Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Puzzle #2

Sherry noted how much Demoree and I enjoyed doing the puzzle we got from her parents at Christmas and decided to get me another puzzle for my birthday. Not only is it a puzzle but it is a Simpsons puzzle…bonus.

Poster of Puzzle #2
So Demoree and I got to work this past week on it. The first thing we did was setup our work area and began sorting the pieces.
Demoree at our “work” desk getting started on the puzzle.

We quickly realized that this wasn’t going to be an easy puzzle because there are large areas of basically the same color, really weird shaped pieces, and (most significantly) the entire picture is made of thousands of small pictures from the Simpsons.

Showing that the picture is made of thousands of small pictures.

To make things even worse they repeat the same picture quite frequently in a given area…ugh. However even with these challenges we are still making good progress and will eventually get it completed.

Current status of the puzzle.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Wings/Avs 2008 Playoffs

This past Saturday my parents, Demoree, and I got to go to Game 2 of the Western Conference Semi-Finals between the Red Wings and the Avalanche. This game lived up to everything you could expect watching the Wings against the Avs in the playoffs. Highlights included Frazen’s hat trick, McCarty's fight, nachos and beer, Avs pulling their goaltender half way thru the game (again), sitting amongst Wing’s family members, octopi throwing, Ozzie doing an awesome job in goal, and most importantly a Wings butt kicking of the Avs. (to check out more videos from the game click here).

Demoree, mom, and dad getting ready for an exciting game.




The Wings Octopus getting lifted to the rafters.

Ref taking one of many octopi off the ice before the game.

Wings congratulating Ozzie on his good goaltending after their 5-1 victory.

Sherry's Graduation

While Sherry actually graduated awhile ago, Friday she walked and got “hooded”. My camera failed to take any decent pictures in Hill Auditorium, but I was able to take a nice video of her getting hooded. Kind of made me look forward to when its my turn to do that.


Congrats Sherry!

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Wings/Avs Rivalry

Tonight the Red Wings and the Avalanche get to play some more playoff hockey against each other. I've been watching some clips of the rivalry and it is getting so excited, especially for game 2 when my parents, Demoree, and I get to go (I think...I never got final confirmation but I'm assuming right now). I just love this rivalry so much because they use to fight so hard to win (both sides) and unlike other top teams neither side wanted to avoid each other. As a Wings fan I always wanted to have to play the Avalanche even though they were so good because it wasn't enough to win the Cup we wanted to play right thru them. I know I already posted a video today but I've got to post this as well...it gives me chills and gets me very excited.

Interview with Tom Brady

My friend Sean last night told me about a 60 minutes interview with Tom Brady that he said should be shown in every church. I decided I had to see it so with a little searching around youtube I found it. Its included below but I'll give the synopsis for those that don't want to spend the three minutes watching it. Basically the interview was on January 9th, 2008, which was at the point where everyone thought Brady was on his way to the perfect season with the Patroits being the greatest team ever. The interview covers his three super bowl wins, his hall fame credentials while still in his prime, his "sex" appeal, his fame, his wealth, etc. Then at the end of the interview Brady says "Why do I have 3 super bowl rings and still think there's something else out there?" to which the interviewer asks "What's the answer?" and Brady says "I wish I knew." Anybody that's Christan and knows Brady should be sitting him down and having a talk. As for in the church what a better example to show then this young guy that basically has all the world can offer and realizes that it can't be all that life is about.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Another Year In

Yesterday was my birthday and I would have to say that this year was a pretty enjoyable birthday. Thanks to everyone that made it a great birthday with an awesome Tigers game (TC & Chad and Rey & Tom), putt putt & ice cream, fajitas, gifts (Simpson puzzle, plenty of clothes that I need, Juno, mini-bball hoop), calls from friends and family, Red Wings making it to round 2, cherry cheese cake, fudge, time with my parents, hanging out with friends and seeing an old friend, playing games (trivial pursuit: 90's version, darts, cloud 9), a very nice blog from a friend, and plenty of time with Demoree. So all and all it was a very nice week and Brian's happy.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

2 Years and Counting

Besides today being tax day this is also the 2 year anniversary of my blog. I originally planned on writing something up that would be funny about the weird searches that people have made that led them to my blog such as "comparing bcs teams to candy bars". However a couple of other cool things happened that I wanted to write about.

1) Tornado (almost)
The other day Demoree and I were driving over to my apartment after getting a couple movies (Dan in Real Life = good & The Kingdom = bad). At the time we were under a tornado watch and there were some pretty nasty looking clouds.

Nasty looking clouds in the sky

The clouds were looking pretty wicked when the clouds started to turn. No funnel ever formed but as you can see in the picture below the clouds were rotating and had some vorticity.

Nasty looking rotating clouds in the sky.

2) Tigers Game (second of the year)
For my upcoming birthday Teresa & Chad and Renee & Tom got me two tickets to the Tigers game last night. I took Demoree to the game and our only concern was that it was going to be pretty cold out (fortunately it didn’t drop much below 45 degrees after the sun went down).

Demoree and I in our winter apparel for the Tigers game.

We sat down in our seats and as it turns out they got us awesome tickets…row 3!!! We were right along the right field foul line with an awesome view of the field…it felt like we were actually on the field.

The view from our seats…sweet tickets (thanks siblings).

The bummer thing was that starting in the second inning the Tigers looked horrible. Like they were having unforced errors and giving up runs semi-frequently. Things were looking really bad when the Twins scored 3 runs in the 6th to give them a 5-0 lead. However the Tigers came back that inning with 4 runs to make it 5-4, but the start of the next inning they gave up another 4 runs…opps. At this point it was 9-4 and the crowd started heading towards the door (the thought crossed my mind since the feeling in my toes was starting to go away). Then it came to the bottom of the 8th inning and the Tigers finally looked like the great team they are suppose to be. In that inning they batted all the way thru their order and scored 6 runs giving them an 11-9 lead!!! In the ninth inning the Tigers got 1-2-single-walk-3 outs, which gave them the win.

Scoreboard! Scoreboard! (in the typical high school game chant voice)

Since the Tigers have really been struggling at the start of the season it was pretty obvious that this come back from 5 runs down really was encouraging for them. It was clear that they celebrated this win a little more than the typical April victory.

The Tigers celebrating after their sweet come back

Friday, April 11, 2008

American Idol - Take 2

For those that thought American Idol should be condemned for removing the name Jesus from "Shout to the Lord" need to do some forgiving today. As Tommie mentioned in the comments of the last post, the next night American Idol started the show by redoing that song with the original words. In my opinion (where my opinion is being stole from Bob Dutko) American Idol realizes that Christian groups are supporting it because its family friendly programming and they want to keep Christians happy. Even if that is the case I think all those that have been ready to protest American Idol better be apologizing to them because they have gone out of their way to keep you happy.


Thursday, April 10, 2008

American Idol Gives Back

So last night I watched American Idol Gives Back. It was alright and its good that they are raising money for a bunch of good causes, but what really impressed me was at the end of the show. At the close of the show they announce that they'll close out the show with the final 8 contestants singing "Shout to the Lord." I was like "they can't really be playing a Christian worship song on national television, but sure enough they did. However there is a "but", they had to edit the song by removing Jesus' name. The start of the song is suppose to be "My Jesus, My Saviour", but they sang "My Shepherd, My Savior." I have mixed feelings about this because on the one hand I'm really glad they played it (I would rather have an edited version played than no version), but I'm also really frustrated that you can't say Jesus on national television. Though I guess Jesus did say in Matthew 10:35 that he came to divide and apparently only Jesus' name is offensive to people today. Basically after some thought I've decided I'm glad it was played because for Christians there is no mistaking that as a Christian worship song and for non-Christians if they liked it they might go and get the original version.


Monday, April 07, 2008

Tal Wilkenfeld

So a couple weeks ago I finally used my gift card to Best Buy that my parents got me for Christmas. With it I purchased season 1 of 30 Rock and Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival 2007 (I love them both). Now the one thing that peaked my curiosity was that when Jeff Beck played he had this very young looking girl play with him on bass. She was really freaking good and it made me think it must be Jeff Beck's daughter because how else could someone so young get such an opportunity even is she is amazing (which she is). Demoree and I then did some investigating since we both were wondering and it turns out it isn't Jeff Beck's daughter but Tal Wilkenfeld. She's a high school drop out from Australia who just happens to be one of the top 50 Fusion bass players in the world at the age of 21 (I was actually thinking she was between 13 and 16 years old. Check her out for yourself below.

Jeff Beck with Tal Wilkenfeld at Crossroads 2007 Live

Friday, April 04, 2008

Abortion

Whenever the debate about abortion is brought up the two sides that form are the “pro-life” and the “pro-choice” camps. Well I will start off by making it clear that I am part of the “pro-life” camp and obviously my arguments and thoughts are biased towards them. However I think we need to stop arguing about two separate topics and ask a really fundamental question first: Is a baby a living human being before it breathes its first breath of air?

First to those that say it is not a living human being prior to birth, I challenge you to justify the charge of man slaughter to a guy that beats up a pregnant woman resulting in the loss of her baby. If it wasn’t a life then how did they slaughter a living human being? If your views are to be logically consistent that man should only be charged with beating up the woman because there was no life taken…I won’t be surprised if we will have a trial like this in the near future. However, while I disagree with those in this camp I would at least concede that they are logically consistent (if it isn’t a life in their mind then abortion would be an option…however as a Christian I of course am told that we are alive in the mothers womb plus since really argues against this stance – we definitely know the difference between an alive baby in the womb and a dead baby in the womb).

Now to those that acknowledge that the baby is a living human being prior to birth, I struggle to see how anyone can be in agreement on this fact and still support abortion. These people are saying that taking innocent life is alright because babies are the only people that actually have never broken the law. I would like to think that with so much information at our disposal we would actually start learning from the mistakes of our past. You may ask what I mean by this…well America in the past took a life and considered it someone else’s property and thought they had the right to do with it as they pleased. Last time I checked that decision has had severe ramifications for this nation that we still haven’t fully recovered from.

Now whenever you debate someone about abortion it is only a matter of time before they will ask “what about the woman that is pregnant because of rape or incest?” Ok I agree they are in a really horrible situation and I feel sorry for them, but there are several problems with this (assuming we are still talking with someone that believes the baby is a living human being)…
1) If that is the only justifiable reason in their mind for abortion then why don’t they push to only allow abortions when a crime has been committed and reported. I know that many women don’t want to report it and it would be even more horrible for them to have to make it public, but if they want to punish someone with death then shouldn’t their at least be a crime.
2) Secondly, if we aren’t willing to sentence the rapist to death for the crime why should it be alright to sentence the innocent baby to death?
3) As of 2000 abortions of babies from rape and incest accounted for 1% of all abortions…I’m willing to concede this point right now if we can stop 99% of abortions (though I would still like to save that last 1%).

The question is then asked “if I’m not going to allow an abortion what am I going to do for this poor woman?” That is a totally fair question…well I believe the Christian church needs to continue to step up and build more Pregnancy Centers to help these mothers. As a Christian I believe that as the need for these would increase with the decrease in abortions the body of Christ would respond in force. I hope and pray that I’m correct on this matter.

The final issue that I want to address is with the presidential election, I just have to point out that the split is very extreme this year. McCain is against abortion completely (perfect rating from National Pro-Life and 0 rating from NARAL) and Clinton and Obama are completely for it (0 rating from National Pro-Life and perfect from NARAL). Frankly when I read what Clinton and Obama support I am appalled. They both obviously support Roe V Wade, but they also support partial-birth abortions and requiring Federal tax dollars spent for abortions. Then on top of that they oppose the Parental Involvement Law, which only requires a single parent to be informed by the abortionist if performing an abortion on an out of state minor. Then the ultimate kicker is that they both co-sponsored a bill in 2005 to research human cloning with the requirement that they “prohibit any survival”. McCain then has opposite views on all these issues. This isn’t meant to be a vote Republican tirade (I have my own concerns about McCain), but it is suppose to be a challenge to those that care about life and think it’s alright to support Clinton and Obama.