My Blog

The Final Weigh in!

Sat, 15 May 2010 08:32:25 -0500

Beginning weight (March 16) - 237
Weigh in #1 (March 21) - 236
Weigh in #2 (March 28) - 233
Weigh in #3 (Easter, April 4) - 231
Weigh in #4 (April 12) - 230
Weigh in #5 (April 19) - 229
Weigh in #6 (April 25) -227
Weigh in #7 (May 2) - 224
Weigh in #8 (May 10) - 221

The final weigh in - 215

Total weight loss = 22 pounds!

Thanks to all the people who encouraged and/or shamed me into losing weight and sticking with it. It worked! I don’t plan on stopping losing weight now, but this does officially end the fundraising official portion of my weight loss.

Thank you to everyone who pledged. There were $171.87 pledged per pound. Multiply that by 22 pounds and assuming everyone meets their pledge we will have raised $3,781.14. If you pledged, please make the check to Young Life and put Derek is/was fat in the memo. :)

You can mail it to:

Young Life Katy Area
423 Mason Park Blvd., Suite B1
Katy, TX 77450

I will collect all the checks and deliver them at once to our Urban office in Houston so they can use the funds for camp scholarships for our inner city Young Life clubs.

You may be wondering if I am skinny now. The answer is “no”. I’m still a tub of goo. However, there is 22 less pounds of the aforementioned goo. My goal is to weigh under 200 pounds. I think I’d like to be under 200 on my 38th birthday on October 4. That isn’t nearly as aggressive as what I’ve been doing, but this summer is probably the most busy and hectic summer of my life, so I don’t want to put extra stress on myself. Yes, this process was mildly stressful for me.

I plan on continuing to eat right, and not go back to my old ways, but I know that my workout routine won’t be as regimented as it is during the school year. Plus I won’t be able to obsessively weigh myself over the summer like I do now, to keep up with my progress.

I think my ultimate goal is to weigh 189 for like a minute. Perhaps I can get to that weight by Oct. 4, but I’m not going to push it. I’m more interested in steady, sustained weight loss, than radical quick weight loss.

Finally, I’ve learned a lot about food and my own views and use of food over the past two months. Thankfully I’ve come to the realization that I can eat a healthy diet and not be hungry all the time or feel like I’m missing something. Once I got used to changing my eating habits, it wasn’t too bad, most days. Treating yourself every once in a while was a great piece of advice, and I did that, and will continue to do so. It keeps me from getting bitter and angry about not getting to eat all the stuff I like.

Below is a picture of my scale that I took while standing on it this morning, after I ran 7 miles.

Weight Loss Update #8

Mon, 10 May 2010 09:14:46 -0500

Beginning weight (March 16) - 237
Weigh in #1 (March 21) - 236
Weigh in #2 (March 28) - 233
Weigh in #3 (Easter, April 4) - 231
Weigh in #4 (April 12) - 230
Weigh in #5 (April 19) - 229
Weigh in #6 (April 25) -227
Weigh in #7 (May 2) - 224
Weigh in #8 (May 10) - 221

This starts the crazy last week of insanity!!!!!

The only thing that matters now is losing weight. Being healthy doesn’t matter, this is just about sprinting through the finish line. I’m reducing my calories this week and increasing my distances in my morning runs, and I’ll finish the week off with a nice 10 miler, just to get to the lowest weight possible before the big weigh in!

If anyone wants to run 10 miles with me and my friends on Saturday morning, let me know.

Weight Loss Update #7

Sun, 2 May 2010 09:14:16 -0500

Beginning weight (March 16) - 237
Weigh in #1 (March 21) - 236
Weigh in #2 (March 28) - 233
Weigh in #3 (Easter, April 4) - 231
Weigh in #4 (April 12) - 230
Weigh in #5 (April 19) - 229
Weigh in #6 (April 25) -227
Weigh in #7 (May 2) - 224

3 Pounds in 1 week, a new record (for me)!

Two weeks to go! I’m really going to try to drop the last 7 pounds by the weigh in date. I may also move the weigh in up 1 day to May 15. It all depends on the weather (for running purposes) and our social schedule for that weekend.
By the way, at one point during the week past I weighed 223 pounds, so that would have been 4 pounds in 1 week, but only the weigh in day really counts!

Weight Loss Update #6

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 12:04:09 -0500

Beginning weight (March 16) - 237
Weigh in #1 (March 21) - 236
Weigh in #2 (March 28) - 233
Weigh in #3 (Easter, April 4) - 231
Weigh in #4 (April 12) - 230
Weigh in #5 (April 19) - 229
Weigh in #6 (April 25) -227
10 Pounds gone!
2 more pounds gone. 10 more to go. 10 pounds in 20 days. It’s possible. I’m feeling it. I’m getting more comments about how my face looks less fat. Hooray.
The more I lose, the more encouraged I feel. I’ve also got a few extra weight loss gimmicks planned for these last few weeks.

Weight Loss Update #5 - 1 day late

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 23:31:39 -0500

Beginning weight (March 16) - 237
Weigh in #1 (March 21) - 236
Weigh in #2 (March 28) - 233
Weigh in #3 (Easter, April 4) - 231
Weigh in #4 (April 12) - 230
Weigh in #5 (April 19) - 229
Under 230!!!!
Only lost 1 pound again this week, but I’m encouraged because I only ran twice and worked out once. Too many planes and too many meetings, and too many good meals. However I did exhibit some modicum of self control, and thus another pound is gone!
Less than 4 weeks to go, time to get more aggressive and pull out all of the stops.
12 pounds in 4 weeks, is it possible?

Weight Loss Update #4

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 12:51:28 -0500

Beginning weight (March 16) - 237
Weigh in #1 (March 21) - 236
Weigh in #2 (March 28) - 233
Weigh in #3 (Easter, April 4) - 231
Weigh in #4 (April 12) - 230
I only lost 1 pound officially this week. As I explained earlier my weight fluctuates wildly during the week. Usually a 5 pound swing. 230 actually falls on the heavier side, but Sunday is the official weigh in day, and I love consistency. I was a little disappointed in the weight loss this week, because I ran farther and worked out harder. However, I did eat Mexican food twice. Once was a work lunch, the other a birthday party. That may have prevented another pound, who knows.

This upcoming week I’ll be traveling Monday - Sunday, so that will present a new challenge, since I’ll be at our Young Life Camp, Sharp Top Cove, in Georgia for three days. The food will be good, plentiful, and probably carb and sugar heavy. I’ll have to be extra careful. I’ve got healthy snacks packed already, and I’ll have to work out extra. Thanks again for all the encouragement and shame.
By the way, this week, multiple people on different occasions mentioned that they could tell I had lost weight. This was very nice to hear. Also, I noticed that all of my jeans are fitting a little more loosely. :)
Ok, I’m off to do a little chest and back workout. Bring it! 5 weeks and 13 pounds to go.

Weight Loss Update #3

Sun, 4 Apr 2010 11:26:15 -0500

Beginning weight (March 16) - 237
Weigh in #1 (March 21) - 236
Weigh in #2 (March 28) - 233
Weigh in #3 (Easter, April 4) - 231

Slow and steady wins the race. 2 more pounds gone! I was hoping I would be under 230 when I woke up this morning, but no dice. The scale is still moving in the right direction. I’m not missing food as much anymore, and I’ve been eating pretty darn well, and drinking lots of water. Thanks for the shaming/encouragement.
There was some confusion with what my goal is last week. Let me clarify. My goal by May 16 is to weigh 217, that would be a 20 lb. loss in 60 days. This seems reasonable and healthy. Hopefully I’ll surpass that goal. Regardless, I won’t stop losing weight on May 16, but that is when the measurements for pledging purposes stop, because I’ll need to collect all the pledges in time for summer. My long term goal is to be under 200 pounds! Once I reach that I’ll go for 190.
There has also been a little confusion regarding the details of this journey. Here they are. This is copied from the facebook group I created.
1. I'm fat, and need to lose weight
2. I'm motivated by shame and guilt.
3. Lots of Houston area high school kids need $ to attend Young Life camp
4. I'm going to lose weight and raise money.
5. Here is where you come in.... you can pledge to give per pound that I lose. For example:

if you pledge $1 per pound, and I lose 20 lbs., then you would give $20.

If you pledge $5 per pound, and I lose 20 lbs. then you would owe $100.

I'm hoping to get several hundred dollars per pound. This will help to motivate me to lose more weight.

All of the money raised will go to Young Life kids that are in less affluent parts of Houston. None of it will go to the Young Life area that I work in. The Lord has provided enough for our camp scholarship fund for this year already, and I didnt' want this to be some sneaky way of raising money for my own work. So 100% of the funds raised will go to kids in other parts of Houston.

This starts on March 16, and the final weigh in will be on May 16.
2 months to lose as much weight as possible.

You can pledge by writing on the wall, sending me a facebook message, or sending me an email

Weight Loss Update #2

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 19:15:59 -0500

Weigh in # 2:
Beginning weight (March 16) - 237
Weigh in #1 (March 21) - 236
Weigh in #2 (March 28) - 233

I lost 3 pounds this week. I was a little nervous when I woke up this morning for the weigh in because my weight had fluctuated wildly all week. However, I know I’ve eaten WAY healthier than normal and I exercised quite a bit. I ran 15.5 miles this week and did two p90x workouts. This was a busy week where both Wednesday and Thursday were VERY long work days. Next week I’ll be able to do 2 more workouts as well as all that running.
Thanks for all the encouragement and/or shaming. The advice has been helpful too. I’m definitely not starving myself, but I have been more hungry than I’m used to. Changing the way you eat is definitely the most difficult part for me.
Just FYI, the pledges are up to $159.30 per pound. So that’s already $637 raised if I don’t lose another pound. But there are 7 weeks to go!!!! I’m shooting for at least 20 pounds lost or a target weight of 217. Thanks for all the support.

Weight Loss Update #1

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 21:05:51 -0500

This morning I weighed for the first time since this weight loss challenge began. The weight was............ 236 pounds. So I lost 1 pound. Or did I? Or did I lose more? The world will never know because I used two different scales for the two measurements. On Tuesday when I started this madness I was in Dallas at Jessica’s parents house, so I used their scale. Today I used the brand new scale I bought after church today. So there may be a slight variance. There definitely was with our old scale. Our old scale said I lost 11 pounds!!!! There is no way that is true, that’s why I went out and spent money on a new one. From now on I’ll be using the new scale, so all weigh ins will be comparable.

What I have learned thus far:
1. Food has become a replacement for God in my life. As I’ve changed my eating habits the past 5 days it became apparent very quickly that I used food for comfort, celebration, contentment and a whole host of other things that start with “c”. Taking away all of that eating made me realize how important eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted had become to me. So I’m excited about returning to getting my comfort and contentment from God again, and not from food.
2. I’m going to need supernatural (from God) strength to do this. Today I was really discouraged and it’s only been five days. So I prayed about it and worked out (p90x Chest and Back) and I felt a lot better. I also watched some success stories of p90x people on youtube. This is going to be very challenging mentally. I wanted to quit already, which leads me to my third point....
3. My strategy is working perfectly!!!! By publicly shaming myself on facebook and inviting people to put their trust and money behind me, I can’t quit!!!! I knew I would become discouraged and want to eat, that is why I made this a public group adventure.

So, bring on the motivation. Call me fat, get in my face, invite me to workout/run/swim with you, give me encouragement, whatever you want. There are 55 days to go. How much weight can I lose in 55 more days?????

PS - The pledges are up to $134.14 per pound!

My favorite YouTube video ever.

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 15:41:45 -0600

This video is somewhat long, but watch the whole thing, it will move you.
I love to discuss the intellectual side of my belief in Christ, but there is no discussion in regards to the transforming power of Christ in people’s lives. Real people, with real struggles. This video illustrates that as well as anything I have ever seen.

Which Kind of Person Are You? (Not a personality test)

Sun, 7 Feb 2010 12:08:55 -0600

What’s it all about? What is the meaning of life? What is the purpose of my existence? Why am I here? Does it even matter if I’m here? These are some of the questions that haunt us as we consider what we should do with our lives. We want to make our lives count. We want to be important, we want to be significant. Ultimately we want to live a life that matters. We want to know what life is really all about so that our lives will not be an insignificant waste of time. In order to answer the question, “What is life all about?”, we have to figure out what kind of person we are. What we believe about the universe we live in. So what kind of person are you?

In the summer of 2002 I saw M. Night Shyamalan’s film Signs. It was advertised as “the scariest movie you will ever see”. I am not someone who sees many scary movies, but I went to see this movie anyway because I enjoyed Mr. Shyamalan’s previous films immensely. After seeing the film I realized it wasn’t about all the things that were advertised. Yes, there were frightening and tense moments in the movie, but those were just a backdrop for the question that Mr. Shyamalan was asking the audience - “What kind of person are you?”

The story that allows this question to be raised involves aliens coming to earth. Sounds weird, I know, but its effective. In the film Mel Gibson plays Graham, a minister who has lost his faith as a result of a tragic accident where his wife was killed in a car crash. The critical point in the story is a conversation between Mel Gibson’s character and his ex-baseball player younger brother, Merrill, played by Juaquin Phoenix.
As they sit in the dark and stare at the TV and see alien ships hovering over different cities on TV they are gripped by curiosity and fear.

I encourage you to watch the rest of the movie, because it addresses this question further. We have to ask ourselves the same question. Which kind of person am I? Is everything we experience just a product of random chance. A product of a series of chemical reactions that cause certain people to do and say certain things that affect other people and ultimately us as well. Or is there more to life than just randomness. Is there a purpose? Is there a reason that we are here? What kind of universe do you believe in, a universe that exists by accident, or something that was designed?
This is a topic that is hotly debated in our culture today. The debate has taken on lots of names; “culture war” , “Creation v. Evolution” , “Science v. God”. The purpose of this blog is not to debate the scientific details in each of these arguments. You probably did not open this webpage in order to read about scientific theories. However, I do feel the need to take a few moments to cover the topic in a broad way.
Obviously this topic can and will be debated until the end of time. It is very difficult for one side to convince the other side that they are right, and impossible to prove. Usually the debate degenerates into a debate over the age of the earth, or how the universe was formed. While those are interesting topics, I don’t intend to spend much time on them here. There are many great resources available that cover this topic.

But before we move on, here are a few things to consider. Firstly, our universe is ordered. There is not much debate to the fact that our planets move in an orderly way, or that the entire universe is very predictable. We know when comets will pass by thousands of years before they do. We have laws of the physical world that we trust implicitly. Thousands of us board giant metal tubes and fly at fantastic speeds 20,000 feet above the ground with not much thought because we trust the laws of the universe to keep an airplane safely in the air. Human beings themselves are immensely complicated. The human brain is an amazing organ. We understand exponentially more about it now than we did just 20 years ago, but scientists still claim that we don’t understand much about the brain as a whole.
If we don’t understand our own bodies completely, perhaps we also have much to learn about the universe and how it functions and where it came from. We do know a few things about the universe whether we are scientifically minded or not. As I mentioned earlier we know that the universe is ordered, that it works, planets are not hurtling randomly through space smashing into other planets. The universe is not chaotic. If the universe is not chaotic, then it might even be designed.
Let me illustrate it this way: Say you had a watch, and you took this watch apart, all of the pieces, gears, springs and other things that make a watch tick were disassembled and put into a small box. Now shake that box up for 5 minutes. When you open the box, what would you find? A watch? Of course not, you would find a bunch of watch pieces all jumbled together in a box! What if you shook that box for an hour? When you opened it you would still find a box of parts, not a whole working watch. If you shook it for a year, or 10 years, or a million years, or for all eternity you would never open it up to find a functioning watch. Why not? Because a watch is complicated and it takes an intelligent mind to make those parts work together. It takes someone who understands the mechanics of how a watch works. It took someone who could craft the different parts of a watch to put them together and assign them tasks to tell time. Now if we agree that something like a watch could not put itself together, how much more true would that be about the human eye? Or the human brain? Or the universe itself?
We don’t expect computers, or cars, or nice meals, or any of our modern toys to make themselves. Everything in our experience leads us to believe that complicated functioning systems have intelligent designers behind them. Why not the universe? Well, the reason we doubt that there is a creator of the universe is because we can’t see him or her or it. At the same time we don’t see gravity, but we do see its effects, and therefore we believe in gravity. We can see that there is an ordered universe, that we can trust the laws of physics, motion and gravity. We trust that they exist even though we can only see evidence of their existence. Perhaps we need to trust that something greater than us (for the sake of language, I’ll refer to this something as God) exists and is responsible for our existence even though we can only see evidence of this entity’s (God’s) existence.

As we learn more and more about the beginning of our universe and how it came into being it helps us to understand our own existence even better, but it still can’t possibly answer the question as to where the original matter that formed the universe came from or why it exists at all. Was there ever just nothing? Was there a time when nothing existed? If so, did time exist? If time didn’t exist, then what did? My head just exploded. So maybe there is something (God) that caused the universe to come into being several billion years ago. So what?

U2 Tour Review, with video

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 22:54:10 -0600

I meant to post this way back in 2009, but forgot,....

Here it is, the review that no one was waiting for.

U2, Dallas & Norman

I’m reviewing both of these shows together, because they were very much identical. The only difference in the setlist, was the addition of In A Little While and Unknown Caller in Norman.

Let’s start with a little insight into my recent U2 fandom. It was fading. Call it age, call it having 2 kids, call it busyness with work, call it a lackluster album, whatever the reason, my U2 obsession has faded. Buying tickets at multiple shows was probably just a learned response to the tickets being offered. A few weeks before the shows I even thought to myself, “what am I doing going to these shows?”. Buy, I’m still cheap, and I paid for the tickets, and I decided to go ahead and go to both shows anyway. Would it be worth it? Keep reading.

The shows were very similar, but one way they were different was the venue. The Dallas show was in the new Jerrydome, which is unfreakingbelievably massive. Lots of reports about bad sound in the venue, but from 10 feet away from Bono, I didn’t notice. But the roof was closed, and in comparing that to the Norman show, being outside on a cool, crisp evening totally owned being inside Jerry’s new playpen. I was really stoked to see the show outside in the weather after being in the Jerrydome.

I stood in exactly the same place at the 2 different shows. Which is to say 10-15 feet from the stage, between where Bono stands and where Edge stands, so that I’d get the full effect of both of their antics.

I attended the Dallas show with my long time friend Nick Massad, his wife Monica, and 2 of their friends, who were great. The Norman show was, me, Jessica, and Dan U2 Fox.

Opening acts was the other main difference. I had never listened to Muse before the Dallas show, but I liked them immediately, which is weird for me. Thus I would give them an A+.

In Norman, the Black Eyed Peas opened which was totally different from Muse, but they were good and fun, even though I’m not really a fan.

Once the opening acts were finished, you have the usual hour or so wait for U2. The way U2 introduced their set was great. Space Oddity began playing loudly and the crowd went crazy. Everyone singing along loudly and you could feel the energy ramp way, way, way up!

Lights down, smoke machines on, spotlights swinging, here comes U2, first song….

Breathe - I’m not a fan of this song, and I don’t think it is a great show starter, but I was happy that it was first, since then it was out of the way. It just doesn’t open a show very well. Elevation, Vertigo, neither of which are great songs either, are much better openers. So were MoFo and Zoo Station.
 Get On Your Boots - I really don’t like this song, it just sucks. It is a little better live, but still, this will be the only tour that they ever play this song on, because it is utterly forgettable.
 Magnificent - now we’re talking! A new song I like, and that is pretty much a blatant worship song, at least form my perspective. At both shows I watched Bono pretty closely (and we were very close) and he seems to go into his spiritual, introspective, forget the crowd is there mode during this song. Which was really interesting, because from my biased viewpoint this continued into the next song…
 Mysterious Ways - this is at this point an old war horse, they have played it at pretty much every show for 18 years. However at the 2 shows I went to there was no belly dancer, or chicks on stage, or anything else remotely dance clubish. Rather it seemed to me that more than ever this song was about the Holy Spirit, especially during the end when Bono went into the “oooh, the spirit moves me, ooh the spirit takes me, the spirit moves in mysterious ways” lines at the end. So at this point, I’m at church, but better.
 Beautiful Day - Here comes the sun/God Only Knows - more spiritual stuff in this song, so the service, errr I mean concert, continues. In Dallas he tacked on Here Comes The Sun, but in Norman it was God Only Knows (Beach Boys), this was a new twist for me, and it was awesome, and yes I think it was meant to be sung to God, because the next song was…
 I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For , and this was the highlight for me, when the band stopped playing and the crowd took over, that was the absolute best part of the show. Amazing. So great, to hear 70,000 people singing a song that means so much to so many in their walk with Christ was just really mind blowing. I shot both videos in this post on my iPhone by the way. They look great for a phone.
 Stuck In A Moment - I’ve never much cared for this song, Bono and Edge did it without Larry and Adam, so that was a nice change, but if they never played this song again, I wouldn’t miss it.
 No Line On The Horizon - Bono actually said “we even have songs we can’t play yet” before they played this one. It wasn’t really clean, but I like this song, so it was fun for me. I’m really glad they played it, and I hope it gets better, because it’s a very good song.
 Elevation - not my favorite, but a great song to be in the inner circle for.
 In A Little While - this one was only done in Norman, they dedicated it to the astronauts at the space station, it was ho hum, because it’s a song that I have never liked, still don’t.
 Unknown Caller - This is the tune from the new album that I really wanted to hear live! They didn’t play it in Dallas, and I was disappointed. So when they cranked it up in Norman I was super stoked. It’s freaking great live! They show the words on the giant screens, so it’s like a karaoke prayer meeting! I was emotionally moved by the song, it speaks to me at my core about being still and listening to God. This thing is loaded with scripture references. Jer. 33:3, 2 Cor. 5:17, Is. 53:6, Is. 46:10 and from what I’ve read the final 1:30 of the song is taken from a hymn called “My Savior’s Love”, so this kept the whole spiritual experience going from me. Heck I even teared up a little bit during this song, which was appropriate because the next song makes me tear up every single time.

Until the End of the World - good God I love this song so much. It’s my 2nd favorite U2 song now, trailing only With or Without You. The whole conversation between Judas and Jesus is just genius. The more I’ve thought about Judas the past 20 years, the more I like this song. I really relate to Judas and his desire to force Jesus into proclaiming himself king. It’s totally something I would have done. Make God do what you want Him to do, I could definitely see myself in this, so it makes Judas that much more of a sympathetic character, and more importantly it makes Jesus that much greater. What must Jesus have been feeling towards Judas? How frustrating, how sad, how horrible to watch your friend make the worst choice, yet still Jesus said he “would wait, until the end of the world”. Even at the end Jesus loved him. Best. U2. Lyric. Ever.
 The Unforgettable Fire - get out your XXXL throwback jersey for this one. It always reminds me of driving back and forth to Austin in college, because I listened to the album on nearly every trip. Great to hear it.
 City of Blinding Lights - at both of the shows he brought a 10-13 year old boy on the stage, different kids in each city. He walked the kid around the catwalk during the song, and really seemed to look into both of their faces and long for his youth during the tune. Bono can emote when necessary.
 Vertigo - great live song, crowd went nuts.
 I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight (remix) - I’m not a big fan of the remix, but the crowds seem to like it.
 Sunday Bloody Sunday - old school, but with a new twist. Showing pictures of students in Iran, so it makes this song relevant again. Not the best version though, that will always be the version on the Rattle and Hum DVD. This song starts the political portion of the set, which I usually dread because Bono gets to preachy. So I was pleasantly surprised when the Bonologue was short and very upbeat and positive. He even compliment GW Bush for the US work in Africa, and in Dallas he name checked Eugene Peterson (The Message translation) and Peb Jackson (former fundraiser with Young Life)!
 MLK - great to hear, short intro for….
 Walk On - I’m not a huge fan of this tune, but it seems to be the new One, so it’s probably going to be in every show forever.
Encore
One - always great!
 Amazing Grace - you don’t get much more overtly Christian than this!!!!!!!
 Where the Streets Have No Name - they will never do a show without this song. It is a guaranteed crowd exciter. Yet another song with a heavy spiritual twist.
 Ultraviolet - surprise! A song they haven’t played since the first Clinton administration! Awesome, especially with Bono’s laser jacket and funky trapeze/microphone!
 With or Without You - my favorite U2 song, but for the love of all that is good and true, please stop playing this song live!!!!! Bono has been singing this song like he was a lounge singer for at least 4 tours, and it just sucks, it pulls all the life and passion out of the song.
 Moment of Surrender - last song, I interpret this one to be the moment one come’s to Christ, I’ve read some other thoughts too, but I like this interpretation best. It’s not 40, but I was singing all the way home in my head.

IN Summary:
The Norman show is probably my 2nd favorite U2 show ever to attend. It was that freaking good, the Dallas show would be right behind it. This tour was much more of a spiritual experience than I had anticipated, and I think that was intentional on U2’s part.

Movie Review - The Blind Side

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 08:50:06 -0600

Jessica and I finally saw the Blind Side last night. We had heard from EVERYONE how great it is, so we wanted to check it out for ourselves. I am a fan of the author of the book, Michael Lewis, who also wrote one of my favorite books, Moneyball. Moneyball is also being made into a movie. If you don’t know the story of Blindside, you can look it up on wikipedia, there is a nice summary of the story, which is true, in the wiki entry.

First off, let me say, the story is awesome. It is a great story, and because of that, the movie is good. Great story, not a great movie. A good movie, and I would definitely recommend seeing it. It’s even worth paying to see it in the theatre.

Here is what I liked about it.
1. Great story.
2. Quinton Aaron who played the lead character. He played the role very quietly, and I thought very believably. It was easy to forget that this kid was an actor, which I think is the goal of acting.
3. Jae Head, which is a weird name, who played the younger brother in the family. I love when I child actor is a kid who can deliver funny lines with great comic timing. Johnathan Lipnicki, Anthony Michael Hall, Macauley Caulkin, all had this gift. Too bad it didn’t translate to adulthood.
4. All the college coaches who did cameo’s, especially Lou Holtz. Lou is so over the top in real life, that when he is acting, it’s exactly the same. I was laughing out loud out how ridiculous he is. Also, since Nick Saban is the devil in real life, the fact that he came across as the a slick silver tongued recruiter in this movie made me happy.
5. Sandra Bullock. While she was good, and is the character that drives the entire film, I was a little surprised at her performance. I was expecting more because there has been so much hype about her winning a bunch of awards. She already won the Golden Globe, and I expect her to be nominated for Best Actress when they announce the Oscar nominee’s next week. It didn’t seem like an award winning performance to me. Here is why I think she is getting hyped for Best Actress....

I think that the people who create the hype around Oscar nominations are surprised by the character. The character that Sandra plays doesn’t fit the media preconception of what a Christian is. In their minds Christian are homophobic, racist, judgmental, self-righteous, jerks who talk about love, charity and morality but in reality don’t practice those things, and are thus hypocrites.

Lee Anne Touhy is like many Christians that I know. I happen to live in an affluent community and I also know quite a few Christians like the Touhy’s. That is to say, wealthy people who are very caring, generous, compassionate, and are most definitely not racists. I am continually awed by the generosity of these people. As someone who works for a non-profit and is privy to exactly how generous people can be. I am in awe. The Touhy’s story is awesome, but it is not that exceptional. There are lots of Christians in America who have dedicated their lives and their wealth to representing Christ in many different ways in their communities. I’m happy that the Tuohy’s story, along with Michael Oher’s (all three pictured below) was told so well.

Here is what I didn’t like about the film:
1. Tim McGraw - he just isn’t very good in this film. It’s not his type of character, because he was great in Friday Night Lights. His character was also kind of the “dad who is really just one of the kids” character that I hate. Obviously the guy wasn’t an idiot in real life, he had run his own large business for a long time.

1. The coach. He just wasn’t very good, and was played and written totally over the top. Whenever he was on the screen, I remembered I was watching actors.

This movie won’t win any awards, but it’s a really good movie. See it. You’ll come out encouraged.

The iPad, bring on the haters!

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:34:04 -0600

Apple finally released the MUCH ANTICIPATED tablet-like thing this week. As a rabid Apple nerd I received many email’s, calls and text messages asking me what I thought and if I would buy one.

I have thought about it quite a bit and here are my answers to those questions:

Will I buy one?

No. I’ll wait and see what Apple has for the 2nd generation iPad. I bought the first iPhone and now I have an iPhone 3GS. I don’t want to be the early adopter this time. Besides, I already own a MacBook Pro and an iPhone, so I don’t really need an iPad.

What do I think?

I think it will sell millions. Especially to people who are older than me, because they will like to have the web, pictures, movies, TV shows, and their email (plus a little bit of word processing) on their laps. I do most of this stuff on my iPhone. The difference between me and people ten years older than I am is this. They can’t read their iPhone’s. The text is too small. So I predict that the 45-55 crowd will eat this thing up.

Also, I’ve read articles from several people who have actually played with the iPad, and they swear it is lightning fast and a totally different experience than just looking at someone mess with it in a video.

I do have some questions that went unanswered:

1. Can I tether my iPhone and use the 3G connection to connect to the internet when I am away from WiFi? I don’t want to pay AT&T for more connectivity, when I’m already paying through the nose for our 2 iPhones.
2. How does it interact with MobileMe, Apple’s online service that I subscribe to. It wasn’t even mentioned.
3. What about online subscriptions to magazines and Newspapers. I would love to get Sports Illustrated, MacWorld, and a few newspapers on the iPad, in a format that is digital, but is much more like an actual magazine or newpaper.

Most of the stories on line about the iPad are negative right now, but you may not remember that many people talked the iPhone down when it came out too. They were wrong. Here is a collection of horrible quotes that were way wrong about the iPhone that I stole from MacDailyNews.com.

• "[iPhone] just doesn't matter anymore. There are now alternatives to the iPhone, which has been introduced everywhere else in the world. It's no longer a novelty." - Eamon Hoey, Hoey and Associates, April 30, 2008  • "We are not at all worried. We think we've got the one mobile platform you'll use for the rest of your life. [Apple] are not going to catch up." - Scott Rockfeld, Microsoft Mobile Communications Group Product Manager, April 01, 2008  • "Microsoft, with Windows Mobile/ActiveSync, Nokia with Intellisync, and Motorola with Good Technology have all fared poorly in the enterprise. We have no reason to expect otherwise from Apple." - Peter Misek, Canaccord Adams analyst, March 07, 2008  • "[Apple should sell 7.9 million iPhones in 2008]... Apple's goal of selling 10 million iPhones this year is optimistic." - Toni Sacconaghi, Bernstein Research analyst, February 22, 2008  • "What does the iPhone offer that other cell phones do not already offer, or will offer soon? The answer is not very much... Apple’s stated goal of selling 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008 seems ambitious." - Laura Goldman, LSG Capital, May 21, 2007  • Motorola's then-Chairman and then-CEO Ed Zander said his company was ready for competition from Apple's iPhone, due out the following month. "How do you deal with that?" Zander was asked at the Software 2007 conference. Zander quickly retorted, "How do they deal with us?" - Ed Zander, May 10, 2007  • "The iPhone is going to be nothing more than a temporary novelty that will eventually wear off." - Gundeep Hora, CoolTechZone Editor-in-Chief, April 02, 2007  • "Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone... What Apple risks here is its reputation as a hot company that can do no wrong. If it's smart it will call the iPhone a 'reference design' and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else's marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures... Otherwise I'd advise people to cover their eyes. You are not going to like what you'll see." - John C. Dvorak, Bloated Gas Bag, March 28, 2007  • "Even if [the iPhone] is opened up to third parties, it is difficult to see how the installed base of iPhones can reach the level where it becomes a truly attractive service platform for operator and developer investment." - Tony Cripps, Ovum Service Manager for Mobile User Experience, March 14, 2007  • "I'm more convinced than ever that, after an initial frenzy of publicity and sales to early adopters, iPhone sales will be unspectacular... iPhone may well become Apple's next Newton." - David Haskin, Computerworld, February 26, 2007  • "There's an old saying -- stick to your knitting -- and Apple is not a mobile phone manufacturer, that's not their knitting... I think people overreacted to it -- there was not a lot of tremendously new stuff if you think about it." - Greg Winn, Telstra's operations chief, February 15, 2007  • "Consumers are not used to paying another couple hundred bucks more just because Apple makes a cool product. Some fans will buy [iPhone], but for the rest of us it's a hard pill to swallow just to have the coolest thing." - Neil Strother, NPD Group analyst, January 22, 2007  • "I can’t believe the hype being given to iPhone... I just have to wonder who will want one of these things (other than the religious faithful)... So please mark this post and come back in two years to see the results of my prediction: I predict they will not sell anywhere near the 10M Jobs predicts for 2008." - Richard Sprague, Microsoft Senior Marketing Director, January 18, 2007  • "The iPhone's willful disregard of the global handset market will come back to haunt Apple." - Tero Kuittinen, RealMoney.com, January 18, 2007  • "[Apple's iPhone] is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn't appeal to business customers because it doesn't have a keyboard which makes it not a very good email machine... So, I, I kinda look at that and I say, well, I like our strategy. I like it a lot." - Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, January 17, 2007  • "The iPhone is nothing more than a luxury bauble that will appeal to a few gadget freaks. In terms of its impact on the industry, the iPhone is less relevant... Apple is unlikely to make much of an impact on this market... Apple will sell a few to its fans, but the iPhone won't make a long-term mark on the industry." - Matthew Lynn, Bloomberg, January 15, 2007  • "iPhone which doesn't look, I mean to me, I'm looking at this thing and I think it's kind of trending against, you know, what's really going, what people are really liking on, in these phones nowadays, which are those little keypads. I mean, the Blackjack from Samsung, the Blackberry, obviously, you know kind of pushes this thing, the Palm, all these... And I guess some of these stocks went down on the Apple announcement, thinking that Apple could do no wrong, but I think Apple can do wrong and I think this is it." - John C. Dvorak, Bloated Gas Bag, January 13, 2007  • "I am pretty skeptical. I don’t think [iPhone] will meet the fantastic predictions I have been reading. For starters, while Apple basically established the market for portable music players, the phone market is already established, with a number of major brands. Can Apple remake the phone market in its image? Success is far from guaranteed." - Jack Gold, founder and principal analyst at J. Gold Associates, January 11, 2007  • "Apple will launch a mobile phone in January, and it will become available during 2007. It will be a lovely bit of kit, a pleasure to behold, and its limited functionality will be easy to access and use. The Apple phone will be exclusive to one of the major networks in each territory and some customers will switch networks just to get it, but not as many as had been hoped. As customers start to realise that the competition offers better functionality at a lower price, by negotiating a better subsidy, sales will stagnate. After a year a new version will be launched, but it will lack the innovation of the first and quickly vanish. The only question remaining is if, when the iPod phone fails, it will take the iPod with it." - Bill Ray, The Register, December 26, 2006  • "The economics of something like [an Apple iPhone] aren't that compelling." - Rod Bare, Morningstar analyst, December 08, 2006  • "Apple is slated to come out with a new phone... And it will largely fail.... Sales for the phone will skyrocket initially. However, things will calm down, and the Apple phone will take its place on the shelves with the random video cameras, cell phones, wireless routers and other would-be hits... When the iPod emerged in late 2001, it solved some major problems with MP3 players. Unfortunately for Apple, problems like that don't exist in the handset business. Cell phones aren't clunky, inadequate devices. Instead, they are pretty good. Really good." - Michael Kanellos, CNET, December 07, 2006  • "We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in." - Ed Colligan, Palm CEO, November 16, 2006

Things that make Christians Look Bad - Pat Robertson Edition

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 08:16:03 -0600

A few weeks ago Pat Robertson made headlines by commenting on the reason why Haiti suffered the devastation of the recent earthquake. Here is the quote:

“Haitians had an agreement with the devil to remove the French from their homeland Haiti and the Haitians succeeded in that agreement with the devil assistance, that is why this quake hit smashed Haiti and ruined the Haitians.”

Wow! Seriously this guy has done more to give Christians a bad name than possibly anyone on the planet. If you’re reading this and you are not a Christian, please don’t assume that all Christians are like Pat Robertson. In fact, I know literally thousands of Christians personally, and there is not one person I know that agrees with Pat.

Here is my real problem with Pat’s statement. It doesn’t make any sense theologically. Pat is under the belief that God punishes some sin with various natural disasters. A few years ago he claimed that God allowed tornadoes to destroy towns in the midwest because the Christian candidate in the Republican primary lost an election. The problem with these statements is this: God has already poured out his wrath on sin... AT THE CROSS!!!! This is the entire point of Christianity and is exactly what makes the Christian faith so beautiful. God is just, so he doesn’t just blow off sin, so he punished sin, in the first century!!!! He poured out all of his wrath on His own son, Jesus! So that we wouldn’t have to face the penalty of our own sin. Pretty much every verse in the New Testament makes this point. The crazy thing, is that Pat Robertson knows this. But he wants to pretend that we are Israelites living in the Old Testament, where God has set up a specific set of blessings and curses with us.

News flash for Pat, we are not Israel, and Jesus took God’s wrath for us. Because He did, we are free to live a life of grace and mercy, which is exactly what we are called to do. So instead of telling people in Haiti “See, because you great grandparents made a pact with the devil, you’re lives will be miserable”, we can say “We mourn with you, and we’re going to give our money and supplies to help everyone we possibly can.” Which statement sounds more like something Jesus would say.

The biggest travesty of Pat’s actions is that many people think he speaks for most Christians. He absolutely does not! I believe Pat is a Christian, and a brother in Christ, but just like anybody else he makes mistakes and says stupid things. The difference is, when I do it, I’m not on TV. Maybe it’s time for Pat to retire and go on a mission trip.... to Haiti, where he can do some real good.

How Not To Waste Your Life - Part 2

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 08:55:54 -0600

Here is another option if you don’t have a DVR or VCR:

Hulu.

What is hulu.com?

It’s a portal where you can watch pretty much any TV show online, for free. There are some commercials, so you won’t save as much time, but the amount of commercials is greatly reduced, so you’re still getting some of your life back, and you can watch the show at your convenience.

Here is another option, if you don’t mind spending some money. Just buy the episodes on iTunes, then you can watch them anytime and anywhere on your computer, iPhone or iPod.

My whole point in sharing this is not to get people to watch more TV, but rather to encourage people to watch TV at times that don’t interfere with actually interacting with other human beings. Relationships > TV.

How Not To Waste Your Life - Part 1

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:17:09 -0600

Television.

Here’s the deal, most of everything that is on TV is total garbage, so don’t waste your time watching it at all. However, I realize that there are numerous shows that people are really invested in because they’ve spent time watching them for years. In this plan you’ll still be able to watch your favorite shows, and you’ll save yourself a ton of time. Three letters are here to save your life:

DVR, formerly known as VCR.

Either way you can save a ton of time by using these genius inventions. Here is how you will get a big chunk of your life back and never miss your favorite show.

1. Never watch any of your favorite shows live. Whether it be Lost, Heroes, 24, The Office, Jersey Shore, etc.

2. Watch them later in the evening and zip through the commercials in fast forward. You’ll save a ridiculous amount of time.

Let’s say you watch 2 shows religiously...Lost and Heroes. They are both one hour dramas. A one hour drama actually only has 44 minutes of content, sometimes only 42, but we’ll be conservative here and say 44. If you watch the whole show live, you just spent 60 minutes watching a 44 minute show. If you do that twice a week (Lost and Heroes) then you just spent 120 minutes watching 88 minutes worth of television. If you could cut those commercials out, you would save 32 minutes a week. Extrapolate that out for a 20 episode season, and bam you just saved yourself over 10 hours! Ten hours of your life that you just got back. You could run 2 marathons in that time, or take a serious road trip, or watch 5 movies, or read a whole book, or write a whole bunch of blogs, or do something that involved someone else, you know, socializing.

Also the time you would have been watching TV in “prime time” can be spent hanging out with other people and investing yourself in your friends, family, or anyone else.

Now imagine if you watched 4 one hour shows. You just got 21 hours back! That’s a whole day.

So there you go, learn to use your DVR and you’ll live longer. Over 30 years, you’d get back a whole month. Who wouldn’t want an extra month of life?

What the word Avatar really means + my review of the film

Thu, 7 Jan 2010 23:02:18 -0600

Avatar will probably become the biggest grossing movie of all time, so it’s worth a quick movie review. Here is the short version:

Avatar really means Jurassic Park meets Dances with Wolves.

Seriously, if you’ve seen those two movies, Avatar is like smashing them together. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Those are both good movies for what each of them are. So is Avatar. It’s good, but not great. I think it will be nominated for Best Picture, and that is ridiculous. As my friend Jim Reed (movie expert) said. “It should win every technical category, but if it wins best picture, that’s ridiculous”. I agree whole heartedly with Jim, that’s why I quoted him.

I saw it in 3D IMAX which is glorious. It really is a spectacle to behold. The film is beautiful, and well made. The world of Pandora that James Cameron and his enormous team have created is nothing short of staggering. My friend Josh Reed (Jim’s older brother) said it best when he proposed this idea:

“James Cameron should release a documentary for IMAX like Planet Earth, but call it Pandora and make it about the fake planet he created.”

It’s a great idea. It would be really interesting, and Cameron could probably make a bunch more money, because I’m sure he needs it.

Here is my problem with the film. The story. It’s shallow and incredibly predictable, and there all sorts of convenient technologies that make the ending palatable for the masses, or in other words, happy. Most (if not all) of the characters are completely two dimensional and thus have zero depth (duh, that is what two dimensional means). The villains are just the kind of people you love to hate. The problem is that when different people groups seek to inhabit the same place it is never as simple as Avatar makes it. Dances With Wolves covers this topic much more realistically.

Finally, I prefer my political propaganda to be a little more subtle. At one point the bad guys use the phrase “Shock and awe” to describe how they are going to attack the good guys (the natural inhabitants of Pandora). That’s just over the top political commentary that took zero thought or creativity. It’s as subtle as an SNL skit.

I liked the movie. It’s fun to gawk at. The 3D is amazing. You should see it. But don’t expect it to be the life altering experience that you’ve read or heard about.