Where to find me...

For those of you looking for my blog, you can find it at www.bradpalmore.com. Thanks for trying to track me down!

Moving on to WordPress!

This is it. My last post on Blogger. I've really enjoyed the community that we've developed over the last few months that I've been doing this. Thanks to everyone for making this so much fun.

Just because this is my last post here doesn't mean it is my last post anywhere. I've decided it is no longer worth the risk of having you, my avid readers, come to this site to read my stuff. There is too much other stuff on Blogger that is not really appropriate and I can't control it. Instead, I'm moving on to bigger and better things for my blog at www.bradpalmore.com. Please update your links so you can find me easier.

To all of blogging friends, you, too, can make the switch to your own personalized blog using WordPress (that's the name of the software, by the way). Just visit www.theobloggers.com for more information.

Thanks for being great!

The Othercott

I made good on my promise to go to the movies with the intent on seeing some decent film and purposely giving my money to some movie other than the Da Vinci Code. (See, not a boycott, an othercott.) I had chosen "Over the Hedge" with the intent on seeing it the same day that Da Vinci Code opened. Well, as most of you are aware, my dear friend and fellow minister decided to monopolize the weekend with the announcement of his impending relocation.

Anyway, Over the Hedge was one of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time. I knew I was enjoying myself, but I didn't realize how much exactly until I suddenly became aware of the fact that I had become completely immersed in the movie. It was strange and sort of surreal. I had totally forgotten I was in the theater. This was strange because, having forgotten where I was, the only way I knew I had forgotten was when I suddenly snapped back into reality.

The thing that brought me back to reality was the odd feeling of someone looking at me. In about a half a second I re-engaged those around me and realized my wife was staring at me. The reason she was staring also became immediately noticeable, since I heard myself bellowing with laughter. Perhaps it was all the stress from the week that had found its outlet. Perhaps it really was one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. Whatever it was, I had a blast.

For those of you who have seen it, share your favorite part. For those of you who haven't, run out and see it real quick and then come back and post your favorite part while it's fresh on your mind. What's my favorite part? Without spoiling too much, let me say that it had to do with a modified bullet-time sequence that occurred when an extremely hyperactive squirrel downs a can of highly caffeinated energy drink. Priceless!

Me likey cookie!

Run Forrest... Part Deux

Believe it or not, I managed to calm down from my son placing second in the last track meet of the season. For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, click here. My real excitement was about the potential for my son's participation in the country track championships. I was sure that he had improved through the season, but I was unsure as to whether his times were good enough to get him into the final event.

The way it works is pretty simple. They record all the track times throughout the season. At the end of the season they put all the race results from all the track meets from all the middle schools into one big spreadsheet and sort by the fastest times. They then go down the list and select the ten fastest runners from the entire season. The distance runners are lined up in order of fastest to slowest times for the lane positions on the track, with the fastest starting in the inside lane going out to the slowest in the outside lane.

After delaying the county meet for two weeks because of rain delays, we finally found out that my son did qualify for the championships by poling in as the 7th fastest out of 10 runners. It was quite exciting, especially since I was timing during the meet and was able to be right on the track with the runners. In the time since his 2nd place finish in his last track meet and this championship race, my son was able to really think about some advice relayed to him from one of our elders that used to be a distance runner. First, if you beat another runner in a challenge during a race you will beat him psychologically and never see him again until he crosses the finish line after you. Second, the trick to running is pretty easy. You start of running as fast as you can and speed up all the way around the track.

It was great watching my son apply some of these tricks as he ran an excellent race. He started in 7th, but bolted at the start to get into the 3rd position as they rounded the track. He stayed close to the #2 runner through the back straightaway and won a challenge by the #4 runner (who disappeared, never to be seen again). He challenged and passed the #2 runner on the back turn (bonus psychological points according to our elder. Turns and hills are the hardest to pass on. If you succeed it delivers an extra kick.) The #1 runner was on fire and was significantly ahead of the pack, so the race was for 2nd. In the final straightaway, with #4 and former #2 having already been defeated, my son increased his lead for 2nd place all the way to the end.

I'm still not sure what to do with this. Were we not on the field, the coach and I acted like we were going to hug and jump up and down while screaming. I find myself working it into the strangest conversations. "Oh, you just closed on a house. That's great. Did you know my son is #2 in the whole county in the 400 meter run?" I thought about putting a huge sign outside our house, but that seemed a little too much.

Some people would say that 2nd is the 1st loser. I think that's sad. All I know is when my son crossed the finish line like he did the only thing I could say was, "That's MY boy!" I don't think anyone heard me, though, since my throat tends to close up a bit when I start to cry.

Undisciplined Blogger

After a spurt of regular blogging, I've been a little lazy this month. This makes me a little sad, because blogging is something I love to do. I like the comments that are left and the community it creates. I love it when someone I know talks to me about something they have read on my blog, especially when I didn't know they were reading my blog. This came to bite me a little recently when several of the ladies in the tuesday Bible class talked to me about my blog. Well, bite may be strong. I have blogged about that class a couple times, always in the positive, but never expected any of them to actually read the blog. My heart leaped a little when they brought up my blog, only because I knew I had been speaking of them. I relaxed a little when I remembered that I didn't use anyone's name and that I only said nice things. Imagine how I would have felt had I said differently...

One of the reasons for the lack of blogging is the lack of bloggable material. I like to blog about things that are important and things that are going on in my life. I also like to blog something witting and uplifting. Unfortunately, most of the important things going on are neither uplifting or witty, although someone who enjoys watching someone else stress out might find it amusing. As such, I allow the blogging cue to remain empty day after day as I promise myself that I'll return to the habit of blogging tomorrow. That, of course, gets filed on the same shelf with all the other things I'll start tomorrow, and we should all know how that works.

Now that I have made my excuses, allow me to apologize to those who read my blog for my absence from the blogging sphere. I also apologize to those whose blogs I normally read yet haven't been lately. In some strange way, I feel that I am letting you down. From this point on I am adding to my shelf of things I'll start tomorrow a promise to identify one uplifting or witty thing that I can pick out of my day that I can blog about. Please notice I didn't say I would blog about it, I'll just pick something out that I can blog about. As Bill Murray so deftly put it, "Baby steps to the elevator..."

McChristians

Since my arrival here at Arlington, one of my areas of focus has been on team building. This is especially true within the youth group. The group has come a long way since our arrival, and I am not just pleased with their behavior as a group, I am starting to get excited about it. I think the biggest testimony to the way the teens feel about the environment is that they are starting to bring their friends to class.

As the environment and relationships have improved, we've started doing more activities with them that allow more flexibility. They have shown themselves worthy of the extra freedom, so we've responded by rewarding them and at the same time testing them to see where they are. They continue to respond well and show that they are putting our community based lessons into practice.

We have recently added after church trips to McDonald's on the occasional Sunday night. Nothing fancy, just sitting around enjoying the free refill policy that Mickey D's has. It was really neat the first night looking around at the 15 or so people in McDonald's that had come from our youth group and remembering that they were the same group of silent kids that sat with their arms crossed in class only 9 months ago. It was neat to watch as the evening progressed how they ignored the boundarys that the tables set on them and moved the chairs around to form an amorphous mass of conversation and laughter.

On our last trip, several of the parents and siblings joined us on our trek up the road. It was awesome to watch our community expand and include others as one of the dads (whom I shall not name to protect his image with the "adult" community of the church) joined that amorphous mass and entertained the teens with stories of how he used to make trouble when he was a kid. My favorite quote of the whole evening goes to his youngest son who, when arriving to see all the people in McDonald's, said "Wow! There's a lot of Christians here!"

He was right!

Blog on the Run

I've been quite preoccupied the last couple of days and haven't stopped to post a blog. In fact, talking about not posting a blog is what I am using to quickly blog something without actually blogging anything. However, after getting to this point in this blog I realized that a fun blog might be to use the word blog as many times as I can. It is just now that I have noticed the flexiblity of the word blog. So far I have used the blog as both a noun and a verb, sometimes in the same sentence. I suppose it is sort of like the word "smurf" from the cartoon that was out a few years ago (unless you live in Europe where they have been smashingly popular since the 60's).

While we are talking about the word blog, it seems odd to me that on a website named blogger/blogspot that the spell check that they have worked into the software doesn't recognize the word "blog". I've already decided to not run the spell check at the end of this blog, so please forgive me for any spelling errors.

In the spirit of the smurfs, I'll let you fill in the blogs of this next sentence with what you feel they best represent.

Oh, "blog"! I forgot to "blog" again. Now I won't be able to "blog". Whatever shall we "blog"? Papa "blog", HELP!

Welcome Home Randy!

We had a special youth group activity a couple weeks ago to show our love and appreciation for our dear Senior Minister. While the rest of us were stuck here inside the D.C. beltway, Dr. Wray went off touring Mexico and the Pacific Coast. Not saying that we were jealous or anything. In fact, had he not gone we wouldn't have had the opportunity to do what we did. Now, he may try to tell some stories about how he reversed this on me, but he will have to admit that he was with me when I opened my office on Monday and there was nothing out of the ordinary. If he should continue to insist in this story, I only request he provide some type of proof.



Here you can see members of the youth group blowing up balloons. The teen closest to you didn't pace himself and was pretty light headed at this point.





This is a shot of some of our teens preparing the welcome home sign to be signed by all. Well, everyone except me. You don't think I'd put my name on this project, do you?






Ahhh, the finished product. An office filled with balloons. This picture doesn't do the situation justice. Randy's office is pretty big, and while the sign holder is young, she is still pretty tall. It is amazing what 432 inflated balloons look like.

Run Forrest...

I have been very impressed with the athletics program in the Arlington County school system. There are always two sports for the kids to choose from, and there are enough schools and teens in the county to make a pretty nice schedule for competition. My oldest son has always been athletic, but has never had the chance to get experience in any sporting events other than baseball. This year has been filled with gaining experience.

We are now in the third of three sports seasons, and in each season we have had something to become official cheer leaders for. First came swimming and wrestling, which passed without any spectacular flair. Our biggest hopes were for him to get through the meets without drowning or being killed. The current sport, however, is different. This is track season, and apparently he has found his strength in the 400 meter. In his first meet he finished 6th out of 7. In his second and third meet he found his groove a bit and finished 3rd. In his last meet, however, he turned on the juice and finished a close 2nd after holding 1st through most of the race with a finishing time of 1:14.

I can't explain the feeling of pride and excitment watching my son blaze around the track and finish like he did. I could barely hold the camcorder still. My heart was pounding and I felt like running a couple laps myself. I sat there, camcorder in my sweaty hand, thinking, "That's MY boy. That's MY son." I wanted everyone to know. I wanted to scream it from the top of the bleachers I was sitting on. Of course, that wouldn't have been cool, so I kept it in.

It was only later that I wondered if that is how God felt when His son was baptized. The God of the universe, standing on the sidelines watching, not drawing too much attention to Himself because this was His son's moment, is suddenly so overcome with pride that he rips the heavens open to announce how much He loves his son.

It makes sense to me. My heart is pounding just thinking about it.

The Da Vinci Code

A few years ago I decided it was a good idea to read Dan Brown's book. I figured that people in my church were going to read it, so I should know what was in it to be able to discuss it. I read it over a period of a week, was rather unimpressed, and waited for people to mention it or bring it up. Interestingly, no one ever did. Not people in the church, not my neighbors, not the parents or teachers at the kid's school. I never found a reason to discuss it, until now...

With the upcoming release of the movie based on the book, people have started to bring it up. Mostly church folk, and most of them haven't read the book. They want my opinion and insights. Here's what I tell them:

- As a work of fiction, you should treat it as such. I don't know anyone who went home and destroyed their books after reading Fahrenheit 451 or who quit taking their children to tropical islands after reading Lord of the Flies. Don't freak out over the book, it's only fiction. Something I found is that if you take away all the controversy, it really isn't a very good book. I found the descriptions weak and the events predictable. I even recognized Fibonacci's sequence when it was presented. A good controversy generator, yes. A good fiction book, no.
- Dan Brown has figured out a way to make money doing what the History Channel has been doing for years: simultaneously tap into the Christian market and the non-Christian market by questioning the "traditional" belief system. He's making millions off of this. If I knew I could make that much money off of something like this, I'd be tempted to write just about anything. And don't forget point #1.
- Don't let Brown's marketing tactics confuse you. It's a fiction book, but he presents a lot of it as non-fiction to generate interest (see point #1 and #2). His initial claims of truth are obviously meant to be factually misleading. The first page of his book says "FACT" at the top, discusses the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei, and concludes with the statement

"All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate."

There is nothing wrong with this intro because, in fact, the descriptions are factual. The interpretations of those descriptions, however, are not. Brown conveniently leaves this out, but he hasn't lied to anyone since he never claims the interpretation to be factual. This has changed over time, however, and leads me to think Brown may be getting caught up in this beast he has created. In a recent interview, Brown said,

"I wanted to write a book that while it entertained at the same time, you close that last page and go 'Wow, do you know how much I just learned? That's fascinating.' That is really what I set out to do."

This comment is much more difficult to interpret in the either/or kind of way.

That's it. That is how I've decided to handle it. Three simple points. The burden of proof is on the Da Vinci Code and not on me, much less on Christ or God. There are others out there who feel differently, one of whom is very opinionated regarding the Christian response. When you get through the sharp language, she has a really good idea: an "othercott" of the movie. Instead of protesting or boycotting and thus generating publicity for the movie, go see another movie and talk about it. Since I wanted to see "Over the Hedge" anyway, I have just found a way to make it a moral issue.

That is it. No more talk about the Da Vinci Code. Now I can focus on more important things like squeezing the Gospel message out of the Matrix Trilogy.