McAvoy: 1. Satan: 0

How much does the natural order of our world conspire to keep people from reading the Bible?

You might answer, "Not at all." Certainly, nothing in physics would give any reason to believe such a thing. But years of experience show me otherwise.

Take last Friday, for instance. I was on my way from Jersey to Philly to meet a friend for lunch. It poured rain, and while traffic moved fine on the other side of Rt. 70, I could have probably covered more distance swimming than driving. Short a swimsuit, I inched along, frustrated at my growing tardiness.

Then, I had an idea.

As I said, it's my belief that forces within us and without us strive to keep us from reading the Bible (or praying). But I had my Bible right with me. And what better thing to do in traffic than to, as they say, get in the Word?

So I got my Bible out. I opened to Luke. I balanced it on my steering wheel. I started reading aloud.

Six verses in, the previously unmovable traffic parted like the Red Sea, and I was on my way to hand drawn noodles!

Two Wrongs May Not Make a Right, But Three Rights Make a Left!

Just going to get some wiper blades.
Map and directions courtesy Google Maps.

Distance as the crow flies: 1.1 miles
Distance if New Jersey employed normal left turns: 1.6 miles
Actual road distance: 3.0 miles

I still don't understand. It's not like they don't have room for a left turning lane. They just choose to have a grass median instead.

Oh, Jersey.

Mornings No!

Best viewed after staying up all night, as on this occasion.
Otherwise kill me.

Part of me is dying soon.

Scintillating excitement flashes through me when the last member of my family heads to bed. I treasure the solitude and the darkness of the late night hours. They are my very favorite part of the day.

In order to get to school with enough sleep, my school year bed time will be 9:00.

Pray for me.

San Francisco: Model of Eden?

Little known Bible fact: the Earth as it existed in the time of Adam and Eve was without rain. Why?

...For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground;

but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.
Genesis 2:5b-6

For any who don't have any idea what that would be like - I encourage you to check out San Francisco to get the gist of it!

Shrouded in fog.

Many believe, since there's no more mention of rain until Noah, that the rains of the Flood were the first that the world ever experienced. That would make Noah's display of faith that much more impressive!

God: Noah, I want you to build a boat. It's going to rain for forty days and forty nights.

Noah: You got it. What's rain?

Keystone Solution

Gorgeous. The weather isn't bad, either.

Thoughts while I visit California:

In Pennsylvania, weather varies primarily in time. There is stark variation across the four seasons, or across patterns from one week to the next, or even within one day. On many occasions, a look into a clear sky has led me to lock my bike in the open, only to return to it later soaking.

In California, weather varies primarily in space. The part of San Francisco in which I'm vacationing is often covered in thick fog. However, a drive of twenty minutes across the Golden Gate Bridge brings me to sun and another fifteen degrees Fahrenheit in Marin County.

Humans have developed fast and convenient ways of traveling through space. Disappointingly, they have developed no way to travel through time. Surely this is one reason real estate in California is so sought after.

Pennsylvania struggles with losing people, especially college graduates, to the Sunshine Belt. Surely the best way to alleviate this problem would be to invent a time machine.

Governor Rendell? Anyone?

Image is in the details.

The logo is a siren. Mistake?

Not being a coffee drinker, I was confused by the sizes at a Starbucks recently. Fortunately, they provide handy examples up front, from which I deduced the following translations:

Tall normally means something is bigger than its peers, but in this case tall means small. Customers ordering a tall are freed from feeling like they are depriving themselves.

Grande means large. Instead of feeling guilty about indulging, customers can take a caffeinated vacation south of the border. Arriba!

Venti means Supersize. We have learned though from our forebears in the 1990's that Supersize will kill you. So Starbucks had to rename it. Venti is Italian for 20, as in the number of ounces in the drink, or the square root of the caffeine dose.

It's great ideas like these that helped Starbucks open a new location every workday in the 1990's.

Idiosyncrasies at Mealtime

I think signs of health in families are habits and traditions that would seem weird to outsiders. At dinnertime I was mildly embarrassed to observe:

Milk. 1% for Mom, skim for me, and whole for my stepdad.

Of course, you take the delicious with the embarrassing:

We make pizza.

Mexican-American Love

My housemates have a way of interacting with one another that I've enjoyed witnessing through the year. Here's an example:

Carlos: Mayra, I could just stay with Sprint and pretty much get a new phone for free.

Vero: Get the one that Vero has.

Carlos: ..and get the one that Vero has.

Vero: Copycat.

Going to miss these guys.

Econ 002 is still easier.

I just completed my student loan exit counseling session, a required pre-graduation rite of passage for those of us with debt awaiting us.

After learning about the horrors of default and forcibly completing a monthly budget, I was grilled on the gritty details. The quiz involved difficult questions such as:

(6) Federal student loan money should be used for:
A down payment on a stereo system
A trip to California
A new wardrobe
Educational related expenses

Side note: What does this question say if you already go to school in California? Probably "A trip to Pennsylvania."

Upon completion, I was greeted by the pleasant message:

Nice job, you got them all right!
In these uncertain times, it's good to receive some affirmation.

Photos of the Week - 1/27-2/2, 2008

A colleague of mine on the blog last semester referred to my style as "taking pictures of things that annoy you." Given gems like this I could see his point.

In any case, I carry my trusty digital camera most places I go, and I take pictures of things which catch my fancy. Here're a few pictures I took last week:

Banana Blues

First, I discovered at Trader Joe's what it means for a banana to be organic: they don't put in any yellow.

I think there's something wrong with an ethic of organic food which still allows for picking completely unripe fruit out of season and shipping it long distance to mock residents of northern climes.

The stuff grown with petrochemical fertilizers wasn't really any yellower, but that's at least what you would expect from industrial produce.

Burger Bonanza

Don't forget the milk. Oh, yeah. Mmm mm. Delicious.

A conversation with my housemate Carlos about his love of fast food led me to indulge in my semi-annual Whopper.

I give the whole experience three and a half out of five stars. First, there's the drive-through. I probably derived most of the enjoyment from nostalgia, but to smell the indistinct Burger King aroma while waiting in the car was delightful. The price was cheap and the service was fast.

The actual Whopper was filled with indistinct Burger King flavor, which for the most part was a good thing. The experience was over quickly, but not altogether unsatisfying. Lots of pickles.

Mostly it was just great to give the middle finger to forces which tell me fast food is a horrible thing and enjoy it for half an hour. I suspect this is what is behind much of Burger King's recent success. They've come out with new sandwiches which take calorie density to unreached heights, and Americans have responded enthusiastically.

Have you seen the recent commercials where they tell Burger King customers they can't have a Whopper? It's an astounding feat that you can make beloved intellectual property out of a cheeseburger. There are essentially the same ingredients in a Whopper as in any other burger, yet I know one when I taste one. I guess it's the indistinct Burger King flavor.

Thinking about it, that happens all across the American foodscape. Chips Ahoy tastes different from Chips Deluxe. Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup tastes different from Progresso. Somehow value is added by affixing a brand to the commodity in question: you know what you're getting. The soup may not be any good, but at least you know that this can tastes the same as that can. Familiarity breeds comfort.

Bummer Buster

Thanks, Mark. Thanks a lot.

My (Catholic) stepdad heard that I had been turned down by a (wonderful) girl recently, so he put this ad for the priesthood in my bedroom mirror at home.

What a guy, huh? Sometimes a gentle ribbing is much better than straight sympathy. It's great to have an older man who can tell me not to take myself so seriously.

Note that this ad's strategy is to reassure you that life as a priest is preferable to suicide. "Hey, is your life not worth living? You sound like just the kind of man we're looking for!" If I were them, I would set the bar higher.

Happy Food

I bet your lunch doesn't look like a smiley face with a snorkel mask.

Mine does.

Macroevolution of Knits?

In my drawer, I have accumulated 11 distinct types of sock, including one dress and one women's. Seven have no mate, and I can account for at most four of the different types.

I only ever buy one kind of sock.

We all know that the amount of socks you put into the wash never equals the amount you get out, though it's usually an odd number. Now, apparently, left to their own devices, they evolve.

I am convinced that socks obey different laws of physics than the rest of the universe. There is weird, weird stuff going on here.

Priestly Wit

Anecdote related by my mom, after mass tonight:

My new stepdad, Mark: Do you know of such-and-such priest? He was...(launches into description of who the man is and what he stands for).

Priest: Are you asking me a question or lecturing me? (to my mom) Boy, I see what you must have to deal with at home.

-laughs all the way around-

Priest: Say, have you heard of Bob Adams?

Mark: Oh, he was the priest over at such-and-such place. He died a few years ago, and...

Priest: Are you kidding? I'm going to see him tomorrow! I'll tell him you said he was dead!

Allow for both my mom's dramatic license in telling this to me and mine in retelling it.

Poor Mark.

The Name

Obadiah was taken. I thought adding an "h" made it look like a term of endearment.

As for why Obadiah to begin with, you kind of had to be there. I introduced myself to a roomfull of people as "Obadiah" because I thought it would be funny. These people have since become many of my closest friends.