BigCat’s Blog of DOOM

I was driving to work today and I noticed a “W in ‘04″ bumper sticker on a car. Normally this is no big deal since I know those things are a pain in the ass to get off once they are on, but today I got to thinking.

You start out with a cause, something you believe in and feel the need to educate others on. So you do what you think is good to educate or advertise for your cause. Then at some point enough people are joining your cause so that advertising your cause is no longer the purpose of displaying a symbol on your belongings. It has now become an identity, something that labels who you are and what you believe in.

A quick example is that suppose you believe in obtaining world peace as the most important thing facing politics. So that is one broad bumper sicker you could apply, but say you think the US should play a more active role. That is another, then you go down another level and you agree more w/ how the Libertarians want to use the US to achieve world peace, and finally you agree with candidate “Smith” the most. So you put a bumper sticker on for Smith.

Lauren and I make jokes sometimes about people with purple “V”’s tattooed on their heads, which is what we think of when people talk about how great the vineyard is and about how there is no church in the world that is better than the Vineyard. (Slight exaggeration but close to actual statements I’ve heard made). But I’ve been debating with Mike about Catholicism and what not and I got to thinking about something he said. I am a Vineyard person….a Vineyard-ite or Vineyardian or something like that, but I won’t hesitate to jump ship if I see something drastically wrong in the church / denomination and no way of fixing it. I’m not like my friends who are so pro-vineyard or all of my Catholic friends who will defend a church / denomination till they are blue in the face.

I don’t know if this is a good thing or bad. First off, I will defend my faith in Jesus and the accuracy of the gospel, to the death (or at least that is what I tell myself). Secondly, I’m not against the Methodist or Catholic or any other denomination that preaches the gospel.

But, as with politics, I see to many people starting with the whole “My church (or candidate) is better / No mine is.” kind of thing from time to time. Instead of acknowledging the changing dynamics of government and religion in a fallen world we often want to insist that our label is the best one. I don’t want to do that, so I choose to not put bumper stickers on my car that are hard to get off. If I were going to put one on I think it would be something about world peace, or something that I totally am for. No fish or purple V’s on my car, but maybe a “Love your neighbor” kind of sticker

Now, there are Catholics out there that I know, some who have influenced my life greatly, as well as Vineyard people that love their place they’ve found in the Church. And I think that is so cool. I like talking with Mike, because he is totally into Catholicism. And my general idea is that if you are going to go Catholic, you have to go all the way. You learn your shit about history and saints and councils and all that. And when someone does that it is so cool.

What isn’t cool is when church going people get uppity about how one is right and one isn’t…blah,blah,blah. I figure I can debate about that all day, for kicks, but when the rubber hits the road I gotta realize something. We are working for the same purpose. We love what we’ve found and we want to share it, and it takes all kinds to share it with different kinds of people. To recognize that is an important part of becoming a mature Christian I think. (Of course the next step is learning to discern when God is working in a place and when it is man or satan controlling a place, but that is a post of a different color.) We serve one God with one resurrected Son, and we have four books that we absolutely need to talk properly about the Son and God, everything else is kinda extra….or a bonus.

What I feel like is that people loose site of that sometimes. In other words (to go back to my example) when you slap that “Smith” sticker on your ass end of your car you forget that your first purpose was to promote World Peace. But now you are all caught up in the “Smith” thing, and you only care about getting him in office. You lost your original ideal. That happens to people over a whole lot of stuff sometimes I think.

So, my question is, what labels have you used to pigeonhole yourself into a people group? Which ones would you be willing to step back and occasionally look at objectively. If one of them looked like it didn’t fit anymore would you be willing to go through the very difficult work peeling it off? And do you work to see the labels that Jesus gives people instead of the ones they are, or are trying, to apply to themselves? These questions (most of them anyway) could be not spiritual, or very spiritual. I’m open that way.

Another “Homeless” guy hit me up for money yesterday. Same story about “just wanting something to eat” but wouldn’t take the food we just bought at the grocery store for some stupid reason. Excuses about the shelters, “they are full of drug dealers,” “it isn’t safe”…so we decided we need a script for running into those people.

Thus far it goes something like this:

Homeless: Sir I’m just looking for something to eat can you help me out? All I want is something to eat.
Me: Sure, you want some soup (or insert some food type that is really close by……perhaps offer to buy a few bucks in groceries)
Homeless: If you could spare a few bucks that would help more, cuz I can do (insert lame excuse for money instead of food)
Me: Well, then you are lying and you really want money and not food.
Homeless: No, I’m just hungry and I can buy what I need for tonight with money.
Me: Here is a can of soup in my hand (there really was in the last encounter we had…but this script is made up), if you don’t want food than don’t take it, but you can’t have my money. I’ll take you to a shelter, they will hook you up with food.
Homeless: That food is slop, I’m just looking for something a little better than that. (this was actually said)
Me: Are you hungry? Your asking me for food, but you won’t take the food I offer you….what do you really want?

You get the point. I’m more than a little annoyed with this kind of interaction….and the sad thing is that it is typical of my interactions.

I swear I’ve offered more food directly, and offered to hook them up at shelters more and more with little to no success. It is like they can chose what they are begging me for, and try to make me feel guilty when I don’t give them exactly what they want. I think I’m going to ask if I can stay in a shelter overnight this summer when they aren’t as busy. Then I’ll know what it is like, so I can say “No, the food isn’t that bad, and the beds aren’t either.” HELL, I saw the food they were serving at one I stopped at a few weeks back, and it looked good. I was hungry, I about asked for some…it was pretty decent cafeteria style pizza. Nothing amazing, but totally looked good.

I think maybe I need to just be more firm…Developed really scripted standard responses to everyone who comes up to me. Be really firm about only taking them to shelters to eat, and give places to stay. It isn’t like I can personally afford to feed even a tenth of the people who come up to me, or hold signs by the highway that I see. But my money goes further when I put it into shelters. I think knowing a little more about the shelters will help, but we (by we I mean Lauren did the research and I listened to her tell me about them) already spent time learning about a lot of the shelters in our area.

I swear,….this makes me soooooo mad. I just don’t get being down and out w/ no place to sleep or anything to eat, and still making up excuses why the handouts you are getting aren’t good enough. I know people personally that aren’t in much better situations, and they graciously accept whatever you would give them, and when given an opportunity to work and get things straight they do.

Well, I ended up giving the guy money anyway….I know there is something better I can do, but I just need to figure out what. Damn you Jeff for preaching about giving away things…..always makes me more scabbed to being messed with by the homeless people.

Anyway, I just wish there was a better way to counter this stuff, and really help these people….not just feed their alcohol and drug addictions, which is the only real reason people ask for food but only accept money. The guy I gave money too talked about going to Wendys across the street (when we’re at the parking lot of a grocery store, and already offered him some of our soup from our groceries), but then we saw him walking the other direction.

Well, i’m open to more help with my scripting. If you couldn’t care less about homeless people and you figure they are where they belong because they’re lazy or whatever…don’t bother posting suggestions. But otherwise post away, I’m open to ideas and want to figure this out since it makes me crazy and my conservative ideals tell me to leave them lying in the gutter cuz they are just wasting any opportunity you give the ones that won’t take your food, but my Christian understanding of life and the Bible is reeling against that.

….Or is that wallet-ache?

Well, yesterday I scheduled an appointment at the local dealership for Friday Jan. 28th…at $105 / hr just to look at it. The dealership is on the way to work, but it is pretty far away from my apartment. So that would be a hassle.

Well today I figured there has to be a place that works on imports in town that isn’t a dealership. So I called around and found out there is a place down the road that does, but it won’t work on my car cuz it is too old. Then I called this place on 35th and Hiawatha (not far from Jeff and Q’s) and they will work on it for $85 / hour. Right now I’m missing the prices that I used to think were outrageous for $75 / hour at the Champaign BMW dealership. So I made an appointment a week from tomorrow.

Until then I think Feng is going to show me how to adjust the timing to make it idle higher so it won’t be such a headache to drive. Right now it is idling so low that it will stall out when I push in the clutch sometimes, so I have to heel-toe brake to stop to keep the car from dying. Also it is accelerating as slow as can be, and makes loud noises. And it ate a quart of oil in a week and a half.

I started looking at Hondas and Saturns from around 93 - 94ish and it looks like I might be able to find some cars around 125k miles for about $2000. Now I just need $2000. If anyone knows of a good deal around that price range let me know…I will even drive back to IL to get a good deal if I have to. If you know anyone who wants a 1986 BMW 325es for working on, or for a parts car to fix another 325 (pretty compatible in terms of parts w/ most E30’s w/ an eta engine) let me know cuz I’m willing to let this go fairly low right now. It is worth maybe $1000 according to some blue-book sites as long as it is still driving, but I can get rid of it for less than that.

Other than that things are normal. Gonna watch Naruto tonight when I get home, and then proceed on with “Date Night”. That is all for now.

I’ve been doing some research for the church on buying a projector. I came up with four criteria I want to gauge this on.

1. Brightness - this is more important than everything else, including cost. We should want to pay more for the right brightness. So far, it looks like 2000 Lumens is the bottom end for our needs. I would prefer 2500 to 3000.

2. Cost - this is obvious, we don’t want to spend a ton of money, but we want decent value, so we’ll spend what we have to, we just don’t want to add a bunch of worthless features because they are “cool”. For my home projector in my dream house I would add features because they are cool….but it is my dream house, not reality.

3. Keystone Correction - I identified this in my research as something that is necessary. This is the ability to project onto a surface from an odd angle, but it corrects the picture to adjust for the angle. This is really good if we are going to put this on a cart to keep it mobile.

4. Connectivity - Here I want to connect to as much stuff as possible. I think it would be wise to allow for future expansion by getting a projector w/ more connectors so that down the road we can still be hooking it to the latest laptops or desktops and DVD players. But there is a problem I discovered today. This article from my favorite technology review website is previewing the new style of connector that is poised to become the standard for everything. That means DVD players, hooking to Surround sound receivers to computers to TV’s….everything. The problem? Well, it is very new, and we need the projector by early next month, so the likelihood of me finding it soon is not good, especially in our price range. This connector style would be really really good for us to, with simplifying our cabling, and combining 8 channel audio and up to 1080p video into a single cable is awesome. This is going to replace all of your cables going to your TV except maybe your one coming from the wall for the cable company to your TV. So read the article if you want a little more info on how your TV is going to change in the next five years.

Well, at any rate, I was wondering if any of my tech friends have done any research on this kind of thing. I’m thinking other than those four things the ability to do 1024 x 768 resolution is a good thing to look for as well. Let me know if any of you know much about these, especially as they relate to rooms w/ 50 to 75 people in them w/ no control over the lighting (means it has to be bright). I’m going to compile a list in various price ranges sometime this week I think, so I need to entertain as many good websites w/ reviews as possible, and good websites for buying these things. I’m also mildly interested in screens and how they improve the quality of the picture…I’ve heard mixed reviews, so I want to know what people think.

Thank you, and I’m going back to installing windows from across a network using my newly acquired Windows PE cd….if you don’t know what that is tough, cuz I’m not telling you. It’s fun working for an OEM company, I get windows PE disks every third copy of windows XP or server 2003 we sell.

Went to the wedding, it was good stuff.

Got In ‘n’ Out right off the bat, which was really really nice. Then I went home and watched the “Manchurian Candidate” with Ralph. It wasn’t that great. Then I sacked out right after Lauren got back from helping make center-pieces.

Next day, got up, loaded stuff into cars, went to the church, left and got my hair cut, and went back to the church. We ran into Faith randomly at the church, and thought that was pretty cool. Then I just hung out and did errands until the wedding.

The wedding was great, I read some scripture at it with Lauren about ‘getting busy’…I love the Song of Solomon. Everything went well there, and it was really cool to watch. I like weddings.

Between the wedding and the reception stuff got mixed up pretty bad. I ended up going to get Laurie from home who was crying and upset. I got to play Mr. Hero Guy. Which in all is nice since I only did a few things at the right time and people feel like I’m some kind of super-stud. I like working that angle. I think I’ll keep doing that as long as I can so I will look good while I’m bitching about the bigger problems in that family. Might lend me some credibility.

Sunday we went to the Vineyard I talked about yesterday after we had breakfast with the In-Laws. Then we hung out w/ Faith, had some more In ‘n’ Out, and drove to the Airport. All in all it was a nice trip, but tiring. I’m still suffering some of the consequences of it.

We’re back…at no later than 12:10 AM in the door after barely missing the first light rail we saw.

Woke up this morning, 6:30 AM (slept In), left for work late, jumped the BMW w/ the Saturn before leaving so my car would start.

Two miles away from home, it does that cutting out thing, that is it’s trick it learned right before the battery started to go. Tried to downshift, and pop the clutch. Traffic was breaking, congestion, so that did nothing since I was about to stop going up a hill. Pushed my car off the side of the road. Sat for 45 minutes w/ blinkers on. opened hood, sat for another 30 minutes. No cops, no one stopping to help. Got out, flagged people for 10 to 15 minutes (hard to tell time when it is that cold). Finally a guy pulls up in front of me (of course in a BMW the battery is in the trunk) so he can’t jump me, but he gives me a lift to Bethlehem Baptist Church (John Pipers church for those who don’t know).

There I ask the receptionist for a phone book and find Laurens number. Her phone at her desk is broken, they can’t seem to transfer me to her. So I fight that for a while, she starts freaking out cuz she thinks I’m in the hospital or something, but can’t seem to talk to me. Finally get her to call me, tell her to pick me up, talk with some of the staff at the church, try to relax a little. Get picked up, drive around the freeway back to my car, get my car jumped and home. Figure WTF, I’ve already missed a lot of work, I’m just gonna fix this now. So I drive to Walmart where they finally have my battery in stock (none of this would have happened if they had it in stock last week).

Then I go home to install it, and can’t find my adapter for my socket wrench to use the small bits. Go to the hardware store down the street, buy a new socket wrench, a smaller one. After fighting it for a while, get the rusted parts off (there is a leak in the trunk over the battery well….doesn’t drain onto the battery, but pools at the bottom where the part is that holds the battery on). Then I get the terminals disconnected, and get the new battery in. Now I’m eating some sandwich from the airplane that we tossed in our bag, and then going to work. Fun day. And I had such a nice uplifting post planned about how cool it was reading “Power Healing” on the plane…and I was only going to complain a little about the Laguna Nigel Vineyard….what is it w/ California Vineyards and shitty, long, boring, circular preaching. I hope it hasn’t always been like that.

Well, off to work I go. Half day for me.

I am looking forward to Dirk’s wedding. I think I’m going to take a fair amount of time off of work to go to it, so I can help out with random stuff. I was trying to figure out today if I should fly or drive (if I could find cheap air-fare), and I think I’m going to drive. That way I am mobile when I’m there, so I can be an errand runner if need be.

Also, I’m trying to think of bachelor party ideas that don’t involve strippers, and where the bachelor can’t drink or smoke. I need to call Travis and talk to him, I keep forgetting that.

I’m going back to California tomorrow. I should register for frequent flyer miles with that airline, and start earning free trips to cali, or somewhere more fun like Hawaii. I’m hoping Laurens little sister un-thaws for long enough to not spread her miserableness around to anyone in her vacinity. Life would be easier if that happened….especially considering I’ll probably have to sit around her at the wedding (family table and what-not). I can’t see why someone would hate their own sister so much. Depressing and pathetic all at the same time.

In ‘n’ Out here I come. I’m totally on a mission this time. Eat In ‘n’ out as much as humanly possible in 48 hours.

Half day at work tomorrow so I can make my flight. That will be nice. I have to come in early though so I can bolt a little early. I’m thinking of taking the light rail to the airport, but I’m unsure of what time frame I need to get to the station for that, and how long it will take to get there. Also, I need to know if it runs at night when we get back, so we can take it home at 10:40 PM when our flight lands.

In other news 3 Doors down has no officially replaced Yoko Ono’s solo albums as the worst music in existance. To answer that stupid lyric in the steadily overplayed POS that they call a song: Yes, I do know who you are, the worst lead singer for the worst band ever. Write some new lyrics, and for the love of God, learn some new notes to play on your instruments. I have no idea why the radio insists on playing their music as if we are going to grow to like it or something. I didn’t like their last song, or the one before that, why would like I like this one when it sounds EXACTLY THE SAME!

That moment was brought to you by “the people with mindless jobs who listen to the radio all day”

I got a guitar, the dinkpocalypse is at hand, and there should be a kiss-themed wedding sometime in the near future….I want to be Gene and perform the ceremony. I nominate the Chosen One and Seth for just such an event. We could call it “The wedding at the end of the kiss universe” because if they get married it would have to cause some kind of ir-repairable damage to the universe or the space-time continum or something.

At Dirks wedding, I want to hang out with my Wang out. my 66 inch 150 lb Wang that is. I miss that little bastard.