.

Not so much.

We had such a hard time getting the pieces to fit together all day. There would be pieces that looked great, we’d nail them in, put the next row on, and it would look like crap all of a sudden with gaps and cracks everywhere. So we’d take off the new row, rip out the old, and replace it with a new piece. This one would go fine, but we’d have wasted ten minutes just getting the stupid piece out. We were supposed to be installing 700 sq ft of wood; by 6 we had installed 600, and were stuck. We could not get the next row to work, no matter what we did. We were afraid we would have to take off several rows and re-do some 50 feet of wood, which would suck. All of this was taking place without the aid of my father, however, as he was working at church today, so we called him and he said to stop where we were and he would come up and try to fix it.

The other guys all went home, but I went back to the job with dad. He was expecting the worst
going into it, but was relieved to discover he could fix the problem by removing just two boards and doing some fancy cutting on the replacement pieces. This went great, and we kept moving to try and finish the kitchen so they could set cabinets even if we weren’t able to get back to this job for a couple of days. By the time we were done it was 9, and I was pretty tired (13 ½ hour days will do that).

I really just want to go to sleep right now.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Animals and Angels.

That is the title of the chapter out of “Sex God” that I read last night, and it was really, really good. The chapter discusses how there are two extremes to how humans can view sex: there is the animal perspective, where it is an inborn desire that is insatiable, a fact of life that we will eventually succumb to, and there is the angel perspective, where sex is a primitive act that is not discussed or acknowledged, and essentially only exists for procreation purposes. The problem with these views, Bell says, is that we, as humans, were not created as simply animals or angels. Animals are bodies without souls; angels are souls without bodies. As humans, we have both bodies and souls, and therefore there must be some sort of middle ground that exists where both the desires of the flesh and the soul are satisfied. In this place, sex is not a given, nor is it unspeakable. A balance must be achieved that both acknowledges and encourages the sexuality that is inborn in all humans, and is able to control this force to avoid its abuse.

I wish there was some quote that I could give you from it, but I would really need to post the whole chapter, as the progression in thought and logic is really key to understanding the important points made later in the text. I’m excited to keep going in this book and see where this thought goes.

I also had one of the most vivid dreams I’ve had in awhile last night. I dreamt I was at some sort of high school dance, one where they parade all the couples around in front of the parents, all that jazz. I didn’t recognize my date, but I remember knowing that she was one of the most popular girls in school, and she seemed to be having a great time. At some point I realized she was blind, but this didn’t really change too much about what happened except she bumped into different objects around the room when I would forget to guide her (she didn’t seem to mind this, and laughed about it every time she ran into something). So it was a weird kind of date, and yet I remember having such a great time with her, I actually felt great all day today as a result. Even though I have no idea who this person was, not to mention it didn’t actually happen, I still found myself returning to that feeling from my dream throughout the day. Thinking about that in hindsight, I guess I’m weird. Any suggestions on the meaning of this dream are welcome and appreciated.

During the middle of the cursed wood job yesterday, I realized my phone was beginning its slow march toward death. I had thought the battery was dying faster up here because of the terrible reception at the cabin, but it turns out that’s not the only reason. Even with some semblance of service, my battery gave out early on yesterday, so I had several messages by the end of the day, one from Big Loud Bucks, who wanted to schedule an interview for the today. I was able to get a hold of them on Dean’s phone, and scheduled a phone interview for 11:30.

Well, in order to conserve my precious battery life, I worked the morning without turning my phone on, and called promptly at 11:30, only to have my phone begin beeping at me that the battery was running out a mere 10 minutes into the conversation. This lasted for 20 more minutes before it died completely, and I had to run in and grab DJ’s phone to finish up the interview. It went very well, and I think I have a great shot at being offered the position. I have no idea what kind of salary they’re looking at, but I do know they’re not looking to hire until late July at the earliest, so I may end up staying up here for a few extra weeks if this all works out, allowing me to make an extra grand or so before heading back and having two weeks to get back into the swing of things on that end of the world. I guess we’ll wait and see.

In the meantime, I need a new phone.

And today was another 11 ½ hour day, so I need some rest.

11:18, hopeful, stagnantly, cheeseburgers

Sleeplessly leaving Seattle

All right, the craziness is slowly coming to an end. A recap:

Abby graduated on the high school football field Thursday night. It was probably the most student-centric graduation I've ever seen. They got to do a bunch of stuff they wanted to, and the administration was great at giving them that freedom. After the ceremony and the obligatory Dairy Queen run, I was off to John's house to get some sleep before my flight Friday morning.

I got to bed around 2 Friday morning and woke up at 6:30 to get to the airport on time. Not much for traffic, small lines at the airport; I was ahead of the game. My first flight was to Las Vegas, which was around 3 hours long and including a showing of "Breach" with Chris Cooper and Ryan Phillipe. It was quite entertaining, worth a rental if there's nothing else you want to see.

Anyway, I had about an hour and a half in Vegas before my next flight, so I took my time deciding what over-priced airport food I was going to purchase (ended up at Pretzelmaker or something like that (quite good)). I also played $2 worth of slots in the terminal, which I swiftly lost. We boarded a little behind schedule, and had to sit in our seats for an hour with no explanation as to why we weren't moving. I took advantage of this time to continue in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which I began Friday morning and am currently beyond the 400 page mark. Once in the air, the flight was a bit over 2 hours, and I arrived safely in Seattle at 3:04 (Pacific).

Ben picked me up and we went straight to the church, where the rehearsal was finishing up and people were getting ready for the rehearsal dinner, which was pizza and Jay Berry's. Dinner was great, I got to know Autumn's friends Amelia (actually named Emily) and Jena, whose house me, Ben, and Jess would sleep in that evening. Jena even knew how to play hand and foot, so we took advantage of that before adding Amelia for a few rounds of Pit. Bed time arrived between 10:30 and 11, and we all were up and out the door by 8:30 AM.

I spent the next several hours setting up for the reception with the wedding party and Autumn and Andy's families. I figured out at this point that this was a fairly small wedding, judging by the size of the hall and the number of places set. It's what they wanted, and the main reason they had it in Seattle in the first place, so I was cool with it.

The wedding itself took place at 3, followed by pictures and the reception. I was seated at the band table for the reception, since that's where Ben was and Jess was at the head table. We had some interesting conversations regarding foaming hand soap and platypuses, among other things, over a buffet dinner including salmon, chicken, potatoes, and lighter snacky foods.

Next up came the live music and dancing, which sounded great but didn't have as many people dancing as they had hoped, although I don't know how many of the 50 people they were expecting to dance... I did get a few spins in with Jess, and then it was time for the bride and groom to jet off to Seattle, where they awaited their Alaskan cruise.

The rest of us stayed behind and cleaned up the hall, which took about an hour, and then it came time for me to go to the airport; not because I wanted to, mind you, but because it was a half hour away and few people with cars were heading that way. So, I was dropped off at the airport (I'll switch to Central time for perspective's sake) at 11 PM for my flight that departed at 2:50 AM. Again, more Harry Potter was read, and by the time we boarded I was exhausted. I fell asleep before take-off, and woke up 2 hours later, somewhere over the Dakotas. We landed at just after 6 AM, at which point I got in my car and drove home, pulling in just before 9 (I almost fell asleep a couple of times, and my mom called me at the perfect time to make sure I was staying awake, otherwise it could have been disastrous). Sleep came again, this time in a bed, and I was out for around 3 and a half hours.

When I awoke, family and friends had already started arriving to help set up Abby's grad party. I made small talk in my pajamas with my grandpa for a bit, then finished up the slide show I had promised Abby I would do. More getting ready, more food prep, and before I knew it, 3 o'clock rolled around and people started coming.

Though the party officially ended at 6, they didn't really stop coming until 7:30 or 8. My parents made the comment that it was nice to have four grown children to share the hosting burden with, but I was unfortunately stuck with the proposition that any guest who talked to anyone else in my family undoubtedly asked how I was doing, and, when they found out I had graduated, wondered what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I can't count the number of times I had to explain how I kind of had a job, but not really, and that I loved Nashville and yes, the weather is quite lovely down there, blah blah blah. I was also given the joy of trying to explain the concept of a music video to my great-aunt Dolores, whose only point of reference are the Gaither Homecoming videos, which she says are getting a bit too modern for her tastes. I am now supposed to send her some of these odd four minutes videos so she can see if she likes them, and she told me I may even have a customer in her, or even a salesperson. She really has no idea what Just Kidding does (she thought the name was quite ridiculous in and off itself), I might just send her the newest Gaither video and she won't know the difference.

Anyway, that's that. My family is moving out on Saturday now instead of tomorrow, which gives my mom and sisters some much-needed time to finish up the packing while my dad and I have another banner week in the flooring world.

I'm gonna try and read some more Potter now, peace out.