What does the hum
of tires sing
on this road empty
as tundra?
What does a dual
glow in the darkness
and dark clouds
mean (really)?
What does the smile
kept to keep
from crying
say when it
slips a bit?

I did something absolutely crazy last night just because I could - or, more likely, because I’m pretty much a wack-o. It went down like this: at about 12:30 last night I was talking to Mary (oddly, because you know, we used to go out and all that) and she was totally frustrated: her parents had left her without a vehicle and without a working colour or suitable greyscale printer, and she was trying to print out some flyers for the church, ones that she had said she would do. The fact that she couldn’t actually get them done on top of an entire day just chock-full of stress was really, shall we say, getting to her. So I was trying to come up with a solution, something to do with an available printer, and the best I could come up with was that my workplace has a very fast, very high resolution laser printer.

My famous last words: “Here’s the plan - I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Be ready to roll.” That was at about 1:00am.

When it was all said and done - including re-designing the pamphlet because of a PDF mixup - I had her back to her house at 5. That’s right. 5.

Like I said - I’m pretty much crazy.

Dan (Cigars and Coca-Cola. Yeah.)

When I lost you
it wasn’t much like
a movie:
neither of us were
posing or fumbling
to remember our lines
and places:
there were no interludes
for a quick shot of brandy:
no one yelling cut
in the background:
but in my head
these days, I’ve
spliced and edited
it into a lesson for
better days:
do not love like that
or hold tightly
or rise and fall on such
a flimsy premise:
but of course your
version has to differ
at key points now that
you still run and
still dig and still try
to wrap though around
what I’ve said:
maybe next time we
should write
a book.

Last night after I finished recording my dreams, goals, and ambitions in my private journal, I had a dream in which pretty much every one of them was broken down and crumbled around my feet. Now, I don’t put much stock in either omens and my subconscious, but that’s a little disturbing, wouldn’t you say?

In in the lueu of having anything deep and insightful to say, I’ll quote some lyrics from Mae.

Remembering, everything,
about my world and when you came.
Wondering, the change you’d bring,
means nothing else would be the same.
Did you know, what you were doing, did you know.
Did you know how you would move me well,
I don’t really think so.
but the night came down and swept us away.
and the stars they seemed,
to paint the most elaborate scene to date.

How could we know, this song this show,
we learned so much about ourselves.
From Toledo, to Tokyo,
the words were scribed on every page,
and now there’s books up on our shelves.
Did you know; how you would move us, did you know.
When the lights, first came upon us,
and we, saw the everglow.
and the moments magic swept us away.
and the young mans dream, was almost seen so plain.

When was the night,
that showed us the sign.
Revealed in the sky, to leave all behind.
But where to begin? throw the caution, to the wind.
We’ll reach for the stars, everything is now ours.

Did you know, how you would move me, did you know.
Did you know how you would move me well,
I don’t even think so.
but the moments magic swept us away.
and it’s so close, but we’re so far away.

It’s so close, but we’re so far away.

Dan ( Not Freud. )

I was thinking in the car today - and I don’t do that often, so forgive me - that most of our commodity goods that subsidize our lifestyle come from China. But this won’t last long, as two things are going to get in the way: first off, the rising standard of living in China; and secondly, the rising price of natural resources all over the globe.

At which point our debt level will come back to haunt us, as will our sky-high standard of living which will be unsustainable when spread across not only North American culture and Japan but across North America, Japan, Europe, and a great deal of China.

Dan (Not a fan of commodity [read: cheap] goods.)

I’d like to say that when God made the coffee bean, he did the world a great, delicious flavour. Er, favour. And if he’ll excuse the joke, I’ll get back to work.

Dan ( Two scoops of cream in a xl Timmy’s coffee… )

There are few things I really hate in this life, very few indeed. I’m pretty easy-going, I guess, or some reasonable facsimile thereof. But there remain a few peeves of mine that just get under my skin and show no signs of getting any better with age. And I know I don’t use this blog to rant about things like this a whole lot, but bear with me for a while.

First off, people that ask stupid questions when all the tools to find the answer are right at their fingertips. For instance, this morning I had to show yet another person how to set the default printer in Windows. It’s maybe the easiest thing you can do, next to opening a browser window! Why couldn’t you have opened that browser, gone to Google, and searched for “setting the default printer in Windows” or something like that? It would have returned the right results probably in the first available link. And I know it’s easier to ask a question then research it yourself - goodness knows I just did in the other day with a .htaccess question - but I don’t typically do that. Asking people to do things for you instead of doing them yourself when it’s feasable makes for a culture of laziness, in the workplace or in life.

Secondly, there are these people that exist in this world, both male and female, that seem to garner a lot of attention and a lot of friends. And yet, they’re self-important jerks - not always, but there’s always that one popular person that makes you want to scream “What’s wrong with you people! Do you want yo be like this guy?” It’s pretty difficult for me to actually dislike a person… there aren’t many personalities that instantly rub against mine. But that one does - because it seems so backwards or something - I don’t know.

Thirdly, people that never come out of the woodwork except to point out things they think are wrong - but we won’t go there.

Dan ( A little pissy this morning. )

I had no idea about this, but BitTorrent is now the dominant transfer protocol in terms of bytes transferred over the internet.

But now that I think of that it makes sense: HTTP/FTP is designed mostly to be lightweight. BitTorrent is specifically designed not to be. And as a distributed system, it’s amazing. I think I’ve probably downloaded at least ten or twenty gigabytes of television programs (mostly Gilmore Girls re-runs), all of which I’ve deleted due to sheer ease of just downloading them again should I need them.

You know, if Hollywood thought about it, it’s a great idea. Use a customized BitTorrent client to transfer television that people can keep as long as they want. I’d even be willing to put up with some DRM if the price was right. If it was cheap for me to watch ad-free television, I’d do it a lot more.

Dan (Freedownloading since 1997…)

Everyone, go read Laura’s blog and post comments to cheer her up. Becauise… um… I said so. Yeah.

Anyhow, inbetween co-ordinating production, honing drills, writing on whiteboards, and spilling my thoughts on headcoverings (yikes!) all over the internet, the day’s been going by pretty fast. When I’m honing drills (which is basically a boring, repetative action that requires some manual skill and a great deal of patience) I had some thoughts.

These are my thoughts:

Denominations are given no scriptural support. There’s mention of a council being called (at Jerusalem, if I recall correctly?) to decide a few things, but no mention of the extensive and top-heavy church government exhibited by churches such at the Catholic and Anglican churches. Even the synodal model of the URC/CRC/OCRC and the Presbyterian model aren’t drawn from scripture, unless you consider “let everything be done in good order” to be the scriptural foundation for a denominational superstructure. So call me postmodern, but I think unity would be promoted further by a loose association of like-minded churches than by a tightly-controlled denominational framework - because you could have a presbyterian elder-for-life style and a traditional Reformed give-the-people-a-vote existing in the same association, and as many slight variations as you like. The only real power the body at large should have is the power to “excommunicate” churches from the fellowship on a solid basis that needs broad scriptural support.

Also, I dislike Reformed Fundimentalists that beat you with Calvin’s Institutes. They’ve translated Calvinism into a vulgar religion based on a set of impersonal facts and Truths(tm) that Win Arguments rather than serve any useful purpose - like for instance increasing the Glory of God. You think you winning your argument with the full weight of Calvin, Van Til, and Plantinga resting on someone’s head is bringing glory to God? Think again my friend.

On the other hand, there’s enough people that get so turned off by Reformed Fundimentalism that they embrace the Anything Else with arms wide open. I’ve seen it happen on the internet (where the hardcore Calvinists and the flavour-of-the-week Calvinists are out in force) and in real life (where the Born Reformed and the Don’t Know Why Reformed graft themselves into the Baptist or Pentacostal denominations after getting sufficiently pissed off at Home Base).

I don’t want to be either of those things - a Reformed Fundimentalist of part of the long line of leavers. I don’t want people to point fingers at me and legitimately call me a “wooden shoes, wooden head, wouldn’t listen” Dutch Reformed stick-in-the-mud, but I also don’t want them to legitimately label me a liberal Scripture-tosser.

*Sigh.*

Dan (Oh, what a twisted web we weave when first we practice to believe…)

When the phrases
hit the page it’s like
a flash flood
all writhing over
parched pathways
in liquid chords and
choruses made
chaos,

(to think that I have
nailed words to some
Saharan doorframe
like a Luther of the Dunes!)

but harmony flows
no rushes
no thunders
no ruptures
symphonically
climactically
boundlessly

and the loosed fingers
over paper
keys tuned
in locks
and jazz phrasing
are a reminder of
you and leaves
stars
frost
words

whispered
and wild blood
on my shoulderblades.