This week’s white board quip has a pretty funny story behind it. Stephen Hunter was (is?) a movie reviewer for the Washington Post. The following is his review of the movie “Gigli” (pronouced “jee-lee,” widely accepted as the worst movie of the early 21st century).
A month ago, I promised a big announcement. I’ve been hold off until I could get some good pictures, but it seems I can wait no more. After years of dreaming and calculating and praying, I finally did it. I got me a motorcycle.
The Back Story
In all these years, I’ve told myself no. After praying about it and figuring out the money, it just wasn’t right. I even used this as part of a lesson I taught to the youth group about temptation and sin. Frankly, God told me, “No.”
But now, in 2010, we’ve met our goals of A) paying off unsecured debt, B) buying a house, and C) getting the major high-cost jobs on the house done (paying with cash and not credit). And after all that, we still had enough in savings to write a check for Thumper. (You should know by now that I name all my vehicles. Duh!)
I wavered a few times between getting a “cruiser” or a “dual sport.” A cruiser is what you picture in you mind when I say “Harley.” A dual sport is essentially a street legal dirt bike. It’s not nearly as comfortable as a crusier (especially for a passenger), but it can do double duty of getting me to work AND playing in the mud. This is exactly why I own a mountain bike and an SUV. I like to have the option to get dirty.
The Blame
Besides the financial aspect, the real tipping point was a visit to my old buddy Galyn. (If you do a search for his name on this blog, you’ll see I blame him for most of my misadventures.) When I was a kid, my family and Galyn’s family used to go on trips together to ride dirt bikes in the mountains. We have some great shared memories from trips to Tres Ritos, NM, riding some gnarly mountain trails. That was a very very long time ago, but Galyn’s family still goes at least once a year. My family transitioned to horses and if you know me, you know how I feel about that.
Galyn moved out into the sticks a while back, to a housing development that is barely half way built out. He, his wife, and three of their five boys (Yes, he would have his own basketball team if they weren’t all short like him.) go out and ride their motorcycles over the undeveloped area. I finally got to go for a visit, and Galyn put me on his bike to ride around with the boys. The effect was less of a motorcycle fever, and more of a psychotic obsession. I was crushed by a wave of fantastic memories. The matter was settled: Dual sport or nothing.
The very next day, during Sunday school, one of my 8th grade boys (Alex) announced he had bought a dirt bike. I couldn’t contain myself. I launched into a story about the bike trips of my youth, getting my own XR200 for my 12th birthday, and my desire to get back into the sport. After this Alex started sending me links to bikes for sale. One of the first ones he sent was exactly what I was looking for and at a great price. I wrung my hands a bit at the expense, but with lot’s of positive pressure from Tammy and friends, I bit.
The Bike!
Thumper is a Honda XR650L. “XR” means 4-stroke dirt bike. “650” means ~650 cc engine (which is *huge* for the dirt). And “L” means street legal. The engine is three times the size of anything my family ever owned before. It’s heavy and shockingly powerful. In riding to work, I never get above 3rd gear (out of 5). According to the manual, I should shift into 5th gear around 80mph. 80!! God help me if I ever get going that fast on a dirt bike! Yes, it has turn signals, but it’s not a street bike. It feels really ungainly at high speeds.
The down side to buying a dirt bike in DFW in July is that it’s really really hot outside. We just finished a 20+ day stretch of 100+ degree days. When it’s that hot out, riding a bike is just not fun. I did a few rides to work when the weather was less than deadly, but I’ve been really aching for chance to get out on the dirt. There are a few places around the fringes of DFW where you can pay to ride on private land. This week, the heat finally broke and yesterday, in the low 90’s, I jumped on the chance to get dirty.
You knew this was coming, right?
I rode up to Trophy Club Park, near where I work. One perk of a dual sport is no need to haul your bike. Ride to the trail, get dirty, ride home. It was really shaky at first. Let’s face it, it’s been 20 years since I’ve ridden technical trails. (Holy cow! How is that possible?!) But after tooling around on some flat, twisty trails, I started “feelin’ it.” I found a little oval track with jumps in the middle and got a tiny bit of hang time. It felt good. No, it felt amazing.
Then, I started back out onto the longer trails and found a small motorcross track. Ooooh. That looks like fun! I stopped to have a look around before daring to try it. A very large, Cajun fellow rode up on a bike that was much too small for him and he started up a conversation. He said he was trying out a bike he bought for his son, that he was not “cocky” enough to do any of the big jumps, but was enjoying the track. He said he would be more comfortable riding with someone else, just in case. Frankly, so would I. So I mounted up and we did a few laps.
I did a couple of small jumps, but stayed well away from the big monsters. There was a section of whoop-dee-doos. (Click here if you don’t know what whoops are. That’s not me!) I used to really love the whoops when I was a kid, so naturally, I charged on in. But these whoops where a lot bigger than I expected and that big, heavy bike was just more than I could handle. I tried really hard to save it, but to no avail. I dumped Thumper just after the last whoop and hit the ground pretty hard.
After a quick inventory, I decided I was not injured (Hurt, yes. Injured, no.) and the bike was fine. I busted a mirror, but that’s not a big deal. I gave myself a few minutes for the adrenaline to wear off and my head to quit spinning. Then I decided I should head on home. By the time I got to the house, I was aching pretty bad. I had a few scrapes and some deep bruises, the worst on my right knee, but nothing serious. Tammy noticed a dark stain on my jeans. I assumed it was grease, but no. I had bled through my jeans from a small puncture in my right shin. Once cleaned, it turned out to be really small, but deep. This morning, I relented and went to CareNow to check it out.
The doctor said it was deep enough that it will take a while to heal, but small enough that a single stitch would close it. Aw, man. Really?! That just seems pointless and given my aversion (read: “full-on phobia”) of needles, I started negotiating. If it was three or more stitches, I would understand. But one?! Can’t you just tape it up? Yes. A dab of skin glue, a couple of high-tech band-aids and done. Much better! Yes, I’m a wuss. Don’t bother. Tammy has made that abundantly clear.
So, anyway. That’s the big news and the long story and the gritty details. Sorry for stealing a half hour of your life. Just rest assured, I’m fine. No bones sticking out. Lesson learned.
“Woot” (or more properly “w00t”) is an old school gamer term that is an exclamation, a term of excitement, the kind of thing one might shout; thin, pale arms raised; after defeating Count Dracula at the end of Castlevania or Barracoon’s champion spawn in Ultima Online. Woot also a pretty cool website.
On Woot.com, you can buy one item, deeply discounted, for 24 hours. At least that’s how it started. But they’ve now expanded and there are several categories of items to choose from. One of those is t-shirts. Most shirts on shirt.woot.com are too artsy (read “lame”) for my taste, but they do have a few gems. And right now, for some reason, they are doing a sort of competition where many of the designs offered on shirt.woot are available.
All this is to say, I want some shirts!! But I don’t know how long they’ll be for available, and I’m trying to watch my spending until Tammy gets a job. Sooooo, if you really like me (I’ll settle for “you don’t hate me”) and have $15 to spare…
Last Sunday (8/15/2010) was the last Sunday school class of the year. The 8th grade boys that I’ve taught all year are moving up to high school next Sunday. I had an unusually small class this year, but that turned out to be a blessing, because we were able to get pretty close and the boys really impressed me with their growth (both in spirit and in maturity). I’m very proud of these boys. One of them (Ben) posted the following note on Facebook.
Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not posting this to toot my own horn. In fact, the complete opposite is true. This was one of the most humbling experiences I’ve ever had. But I felt that I should share it anyway. This is not to bask in the spot light, but rather so that all my friends and family, who often get the short end of the stick because I give more time and energy to the church (more specifically, the youth at Glenview, a.k.a. my chi’ren) can get a glimpse of why I do what I do.
Today is August 15, 2010, a Sunday. Specifically, the last Sunday that I will be an 8th grader. My teacher is Trint Ladd, and this note is about him and what he has taught me, and what I hope to carry on for the rest of my life.
I first met Trint Ladd almost exactly one year ago at a promotion party. First thing he asked us was our names. We talked for a while, some about ourselves, some about him, about his shirt, about our schools, things like that. He intended on getting to know us. He told us his expectations of us. Bring our Bibles, read our Bibles, and learn something from what we’ve read. No other Sunday school teacher had ever set expectations before. So I tried to meet these expectations.
Another thing he did was he challenged me, to read more, to spend quiet times with God, to read not because he asked, but because I wanted to. He also had a points system that would be a motivation for us to read and remember what we did the week before. If we got 24 points at the end of the month, he would get donuts the first Sunday, if not, no donuts. After a few months, I didn’t eat the donuts, I didn’t want them. It wasn’t what I wanted anymore, I wanted to earn points because I wanted to learn, not because I get donuts at the beginning of the month, but because I wanted to learn. I remembered most of what he said, and I hope I come away with a lot. So many things changed because of Trint Ladd, I became spiritually mature, I read almost everyday, and I wanted to. Thank you very much Trint for being my 8th grade teacher.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, it has gotten really hot in this room because my eyes are sweating like crazy.
Hey, Hollywood. Trint, here. Long time no see. Seriously, and it’s your own darn fault. This has been the summer of 3D and I’m sick of it. You forced me to watch Toy Story 3 in those stupid, uncomfortable, plastic glasses and I survived it, only because it was an incredible movie (and it helped hide the fact that I was blubbering like a baby by the end of the show). But the 3D requirement is getting old fast and I have reached the point of staying home rather than put up with it.
Reason 3D sucks #1: It’s old news.
I’m willing to wager that every human being who’s seen more than two movies in their life can close their eyes and picture a scene of a theater full of people wearing those old, red/green, cardboard, 3D glasses… in the early 1950’s!! 3D hasn’t been “shocking” since The Attack of the Mutant Atomic Killer Ants. So why, in the name of all that is entertaining, is 3D such a big deal now? It’s the freaking twenty-first century, people!!
Reason 3D sucks #2: It doesn’t really enhance the movie.
Unless you enjoy spending two hours pretending that monsters are lunging out at you when they’re not (ala The Attack of the Mutant Atomic Killer Ants), 3D just doesn’t really do much to enhance the story telling that is motion pictures. The horribly lopsided battle between Pixar and every other animation studio in the world bears this out year after year: Technology alone does not sell tickets. It’s the story, stupid. (With the obvious exception of Avatar, which made more money than the GDP of half the globe with an extremely tired, old, tree-hugger tale and I can only chalk that up to media hype.)
Reason 3D sucks #3: It makes some people sick.
Literally. 3D works by fooling your brain into believing that your two eyes are seeing different pictures. But not everyone’s eyes see the same. Not everyone’s eyes are spaced the same. Not everyone’s brain uses both eyes equally. My wife, Tammy, was born with a lazy eye which was surgically corrected when she was an adult. As such, her brain uses her eyes much differently than most people, and 3D movies giver her vertigo and headaches. And that, quite simply, spells “movie ruined” for both of us.
Reason 3D sucks #4: Inflated ticket prices.
I’ve been looking forward to seeing Despicable Me. I really like Steve Carell. I really really like animated movies. But when I pulled up the Movie Tavern schedule and saw that A) it was only offered in 3D (so Tammy would get sick), and B) the tickets were $11 each (while 2D shows sell for $8), I decided to wait for Netflix and watch it in my home theater, essentially for free, with no screaming kids and as much popcorn as I want at a 95% discount off of theater snack prices. Does anyone really think this business model can possibly succeed? Cuz, frankly, the word is out: jacking prices and releasing in 3D only is going to fail.
One year ago today, August 3rd, 2009, we sat down at a big fancy table with a huge stack of papers and signed our names (over 100 times each). We were handed a set of keys. We became home owners. (Which is really a misnomer because we are thousands and thousands of dollars away from really owning our house.)
It has been a crazy crazy year, but also very productive. We’ve finished many of our home projects, although there are many more (in fact, I’m sure I will never really run out of them). We still feel totally over-blessed. Thank you, God, for letting us be stewards of this house and thank you for the many opportunities we’ve had already to share it with others!
I’ve had fun this morning trolling back through the blog to find the house-relevant posts. You might enjoy it too, so here are some post links:
Another milestone, of sorts, snuck (Sneaked? Snookered?) past last week. And as such, we are forced to celebrate the two hundred first white board quip.
Hooray. (Party horn sound.)
And here it is: Another Dilbert, Pointy-Haired Boss quip.
Ooh. I think I felt a little personal growth there.
– The Pointy-Haired Boss
Oh. Well, that might have been a little inappropriate.
Oh well. Have a great week!
[Ed. Upon recount. This is actually WBQotW #200. So party on, Wayne!]
Thumper is a Honda XR650L. “XR” means 4-stroke dirt bike. “650” means ~650 cc engine (which is *huge* for the dirt). And “L” means street legal. The engine is three times the size of anything my family ever owned before. It’s heavy and shockingly powerful. In riding to work, I never get above 3rd gear (out of 5). According to the manual, I should shift into 5th gear around 80mph. 80!! God help me if I ever get going that fast on a dirt bike! Yes, it has turn signals, but it’s not a street bike. It feels really ungainly at high speeds.