There were no utensils in medieval times, hence there are no utensils AT Medieval Times. Would you like a refill on that Pepsi? - The Cable Guy

i appreciate all of the phone calls after last weeks blog. yes, i'm fine, yes i was venting, and no i'm not going to write an emo song about last monday.

i feel some top ten lists coming on:
top ten things i remember from the pepperdine lectureships last week:
10. seeing people from san diego, simi valley, seattle, oc, okc, tulsa and kentucky all in one place
9. my toughest decision one day was wether to go to neptune's net, malibu seafood, or paradise cove to eat. (all three are overlooking or on the beach)
8. pretending to know the names of people that knew me somehow
7. trying to remember why i went to oc instead of peperdine
6. remembering how much it costs to go to pepperdine
5. psallo turning an hour of praise into revival time
4. getting random people to come up to my old youth minister and talk to him about how much they were excited about his new program at cascade college
3. hearing billy wilson, jeff walling, and randy harris in one day
2. getting the chance to be that guy that takes broke college kids out to lunch after being on the other end for so long
1. my sides being sore on saturday from laughing all week

top ten guess-you-had-to-be-there lines from last week:
10. 'my head is sticking out of the sunroof'
9. 'i'll wait here while you hike up the hill to get the car'
8. 'i know this sounds stupid, but i read your blog'
7. 'you wouldn't believe all of the people coming up to me asking about my work at cascade, its really amazing'
6. 'i'm doing nothing now. no really, i filed for unemployment yesterday. i'm going to see how long i can go without a job.'
5. 'does he know his name is bert reynolds?'
4. 'manuel?'
3. 'oh man, you gotta hear this'
2. 'so i'm in the dr.'s office in my boxers, and the dr. has all of these students around me with their stethoscopes listening to my heart, and then he makes me crouch and jump up with the students doing the same, it was kinda weird'
1. 'this is a man who, like a good carpenter, built a throne out of two used pieces of wood'

what a great week to follow up a lame day. last tuesday i got a call from a kid outside of the church that asked me to bring them a bible in the hospital. it's nice to be making inroads to simi like that, and to see right off the bat the impact you can make on someone just by showing up. the pepperdine lectureships started that night and it was awesome to see all of these people from everywhere i've ever lived in one place. i stood by the fountain for almost two hours one night and didn't talk to the same person for more than ten minutes the whole time. there were a lot of my parents' friends from san diego there, kids from my old youth group that are at pepperdine, other youth ministers, professors, fellow oc alumni and just random people i hadn't seen in a while. as much as the lectureships are built up as a learning time i have to say i got much more out of the fellowship with old friends and familiar faces.
and so it goes...
so now its back to the grindstone, planning events, trying to read and study up for classes, dealing with parents... getting some graphics done for t-shirts and stuff and trying to sneak in some fun stuff there as well. prob doesn't sound like a whole lot, but i'm on a tear lately of wanting stuff done well, which means everything gets a lot of attention, which means i dont have a lot of attention left for myself, which i guess is a good thing as of late. maybe.
that, and i'm turning 25 next week and that's starting to get to me a little. not in a bad way, because i've got so much more accomplished by 25 than i thought i would, but it's those few things that i haven't been able to do that has been nagging at me.
oh yeah, and i was challenged to not drink sodas for a month so i'm in a weird mood. i didn't realize how bad sodas affected me, but i've had a constant headache for a week now, and i feel sleepy all of the time too. i've caught myself a couple of times ordering sodas out of habit, and have been fortunate enough to catch myself before it was too late. i'm not really craving soda, its just that nothing else really sounds good to drink with a hot dog at a baseball game. pink lemonade? seriously, i'm at angels stadium yesterday downing a couple of hotdogs with a pink lemonade of all things... i couldn't even bring myself to buy bottled water there... what am i supposed to do? ugh. i think the quote of the week is 'no soda is lame'. i know the cuz has had to hear it a few times already. i should prob warn him next time i feel like giving up something.
what else... going back to birthday issues, i'm not sure exactly what i'm going to do for my birthday. star wars is coming out the day after my birthday so i was thinking it would be cool to go to hollywood on opening night to see the midnight chow at the chinese theater, but guys have been camping out for 8 weeks fro tix there, and i can't find my jedi outfit, so i wouldn't fit in. so that leads me with zero ideas for what to do for my birthday. its in the middle of the week and i have youth events on the weekends before and after, so i guess my options are somewhat limited. we'll see.
going back to baseball... the cuz and i decided that since our mothers had raised us to love baseball, what better thing to do to honor mother's day than go to a baseball game (i had already sent a card and got her season one of her favorite show). so we drove down to anaheim to watch the angels game and and a blast. there were a couple of padres fans there, and this guy in front of us kept talking about how lame northern california is, how they should be their own state, and raiders fans are a plague to the sporting society. the great thing about this was that he kept saying things that i tell the cuz all the time, giving a lot of validity to my rants. so now the cuz is convinced i actually know what i'm talking about when i say we should split the state at santa barbara county, and everything north should be southern oregon. i have to say i was impressed by angel stadium. the fans were some of the best i've ever been around. they were mellow because the team was getting stomped, but they were still cheering for their team for the little things. and i saw more red there than i did blue at the dodger game, which was a real trip. the cuz and i have discussed this before, and the matter was settled for me yesterday afternoon: the angels are our home team, and we are officially going to be angels fans. here's our rationale behind our being angels fans:
10. you should always have a home team to root for
9. we hate the dodgers
8. we still refer to the angels as the 'california angels', which means they represent the state (all the way up to santa barbara county) or
7. the los angeles angels of anaheim refers to them as the team from the los angeles 'area', which would include us, since we are not actually in l.a. county, but next to it.
6. vlad guerrero
5. at the games the ushers throw out free peanuts during take me out to the ballgame
4. the cuz has an issue with rooting for more than one national league team, and pulling for the angels would not interfere with his being an astros fan. (i grew up rooting for the padres and the astros, so i do not consider having more than one team an issue, and i'm not going to stop being a yankees fan just because they can't win a game this year)
3. (tie) i like their old hats/ parking is cheaper at anaheim stadium, and the traffic problem doesn't even begin to touch dodger stadium
2. my job gives me a certain leaning towards rooting for teams with biblical themes i.e. padres and angels
1. we really hate the dodgers

well, its a pretty decent afternoon, so i think i'm going to take some down time here and go do something outside.
one love, one heart.