September 11th/Autumn Time

On Saturday, Dave and I went for a run.  The weather was brisk and pleasant.  The sun was shining.  It was great to get outside and exercise after a week of school and work.  There were two things that I reflected on as I ran: 1) the date, September 11th; and 2) the season, with its oncoming harvest.

My thoughts on #1: Out on lawns that we passed, there were flags out to...I don't know the right word to use.  Celebrate September 11th?  That doesn't seem right.  Remind people of September 11th?  That's probably closer to the purpose of the flags.  Either way, I thought quite a bit about the events of that day 9 years ago and how it has affected my life.

I also reflected on the disturbance that this event has caused in the world and in our country.  There are lots of people who have been rejected or discriminated against because they are (or look) Middle Eastern.  There are people who have been attacked and abused for their religious beliefs. There are even Christians who think it is okay to show great disrespect to religious symbols and to the people who hold them sacred as some kind of protest.  I ask, why can't Christians forgive and show respect, even if there is still pain caused by memories of the September 11th attack?  Why can't people who weren't involved in that event be respected and loved?

September 11th should be a day when everyone everywhere thinks about the lives that were lost in the terror attacks, and also about the injustices that have come about and how we can change that.

My thoughts on #2: As Dave and I ran, I noticed lots of signs of approaching fall.  The temperature was fairly low.  There were apple trees and alfalfa fields.  We saw a full pumpkin field the other day, and it was the first time that we had recognized the crop as pumpkins.

I reflected that Autumn time is a time for harvesting again at the end of the year.  We're blessed with so much abundance.  But there's no more time for a farmer to improve his crop.  It has to be harvested how it is.

We (everyone) are going to be harvested by God, whether we're ready or not.  At the end of our lives (which could come any time) we will be judged with how we've acted and the faith that we've had.  We should demonstrate that faith daily.  And as a Christian, I don't think that disrespecting other religious beliefs and texts is a demonstration of faith.  So, beforfe we are "harvested", we need to try today to be the people that God wants us to be.

100k of angst for sale at your neighborhood Art College

Just read a Wall Street Journal article about how parents aren't able to pay for their children to go to school any more because of the recession. I could rant about how parents aren't supposed to help their children get through school, but I'm not going to because I realize that my parents have helped me a ton, even though it wasn't financial.

What I am going to rant about is how many of the children i.e. students interviewed for the article are artists, photographers, or writers. That got me thinking, is it really worth it to go to school to be an artist? I don't know, but if it's anything like getting a Ph.d in history (which I briefly considered) there are no jobs and you love what you do, but then you also have to love living with your parents and eating Ramen noddles. Besides who needs college to be an artist, Rembrandt did not go to college and he painted some fine pieces. Add a six figure college loan to the mix and you've got enough artistic angst to compete with the best artists out there, maybe that's the plan. These kids had such posh and coddled lives before they went to college that they knew they'd need more angst to hack it as an artist so they took on a crushing debt load with no forseeable way to pay it off.

Of course I know law students who do the same thing, they go to third tier law schools, take on 100k in student loans, and then they never pay it off because, frankly, lawyers don't make the kind of money people think they make unless their name ends in Kennedy, especially if they go to a law school with more than 5 words in its name. This makes no sense because the life of a lawyer is so angst filled anyway that there's no need for more angst. In fact lawyers could probably make more money selling extra angst to artists than they can practicing law.

Any insights from angst filled artists?

I Will Give You a Dollar to Be Quiet Ms. Palin

The former governor of Alaska, Mrs. Sarah Palin does not like it when people say "retarded." I do not like it when she says...well basically anything at all.

So here's the deal...Ms. Palin, you stop talking and I'll stop saying "retarded," i.e. the R word.

Until then...I'm reading an article right now about chemotherapy. It's called, "Sulforaphane retards the growth of human PC-3 xenografts and inhibits HDAC activity in human subjects," found in Experimental Biological Medicine. It deals with how certain chemicals are showing progress in slowing the growth of colon tumors.

I'm also reading an article about SSRI (Selective Seretonin Reuptake Inhibitors), "Do SSRIs Retard Growth in Adolescents?" published in The Journal of Psychiatry and dealing with whether anti-depressents stunt the growth of adolescents.

Anyway...it's all up to you Ms. Palin: continue talking and retarding the progress of intelligent conservatism or do us all a favor and go home.

The Really Big Question...

Merry is great, thinking about goals and highlights and stuff. I, on the other hand have been thinking about much less (or perhaps more) weighty stuff. Namely burgers, whose is better.





Five Guys started as a Washington D.C. area chain but has since branched into many parts of the county. They offer burgers and fries and that's about it.







In-n-out I think we all know, so I won't say much about it.

To be honest I've already made up my mind. Both resturants opened in Utah recently and I've tried both. In-n-out's big plus is that it's cheap; that having been said, the burger was small, unexceptional, and hardly worth the hype. The problem with In-n-out, and most of the other burger joints is that they seem to have forgotten something important along the way, namely beef. The beef on their burgers could be switched with the beef from any other burger place and no one would notice the difference.

The fries were even less interesting than the burger and could have been served at any burger joint in town, in fact I will go go so far as to say that each of the big three (you know who they are) serves better fries than In-n-out. The strawberry milkshake I ordered was depressingly reminiscent of a McDonalds milkshake and did absolutely nothing for me except shorten my life a little (yes, in California it is heresy to mention McDonalds and In-n-out in the same paragraph).

Ewww gross, if I'm going to stop my heart early through the consumption of fried potato sticks, it sure as heckfire ain't gonna be these ones

Five Guys, on the other hand, is a spiritual experience every time I go. The burgers get all the free toppings you could want, the beef is delicious, and the buns hold together even though they can get a bit overloaded. The fries however, are one of the best things about Five Guys. They are made in the fine tradition of English Chips, fried to a golden brown, more than enough to satiate any Irish potato lover.

An image so inspiring it should have been painted by one of the old masters...or at least silk screened by Andy Warhol

I must also admit a sentimental attachment to Five Guys. When I spent a summer in the District (for the uninitiated this is Washington D.C.) I had no money and so lived on rice and beans the entire summer. In spite of my poverty however, I still went to the Five Guys in Georgetown and ordered a cheeseburger every Saturday. For someone who's been living on 800 calories a day (for once I am not exaggerating), those burgers are absolutely delicious.

So that's it. In-n-Out stinks, Five Guys is much much better, I've said it and I won't take it back. The gauntlet is down.

Thoughts on Golf

So apparently Tiger Woods's wife tried to bludgeon him with a golf club. This brings two thoughts to mind: 1) he got married? huh, who knew, and 2) I really doubt that all those light weight titanium/carbon fiber alloy clubs are actually heavy enough to do any damage. It's not like Tiger's swinging a $1.50 DI special 5 iron.

The real issue for me however is how all the pundits are saying, "He may be the greatest athlete ever, but that's no reason to expect him to be perfect." It's a sad day when the worlds' greatest athlete is a golfer. I mean, it's cool that some guy can put a little ball in a little hole 500 yards away, but I'm not sure he should be called the greatest athlete ever. What's next, Pierre Zimmerman (world bridge champion) or Nigel Richards (former world Scrabble champion) as the world's greatest athlete? The world's greatest athlete should at least break a sweat while being said greatest athlete.

The pundits are also saying that they love watching Tiger play golf, but that doesn't mean he has to have a perfect family life. Really, who actually watches golf except for little kids looking for more Saturday morning cartoons? The real athlete is the person who can sit through watching the entire 18 holes of a golf tournament. I tried once, but didn't quite have enough endurance.

Nigel Richards, 2008 world Scrabble Champion and future world's greatest athlete. Nike is already working out the ad campaign, "I am Nigel Richards" has nice ring to it.

How It All Came Crashing Down

An article about the current economic crisis, How It All Came Crashing Down, was recommended to me by a friend of mine via blog post. I decided to check it out, because I was basically uninformed about how this recession has come about. I was shocked. To be honest, all of the investment in housing, and selling houses for more than you bought them, just before the mortgage rate changes...it all sounds kind of like those pyramid schemes where, yeah, sure, the first few waves all end up just fine, but eventually there's going to be someone who won't join, or who won't buy this ridiculously expensive house from you, and you lose it all. And then I was also shocked about the people that could still afford to make their house payments who walked away from it anyway. It's definitely an interesting world. I hope things get better before I start making huge financial decisions, like buying a house.