Random Thoughts v2.0

A friend of mine once told me that everything he didn't understand was magic to him. Like a car engine, for example, was basically magic. "Now I'm going to turn this key, and continuous explosions will make these wheels turn at amazing speeds." Well, rechargeable batteries are magic to me... extremely frustrating magic, mind you. Electricity is amazingly powerful: it sent marty mclfy back to the future, it can petrify felines on super high power lines, and it can travel at super speeds. Nevertheless, my battery takes an hour or two to charge. I just don't understand this magic. I can fill up a gallon of water with the tap in about 30 seconds... but I can't fill up a tiny battery with electricity unless I plug it in over night? that's lowsy, I say.

I love diet drinks. I just love them. Sure, I'm probably going to get cancer from the artificial sweeteners, and my lungs are slowly turning into swiss cheese as a result of the potent carbonation of my brews... but those drinks give me pleasure. However, I am no longer a fan of regular soda. Regular soda tastes like medicine, or maple syrup. It's too sweet, and it's just trying to hard. It's like it's trying to trick me into thinking that something nasty is actually tasty (Like Cherry flavored dimetap). This strong opinion causes me problems when overqualified Arby's employees, who currently can't find a job anywhere else, give me regular Dr. Pepper instead of Diet. Therefore, I move that all diet drinks shall get new names! Apparently, the word "Diet" is not enough of a modification to the regular name. My Guiltless, zero-calorie addiction shall now be called Dr. Splenda!

I love the show "Lost". My wife and I have recently started watching it on the internet. I think it's really convenient that the island community has a good looking, confident, super strong doctor to lay down the law. (It's like he's bear grylls or something) But what if you really got stuck on an island with a doctor, but his specialty was podiatry... or better yet, proctology. I mean come on... in the rare case that you would actually need a colonoscopy on a diet of boar, berries, and bananas, I don't think bamboo medical tools would do the job very well... ouch!

We recently signed up for a free trial of Netflix, and so far we are really happy. Part of the coolness of netflix is that it lets you rate movies, and then it gives you recommendations for movies to watch. Well, it's kind of embarrassing, but I've rated 600 movies. It goes really quick, and it didn't take that long to rate them, but just think of how long I spent watching them! Good grief. That's 1200-1500 hours of movie time.. not including the time it takes to choose the movie and drive to watch it or pick it up. A 4 year college degree only takes about 1800 in-class hours. Oh, and that doesn't include the 168 hours of 24 I own, or the 300+ hours of American Idol I've enjoyed. (I've also watched all 178 episodes of star trek the next generation)

Yikes!

I'm constantly amazed by my daughter Kate. She's changing so fast and it's amazing to watch. She can't talk, walk, or feed herself, but she's already the most fascinating person I've ever met. She's a good baby, but like all babies, she does cry here and there. I was trying to comfort her the other day and a thought came to me: What if adults never got over the whole crying thing. What if everytime you were hot, cold, hungry, thirsty, bored, or tired you could just wail and wail. Most of my law school classes would never have a quiet moment. I imagine every class I've ever been to in my 18 years of education had a least one person that was hot, cold, hungry, thirsty, bored, or tired. I imagine there would be someone crying in every minute of every class. My first reaction is that nothing would ever get done... but maybe I'm being to negative. Maybe we'd live in a more accommodating world with individual thermostats, food and drink on demand, and siestas throughout the day. That sounds pretty nice.

Average ability, great opportunity.

". . . but be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some acheive greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em." (Shakespeare's "Twelth Night")

"Ability involves responsibility; power to its last particle, is duty." (Alexander Maclaren)

So what about the rest of us? Born average, average achievement, completely unthrusted upon (out of the gutter please) Spiderman the movie even takes a cue from Mr. Maclaren when Uncle Ben says "with great power comes great responsibility." I love those quotes, and they make me feel all warm and fuzzy, but I don't think they are complete. I believe Jesus said it better: "for whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required . . ." (Luke 12:48) It's true that greatness or power can be given to a man, and therefore much would be required, but opportunity can also be a gift. There is so much need in this world, and as a result, there are many opportunities to make a difference.

The economy is in the tank, millions of Americans don't have access to health care, the public school system is falling behind, and even the post office is on the road to failure. So what are you going to do about it? Wait and see if the politicians fix it, and if they don't you'll vote em the heck out of there? Good luck with that.

Now is the time to come together. Families, communities, churches, and other organizations can improve any situation as long as people are willing to work.

We've been given the opportunity to live in one of the greatest ages the earth has ever seen. New advances in medicine, technology, and creativity are unprecedented. And now, as our security and prosperity seem to be slipping away, we all look around to find someone to blame. But in the end, you will be judged, whether by man or God, based on what you did with what you had.

I still believe that we can turn things around through hard work, determination, and a load of optimism. We are constantly having great opportunities thrust upon us. And even though these opportunities are coming in the form of adversity, we must do our best to face them with enthusiasm rather than cynicism.