So Much Going On
Man, I wish I had time to blog, because there is so much going on right now.
I just started at a new firm. It is the firm where I started my career and I could not be happier to be back. To make it even better, after going through 16 different secretaries, I now am working with the best of the best and she decided to come with me to the new firm making a good situation that much better.
In other news, my lovely wife and I just got back from the Zoe worship conference in beautiful Fresno, California. Here were some of the highlights in mostly chronological order:
We left the kids with the grandparents and drove down. That’s right we drove the 12+ hours from Portland to Fresno. Apparently, we are just too stupid (and by “we” I mean “me”) to figure out that gas prices probably make flying cheaper, so then the only thing air travel has going for it is the time savings, convenience and lack of extra miles on the car. Good thinking by us. I love a road trip, but this was just dumb. That said, the drive was good. We got rained on a lot, but living in Portland prepares one rather well for those driving conditions. Best of all, though, was that I was “trapped” in my car with my wife for more than 12 hours with no kids or other distractions (except the road, other drivers, signs advertising for Krispy Kreme, etc.). It was great. I hope to get “trapped” like that more often. We don’t get that kind of time any more and all conversations end up being all of the things that we have to talk about with little to no time to just plain talk. On this trip we just talked and laughed and hung out like we were back in our early 20s. So, maybe it was for the best that we drove. In fact, maybe it was like in Exodus when God “hardened Pharaoh’s heart” , maybe God hardened my brain so I would forget that we have airplanes so that I would be forced to do what I should make time to do all the time, which is just sit and talk to my Wife. Yeah, I’m going with that theory.
I finally got to meet one of the guys I only know through blogging. Steve (or the Green Lantern logo as you may know him by his comments on my blog), attends the Church in Fresno where the conference was held. Turns out he looks nothing like Green Lantern and even had the audacity to show up not wearing that costume. Very disappointing. Fortuneately, he made up for it by being a really great guy and it was fun to get to meet him. My only regret is that we didn’t get to spend more time hanging out. I had hoped we could have lunch and then news of snow dumping in the mountains made us bolt out after Church on Sunday to try to make it home. So, Steve, if you read this, it was really good meeting you. I hope it won’t be the last time. Come up to Portland sometime and I will give you the world famous Josh Stump nickel walking tour of Portland. It should not be missed, though it actually costs a quarter.
Got some quality time with some of my very favorite people. My friends Jeff and Tara and Tony and Jennifer and their kids were all there. We even shared a hotel room with Jeff and Tara which I haven’t done in years. My guess is that after spending a couple nights in the same room as me, they feel about as smart about that decision as I do about not flying. Big mistake on their part.
The conference itself was very good. I came away with lots of good ideas for worship, good new contacts for arranging music and the renewed spirit that comes from spending a weekend praising God. Really glad I went.
Though we left early on Sunday to get through the mountains before an impending storm, we failed. It was raining so hard in the Redding area I actually saw animals coming two by tow out of the forest in an obvious search for a prophet and a large boat. A little ways into the mountains that separate the dark spiritual wilderness of California from God’s country in Oregon, all that rain turned to snow. It was something like that scene from Lord of the Rings where Saruman sends a storm to force the fellowship to go through Mordor, except that there were fewer hobbits on our trip and yes I know I’m a huge dork, but I love those movies, so there. At first, the snowfall was just pretty. Then like a Miss America contestant who discovers someone else is wearing the same evening gown, beauty turned into something quite scary. The snow started falling harder and then blew around in a pretty strong wind. Driving through it made it seem like we had just made the jump to lightspeed in the Milennium Falcon (if you are scoring at home that is a comic book reference, a LOTR reference and a Star Wars reference in the same post which is the holy trinity of dorkdom…plus I abbreviated to LOTR…I can’t be stopped).
We considered just powering through so we could get home before I had to be at work on Monday, but when spotting a single reflector on the side of the road was cause for major celebration as it was the only indicator in the last 5 minutes that we were still roughly on the freeway, we decided finding a place to stop the night that did not involve sleeping in our car in the ditch was first priority. Fortunately, we fairly soon came to an exit for the….let’s call it “cozy”…town of Weed.
We found a very nice hotel that wasn’t even obviously gouging weary snow-bound travelers and it had the bonus of being right next door to Silvia’s family restaurant that was run by a very nice Chinese couple that was happy to serve you Silvia’s famous meatloaf or General Tso’s Chicken. Immediately thinking up new material for my “Food Rules”, we ordered Chinese food. The new rules will be something along the lines of, when you are in a restaurant owned by people from China and all of the cooking staff are from China and you have the choice between meetloaf or Chinese food, choose Chinese food. Also, don’t order meatloaf. Meat was made to be eaten with a loaf not turned into one. Please don’t forget this.
The next day, having spent an extra day on the road and the extra money needed for a hotel room and the $3.40 per gallon in gas being charged in Weed, we drove the rest of the way home through snow and ice and patted ourselves on the back for how thrifty we were to decide to drive instead of fly.
I just started at a new firm. It is the firm where I started my career and I could not be happier to be back. To make it even better, after going through 16 different secretaries, I now am working with the best of the best and she decided to come with me to the new firm making a good situation that much better.
In other news, my lovely wife and I just got back from the Zoe worship conference in beautiful Fresno, California. Here were some of the highlights in mostly chronological order:
We left the kids with the grandparents and drove down. That’s right we drove the 12+ hours from Portland to Fresno. Apparently, we are just too stupid (and by “we” I mean “me”) to figure out that gas prices probably make flying cheaper, so then the only thing air travel has going for it is the time savings, convenience and lack of extra miles on the car. Good thinking by us. I love a road trip, but this was just dumb. That said, the drive was good. We got rained on a lot, but living in Portland prepares one rather well for those driving conditions. Best of all, though, was that I was “trapped” in my car with my wife for more than 12 hours with no kids or other distractions (except the road, other drivers, signs advertising for Krispy Kreme, etc.). It was great. I hope to get “trapped” like that more often. We don’t get that kind of time any more and all conversations end up being all of the things that we have to talk about with little to no time to just plain talk. On this trip we just talked and laughed and hung out like we were back in our early 20s. So, maybe it was for the best that we drove. In fact, maybe it was like in Exodus when God “hardened Pharaoh’s heart” , maybe God hardened my brain so I would forget that we have airplanes so that I would be forced to do what I should make time to do all the time, which is just sit and talk to my Wife. Yeah, I’m going with that theory.
I finally got to meet one of the guys I only know through blogging. Steve (or the Green Lantern logo as you may know him by his comments on my blog), attends the Church in Fresno where the conference was held. Turns out he looks nothing like Green Lantern and even had the audacity to show up not wearing that costume. Very disappointing. Fortuneately, he made up for it by being a really great guy and it was fun to get to meet him. My only regret is that we didn’t get to spend more time hanging out. I had hoped we could have lunch and then news of snow dumping in the mountains made us bolt out after Church on Sunday to try to make it home. So, Steve, if you read this, it was really good meeting you. I hope it won’t be the last time. Come up to Portland sometime and I will give you the world famous Josh Stump nickel walking tour of Portland. It should not be missed, though it actually costs a quarter.
Got some quality time with some of my very favorite people. My friends Jeff and Tara and Tony and Jennifer and their kids were all there. We even shared a hotel room with Jeff and Tara which I haven’t done in years. My guess is that after spending a couple nights in the same room as me, they feel about as smart about that decision as I do about not flying. Big mistake on their part.
The conference itself was very good. I came away with lots of good ideas for worship, good new contacts for arranging music and the renewed spirit that comes from spending a weekend praising God. Really glad I went.
Though we left early on Sunday to get through the mountains before an impending storm, we failed. It was raining so hard in the Redding area I actually saw animals coming two by tow out of the forest in an obvious search for a prophet and a large boat. A little ways into the mountains that separate the dark spiritual wilderness of California from God’s country in Oregon, all that rain turned to snow. It was something like that scene from Lord of the Rings where Saruman sends a storm to force the fellowship to go through Mordor, except that there were fewer hobbits on our trip and yes I know I’m a huge dork, but I love those movies, so there. At first, the snowfall was just pretty. Then like a Miss America contestant who discovers someone else is wearing the same evening gown, beauty turned into something quite scary. The snow started falling harder and then blew around in a pretty strong wind. Driving through it made it seem like we had just made the jump to lightspeed in the Milennium Falcon (if you are scoring at home that is a comic book reference, a LOTR reference and a Star Wars reference in the same post which is the holy trinity of dorkdom…plus I abbreviated to LOTR…I can’t be stopped).
We considered just powering through so we could get home before I had to be at work on Monday, but when spotting a single reflector on the side of the road was cause for major celebration as it was the only indicator in the last 5 minutes that we were still roughly on the freeway, we decided finding a place to stop the night that did not involve sleeping in our car in the ditch was first priority. Fortunately, we fairly soon came to an exit for the….let’s call it “cozy”…town of Weed.
We found a very nice hotel that wasn’t even obviously gouging weary snow-bound travelers and it had the bonus of being right next door to Silvia’s family restaurant that was run by a very nice Chinese couple that was happy to serve you Silvia’s famous meatloaf or General Tso’s Chicken. Immediately thinking up new material for my “Food Rules”, we ordered Chinese food. The new rules will be something along the lines of, when you are in a restaurant owned by people from China and all of the cooking staff are from China and you have the choice between meetloaf or Chinese food, choose Chinese food. Also, don’t order meatloaf. Meat was made to be eaten with a loaf not turned into one. Please don’t forget this.
The next day, having spent an extra day on the road and the extra money needed for a hotel room and the $3.40 per gallon in gas being charged in Weed, we drove the rest of the way home through snow and ice and patted ourselves on the back for how thrifty we were to decide to drive instead of fly.
Comments
Your description of the events had us in stitches! We came dangerously close to falling out of our chairs. You really should include a cautionary note at the beginning of these posts. After all you are in product liability law and should know better than to trust people to exercise good judgement.
2.I wathced "Devil's Advocate" the other day on TNT and it got me to wondering if you switched firms because you realized your boss was the devil.
3. Tim and I still talk to each other until we have sore throats about every topic under the sun and don't understand the couples who after years and years together feel like they have notheing left to talk about. Our years together give us MORE to talk about.
And, for what it's worth, I come back to your blog, again and again, for the wit, for the spiritual insight...but mostly for the comic book/Star Wars/LOTR references. I only hope that as May approaches, you'll throw some Indy in there too.
Love you bro. Glad you're home safe.
Jennifer, Thanks. Remind me sometime to explain the legal defense of "assumption of the risk." Basically, any person who knows me at all should know that reading something of mine could be dangerous on various levels. In other words, you assume the risk when you start down that questionable path. That said, I'm always up for creating a 4 page warning with a full waiver of rights to sign at the bottom.
Peggy,
1. Yeah, probably so, but we risked enjoying ourselves with you too much to risk a 6 hour delay. If you guys were less likeable we might could have worked something out.
2. Nah, my old boss wasn't at all develish. Also, if you had all the power of Satan in that movie would you still appear on earth as a short old guy? Also, that was one of the worst lawyer movies of all time. I am so sad for you that you watched it. You owe your eyes 2 hours of watching something pleasant after that.
3. Good for you. See? Too likeable.
Greg, wish you could have been there. I would have loved to get together.
Steve,
It was a highlight for me as well. There was some debate in my living room as to whether your reference to "Indy" was a reference to a) the Indianapolis 500, b) Independent films or c) a rather famous archeologist/adventurer. Since, I'm pretty sure it is "c" you have nothing to worry about. While we're on the subject, I'm worried about the title. First movie - religious icon - great movie. Second movie - hokie made up nonesense - bad movie. Third movie - religious icon - good movie. You see where I'm going here? Hopefully I'm just "digging in the wrong place."
Sorry. Not so much an HMS Pinafore fan, but when I hear a line from "Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Best Movie Ever Made," I usually have to follow it with the next one. (And why was Sallah such a big fan? Have we pursued that?) I have the same failing when it comes to Python's "Holy Grail."
I hated the title too when I first heard it. I have a friend who will only say it as a parrot. To wit: "Crystal Skull! Crystal Skull!"
Still, some of the latest pictures have sold me. Especially the one of Indy in a very familiar, very large warehouse...standing on a crate. If the crate has the number 9906753 on it, well then...
Oh, yeah, I'm an Indy geek.
I fear if you and Josh get in a room together for any length of time, the entire conversation will be movie dialogue!
I've wondered before if I could pull that off. I have so much dialogue rattling around in my head that I'm pretty sure it can be done. But Josh has seen more movies so he'd have to explain things every now and then.
Also, I am still reeling from the fact that you know the crate number from the Raiders. Outstanding.