Category: personal

a friend of mine, eric g, is presently in discussions with a guy in wausau who wants to sell/trade his air guitar on craigslist. the whole thing has made me laugh so i thought i would, with his permission, share it here.

the original craigslist add reads:

selling a vintage, mint condition air guitar. has served faithfully as the backup to several world famous touring rigs. sweet low action, and really screams on the higher frets and insane sustain, as demonstrated recently on a journey tribute concert. don’t settle for less, get the best, and impress your girl.

make an offer, will also consider trade for barefoot water skis.

eric’s initial response was:

i saw your posting on craigslist for the air guitar.  i will trade you three baby unicorns.  trust me, it’s a good deal.  their mother was a champion snipe chaser and their father could jump a dozen rainbows without breaking a sweat.  let me know if this deal works for you and we can meet up.  if you want to check out the unicorns, my address is 1234 yellowbrick rd..  they can usually be found frolicking with the gnomes in the pasture.
sincerely,
eric

the person behind the listing responded with:

eric, thanks for your interesting offer.  i will google this ‘yellow road’ you speak of and see what type of neighborhood it is you have raised these unicorns in before deciding, however i have had poor experiences in the past with gnomes, so the fact they have frolicked concerns me.  will be in touch yesterday.  thx again.

(personal note here – who can blame this guy for worrying about the bad influence of gnomes. they are notorious for leading unicorns down the wrong path.)

and eric responded back with:

i could also offer a guided hodag hunt instead of the unicorn colts if that would be more desirable.

(personal note here – for those of you who aren’t familiar with hodags … well you obviously haven’t lived in wisconsin)

though i would never tell this to the guy trying to sell/trade the air guitar i really hope eric gets this air guitar and gets rid of his juvenile unicorns. i’m a little tired of the damage his unicorns are doing around town. the gnomes have really messed the unicorns up.

for lent and advent each year tapestry does daily/weekly emails to help us all prep for CHRISTmas and easter. lent begins today with ash wednesday and thus the first email went out today (you can view it here if you would like to). this year’s email with be a reading plan through the gospel according to matthew and the illustrations of “40”, si smith’s interpretation of JESUS’s 40 days in the wilderness. every now and then there will be a few other things additionally thrown in. if you want to receive these emails each day of lent please use the following form to sign up for the emails.

thanks to one of pam’s co-workers i am now a part of the stevens point “over 40” basketball league. i’m doing this for a few different reasons.

• its another way to exercise and that is good.
• i really like playing basketball, which is odd since i played football for most of the time i was growing up.
• i need/want to meet new people in the community, which is why i hang out at emy j’s so much, walk my dogs at the dog park, and curl. this is another opportunity to meet people outside of tapestry.

the last reason is why i am playing in the stevens point “over 40” league instead of playing in the church “pick up” games that i have been often asked to join. it is awfully nice of the people at these churches to invite me to play basketball with them but i would rather be outside of the church trying to live out and share the good news of JESUS rather than trying to share it inside the church.  obviously, i have nothing against “pick up” games among CHRISTians. i think the time together is most likely wonderful. my issue is that it seems that far too often the church stays within the church subculture.

another example of this is a conversation i recently had with a ministerial friend. he told me about a web service called onthecity.org that the church he is a part of has started using. he said they were using it because it enables them to do things “just like facebook.” i didn’t understand this. why would i need a religious social network that would work “just like facebook”? why not just use facebook? why separate and ghetto ourselves off? why have a church social network when we can do church out in the public for all to see?

it seems far too common in the church for believers to hole ourselves off in protective shells and then ask those who don’t believe in our MESSIAH to come and join us in our safe areas rather than going out into our communities and living out our faith in JESUS as the PRINCE OF PEACE for all the see. so that is part of why i am playing in the city “over 40” league where every now and then i hear someone shout an obscenity when they miss a shot, rather than just mumbling it under their breath while playing in a church gym. 🙂

SIDE NOTE – i bought 3 signs at the weekly uwsp surplus sale for $1 each. i’m painting tapestry on them for church use (like temporary-use median signs on the road). with the $3 cost of the paint pen that i bought to letter the sign this means that i will have spent $6 total for three signs. booyah.

SIDE SIDE NOTE – i think that pam likes me playing in the “over 40” league just because she enjoys me hobbling around after each game. my pain is her entertainment.

the psyblog has an interesting series of post on creativity. they are well worth the time it takes to read them. i particularly enjoyed the “dark side of creativity” and “why people fear creative ideas” because it’s not often that you see anyone talk about the negative side of creativity.  here’s one example from the article “why people fear creative ideas”:

people deal with the disconnect by saying one thing, "creativity is good, we want more of it!" but actually rejecting creative ideas for being impractical.

good stuff.

another aside for the day. kathy from thule responded to my post on installing the roof rack on fred the sentra. i really appreciate the fact that thule responded. it speaks a lot to who they are as a company. it would have been pretty easy for them to completely ignore my complaint. after all i’m a nobody with a blog that basically only my parents read. i am sure that my little post wasn’t a major public relations scandal for them that had to be handled for the good of the company. so i appreciate kathy of thule taking time to respond to my complaint and it will be remembered by me when i consider future purchases.

just a quick aside here concerning my post from a couple of days ago “mr. mayor, i have a question for you.” the mayor’s assistant called today to setup a time for us to have coffee. so i’ll be asking the mayor my questions in a week and a half. actually i’ve already forwarded my questions to him so he can think about them. i’ll ask his permission to post how he answers the questions.

i feel like i know a decent amount about the point area (after all, it is difficult to love a city if you don’t really know the city) but i am really looking forward to the new directions this conversation might lead to.

i promise to post other things than just fred the sentra repairs. right now i am just posting a quick aside concerning the quick fix of the cruise control.

i love quick fixes.

i tried tried the cruise control today and it did’t work. the main power and setting controls worked fine but there was no actual cruise control. in other words, i could set the speed but it wouldn’t hold it. i don’t know a ton of car repairs off the top of my head (that’s why i have a haynes and chilton manual for the sentra) but i do know that such circumstances usually mean a bad vacuum hose. i popped open the hood checked the hose end by the cruise control module (black box on the firewall by the driver’s side door) and it was good. i then checked the hose end connected to the actuator (a round black plastic object connected to the module via the vacuum hose and connected by a cable to the throttle) end of the hose only to discover a crack in the hose. i clipped off 1/4″ of the hose and reconnected it. problem solved.

if only everything was so easy to fix.