More Abby videos. Probably boring for most of you but whatever.

Obviously, I'm completely biased, but I honestly feel like pictures don't do justice to how good she actually looks. I see her, then I take a pic from the same angle, then look at the picture, and she looks cuter in real life. But anyway, some pics:

What kills me so far is when she cries. It just destroys me. The worst part is, her chin quivers when she cries, it's just devastating. So naturally, I took a video. If you watch this and your heart isn't broken, you have no soul. She isn't pretty when she cries but dang, breaks my heart.

There are two times in my life when I really struggled with doubting not just the goodness of God, but the very existence of God, at least as far as the evangelical conception of Him is concerned.

The first time was in high school. Precipitated by, of all things, my (liberal) Catholic high school religious studies classes. Their approach to studying Scripture was unlike anything I had previously encountered. I had, for a long time, studied the Bible in Sunday school and whatever. But I realized that the evangelical approach, while intensive, in some sense only scratched the surface, at least in my experience. There are some unsaid assumptions, for example that Moses wrote the Pentateuch and that everything is consistent.

I'm by no means saying these assumptions are wrong. I was just surprised in my classes to find that there was a rich academic world that did question these assumptions. We learned about what the original Hebrew looks like, and why that leads certain scholars to postulate different authors and editors of the Pentateuch. And the translation we used emphasized these differences in a way my NIV never did, like calling Gen 1 and 2 the first and second (separate) accounts of creation, making the part of the story of Joseph where he is sold into slavery completely irreconcilable as a single account, stuff like that.

And that shattered my intellectual world. Made the Old Testament seem a lot more human and messy than I had thought. And it was a slippery slope in my mind. Once I was introduced to the idea that there was a pervasive human element in the formation of the Scriptures, it made me wonder how much more of it was purely human.

Through good counsel and the grace of God, I eventually got over these issues but to this day I'm bitter that these ideas were introduced to me by theologically liberal school teachers rather than evangelical church teachers. The evangelical church does its members no favors in sheltering them from this kind of stuff. They need to know the ideas that are out there and be shepherded through them. I dunno, my opinion.

My second time was during junior year of high school. If my previous doubt was intellectual, this one was emotional, spurred by personal stuff happening in my life at the time. It's weird, because maybe a month before this stuff happened, I distinctly remember praying a prayer of thanks to God that I'd finally reached a point in my life where my faith was unshakeable. It's a very clear memory.

I had always thought that the response of Job's wife to his afflictions was really odd, when she told him to curse God and die. That made no sense to me. Given the choice between believing in a God that could rescue him and not, wouldn't you choose the former? Is there anything at all attractive about the latter? Yet I found myself, in the midst of personal issues that, to be honest, are kind of embarrassing to talk about since they pale in comparison to the stuff other people have had to face, struggling with doubting God. It was just easier emotionally to reconcile the idea of there being no God at all than there being a supposedly good God who allowed random pain to occur to loved ones. Why love at all if God will just bring pain to them, and to me, through my relationship with them?

Again, by nothing other than the grace of God, I worked through this also. They say that struggle makes you stronger, and at least in these two cases, I think it was true for me. I came away from the first with a greater intellectual support for my faith in Scripture. And I came away from the second with a stronger understanding that everything, even faith, is from grace. I'm completely aware of my weakness as far as faith is concerned. But I fall on grace, and nothing's stronger than grace.

I have no idea why I'm writing this. Oh yeah. I'm reading through John and was thinking about 6:25 - "Jesus answered, 'The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.'" A really interesting verse. And my prayer in regards to stuff like this is always, Lord, help me believe. I need your grace to even believe.

Anyway, even though this entry is way too long already, and despite the fact that my own wife's eyes glaze over whenver I do this, I'll leave with another song whose lyrics I love. This is pretty much my spiritual walk. I am weak - his grace is strong.

Shifting Sand

Caedmon's Call

Sometimes I believe all the lies
So I can do the things I should despise
And every day I am swayed
By whatever is on my mind

I hear it all depends on my faith
So I'm feeling precarious
The only problem I have with these mysteries
Is they're so mysterious

And like a consumer I've been thinking
If I could just get a bit more
More than my 15 minutes of faith,
Then I'd be secure

(Chorus)
My faith is like shifting sand
Changed by every wave
My faith is like shifting sand
So I stand on grace

I've begged you for some proof
For my Thomas eyes to see
A slithering staff, a leperous hand
And lions resting lazily

A glimpse of your back-side glory
And this soaked altar going ablaze
But you know I've seen so much
I explained it away

Chorus

Waters rose as my doubts reigned
My sand-castle faith, it slipped away
Found myself standing on your grace
It'd been there all the time

(Chorus repeated)
Stand on grace

I don't get the whole rooting against the U.S. in the World Baseball Classic thing. SN. Someone define for me the word "classic". I thought it connotes, among other things, longevity. Can you deem something a classic in its very first year? Should you like hold a World Baseball Tournament for like 40 years, then change the name to World Baseball Classic? Am I the only one that thinks about stuff like this?

Anyway yeah, I don't get it. I can understand rooting for Korea, it's just, when go against the U.S., how can you root against your own country? I think I'm heavily influenced by my dad in this. We actually had talks about this growing up. But yeah, he would say to me that if Korea and the U.S. went to war, you have to fight for the U.S. You are a citizen of the U.S., he would tell me, and that involves certain responsibilities and loyalties. This is all pretty much in line with his character - he takes commitments seriously. When he committed to Christ, he radically reoriented his life. I'm assuming that when he became a U.S. citizen, he made that commitment fully as well.

So yeah, I dunno, I'm mildly against the attitude that we'll take all the good we can get from this country, but when push comes to shove, we're against it, go Korea. Or maybe it's just because I'm so non-Korean. I mean, Korea has really given me nothing except grief at my pitiful language skills. Why should I root for them?

The other thing that annoys me is that Korean athletes seem increasingly whiny about things. Like the World Cup guy referencing the short track speed skater. You're still holding on to that? Grow the heck up.

So yeah, no one cares, but I was rooting for Team U.S.A. over Korea today. And I'm still maybe the last Junior Griffey fan in the world, but I still love him. And he's having a great "Classic".

I know it's been out forever, but You're Beautiful by James Blunt just really gets to me. I feel like crying every time I hear it. The thing is, I had never heard it on the radio until yesterday. I was actually really intrigued about how they were going to treat the "f-ing high" line - they went with "flying high". I guess that works.

This guy is my hero. There's just no other way to put it. He has as much loser interest as me in video game theme songs but also has good technique and training, something I don't have. A perfect storm of sorts. It's slightly sloppy in places but pretty amazing.

Stolen from Clara and Becky, neither of whom read this page.

Two Names You Go By

1. Danny

2. Dani3l. Professionally. Everyone at work calls me Dani3l. Jieun finds that really weird, but yeah.

Two Parts of Your Heritage

1. Christian. I like to think that this is my heritage greater than anything ethnic or cultural.

2. Bay Arean. I actually have more Bay Area pride than I care to admit sometimes, but yeah, it's a critical part of who I am, and I find myself bristling sometimes when I hear people complaining about it. The problem is, there are at least two Bay Areas. One is full of diversity and variety. The other is the professional Bay Area full of transplants who came here and interact with other professionals, largely other transplants. They're both the real Bay Area. But the sphere me and my friends occupy now isn't the complete picture, I don't think.

Two things that scare you

1. Insects. I'm getting better at killing stuff now, but yeah, at times in the past I've made Jieun do it. I also used to try to wash down insects in the sink/tub rather than touch and kill them. I'm a wuss.

2. Shane from Survivor. I know no one watches this show anymore but me, but whatever. The man is completely psychotic. Completely frightening. And highly entertaining.

Two Of Your Everyday Essentials

1. jack.html. Pretty sad, but true. Every day.

2. A morning dump. Preferably with the sports section. But yeah, when I don't get my morning dump I feel unsettled.

Two Things You Are Wearing Right Now

1. Fleece jacket. I probably need to wash it. I tend to not wash fleece as often because washing it makes it less soft and fuzzy. I remember once I hugged Dave with my old fleece on and he immediately asked me when was the last time I washed my fleece. Whoops.

2. Arizona brand jeans. I got these a few years ago on sale when JC Penney was closing in the Sunnyvale Town Center. I'm still pleased with the deal, but the truth is, you get what you pay for. Fades and tears way faster than, for example, my Gap jeans. But yeah, great deal.

Two of Your Favorite Bands or Musical Artists

1. Out Of The Grey

2. Sting

Two Things You Want in a Relationship

1. Comfort. I'm actually gonna talk about relationships in general, not you know, romantic ones, just because it's more interesting. But yeah, I think on some level, people want relationships where they can just be themselves, whatever that means. I'm gonna say that's the number one goal for people with relationships - it's a primal one for me. But here's the weird thing. I'm a different person with different people, but all my interactions are still truly me. Different facets, and I can't really say one is more or less who I really am. Am I the only one like this? So like, Dave came skiing with us and some church friends, and it was kind of weird for me, because I interact with him in ways I don't interact with others, and I found the others kind of not understanding our humor. But that's my humor. So am I not the real me with them? Which is the real me? I don't know the answer. So what I want in a relationship is to be myself, but I'm not totally sure there is a singular "myself". So I guess what I really want is just to feel comfortable.

2. Comfort. OK, so this is a different aspect of it, but with all my closest friends, I feel like when we get together, we can just pick up where we left off last, no matter how long it's been. It's a good feeling, kind of involves some level of trust, that we're still friends no matter the time or distance. It kind of lends itself to being lazy about keeping in touch, which is probably bad, but it is something that I find pretty much in every one of my close friends.

Two Physical Things that Appeal to You

1. Sparse cleanliness. I'm gonna go with general physical aesthetics rather than human beauty because, again, I personally think that's more interesting, maybe that's just me. But yeah, in terms of aesthetics, I'm of the less is more camp. Not too much clutter, everything in its own place. Not that I'm able to reflect this myself in my own living, but I do appreciate it.

2. Water. I love going the beach, lakes, whatever. I can stare at water for hours. I really have no idea why. But something about it is really peaceful to me. Something primal maybe that plugs me in to being a part of something much bigger than myself.

Two of Your Favorite Hobbies

1. Music. I have no idea why I don't listen to / play more music, because every time I do, I feel pure joy. But I just don't. I'm too lazy to have passion maybe. It's sad.

2. Searching for deals. I actually consider this a hobby in and of itself. I browse deal sites daily and rarely actually pull the trigger in buying something. I just like to keep abreast of what the latest deals are. I'm a loser.

Two Things You Want Really Badly

1. Flatscreen TV. I've decided not to get one for a while, but I still want one.

2. Mac. Mostly for the software, especially GarageBand. I'll probably pull the trigger on this one at some point.

Two Places You Want to go on Vacation

1. Argentina. No clue why, but I've been wanting to go here forever. I actually get email updates about plane ticket prices from the Bay Area to Buenos Aires even though I likely won't be going here for a long, long time. But someday.

2. Hawaii. Just because I've never been, if you can believe it. I'd kind of like to go with some other families when Abby is old enough.

Two Things You Want to Do Before You Die

1. See someone I bring to Christ bring another person to Christ.

2. Release a CD. It will probably be garbage, mixed via GarageBand. But at some point, I just need to get that out there.

Two Things You Are Thinking About Now

1. The bass line to foreverandeveretc by David Crowder Band.

2. Which Brown Cow yogurt to eat tomorrow morning. It was on sale a few weeks ago at Whole Foods for the ridiculous price of $0.50 each. For the best tasting yogurt in the world! I bought 14, and I'm down to my last 2.

Two Stores You Shop At

1. Borders. I probably buy the most stuff here, and I only go about once a month, to get the latest Rurouni Kenshin translated manga. In other words, I don't shop much.

2. Fry's. One of my favorite places in the world.

Two people You Haven't Talked To In A While

1. Uh, I'm bad at keeping in touch, as everyone knows, so this is everyone.

Two favorite web sites

Jack In The Box's Ultimate Cheeseburger: Overrated.

Carl's Jr's Jalapeno Six-Dollar-Burger: Delicious.

Henry wrote how he can do a "normal" person's day of work in an hour. He actually said the same thing to me about me, in the past, in passing. Something like, "you know, how we [dunno who "we" encompasses, but in context, he meant at least me and him] can do a 'normal' person's day's worth of work in an hour."

That comment pretty much poisoned me for years and I'm just now getting out of it. The problem was, it was roughly true at my old company. I could get by doing little. The problem is, it's completely untrue at my current company. Here, everyone on my team is bright, in fact, all brighter than me. So doing a day's worth of worth takes, well, a day. When I first came here I was still poisoned by my entrenched terrible habits, so I was trying to get by on minimal work. Didn't fly. So yeah, realized a little late that to succeed I need to sustain effort throughout the day. Freaking Henry ruining me again.

Hmm. I actually haven't even thought about what I would do if my children weren't musically inclined, whether I'd force them to persist in music. Hadn't even occurred to me. Oh well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I do kind of believe though that everyone has the capacity for music. Is that bold? Like, I see videos of places like in Africa where literally everyone is hand-drumming these incredible beats. Their collective sense of rhythm is just amazing. You could argue it's genetic. But I think it's cultural. When you're steeped in rhythm from the very beginning, you can't help but have rhythm. Obviously there are differing levels of skill, but I think everyone has a basic capacity for music.

Anyway, I'm thinking more about cases like, well, my sister, where there is talent, but they give up. It's entirely possible that my sister is more naturally talented at music than me. Our piano teacher used to hint at this. Like, she always did better at ear training, so much so that our teacher thought she had perfect pitch. But she didn't practice much and quit too soon. And that's what I don't want to see happen, I guess. Potential unfulfilled.

I'm sick. It's gotten worse over the past three days. I just want the Lord to take me now.

So these are pictures of me playing our new Yamaha YDP-113. I decided against buying a Plasma TV for a bunch of reasons. One, they're still mondo expensive, and with Jieun downshifting work wise and new baby expenses coming up, it didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. In light of that, feels weird to spend money to facilitate wasting time. I actually want to watch less TV, not more.

But yeah, the primary thing is, I want to prioritize our spending on things that could bless others, and I think developing more musically could be a blessing. Not that a HDTV can't also, e.g. Dong's Super Bowl party. But yeah, that's just my thinking.

At least that's what I say, but who knows if it's really true. Maybe it's just for me. Because dang, playing it last night made me feel incredibly alive. In the pics I'm trying to sightread Claire de Lune, which, strangely, I never played before. (SN. For that reason, I never realized the song was written in 9/8. I just thought it was a lot of rubato. It's actually always been a dream of mine to write a song in 9/8.) And yeah, it felt really good, although I'm totally rusty. In particular, my pinkies have been tragically underused for the past 10 years, so they're not as dexterous as they should be.

Anyway, yeah, I said it was for other people but maybe it's just for me. Oh well. Come over in a few weeks and I'll have a recital, after I work out the cobwebs. Then I can say it was for other people.

Actually, the primary reason I wanted to get it now was, I dunno, I want the house our children grow up in to be bathed in music. Not just music we listen to, but music we play. Not sure why that's so important to me, but it is. So yeah, it was really important to me that we get a keyboard before she's born. Bathed in music - that's my dream.

Yet another song I really like, and I know it's boring but sucks for you. Again, no mp3, just because I can't find the CD. Which is really sad, because it's one of those few songs from that era that sound too interesting to be "Christian" music.

The Lust, The Flesh, The Eyes & The Pride Of Life

Mike Roe

Well, I feel
Like I have to feel
Something good all of the time
With most of life I cannot deal
But a good feeling I can feel
Even though it may not be real
And if a person, place or thing can deliver
I will quiver with delight
But will it last me for all my life
Or just one more lonely night

The lust, the flesh
The eyes
And the pride of life
Drain the life
Right out of me

Well, I see something and I want it
Bam! Right now!
No questions asked
Don't worry how much it costs me now or later
I want it and I want it fast
I'll go to any length
Sacrifice all that I already have
And all that I might get
Just to get
Something more that I don't need
And Lord, please don't ask me what for

The lust, the flesh
The eyes
And the pride of life
Drain the life
Right out of me

And I love when folks
Look right at me
And what I'm doing
Or have done
And lay it on about
How groovy I am
And that I'm looking grand
And every single word
Makes me think I'll live forever
Never knowing that they probably
Won't remember what they said tomorrow
Tomorrow I could be dead

The lust, the flesh
The eyes
And the pride of life
Drain the life
Right out of me

For a while in high school and college I was really into alternative Christian music. I listened to almost everything out there and I think I'm qualified to say that with very few exceptions, "alternative Christian" is a synonym for "bad". I mean, some truly horrific music produced in those days, a lot of it just noise with barely perceptible elements of rhythm and melody. The Prayer Chain (one of the supposed "best" bands from that era) had a song that was typical of the time, Dig Dug, that consisted in large part of weirdo chanting and a chorus of "dig in deep". I actually own this album, in addition to a bunch of other alternative Christian albums I hate by DigHayZoose, Lifesavers, and others.

So yeah, I think I'm qualified enough to say that the complete list of good alternative Christian artists up to the mid 90s is The 77s, Sixpence None The Richer (they were alternative at one time), Steve Taylor, The Choir, and some of Poor Old Lu (2 band names inspired by C.S. Lewis. Interesting). That's the complete list, excepting the Lost Dogs, who were made up of the frontmen of several alternative bands but didn't produce alternative music.

OK, I've lost everyone but I don't care. Anyway, yeah, the 77s are the best of them, and they were actually signed with Island at one point but got lost in the shuffle. And this is one of my favorite songs by them.

Dave has written before how a fear of his is of being found out that he doesn't know anything. I've never had that fear, but I've had something similar, more spiritually related: my fear is that someday everyone will come to believe I'm a spiritual fraud, that they'll realize how truly evil and sinful I am. And I am truly evil. People would be shocked if they really knew. It's not that I'm intentionally hypocritical. It's just that dealing with the sin in my heart is a constant, exhausting struggle. My sin is always before me.

What I love about this song is that it perfectly captures the weariness I feel in fighting (and frequently failing) against my sin. If you're not familiar, the song is a riff on 1 John 2:15-17, which reads: "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world - the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does - comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever."

Each verse is a riff on themes in the passage, the first on The Lust and The Flesh, the second on The Eyes, and the third on The Pride of life. I just resonate with that a lot. In general, I resonate with the passages about weakness in Scripture. Like the guy who can only pray, "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner." That's me. Or when they say "Lord we believe... help our unbelief!" That's exactly how I feel. I've been reading through Genesis and just got through the story of Joseph, and while I aspire to that, I just can't relate to that. My walk is not about inner strength but about struggling with who I am and the grace and mercy of God.

And it's tiring, being sinful. It really is. I love how he sings the line, "drains the life right out of me". The whole song, there's such weariness in his voice, and it just perfectly captures the feeling of fighting against sin. Anyway, it's a feeling I resonate with a lot. A sinner in need of grace. And that's why I love the song. There just aren't many songs like that out there.

Another song I love. Sorry, don't have an mp3 for it, but no one listens to the ones I post anyway so who cares.

A Season In Your Path

Wayne Watson

Was kindness too neglected on my list of deep regret in spite of distance unexpected, can we forgive but not forget?

Sometimes I think about you, some old memories make me cry...
remembering the good times make me laugh, yeah, yeah...
but all in all I'm richer for the happy and the sad,
and thankful for a season in your path...

I guess God alone deciphers when people need each other most
who will be the blessed receiver and who will be the gracious host
and all the servant here can do is unto the Lord avail
content at times to be the wind and at times to be the sail

If another winter settles on your shoulder down the road,
without a thought of what's behind us, let me help you pull your load...

Sometimes I think about you, some old memories make me cry...
but remembering the good times make me laugh, yeah, yeah...
oh but all in all I'm richer for the happy and the sad,
and thankful for a season in your path...

Oh yeah, thankful for a season in your path...

First of, let me say that I still like old school CCM a lot. Some people talk about how they listen to old CCM and can't believe how cheesy it is, but I dunno, I still like it. I was listening to Amy Grant's Greatest Hits album (SN - I found out recently that Aaron Carter has 2 different greatest hits albums. That's just absurd) recently and it brought back a lot of good memories. And yeah, I like some of Wayne Watson's old stuff also.

This song is particular is one I really like. Musically, it's just whatever but the lyric sticks with me a lot. I think the single greatest lesson I've learned at my current church is the concept of seasons, pretty sure I've written about it before. But yeah, before, I would always think, I personally and my church in general needs to do everything well all the time, which inevitably leads to doing nothing well. I've come to be a big believer in the concept of seasons; not necessarily neglecting things, but putting different emphases on different things at different times.

Anyway, I think the same applies to friendships. It's somewhat sad that friendships ebb and flow. But I like what the song says, that even though that happens, there's still worth and value in that season of friendship; it wasn't a waste. I dig that a lot and find myself thinking about it quite frequently.

I also kinda like the first line. I dunno if that's a slam on the Michael W. Smith song but it amuses me.

I hate going out to eat on Valentine's Day. Every restaurant jacks up their prices with special Valentine's Day menus. The food and service is poor because it's so crowded that day. So you end up spending more for less. That just really bothers me. My thing is, let's celebrate Valentine's, let's go out to dinner, just not on the day itself. Let's do it the day before or after. Same (or more) enjoyment. Less money.

I explained my reasoning to Jieun and she thought it was lame. That's like celebrating Christmas on December 26th she said.

She meant that to discourage me but it had the opposite effect. Celebrate Christmas on December 26th... that's not a bad idea! Well, not on the 26th, maybe more like the 29th. But then you can get all these great post Christmas deals while everyone else is returning stuff. You'll get more for the same amount of money. Or you could get the same amount of stuff that you would have and give the excess money to the poor. What better way to celebrate Christ-mas? And it's not like the 25th is his real birthday, it's almost arbitrary. December 29th. My new Christmas.

Unfortunately, that's not gonna fly. But the Valentine's thing, I managed to convince Jieun, and not the way you might think. We decided to babysit for another couple that day, so they can go out for Valentine's. We'll do our thing some other night. So I convinced Jieun with an opportunity to serve. Service is like a key small group thing for this year. Anyway.

As I grow older and get closer parenting myself, I find myself appreciating my parents more. What I think I appreciate most was how hard they tried with everything. It must have been bewildering for them to come here and do their best to support their kids in customs that are completely foreign to them. And they did a good job, although sometimes they would just be a tiny bit off.

Two examples of this burn in my memory. Oddly, they both involve Halloween. SN. For me at least, Halloween and Valentine's were the two most terrifying "holidays", both for peer pressure reasons. It's fairly obvious why I was scared of Valentine's. Or maybe it's just an unpopular kid thing. But yeah, in elementary school, girls are still gross to some extent, or at least bewildering (SSN. They're still bewildering. Just less gross). So you don't want attention from them. But then, if you don't get any Valentine's that's even worse, it just emphasizes how unpopular you (that is, I) are. Even worse is to get Valentine's from only guys. I mean, that's just weird, even in elementary school. So yeah, you want some attention, but not too much attention; either way it's potentially embarrassing, and overall it's just a really confusing, strange time. I personally think Valentine's should not be celebrated until voting age.

Halloween was scary for me for other peer pressure reasons, the whole costume thing. You can't not dress up or you'll stick out. And you have to have the right costume or, again, you'll stick out. Pretty much the main goal of my childhood was to not stick out in a bad way. As Homer Simpson says, I wasn't popular enough to be different.

Anyway, my first Halloween ever, in first grade, I wanted to be Superman. So my mom obliges. But not with those cheapo costumes you get from Toys R Us with the scary plastic mask and suit. No, she got me blue tights and red underwear. The whole bit. Anyway, the look might work for Christopher Reeve, but it definitely did not for me, egad. I still remember the humiliation because some teacher gave nominations for best costume for each class, and for my class, he nominated me with a laugh because, I mean, I looked absurd. On the other hand, it was undeniably a more authentic costume than what other people had. So yeah, he was forced to draw attention to me, but laughed at me while doing it - my nightmare scenario. Burns in my memory. My mom had the right idea, but was just a tad off, with horrific results for me.

Another year, I wanted to be an Ewok. I have absolutely zero idea why; it's impossible to understand the mind of me as a child. So my poor mom, she went to some fabric store and got this woolly Ewok-like fabric and did her best to make me an Ewok suit. I barely remember it, but I do remember that she stayed up all night making it. My poor mom. Sadly, in the end it didn't that great. I mean, you try making something like that and tell me how it turns out.

But the part that burns in my memory is, so you know, imagine making something out of a rug. The underside of the rug is really rough, right? It has the potential to chafe certain critical body parts. So to deal with that, my mom cut out a swath from the crotch area and replaced it with a smooth fabric. That way I wouldn't rub my privates raw.

The problem with that is, now you have a suit where everything looks the same except for this small patch of fabric on the crotch. And I dunno, drawing attention to your privates is cool for orangutans, but not for elementary school kids. Deeply, deeply traumatizing.

I remember those incidents as being two hugely humiliating events in my life, and I think I was a little bitter at my mom for it. But thinking about it now, I'm ashamed of that. It's just amazing to me how hard she tried. She did the best she could in a culture she didn't fully understand. And she always tried, with everything. And for that, I'm eternally grateful. I just hope I can give my children a fraction of the effort of love my parents gave to me.

I totally agree about the chronic pain being a mind thing a lot of the time. My heartburn is way more manageable. You know what the turnaround was? What made me better? Nothing. I just got tired of watching everything I eat and sleeping weirdly and taking 2 prilosecs a day. I just said screw it, I'll do what I want. And it got better. I don't get it.

Have I mentioned I love the new David Crowder album? Love? SN. Somewhere down the line, people switched from calling them "albums" to "CDs". But in this new iTunes world, are we gonna switch back to album again? Or something else? Anyway.

But yeah, love the album, pretty much been listening to it nonstop, almost to the detriment of my health and work, i.e. I stay up late listening to it and can't concentrate during the day. So yeah, maybe need a break. But it's a phenomenal work, I still get excited over every song. I can't believe it came from Dave Crowder. Stunning.

Anyway, Ted was talking about how it's a wall of sound type sound, and how he likes that. I'm of two minds about that. I like the wall of sound thing sometimes. But most of the time, I think I'm more about musical space. I'm fascinated by how just a few instruments can still sound full by properly partitioning the musical space. I'm reading Sting's autobiography and he says much the same thing, that playing in a trio forces you to learn how to partitionl and fill space. The temptation is always to fill all the space with more instrumentation, but a lot of times, less is more.

So I love studying small bands like the Police and U2, especially live. Both manage to sound really full live, even though they're just drums, bass, and guitar. (Although U2 does use some DAT live.) Figuring out how they do that is a study in technique, dynamics, and mixing, seeing how they play with the infinite grades between full on and nothing. Like Pride (live) is a fascinating study, because it feels really full for the whole song. But again, just three instruments.

So I find musical space a little more interesting than the wall of sound approach, just because the wall of sound varies dynamics more just by adding and subtracting instruments, whereas I like examining individual dynamics more. Also I hate what Phil Specter (I think he invented the term wall of sound) did to Long and Winding Road.

Boring.

A response to Henry and Dave's latest posts.

I think the issue is not when people can't distinguish Asians, it's when they fail to even realize that there are differences at all. So like people using "Chinese" as a catch all for all Asians, that's what's bothersome, I think. Just like, while we don't know the difference between a Salvadoreno and a Mexican, we know that they are different, and would use Latino or Hispanic, whichever is in vogue now, as the group label. (SN. One of my favorite lines in Clueless is when Cher says she doesn't speak Mexican.)

But yeah, I don't care if they can't distinguish Asians. Maybe just because I'm used to it. Growing up, the elementary kids would always ask if I was Chinese. I'd say no. Then they ask if I'm Japanese. I'd say no. Then invariably, they'd say, "Then what are you?" But at least they knew there was a difference.

Re: Dave's entry, I completely, 100% agree. I meant to talk about this in my grand thesis about there being no free will and its implications, but yeah, never got to it. The great oxymoron of our legal age is that when something goes wrong, we want to blame someone else and sue them, but at the same time, we believe that we're entitled to all the best. In short, we're not responsible for any of the bad that happens (it's someone else's fault), but we do deserve all the best. I've never quite understood that.

I understand the first part, it not being our fault. Modern science lends itself to that the more we understand causality. Addictions, aggressive behaviors, whatever, we can all trace to causes outside ourselves. So I understand that mentality.

What I don't get is the second, why everyone thinks we're entitled to the best. I kind of have a weird theory about it, that part of it is we're so far removed from agriculture. We have no idea how food comes to us, it just sort of magically appears. But when I read Scripture and its examples and parables of farmers and whatever, it's clear that it's more uncertain than that. You can plant, but you never know for sure what might happen, it's not a sure thing that there will be a good harvest. So I think they were more in tune with the fundamental uncertainty of life. Whereas we just see our sustenance magically appear for us, so we come to feel that we're entitled to all things just being there in our lives.

I dunno, not something I've thought about in detail, but yeah, just a theory.

David Crowder Band's latest album, "A Collision" is the best Christian album ever produced. The first truly great Christian album ever. Is that bold? That's my claim. I'm as shocked as anyone, because until now, I've pretty much hated anything I've heard from him. But yeah, greatest Christian album ever.

There are tons of things I like about the album. One, it's a true album, a rarity in music nowadays, where you mostly see collections of singles. But A Collision is really a cohesive whole, with a flow to it. I like that.

Two, there's sadness to it. I say this all time. But the majority of the Psalms contain complaining and/or sadness. Yet this is completely absent from contemporary worship songs. That's always bothered me. A Collision has sadness and longing to it, very much in the spirit of the Scriptures. I jive with that.

Three, it reaches, and succeeds more often than not, as opposed to Delirious' last few albums, which reach and don't succeed. I'll tell you when the album got me. The first track is an intro track. Second is just an eh song to me, nothing special. I almost gave up listening to the album after it, but went on. The third is a good song, the most interesting thing being some abbreviated measures midway (I love shifting meters. He does it more later on in the album). The fourth and fifth songs are great, albeit straightforward, songs, which I constantly play on repeat.

But it's the seventh track (after the interlude track six) that totally got me. First of all, it's a longing song. But what I loved was how halfway through the song, it takes a completely unexpected radical musical turn. It's shocking enough that it makes you jerk up your head and go, what the heck? But for some reason, I totally bought it, it worked. Like Sting does something similar on Fill Her Up on A Brand New day, switching from faux country to a gospel type song, and I've always hated it. Just doesn't work. But this does work. And it's so ballsy, after it, I was totally sold on the album from then on. And from that point, the album just gets amazing. It just reaches and hits. Phenomenal.

So yeah, absolutely no one cares, but I think it's the greatest contemporary Christian music album ever produced. Because nothing before it has tried to reach as much and succeeded. I think it's the contemporary Christian Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, just groundbreaking. Can't say enough about it. From a man who previously hated David Crowder.

Highlights of this stage: feeling the baby hiccup, and starting to feel the hard parts and guessing which body parts they are. Honestly though, I'm a little anxious for her to come out already. It seems like Jieun's been pregnant forever, and we still have about 2 months to go. Egad. I can't believe elephants are pregnant for 22 months. That's just insane.

What the... Brett Ratner is directing X-Men 3? Egad. That is the suck.

I had this discussion with contactdp about intellectual compatibility recently. By intellectual compatibility, I don't mean similar intelligence, but more the pattern or style of thinking, and how important it is for a couple to think the same way.

Personally, I think it's not that important, beyond a certain minimum. Jieun and I think pretty differently. And yes, that leads to some misunderstanding and disagreements. But I dunno, I personally believe that men and women just fundamentally think differently, so it's unavoidable. I actually think that women who seem to think like men are even harder to understand, because they might have the appearance of thinking similarly, but they're still women at heart, so it leads to extra frustration.

What I like about Jieun and me is that our different thinking styles allow us to reach to a broader spectrum of people. There are certain people Jieun is really great at interacting with that I just can't hold a conversation with. And there are people I'm sure that I can have long convos with about boring topics like the coming extinction of Cavendish bananas that Jieun finds boring. It's a good partnership.

Anyway, during the convo Jieun came by and I was trying to explain what we were talking about, intellectual compatibility, and how I thought she and I thought differently, and she didn't get what I was saying. I kept trying, and she didn't understand. In the end, she had to ask me to give her an example. And I responded, "Like right now!" Dave thought it was pretty funny.

I've actually been in a lot of turmoil since the money Bible study and the sermon last week. I do think turmoil is the right word. I've been pretty much thinking about it nonstop.

I've come to realize that when it comes to money, I am the weak brother. You know, the one you need to be watchful not to stumble. I'm not proud of it nor do I not want to change, but I recognize that about me. Basically, I have an unhealthy mindset in regards to money. I feel like I'm halfway there, maybe less than halfway. I know what Scripture says about money, how we should not desire to be rich, how we should be content with what we have, and I'm at the point where I can submit to that and live a simple life not trying to get rich. But I'm not at the point yet where I'm at peace about it.

The problem for me is Christians around me who are rich and have nice things. Most of them didn't make getting rich a goal, it was either just a byproduct of the career they happened to choose or they have rich families. But regardless, they have what they have. And I find myself in a hard place, because I'm fairly convicted not to seek after those things, so I won't get them. But I find myself being sad that other people get these things and I don't. So it's tough.

There's so much screwed up with my feelings that I already recognize. For one, I fail to truly appreciate how relatively rich I am and how much has been given me. Like my '91 Corolla, it might be old, but I paid nothing for it. It was given to me. As were many things I have. Including my overprivileged high school and college education. So yeah, definite problems with perspective.

More fundamentally, the problem is I think more money might somehow bring an extra measure of happiness or peace that I don't already have in Jesus. This is actually a recurring theme in my Christian walk - me struggling with the feeling that other Christians get to have things the world values and in the end have salvation also, while I feel convicted to deny these things but find myself jealous nonetheless. In high school, I think it was popularity. Seemed unfair that people could be popular and Christian. In college, it was kinda the party lifestyle. Now it's money. Every time, I've had to come to the realization that those things are fine but relatively nothing compared to Jesus, so I'm not giving up anything. Once I get to that point, I can give a flying feces what other people do, it has no bearing on my happiness. And I got over the other things, but not quite over the money thing yet. It's a toughie.

I have to set up this video. We took this while opening gifts on Christmas. Ellie unwraps her gift until she gets to the box, exclaims (apparently repeating what the adults have been saying all day) "This is nice!", then puts down the unopened box and cheers. Hilarious. When we point out there's stuff in the box she takes out both the paper and the dress, uninterested. So funny. I nearly died.

Wow, looks like I enraged Scott. Go me. I should clarify - I'm not saying I distrust doctors in general. I'm just saying I slightly distrust medicine. And I'm not saying we should abandon it or that I have a better alternative; far from it. I'm just saying that it's good to have a humble attitude with it, and that those (few) practitioners who think and act as if they know all the ultimate answers annoy me. Possibly because I personally know that not to be true. But in general, yeah, go doctors; they're clearly doing better stuff with their lives than I am.

Furthermore, it's not limited to medicine; if you read what I've written in the past, I have the same skepticism with many things. Like science in general and even Scriptural interpretation. Doesn't mean they're bad or that we should abandon them. I just think we should have a humble attitude, that's it.

In regards to Scriptural interpretation, I strongly believe that Scripture holds the ultimate truth, but I'm somewhat skeptical about our interpretation of it sometimes. Maybe this has to do with my upbringing. I was raised a Southern Baptist, a denomination that was formed over the issue of slavery (on the wrong side of it, something they've publicly repented over). I don't doubt the sincerity of their faith (it's actually really interesting - they split because northern Baptists weren't allowing slaveowners to participate in missions). And they believed that they had Scriptural basis for their position. But I believe that it was wrong. In any case, in my denominational tradition, sincere people had what I believe to be bad interpretation, so it makes me skeptical sometimes. But yeah, we absolutely should believe Scripture to be the ultimate authority of truth, and absolutely should seek to interpret it well. I just think a little humility is in order sometimes.

We attended our first childbirthing class last night, and I was kind of reminded why I distrust medicine. Sorry all you doctors out there. But she spent the first portion basically saying how everything they thought about childbirthing a few decades ago was wrong: that women should not be active, their position in labor, that loved ones should be separated from them, how much and how they should be drugged, etc. Just all wrong.

It all makes sense now, why it was wrong, both from an intuitive and scientific standpoint. The thing is, at the time, I'm sure what medicine taught about childbirthing made intuitive and scientific sense to them also. And I'm certain that many years from now, medicine will look back on what we believe about childbirthing now and see it as quaint, provincial, and misguided. In other words, I think it's somewhat arrogant to think that we've addressed all the wrong thinking of the past and have finally arrived at the final, ultimate medical truth on this. Based on medicine's long history, there's no basis for that trust.

So yeah, I'm pretty confident that the old ways were, in fact, wrong, but I'm also confident that the current ways aren't quite right either. What I always wonder then, is how to figure out what's right. In the end, just need to trust God to work things out.

I've also (understandably, I suppose) become fascinated with parenting. I mean specific things related to it. For example, at church on Sunday, a kid was circling around a pole with one hand on it. The the kid's sibling came up and tried to circle around the pole also. Which precipitated a conflict, with the first kid saying "I want to do it myself" and the other saying "I want to do it also". The parents, used to this thing I guess, pretty much just let them fight about it.

Me, not being used to this, and being extremely conflict-averse, was really uncomfortable with this. Thing is, I have no idea how I would intervene. One value I strongly want to instill in my child(ren) is sharing, to an extreme degree. Like, I'm not sure I want them to have any sense of "mine" at all. Or at least as much as realistic. In any case, I want to teach them to share everything they have. So in this situation, my gut instinct is that the first should share the pole with the second.

But I talked to another parent later and she said, if intervention is necessary, maybe one could suggest giving each of them exclusive time on the pole. Deferring to her experience, maybe kids do need exlusive time or things of their own. I just don't know. Anyway, yeah, little things like this fascinate me.

I have no idea how you can become a better guitar player, since I'm not that great myself. Lessons, probably, since most guitar players (me included) have terrible technique. Maybe you can try to learn this:

Have I ever explained why I'm so insistent on playing things exactly like the recording? When I was reviewing How Beatiful for some event I had to play for a while back I went over to Minho's to practice on his keyboard and I think he thought I was being too extreme in my exactness. He was probably right. But there's a method to my madness.

There's a few reasons why I do this, but a primary one is musical growth. You cannot grow as a musician unless you play something different. Sounds obvious; playing better necessarily requires playing differently. But in practice, it's a really hard thing to do. Once you reach a certain comfortable proficiency level, your natural tendency is to keep playing the same way, especially in worship, where you rarely get written music. You tend to play the way you always play. Which means no growth.

To grow, you need to continually learn to play differently. And you can't know exactly how to play differently on your own; if you did, you'd already be playing that way. So recordings for me are kind of a guide. When you force yourself to play exactly like a recording, to the minutest detail, it breaks you out of habitual playing and helps you grow as a musician. You pick up on subtle details, like different chord voicings, melodic runs and rhythms. All these things add up and make you better.

If I ever taught like a worship piano class (don't hold your breath), I'd basically start just by passing out the sheet music to selected songs from the Vineyard worship songbooks volumes 1-3 and telling everyone to learn them all exactly as they're written. They're easy to play and help build an intuition as to what worship keyboard feels like in terms of chord structure, melody, and left hand. By playing it over and over, you build a kind of worship sense. Then I'd pass out the sheet music to selected Hosanna songs, which are a bit more complex chordally. That's basically how I learned, by playing the sheet music over and over. And the only way I continue to learn is by pushing myself to play different things.

So that's my worship piano advice for all those zero people who wanted it. Buy songbooks and play it exactly, over and over.

In Doyle Brunson's poker book, he gives the advice that you need to be willing to play poker games you're not so good at in order to get action in the games you are good at. Good advice, and I apply that to normal games at well. I'm perfectly willing to play games I suck at, like Boggle, Scrabble, and Pictionary. Unfortunately, there's no quid pro quo. No one will play Trivial Pursuit (my favorite game) with me. I haven't played a complete game in a full year. Sucks.

Anyway, if you feel like a game of TP, give me a call.

I don't get baby room decorating. I was about to buy this shelf that was kinda nice, but Jieun nixed it, saying it doesn't fit with the theme, which is "lambs". What the. Why on earth do you need a theme? And why lambs? But whatevers.