Rebelious Vegetable Blog

Jenny will not appreciate that I chose to blog about this topic. She is afraid of how often I'll refer to this line of thinking in the future.

We were driving to church this morning. I was waking myself up with a Pepsi and I started to progress through some thoughts.

How do they make corn syrup? Does it come from corn? What about corn starch?

How many steps does it take for something not to be "from corn" anymore?

My Pepsi has corn syrup in it, does that make it a vegetable?

She did not like this line of logic. It did not lead to a healthy result in her mind. I disagreed. It was the most exciting result to come to.

I'll try not to torment her with this line of logic in the future, but if anyone wants to tell me how much corn remains in corn syrup, i'd appreciate it.

Against Perfection

I found myself rooting against the New England Patriots tonight.

The game didn't have any relevance towards the NFL playoffs, but I wanted the Patriots' undefeated season to come to an end.

It was close, but the Giants came up short and the Patriots finished the season undefeated.

Now I'll be rooting for them to lose in the playoffs.

Even if I didn't dislike the Patriots I would have rooted for them to lose, as I hope the Colts would win the Superbowl, thus the Patriots would have to lose at some point.

Here's to hoping they don't finish the year 19-0.

Making Digital Me

I bought myself a video game tonight. In said video game, you get to create yourself, including trying to make yourself look as much like the real you as possible.

Jenny spent 45 minutes trying to make the perfect portrait of digital me.

I like it when she plays video games with me.

If You Can't Trust the Priests...

I read this article today on UsaToday:

Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests had a rumble today inside Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, in a dispute over how to clean the church after Christmas celebrations.

AFP says the priests came to blows -- and in some cases even attacked each other with broomsticks and iron rods -- after the Greeks allegedly started cleaning a part of the church controlled by the Armenians. The church, built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was born, is shared by various branches of Christianity -- each of which controls a slice of the building.

Palestinian police had to be called in to break up the battle, and two of them were among the seven people reportedly hurt.

If we can't trust the Priests not to fight amongst themselves, or even to respect the work of the police officers, who can we trust?

Jenny Got a New Sweater

It's the holiday season, and Jenny has a new sweater.

Odd thing is, the two aren't related. There is an awkward tradition that has started with Jenny and I. Every time I buy a new golf club, Jenny is allowed to get a sweater. It started when Jenny felt guilty about buying a sweater, just go get home and find out I had bought myself a golf club. Since then, she has just decided she'd buy a sweater every time I bought a club.

Since winning the fantasy football league, I went and bought myself a new club. Today, Jenny picked out her sweater. To make sure she didn't miss out, I also bought Jenny a starter set of golf clubs, so she has her own set now.

Yay for new sweaters.

The Luxury of Comfort

The championship game culminated today. On the way home from church, I didn't know the lineup of my opponent, but knew I would be done at the end of the noon games. I needed to have a comfortable lead at that point.

The day started with me leading 13-8 after we had each gotten some points from either the Thursday or Saturday Night football games. Unfortunately, my 5 point lead came at the expenditure of using an extra player. I had played 2, he had only used 1.

With only 8 roster spots to play each week, that 5 points wasn't as secure as the extra spot might have been.

While my remaining 6 played, 4 of his remaining 7 were playing. He would be left with three players in the 3:00 games that could only close the gap of any lead I had. I needed to be far ahead.

Lucky for me, it was my fantasies, and fantasizing powers that seemed to be controlling the day. At half time of the first games, the score was roughly 41-8. He had not accumulated a point from his 4 players yet. My 6 were doing far better than that.

By the end of the first set of games, I had a comfortable lead at 69-9. He had three remaining players to try to amass 60 points to catch me. Comfort was a luxury you don't get often in this setting, but I was pretty comfortable.

At half time of the second games, I got a little nervous as I realized he had made up 26 of those points. Another half like that and the game would be much closer than comfort. Fortunately, it never got close. I ended the day with a 25 point margin of victory.

I am the fantasy football champion.

For anyone curious, had Jason won last week and faced me in the championship, I would have beat him, though it would have been much closer than the game I ended up with today.

Yay for an early Christmas.

I'll be spending the night away and with family tomorrow night, so I don't know that the blog will be updated.

Merry Christmas!

24 Hours of Fantasy

24 hours from now I should have a pretty good idea if I'm the fantasy football champion this year.

My opponent played the man who is arguably his best player on Thursday night and got 8 points.

The man who is arguably my best player played tonight, got injured during the second quarter, but had scored me 7 in the first quarter. It really was too bad he got hurt, he could have had a much more valuable game.

All the rest of my players play in the first set (12:00) Sunday games, while my opponent can have anywhere from 1-4 remaining after that. At this time tomorrow I should have a pretty good idea who is going to win. He might have someone play on Monday night, but even if he does, I should have a pretty solid understanding of where I sit.

Root hard tomorrow for:
David Garrard
Kenny Watson
Brandon Jacobs
Reggie Wayne
Kellen Winslow
Phil Dawson

The Important Things I Read

What happens when you flush a toilet on a cruise ship? (Taken from UsaToday)

Comedians love to joke about the toilets on cruise ships, which often sound like they're exploding when you flush them.

But the water-saving, vacuum-driven toilet systems are no joking matter to environmentalists, who have complained about the amount of wastewater that ships are dumping into the seas.
Just how much sewage from ships is making it into the world's oceans? The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which finally released its long-awaited report on the matter Thursday in draft form, says it's a lot, although it may not be as bad as you think.

The report notes that a growing number of cruise ships have new advanced treatment systems that are "very effective" in removing pathogens, suspended solids, oil and grease and other bad news items from wastewater before it's released into the ocean. With the new systems, which are on about 40% of the 130 ships run by Cruise Lines International Association members, "most volatile and semi-volatile organics are removed to levels below detection limits," the report says. About 10 to 15 more ships get the systems each year, it adds.

One interesting tidbit in the report: The typical toilet on a ship uses just a third of a gallon of water per flush (thanks to that noisy vacuum system). Compare that to a typical residential toilet on land, which uses 1.3 gallons. With water increasingly scarce in parts of the USA, will "exploding" vacuum toilets become a mainstay on land, too? We wonder.

Can't get enough information about toilets on cruise ships? You can download the entire report, dubbed the Draft Cruise Ship Discharge Assessment Report, by clicking here. In addition to sewage, it talks about the hazardous waste, solid waste and other waste products discharged from cruise ships. Readers have 45 days to comment on the draft report to the EPA before it prepares a final version.

Dealing with the Offseason

The last couple of days I've really wanted to go golfing.

There is snow all around.

Today, I resorted to watching my favorite golf movie (The Legend of Bagger Vance) as I awaited my next golfing fix.

Yesterday, I spent time at a golf store, looking at clubs, hitting some golf balls, and browsing through things that are more expensive than I want to pay.

It won't take long until I make my next golf purchase. I have a gift card to a golf store, and am guaranteed some money from fantasy football. Hopefully, I'll win, and be able to purchase other things as well, but if I lose my matchup this week, it is likely that a golf club will be the purchase made with that money.

I live in the wrong state for golfing in the winter.

White Elephant Gift Exchanges

I like the concept of a well done white elephant gift exchange. Unfortunately, I have never seen this concept done well.

Most of these times turn into comical re-gifting extravaganzas with little value to be found in any of the gifts. What amazes me, is that year after year, the same group of people will gather to do the fruitless exercise. There has to be a better way.

Someone, somewhere must have been to a white elephant gift exchange that worked well. Please tell me what it was like.

One of us likes cameras

Between Jenny and myself, one of us likes cameras. Whenever something cute or artsy is going on, Jenny enjoys taking pictures. I'm glad she enjoys it so much.

My photography knowledge base is limited though. She has explained aperature to me too many times for me still to have no clue what it means.

Nonetheless, she took some pictures tonight, because what was going on was "just too cute."

Here is one of those pictures:

If you look closely, you'll notice my middle finger is lifted just high enough to feed him. He likes to hold the bottle himself, but doesn't always make sure the angle puts food in for him.

And.... Exhale

I've secured a spot in the fantasy football championship. I needed to wait and hope that the Vikings Defense didn't score enough points to knock me out, and then I could breathe my sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, Jason lost this week. I won't have the chance to disappoint him next week. Instead, I get to secure all of the fantasizing powers from the collective family.

My Heardened Heart

Every year this happens to me. Every year I disagree with choices of churches all around the country. This year is no exception.

Please, as you read this, understand this is a reflection on me, not on my church.

I think my heart must be too hard. I simply cannot enter into worship the way I normally can when the songs are all Christmas Carols. I understand that many of these songs say great things in very worshipful ways. For all I know, they even started as worship songs.

It just doesn't work that way for me. I learned them as Christmas Carols and Christmas Carols they remain. I don't say this as a negative against any church, or even any worship director, but I have never been able to worship through these songs. I don't know that I ever will. Even typing that is a sad statement of my spiritual frailty.

Wishful Thinking Starts Now

Hopefully, we can deal with the debate of who is the underdog between Jason's and my fantasy football teams next week.

As for now, I just turned in my last assignments for the quarter, 13 hours before they were due. I'm way ahead of the game.

The rest of the weekend will now be spent thinking wishfully about how my fantasy team might defeat its opponent this week so as to meet up with either Jason (and hopefully Jason) or his opponent the following week in the championship.

If you know much about football, here are the people you will cheer for this week:
David Gerrard
Vince Young
Reggie Wayne
Terrell Owens
Rudi Johnson
Frank Gore
Brandon Jacobs
Chester Taylor
Jesse Chatman
Kenny Watson
Kellen Winslow
Phil Dawson
San Diego's defense and special teams
Dallas' defense and special teams

I would have listed who was starting for my team, but I haven't made all of those decisions yet, so you can root for all of them.

What Will Glow Next?

This evening, I was updating myself on the national news that didn't relate to sports. Listening to sports talk radio in the car negates my need to update myself on the top sports stories of the day, so I was already sick of hearing about the new baseball steroids report.

UsaToday almost always has something worth reading. Tonight's story of choice was about glow in the dark cats. It seems that in South Korea, they have effectively given cats some pills that make them glow in the dark. They assume that this is going to help them discover and track diseases and that there is a scientific purpose for being able to do this. I don't know if I agree.

I just found it interesting to read. Glow in the dark cats. What will glow next? I think I would like a pair of glow in the dark socks. I feel like I might trip on less things, or at least stub my toes less if I could wear glow in the dark socks or slippers.

Two More Good Weeks

Tomorrow night starts the next week in the quest to be Fantasy Football Champion of the world.

They bye week has passed, Jason and I are poised to play our semi-final matches, hopefully concluding in my triumphant victory over him in the championship.

For such a thing to happen I need to have two more good weeks. Everyone use your fantasizing powers for me.

The God Of Grace

Tonight I took my Genesis-Ruth (Hebrew) test. This is my first of the three Old Testament classes I'll take this year. The "(Hebrew)" is to signify that I'm taking it with an understanding of the original language.

The final was interesting. 6 short answer essay questions and 3 long essay questions. One of the long essays was quite interesting to me.

The teacher opened the first day of the semester arguing (correctly) that it is unfortunate that so many people paint the picture of the Old Testament God as one of wrath, anger and war, and the New Testament God as one of grace, peace and love. He argued that this dichotomy as unfair to the Scripture (which I agree with).

So, the last essay question of the test was simply this.

Show how each book from Genesis to Ruth shows God as a gracious, working to reverse the effects of the fall and reconcile all people to himself. Use specific examples from those texts themselves to support your arguments.

Being that this test was closed book, and no Bible was allowed, the using texts parts became interesting for me.

Ultimately, I just wondered what influences have placed this dichotomy of the two separate Gods of the OT and NT upon our culture and if anyone has anything to chime in on the topic.

As for me, I'm just happy to have the test completed and mailed away.

Two Down, Two To Go

Almost done with another quarter. I have four major projects due this week. 2 of them were due by midnight tonight.

I was way ahead of the curve for me as I had both of them finished by about 5:30.

One more due Wednesday by 5:00 and the other Saturday by 5:00 and then I'm free until classes resume in January.

Fortunately for me, Jenny and I have come up with a list of other papers I will get to write between the quarters.

Yay for schoolwork.

View From The Shoulder

I learned one of Jenny's pet peeves I had not yet known today. If Jenny is driving, she doesn't want the passenger of the car to take control of things like the windshield wipers.

I did not learn this because I peeved her. Instead, while driving home from my parents' tonight, Jenny decided she could not see well enough out her half of the windshield and thought that maybe I (the driver) might be having the same problem (I was not). She then reached over and clicked the windshield wipers on, which as they do in this kind of cold, spread the liquid drops evenly over all of the windshield. Now I couldn't see.

Using the windshield wiper fluid is always the first attempt, but as we had only been in the car about a minute, the windshield was still cold enough to freeze that fluid on contact. It was time to pull off unto the shoulder and wait for the defrost to kick into high gear.

We laughed a lot of the way home. She also then informed me that she didn't exactly know why she did it, as it is one of her pet peeves.

A New Student

Tomorrow marks my second Rubik's cube student.

Jenny started by having me teach her how to solve one just after the "Pursuit of Happiness" came out.

Shortly thereafter I showed my mom the first couple of steps, but didn't finish showing her how to completely solve it.

After a long delay, she has now requested I bring my cube over tomorrow so that she too can master it.

We'll probably also have to see if Jenny can still do it on her own.

Still the Best Show On Television

Jenny and I finished watching the rest of season two of How I Met Your Mother on dvd. I got the set for my birthday. Jenny had seen all of them during their original airings, but I had to miss some because of my class schedule last year.

Re-watching these episodes has confirmed that I believe How I Met Your Mother is the best show currently on television. It is currently halfway through season three, but has been halted because of the writer's strike.

You should all check it out.

The Search Is Over

... and we are happy.

The best friend got a new job. He doesn't have to leave us for the home state of Delaware now.

Too many dumb companies passed him up in his search, but we are happy he has found a new employer.

Go Matt Go!

Discussion Topics

MSK stated:

So, is there a way to "simplify" for laymen, some interesting topics, not necessarily obscure topics, that might generate some discussion. At the same time, maybe I was being too optimistic about some topics being useful for general discussions. I can understand why the merits of "The Golden Mean" in architectural layouts, may not be of interest to the general public.

Here is what we are going to do. We'll have some discussions. Periodically I'll pick a topic (suggestions can be given in the comments here) to discuss in "laymen" terms. By that I mean that the discussion will be generated in discussion of terms that we all understand. I won't give the 7 syllable word names of different views or aspire to quote the leading holders of those views. Instead, we'll cover what comes up in conversation.

The Format:

I'll post a brief overview of a topic to discuss. I'll follow that with some questions that someone might want to think about as they begin to discuss the topic. The discussions will then take their own form, but will try to always adhere to the interest of the general public and not deviate into minutia discussions of tangents that disclude the interest of the majority.

I'll refrain from any kind of opinionizing in the actual post to the best of my ability, and will instead wait for discussion to start from outside of me before weighing in.

The Blog Resources:

Because I try to blog everyday, I don't want these discussion to get lost simply because they are 6 days old. I'll maintain a link section on the right side of the page which can quickly get you to a discussion topic blog. I would also suggest that when commenting, you check the box that has replies sent to you when more comments are added so that you know if someone addresses a question directly to you.

Discussion 1 can be found below, and takes place on the ever controversial topic of creation.

Discussion 1 - Creation

There isn't a much earlier place in the Bible to find controversial discussion than the story of creation. So lets start there.

Brief Overviews:

Many people believe that creation by God and evolution are opposed opinions and must always be viewed as such. You either believe in the creation tactics shown by science, such as evolution and the big bang, or you believe in creation by God, over seven days, whether taken as a literal or symbolic seven days.

I'd like to discuss this topic.

Must people who believe that God created the world have a disdain for the views of evolution?

Must people who believe that God created the world believe it happened in a literal 7 days?

What was the author's purpose in his telling of the creation stories (there are two different accounts given in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2)?

What might the audience have thought when they heard these creation accounts?

What was life like then (at the time of writing) that might give us an understanding into why these accounts are presented as they are? (were there similar stories, a need for the people to hear, was it a hot button issue... etc.)

Do these accounts have a scientific understanding of the world in mind?

Answering a Comment

MSK asked:

Have you thought about putting links to your papers on the website so that we could see the assignment, how you responded, and hear what the instructor/class mates thought?

I have a couple of responses.

First, "Blogspot" does not readily offer (to my knowledge) the ability to upload my papers, so I would first need another site to upload my document to which I could then link to here. That is only, albeit easily solve able, issue I would have with the mass posting.

The second thought is that of value. Many of my assignments assume background knowledge of class discussions and readings thus my professors and classmates will have a collective knowledge base that I would imagine no one else (even seminary students or graduates) who are not enrolled would not share. That being said, I don't know of the value that their comments, or sometimes even my papers (as written for the teacher) would provide.

I guess i'm wondering if there is an alternative. I can easily post the questions posed for my papers, and am more than willing to write my understandable (read: without footnotes and supporting quotes) versions of my answers.

It isn't that I don't want to post my papers as much as they are not great for discussion of a topic. I would much rather give my opinion and invite others to give theirs.

What do people think?

Important Accomplishments

Many important things got accomplished today.

Here are three great examples.

1. Our Christmas tree has ornaments on it. We are now fully decorated for Christmas.

2. The hot tub was used despite the snow. My feet got cold, but it was well worth it.

3. I secured my first round bye in the fantasy football playoffs. That leaves me and my brother as the top two teams in our league, Jason having only lost one game (the one time I played him).
I hope he only loses two. We can't play each other in the playoffs until the championship game and that would be fun.

An altogether good day.

Barn Burning Fantasy

My fantasy season's playoff implication is playing out as a barn burner.

I need two things to happen for me this week. I need to win my game, and then win the tie-breaker to secure my first round play-off bye week.

This is of little interest to many of you, but is vastly exciting to me.

I'm ahead in the game I need to win by 27 points. Thus, the person I'm playing can score 26 more from Randy Moss and the Baltimore Defense. I'm feeling fairly secure about this game at the moment.

More secure than the second task. I'm ahead in the tie-breaker currently by 22 points. The other guy can then score 21 from Tom Brady and the New England Defense. Any more than that and I win.

Root against those four entities.

Belly is Full

We accomplished the filling of my belly tonight. For our birthdays, my mother and I got taken out to The Melting Pot, with our close friends and family.

2 and a half hours later we were all very full.

Tomorrow, my heart can be made happy. If I do well enough in Fantasy Football this week, i'm guaranteed my money back in the playoffs.

Let's all hope that happens.

Trivia Time

First one to guess correctly what Jenny is making gets a prize.

Jenny and Myself not eligible.



It started on the floor...

but also required sewing

more than one piece of material needed to be sewed

at the finish, the product is filled with something from the kitchen.

Guesses welcome in the comments section.