world's first bearded super hero

Having spent all of four weekends back here in College Station at my beloved church, Living Hope, this weekend the powers that be decided it was time to put me back in a skit. I've been in a handful of skits at the Hopester over the past few years, but only once have I played a super hero. This was super hero week.

I was "Trial Man", the superhero who swoops in to your everyday situations to alert you that you're currently in the midst of a trial. The kind of trials that James talks about in the 1st chapter of his best-selling book. How does Trial Man warn unsuspecting believers that a trial is coming, you ask? Well it's not by words. I have to work my way up to the point of playing skit characters with lines. See the air horn in his right hand? That's how he warns the masses.

A brief note on the costume: It's pretty simple. All you need is the outfit you wore to church, a yellow shirt with a "T" on it, a pair of XL Sponge Bob boxer shorts, a red cape, and (this is important) a piece of poop slice of red fabric with two eye holes in it for the mask. It needs to fall apart more and more as you make your way through three services.

You're probably thinking, man, D.O., that's great. I'm glad to see you're involved in the children's ministry at your church, I bet those kids thought you were a riot. Well thanks for the encouragement, but no, this wasn't a kid's church skit character... Trial Man was for big church. This was the skit for the adults. Only at Living Hope...

[Edit 09.17.07: Photograph's background was necessarily changed from a skit closet to an American flag. Keep that in mind when reading comments. Thanks, odfm mgmt.]

done and done

Ladies and gentleman, as promised, I give you the completed stairwell. Remember back when I had painty face syndrome? Well the labor wasn't in vain. See?

If you'd like to read what Heather had to say on the issue (and indeed her opinion is, in this case, the only one that matters) you may do so at her acclaimed blog, Sit a Spell. Of course chances are, you already have.

pointer finger tip: numb

No, this isn't a picture of my trip to College Station's latest death metal show, nor is it my head shot for my haunted house application (though I do need a job). It's what I looked like after applying a fresh coat of spray paint to the Hendrick staircase.

Aaron and I had the brilliant, what-could-go-wrong idea of plastic-ing off the area surrounding the staircase so we could spray freely, without concern for dirtying up the rest of the house. We even made a resealable door to get in and out of our plastic vat (background of picture). Well after a couple hours and about 8 cans of spray paint we learned a few valuable lessons:

1) Spray paint makes things sticky, and when you're surrounded by 1mm plastic walls and floors, sticky is, to put it lightly, miserable.

2) Josh Langston surgical masks help with the fume factor, while simultaneously concentrating loose paint beneath your eyes, and in my case, in your beard.

3) When you made an opening in your vat, regardless of whether or not it's resealable, loose paint that doesn't end up on your face ends up in every neighboring room the house has.

4) Paint thinner isn't so easy on the eyes... As in, I wouldn't put it in your eyes. It burns.

5) Because of Lesson 3, spray painting in the house may save you some time as far as the paint is concerned, but when you factor in the clean up... it's hardly worth it.

6) Apparently the professionals put Vaseline beneath their eyes and nose in order to make for easy facial clean up. (We of course found this out as we were rubbing paint thinner in places it needn't be).

Nevertheless, Aaron and I enjoyed serving Heather in that quasi-toxic plastic vat. Well I did... I think Aaron did too. If not, he's more than welcome to defend himself by correcting me in the comments below.

Stay tuned for a photo of the finished project!

coming soon...

In the very near future I will be constructing and publishing a post that is of much greater significance than most of what I've offered my readers lately. I have not the time to do it now (as I must drive to work for my last day), but know that it's coming soon. In the mean time, feel free to guess the topic via your comments. Rule: if you already know, then don't guess.

saturdays

I feel like most of the American population look forward with great anticipation for their weekly Saturday. Saturday allows them the luxury of sleeping in a little bit, taking it easy, and simply not having to go to work. I realize that all my parent readers are begging to differ with me at this point. They have kids to run entertain or drive all over the city on Saturdays. But still, you don't have to go to work.

Well I do. I work every Saturday. The fact that most people do not have to work on Saturday is the very reason that I do. People want to go spend their hard earned money on the things that the retailers of America sell. And they spend it well. That isn't to say they spend it wisely, but they're good at spending it.

Saturdays at work are when the worst case scenarios usually happen. Five fitting rooms stay occupied long enough to prevent others from using them and you from cleaning them out. Four different people want four different things and three-fourths of them are mad at you for not giving them your full attention. Three set of people (only one of which was included in the afore mentioned foursome) have been let down by your having to inform them that you don't have the item they want in their size. Two kids are running in and out of your fixtures knocking clothes off while they play an eternal game of tag. One couple from any given affluent neighborhood comes in and wants you to hold their hand while you tell them what they need for their trip, and then they tell you you're wrong.

That's how I feel about Saturdays at work.

However, the city of Addison (as suburb just northwest of Dallas) has put on a delightful community event called July Jazz that has for two weeks now allowed me ample opportunity to wind down after a long day at work. These jazz nights at the park are truly enjoyable. If you like music, then you (in my opinion) inevitably must at least appreciate jazz, and they've got you covered on that front. If you like people watching (I'm unaware of many who don't), there are countless people of all ages, with all kinds of dogs, drinking a myriad of drinks for you to enjoy looking at. Hundreds. If you like being outside and battling mosquitoes, you can do that in Addison too!

The music plays from 8:00-10:00 at which point the band, along with most of the people you were just watching, leave for the night. But we don't. Me and my friends (and the random people that always end up sharing our blankets) choose to stay and enjoy one another. We do it like the Chinese people do. No hurry, no agenda, just enjoying community. One thing we do while enjoying one another is to make a grass pile on my head. You may recall seeing it at the beginning of this long post.

Whenever we do finally leave the grassy knoll of downtown Addison, we usually go to IHOP or some other 24 hour establishment to get ice cream. We then sit at that restaurant's table until the wee hours of the morning (2:00 or 3:00am), again, enjoying one another. It is a very good thing.

So thanks to Addison for putting on such a pleasant event, thanks to Colby for telling me about it in the first place, thanks to my awesome friends who come hang out, and most importantly thank you Father for letting us enjoy things in general.

a big two

Friends, this is your approximate two-month warning. In two months I'll be hopping on a plane holding a one way ticket to China. If that's new to you, you're welcome to read about it here and here. So why the two month warning? Because I want to see you. I think two months is plenty of time for me to see the people who want to see me (not necessarily all the people I want to see, but you do what you can).

So if you want to see me during the next couple months, let me know. Don't just say you want to see me because it's the nice thing to do. I just want the real-deal peeps.

I'm quitting my job at the end of July so I'll have all of August to drive around the state (and country?) for visiting purposes. I'm looking forward to it.

Note: Click is exempt from this game, because he has no computer, but he will be receiving a visit from me.

Louie

Apartment life can be a funny thing. You live closer to your neighbors than probably anyone else in the United States, yet you often know little or nothing of them. The only thing you have in common (so far as you know) is your shared place of residence.

I live in a complex called The Gate. There is no gate, but the opted to name the apartments "the gate" regardless. We here at the Gate, more specifically those of us living to the west of the main swimming pool, we've got something in common: Louie. Louie is a neighborhood cat of sorts. Louie is a girl. Louie's owner is a girl. Louie's owner likes other girls, and that's my best bet as to why the girl cat has a boy name.

At any rate, Louie is greatly loved by every west-of-the-main-pool-Gate-resident. When we have small talk on our way to the parking lot, we get to talk about Louie when we're done talking about the weather. Louie greets everyone when they come home from work. Louie brings people together. I'm pretty positive that if Louie ever got killed by a car (like Foxxy the Pom), the neighborhood would probably get together and have a memorial of sorts.

So here's to Louie, the female feline that oft graces us with her presence and brings unity among the people. Keep up the good work, girl.

the one about the piano

You are looking at a picture of my Christmas present. A keyboard and Andrew Peterson's "Behold the Lamb of God" songbook. This is a good combination. It would, of course, be a better combination if I were more able to read music than I am (it takes me the equivalent time as a kindergartner reading English, divided by two, to read music).

Remember the post about jugglers and excellence? Well I don't know that I want to be excellent at the piano, but I certainly do want to be very good. It is too beautiful an instrument to ignore in my opinion. A couple years ago I was given a very fruitful private lesson on chord construction by one Brooke Brandon, and I've taken that lesson as far as I think I can. I've taught myself a lot of things (I think), and now I face the sad reality that I need lessons!

This isn't sad because I'm being forced to swallow my pride and actually ask for help. Swallowing my pride is always good. It's a sad thing because the going rate for piano lessons in this town is $1/minute. That would be all fine and good if you could get by on five minutes a week. Thirty minutes a week however quickly adds up to $120 a month... and that's a lot for the guy who's making, well, not a ton of money.

So, anyone know of a sweet lady that loves to help nice bearded boys learn the piano for cheap? I'll mow her yard or something. Not to mention blessing her with my presence. That was prideful. Swallow.

you think you're sneaky...

Keeping a blog updated regularly really isn't hard, especially when you aren't concerned about your posts being entertaining. What is hard however, is keeping up with a blog that is in some form or fashion, worth people's time. In order to do that, you're more or less forced to keep things entertaining, thought-provoking, humorous, things of that nature.

I'll be the first to admit that the online diary for the masses (that's the name of this blog) often fails at meeting any of those prerequisites for a healthy blog, which has, over the past few months, made me doubt whether or not I had a sizable readership. But, every time I let myself think that the only people who read my blog were the four people who post each time, my sources tell me that I have readers I'd never have even thought about having. Friends of friends. Siblings of friends. Total strangers. All of the above.

So, to you mystery readers, you "ghosts" as they say in the message board world, I'd like to offer you an invitation. Now is your time to shine. You yourself could be published on this ever-so-prestigious website. I invite you, I challenge you, I admonish you to post a comment to this entry. Show yourself. There's no reason to hide. The other readers won't tease you, I promise! They're nice. I bet they'll even post welcome messages to you. It'll be like a virtual electronic happy time for everybody!

Go ahead. Do it. You think you're exempt but you are certainly not my friend. Plus, rest assured that I know you who are regardless of the action you take at the end of the next sentence. I've heard of you reading this very blog at your home, workplace, and favorite local bistro... Show yourself.

super power

The other day conversation in the break room turned to the ever-popular topic of choosing for yourself a super power. Unwilling to compromise my creativity by answering with a typical "flying" or "being invisible," I racked my brain to think of what extra-human ability I'd grace myself with. I decided I'd like to have the capacity to read extremely fast, while being able to retain all of what I read. How fast? Somewhere in the ballpark of reading all the books in my local Barnes in an hour.

This break room banter wouldn't normally have made it to a blog entry (though I'm sure you've noticed the blog's significant decline in excitement since graduation) had it not been for my very cool discovery on Wikipedia tonight. Wikibooks! More specifically, the Learn Chinese book. How cool is that?

I'm pretty sure the on my list of things to do before I leave for Heaven there lies an item called "Learn another language." Note that I'm just pretty sure, I'm not entirely sold on it yet. If I were to pursue learning another language, I think I'd like it to be Chinese. Upon mastering the second tongue, I could instantly talk to a new third of the world's population! So many new friends could be made. All thanks to Wikipedia. What a brilliant thing.

What are you going to learn? Share!

well dang it...

I've been trying to update this thing for a while, but blogger needs to get find a stick and get on it.

You folks who've read this for thing for a while know I've got some personal qualms with adding posts sans photographs. Well I've attempted, numerous times, to put up a picture of my rad new keyboard that my overly gracious parents gave me for Christmas... all to no avail. That has been the reason for my lack of posts. That and the fact that I've still yet to have someone take me up on the ski offer. I've got four days in a row off coming up starting Thursday. If you don't watch me I'll drive up there by myself.

Anyway, I just wanted to throw an update your way so as to relieve any fears that I was missing. I'm not. I'm right here. Come see me. And while you're on your way, thank God for making it cold outside, no matter what Heather says.

Oh, and while I'm in the process of making this, perhaps my worst post in the history of online diary for the masses, let me point out the newest link on my list over here to the right: The Chases.

glory to God

The other night Mikey and I walked to this "Drinks and Desserts" get together at a neighboring apartment complex. It took us a lot of wandering the parking lot before we found apartment 2223, but we finally found it. As we approached the stairs I spotted this Hamilton right there on the ground. I haven't found a dollar bill on the ground since elementary school when I found a Lincoln (I think) on the Luby's floor in Arlington. I rejoiced. Ask Mikey.

On an unrelated note: I have to work on Christmas Eve... what the heck is that? I guess I'll just keep in mind that Mary and Joseph didn't get any time off on Christmas Eve either. I'll be Joseph, you be Mary.

carpe diem

The past few weeks Jon, Mikey and I have been very blessed to have one of our roommates of yore crash with us here in Dallas. THE Colby Ivey has graced us with his presence before he heads off to Colorado for a while. Last night, another one of our beloved roommates from Luther Street was in town. A typing test brought Jessie Harris to the Big D and fate brought him to us upon his completion of the test.

Jessie, Colby, and I decided that in order to celebrate our brief reunion, we should go to Taco Bueno and converse over a Mexican fast food feast. The conversation was a beautiful thing. We caught up with one another, reflected on our Savior and what He's been up to lately, and talked about life in general. The three of us are all highly aware that we are at a very unique point in our lives. We can pretty much do whatever we want, and go wherever we want, and fully justify it because we are currently bound to nothing. None of us are close to being married (that we're aware of), and we're all able to live off $12,000 a year without too much sacrifice.

In the midst of all this conversing, Colby mentioned a recent funeral that went down at a local church. The guy was 24, married, and had a baby. He died in a fishing accident. He lived with 6 or 7 of his best friends in college. He liked to walk around barefoot. He lived a full life. He was us.

There have been no shortage of reminders the past few years of how fragile life is.

It doesn't take too long to dwell on the fragility of life before you decide you want your life to be a full one. Hence, carpe diem. Sieze the day. We are so dumb to not make the most of every day we are given, and every opportunity we're given, no matter how silly or even stupid it may seem.

That said, there have long been talks about the Luther boys getting a tattoo to solidify our unity and love for each other. The idea has always been that we would each get one letter of "Luther Boys" tattooed. 10 people, 10 letters, good deal. Well it turns out that some people aren't crazy about the idea. They don't want to sieze their days. They strive to life boring lives. So, we've been forced to reduce "Luther Boys" to just "Luther".

Immediately following our carpe diem conversation at Bueno, Colby and Jessie decided that that very moment was the best time to get the tattoos, even though there were only three of us. We would get the ball rolling with L, U, and T, and let the other lucky three spell HER later. Oh, and if you haven't gotten this already, the location of said tattoo is to be directly on each roommates' bumper (see picture above). I could go on in great detail about how hilarious last night was, but I fear this post is getting a bit long. Suffice it to say that tattoos are very expensive, and when you want them on your bumper, they cost even more. So funny.

Carpe Diem!

no surprise

If you're part of the readership of all the Living Hope bloggers (which, lets face it, you are) then you know everyone's been tagged, and since everyone's been tagged, and I'm someone, I've been tagged. If I hadn't been tagged by my favorite 7 year old, I would have immediately disregarded it. However, since Anson is such a baller, I cannot resist.

1. I'm way more selfish than you think I am.
2. I hate it when I'm opening the bag of cereal and it tears down the side, allowing pieces of cereal to fall down into the box, never to be eaten.
3. For the first time in my life, my beard is longer than my hair.
4. I day dream about being in cooler life stages than my reality.
5. I'm a firm believer in listening to entire CD's without skipping around or switching CD's before completely listening to them. I think artists put at least some thought into the song order of their albums and they probably want you to hear the songs in the order that you do without your skipping around. If you're driving, do whatever. It's your CD player. If I'm driving, don't you dare reach your nasty finger to my CD player's dial to skip to a song you think is better than the one currently playing. It's not how the artist intended it to be, and it's not how it will be in my car. If you weren't sure earlier, re-read number 1.

Here's the list of people I'll tag (but won't hyperlink because it'd take too long): Philip Yancey, Andrew Peterson, Mark Driscoll, Kelly Clarkson, and my Granny.

congestion?

One of the drawbacks to living in a major city is the lack of open space. Buildings and streets take up most of the space (all but the few acres of parks that cities thankfully spare), hindering, among other things, the view. One thing I love about many places I've visited in my life were open fields or overhanging cliffs where I could sit and watch the sunset (or rise, if I were so ambitious as to wake up early).

The other day I got off of work about an hour before sunset, so I decided to do the ol' ride-my-bike-to-a-cool-place-and-watch-the-sunset. The place I had in my mind, a field, turned out to be the worst possible idea. There were buildings all over blocking my view of the westward sky. I was fortunate, however, to have one of those buildings be a parking garage. So I rode up six stories of steady incline to the top where I took a new kind of sunset picture: the kind that includes the building, as opposed to avioding them. I thought this building looked so cool as it reflected the sun. If you have bad vision you might even look at it and think that the building is all clear (and wouldn't that be cool if it were?). So now I just need to find the tallest parking garage in the city and ride up it for my next photographic outing. I'll be a happy rick.

(can you see downtown back there?)

The Thanksgiving Hun-derd!

I decided that for this year's Thanksgiving post that I'd do something a little different -- not that there have necessarily been any Thanksgiving posts in the past. I've decided to list one hundred people for which I am thankful. These names will be in no particular order, so if your name is the first one, the last one, or the middle-est one, that doesn't mean anything, other than that you made the list. I've also decided to break them up in four sets of 25, so it will be less overwhelming to read and easier for me to count. Go!

Mom, Dad, L.O., Granny, Aunt Sherry, Uncle Stan, Cousin Misty, Jon Tettleton, Mikey Mills, Colby Ivey, Jessie Harris, Grant Usry, T-Bomb Abbey, French Logan, John Banks, Jonny Williams, PG, Nate Dog, Matt Graham, Jimmy Needham, Cody Kimmel, Sam Binkley, Justin Smith, Aaron Hendrick, Heather Hendrick,

Anson Hendrick, Hayden Hendrick, Ashton Hendrick, My boy Danny, Chris Gaines, Butch Smith, Michelle Smith, Allen Duty, Kendra Duty, Brooke Brandon, Hayley Haralson, Claire Borne, Jessica Schmale, Sarah Vierling, Lauren Helton, Brice Helton, Stephanie Logan, Rachel Schmale, Lauren Rouse, Mallory Maxwell, Jordan Coulter, Kristin Good, Lauren McDaniel, Katie Domenech, Laura Nutter,

Brandone Rogers, Beethel Rogers, Mohawk Chad, Bill Magee, Ila Magee, Thomas Supercinski, Rachel Supercinski, Faith Fuqua, Ryan Couch, Jenny Couch, Lynn Brannon, Laura Brannan, Danie Magee, Katherine Carelock, Drew Lewis, Travis Black, Tyler Kunkel, Steve Miller, Andrew Rios, Blaine Grace, Brad Smith, Haley Smith, Breeto Wells,Rachel Gillman, Charles Roitsch,

Click!, Daniel Darnell, EJ Rathburn, Lamar Stockton, Topher Stockton, Trent Dowd, Tommy Clements, Brad Stroup, Rob Bethman, Taniesha Bethman, Chris Pletcher, Molly Allen, Megan McKenty, Melissa McKenty, Marc Morrow, PEEPS, Luke Friesen, Lisa Merryman, Lauren Drewry, Julie Anna Aboussie, Joshua Langston, Joe Baker, Joey Rigney, Jason Dunn, Jenna Fenoglio

Well that's it. I could have kept going (maybe not a whole lot longer, it's safe to say at least 10 people got left off), but one hundred's one hundred... sorry. One pretty big person who didn't make the list (but in a stroke of irony, did, in face, make, the list) is Jesus. I thank Him for giving me 100+ people for whom to be thankful. Amen and amen. And a hand-squeeze.

EMERGENCY!

I came out of blog retirement to present to my readers an unexpected emergency that occurred the other night: I had just blown out a candle that had been burning for 5 hours or so, and by some God-forsaken lapse of judgement I picked up said candle, brought it to my face so as to better smell it, and inadvertently dumped the wax all over myself.

By the grace of God, I wasn't naked when this happened. My desk, chair, and clothes took the brunt of the burn. Six seconds later the real problem presented itself: Dried wax is now splatter-painted all over my padded desk chair, the crotch of my pants, and one of my Sunday shirts.

This is where you, my readers -- my readers who are mothers or someday hope to be -- come in to play. I need to learn the best method of getting dried wax out of clothes. My chair is a lost cause. I was able to clean off the desk using my drivers licence. Now I'm facing the battle of the week in my laundry basket's contents.

So for all you moms whose children have tainted their clothes with Christmas Eve Candlelight Service candles, or the moms whose own clothes have soiled by melted crayons, this is my plea for your guidance. If in fact my clothes are as lost a cause as my chair, I'll be able to cope, but I'm not going down without a fight.

In regard to my previous post: That was really written in hopes that Judy would read it, feel terrible for ousting everyone's 6th favorite blog-writer from the web, and return to giving us the news like she did for so many days in the past. Thank you for those who showed love and concern. Right back atcha.

spellchecks and showers

Remember that list of 75 things I like? I think it was the most crowd-pleasing event on online diary for the masses since the Chinese Haircut piece. Well ever since I made that list public, I've been thinking of things that I like even more than those things, and I feel bad that they didn't make the list. Problem is, I don't exactly always have the chance to stop what I'm doing (normally taking a shower) and write these thoughts on anything. Things like how much I enjoy it when I click the spellcheck button and a box comes up saying "No Misspelled Words Found."

Now this post is going to take a turn I wasn't planning on at first: shower talk. Here we go.

I can't stand showers with lousy water pressure. I'm all about conserving water, but I don't think a trickling shower head is the answer. My current shower head emits 2.5 gallons per minute. I think that's fair.

I can't understand shower heads that are level with my chest. I haven't come across many of these in my life, but I have a couple times, and it really baffles me. Who's idea was it to put a shower head at a ten-year-old's eye level?

The afore mentioned problem of epiphanies in the shower that somehow stay in the shower, not to be remembered again when I'm actually able to write them down. That kind of stuff always happens either in the shower or while I'm mowing the yard. Neither are good times to write.

Cloth shower curtains: Again I ask, who's idea was that? Why would we make a shower curtain that absorbs water? It's beyond me.

I think that's all for Shower Talk. I sincerely hope that you won't stop reading my blog now that you've experienced what may be the most unorganized, random post in the history of this site.

let it be known...

I'm at home in Arlington for the week, and I've done a few things that are worth blogging about. However, I have no way of transferring my pictures from my camera to the computers here in A town. If you are new to this area, and you don't see a problem with a blog sans photographs, please see The People v. D.O. here. So, until I find a cable or something, hang in there.

new news

I'm pretty sure this will come as a surprise to most, if not all five of my readers. As I mentioned in my last entry, I'm going to Brenham this summer. I may or may not have mentioned that I have zero plans for what the days after Brenham hold. Well through a series of "random" emails and phone calls I've been presented with an opportunity to go serve as a youth worker at an international church in Cairo, Egypt. The church is called Maadi Community Church and I would serve there from August until May. I would, of course, have to raise a whole lot of money while in Brenham ($6,000 to be exact). So basically right now I'm at the point where I pray about what I'm supposed to do. I know that if the Lord wants me to go, He will provide the funds and I'll be on the second international mission trip of my life. I'm praying for some serious clarity and discernment for these next two weeks, by which time I'm supposed to have made a decision. This is an open invitation for you guys to pray too! Isn't that exciting? I know how much Christians love to pray! (tongue and cheek). At any rate, that's my situation, crazy as it may be.