Better Lucky Than Good

Last Saturday Ian talked me into coming with him to a big Magic pre-release tournament in LA. I had been debating whether or not to go, but I had a blast, so I'm glad I did go. I've been an off and on, very casual player of the game ever since middle school. Prior to this weekend, the last time I played was probably about eight months ago. I expected to be kind of rusty, but I was actually fairly pleased with how well I played.

Anyway, Ian and I played in a special partners format. The two of us were one of 24 teams. It was run as a five round of Swiss-style tournament. Ian and I fought hard through the first two rounds without much difficulty. We hit round 3, and had a match that went from a good start to them coming from behind to hand us our first loss. Round 4 we won fairly easily.

Going into the fifth and final round we knew we had a good chance of getting a prize (top 4) if we could win this round. The other team got off to a quick start, and we helped them out with our only truly bone headed mistake of the night. It wasn't looking good for us, we only had a few turns left to live when I was lucky enough to draw a card that neutralized their primary threat. Still, it was an uphill battle ahead of us. We reached a point where it was a simple race to slowly kill the other team. In the end we emerged victorious thanks to several cards that we drew at the perfect time, some careful playing, and overly cautious play on the part of our opponents.

Result: 3rd place out of 24 teams (Not too shabby) and a heck of a lot of fun.

Note regarding the title: Back at Mudd some of us used the phrase "Better lucky than good" to describe games that contained both a factor of luck and skill (primarily Magic). We got a laugh out of it when one person clearly played better, but lost because of the other player's dumb luck.

Jeremiah

My Church is starting a twelve week study of the book of Jeremiah. Obviously in twelve weeks we won't be able to cover everything in the book. Still, I'm excited about this. I've never studied Jeremiah before, and my study of the Old Testament prophets in general is sparse. I expect it to be difficult, convicting, and a great time of growth.

4000% Price Hike

On Saturday I got my first haircut since getting back from India. In Kolkata I could get a haircut for 15 rupees, about 35 cents. This one cost me $14. It was a nice haircut, but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't 40 times better. Oh well, it's still a bargain when you factor in the price of getting to the barber.

Ok Heart, Settle Down

Last night I glanced out at the parking lot behind our apartment building and noticed that my car was not in my parking spot. I had an initial panic reaction, thinking that my car must have been stolen.

After a few seconds I calmed down enough to remember that when I came home, someone else was parked in my parking spot, so I had parked on the street instead. That car had since left, leaving the unusual situation of me being home but my parking spot being empty.

Dear Anonymous

I've been starting to get spam on my blog posts, and it mostly comes from anonymous users. I really liked the fact that Blogger would allow anonymous comments, but I'm afraid that I had to disable them to prevent the spam. If you want to leave comments, now you'll need to go through the trouble of creating an account.

Another Book Down

As you may remember, I got into reading classic literature while I was in India. The books were very inexpensive and other forms of entertainment were sparse. I brought a lot of books back with me to the US, and just finished reading Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It was an interesting book. There were lots of very slow sections, the worst of which was a 30-page description of the layout of Paris in the 1400's - I had to skim/skip most of it for the sake of not just putting the book down forever. On the other hand, many parts of the book were very engaging. I have never seen the Disney version, and now I'm curious to see what they did with it. The book did not strike me at all as something that would translate into a Disney movie. Then again, the original Little Mermaid wasn't quite what ended up in the Disney movie either.

Healthy Church

My Church just finished a three week sermon series looking at what marks a healthy Church. I could list the marks that they gave, but really it wouldn't mean a whole lot without going into depth on what they really meant by each point. It was an interesting thing to think about, and I thought our pastors had a lot of good thoughts on the matter. If you're interested, our sermons are posted here. So far only the first of the three is up. Usually they seem to get around to updating it once ever couple of weeks.

Another thought I've had about Churches is the difficulty of what they try to do. Especially when I came out of LAUP, it was easy to be critical of Churches because they weren't giving the same hardcore teachings that I received at LAUP. When I think about it though, I'd be concerned if all of the teachings at a Church were on that level. A young Christian, for example, really needs discipleship to solidify the basics of Jesus. I wouldn't dream of putting someone through an intense study of Amos before they studied the Gospels. On the other hand, there's a lot of people that really need those deep and challenging teachings. I would also be worried about a Church that wasn't seeking to challenge people any further than a basic understanding of Jesus. After that, throw in issues of age and people that are all sorts of different places in life and come from all sorts of different backgrounds.

Don't get me wrong, I think LAUP, and other programs like it that are wonderful and I wish there were more of them. I'm just saying that when you take a group of people who are all in their college years, and further filter them down by requiring a certain amount of spiritual maturity, it's a lot easier to target discipleship at them. It just seems amazing to me that a Church body would ever be able to meet people at so many different places in life.

Saddle Sore

I rode my bike some this weekend and, then I rode to work for the second time today. On the way back home, the seat under me really didn't feel so good. After I'd been going for about 5 minutes or so, it stopped bothering me as much. I guess I either got used to it or maybe just went numb to it. In any case, I don't like it, and I'm starting to wonder if this is an issue where I need to give myself time to heal, or if it is something where I just need to push through and my body will get conditioned to it. Is there anyone out there with any insight from experience?

Pimping My Ride

I decided that my wheels weren't everything I wanted them to be, so today I bought and installed some accessories. I added a rack, a bottle holder, and front and back reflectors to my bike. I think I've now spent about the same amount on bike accessories as I did on the bike itself. I expect that it will actually be worth it because I'll start riding to and from work semi-regularly.

Oh, I was also pleasantly surprised to find that the local bike shop I go to gives out the reflectors for free! As Ian pointed out to me, it may pay off by helping to keep their customers alive.

Biking

Two weekends ago I finally bought a bike. It has been on my list for a while, but I stalled because I didn't want to pay the price tag for a new bike or reasonably good quality. Luckily I found an inexpensive used bike that seemed to be in very good working order, so I bought it.

Ideally I'd like to ride my bike to work on at least a semi-regular basis, but for someone who hasn't really used a bike much in the past 8+ years, the 6 mile ride to work (plus another 6 miles back) seemed like it might be a bit too much for me at first. In an effort to work myself up to it, I've made it a point to get out riding on the weekend. Last Sunday my roommate and I went out for a 12 mile ride. It kind of wiped me out, but gave me the confidence that riding to work was within my ability.

Today I tested that theory out, and I'm happy to say that I did make it all the way to work by bike. I even took a slightly longer route than I had to (maybe 2 extra miles) so that I could enjoy a bike trail rather than the road. I certainly don't expect that I will bike to work every day, but I'm hoping I can manage it at least a couple of times each week.

Lonely Day at the Office

My company has a wonderful policy regarding holidays. They are all floating. As a result, I'm at work today even though it is technically a holiday. It turns out, I'm the only person from my building that decided to come in this morning. I know other people are still working because I've been getting email, but all of them are in our primary building. I have to admit, it's kind of weird being the only one here.