Nov

14

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man

Post Category: Childhood Memories, Just For Fun 

I’ve always had an obsession with superheroes and comic book characters.

When I was 6 I was at my Grandma’s house playing upstairs. I tied a blanket around my neck like a cape and pretended to be Superman running back and forth with my fist in front of me and my cape flying behind my back. In that moment I was the Man of Steel - unstoppable, inspiring, invincible!

Invincible, it seems, from everything except crashing through windows.

I wasn’t paying attention where I was “flying” and crashed through the window at the end of the room resulting in a trip to the hospital and some stitches in my thumb. Still have the scar. Perhaps Iron Man would have had a better defense?

I have to say though, after all these years I still think Spider-Man is probably my favorite. Like Superman his alter-ego is an ordinary, somewhat clumsy guy but when Peter Parker puts on that suit, watch out bad guys! I think the suit is one the things I love best about Spidey. You could be the most socially-backwards, unattractive person there is but if you put on the Spider-Man suit and sling yourself into a room you’ll get immediate attention.

It’s Friday and many of you are already having trouble keeping grips on reality so let’s have a little fun.

If you could choose, what type of superhero* would you be? What are your powers?

* yes, there are different types of superheroes

Oct

16

I’ve Been Churched

Post Category: Authenticity, Book Reviews, Childhood Memories 

My Review of ‘Churched’ by Matthew Paul Turner

I received an advance copy of Churched in the mail a couple of weeks ago and was anxiously looking forward to reading it. I knew it was going to be good because only great writers get to use their first, last and middle name on the book cover.

I sat down to read about Matthew Paul Turner’s “journey to God despite a holy mess” and was immediately drawn into the story. Within a few hours I had read the book cover to cover in one sitting.

Turner’s humorous storytelling style made this book a fun and easy read. Every 10 or 15 minutes I called out to Lisa in the other room, “Honey, listen to this…” Some of the stories were so laughable that you might almost wonder if they were true. But having been thoroughly “churched” myself I knew that situations like those could only happen in a church.

So many of his recollections brought back memories of when I attended Sunday school as a child with my hair slicked back and my clip-on tie firmly attached to my collar.

I thought the devil was easy to spot when I was younger. To me, he stuck out like a black dot on a white sheet of paper. I’d be minding my own business and all of a sudden - boo! - Satan jumped out from behind a corner like he was a jack-in-the-box. he sought out ways to devour me, tempt me, or get me to take up smoking.

I was trained in Sunday school to spot the devil. My teachers told me to watch out for roaring lions, disgruntled angels, women wearing low-cut blouses, and Billy Graham. Those were sure signs that Satan could be close.

I remember the songs we sang that contrasted the stomp-the-devil-to-the ground-and-make-him-sit-on-a-tack to the ones that reminded us just how big and strong our God was.

A part of me always believed that God was bigger than how the people at my church talked about him. They thought of him as big, of course. And strong. One of the songs we used to sing in Sunday school boasted, “My God is so big, so strong and so mighty; there’s nothing my God cannot do.”

We’d scream-sing those words so loud that our teachers would worry that our blood vessels would pop. But the big God that my pastor and Sunday school teachers talked about seemed like an if-he-ever-stepped-on-me-he’d-smash-me kind of big. Angry, giant big. It always made God seem unloving and uncoordinated.

But probably the part of Turner’s book that grabbed me the most were his stories of conforming to the popular image of what it meant to be a Christian, from the “Baptist haircut” to the way he talked.

At my church and school, perception was everything. How people viewed you was much more important than how you actually were. The truth didn’t matter. What people believed to be the truth mattered. I learned early on that if everybody believed I was the well-behaved, good-natured boy without a sin in the world, it didn’t matter what the truth was. The truth was secondary to a person’s opinion or perception of truth.

As I read Churched I alternated between laughter at some of his stories and wincing as I remembered some of mine. I’ve seen the worst of legalism and fundamentalism in the church. I tried to conform to the scripture-quoting, suit-wearing, hymn-singing Christian everyone told me I needed to be. I looked the part on the outside but inside I was a mess.

This book paralleled my childhood in so many ways which, at times, was a little uncomfortable. However, it was the thread of hope that ran through the pages that reminded me that each of us are on a journey to God. For some of us, our journeys include stories of sex, drugs and alcohol abuse. But some include singing hymns, doing Bible-drills and burning secular music.

I’m so thankful that my journey led me out of that “holy mess” to a real, genuine relationship with God, one that was unhampered by legalism and hypocrisy.

Reading ‘Churched’ reminded me just how far I’ve come.

****

Order Churched on Amazon.com
Visit Matthew Paul Turner’s blog

Sep

22

My First Web Site Design

Post Category: Childhood Memories, Technology 

I recently discovered a web site called the Wayback Machine (ht: nickasolas) that has archived over 100 terabytes and 10 billion web pages from 1996 to the present. You’ll find some interesting pieces of Internet history such as the original web sites for Internet Movie Database (Nov. ‘96), NASA (June ‘97) and Yahoo (Dec. ‘96).

You’ll even discover the original White House web site. While the government joined the internet revolution at an early date with a web presence, they neglected to register the domain whitehouse.com which was purchased and used as an adult web site through 2004 where it received ten times as much traffic as whitehouse.gov (story). That’s the first amendment for you.

DISCLAIMER: This post ventures into geek-speak territory. You’ve been warned.

My Own Internet History
Here’s my own little piece of Internet history. Back in 1997 I landed a job as a web designer at an Internet Service Provider in Michigan called The Internet Ramp. This was back in the good old days of dial-up modems and Internet Explorer 3.0. Ahhh, those were the days!

Using the collective power of the Wayback Machine I was able to take a trip down memory lane and remember my first real job and first web site design. To better set the stage you need to see the before version of the web site.

TIR BEFORE (circa 1997)

This was the web site that TIR used and had grown to tens of thousands of users with. This site was actually what landed me the job because I got so sick of looking at it every time I logged in to my ISP that I finally emailed them and asked if I could please redesign the site. That landed me a job interview and after working there for six months we launched the new Internet Ramp.

TIR AFTER (circa 1998)

While it’s hardly much by my design standards today you have to remember that graphicaly-rich interfaces were not that common in the pre-CSS days when all we had to work with was HTML tables. To give you an idea, compare my site design with NASA’s web site in 1997:

In the years since that job I’ve designed countless sites and (thankfully) improved and updated my design style. The Wayback Machine is a geek’s version of old high-school yearbooks. It’s fun to look back and see how far we’ve come.

This is the part where I rock back and forth in my rocking chair on the front porch with a far-off look in my eye and start calling you “Sonny.”

What’s your earliest Internet memory or experience?

Aug

27

The Long Road To Getting Back In Shape

Post Category: Blog Posts, Childhood Memories, biking 

I used to be in decent shape.

When I was younger a group of friends talked about going on a long bike trip and camping out along the way. When it came down to actually doing it only myself and Mark (now my brother-in-law) were the only ones able to go. So we bought all the necessary gear and loaded up our bikes with 70+ pounds apiece of camping and cooking equipment and left our homes for the ride of our life.

We did this trip without any real prior training (kinda stupid) other than a couple 25 mile rides which meant we trained and toned as we rode. The first 3 days were pure pain and agony as we punished our bodies and forced them into submission. By mid-way through the trip we were starting to feel better and by the end we felt like we could conquer the world. All in all we biked 1,000 miles over 12 days, several days of which we biked over 100 miles in one day (known as biking a Century).

Fast forward 12 years. I wish I could say that I’ve kept up with my biking, but I haven’t. Fueled by the excitement of completing our 1,000 mile trip I even invested in custom-building a beautiful Klein road bike with top-of-the-line components. I’ve maybe put 300-400 miles on that bike since I built it.

Lisa has bugged me to sell it for years but I just can’t bear parting with something I spent so much money on (or is it that I hate admitting I was so out of shape I would never use it again?).

Enough’s enough. A few weeks ago I realized that getting back into shape wasn’t just going to happen and I wasn’t getting any younger. So I filled up the tires and got back out on the road. The first couple of days reminded me how long it’s been and how out of shape I really was.

But the consistency of getting out there day after day and improving my diet has slowly yielded results. I’ve been biking 16+ miles a day during the week and longer on the weekends.

Right now I have my sights set on the Hilly Hundred, a 100 mile ride through the scenic hills of southern Indiana. Anyone want to join me?

Last year I turned 30 and I realized my 20-year-old body and energy wasn’t going to just stay with me if I didn’t do something about it. It’s a long road getting back into shape after so long but I’m excited to be on it.

What’s your proudest physical or athletic achievement?

Aug

12

Why My Mom Won’t Drink Mountain Dew

Post Category: Childhood Memories, Completely Crazy, Embarrassing 

If you’ve known me long enough or had the chance to stay up late at night swapping stories with me, you’ll eventually hear this one. It’s probably one of the most embarrassing, stupid, least-thought-out things I did as a kid.

My parents went out for dinner and left my brother and I at home. We were boys so there was all the usual wrestling and goofing around but after an hour or so we got bored.

I went to the fridge to see what was in there and saw a half-empty bottle of Mountain Dew. As only a 10-year-old whose brain hadn’t caught up to his body could think of, I had an idea for a prank. What if I emptied the bottle and filled it back up with pee! (you can see why I stay up at night worrying about what my kids are going to do when they get older)

I put the top back on the bottle and put it back in the fridge. I heard my parents come home and ran upstairs listening over the balcony and snickering to myself. I waited for a few minutes until I heard the refrigerator door open.

The next thing I heard was my mom spitting and running to the bathroom to throw up. As with many of our pranks as kids, I hadn’t completely thought this one through. To say that I was in trouble with my dad would be a bit of an understatement.

When people hear that story they always ask me, What were you thinking? The simple answer? I wasn’t.

What was the worst thing you did to your parents as a kid?

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