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a thing once existed …

i’m presently listening to aldous huxley’s “brave new world” while running. i love this book. i didn’t read it in high school like most people because i didn’t really read much of anything when i was in high school. i read it for the first time when i hit college. i fell in love with it immediately. since then it’s been on my “re-read list” ever couple of years. today while running i hit the part in chapter 4 when mustapha mond, the western european controller started describing the thing that once existed called “CHRISTianity” (obviously in the fictional world of the book it no longer existed). mond’s problem with CHRISTianity was that it was opposed to the constant and meaningless consumption that was necessary for the world’s economy to continue to grow. mond believed that nothing could be allowed to exist unless it encouraged people to buy things. it all seemed rather ironic to me after going through the CHRISTmas season.

i sometimes wonder if mond’s description of CHRISTianity shouldn’t be closer to what the truth actually is. all you have to do is walk into a lifeway store to see that some portions of modern CHRISTianity think consumption is the greatest thing ever. i hate lifeway.

my run for the day
distance – 7.0 miles
time – 1:07:54
pace – 9:42/mile

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night at the museum

nightatthemuseum
every CHRISTmas afternoon the fam and i go out to see a movie. this year we went to see ben stiller’s night at the museum. i’ll talk about the movie in a second. first i want to talk about how much i love the grand cinema. pam and i love this movie house. it’s facilities are just as good as any of the big theaters but the thing we like about it is its small neighborhood feel. it’s great. they won our praise on CHRISTmas day by waving us through into the movie when they started having trouble with their credit card reader. they’re credit card machine couldn’t get through on it’s phone line and since we didn’t have any cash on us they gave us tickets for free and waved us through saying “merry CHRISTmas.” it was great.

it was even better when we found out that the movie we had just received free tickets to was a great movie. “night at the museum” was wonderful. pam and i usually love ben stiller so that was no surprise but this was one of the best movies he has done recently. we laughed all through the movie. the experience was even better because of the guys behind us.

pam has been telling me that as i get older i laugh much easier. i find myself laughing out loud at commercials and various other things that i would have never laughed at before. pam’s convinced its the natural result of age. if that’s true then it would explain the older guy behind us because he laughed at everything. things that were only slightly funny because hilarious because he was laughing uncontrollably. we would laugh at the movie and then laugh at the guy behind us who was still laughing at the movie. it made for a great movie going experience. i wish i could get him to sit behind me during every comedy i watch.

all in all i would say that “night at the movie” is one of the best movies i have seen in 2006.

my run for the day
distance – 7.8
total time – 1:17:44
pace – 9:58/mile

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merry CHRISTmas

merry CHRISTmas
here’s hoping that you’ve had an incredible day full of joy. i know people always worry about “taking CHRIST out of CHRISTmas” with all the commercialization (which i find odd because i’m not sure anyone would ever be strong enough to take CHRIST out of a place) but i have to say that the moments my kids see the present under the tree is an amazingly great moment. the mystery of what’s in those boxes is fascinating.

btw, if you’re curious about the picture it’s from elf yourself. here’s my online elf dance.

my run for the day
distance – 5.0 miles (intervals)
total time – 42:43
pace – 8:33/mile

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going postal

empty
i’m not sure what i have done to offend the u.s. post office but it must have been something big. in the past week i have received two packages that were messed up in route to my house or office. the first package was a timex watch. this is the watch that i use while running. i bought it about four months ago and two weeks ago it died. i took it back to walmart (the evil empire where i bought this watch in a moment of weakness) and they gave me a box to place the watch in and mail to timex for a warranty repair. after a week i received a box with a brand new watch in it. unfortunately, during the postal process one of the buttons of the watch was continually pressed in and thus the battery was dead when i received the new watch. i called timex and they told me they would send me a new one which i received in working order yesterday.

the second package is a longer story. for pam’s birthday i order an autographed copy of a book from an author she likes. i figured it would be a great little gift. unfortunately, when the book arrived it wasn’t autographed. i called the company up and they said it was obviously their fault and they would correct it by sending out another book that was autographed. they mailed it and it arrived yesterday. when i picked up the package it felt a little lite. when i opened the envelope i realized what was wrong … the envelope was empty. since i can’t imagine a company mailing an empty envelope i prefer to blame the post office. i think that over the years all the increases in the price of a stamp have lead to a surplus of research money within the post office. the postal workers have used this money to developed a dematerializing laser that can go into an envelope and remove it’s contents without every opening the envelope. this way the post office can mess up the plans of husbands and make them look bad. this is part of the post office’s master plan to cause a revolution. if they tick off enough wives, by making the wives think ill of their husbands, they will eventually reach a critical mass of upset wives and a civil war will begin. married women all over the nation will go crazy and cause major destruction. this will cause people to forget the term “” and instead think that “going wival” is a better term for going crazy.

darn those postal workers and their cunning plans.
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growing & going

within the households of our friends and our own it has become a tradition during the CHRISTmas season to write a “year in review” newsletter. pam and i always look forward to reading these. this year we’ve noticed a trend – some of our friends write nothing about themselves within their newsletters. they describe the changes that their kids have gone through but nothing of themselves. pam and i started talking about this and we are convinced that part of the reason for this may be that they have not changed any during the past year. their kids have grown and developed and thus need to be re-described to everyone. whenever someone grows they need to be “re-described” because they have changed. you can see this in the newsletters we enjoy the most. in these newsletters our friends describe themselves again because they have grown during the year. they have learned new things, developed within things that they were already a part of – they’ve grown.

of course, this probably isn’t true. these friends probably have grown and developed and they were just so excited about their kids that they forgot to mention it. i’m thankful for their newsletters because they remind me that i want to continue growing and developing throughout my life.

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the view tonight

peace on earth
tonight i got to introduce allot of our youth to the game i know as bonco (i say “the game i now as bonco” because it is absolutely nothing like the game most people know as “bonco”). i compare it to “spoons” with dice. it’s an absolute blast and therefore it was a ton off fun to watch everyone play it. i would consider writing the rules down here but it’s the type of thing that you have to play in order to understand.

SIDE NOTE – the photo above is the terrell family CHRISTmas photo and obviously has nothing to do with bonco.

my run for the day
distance – 8.1 miles
total time – 1:16:11
pace – 9:24/mile

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what’s next?

i haven’t even finished my first half-marathon yet (that will happen january 14th at the first light half-martathon) and my brother-n-law has convinced me to go ahead and start planning for a marathon in nashville – the country music marathon. this is probably stupid but somehow in my mind i have convinced myself that since i was able to run the golden fliers 10 miler this past saturday i should be able to run a full marathon. it’s makes since since a marathon is only 2.6 times the length of the 10 mile race. i’m not sure that my logic is too great on this point.

my run for the day
distance – 4.0 miles
total time – 37:21
pace – 9:20/mile

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coward

last night i received a rather rude comment from the youth ministry website. i’ve editted the comment due to language but here it is:

You “Christians” are such HYPOCRITS!!! ****?***?***!!! You shun us homosexuals and “evil, immoral people” and stay hoarded up inside your CULT. (Yes, I DID say cult) I am a proud Atheist, and if god did exist, he’d be STRIKING YOU WITH LIGHTNING!!! You should Treat other people nicely, like your bible and god says…

wordpress has a built in moderation feature that i had setup on the comments posted on the youth ministry website. this means that comment was just sent to me for approval rather than being posted on the website. since, the commenter left an email address i figured i would email him/her back. if he/she responded back and was okay with me editting out the profanity then i would consider allowing the comment to be posted – though i do think it is rude to go to an organization and post such comments. so i emailed the following response to the commenter who listed his email as “freethinker@hotmail.com.”

hi freethinker,

my name is robert terrell, i’m the youth minister at parkview, and the person who runs the youth ministry website that you left the following comment on:

“You “Christians” are such HYPOCRITS!!! ****?***?***!!! You shun us homosexuals and “evil, immoral people” and stay hoarded up inside your CULT. (Yes, I DID say cult) I am a proud Atheist, and if god did exist, he’d be STRIKING YOU WITH LIGHTNING!!! You should Treat other people nicely, like your bible and god says…”

apparently you know things about me that i don’t know. the people i know who are homosexual have never told me that i shun them but i guess i’ll take your word for it. all though i know allot of people of many faiths (and lack of faiths too) i’m not sure i know any people that i would describe as “evil, immoral” but maybe you can point some out to me so i can stop shunning them. i will agree with you that we/i should treat other people nicely … which is what i try to do though i do fail every now and then (kind of like going onto someone’s website and chewing them out for no reason).

is there something specific on our website that offends you or are you just interested in judging us based on stereotypes? if there is something specific i would gladly listen. until i hear something specific i probably won’t be allowing your comment to stay on the website. i am serious though i will listen to any complaint you have concerning what i have placed on the website or personally done and i will consider changing it.

robert

of course, the email has a fake email address and therefore my email was returned to me as undeliverable. COWARD! i don’t have a problem with someone disagreeing with me. i’m cool with people questioning what i believe. i’ll freely admit that i mess up in following what i believe and i need people to point it out when i do. yet i don’t really have much respect for someone who comes on the website that i run and leaves such comments anonymously.

freethinker please “man up” or sulk to the coward’s place on the internet.

my run for the day
distance – 2.0 miles (speed work of 4 half mile quick runs)
time – 13:34
pace – 6:47/mile

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i want this ringtone

last night during our interim pastor’s speech during our church’s choir musical someone’s phone rang. that’s not too big of a surprise because random ringtones are a common occurrence within modern gatherings. this ringtone was great because it was the cricket sound you always hear on t.v. when something boring is happening. it went off twice during his talk. i nearly busted out loud laughing.

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10 miler

today i ran my first >5k race. i ran in the golden fliers 10 miler this morning. it was a double lap race around the lsu lakes. i’ve done this distance and longer before but i’ve never done it in a race. everything changes in a road race. i don’t like being passed by people. this wouldn’t be a problem if a was fast but since i’m not i just try to judge how fast various people will run and then start off with the ones that i think will run at my pace. this usually means the eighty year old runners. of course, it never works out that i actually judge correctly. i always seem to pick the fast 80 year old to hang around and therefore my pace ends up too fast. that’s why races are hard – trying to push myself but not burning out. this means choosing the correct pace. i was worried that i would start out to fast and burn out half way through the race. i finished the race in 1:34:29 (a pace of 9:26/mile). i was pretty pleased because of two things:

  • a had energy left over at the end of the race – which means that i could have continued the pace or a slightly faster one throughout a half-marathon of 13.1 miles.
  • i passed an 80 year old lady in the last 100 yards of the race. i laughed at her while i was passing her and it made her break down and cry. i don’t even think she finished the race. she just walked away in defeat before the finish line. it felt good. 😉

now i have to continue training for the first light half marathon january 14th. as things are going presently i think i may even try a full marathon.

my run for the day
distance – 10 miles
total time – 1:34:29
pace – 9:26/mile