I've told Laura that before we were married, I never had travel problems. Not even a delay.
Once, I was bumped up to first class with a ticket Brian Prentiss purchased for me on Hotwire [or travelocity, can't remember].
Last Sunday, I traveled to Portland w/Laura. As expected, there was a weather delay. Part of the lateness was my fault as I opted for the red eye. Here's a little comic we worked on to illustrate some of our time spent @ PHL.
The trip to Alabama has been a walk back into a past that I certainly don't miss. So, when I get back to Philly, I'll say "I'm glad to be home."
I came to a retreat for my mom's church to lead the youth group. I don't honestly know if I'll write about that here, but I will say that it went better than I thought it would. Her church flew me down to teach the youth over the past couple of days - sometimes it felt more like baby sitting, but for the most part they were super.
I don't know if we generally associate "memory lane," with the negative - right? We have a fond nostalgia thinking of main streets where window shopping was fun, where there wasn't the graffiti of our lives spray painted on the walls of our minds, where there wasn't the blood of a thousand murders on the streets of our hearts. My mom told me about a falling out she's had with a "friend." Essentially, she wouldn't testify at this person's divorce hearing (she wanted my mom to testify about an event that she never saw, but was told about by this same person - that's called hearsay if you're wondering, and is generally not admissible as real evidence).
This person came back and quoted a scripture to my mother and actually said something along the lines of "On the outside you act like an angel, but on the inside you're full of the devil. One day you'll need a thousand witnesses and you won't have any."
I reminded my mother that her standing before God was in Christ, and that this person has a really screwy view of what Christianity is. My mother knows this.
The fact of the matter is that this person wanted money. She screwed over her husband. She stole everything out of his home and sold it before the court had her move out. She even had balotas to tell my mom that she needed her there to get more money out of the divorce settlement.
After the dust cleared, she then said that she wanted the money back from my mother that she gave to me at my college graduation and my wedding.
I don't miss the divisive back biting. I don't miss the politicalization of the "church," here. I don't miss that thinly veiled spiritualism that people trump up through spending time at church on Sundays. I don't miss this "Christian," culture of destruction, of abuse, of misusing and misquoting scripture for the sake of personal gain. I don't miss this cultural implosion brought about by isolationism.
It's not as if this junk doesn't happen everywhere else, it just hurts when it comes from someone who has said that they've been your friend for the past 20+ years. It hurts when it comes from the people who claim that Jesus died for them. I don't think I should expect perfection from anyone...just a little sanctified living at the least.
Sometimes people ask me if I plan on coming back to Huntsville to live.
What can you say when you'd rather go home to a place where the individual murder count has just hit the 200 mark, where the streets are littered with trash, where the parking is hard and the people are too?
No, I don't mean crummy, but it could be that too. I just got off a flight from PHL to CLT - when I entered the plane, my seat was literally full of crumbs [this was only my second time flying US Airways...ever...could be my last], the roof of the plane was actually leaking water droplets [blamed on the humidity, only it must happen frequently as there were stains from the water and rust on the metal] and as I was watching the baggage handlers load the plane, they were literally body slamming some of the luggage onto the conveyor belt to the plane.
Then, it Broke.
Then, they kicked the machine [yeah, like that ever works].
I'm just glad they didn't handle my package...all of my luggage was carryon.
And so I sat at the gate and left about 45 minutes later than what I was supposed to. We still yet and amazingly landed on time.
I pulled out the in flight branded magazine and noticed that most of the pages also had water stains. Some of the pages were ripped out. To top it off, half of the crossword was finished.
I guess it could definitely be worse, but it's kind of strange when a $350 airfare yields as decent a cleanliness as a $2 bus [or SEPTA subway] fare.
I hope that this was more funny for you than whiny. I'll be in Huntsville, AL through Sunday. My mother's church asked me to come and lead a youth retreat. More later - plane's loading!
Spending a lot of time working on some extracurricular stuff this week, so in the interim I thought I'd put up some fun links.
TBNN - Tominthebox News Network - kind of seems something as a Christian satirist. There is a hilarious article about a missionary suing travelocity for 4 trillion dollars for the loss of souls due to a delayed flight and travelocity's guarantee. This guy [Tom] is pretty funny.
If you haven't heard of Fujiya & Mijagi, you should check them out. They seem to be pretty creative [as far as their musicianship and video skillz go] and are an all around good listen. Laura found these guys off of another site...we bought the CD off of iTunes the next day. Here is a video of theirs:
, you should check them out. They seem to be pretty creative [as far as their musicianship and video skillz go] and are an all around good listen.