Nu Blog 4 U

I was listening to Prince or whatever he calls himself these days and was tempted to write this whole post like he does, but I decided the title would be enough.

Today’s randomness:

1. I have a new blog to recommend. My friend Cheryl Russell just started blogging and the link is in my list of blog links to the left. Even with the recent start, there is already lots of good stuff over there. She’s a Christian and budding author and apparently a samurai. Go check it out. You know I wouldn’t steer you wrong. Ok, I totally would, but I’m not right now.

2. Back to the goofily written title of this post, you can add to my list of pet peeves abbreviations to words that have no connection to the spelling of the original word. Some of my “favorites.” X-mas (the absolute worst); “’nuf said” (what word got shortened there exactly? “eenuf”?); “thru” (not a word, I don’t care if it is in the dictionary. You put that “gh” right back on there where you found it!!). I mean, c’mon, the language is complicated enough without us further messing it up. Eenuf already!

3. Tomorrow night I attend my first meeting of the newly created Portland Trailblazer Fan Board of which I am a new member. Every thing about that has me as excited as a 35 year old man who just got invited to be on a fan board for his favorite basketball team. I’m going to try to get that expression out there in hopes that it sticks. Best part is that the meeting is in the team locker room. If you think I’m not going to stand where Coach Nate stands and give a fake half-time pep talk, you are just crazy.

4. I will be glad when Valentine’s Day is over. I’m all for taking a day to celebrate love and happy to celebrate with my lovely wife. I’ve got nothing against the day itself, but I’m sick of all the men are stupid idiots advertising that comes with it. I’ve just heard one too many “this year, make up for the toaster you gave her last year with a diamond that says ’45 innocent Tunisians died so I could put us in debt to beautify your knuckle.’” This time of year the most popular joke is how stupid men are and how bad they are at romance and how we should all make up for being unfeeling, uncaring, unthinking jerks by spending two months salary on something that says, “I don’t want to actually get to know you well enough to determine what you might want the most, so I will just buy you some jewelry and call it good.” Don’t get me wrong. I’m not anti-jewelry. I buy jewelry and who knows, might have this year. It is just the constant anti-man sales pitch to which I object. Many men are bad at romance. We get it. I am routinely one of them. Many men are pretty good at it too. Guess what? The same can be said for women. Acting like all men should just concede that they are Neanderthals doesn’t seem like a helpful solution. Ok, I’m done…..for now.

My Dad is teaching a really, really, really good class on the book of Job right now. I mean, it is good. Seriously. I mean it. Really good. We came across a great verse (Job 14: 14-17) this past Sunday morning that I will leave you with. It is inspiring to see Job’s organic realization of God’s love for His creation:

14 If a man dies, will he live again?
All the days of my hard service
I will wait for my renewal [c] to come.
15 You will call and I will answer you;
you will long for the creature your hands have made.
16 Surely then you will count my steps
but not keep track of my sin.
17 My offenses will be sealed up in a bag;
you will cover over my sin.

God will long for us? Really? It is as incomprehensible as it is wonderful.

Comments

Cheryl Russell said…
Ah ah! You found me, which lead me to finding you! Thanks for the shout out on your blog. Your latest post is pretty funny, so I will continue to visit! ;) I agree with you about Valentine's Day, men are not all insensitive jerks, all the time. Tim has gotten me some pretty thoughtful gifts over the years and they have nothing to do with the $, but with the thought that went into them. I also admit that I, yes me, the Samurai, have been an insensitive jerk when it comes to Valentine's Day. Once, Tim gave me this really sweet cupcake and I threw it out the car window! Why? I do not know.....I just did. Another year, I threw an entire chocolate cake, also outside of the car window, and again, I do not know why. I do know that Tim reminds me of these two events every year, but he does not give me baked goods anymore. I will be posting the whole story on the dreaded V-Day! Blessings!
Josh Stump said…
Wow. Both out the window? I can't wait to hear that story
cwinwc said…
Will Bill Walton and Maurice Evans (I think that's the Power Forward's name from Walton's Championship Team) be there as well? Sounds like a great gig for a basketball fan.
Stoogelover said…
You are my hero ... the comments about Valentine's Day. I asked my wife the other day if she wanted me to spoil her on Feb.14. She said, "I want to be spoiled every day." I can't afford to spoil her every day if I use the jewelry / advertising standard, but I can love her to the point of spoiling her every day and that comes with great rewards for both of us.
Peggy said…
I've been meaning to ask you how your Dad is doing...how great to hear that he is doing so well.

Any chance you could take a few pics of yourself the Blazer's locker room on your cell and post them here?
Thurman8er said…
I am under standing orders (and, yes, she really does mean it) to ignore Valentine's Day. Just another reason I love my wife.
Josh Stump said…
Cecil, I think you mean big Maurice Lucas. He's actually an assistant with the team now hopefully focused on making Greg Oden play like he did. Sadly, however, the team will not be around. As for Walton, I will always be grateful to him for the championship, but I find him so objectionable as a comentator I would have a hard time meeting him and not saying something inflamatory.

Greg, great point. Sounds like you need to be my hero.

Peggy, thanks for asking about my Dad. He's still battling, but not feeling badly. The last CT may have shown signs that the medication is not being as effective as we hoped, but we won't know for sure for a while so we are just staying positive for now.

My phone is strictly business. No camera. I thought about just bringing a camera with me, but I thought trying to take pictures might interfere with my efforts to steal the door off of Brandon Roy's locker.

Steve, my standing advice when I hear stuff like that is to ignore such orders, but if you didn't know what you were doing I'm guessing you would have known by now. Good luck with that. Don't try that one at home kids.
Unknown said…
You could pull some kind of stunt that would require someone else to take photos of you.

Think of the blog fodder it would create.
cwinwc said…
Maurice Lucas! Yes, that's it. I remember some soda commercial that imitated the hug Walton and Lucas gave each other after their championship.

You're right about "the redhead." He can be a bit off the wall at times.
Agree with you on the abbreviations, but feel compelled to defend one (maybe because I had a college professor who really liked to make this case and drilled it in).

Christmas is short for Christ Mass. The first letter of the Greek word "Christ", the language in which the New Testament was written, resembles the English letter x, so I am told. It also looks like a celtic cross, but that is an aside. Thus X-mas is really a bad translation of a Greek interpretation of Christmas.

I suspect more people think it is the x from mathematics that is an unknown quantity. Perhaps that is true as well...God being an unknowable mystery to our humanness.

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