September 2006

This is probably the last topic that most of you who know me would expect to see.

I’ve had a fairly agnostic view of the world over the past half-decade, finding myself unimpressed with religion since my father died. Mother had been trying to get me to go to church with her for years, but I told her that I wasn’t going to a brainwashing session, which is what I felt her church was, basically.

I didn’t trust her pastor then.

When he left, and they got another one — the Rev. Dr. Henry Lyons (blah blah blah), I REALLY refused to go then. I think that snake oil comes to mind when dealing with him.

When mom died, we were stuck with him presiding over the funeral.

He turned a Saturday funeral into a ‘worship’ service (Hah!), and tried to get us to join his church. He made a couple of low volume remarks to his own members that basically pressed the red button. By that point, all I wanted to do was put my mother in the ground, so we could get away from him.

I really didn’t want to go to church, but mother had been asking me to go.
I can’t tell mom “No” forever, can I?

So, Over the past couple of months, I’ve had a number of customers at work, attempting to show me the power of Christ through their words and actions. A couple of them have asked me to come to their church, and I said that if I ever got a Sunday off, I would.

Well, I had yesterday off. I had a choice of Without Walls International Church, or Manhattan Avenue Church of Christ. I opted for the latter, since there was a football game scheduled for yesterday, and Without Walls isn’t even a mile away from the stadium.

I was quite surprised.

Everyone was so friendly and welcoming at Manhattan Avenue CoC, which was quite disarming for me. I sat in the back, as far back as their setup would allow, not knowing what to expect. I was used to the Missionary Baptist style of church, with lots of loud music, louder preachers, and services that not only never started on time, but would go on for a few hours.

We started at 10:30, give or take a few (quite forgiveable) minutes.
We finished at about 8 minutes to noon.
My eardrums did not bleed. In fact, I was sorta straining to hear some of what was said.

I remarked to the minister after church, “Y’know, if this were my old church, we’d have just been getting to the sermon right about … now.”

I spent some time talking with Minister Grayson (feel free to correct me, because I KNOW you’re reading this :D), and we ended up heading off to lunch. We talked a fair bit more, and I feel like I may go back. Not this coming Sunday, but hopefully the next one: I did make a promise to the other guy from Without Walls, and I try to be as good to my words as I want others to be, regarding me.

So far, anything that could go wrong, has gone wrong.

I get threatened by Sprint, telling me that they’re going to cut my phone service off (to which I say, HOLD UP WAIT A MINUTE LET ME PUT SOME PIMPIN IN IT, and explain that they just moved my billing schedule. I had made most of my payment on the first week of this month, which meant I only owed $30. This billing change raises it up to $117. They apologized.)

My headaches got more severe, inducing white spots in my vision. My left arm also malfunctioned, going weak, causing me to drop everything I put in that hand. My left hip also went gimpy. I spent $125 on a doctor’s visit, and she suggests I go to the hospital or to a standalone center, and get an MRI or a CT Scan from around the shoulders on up. She suspects a pinched nerve or something.

My main hard drive seems to have toasted itself. I’m having a spot of trouble getting a copy of Windows 2000 (which I have the legit key stored in my cellphone).

I’m exhausted and my arm hurts.
However, if I take my $60 prescription (OUCH), I’ll fall asleep before getting and installing windows.

If I don’t get this done, I’m not going to church in the morning. :/

Riddle me this:
You’re not home. Your home phone has an answering machine. You also have a cellular phone, to which you’ve given family members the number to reach you on.

A family member has these numbers.
This family member calls your home number, and the answering machine picks up.

As this family member, do you:
1: Leave a normal “Call me back, 813-000-0000, it’s important.”
2: Hang up, and call the cell number you’ve been given?
3: Hang up, and try the home number in a couple of hours because it’s not that vital?
4: Act like a pure bred fool, and call the names of everyone you know that lives in the house, and tell them to ’stop screening your calls’ and ‘pick up the phone’ ?

Most of us would have picked options 1, 2, or 3, I’d hope.

However, this person decided earlier today, to leave a message as long as the answering machine would let her, doing number four.

What kind of sense does this make? o_O

I’ve had a lot of people tell me in the past month that I look like I’ve lost some weight.
I keep disagreeing with them, telling them that if anything, I’ve gained weight.

However, I hadn’t checked my weight in months, so I stopped by the local Publix the other day to see whether I had gained or lost.

The first thing I should note is that there seems to be no other grocery stores in the area that actually has a scale for public usage.
The second thing is that public scales like this aren’t any good for people my size: The gauge goes only to 300 pounds.

So, I step on the scale, and the needle begins to spin uncontrollably, opening up a vortex that threatened to suck me through to Guardia Forest. When I reach out for the vortex, it disappears, and instead shows the needle pointing to three pounds.

I’ve lost weight. I actually have lost two pounds.

This means I weigh either 318 or 323 pounds.

Interestingly enough, there were a couple of guys standing over my shoulder, filling out the job application for that store, and they saw that needle flying around the face of the scale, and they asked each other, “How much did that say?”

I turned, and told ‘em, “Three hundred eighteen pounds,” with a smile.