This is My Grown Up Christmas List

When you grow up in a Christian home, Christmas has a meaning that supercedes materialism and presents. You spend a little more time focused on the birth of Christ than you otherwise might if the day is just about presents and food.

Of course, if you grew up in the House of K, as I did, you spend a little more time focused on early morning bloody marys and smokin cigars whilst opening your stockings and listening to Aretha Franklin turn the mother out of her rendition of "Joy to the World". If dancing and a little misting up should happen too, all the better. Most people think that Christianity and Funk/Soul and Liquor cannot coexist, but I'm living proof y'all.

(The fashion show in the youtube clip above is obnoxious, but dig the music.)

Anyways, on the materialism front, while the birth of Jesus is awe-inspiring, I'm not going to say I never wanted presents. My typical plan was to create a cross referenced list with prioritized scoring and catalog page bibliography so my parents could get me exactly what I wanted. Once I learned to use a computer, things got even more complicated.

This year, a blog I read turned me on to one item that I really want. Its too late for anyone to stuff my stocking with this and obviously this economy is ruling out $500 stocking stuffers, but fortunately One Project Closer is having a competition whereby simply writing about this "sexy fine" item enters me in a sweepstakes to win it. If I win, all I have to do is write a review, which I would be more than happy to do. (Unfortunately, I also have to link to the competition, so honestly I'm hoping nobody reads this because the more people that enter, the lower my probability.)
The tool in question is a Dewalt Track Saw Combo kit. Its got a lot of the capabilities of a table saw while also being portable. Can't do routing cuts with it, but you take the good with the bad. Anyways, I'm all about using this to cut down plywood to board up some windows while I reglaze them, making some dog gates around the house, building some small tables, helping Andy and Kim build a backing face for their salvaged TV cabinet, and a gazillion other things I can't even concieve of right now.

Anyways, Merry Christmas, only a week or so to go...
I leave you with this, which in my opinion is probably closer to what heaven sounded like on Christmas, if you can see past the 80s production values...



(I'm still kind of convinced that we'll all be black in heaven. Sigh, can't wait.)

Discipline and Leftovers

Rach is off tonight at an event titled "Stitch and Bitch". Assumedly, she's learning to knit while simultaneously complaining about my tendency to use the "dish" sponge rather than the "dirt" sponge to clean up the dog's pee off the floor. (In the moment, can I really be blamed for not taking the time to analyze my sponge options? Is this mess sponge-worthy? I don't know. I'm under the "Sponge is self-cleaning school of thought", regardless of what science may say to the contrary.)

Anyways, both activities should be a good form of release for her.

With my night, I spent a good bit of time playing with the dog, not that he gave me much choice. But now he's finally gnawing on something, possibly my ipod, on the floor, and I can get to my original goals for the evening. Which included downloading messages from this awesome Acts 29 site. I'm going to load them on the aforementioned ipod and listen to these guys get all exegetical and whatnot on my way to work. Hopefully listening to sermons will also curb my impulse to swear at SEPTA employees under my breath.

I had also planned to write some new blog postings, but alas its already late. I'll just repost something I wrote for Liberti a while ago, since this particular posting is already Jesus related and we are officially in a recession now. Duh. Whatever, here it is:

Discipline and Leftovers

Discipline for most of us is somewhat of an ugly word. I grew up in a church where unspoken rules that didn’t line up with Christian freedom were imposed. As a member of the church, there was a specific checklist of duties and disciplines that had to be fulfilled on a regular schedule. It didn’t matter how you felt about worship, reading the word every night, prayer, speaking with your neighbor about God, or giving money in the offering plate on Sunday. You did it. These are all good things and things that we’re commanded to do, but were done, at least in my heart, without any joy or feeling.

So when I grew up and started attending a student fellowship at college, its no surprise that I didn’t want that rigid structure to be part of my walk anymore. I went to church when I saw how much praise God deserved. I served the church when I felt moved by God. I read the word when I needed God’s comfort. I talked to others about my relationship with God when I could see him moving in my life. And I gave my time, energy, and money to God when I had enough to spare.

The problem is that I usually didn’t have any to spare after another taxing project, the celebratory late night at the bar, and the money used to buy a couple rounds of beer.

Well, eventually I graduated. I moved to Philadelphia. I got an internship with more “normal” hours than I’d had at college. I had a decent salary. But still, the mentality of giving God what was left when the feeling struck me remained.

I’m the king of impulse buyers. Probably the worst cases are my love of food and my love of giving presents. The people who know me best know that I cannot be trusted to only buy the items written on the grocery list. I can’t be trusted to order a reasonable amount of food at the restaurant. And you are a lucky man or woman if I draw your name for a Christmas exchange.

I live from ATM receipt to ATM receipt with a vague notion of how much debt is on my credit card every month. As bad as that sounds, my paycheck would more or less cover my expenses. I always had enough to pay the rent and the utilities. Sometimes, I’d be a little over, sometimes a little under. But I never had any leftover for God. Sure, I’d occasionally put a $20 in the basket. But I’d just as easily spend that on coffee or an extra sandwich during the week and have nothing come Sunday.

So when I started coming to Liberti, it must have really been God moving my heart when I thought, “I’m joining this community, this group of people. I should really tithe to the church.” I didn’t particurally want to. I’d grown used to the lifestyle. And perhaps more importantly, I didn’t know how I was going to give a tithe to the church when I was breaking about even as it was. But I set up a new bank account for fixed expenses. I decided on an amount to give to the church, 10% of my net income, and had it deducted from my paycheck into this account. Automatically, the church gets a check from me every month.

This worked. To some, not a big shocker. Its called a budget with automatic bill pay.

What’s amazing is how God has shaped my heart AFTER I started giving regularly. God showed me how I’d been giving him the leftovers all those years. He gave me this great joy comes from offering him something first. In my new financial life, God doesn’t get shortchanged and he doesn’t get more or less depending on how hungry I am that month. And when my fiancée and I talk about planning our married budget, I get such joy from knowing that the first thing we give is to God. I started giving before he made me a joyful giver. And God has really shown up in the bottom line too. He’s provided me with more and more financially, and when I give to him, I still am able to pay all the bills and eat well and somehow be generous with the remainder.

I still play a lot of games with God when it comes to being disciplined with money. There’s far more that I can give and I make a lot of excuses to him about why I can’t. I convince myself that God really wants me to buy another bottle of wine and the best imported cheese so that no one leaves unsatisfied. I am ridiculous about “praising” him for his creation of fried seafood appetizers. And if I am loving people by buying them EXTRA Christmas presents, how could God not want that? Ultimately all these things are about “my wallet” making people happy and making people approve of me. I’m confident that God is redefining that part of me too.

But, looking back, I think the biggest thing that God is doing here is showing me that discipline is not rigid or legalistic. Its about prioritizing who is more important and who is first, him or me. My situation, whether it be how much I have or how I feel about giving it, doesn’t determine his worth. And I know that he will continue to reprioritize my heart… with worship, prayer, fellowship, money, and everything else where he deserves the firstfruits. And I just want to encourage you all to switch your perspective. Don’t give God the leftovers. Give to him first and he’ll show you that you have a lot more to joyfully give.

Cynicism and Toddlers

I know, cynicism (my blog's middle name) and adorable toddlers don't usually go together. But COME ON, this is cute. (Here's the explanation.) And it's my one online nod to the Phillies parade, which I must admit was a great time. I may not be a huge baseball fan, but I'm a ginormous Philadelphia fan.


Since the little boy is the son of my friends Heather and Sean, I'm entitled to let down the facade I usually stand behind to mock children mercilessly. Will was shown on Good Morning America this morning and apparently he's going to be on Ellen Degeneres at some later point.

And now back to your regularly scheduled cynicism. Which of course includes this:



HAHAHAHAHAHA, stupid melodramatic pre-teen girls having hissy fits. Whew. Felt good to get that off my chest.

The Rohde Warrior

Just before Rach and I got married, we went to The Second Mile thrift store in my ol' neighborhood of West Philly. We purchased two pieces of art deco modern furniture.

One was the dining room buffet for a measly $20 which has been mentioned before and is still awaiting stripping and restoration.
The other was a somewhat interesting little drawer unit with a really bad blue paint job for $5. We talked about repainting it and storing takeout menus inside, but never really got around to it. So when we moved into our current house, it ended up hanging out in the corner of the garage.Before tackling the buffet, which I prize for its modern lines and sweet hardware, I wanted to test out some stripping methods on the little chest of drawers. So on Saturday, I penned the dog up in the neighboring room so that he'd only get the whiff of fumes rather than actually ingesting mounds of peeled paint. I applied a coat of chemical stripper, donned my sensible rubber blue gloves, and went medieval on its a**.Only after I got past the first layer did I clear enough to see that there was a fine, and I mean "sexy" FINE walnut wood veneer underneath. I began to take more care. Once I realized that I might be dealing with a nicer piece of furniture than I'd previously expected, I searched the drawers and found this label.A little googling and we have a winner. Gilbert Rohde was a famous industrial designer and furniture craftsman in the 1930s who single handedly, by some accounts, steered the Herman Miller Furniture company aesthetic towards modernism and minimalist design. He has pieces in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, among others, and his pristine pieces go for a lot on ebay.
I'm under no misconception that I could buffer my retirement account or even buy the aforementioned skill saw with this piece. I fully imagine that I would take it to an antique dealer, much like on that Antiques Roadshow thing on PBS, and they would tell me "If only you had left the paint on, or if you hadn't kept it in your basement for a year, or let the dog pee on it that one time, it would be worth $10,512."

But it will be nice to have in the house once I clean it up a bit more. I've contacted the Herman Miller company as well as an evidently well-informed guy on flickr. (He also has a great showcase of Rohde design photos. He's an avid collector.) Hopefully they'll help me with an identification of the piece this week.

And the satisfaction that I get from knowing its not being used to store someone's crack pipes or some UPenn student's maxed out credit card collection is more than enough for me. A pile of take out menus will be a welcome inhabitant.

Pride cometh before a Fall

Far be it from me to point out a speck in your eye without identifying the log in my own.

This website lists the 100 Most Often Mispronounced Words and Phrases in the English Language.

I immediately scrolled to "For All Intensive Purposes" which is my most despised distortion of the actual Phrase "For all Intents and Purposes". Smug and arrogant, I found that it was indeed listed and I was smarter than a lot of people.

But then I also noticed the following phrases which I've been screwing up for years...

Don't say: Chomp at the Bit
Do Say: Champ at the Bit
Reason: "Chomp" has probably replaced "champ" in the U.S. but we thought you might like to be reminded that the vowel should be [æ] not [o].

Don't say: Spitting Image
Do Say: Spit and Image
Reason: The very spit of someone is an exact likeness. "The spit and image" or "spit image" emphasizes the exactness.

Oh, Egg why doth you run down my face so gloppily?

They also have a list of 100 Most Misspelled Words which is a good reminder. I just screwed up license several times last night and I mess up address, friend, accommodate, judgment, and privilege so often that I have no misconceptions about spelling well.

Fall Gardening

Summer is definitely gone. And the garden and the deck container plantings are past the "Assisted Living" stage and are ready to head for the compost pile. Even my strongest outdoor cold weather performers are failing.

Probably the most tragic loss is the sweet potato vines. They're the most lush pseudo-tropical thing that grows up here without major work. And frankly, the deceitful facade of their verdant green and Amazonian purple foliage is the only thing keeping Rach from rushing headlong into moving to Miami every Sept/Oct. And what's more, at $3.99 each for a plant in the spring, it becomes hard to justify having more than one per pot.

And another loss is the dark purple Coleus that I discovered this year. I'm itching to repaint the exterior of the house with rich reddish purple and crisp yellowy green tones and I'm pre-designing the front garden around it. So I'm always on the lookout for solid landscape performers that match the vision. Here's one in the front bed being choked out by leaf debris. (More on my weekend adventures in leaf blow/vac technology another time...)So I decided this year to try some procreation techniques I'd read about in a magazine. (No, not THAT. Get your head out of the gutter.) I clipped several pieces of Sweet Potato Vine, both bright green and dark purple, as well as a few pieces of the dark purple Coleus. A couple of weeks on the windowsill in vases and jars of water and the cuttings sprouted ridonkulous root clusters.


The roots were several inches long by the time I got around to potting this weekend, but I'm sure you could do fine with less.
In order to keep them presentable over the long winter and facilitate replanting in the spring, I used a long plastic window box planter with an integral water well. I then mixed two of my favorite pastimes, drinking and gardening, by using the cardboard dividers from a case of beer to segment the growing medium into transplantable portions.After planting, I've moved the pot to our sunniest windowsill in the dining room. I'll let you know how it goes.
While I can't say I'm helping the economy, I am recycling beer packaging, minimizing the despicable influence of the Home Despot, and padding my wallet for spring projects that may involve buying a skill saw. Or maybe I'll buy some Allium bulbs. Or maybe I'll put it towards next year's vacation.

Every little bit helps.

Stupid Impoverishment.

Sit. Good chromosomes.

I took Makai over to my sister's house on Thursday. My niece Blair just had half of her teeth pulled out so it was a good opportunity to cheer her up. Not sure how much that happened due to the fact that I was chasing the puppy around the house most of the afternoon to keep him from peeing on anything. Hopefully she at least enjoyed watching that.

But putting him together with Petey, their full bred poodle was just hilarious. Petey's in his teens but Makai brought the puppy out in him. And the fact that they look that much alike (Makai is on the left) is just weird.

They even sit the same exact way.

Of course as I get older, I find myself arranging my body in the same weird contortions that I always thought looked so uncomfortable on my dad. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Genetics are strong.

Big Ass Posting

For any of you who have ever seen me wear my Big Ass Fans hat (just like above but in Khaki) and wondered what I could possibly be advocating, let me clear it up for you. They make giant slow speed ceiling fans that move an incredible amount of air. Up to 24 feet wide, in fact. You may have never noticed them, but next time you're in the Ikea self-serve furniture section in South Philly, look up. They're pretty cool.



Now my firm really has no use for giant ceiling fans, and we had them come and give a presentation of their products just so we could get the free swag of hats, totebags, and stress relief squeezy donkey toys which are available to the general public through their website. They also have a great video of the guys at the plant throwing basketballs at the big ass ceiling fans which I unfortunately couldn't link to because it's Flash based, but if you're bored, go search for it.

Although, someday, I would really like to design a vacation home someday that moves all the air through the house via a constant low volume Big Ass Attic fan. The floors of the building would have to be "aerodynamically translucent" like a metal grate or something. Could be tricky for high heels, but who wears high heels in Maine or the Adirondacks?

Lastly I should mention that my Big Ass Fans hat has been put in storage til the spring, and I probably should have waited to post about this until some of you could see it first hand, but I was reminded of the company when The Hardware Aisle, one of my fave blogs did a snippet on them yesterday. They made a joke about installing one in the Capitol building, which makes a lot of sense because Nancy Pelosi is likely to get a lot more floor time now. Natch, into every election season a little obnoxious nasal sounding rain must continue to fall.

"MY" Candidate...

Obama won.

I went to work this morning and read the transcripts of the victory and concession speeches. And I checked the voting results here in Philadelphia by division/ward (Really cool site here where I can see exactly how many voted at my exact polling place Ward22/Div20 and how many votes were cast for each candidate).

I was listening to folks at the train station talk about "their" winner. And reading about people identifying themselves with "their" candidate based on the vote that they cast.

And it made me think that it's kind of a load of garbage.

WE all made this decision. WE collectively elected Obama no matter which button we pushed. WE made this decision in our Primary or Caucus votes. WE made this decision in the way that we spoke about the issues or the candidates to our co-workers, spouses, neighbors, and friends. These party platforms and candidates were defined, in large part, by a desire to get OUR vote. What WE instructed our constituents to vote or say defined the party stance and the platform of both candidates, and even their tone or campaign style. Every time WE tune the radio to either NPR or Limbaugh, we cast a tiny vote for how these people were defined and represented. Every time WE aligned a political party with an ideology or worldview in our discussions with our kids even 20 years ago or more, WE nudged these candidates into the positions they had to hold to try and win the base and the undecideds.

I just wanted to say that as I imagined T-shirts saying "Don't Blame Me, I voted for McCain" or "Yes, We Did". For Good or Bad, (and let's be honest, no one really knows what will happen, and the rear view mirror of history isn't even all that clear), we can all lay claim to this moment. I would argue, by not claiming responsibility for this president, we are shirking our responsibility and spending more time judging another than ourselves.

(Ring, ring, ring. Hello, Speck? This is Plank. You're in somebody's eye. Later.)

BUT in another sense, none of us can lay claim to this moment, again regardless of which button we pushed.

God grants authority. We had a great sermon (Available Here) from the book of Daniel in our church a few weeks ago by a new pastor who will be planting a new "site" in South Philly early next year. (Shhhh! Don't tell anyone he's not PCA...) Listen if you like, but the gist was that God grants authority and takes it away as he sees fit for his glory and for the good of those who love him. Nebuchadnezzar was exalted to leader of the world and brought down to the dust of the earth and the dew of the grass and then restored. As were a host of other leaders, kings, presidents, and others. Whether he or anyone else was brought to that point by a birth order, political strategy, popular vote, or electoral college is irrelevant. God is controlling history for purposes we couldn't begin to understand. And in a lot of ways, by claiming a candidate as "OURS" or "THEIRS" we may be forgetting or even denying the true authority of God.


I'm still going to refuse to tell people who I voted for, other than saying that it was a split ticket. Not out of a desire to avoid blame (see above) but because I don't want that one little button to define me in people's minds when I think my comprehensive worldview (that is only percievable over years of shared conversations) is a much better indicator. Ask me about some specific issues or concepts, or even better, ask me about Jesus. He's the platform I aspire to even when I don't get it most of the time.

* I will Eat Your Babies, B*&^%!

Freakin' watch this and despair... (you only need the to get through the first minute til Martha starts clicking and salivating like Hannibal Lecter talking about Fava Beans and Chianti)



We haven't hit Halloween yet, so its a little early, but I plan on doing this with somebody's child for Thanksgiving this year. (Sus? Sarah? Either one of you want to volunteer your youngest?)

Hilarious Commentary Here:

*Title taken from an Episode of "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia".