August 20, 2008
double super resized and edited photos from the waterhose manna
After I failed to resize yesterday's wet-yard pictures properly, I decided to go the extra mile and finally try some of the fancy features in my photo-editing program. (That would be all the features other than "resize".) I'm just barely starting to play around with Photoshop Express, but it's amazing what a little editing can bring out of a totally boring picture taken with a good quality camera.
Observe.
This...kind of odd narrowly cropped puddle..
... came out of this even worse original way-too-wide shot of the barren meth-shed hole in our backyard (taken from inside the house because, yeah, it was really WET outside)
While this not-quite-focused-enough-too-sharpened grass close up...
came from this totally unremarkable picture of finally-nourished grass growing by the planter in our front yard:
This whole thing would look better if I'd resized the photos to the same dimensions, but that would presuppose that I knew what the eff I was doing with Photoshop. Suffice it to say, it's not only a fun program to play around with, it's also a little enlightening. I, a totally untutored person who has used this program twice before ever, did the above sloppy edits in under 20 minutes. They don't necessarily look much better than their originals (esp the first one), but they do look totally different. I know with my head that most of the amazing photos I see online are edited first, but this experience really drives that point home!
Posted by Mrs. Juicebox at 12:27 AM | Comments (0)
August 19, 2008
like manna from the cosmic waterhose
This morning we woke up and our yard was soaked! Yay! It's been so dry down here that we've only mowed our yard once since we closed on this house back in April, so we were almost as happy as if leprechauns had sprinkled the yard with gold coins. (Actually, we would have been happier with gold, but water is pretty good too.) I took some pictures of the lovely green wet yard, but I didn't resize them properly so the files are gigantic. Oops. Well, the concrete picture came out ok anyway:)
Right now I am sitting in my office downtown watching a giant - GI-ANT -dark stormcloud roll in from the west. From down here, it looks like it might be reaching far enough north to hit our house, which would be awesome (for the plants, not for rush hour traffic.) Our baby trees are so neglected, they won't know what to do with two meals in one day. We're probably about to be under investigation by Ent Child Protective Services.
Posted by Mrs. Juicebox at 2:23 PM | Comments (3)
August 13, 2008
Crazy, crazy for feeling so...
I got back in town yesterday from a four day work conference with a head full of thoughts and half a blog post. Nothing like hanging out with hundreds of strangers and hearing thirty hours of classes (ack, lawschool PTSD, ack) to get the ol brain going. I kept thinking about my last post though, and thanks to the wonder of the internet, I got to hear some of your thoughts this week, both from comments and from talking. (incidentally, I love talking, as I realized this week when I voraciously talked the ear off of anyone who called me. No vows of silence for me. Luckily am not contemplating monk-itude.) These are the times when the internet really strikes me with its total awesomeness as a tool for idea sharing, so what can I do but throw the second round of thoughts out there like the first?
When I said in my last post that I think we need to be crazy, that the way out is to be crazy, that I was inspired by this guy who does "crazy" things, I gave some thought to the fact that I hadn't defined the word "crazy" in that post (all that training in legal writing can't be for nothing right?). In the end, I decided to just throw my thoughts out there and see what happened without more clarity. (hehe, I never get to do that at work, so it was very satisfying:) Since then, post conversations and feedback and a little more time to think, and this is how I would define "crazy" as I was and am conceptualizing it:
"doing things that seem illogical or non-standard, OR doing normal things in what appear to be an illogical or non-standard way."
That definition is sort of dry. I'm getting more boring by the day I tell ya. (AND I'm violating the first rule of blogging here by immediately revisiting a previously interesting topic.)
I notice that in myself and in general that there seems to be this spiritual centrifugal force that throws people to extremes of activity and then avoidance. Both extremes are totally easy to justify. The extremes of activity people will say "Hey, what else is there in life right, of course it's hard, but that's to be expected, GOD himself told us it would be hard." Hard to argue with that. And he extremes of avoidance people will say "Oh no, I have BOUNDARIES, I'm not going to deal with all that stuff, people who do that are sick and that's not what GOD wants for me." Hard to argue with that too.
I don't take that sermon I wrote about last week as an excuse for people to keep overextending themselves. Nor do I take that sermon as an excuse for people who are under extending themselves to cop out by saying that "my God isn't calling me to that," or "those people's problems are their own fault and I have better boundaries than that." If "that" is something you shouldn't be involved in, fine. If "that" is caring for people, being available for those in need, taking any kind of risk, or working on stuff that isn't directly or indirectly for YOU, then please introduce me to your God, because he sounds like a cool guy.
When I think about what it might mean to do something "illogical and non-standard" in my own life, the first thing that comes to mind is saying no to some opportunities, or not taking the logical next step to increase my responsibility in certain areas. It might mean taking a financial risk if Mr. Juicebox and I really felt that that was right, and it certainly will mean taking more and more intense social risks. He and I have limited experience doing that to a certain extent but we can go further and we both feel it. And I believe that planning is good, but I know that as much as planning is good, we all tend to think that OUR kind of plans are good and other kinds of plans are stupid. I have a sneaking suspicion we might all be wrong about that. It is increasing in intensity, and it is sneaking harder and harder.
In my experience North American churches tend to accept certain kinds of plans as "good." Programs are good. Random acts that are not related to a program are cool, but they hard to quantify, and plus who knows what people will do if you just leave them to their own devices. So we develop a program for everything. Classes are good. People off learning on their own is cool, but then it's hard to tell people how many people are learning what, so it's better if we have classes. And it's even better if we have workbooks WITH the classes. And handouts! And assigned people for accountability! And so it goes.
I love my church community, and I'm not going anywhere away from it. I even like programs and classes. (I'm a nerd, of course I like programs and classes!) And I know for a fact that a lot of the programs do work, at least for some people. But I also know a bunch of people (including me when I'm not careful) who are exhausted not because they're living on the edge spiritually but because they are measuring out their lives in coffee spoonfuls, doling out too many hours to time fillers with spiritual overtones. (Line 51) .
We have a term in law called "churning" a case. "Churning" means keeping the case going by continuing to write correspondence and call, to do research and do discovery and ask questions with the intention of keeping the case going as long as possible so that you can bill the crap out of it without ever actually resolving anything. A lot of people make a lot of money that way. Even get around to winning (eventually). It could be said that they are "practicing law" the whole time. But it's not an ethical way to practice.
I wonder if the church would be different if we behaved as though it would actually cost others money if we wasted their time without ever actually resolving anything? How about if we all kept track of our time spent on spiritual things as though we were getting paid for it? I don't know exactly what is needed to remedy all this doing with so little result. But I think it is worthwhile to try.
P.S. I just went to post this, and I find a new comment on the last post ... "It's entirely probable that living uncivilized is a sliding scale, depending on what your idea of
civilized is." Exactly.
Posted by Mrs. Juicebox at 7:30 PM | Comments (0)
August 10, 2008
oh so civilized
This morning we had a guest speaker at our church, Vince Antonucci. He leads a radical church out in Virginia Beach, the second crazy church he's been a part of so far as I can tell, and is about to move to Las Vegas to start a church on the strip. And he went to law school and loved it, which lets you know right there that he's a total weirdo. (Though I must point out that even though he apparently loved it, he also apparently didn't finish it as God conveniently called him to the ministry during that experience.)
This guy's thesis this morning was basically: "We should all be a lot more crazy. God never intended Christians to be a bunch of boring, careful people shackled to plans." Which doesn't sound all that revolutionary. Those who have been around Christian churches for awhile have heard those types of sermons a million times. Two things, however, jumped out at me from this particular talk.
First, if his stories are to be believed, this guy has the life to back up his sermon. He really gives stuff away, hangs out with everyone, moves across country, has church in bars, prays and does crazy stuff... he is someone who can say "you should let go of the strings and let your life be more radical" and no one can go "who are you to talk?" He had one story about a time when they were having church in a bar (don't think it can't be done, our church had a 6 week series in a bar just a few months ago, but not like this where the bar was actually open for business during the talk!). The story was, a guy came up after to weeks of being in the bar while the service was going on and asked Vince how much it would cost for a "service." After a little talking to figure out what the guy meant, he realized that this man was trying to see how much Vince would charge him to come to his house (which apparently had a huge yard in which the guy threw giant epic parties) with the church's band and sing worship songs and preach for his friends. Not kidding. That was the story anyway. And they totally did it. Which just proves something I've long believed, that this Christianity thing is really awesome and totally makes your life better, that this really is something that if you understood it suddenly you would want to invite some dude to your party to explain it to people because you would want the people you like to have something awesome. Of course if they believed it and you invited them to church, that would be the problem. Because then you have to explain to them that they shouldn't give up in spite of how all the Christians behave. Which brings me to my second point:
Our church has a mission statement that makes us sound like we should be living like this guy Vince that preached this morning. But our church is not crazy at all. It is ALL ABOUT programming and planning and order and figuring out "what works" and calculating things. And in some ways, that's good. Our church is really big, but we run on a freakishly streamlined budget that would make many American companies ashamed to show their books in public. We have plans; we make things happen, and sometimes we do it efficiently, or so I hear. But which things? Our church is mostly full of people who live comfortable non-crazy lives. I don't think anyone would disagree with that statement. We all walk a fine line at this church between mutually confronting our complacency and corporately enabling it. And today, as I pondered Vince's words and the stories he told and the way he lives his life before his church, a thought came to me which is so simple that I imagine I'm the last to think it after this morning: Our church is not being lead by a crazy person. This guy Vince is leading his church down this road by example. Personal example. His personal, actual life is totally insane. His life. Not the lives of some people in his church whose emails he will now read to you from the stage. His life.
I realize that it's not probably prudent to say this. In fact, I'm almost sure it's a bad idea to publish this. People will go "who are you to talk!" to me as soon as I do. And my church leaders might get pissed if they read it. But today's epiphany perfectly describes so much of what has frustrated me over the last years, that I'm going to anyway. I am sure that it's really hard to lead a church. Heck, I know it's hard to lead just one adult ministry, I've watched my husband do it for three years. In that time, we've heard and seen more crap in the church than I could ever have cared to deal with in a lifetime. We've had people get upset over everything you could imagine, we've had people DO everything you could imagine, and nothing has gone to plan. Everyone always has an opinion, but not the will or somehow the room in their life to make their opinion a reality. People want more of this or less of that or they don't like that person or they don't like that we're not doing their favorite activity or they don't like that there are all these new people and they might actually have to GIVE TO SOMEONE ELSE FOR A FREAKING CHANGE. It's maddening. But, it's also one of the most worthwhile things in our life, and on its best day it's just scratching the surface of really doing church the way its meant. So I don't know what our leaders go through, but I imagine possibly that it is really hard to imagine taking the crazy up a notch. I know it's hard for me. And this adult ministry is not even being run in a crazy way.
Still, I think more and more that the way through this frustration is not to back out, but to ramp it up. We all got into this faith because we saw something wonderful in it. The frustration comes from living it half-assed. The crazy guy who preached this morning seems fine. So do a lot of the people I know who are avoiding faith altogether. It's being in between that is a killer.
Posted by Mrs. Juicebox at 10:16 PM | Comments (5)
August 7, 2008
To Wit...
Today, one of our sweet clients brought in a transcript from a hearing I did for her a couple of weeks ago. Typically, we don't order transcripts of random hearings just for fun (because you have to pay for them), we only order them if there's a dispute about what the judge ruled later. However, our client apparently was so excited about the fact that we won that day (even though it was a small issue in her much larger case) that she went and ordered the transcript herself and then brought it to us.
I was actually pretty proud of that hearing, so I brought a copy of the transcript home and let Mr. J read it. (It's public record, so that's not breaking any rules, just in case anyone out there was freaking out.)
This was his response:
Mr. J: (incredulously) "Um, it says "to wit" AND "be it remembered.'
Mrs. J: "Yes, we're very fancy like that. (this was the first page) It gets better later in the transcript."
quarter-minute later
Mr. J: "This judge sounds sort of cranky."
Mrs. J: "You have to read him with a serious Texas accent and a dry sense of humor. But he did get mad during that hearing."
minute later
Mrs. J: "What part are you at now?" - (I've had people read my papers for school, I've had friends edit my writing for actual publication, and I've had opposing parties scrutinize my writing for flaws, but having someone read a transcript of me on the record was actually quite unnerving.")
Mr. J: "I just got through your opening statement."
Mrs. J: "Oh."
Mr. J: "I can't read that fast, this is dense." (Who you callin' dense? I WON that hearing! Apparently, my opening statement is not exactly "A Few Good Men" material. Darn.)
couple minutes later
Mr. J: "Ok, I finally got to the part where it's you're turn." (That is called cross examination, thankyouverymuch, and it is my favorite part of hearings ever, which probably means I'm secretly an evil person.)
minuteish later
Mr. J: (laughing hysterically) " What would have happened if you hadn't had that information on him?"
Mrs. J: "The hearing would have taken way longer!"
Let's just say that the proceedings ended abruptly when the opposing party started lying out of his hindquarters during my questioning. It really is bad, but being able to trap him on the stand and show him for what he was was sort of extremely satisfying. There are so many times in life when you can pretty much tell that someone is full of it, or even actually KNOW for sure that they are, but the fact that they aren't under oath and you aren't opposing counsel sort of keeps that whole "I get to grill you now and force you to admit that you're full of poop." scenario from actually playing out. I can't be the only person who fantasizes about how great it would be if those scenarios DID play out though, right? Bueller? *crickets chirping in the night air as everyone ponders just how secretly evil I am*
Luckily for our client in the case I was on, Judges are typically even better than the general population at spotting a full-o-poop-er, and they sort of take the "whole truth and nothing but the truth" part of the oath they administer ON A DAILY BASIS really seriously. On occasion, those factors combine to create some pretty special results, as with this case. I will admit, sometimes, just SOMETIMES, there really is justice to be had in the justice system.
Posted by Mrs. Juicebox at 6:23 PM | Comments (1)
August 2, 2008
I want to know what the other options are besides lion and polar bear
I found the link to this article by Ethan Zuckerman called Social Lions, Fiscally-Literate Mobile Phones off a blog co-written by a woman I've been following around the internet for awhile. Her old blog "Stay of Execution" came up on a Google search I did a few years ago for "should I quit law school?" No, I wasn't above trying to use the internet as a magic 8 ball during that time:)
The article is about a little device (it looks to me like a smaller version one of those round things they give you in restaurants to call you when your table's ready) developed in the Netherlands to track social interaction in high school students. If the last half of that sentence doesn't get your attention, then I don't know what will, because I've never ever been in a conversation about high school that didn't end up with everyone in the room telling horror stories about the social maelstrom that is that experience. In the Netherlands, apparently, there's no middle school, so kids go straight from elementary to high. Can you imagine that? Middle school is horrible, but at least it's self contained. The Dutch could have just adopted middle school, and then maybe they wouldn't need this device. They could just do what we do in the states - keep our heads down for between three and seven formative years, survive, and then swap war stories for the rest of our lives, seeking professional help where necessary.
On second thought, maybe the device is a good idea...
Here's a quote from the article giving a little more detail:
"Rather than scoring the children on good or bad types of interaction, the device characterizes a user as one of nine animals: Lions are very diverse and very intense in their interactions. Their opposites are Polar Bears, who interact infrequently and briefly. Users can change roles over time - the device vibrates when your state changes, but you can only see what role you've taken on by "mating" your device with another person's device, giving the opportunity for conversation and interaction. For "complementary" roles, the animal icons will glow gold."
Sherry's post on her most recent blog gives her take on the project.
My take is, like all things great and small, this would probably be really interesting for the kids for awhile, but human nature would naturally eff up the results. Like Sherry, I picture the kids eventually gaming the system to mess with the tutors, running around trying to make the polar bears show up as lions and the lions show up as dolphins and the blue jays show up as cougars. (I doubt "cougar" is one of the animals, but I couldn't resist;) Assuming that they actually used the devices "the way they're supposed to," I also imagine that the effect of being labeled either a lion or a polar bear or a whatever would start to be self-fulfilling pretty quickly, even though those labels are only supposed to apply to patterns of behavior at that time rather than to the person as a whole. If there's one thing people probably all learn fast, it's that people LOVE to label each other, even though we know better. "She's neurotic," "he's just not self-aware," "she's brilliant," "he's kind," - give a bunch of kids a handful of labels and a device that lets them SEE WHICH ONE APPLIES TO THEM AND TO OTHERS AT ANY GIVEN TIME, I wouldn't trust human adults with that power, let alone a bunch of tweens.
Really though, the device's label isn't at all like the social labels people tend to give each other. The device's animal label would change as your behavior changed, so you could have a polar-bearish week and then meet some fun people and suddenly you would show up as a lion. You could be a neurotic lion or a neurotic polar bear. You could be a brilliant dolphin or a brilliant blue jay. A device that tells you about the frequency and intensity of your interactions wouldn't, unfortunately, let you know whether you're being a huge jerk or a doormat during all that talk time:) That would be a great feature though. "Please return to polar bear mode, you're being judgy and should avoid other humans." or "You seem to have the wherewithal to show love today, it is a good day to interact more like a lion." The day they start making the alarm clock that gives your social forecast for the day is the day humans actually start behaving better. The next day, however, would be the day everyone overslept after smashing their alarm clock.
People tend to assume that more frequent and more intense social interaction = better, so it would be "better" to be a lion, but logically we all know that that's a totally arbitrary standard. I myself have assumed that in the past, and have gotten in way over my head socially as a result. Maybe a device like this would have helped me see that sooner? Like, if it had a warning light that started flashing saying "You have been in lion mode for 2.2 years, please return to polar bear for a rest or, based on our data about you, you will self-destruct in three, two, one..."
Anyway, it's an interesting idea.
There are a couple of other cool tech applications in the article as well, like a credit card program that tells you how you're REALLY spending, and a cell phone that tries to teach you personal finance principles by using minutes as currency. I really like the idea of representing value in other forms than money, but this post is really long already, so I'll spare you the non-sequitur:)
Posted by Mrs. Juicebox at 11:26 AM | Comments (3)
July 30, 2008
Not to beat a dead (bad) horse to death but DR. HORRIBLE IS FREE AGAIN SO GO WATCH IT IF YOU HAVEN'T YET
Can't stop singing these songs.
So good.
Favorite quote:
"Sometimes people are layered like that, there's something totally different underneath than what's on the surface."
"And sometimes there's a third even deeper level, and that one is the same the top surface one."
"Huh?"
"Like with pie."
DR. HORRIBLE's SING ALONG BLOG BACK ON HULU
Posted by Mrs. Juicebox at 10:42 AM | Comments (8)