Really Scary

Happy Halloween and Reformation Day! I have decided to sketchup some concepts of Halloween costumes that would scare me.


From Left to Right:

Rudolf Clausius
Though he is a little scary looking, the real horror is his discovery of entropy which predicts that the universe will eventually reach heat death in which there is no motion or life and all matter and energy are equally distributed.

Joel Osteen
He is the poster boy of the health and wealth gospel and can continually give me the jibblies with his “7 steps to becoming all god has created you to be”.

Supreme Court Justice
They are not elected, are appointed for life, and are the only clear and direct law/policy making branch of the government. That’s pretty scary.

McMansion
Involuntary shudder. If these ever start showing up in my nightmares, Laura might have to commit me to an asylum.

Ketchup Clown
Combines my loathing of ketchup and Blake’s fear of clowns. Don't ask.

Industrial Revolution (dog)
Is anyone really grateful for mass production?


Oh and here is my jack o lantern. It is some kind of dragon or fell beast.

Upcoming Movies

There are not a lot of sequels or big impressive movies being produced over the next couple of months so that means there might be some good stuff coming out. The following is a list of a few that I am looking forward to. As a disclaimer: I am not vouching for the entertainment or moral value for any of these, as I have yet to see them. There are even a few that I know beforehand that aren’t for everyone, especially if you are adverse to violence.

No Country For Old Men (Nov 9)
I have been looking forward to this movie for a while. It is based off a book by the brilliant Cormac McCarthy (All the Pretty Horses) and is directed and produced by the Coen brothers (Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou). It is set and filmed in West Texas.

Southland Tales (Nov 14)
What could make me interested in a movie that contains The Rock, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mandy Moore, and Justin Timberlake? This line: Directed by the director of Donny Darko. That in and of itself makes it worth seeing (in my little world) and seeing the trailer: it looks like a pretty solid sci-fi, musical, parody of American culture.

The Golden Compass (Dec 7)
I am still a little skeptical being a fan of the book but the latest trailer makes me want to give it a look. As a forecast, I expect the evangelical community to have a feeding frenzy with the source material (greater than Harry Potter and the Da Vinci Code put together).

I am Legend (Dec 14)
I will go see this if only for the preview for the next Batman movie, but it looks entertaining enough on its own. Nice to see Will Smith back to doing end of the world movies (well I guess he only previously did one end of the world movie, but now he has two).

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Dec 21)
Perfect material for Tim Burton. A dark comedy musical about a barber that goes over the edge and starts killing people to give to the meat pie lady for filling. Seems like they got the entire Harry Potter supporting cast.

Charlie Wilson’s War (Dec 25)
Interesting story and it has Tom Hanks, good possibility it will be worth watching.

Celebration of Family (In Memory of C.A. Haynes)

This weekend I traveled out to West Texas for my Grandad’s funeral. The service took place out at my great aunt Cathy’s ranch and as you will see from the photos it wasn’t your ordinary funeral. My father officiated from a dirt road to a small gathering of family seated upon folding chairs in the desert. After several stories were told and some songs sang, the grandkids took his ashes up to a ridge to scatter them and bury his boots. Afterwards we ate a huge meal of beef ribs, barbeque chicken, and freshly slaughtered goat with too many sides and deserts to name (this was after a large breakfast of burritos before the service). Needless to say there was a whole lot of eating, all while catching up with family that had grown out of touch.

The thing that many will find odd was the general uplifted spirit of the crowd. There was very little black being worn and posing for a picture at one point Christina asked if we shouldn’t be smiling. Stranger still is the fact that most of my family are not from a Christian background (in any case my Grandad wasn’t). This wasn’t necessarily a recognition of his passage into the kingdom nor was it in any way an irreverent. The only way I can describe it was a celebration of family, the gratitude for a man that brought us all together in life and in his death.

Aunt Cathy's Ranch



people gathering for the service



My dad giving the eulogy




looking back at the service as we go to spread the ashes

(clockwise from top) Aunt Annette, 2nd Cousin Bradon, Uncle Mark, Dad, Mom

C.A.'s sons: Tye, Robert (Dad), and Mark (holding his grandson Bradon)

C.A.'s grandchildren/great grandson/grand daughters-in-law: Corey, Bradon, Josie, Carra, Alex, Heath, Christina, Jacob, Laura




Laura (my wife) and Corey (my sister)

And we eat...

and talk.

My dad preparing the breakfast




My mom preparing for a 4-wheeler ride

My great uncle Bubba

Heath (my brother) holding Bradon

Christina (Heath's wife)

Corey

and a baby javilina.

Woodshop

This weekend I discovered once again why we should have bought a truck. I built some shelves and a ladder at the UTA wood shop. The shelves were for our DVDs and I designed them to fit together like large legos. The ladder is for my future treehouse which I will explain in a later post.

Our poor little car filled with lumber.

The completed shelves.

The big oak and my ladder (note that the ladder is 14’tall)

Vision

I don’t own a TV. This is more a statement of my own lack of self control then it is a defiance of culture. If there is a television in front of me and I am anyway remotely bored, I will watch it. So because of this I found myself over at Raghu’s apartment last night in order to watch The Office and hang out. It seems that all the networks are coming out with new shows at the moment because the commercial breaks were peppered with premiers that I must see. I must add that with all the crap being processed out there, I am in no way regretting my decision not to own a TV. But with the temptation to be gluttonous out of the way, I will catch The Office and Lost. Probably on the internet.

So to close, here are a few quotes from Dwight from The Office:

“Whenever I’m about to do something, I think “would an idiot do that?” and if they would, I do not do that thing.”

“I am fast. To give you a reference point I am somewhere between a snake and a mongoose…and a panther.”

“No. Don't call me a hero. Do you know who the real heroes are? The guys who wake up every morning and go in their normal jobs and get a distress call from the commissioner and take off their glasses and change into capes and fly around fighting crime. Those are the real heroes.”

Environmentalism

If you were a cartoon watching child in the 90’s, you probably had more then your fair share of environmental propaganda (mixed in with all the “Just Say No” anti-drug stuff). My personal favorite was Captain Planet who saved the world from evil polluting super villains. This, along with a kid who was absolutely nuts about animals, probably drove my parents insane on many occasions. Especially my dad, whose job at the time was a government trapper. I remember asking him why he had to kill animals when in my mind they were the innocent bystanders of invasive humans.

When I got a little older I eventually embraced my redneck roots and have been hunting many times with my father. I learned the gravity of killing, and had a very good example in my dad of a proper hunter. We killed for meat not for trophy, cleaning the animal ourselves, and this really impressed upon me a respect of the cycle of life and death.

I have found myself turning back to my tree hugging tendencies in the past few years, and feeling like I am coming to it with a much more mature attitude. In my humble opinion, the conservative right has completely butchered the Christian position on the environment; a large part in reaction to the left’s extreme view on it. Liberals would have us completely cut off from nature, stating that the natural state of the world is humanless. But conservatives would have nature destroyed for the sake of our progress, negligence, or apathy. Neither has a balance view.

Our relationship to the Earth is one of stewardship; God gave us the job of looking after it in Genesis. The picture of a steward is one who greatly trusted by the king is given the power to rule the kingdom until the king returns. This job should rank up there on our list, for it was the very first job given to man. Ideally this would encompass two things.

1. We should be a gathering and passing on intelligence about the natural cycles of the world. This shows us the importance of science and the importance of education; passing on a knowledge base to the next generation. It also shows the importance of being closely acquainted with nature; whether that be hunting, camping, hiking, gardening, getting outside, etc.

2. We should be interacting with our environment in a positive way as to develop a symbiotic relationship with nature. This can only be done when the first is properly executed. In contrast to the humanless nature, humans should pursue a very active role in the natural world. We should be making an earth that benefits both people and the environment.

This is all ideal of course; man has had a dysfunctional relationship with the natural world since we left the garden. As a whole we tear things up for our selfish benefit. But I don’t think that the church should forget what we are striving for.

Try to Take Over the World!

We got two additions to our family yesterday. Penelope and Amelia were once two humble lab mice who were rescued from death by snake by my wife. While I initially though the snake option was better, they are pretty darn entertaining (except when they get a bit too excited and pee on you).

I have been getting a treehouse itch lately and while tromping through a patch of urban wilderness yesterday discovered several large trees worthy of such an undertaking. Laura says that I have to build her some shelves first though.