I have a couple other posts floating around in my head, but need to gather some thoughts (and pictures) before writing them. So… a little this’n'that, aka bullet points for a Tuesday morning.

• Softball last night was fantastic. Beautiful weather, good competitive game. Oh, and we won.
• Not my favorite: opposing pitchers who whine about us taking walks when they are unable to throw a strike.
• Definitely my favorite: Becky, who struck out (looking!) said whiny pitcher to start the seventh inning.
• My list of projects is getting long. I’ve accomplished some, but others are going to slide right into June without me even touching them.
• Next week: headed to Montreal. Looking forward to it.
• Also next week: Becky’s folks come to visit. This will be two years in a row that they’ve come to visit the week that I’ve been on travel. Hmmm… wonder what I should infer from that?
• These Fractal Drawers might be one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen… at least this week. (Saw them on Boing Boing, then Daniel shared them, too… thanks Dan!)

• It was an amazingly beautiful weekend. Fortunately the beautiful weather is sticking around for today so we can play softball.
• Oh, and I’m going to ump the second game of the night. I don’t remember if I’ve said it before, but I enjoy umping games almost more than I enjoy playing them.
• Got a bunch of projects completed on the house this weekend.
• New carpet put down in basement: complete.
• Nasty mold scrubbed from laundry room wall: complete.
• Pegboard hung in laundry room to organize tools: complete.
• Tools organized: not so complete.
• Crock Pot cord repaired: complete.
• Music leading both Saturday night and Sunday morning: yep.
• Double-edged sword: if I had the Versus channel I could’ve watched the Dallas Stars play last night. On the other hand, had I stayed up to watch, I would’ve had to watch until the fourth OT to see them win.
• Go Stars! Bring on those Red Wings.
• If the Stars win the Stanley Cup this year I’m gonna buy that Mike Modano jersey I’ve always wanted.
• Enough with the bullets already.

So back in my Caedmon’s concert post, Daniel commented that he found the length of that road trip to see a concert “insane”. Being the nerd that I am, I decided an “equation of insanity” would be appropriate. (Geof’s equation of motivation was an additional piece of inspiration.)

So, without further ado, the equation:

I = (d+t)/qL

Where

I = relative insanity of the trip
d = distance traveled to the concert
t = time that trip took
q = quality of the artist you are going to see
L = length of the concert.

Of course the tricky thing here is that the q value will vary between persons, so just because you think my trip is insane doesn’t mean that I will agree with you. Also, by including not only the distance of the trip but also its’ duration, trips like Geof’s planned flight to Philly aren’t as insane as if he were to, say, drive to Philly.

There’s also the issue of theoretical insanity versus actual insanity. For instance, my trip to see Andy O’s The Morning release show theoretically should be much more insane because of the distance to Nashville, but in actuality the concert was so awesome that the real insanity level was much lower.

Note to Becky, my Mom, etc: Yes, this really just means that I am a huge nerd. Not exactly a revelation.

Becky and I were wandering the toy shelves at our local Target store recently, finishing up some Christmas shopping for the girls. On one shelf I saw this little set of dolls:

A couple of thoughts came to mind: first, how quaint! This reminds me of something out of the early 20th century, all nicely culturally stereotyped in ethnic garb. I am surprised that the PC police haven’t come down on it. But then I looked a little closer, and noticed this particular doll, which you can still make out even with the fuzzy picture quality from my camera phone:

Notice anything wrong? Yep, the doll is supposed to represent England, but she’s wearing Scottish plaid. If I were from England, I’d be unhappy. Obviously, somebody from Target (or whoever in China designs their toys) doesn’t realize that Scotland /= England. Ah well, a geography lesson for another day.

Should you arrive for a visit at our house, you will find this guy greeting you:

[As always, I am grateful to Daniel for this very useful format.]

• Addie didn’t sleep well last night. She’s getting a tight-ish cough, stuffy nose, ick. No fun.
• There’s been an owl somewhere near our bedroom window for the past few nights. That rascal hooted nearly all night.
• Read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road in one long take last night. Chilling and bleak. Images that stick in your head.
• Result of all of the above: sleepy this morning. Very sleepy.
• It also may have something to do with all the CiCi’s Pizza I ate yesterday. I think I ate a piece too much.
• A long-ish day at work today.
• Tonight we’re going to see David Wilcox in concert here in CR. We’re going with some new friends of ours. Should be fun. Hope I stay awake.

Bullet points for the weekend:

• Church plant plans are moving right along. Looking like the start date might be the beginning of the year.
• Tonight will be my first night all week of just coming home from work and being home. Too many evening activities makes for a long week.
• Major weekend activity: tree trimming and collecting brush. Hiawatha picks up brush starting Monday.
• Waiting to hear whether or not I get a freelance website development job. Hoping I do.
• You know you’re short on sleep when the Diet Pepsi doesn’t really help things any.
• The new Iron and Wine album (The Shepherd’s Dog) is really good.
• The new Radiohead album is good as well. I don’t usually dig Radiohead, but the new album is quite accessible.
• Meebo (my browser-based chat client of choice) just released a Firefox plugin that’s actually pretty good. Not perfect yet, but beats having to keep extra FF windows open.

That was pretty random. Sorry.

• Had a productive weekend; got the lawn mowed, some concrete patching done, led music at church.
• Miserable weekend as a sports fan: Cubs played terrible and got swept; Huskers got mauled by Mizzou; Hawkeyes ran into a freight train called Penn State. At least the NHL season is new, so Dallas can’t be too far out of it yet.
• I’m headed to Oklahoma City for training tomorrow. Can’t imagine it’ll be too exciting. Let’s just see if I can get somewhere on time this time. My recent luck with flights hasn’t been good. Flying United this time.
• Listening to the new album from Iron and Wine. It’s good.
• I am officially now a Company Designated Engineering Representative (DER) for the FAA. I have only partial approval authority at the moment; it’ll take time and experience to get full approval authority.
• It’s been a week now of just bringing a bottle of pop to work in the morning rather than filling my mug at the convenience store. It’s going OK. I have decided, though, that Coke Zero is too sweet for me - I like Diet Pepsi better.

Twitter is being upgraded. So the Twitter maintenance page tells me. Normally this is something I’d just post a Tweet about, but, well, Twitter is being upgraded.

Oh, the irony.

So most of the recent posts here have been just links to other stuff. Sorry about that. Have been doing lots of reading lately, not so much writing. Most of my writing posts here have been of merely the logistical bullet-list variety. Today I have a random assortment that isn’t entirely logistical, but is in a bullet-list; maybe there’s something you’ll want to comment on, though.

[Voice in my head: "you fool, you just fell victim to one of the classic blunders!..." which is blogging about blogging... desperate, I know. Humor me.]

So, in no particular order:

• I still owe everybody a post on music in New Orleans. If I ever remember to up a little video to YouTube, I’ll write the post.
• Have you ever choked yourself by having saliva “go down the wrong pipe”? It just happened to me. Weird.
• I have lately been listening to a series of lectures by Don Carson on the book of Revelation. (You can download them here.) The amillenial viewpoint has always been a mystery to me (being raised a good dispensationalist and all), but Carson, along with a few things I’ve heard from N. T. Wright, has given me the most reasonable case yet for that position. In a lot of ways it seems to make more sense. Anybody got a book recommendation that might help me think through it some more?
• I’ll be traveling to Seattle in a couple weeks for an industry committee meeting. Gonna meet up with my old college roommate while I’m there. Should be fun.
• Immediately after I get back from the committee meeting I’ll be preaching during our Sunday service at Noelridge. Still trying to decide on a text.
• Sorry, Geof, I already have a web project lined up for my trip to Seattle. It doesn’t have anything to do with any Square Pegs.
• Last but not least, congrats to my internet friend Dan who is getting married this weekend!

I told you it’d be random.

Update, one too good to pass up:

• I just watched my wife beat on a peppermint candy with her cell phone.  Hilarious.