God is the boss. We're gonna be okay.

Weekend at Tahoe (only it was Wednesday)!

Ryan, Brandon, Katz, and I drove out to Tahoe yesterday, and came back the same day. Got to hang out with Tomio a bit as well which was cool. Planning for the trip was at a super minimum. Tuesday night (yes, that's the day before) at around 11:30PM, we decided that it would be splendid to spend the following day along the shores of the bluest lake in the world (and in the casinos and buffets that lie alongside). Day/road trip on a whim. It felt like college all over again.

It was good to just spend a good chunk of time with those guys. Talking, sitting, eating, sitting, laughing, sitting, hanging out, sitting. Good times.

Conversation of the day:

(Late in the day, after winning a number of times on the slots, Katz again wins on a slot pull. He proceeds to put his hand under the coin dispenser so that his winnings fall directly into his hand, keeping them from klanking on the metal bin below.)

B: "Hey, I thought you liked the sound of the coins falling."
K: "I did. But then it got annoying after a while."

Farmer's tan and good food

I'm colorblind. So, usually I can't see when people blush, tan, or burn. But today, as I was driving to Berkeley I noticed that I have the nastiest farmer's tan. To confirm, I touched my shoulders so that I could do a side by side comparison of my bicep and forearm. It was like night and day.

As a side note, "night and day" can also be translated as "California and Hokkaido" respectively. The color of my bicep used to be my skin color for about 2 years. As my mom said at a Starbucks when I came home, "[I'm] whiter than most caucasians." Sunny California days make all the difference.

Onto the good food. For lunch, I just went to Jones' BBQ on San Pablo Dam. I had their Catfish sandwich lunch special. Oh it was good eatin'. Fried catfish pieces with lettuce and tomato on a bun, beans and rice as a side, and a Pepsi for $6. Good deal I think. Definitely want to try out their beef and ribs now. If anybody's down, I'm in the area.

Great.

Had a great breakfast at Mama's in North Beach with Alinna followed by a great Giants game in the afternoon where we joined up with Jason, Mary, and Ev. Great time at the barbeque at East Bay... as usual. In the great words of the Kool-Aid man, "Oh yeah."


A thought on the megachurch phenomenon...

With the prominence of megachurches like Willow Creek and Saddleback, and their dubbed "success," I've seen a number of other churches try to imitate their style by investing considerable amounts of money to campus expansions, building renovations, and diversifying and increasing paid staff size. Granted, I definitely have a biased opinion about this, but wouldn't that money be better used for church planting rather than improving an existing church?

It appears that the early church thought so, that is, after the church in Jerusalem was dispersed. And if my generation is serious about desiring more intimate, closer, real communities/relationships, wouldn't ten 50-member churches be far more effective than a single 500-member church (all other factors aside)?

I remember reading this article from the Barna webpage when I was still in Japan. This may hold true right now, but I think the "Hope for small churches" section will be profoundly prophetic in the years to come.

Back "home"

I read this good article about transplanting or moving to a new location. And yet, though the article is good and speaks to me to some level because of my move back home, my experience has been different because of that very reason... I'm back home.

Getting readjusted has been difficult for all the reasons mentioned in the article: Expect disorientation, new relationships take time, old relationships will change, transplanting means growth. The additional problem is that the "new relationships" are really old relationships, and the "old relationships" are new relationships, well, at least in comparison to the "new relationships." I've known the people in my "new surroundings," here at home, longer than those of my "old surroundings," Japan.

And so, it'd be safe to say that I've expected too much of you all here on this side of the Pacific. I treated my American relationships as if they were old relationships that could just pick up where they left off. And though we may share in old memories and laugh at the same old jokes, the fact of the matter is that my American friends have changed, and so have I.

It's just been so difficult to see a familiar face, and feel like I have to start the relationship all over again.

Crazy weekend.

Many congrats to Phoebe on her baby shower. Nuts! She's having a kid. Definitely cool to see all the peoples out representing and showing their support. There is much love.

Congrats to Gordon as well... getting married. Unfortunately, due to some major stomach discomfort I wasn't able to celebrate in full force. Later that night, I just collapsed into bed... twice. The result? Two days of feeling nasty = 9lbs of weight loss. Atkins' got nothing on this baby.

Baseball.

Yesterday, courtesy of Jeff, I was able to go to the Giants game at SBC. The first thing I noticed when I saw the ticket was the section number... 208. I thought about it. 200s? Where are those? I've sat in the upper deck before... those were 300s. I've sat at field level... those were 100s. Where are 200 seats?

Kyle, Steve, and I walk into the stadium... buy food and start wandering, trying to figure out where our seats are. Kyle's the first to figure it out. I just follow him. We go up an escalator. Sure enough. 200s are club level seats. Just to clarify, Club Level seats are freakin' awesome. Amazing amazing. Nice view. No lines on concessions. Great service. I don't think I had to open a single door while I was there. They had ushers to open them for me especially when I had garlic fries in one hand, a bratwurst in another, and a Coke between my elbows.

As a side note, as of today, I'm borrowing the book Moneyball from Steve. I'm already 2/3 through it. I'm thoroughly enjoying the humor in it. For those who have read it, I'm kinda curious now as to how those draftees are turning out.

Today, I found a pair of old jeans.

I don't know where they came from. But I found them... today. So, I decided to wear them. I don't think I've worn em since high school. A few observations:

1. I've gotten bigger, most noticibly in the waist and leg areas.
2. I really was 130 lbs when I was a high school senior.
3. Old jeans have this grubby but soft feel that's kinda therapeutic... but not when they're huggin' on your skin.

My lack of posting.

Sorry, I haven't been posting. It isn't so much that I haven't had anything post worthy as it has been that I've been too tired at the end of the day to post stuff.

So, I return to Blogger, and I find the format all changed for the post-er... post-man... post-guy. The display looks all emaily. Strange. This will take a while.

The biggest thing since I posted last? Went to Virginia to see my friend Ben Tao graduate from law school at the College of William and Mary. I'll post pictures soon.

Highlights from the trip to Williamsburg?
-Congrats to Ben
-Southern cooking complete with gravy on everything. Honestly, I think I had a side dish that was gravy on gravy.
-Virginia Beach... the Atlantic isn't a hot tub, but it's plenty warmer than the Pacific, especially at Stinson.
-Seeing Ben give dancing lessons to practically everyone there. Never would've thought.

The speed of time.

Time seems to be moving real slow here in the States. Have I only been in America for 4 weeks? Seems like it's been way longer than that. This isn't to say it's been a drag.

It's been great spending most of my time hanging out with people I haven't seen in a while. Yesterday, I got to be in the presence of Christine and Jason... good times. I also got to rediscover used book stores yesterday. I forgot how much I love those places.

But yeah, I dunno. Time just seemed to slow down as soon as I touched down at LAX. In Japan, it was just that the pace of things in my world was just frantic. I was busy doing something almost all the time. I was always "on." Or at least it felt that way. True, I taught a lot of English classes during my time there, but that's not the whole picture. Even normal conversations with people in Japan required a heightened awareness. Just being forced to speak a foreign language, it takes a lot outta ya. Some mornings, if I knew that I had to go to city hall or the bank or something later that day, I'd study up on the vocabulary I'd have to use to accomplish my goals. Now, in the States, I just "wing" a lot of conversations. I'm not constantly thinking about how I want to say what I want or need to say.

What I mean to say is that my time to wind down in Japan rarely felt like I was winding down. Here, in America, if I want to wind down I'll watch TV with friends or family... or something of the sort. And time would just, for a moment slow down to a crawl. In Japan, I had no such luxury. I had time to watch TV... but it'd be Japanese TV. And watching Japanese TV, although entertaining at times (most of the crazy Japanese variety shows you see in the States were from the 80s... so they don't exist anymore), always seemed to morph into a Japanese language learning experience for me (I learned a lot of my conversational Japanese from playing with kids and watching TV).

Time may slow down if you're moving faster than the speed of light... but I've found that it may also slow down if you're watching Sportscenter... duh nah nah, duh nah nah.