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murlough23
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Name: David
Birthday: 1/19/1978
Interests: Almost anything music related... mixing CD's, writing reviews of great (and not-so-great) bands, playing guitar and songwriting... also hiking, reading (mostly Christian non-fiction), writing stuff no one will ever read in my journal, and hanging with friends from church and college.
Expertise: Web design and database development.
Occupation: Computer related (Internet)
Industry: Government
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Member Since:
2/10/2003
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| Sorting Out Lost's Mysteries: Season 2, Part IIWhoops, forgot to keep this series going once a week. I'm getting back on track now. This segment covers everything from The Long Con up through Live Together, Die Alone.
2.14 One of Them - Did Ben allow himself to get caught? If so, why?
Judging from his exchange with Juliet in Expose,
he was intending to recruit Jack, and to grab Kate and Sawyer as well.
So he had some sort of a plan for infiltrating the camp. Whether that
plan involved being taken prisoner... it seems doubtful, given how
dangerous and unhinged Danielle Rousseau was known to be. He likely
didn't plan on getting an arrow shot through his shoulder, or putting
himself in a position for Sayid to beat the crap out of him. He later
told Locke that he had been coming for him, but this appears to have
been a lie.
- What is the significance of the hieroglyphics on the hatch timer?
According
to Damon Lindelof, the symbols translate to "underworld". That's
consistent with their appearance on the "secret passage" from Ben's
house to wherever he went underground to sic the monster on the
mercenaries from the freighter. Hieroglyphics were also seen in the
"frozen donkey wheel" cave in the Season 4 finale. This may be a
remnant of a civilization that existed on the island before DHARMA.
2.15 Maternity Leave - How did Ethan's face get scratched?
This apparently happened at some point between when he kidnapped Charlie and Claire (Raised by Another) and the time Claire spent in captivity with him (Maternity Leave). It could have come from his fight with Jack in All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues,
but the action in that scene is too quick for screencaps to reveal
anything for sure. It may have been something production decided to add
when they brought the character back for Claire's flashback, just to
indicate that the struggle with Jack had done some small amount of
damage. But we don't know what else Ethan was up to during the time the
Others had Claire, or how he managed to drag two people off into the
jungle all by himself.
- Why do The Others have costumes, a fake camp, a fake hatch, etc.?
We
take it for granted now that The Others lived in a relative suburbia
compared to the Losties, and apparently got their clothes from a J.
Crew catalog, but we didn't know this until Season 3. We assumed that
they were a bunch of primitive hillbillies until Sayid discovered the
decoy village at the end of Season 2. Tom's beard, as discovered by
Kate in Maternity Leave, was simply part of the costume. (In
reality, this was probably added because M. C. Gainey shaved his beard
in between Seasons 1 and 2, so they had to put a fake beard on him, and
it was obvious to fans that the beard was fake.) Clearly this deception
fooled Michael into thinking the Others were less technologically
sophisticated than we now know them to be. But this way of dressing may
have come from the "Hostiles" that existed on the island before Ben
arrived. Richard Alpert was seen wearing similar clothes in Ben's
childhood flashback.
- Where
does the "Escape Hatch" in the Staff (labeled in Claire's flashback,
but with the lettering removed when she returns there) lead?
One
wonders if Claire was too drugged to notice it during her stay at the
staff. When she returned with Kate and Danielle, the hatch was still
visible, but the lettering was gone. Juliet and Sun have been to the
staff since then (Juliet even took Sun into a hidden room that had the
ultrasound machine), and Sun later brought Jin, Daniel, and Charlotte,
but none of them seemed to notice the hatch.
2.17 Lockdown - Who/what triggered the lockdown that trapped Locke and Ben? What ended it? Why did the blacklight go on if it doesn't normally?
We later saw Kelvin teach Desmond how to trigger a lockdown by
short-circuiting the computer. But Locke wasn't messing with the
computer when the lockdown happened. Also, when Kelvin and Desmond
forced a lockdown, the blacklight didn't come on. Kelvin drew on the
map based on what he remembered about the placement of items already on
the blast door. Also, no event was shown to be caused by Locke or Ben
that retracted the blast doors.
- Why did Radzinski and Kelvin feel the need to draw a map only viewable by blacklight? Who were they hiding it from?
The
map showed the location of a number of Dharma stations on the island
that were yet to be visited by the Losties, including the Pearl, the
Flame, and the Tempest. Why the Dharma employees would feel the need to
hide this map from their employers, or from the Hostiles, is a mystery.
We don't know who installed the blacklight, either, but apparently it
wasn't there when the Swan was constructed.
- What's with the supply drops?
A video from The Lost Experience shows
a helicopter just above the surface of the water, performing a supply
drop. This was apparently a means of keeping people who worked at the
Dharma stations fed without having to land on or make contact with the
island. Knowing what we know now about the "time anomaly" surrounding
the island might explain why no airplane or helicopter was heard over
the island when the drop happened following the lockdown (which may
have had nothing at all to do with the supply drop). For all we know,
it could have been dropped by a helicopter that flew over a few days
previously, or a few days later, or even way back in the 60's, and the
supplies got "time-shifted" on the way down.
2.18 Dave -
Was Dave a real person?
He didn't actually exist as a patient
in the institution. Whether he is a real person that existed at one
time, we don't know. His existence is interesting in light of the
"ghosts" that have appeared to other people on and off the
island. Libby also mentioned a late husband named "David" in her
conversation with Desmond at the coffee shop. But producers have
confirmed that this is a distinct person. Hurley's father's name is
also "David", and clearly he's a different person as well (though it's
kind of amusing that Hurley's father is played by Cheech Marin, who as
part of the comedy duo Cheech & Chong, came up with the famous
routine "Dave's Not Here").
- Why was Libby in the same mental institution as Hurley?
Another
one of the great mysteries of the series that got left hanging due to a
character getting killed off. What's weird is that Hurley has vague
memories of knowing her from somewhere, but doesn't remember their
alleged encounter on the plane (which Libby could have made up, hoping
he wouldn't figure it out). It's also worth noting that Locke's mother
did time at Santa Rosa as well, though obviously not while Hurley was
there. If my earlier theory about Libby being some sort of a stalker
(which is admittedly far-fetched) turns out to be true, this could be
where she first developed her obsession with Hurley, but why this would
happen if he never really got to know her is anyone's guess. How she
got out is also an interesting question, but then, we don't really even
know how Hurley got out.
2.21 ? - Why were some DHARMA team members let to believe that the experiment going on in the Swan was fake?
Nikki,
of all people, noted the use of the plural "experiments", so the Pearl
video may not have been only referring to the Swan. This may have only
been played to misdirect the audience, and to lead Locke and Eko to
different assumptions about the meaning of the experiment in the Swan.
The Pearl also had a video feed of the Flame, which Dharma may have
wanted some of its employees to believe was fake so that they (or any
Hostiles who managed to compromise them) would not find out about
Dharma's ability to communicate with the outside world.
-
How did Eko end up in Australia?
Apparently you can just slap
on a costume and get a job as a real priest. The Catholic Church of
Australia (or perhaps England) really oughta set higher standards!
Perhaps he simply got transferred or chose to leave England for some
reason that isn't really significant to the story. But there's a
significant gap in Eko's life that is kind of important, since it sets
up the circumstances that put him on the plane. Perhaps they wanted to
fill those details out in another flashback, and Eko's story got cut
short when Adewale asked to leave the show.
- What really happened to Charlotte Malkin?
Could
she have been truly dead and then come back to life? This is
interesting in light of Sarah Shepard's apparent spontaneous healing,
which also happened off-island. When Rose and Bernard visited Isaac of
Uluru, he claimed that certain spots on earth had special healing
properties. Clearly this was meant to be a hint about the island, but
could other such places exist in the world?
- Who was in the Pearl Station not long before Locke and Eko found it?
We
know that Ben and Juliet had been down there and had then sent someone
else to cover it up again with the fallen plane. Paulo was hiding in
the bathroom when this happened. He was trying to quit smoking, and
there were ashes and a used cigarette discovered on the desk when Locke
and Eko later went down there, as if to suggest that someone had been
smoking. Perhaps he gave into a moment of weakness - cigarettes were
probably readily available from Sawyer if the price was right.
- What do the other screens in the Pearl Station show?
Well,
if you have the Season 3 DVDs, they show the special features! But on
the show, we only know that the Swan and the Flame are being monitored
from the Pearl. It may have monitored several other Dharma stations at
one point in time.
2.22 Three Minutes
- Why did The Others specifically ask Michael to bring Hurley, Jack, Kate, and Sawyer with him?
Hurley
makes sense, because they needed to send someone back to warn the rest
of the group to back off and not try to come to jack, Kate and Sawyer's
rescue, and Hurley probably fit the profile of someone who could be
easily intimidated and would follow directions. Jack was wanted for his
surgical skills (by the time Ben found out about his tumor, it was
presumably too late for any peaceful relationship to occur between the
Losties and the Others, so Ben couldn't really have "just asked"). Kate
and Sawyer are still a mystery. They may have hoped that keeping the
two of them in cages near each other, with Kate's cage behind one that
they knew she could escape from, would break them down psychologically
and bond them to each other emotionally. In other words, they were
probably hoping for exactly what ended up happening - that the two
would get into the same cage and have sex, with the goal being for Kate
to get pregnant so that they could study the pregnancy. Of course, Kate
didn't get pregnant, and the two escaped, so this plan didn't work out
too well for the Others. But having Jack handy (hmmm, there's a deep
thought for you) did enable Ben to get the tumor removed.
2.23 Live Together, Die Alone - Is some sort of force keeping people (The Others, DHARMA, etc.) from leaving the island?
Obviously,
yes. Coming to and from the island on any heading other than the proper
one can apparently have sanity-testing (if not potentially lethal)
side-effects. How this affected Desmond when he ran aground on the
island, or later tried to leave and failed, is unknown, but he's the
only person that we know of who has ever traveled to or from the island
on the wrong heading, other than Minkowski and his dead buddy Brandon.
And Desmond became the guy with the weird flashes of the future.
Suffice to say that Dharma may have not fully explained this phenomenon
to their employees, but may have strongly encouraged them to not
attempt to leave the island on their own, due to the likely
consequences. As for The Others, Ben and Richard and a few higher-ups
could clearly come and go as they pleased while they still had the
submarine, but access to it was apparently controlled by Ben, which is
why Juliet couldn't leave despite wanting to.
- Who is Radzinsky? Anyone we've seen before under a different name? Why did he kill himself?
No
obvious clues so far. Kelvin turned out to be someone that we had seen
earlier (under the name Joe Inman) in Sayid's Gulf War flashbacks, so
you never know with this show, it could turn out to be a person we've
seen before. As for what drove Radzinksy to kill himself - perhaps
insanity brought on by an attempt to leave the island? Or perhaps the
mundane torture of living underground and having to push that damn
button every 108 minutes? Could be. It certainly sounds about twice as
torturous as, say, waking up to feed a crying baby every two and a half
hours.
- What's with the four-toed statue?
This
one's right behind Adam and Eve on the list of infamous mysteries
they've shown us once and then never spoken of again. The column that
Ben later had Anthony Cooper tied to, and the yet-unseen "Temple" could
also be artifacts from the same society that built the statue. My guess
is that the island's past will be explored in more depth in Season 5 or
6.
- Why did the sky turn purple when the magnet in the Swan discharged?
Daniel
noted that the light scatters differently on the island. The whole
place glowed white right before the island was "moved". The magnetic
discharge could have somehow affected the wavelength of the light
around the island, or at least its appearance to observers inside the
"bubble", for a few seconds, shifting the sky temporarily from its
normal hue of blue (which is next to purple in the spectrum of visible
colors). The producers have also revealed that this event briefly made
the island "visible" to the outside world. Whether that means the "time
shield" around the island was deactivated for those brief few seconds,
or whether this is specifically the event that registered on the
Portuguese research team's radar at the end of Season 2, we don't know.
-
What are Penny Widmore and the Portuguese research team looking for in the ice?
Penny was looking for Desmond the entire time that he was missing, apparently. The question isn't so much what they were looking for, but why
they were looking for (presumably) a tropical island in such a frigid
location. It may be another instance of the "vortex" phenomenon rearing
its ugly head (if that theory holds any water to begin with) - if
moving the island could potentially dump Ben out somewhere in Tunisia,
then it's not too far-fetched to think that an electromagnetic pulse
emitted from the island could "come out" somewhere over one of the
poles. But how Penny knew to look there specifically, and whether any
of that knowledge was gleaned from her father, we don't know.
| | |
| DiscoveryYesterday, while driving back along the 101 freeway after one of our typical Saturday afternoon excursions, Christine noted that I seemed to be in a good mood, and asked what made me happy. It's not like she had never asked me such a question before. But this time, I felt like it was easy to sum it up in one word: "Discovery". I like exploring places and finding little nooks and crannies that, to me, are new. It's not the true hardcore exploration experienced by the types of people who see big, dangerous mountains or blank spots on maps, and feel the urge to go just "because it is there". But it's the excitement of mapping out the blank spots in the corners of my mind, of hopefully finding those picturesque, out-of-the-way places that aren't necessarily known by everyone, even a lot of the locals.
 Christine's resourcefulness led us to one such place yesterday. We didn't want the mid-90's heat to confine us to our home - she gets depressed when we have a whole weekend day available and don't really take the time to go somewhere interesting. Since the heat ruled out hiking or any sort of focused physical activity, she did some research and found a place called "Gardens of the World" in Thousand Oaks that sounded like a nice spot for an afternoon stroll. It turned out to be a good choice - it was shady, and easily covered in a brief, half-hour-long walk, but within it were several microcosms of gardens from various points in the world. It fit within the size of a city block, along a green hill that provided plenty of opportunities for them to put in terraced fountains and so forth. There was a tiny Japanese pagoda, and a Spanish-style building with frescoes of all of the California missions painted on its inner walls. They even had a large, stone-carved chess set decorating the entrance. A good place for a brief, romantic walk - and best of all, it was free!
Pictures are here: http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y35/murlough23/Exploring%20California/2008-07-05%20Garden%20of%20the%20Worlds/
We had a few hours to kill between then and dinner, so I let Christine get in some shopping time at Forever 21 and various shops with "Body" in the title at a local mall, while I drank a tea drink from Coffee Bean and tried to get my body temperature back to something that felt normal. Of course, it was all in vain, since our plans for dinner would only involve heating it up again. Christine's penchant for finding odd things to do on the web brought us to a small, ultra-casual restaurant in Encino called "Chili My Soul", which specializes in making about a bazillion different varieties of chili. We still miss the Red Rock Chili Co. that used to be at the Santa Anita mall, so this was a godsend! Taking care to avoid the extremely spicy varieties, we sampled various flavors (they have a plethora of chicken, pork, and vegetarian chilis along with the usual beef-based suspects), and Christine finally decided on a Poblano Turkey flavor with a hint of molé, which she had served atop a corn tamale - delicious stuff. I also tried the Poblano Turkey, with chocolate chips as one of my toppings (seriously, it was on the menu and I couldn't resist - and it was good, the way that the chocolate melted into the smoky flavor of the chili, though extremely rich and filling), and split that in a bowl with a Hickory Beef chili on the other side. It was awesome. Not the healthiest meal in the world (both of our chilis were beanless), but I figure I'll be back someday to try one or more of the veggie varieties, too - they even have an Espresso flavored veggie chili! (Mango Habanero looked good, too, minus the "Habanero" part.)
So, it was after the joy of these two small discoveries and the realization that there's probably more to dig up in the hilly and somewhat scenic (though also hot) region of L.A. that borders on Ventura that had me beaming on the way home. I wonder if I'll ever run out of nooks and crannies to explore in Los Angeles. That's part of what keeps me rooted here despite how ugly and unhealthy the city itself can sometimes feel.
"Discovery" is also what drives me in my relationships with people, I think. It's like there's a "God switch" that gets turned on, when I'm having a really deep conversation with somebody that involves sharing things about ourselves that we wouldn't tell to just anyone, or in which I can almost see new insights being generated in both of our minds as we hurry to capture and articulate all of the thoughts being spawned. It's why marriage was such an appealing concept to me, and why I wanted to marry someone who would get my constant need to talk about odd things and explore strange, out-of-the-way places. And I think it's what will make certain aspects of parenthood exciting to me despite how much I dread the work it's going to demand - seeing that child's eyes opened to new experiences seems like it would be a new way for me to rediscover the world around me. If I had to explain to anyone what made me tick, and I only had one word to use, "Discovery" would be that word. It's how my soul taps into other souls, and God shows a facet of Himself to both of those souls through that connection.
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| We Gonna Rock Down to Electric AvenueYes, I am listening to an album with people's naked butts on the cover. What can I say, I still like Sigur Rós despite their apparent intent to embarass me should I decide to go to the store and actually purchase their album. (Darn Europeans. So cavalier about the whole nudity thing.) Hmmm. Perhaps I should order it online. Then I'll only get funny looks from my wife.
Have you ever locked yourself out of a room that you didn't have the key to? Man, that is the most frustrating thing. On Tuesday, I had to return the bike to Karen and Scott that I had borrowed from them, as well as the bike rack, which took me forever to figure out how to get it correctly configured on the trunk of my car so that the bike didn't fall off in transit. So I didn't get back home until after 8 PM, at which point I was (a) really hungry, (b) really sweaty and in need of a shower, and (c) really needing to empty my bladder. (c) is not something that I would normally bring up in polite conversation, but it was significant to my experience on Tuesday when I went to open the bathroom door (which Christine had closed because she shuts doors to all rooms we're not currently occupying whenever we have the A/C on), and found that it would not open. Somehow, the lock from the inside got triggered when she shut the door, and no amount of trying to wedge the knob with a knife or whatever else worked. So we had to call the landlord, who had to summon the handyman right at that inconvenient dinner hour, and we were told he'd be there in half an hour, at which point I had no recourse but to hope back in the car and drive up to CVS to use their bathroom.
Wait, scratch that, I mean McDonald's, because CVS apparently has no bathroom. And man, on a day like that, I suddenly notice that the traffic light at Main and Granada seems to take a really long time to change! At least the bathroom wasn't physically inside the restaurant. Because then some overly diligent employee would have likely pointed out that the restroom was FOR CUSTOMERS ONLY. Don't you just hate that? When you're out driving somewhere, desperate to find a place where you can make a pitstop, only to get told that you can't use their bathroom without making a transaction first? So you order the cheapest thing on the menu, and you're like, "Get me a small coffee, stat!" Which will probably just make you need to go to the bathroom again a few miles down the road...
Anyway, the handyman rescued us soon after that and replaced the lock... but man, it's really embarrassing to not even have access to the bathroom in your own place of residence in a time of urgent need. Thank God that whole ordeal's over.
So today was the 4th of July, which meant the requisite "go somewhere to watch fireworks". Mimi was gracious enough to invite us over to her place for a front-yard BBQ, and thanks to Ike bringing some kicked-up BBQ sauced and white bread, we got to experience our ribs and sausage and chicken more like a true Texas-style BBQ. Most amusing was the war zone going on along the length of the street, which is totally common and legal in several local cities, but not exactly legal to the extent that these folks were doing it. Basically, whatever's exploding on the ground is considered legal as far as fireworks go, and these folks definitely had plenty of things going off in the air... or more specifically, a couple feet in the air immediately after being launched. Tim theorized that these must have been Tijuana discount fireworks. It was an entertaining enough show, even if I was thinking the whole time, "Dude, just don't misfire in my direction and blow up my car."
Before we left, we prayed for Mimi. She leaves for New Orleans bright and early in the morning, for a short-term mission trip. I pray it goes well. She's really reaching out and trying some adventurous things this year, with this and with the Congo trip coming up later. I think God greatly appreciates an adventurous heart. It shows a much greater degree of flexibility than I could ever admit to having. So I pray God uses this trip to bless her in a radical way. | | |
| Nubi for NewbiesI always worry that events I plan will turn out to be really lame and people won't show up. So I was glad when we got a turnout of 7 people for our Sedaqah Group bike riding/rollerblading activity at the beach. Those of us on bikes made it all the way from the Santa Monica Pier to Marina Del Rey and back - about 11 miles round trip, plus a short side trip to walk down part of the canal system in Venice Beach. The rollerbladers made it most of the way to the Venice Beach Pier. All of this was accomplished in about two hours, so I feel like that was some pretty solid exercise.
We had a bit of difficulty figuring out what to do next. My original plan was to stay in Santa Monica and catch a showing of Wall-E down there, but since we finished our ride just before 7, we realized we wouldn't be able to leave our cars down at the beach past sunset, and re-parking at Third Street or at the mall didn't seem like the greatest option, especially with bikes tied to the back of two of our cars. So instead we took a vote and just decided to drive back to Alhambra, grab dinner, and catch a late movie there. That fell apart when we realized (at least according to an inaccurate listing on the Internet that took forever to look up) that the only available showings at our local theater were at 9 and 11:30. It was past 8 and a few folks in our group wanted to go to Pho 79, which is a sit-down Vietnamese place, so you have to plan at least an hour for that sort of thing. I didn't want folks to have to rush their meals anyway - even though Christine and I just opted to eat at Panda Express, we took our time and I treated her to dessert afterwards. In the end, most of the group deferred the movie to another day, while Jessica joined us for a 10 PM showing that was inexplicably not listed online. Despite my plan not working out for all of us to see it together, it was an awesome movie and I had a thoroughly good time. So much human warmth emanating from two computer-animated robots who barely even talk other than to say each other's names! I was transfixed. Christine has a less favorable impression because it was late and she was tired, but she later revised her response of "it was okay" and realized that she really did like it, after having a night to sleep on it. I think it's the best film of the year so far - and one of Pixar's best overall. They keep setting their bar higher and higher! The pre-release buzz wasn't just blowing smoke on this one.
Mimi and Tim came by for a visit tonight - between that and sitting with them at the luncheon after church today (to celebrate the groundbreaking for the new facilities we're gonna build), we got to catch up with them on their Japan trip and I think I must have exhausted them with the barrage of puns I embedded into the conversation. (Hey, they were gone for two weeks - I had to make up for lost time.) They took us to Nubi, which is another in that long line of yogurt places that keep popping up in the wake of Pinkberry's success. This one trumps them all, though - it's a self-serve, combine whatever flavors and toppings you want sort of thing, and they just charge you based on the weight of your yogurt cup. So I went nuts and combined chocolate/cafe latte swirl with raspberry pomegranate and pineapple yogurt (they were only weird at the boundaries where the flavors mingled), and topped it with coconut, blueberries, and mini peanut butter cups. Yeah, I'm weird like that. But it appealed to the variety lover in me. I was truly a kid in a candy store. I will totally be back.
Anyway, it's good to have Tim and Mimi back... even if we're gonna lose Mimi again in a few days when she leaves for New Orleans. I think she's competing with Joyce in the "savvy world traveler" department, though in this case it's for a short term mission. We'll get her back in another week or so. Hope it goes well!
| | |
| A Task to Be Passionate AboutI haven't posted in a few days, but don't worry - I haven't been stuck on jury duty the entire time. The judge was actually pretty efficient about getting the first panel of 18 prospective jurors interviewed and turned over to the lawyers for challenging on Wednesday. I was in seat #13 - the first backup who would fill in the first seat vacated by a dismissed juror. Juror #1 seemed to have some English difficulties, and just as I predicted, they dismissed her right away. I moved into her spot, and then - much to my surprise - they once again dismissed Juror #1. So that was it for me. I got my paperwork and spent the rest of the day getting some much-needed R&R at home.
I could have almost predicted who they were going to let go - I was sort of making a game of it during our break when I was hanging out with some of the other jurors. One lady worked for the D.A.'s office in another department and was desperate to get back to her piled-up paperwork, and I told her she'd be out of there no problem once they found out what she did for a living. She and a few others got dismissed not long after me. As for myself, I wasn't 100% sure they'd get rid of me, but once I learned that the charges involved auto vandalism, I figured that might be a good time to mention that my car had been broken into last November. Call it poetic justice or something, but I was apparently able to turn my own personal misfortune into the appearance of bias, and now I'm off the case. Sweet!
The interruption to my sleep schedule reverberated throughout the week, though - I felt like I had ice on my brain or something for half the day yesterday. Probably just another variant of the usual grogginess that I get when I have minimal sleep for a few nights and then try to catch up with a very long night of sleep (9-10 hours) all at once. I don't know what sort of chemical imbalance is going on up there, but it's really starting to drive me crazy. If I could manage to sleep soundly on a regular basis like I presume a normal person does, I'm willing to bet it would all just go away.
Last night was the summer kick-off for the Passage - an event that I had been really excited about, even though I had my worries about the move to a weeknight making it inconvenient for some of the students. I think our turnout was better than the average Sunday, which is especially heartening considering that it's the summer and some of our students aren't even around right now because their actual homes are in other states. Meeting in Pasadena (at the house of the unseen Jason Lo, a kindly fellow who loaned us the use of his personal space while he's working in D.C. this summer, which I guess makes him our version of Robin Masters or something) brought back the Caltech students, who are now all within walking distance (or at least have easy bus access), and we've also got a few recent high school grads (one of whom starts her college career at Occidental in the fall!) hanging out with us. So while it's a bummer to lose some of the folks from the Westside or other areas that are difficult to commute from on a weeknight, and while we've lost a few of our advisors, I think we've got a promising little community to build during the summer. I'm certainly excited about the more intimate setting, and based on the feedback Pastor Sharon solicited from us all regarding what sort of studies/discussions we wanted to have that summer, it became clear that there was a thirst among all of us for deeper community and deeper commitment to spiritual disciplines that have perhaps gotten a bit dusty due to an overload of schoolwork (or, in the case of us old folks, just plain work). This setting seems like it'll make it a lot easier to expand on some of the friendships that have been slowly building as folks have seen each other Sunday after Sunday, or at retreats.
While we were eating dinner together last night before our official meeting started, I had a surprisingly good discussion with John and Dorothy, which sort of arose from an innocent observation about long-distance versus short-distance relationships, and how easy it can be to run out of things to talk about when you see a person all the time. I say "surprising" not because I didn't previously think these two were capable of deep discussion or anything. It's just because our conversations with one another usually consist of a feisty three-way sarcastic comment-fest. Mutually amusing verbal abuse, I guess you could call it. It's a fun little in-joke and a lot of the Passage folks seem to go for that sort of humor, so I fit right in. But every now and then it's nice to have a sincere, non-ironic conversation that runs a little deeper than that. Somehow we got into the story of how Christine and I met, and I've never seen two people so fascinated by such a story. (I mean, obviously I think my wife's a pretty interesting person and there was a good deal of irony and serendipity surrounding the circumstances that brought us together, but it's not like I'm Don Juan or anything - I pretty much stumbled into the whole situation thoroughly unsure of myself.) I didn't get the chance to finish telling it since we started worship at 7:30, so I guess I owe them another installment next week. it feels like now we're in the kind of environment where I'll hopefully also be able to get others to share amusing bits and pieces of their personal backstories. I love learning who people really are, and finding things in common with people who might seem nothing like me on the surface. It's endlessly fascinating.
Well, Christine has had an absolutely exhausting week due to the deadbeat co-workers at her school who keep deciding they're sick after finding out they're gonna be stuck in a classroom they don't want to be in for the day... so she keeps getting stuck with the 2's and the 4's and basically every age but the 1-year-olds that she wants to be with. She gripes about it a lot, but last night, while sharing prayer requests at Passage, I think I truly realized how much it bugs her that working with little kids in a school setting doesn't seem to be turning out as her calling in life. She's kind of slipped into that sort of existence where you just go to your job and survive it and look forward to going home simply so you can rest, and she hasn't really found a solid hobby or ministry that gives her life away from work the way Passage has for me. Of course, she enjoys being with me and that's why she lives for the weekends (because most weekdays she's too tired to do much other than eat dinner and watch a Magnum, P.I. with me before heading off to bed), but she needs an identity of her own, a calling, a task to be passionate about. I hope she finds it. I'll do whatever I can to help her.
In other news, I listed to the new Kutless album this week, and it's surprisingly average! Which normally wouldn't be something to get excited about, but c'mon, this is Kutless. Average is a significant improvement for these guys. I actually like the music for a change - they had to rotate out nearly all of the original band just to get some guys with decent chops in there. The lyrics are still pretty lame, but at least the music's good enough that it makes this aspect a little easier to ignore.
The end of June is fast approaching, and that means it's time for another soundtrack! Here's what I've got for my May-June 2008 mix:
DISC ONE
 - "Lovers in Japan", Coldplay
- "M79", Vampire Weekend
- "Be Still and Breathe", Ivoryline
- "You Waste Time Like a Grandfather Clock", The Myriad
- "Love Is the Protest", Jars of lay
- "We Need Each Other", Sanctus Real
- "Thank God", After Edmund
- "Hosanna", Starfield
- "Baptize My Mind", Jon Foreman
- "Anything You Say", Deas Vail
- "Draw My Life", Fauxliage
- "Gobbledigook", Sigur Rós
- "Helicopters", Falling Up
- "Give What You've Got", Delirious?
- "Daedalus", Thrice
- "Blackbird", Alter Bridge
DISC TWO
 - "Mr. Richards", R.E.M.
- "Condescending", P.O.D.
- "Adore Adore", Yoav
- "Ruin of the Beast", Steven Delopoulos
- "1234", Feist
- "7 8 9", Barenaked Ladies
- "Throwing Punches", The Myriad
- "Come Clean", Eisley
- "Children in the Street", Edison Glass
- "Somebody's Baby", Jon Foreman
- "Kingdom of Comfort", Delirious?
- "Fight Good Sinners", Five O'Clock People
- "Remedy", David Crowder Band
- "Come All You Weary", Thrice
- "Mesmerized", Lifehouse
- "One Day Like This", Elbow
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