Friday, April 14, 2006

I recently bought Passion’s Everything Glorious CD, which includes a modern version of I Stand Amazed in the Presence (How Marvelous). It is a great version and is the Song of the Day for this Good Friday:

I Stand Amazed in the Presence (How Marvelous)
by Charles H. Gabriel

I stand amazed in the presence
Of Jesus the Nazarene,
And wonder how He could love me,
A sinner, condemned, unclean.

O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
Is my Savior’s love for me!

For me it was in the garden
He prayed: “Not My will, but Thine.”
He had no tears for His own griefs,
But sweat drops of blood for mine.

O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
Is my Savior’s love for me!

In pity angels beheld Him,
And came from the world of light
To comfort Him in the sorrows
He bore for my soul that night.

O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
Is my Savior’s love for me!

He took my sins and my sorrows,
He made them His very own;
He bore the burden to Calvary,
And suffered and died alone.

O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
Is my Savior’s love for me!

When with the ransomed in glory
His face I at last shall see,
’Twill be my joy through the ages
To sing of His love for me.

O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
O how marvelous! O how wonderful!
Is my Savior’s love for me!

1. I finally had that conference call on the financial system user manual the other day. Turns out the HQ dude likes my work - I had sent him rewrites to five chapters - it’s exactly what they were wanting. Good news! I was all set to pass off the rest of the project to the folks who were actually tasked with rewriting the manual. Oh, ho, ho - I’m a funny one. The bad news is that they want me to do the same with all of the other chapters, too. Due next Friday. Somehow I think that they’ve managed to pawn their work off onto me and I’m stupid enough to do it. Oh, well. One more thing to add to my resume, I suppose.

2. I have my follow-up post-surgery appointment with my OB this afternoon. We’ll get pathology results, too, most likely. It will be nice if they can tell me something definitive about what went wrong. I’m also hoping she’ll clear me with a clean bill of health. I’m happy to be leaving the office early today - I don’t feel like being here.

3. Choir/band practice went well enough last night, although I was worried when we had been there for an hour and had only gone through one song. We managed to crank out the other 6 songs pretty quickly. And the thing that frustrated me on Wednesday turned out amusing last night we we figured out that what we were being taught was not what we were supposed to be singing after all. Slight vindication for me. Overall I think we’ll sound pretty good, if people can hear us over the volume of the band.

4. There’s a lovely purple flowered tree that we see randomly all over the place that we cannot identify. I asked my parents what it was and Dad said it was probably a Red Bud. So I looked that up and we’re pretty sure that is not the tree we’re talking about, although that is equally pretty. Red Bud flowers are more pink than the trees we’re talking about. I keep meaning to grab my camera to get a picture, but haven’t managed to remember that so far. Anyone know what I’m talking about?

You know, what? I think it may be the Red Bud after clicking through some more pictures.

I watched last night’s episode this morning while I drank my coffee. My spoilerish thoughts are below the fold…

Thursday, April 13, 2006

You Are an Excellent Cook

You’re a top cook, but you weren’t born that way. It’s taken a lot of practice, a lot of experimenting, and a lot of learning. It’s likely that you have what it takes to be a top chef, should you have the desire…

[via Jay Solo]

Most of you know that I’m in the choir at my church. We’re part of the Easter services this weekend, which means that for the next few days I’ll be spending my evenings at the church. We had a practice last night, which was frustrating for me, but I won’t bore you with the details.

We practice tonight with the worship band and we’ve been told to plan on being there until 10:30pm. Joy.

Tomorrow night we’re having a Good Friday service; I’m on the fence about going since I’ll then be at the church for most of Saturday evening for the first of our Easter services and then most of Sunday for the three services that morning.

All this to say that certain topical blogging will be delayed - I’m talking recaps of TAR, Survivor, LOST, and anything else that I normally blog about. All are recording on the DVR and will be watched at some point, but I have no idea when I’ll be able to post about it. So, patience is requested, friends.

I know who got the boot from AI5 last night and I’m not unhappy, but I was hoping for someone else. There’s always next week, I suppose.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Neil poses a “things that make you go hmmm” question about 24.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Just for giggles, I looked up “illegal” at Dictionary.com. Here’s what I got:

il·le·gal adj.
1. Prohibited by law.
2. Prohibited by official rules: an illegal pass in football.
3. Unacceptable to or not performable by a computer: an illegal operation.

n.
An illegal immigrant.

I love that the example is timely and topical.

My 2 cents on the immigration issue:

1. Read the definition of “illegal” - those who cross our borders without the appropriate documents have broken the law and should be dealt with accordingly. I’d prefer that all be deported, but I realize that the logistics of that is nearly impossible.

A conundrum.

2. I oppose the Dems proposed plan because it does not do one thing to secure our borders. But I’m not a fan of the GOP’s plans either because I think they are too lenient. But I could live with the “stronger” of the compromise plans - with tiered “amnesty” for those who have been here for a certain length of time (although that just grates on my law and justice side of my personality) and outright deportment for those who do not meet that time criteria. And the same for any who have sketchy backgrounds.

3. What I’d like to see is the enforcement of existing immigration laws. The truth is we don’t really need any new laws for this. We just need more proactive enforcement.

I’m frustrated with President Bush and Congress on this issue. Neither is strong enough, imho. And we are talking about the security of our country here. I feel for the people who want a better life, but there are millions of people who came into this country legally to get that better life. They patiently waited and filled out forms and dealt with American bureaucracy and took citizenship classes and whatever other hoops they needed to jump through to get into this country legally. Those who jump fences make a mockery of their sacrifice.

I’m glad I don’t work in DC. I would have been highly aggravated by the protest march yesterday afternoon - the one that started right when evening rush hour started. How’s that for planning?

UPDATE: Jay Tea at Wizbang sums up my thinking much better than I have or could. Please go read the whole thing…

The recent waves of protests have done yeoman’s work at muddling the issue. To them, all who have come to the United States are equal, regardless of the means they arrived. That is a gross insult to those who respected the system, followed the rules, did the paperwork, waited in line, and showed respect for our nation and our laws from the very first. To lump those exceptionally worthy people in with those who lied on their “tourist” or “student” visas, those who refused to leave when they agreed to, or simply broke into this nation is one of the crassest political acts I have ever witnessed (and as someone who lives next door to Massachusetts, the state that gave the country Ted Kennedy, Michael Dukakis, and John Kerry, that’s saying a LOT). It must not be allowed to stand unchallenged. Those people being lumped in with the illegal aliens are far better than that. They are some of the finest people our nation can claim, and should not be so insulted.

Since it is spring break in Fairfax County, Beau won’t be working this week. And so he made the trip into work with me for another day of The Circus™. Today may be interesting since I think the prosecution plans to wrap up victim witness testimony tomorrow.

I’ll fill you in on what he sees, maybe.

Good episode last night.

Dave Barry’s recap and here’s a snippet that made me almost snarf my Fresca:

Meanwhile CTU, whose employees have been valiantly trying to continue the fight against terrorism despite the fact that half of them were killed by nerve gas and the other half are moles, is now being overrun by Homeland Security bureaucrats who behave as if they all have prizewinning zucchini up their butts, which means we’re supposed to hate them, which may mean that they’re part of a shocking plot twist and we should actually like them.

Speaking of people who are not easy to stomach, Audrey—who apparently slept with not only all the writers for this show, but also every employee of the Fox network above the rank of assistant custodian—is STILL IN THE PLOT. She has formed an alliance with Chloe.

Speaking of Chloe: She had better not get Edgared, or this blog, for one, is going to take to the streets with the righteous wrath of a million undocumented immigrants.

I can’t sum up any better than, Dave, really. So I won’t bother.

But leave your theories and general 24 thoughts in the comments.

Monday, April 10, 2006

[Seen all over the place]

After church and lunch with my folks yesterday, Beau and I dropped into the McKays Used Bookstore (in Centreville) to poke around the stacks.

BAD NEWS: This store is closing and they’re moving all the merchandise to the Manassas store. At least there will still be a McKays, but man, that’s a hike to Manassas.

Anyhoo, Beau bought a couple poli sci books, because that’s pretty much all he reads besides his Bible. I bought some pulp fiction and a couple PG Wodehouse that I managed to scrounge. Reading Rob the Llama Butcher‘s posts about Wodehouse has piqued my curiosity enough to consider exploring his world. I got one Jeeves & Wooster and some other novel. Don’t remember the titles of either.

At the moment, I’m about halfway through Twisted by Jonathan Kellerman. I’m liking it - rather than being another Alex Delaware novel, this one picks up Petra Connor, whom he introduced in Billy Straight. Billy Straight is my all time favorite JK novel.

I’ve got a few books on hold at the library, too. So I don’t know what I’ll read next, but it’s nice to have choices.

There have been a few posts that I’ve seen about United 93, the feature film due to open on April 28 that tells the story of United Flight 93 on September 11, 2001. When the trailers started running a couple of weeks ago, people were taken by surprise and some expressed that it was too soon for this kind of movie. I sort of agreed. But now I don’t.

It’s only been five years since we were attacked and I think too many people have forgotten the horror of that day. I think that we have been shielded from the pictures and video of that day. I think we need to see those images every day. We need the reminder of the acts of war that were perpetrated against our country, against innocent American citizens, and against innocent visitors in our country.

3000 people died on that day.

We need to remember the events that took their lives.

United 93 is a way for us to remember them and to honor the people who prevented more death and destruction.

What changed my mind? I saw a short spot on TV this morning - the director and family members giving their testimony about why this movie is important. Click on the link to the movie site and then “Enter the Site.” In the window that pops up, click on the menu link at the bottom left and then on the link to the Director’s Statement - this is the text he expresses in the TV spot. I believe his motives for making the movie are genuine and given that all of the families agreed to help with the project and endorse it. I believe that we need to go see it.

Will it be hard to watch? Probably. Will it bring back all of the emotions we felt on 9/11? I hope so. We should never forget the events that took place on that day - 1672 days ago.

I am going to try to go see United 93 opening weekend. I hope you will do the same.

Beau dubbed me Madame Stratego after I captured his flag in all three games we played this weekend. Honestly, I don’t know how I’m beating him - it’s not easy and he takes out a lot of my players. He took all but about 12 of my players in yesterdays game.

And we played some Boggle on Saturday, with me beating him in that, too.

He’s the Scrabble champion, though.

Next I’m trying to get him to start a running Gin Rummy game. So far I haven’t been successful in that.

Long story made short: I’ve reconnected with a friend from my New Hampshire days that I had lost touch with soon after I left Young Life staff. (Hi, Becky!) She and I became good friends pretty quickly after I moved up there - we have the same sense of humor and were close in age - she’s about 5 or 6 years older than I and she has been married for 25 years, but we had a lot in common.

Anyway, I got an email from my friend in Alaska, who just got engaged herself and that’s a great story in itself, but I clicked to expand the other email address of the list of folks she had sent her message to see who else was listed. I was thrilled to see Becky’s email address and I immediately sent her a message. We’ve since continued the conversation to catch up from the last 5 years and I look forward to our future conversations. And it’s more incentive to convince Beau to take a vacation in New England sometime.

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Beau and I had a nice date night last night. I skipped out of the office a little early because the sun came out and I wanted to spend that little bit of spring with him. So when I got out the courthouse garage, I called him to ask him out for dinner. He accepted, of course. We went to Rio Grande Cafe, which is one of the place where we had dinner on our second date - they have the best fajitas we’ve ever eaten. We got there at about 5:30 and the outside patio was already packed, so we opted to eat inside. After dinner we wandered through Fairfax Corner a little, stopped at Ben and Jerry’s, and then wandered back to our car and home.

On the way home we decided to stop at Target to buy another game to play - we like Scrabble, but don’t want to wear out its welcome. We ended up buying Boggle and Stratego. While watching CSI reruns on Spike, we played our first game of Stratego and I managed to win.

We were planning to go into DC for the Cherry Blossom Street Festival today, but with the rain, we opted not to go today. We may go down there tomorrow after church, but I’m thinking there won’t be many blossoms to see after the rain. Bummer.

So this morning, instead, I will be going with Joan and CH for CH’s first wedding dress fitting. And then this afternoon I’ll be helping my parents finish Mom’s business bookkeeping so that she can send in her tax stuff.