We were able to go see Jason Upton in concert on Sunday night. It was a great concert. I struggle, though, when I go to a concert of someone who I know for their worship songs and their concert is more their personal experience songs. It was still very good, and God was definitely present and active in the room. We've been listening to "Beautiful People" and "Faith," two of Jason's cds, ever since.
Some notes on Jason Upton:
5. He's so good at playing the piano that he can make a three chord song sound incredible.
4. He's so "raw." That's the word I've heard multiple people use in regards to his personality and song writing.
3. He's got a high tenor voice but without sounding feminine.
2. Occasionally on his cds, he sounds like Steve Camp. In a good way.
1. The most amazing thing about Jason is his uncanny resemblance to Dave Graf. they could be twins. Now imagine Dave being a paino playing, high tenor singing, worship leader. Amazing.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
The Big OT
I have been highly offended by the Chevrolet commercials I have seen for the last year or so. "This is our country." A bunch of white farmboys returning home from war for the last hundred years. Who is "us" in "our country?" White people? Rural Americans? Soldiers? At least the new Chevy commercial I saw today has 3 or 4 black people out of 30-40 people shown in the commercial. Sure, I don't think I've ever seen an Asian-American driving a truck, but these commercials seem to go past market-driven advertisement. Maybe the next Chevy commercial will be filmed with some good ole boys on the Trail of Tears, the Birmingham Bridge, along the Rio de Janeiro, or in Chinatown. Or driving in the Middle East.
That reminds me. Like mother, like daughter apparently. America broke out of colonialism only to start our own overseas. Manifest Destiny meets Monroe Doctrine meets Alexandrian Empire.
That reminds me. Like mother, like daughter apparently. America broke out of colonialism only to start our own overseas. Manifest Destiny meets Monroe Doctrine meets Alexandrian Empire.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Surpassing the Energizer Bunny
This week has been incredibly busy. Last week was the end of the first quarter of school. That meant getting everything in order with students so no one was failing any classes. I had something every night at church except Friday. Friday was field trip day at school, with three groups going to three places. My group included ALL of the boys and one father. We went to a nearby airplane museum. Saturday included hanging out with our friends Nate and Natalie and their 4 year-old Abby and their 4 month-old Eli. During this time, I got some phone calls from Caribou saying I was supposed to be at work, which I didn't know. So, I missed a shift. In my conversation with my boss, wherein she was apologizing to me about the shift, I made the final step of ending my job at Caribou. She was sad to hear I was leaving, but it put the store in a better situation since I was more of an inconvenience (I was only working once every six weeks). Sunday, I helped lead worship at church. It was the first time in close to ten years that I had played guitar without singing and that I had played in someone else's worship team. I came home from church to find out that the NFL on TV is only going down hill. This year, if it is not the Vikings game, neither Fox nor CBS will air the game, even though we live less than 30 miles from WI. This only added to my frustration from the week before when Katy and I had planned our Monday around watching the Packer game, only to realize (for the second year in a row) that ESPN has stolen football away from the common man. Monday was filled with grading every class and filling out report cards. Tuesday, we started parent-teacher conferences in the morning and after school. Then, we led worship Tuesday night and I spoke and our Young Adults Ministry. Our Young Adults pastors went to the hospital at midnight that night as she was going into labor with their first child. Luke Daniel Dorn was born 7lbs.6oz. at 3:16pm on November 7. Wednesday was more conferences and finishing up some work for our school Book Clubs on Thursday. Thursday was more conferences, our gym being filled with tables and chairs that we had to take down and set up during our gym class just in order to play, and doing some shopping for our science class on Friday. Friday was, in comparison, much less stressful. We even had time to watch Transformers last night before bed. Today, we are leading worship for a RAIN lunch meeting (RAIN is Resurrection Apostolic International Network, the international ministry that our pastors oversee and of which our church is the flagship). We have guest speaker Harold Eberle in for the weekend. So, as staff at the church, we also get to go to a dinner meeting with him tonight as well as a time of impartation. Tomorrow, we are probably teaching our leadership class before church, since our pastors are sruviving their first days at home with Luke. Things will finally slow down tomorrow afternoon, when the Packers find a way (somehow) to shut down Adrian Peterson and jumpstart their own running game. It's nice to know you can be dead last in the league in rushing and still be one of the top five teams overall. thank you, Brett Favre.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Three Pains in the Butt
Here is a partially gruesome story about my physical health. If you recently ate, I would recommend not reading this article in its entirety.
Around the end of July, I found a nodule on my leg. Inside thigh of my right leg just above the knee. I thought for quite some time that it might have been a bug bite that didn't go away, a bug inside my leg (like a tick head), or possibly a bug had laid eggs inside my leg. It stayed the same for about two months.
Last Thursday, it became infected. The nodule that was about 2.5 mm in diameter swelled to 2.5 cm in diameter. Around that area, my knee became red and swelled up with a diameter of 15 cm. For two days, I limped around at school. Finally on Friday, Katy and I went to Urgent Care to have it checked out.
The doctor believed that it was a sebaceous cyst. Basically, think of a gigantic zit that is too deep under the surface to come out, so it stores up to much oil and hardens into a cheese-like substance. So, the doctor prescribed cephalexin as a mild antibiotic. Then, the nurse gave me a shot in the right butt cheek of ansef (sp?). An entire gram of it. That's the WHOLE syringe. I had to sit and wait for a half hour to make sure I wasn't allergic to it. During that half hour, I was able to literally feel the gram of liquid very slowly work its way down the inside of my butt cheek.
I came back to the doctor on Sunday evening (after the Packers crushed the Vikings). The swelling hadn't gotten any smaller, only slightly moved. So, the doctor prescribed clyndamycin as a strong antibiotic. I had my blood drawn and tested for white blood cell count. Then, another nurse gave me a full syringe in the left butt cheek. She was not nearly as kind. Then, sit, wait, feel the liquid ooze down my bubble butt.
I almost instantly got a cold. It started as a bad head cold with strong headaches. After two days, the head cold moved into my lungs, which has been much more bearable. So I rested a bit on Monday, but I went back to work on Tuesday and Wednesday.
By Wednesday, the infection was getting better. The cyst was drawing back into itself. So we went to the doctor for our last visit. My thought was that this would be the coolest zit popping session EVER. Second option was that she would cut it open and it would pop under the pressure and be easily drained. Reality: She tried to pop it with her fingers. Result: very painful. She injected the area directly underneath the cyst with an entire syringe of anasthetic. Result: more painful, the surface bubbled up more than I thought skin could stretch, and the cyst(s) became visible. She cut open my leg, then cut open the sac(s) of the cyst (a cyst can have multiple chambers that also need to be "loosened"). Result: maybe not weeping, but definitely gnashing of teeth. She pushed on my skin with her fingers as if she were popping a zit 3-feet down from the surface, and then she used forceps to pick at the cheese-like substance of the cyst to get out as much as she could until I couldn't bear it anymore. Result: after praying and finding more peace in the situation, I calmed my breathing, but the process went on for at least fifteen minutes leading to the anasthetic wearing off. When she felt like stopping, she packed the incision with a shoestring-length-and-width gauze and bandaged it with criss-crossed band-aids.
The next day, I skipped school. Katy had to lead most of the day alone, while the school's principal and administrator alternated who helped out. That night, we had to redress the incision. This meant first taking off the heavy duty bandages. This was a highly painful, hour-long process of pulling off a mm of the band-aid and clipping the leg hairs so I could continue. Next, Katy had to pull out the packing. It was a painful tickle for the first couple of inches of gauze. Then each fold became increasingly painful. Four things helped me through this process in this order: 1) Holy Spirit 2)Katy 3)my orange recliner 4)Get Well Dino-Sore that Katy bought for me (since Get Well Duck is somewhere packed in our garage). Then, the hot compress had to be a wet gauze pad, since it was an open wound now. Finally, more bacitracin and two large band-aids.
Now, I take 1 clyndamycin pill 4 times a day. I redress the incision twice a day, which is easier now that I can shower before I remove the band-aids. There's no stitch over the 2/3-inch incision. The doctor never told us to put a butterfly bandage over it. So I will have a football-shaped scar on my leg to mark the spot where the cyst is. If it gets inflamed again, they can lance it again or just surgically remove the whole sac. I'm praying it won't come to that. At least, not without some stronger drugs.
Around the end of July, I found a nodule on my leg. Inside thigh of my right leg just above the knee. I thought for quite some time that it might have been a bug bite that didn't go away, a bug inside my leg (like a tick head), or possibly a bug had laid eggs inside my leg. It stayed the same for about two months.
Last Thursday, it became infected. The nodule that was about 2.5 mm in diameter swelled to 2.5 cm in diameter. Around that area, my knee became red and swelled up with a diameter of 15 cm. For two days, I limped around at school. Finally on Friday, Katy and I went to Urgent Care to have it checked out.
The doctor believed that it was a sebaceous cyst. Basically, think of a gigantic zit that is too deep under the surface to come out, so it stores up to much oil and hardens into a cheese-like substance. So, the doctor prescribed cephalexin as a mild antibiotic. Then, the nurse gave me a shot in the right butt cheek of ansef (sp?). An entire gram of it. That's the WHOLE syringe. I had to sit and wait for a half hour to make sure I wasn't allergic to it. During that half hour, I was able to literally feel the gram of liquid very slowly work its way down the inside of my butt cheek.
I came back to the doctor on Sunday evening (after the Packers crushed the Vikings). The swelling hadn't gotten any smaller, only slightly moved. So, the doctor prescribed clyndamycin as a strong antibiotic. I had my blood drawn and tested for white blood cell count. Then, another nurse gave me a full syringe in the left butt cheek. She was not nearly as kind. Then, sit, wait, feel the liquid ooze down my bubble butt.
I almost instantly got a cold. It started as a bad head cold with strong headaches. After two days, the head cold moved into my lungs, which has been much more bearable. So I rested a bit on Monday, but I went back to work on Tuesday and Wednesday.
By Wednesday, the infection was getting better. The cyst was drawing back into itself. So we went to the doctor for our last visit. My thought was that this would be the coolest zit popping session EVER. Second option was that she would cut it open and it would pop under the pressure and be easily drained. Reality: She tried to pop it with her fingers. Result: very painful. She injected the area directly underneath the cyst with an entire syringe of anasthetic. Result: more painful, the surface bubbled up more than I thought skin could stretch, and the cyst(s) became visible. She cut open my leg, then cut open the sac(s) of the cyst (a cyst can have multiple chambers that also need to be "loosened"). Result: maybe not weeping, but definitely gnashing of teeth. She pushed on my skin with her fingers as if she were popping a zit 3-feet down from the surface, and then she used forceps to pick at the cheese-like substance of the cyst to get out as much as she could until I couldn't bear it anymore. Result: after praying and finding more peace in the situation, I calmed my breathing, but the process went on for at least fifteen minutes leading to the anasthetic wearing off. When she felt like stopping, she packed the incision with a shoestring-length-and-width gauze and bandaged it with criss-crossed band-aids.
The next day, I skipped school. Katy had to lead most of the day alone, while the school's principal and administrator alternated who helped out. That night, we had to redress the incision. This meant first taking off the heavy duty bandages. This was a highly painful, hour-long process of pulling off a mm of the band-aid and clipping the leg hairs so I could continue. Next, Katy had to pull out the packing. It was a painful tickle for the first couple of inches of gauze. Then each fold became increasingly painful. Four things helped me through this process in this order: 1) Holy Spirit 2)Katy 3)my orange recliner 4)Get Well Dino-Sore that Katy bought for me (since Get Well Duck is somewhere packed in our garage). Then, the hot compress had to be a wet gauze pad, since it was an open wound now. Finally, more bacitracin and two large band-aids.
Now, I take 1 clyndamycin pill 4 times a day. I redress the incision twice a day, which is easier now that I can shower before I remove the band-aids. There's no stitch over the 2/3-inch incision. The doctor never told us to put a butterfly bandage over it. So I will have a football-shaped scar on my leg to mark the spot where the cyst is. If it gets inflamed again, they can lance it again or just surgically remove the whole sac. I'm praying it won't come to that. At least, not without some stronger drugs.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
So Much To Say
The last month has been so busy with starting our new jobs as teachers. Here's a list of some of the many things that has happened in that time:
- I changed the headlight in our car.
- We got our fish Zebedee back after 16 months without him and his tank.
- We started our job as teachers at our church.
- We survived the first two days of school without the majority of our curricula, which was hungup in the mail.
- I played a game of soccer with some Mexican-Americans who I could occasionally keep up with.
- I led the book club of "One fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" with the 1st and 2nd Graders.
- I cleaned up human feces on my hands and knees.
- We saw a prescreening of "The Exodus Conspiracy," a film about archeological evidence for the Exodus and the conspiracy to cover it up.
There's been a lot more, but there's a quick update.
- I changed the headlight in our car.
- We got our fish Zebedee back after 16 months without him and his tank.
- We started our job as teachers at our church.
- We survived the first two days of school without the majority of our curricula, which was hungup in the mail.
- I played a game of soccer with some Mexican-Americans who I could occasionally keep up with.
- I led the book club of "One fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" with the 1st and 2nd Graders.
- I cleaned up human feces on my hands and knees.
- We saw a prescreening of "The Exodus Conspiracy," a film about archeological evidence for the Exodus and the conspiracy to cover it up.
There's been a lot more, but there's a quick update.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
You Are What You Believe
What if people actually believed what they thought they believed?
What I mean is, what if people were effected by the things they give acknowledgment to as true? What if people actually lived like the Bible verses they've memorized? What if people actually believed that prayer of a righteous man is effective? What if people believed that Biblical commands were attainable?
How then would people live?
What I mean is, what if people were effected by the things they give acknowledgment to as true? What if people actually lived like the Bible verses they've memorized? What if people actually believed that prayer of a righteous man is effective? What if people believed that Biblical commands were attainable?
How then would people live?
Monday, August 13, 2007
Ethical Dilemma
I was in an interesting situation the other day.
I am a Packers fan. I live in Viking country. This can be difficult at times (well, except for the fact that the Packers tend to beat the Vikings even during the worst of seasons).
So, some friends of ours asked us to go to the Preseason opener for the Vikings, in which they were playing the Rams. They were free tickets, but it was to see the Vikings. Fourteenth row, corner of the endzone. Free ride, free parking, but it was to see the Vikings. Have never been to an NFL game before, and not likely in the near future, but it was to see the Vikings.
So, we went. Hey, it was free. It was fun to go to a game in general. It was fun to hang out with friends. It was fun to see former Packers like Darren Sharper and Ryan Longwell. It was fun to see Vikings' 1st round pick Adrian Peterson rush for a couple of first downs. It was . . . fun.
So, does this make me a bad person? What about loyalty? What about team pride? I even stood up to cheer for the Vikings on an 80 yard interception run for a touchdown. I'll argue that I stood up to cheer for a good play.
On a side note, one play was reminiscent of the famous Packer play - the Rams threw the ball, it somehow bounced off of a Viking arm on the ground and up into the hands of the Ram receiver when the play was whistled dead as he proceeded to run into the endzone. Rams challenged, won the challenge, but were given the ball at the spot of the catch, not the touchdown it would have been.
I am a Packers fan. I live in Viking country. This can be difficult at times (well, except for the fact that the Packers tend to beat the Vikings even during the worst of seasons).
So, some friends of ours asked us to go to the Preseason opener for the Vikings, in which they were playing the Rams. They were free tickets, but it was to see the Vikings. Fourteenth row, corner of the endzone. Free ride, free parking, but it was to see the Vikings. Have never been to an NFL game before, and not likely in the near future, but it was to see the Vikings.
So, we went. Hey, it was free. It was fun to go to a game in general. It was fun to hang out with friends. It was fun to see former Packers like Darren Sharper and Ryan Longwell. It was fun to see Vikings' 1st round pick Adrian Peterson rush for a couple of first downs. It was . . . fun.
So, does this make me a bad person? What about loyalty? What about team pride? I even stood up to cheer for the Vikings on an 80 yard interception run for a touchdown. I'll argue that I stood up to cheer for a good play.
On a side note, one play was reminiscent of the famous Packer play - the Rams threw the ball, it somehow bounced off of a Viking arm on the ground and up into the hands of the Ram receiver when the play was whistled dead as he proceeded to run into the endzone. Rams challenged, won the challenge, but were given the ball at the spot of the catch, not the touchdown it would have been.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)