Thanksgiving

Hey T6ers, with it being Memorial Day, I just wanted to give thanks for the fact that Adam, Abe, and Dusty are all back in the US safe and sound after serving time in Iraq. Does anybody know anything about Rudy? Thanks for the service guys.

I'll up YOUR date

Despite the running commentary of my own personal blog, I have no way to know who is reading it, so I thought I'd try to keep the freight train moving through 611 Online Depot here by revealing a personal update™ of my own.

Unfortunately enough, nothing really "happens" to me, as I am still unemployed, virtually friendless, and an eccentric recluse.

I am starting to try to put together some plans to move forward, though, so I thought I'd run them by you, as you're all highly intelligent people with perspective on many things.

As you may know from my blog or other updates here, I've found myself at odds with the general customs of adult life in the western world. The idea of changing myself to fit in to a job is not appealing, so I'm trying to figure out how to design a income-generating lifestyle that suits me the way I am.

I've done some research and one thing that seems to be promising would be to create multiple free-lance sort of income/profit-centers that involve my interests and passions.

So for instance, at any given time I could:

Be selling articles to publications...
Be Licensing my music compositions to companies...
Do consultant work on music projects involving LA groups in the mid-60s, particularly the Beach Boys...
Design clothing...
Be a landlord of some rental property...
Own a restaurant...

Etc.

The idea is, if you have enough little enterprises, money trickling in from the different things, it will add up to be a real income. And then I wouldn't get bored and would be doing things I like that I might not be able to make a career out of by themselves.

Anybody have any thoughts, practical advice, on this?

And of course, I'm constantly looking to get out of Bland Crapids, Pissigan. Yes, people here call it that.

Response to Coye's Appeal for a Personal Update

An announcement this important deserves one of those cool author pastiche things that I sometimes do, but sadly I just don't have the time to do it right. I'll settle for this: on Friday, I was offered my first tenure track job. This morning, I accepted. It's at Gordon College, a school that's like Wheaton in most of the good ways, and unlike Wheaton in many of the bad ways. (As I was talking to the dean about the Gramm situation at Wheaton, her first response was, can we hire him?) Several core faculty are retiring in the next couple of years, so the department is transitioning from older to much younger--there'll be ample opportunity to teach literary theory and other classes of interest. The hardest part will be starting to think of myself as a professor, and not just a graduate student. So that's the short version.

Since I'll be working 5 minutes from Dave's house, chances are good that the T6 ECLAD (hmmm... what did that stand for? Experiment in Communal Living and Discipleship... that sounds like it might be right. At least I hit all the letters.) will be in Boston. Coye can work at Harvard (or Boston College, in a pinch), and the rest of you can find work doing the things that you do. So, that's the new plan. Feel free to join us (it's way better than LA, or so I've been told).

Progeny-less Update (Life in Austin)

It's been awhile since we've had a personal update that didn't involve offspring. Here goes.

I am currently (this week) finishing up my last semester of course work. Beginning this summer, I will be working full-time on developing my prospectus and composing that magical document, the dissertation. I may have more to say about this later, but, for now, in short, I will be writing about the troubled relationships between seemingly mimetic works of art and "unrepresentable" historical violence (World War, Holocaust, the Bomb, the WTC attacks).

I spent the last four days at the 2008 International Narrative Conference. I have been working off and on for about a year as conference staff, and I chaired a couple of panels over the weekend (and attended what seems like hundreds). I heard some great panels, met some academic heros (and got a couple of business cards), but what was most impressive was seeing the "invisible acadamy" made at least temporarily visible. It made the direction of my life seem less obscure and evanescent.

I continue to teach, and am looking forward to teaching a course of my own creation in the fall. It will be, perhaps unsurprisingly, a course on violence.

I've been watching a lot of Top Chef on Bravo (my one televised guilty pleasure) and cooking quasi-elaborate meals whenever time and budget allow (and sometimes when they don't). My exercise regimine has slacked off, but I'm hoping to change that with the return of Friday basketball over the summer. Hopefully I can get back to regular running as well (I can feel my legs crying out for a good run even as I type).

The life-long pursuit of good coffee and good beer continues, as does a very rewarding playing at domestic bliss. The heat and humidity of an Austin summer are beginning to creep into the background of the everyday, and I'm trying (not terribly sucessfully) to ignore the democratic primary. I'm still at the same parish, doing the same sorts of parish-y things.

Alright. Back to writing about Civil War photography. Be well, my friends.

Andrewisms

For your reading pleasure: a few smatterings of Andrew's latest:

"Look! A brush tooth!" (Translation: Look! A toothbrush)
"I am a man with a tree on my head" (Indeed, he had a plastic tree on his head)
"Look! A man!" (A bit awkward, since the person is usually standing within earshot).
"Look! A girdle!" ("Look, a girl")
"I'll have a Little Mac!" (Yelled up toward the front of the car after Dad ordered a Big Mac).
"Three minutes, OK? Say sure!" (His typical stall tactic)

I'm sure these are more funny to me than to you...

Wheaton and Not So Quiet Firings

There's been another one related to the pledge/community covenant.

This time it has nothing to do with Catholicism or evolution. I hate divorce.

Politics and Food?

Beyond the demonization of a good cup of coffee.

What's for Dinner?

Here's a taste: "In last summer’s polling, the latest available, Mrs. Clinton scored high among voters who also had favorable views of McDonalds, Wal-Mart and Starbucks."

And why don't republicans like her...?

The Physics of Half Life

Steve, all I can say is that if you are not reading the blog, I am wasting a lot of my efforts. Some graduate students at McMaster created a half-life mod to study video game physics. You can see their write up here. Knowing you to be an aficionado of video game physics, I felt compelled to post it. Apparently, you can download it and run their experiments in your own version of Half Life. If you want.

Very Strange Moment Right Now

They're singing "Shout to the Lord"--the Worship song, the very definitely explicit Christian worship song--on American Idol right now.

Now it's over, and the Coke/Coke Zero legal shtick commercial is on...and I'm left thinking to myself: did that just happen? That was strange. I don't know what to make of that.

Now you can call 1-877-IDOL-AID.

The Cult of Sincerity

Support the film; Adam Browne is a good friend of mine all the way back from my growing up days in VT.

Poem for the Day

On the Birth of a Son

Families when a child is born
Hope it will turn out intelligent.
I, through intelligence
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope that the baby will prove
Ignorant and stupid.
Then he'll be happy all his days
And grow into a Cabinet Minister.

Su Shih, Eleventh Century

Manga Bible

Steve, I don't know if you're reading our little blog these days, but if you are, this video is for you.

Mythbusting the Moon Landing

It was many years ago now that Aeijtzsche and I sat in Dave the goalie's room on Traber 6 (you know, the guy who mostly watched tv that year) watching a (surprisingly compelling) documentary on how the government faked the moon landings. This hour-long expose walked through the evidence, arguing that we had never been to the moon. You can actually watch the entire show here on Google Video.



Most of the show's claims are explored and debunked here (Wow, the internet is a cool thing!)

Just in case there are questions lingering in our minds about these matters, the good people at Mythbusters have taken on the mystery. The show airs April 25th (and will hopefully show up on YouTube or some other internet venue sometime thereafter). I wonder what their findings will be... Do you think the government has gotten to them, too? No, not the Mythbusters!

FYI

Just so you guys know this is out there:

Options

Anything You Can Do, I Can Do ... Better?

My boys can swim!

conversion

I've become a Mac guy.  Best decision ever.  Period.

The Hunter, part 27

Happy Birthday, Steve.


Drink some sake for me.

A New England Tale

Ten fifty and my neck is tired of holding my heavy head. Ten fifty one and I'm only through my second sentence. If only I could write as fast as you could read, 'twould be better for the both of us. For me, it would mean getting to bed before my wife turns off all the downstairs lights. For you, it would mean I didn't take myself to seriously as a writer. If I were a better writer you would want me to take my time. But as it stands, with my skills painfully out of sorts, any attempt toward aesthetics comes off as dull and vapid and overinflated. Keep hammering at the keys David, keep hammering at the keys.

Yes, you heard me right. I am now living in a place that has a downstairs. How came I to live in a place that has a downstairs (and thus, of course, an upstairs)? Well, sit down a second, let me tell you a story.

Once ago, just a few months back we were. Sarah and I. The boys too. Sarah and I were sitting on the couch in the apartment on the campus of Gordon Conwell Seminary. The boys were sleeping. As it stood, I would plug on ahead and get two masters degrees (Theology and Church History), the second of which I was just beginning. The first was basically through. But here was the thing: as is typical of me, I was just realizing the enormity of the task ahead. Seven classes left with one J-Term and one semester to go. That and part time job and the boys boys boys. Too much, I said. Too much. And for what? And look how much money we're spending. For what? Sarah asked. You can't just turn tail and run with half a semester invested. Good point, yes, I said. But what if I just don't want to. I'm tired of education--at least education in the form it takes here at the Conwell? What then? What then? She asked. What then? Where would we live? We've got just months to go here and what would you propose we do? And, not that this should be a big factor, but how would we explain such a thing to our friends and family. Good point, yes, good questions, I said. I do not know. I do know I am tired of this place and we are spending a lot of money to be here, and that does not make sense. No it does not, she said. Let's pray, I said. I don't know what to do. Indeed, let's pray, she said.

Twice ago now, a week or so later (the lights are going out now, Sarah is turning out the downstairs lights, eleven oh six and she is turning out the lights). Sarah put in a call to the Hamilton housing people to ask about low-income renting options. Is there section eight? She asked. No, but there are some low income renting options. And there is this other thing. There is a lottery being held next month to afford qualified low income families the opportunity to purchase newly built condos at a greatly reduced price. Really? Sarah asked.

And so we applied. The condo development was just down the road, so we went to look at them. Beautiful, they were. They were brand new, three bedroom, two-thousand square foot condos. No way, we said. Could such a thing happen?

Yes, to cut a long two months of waiting down, we did come in high enough in the drawing to make the waiting list such that two months later we received a phone call telling us we had the opportunity to buy. And so we did (ha! if only the process of buying a house was as simple as those four words, but it is not). And so, yes, I am sitting in the downstairs with the lights out.

The boys are sleeping, I am looking toward another day of working from home as a web developer (I go in about once a week)/non-profit director (for the same company)--but more on that later. This was to get the ball rolling. This was to get me typing as fast as you could read until I got so tired I had to call it quits. And this is me calling it quits.

Politics: Too Funny to Resist

By now, most of you have probably seen the Obama YouTube video that was viewed over a million times before Super Tuesday: "Yes We Can."



Now, a new one has surfaced that gives the same sort of treatment to McCain's speeches.



Enjoy.