Hood

I have just finished reading what I have rated as my first 5-star novel of the year. A tale so finely crafted, so vivid in each and every detail, that I was moved in mind and spirit to another place and time in a way that I have rarely experienced. Certainly this was a work on a different plane, penned by a seasoned craftsman well honed in his skills. But first, a related back story is needed for you to appreciate how I found this treasure.

Several weeks ago I posted a blog entitled "More Than Gruel?", where I pondered aloud whether I was getting the most out of the novels that I read. Was I spending my time with crude and middling fare when there was a much more delicious feast out there? As I response to this post, a reader that I do not personally know (who goes by the mysterious moniker Ricky Anderson), suggested that I look into works by english author Stephen Lawhead. This lead me to my local library and a slew of books from which to choose. After a few moments of thought, I selected three books that are part of his so-called "King Raven" trilogy. The first book is entitled Hood.

Hood represents a re-telling of the legend of Robin Hood, set in the English and Welsh countrysides circa 1100 A.D. The story has as its backdrop the infighting and self-preservation of the royals of medieval Britain. The compelling antagonist is the prince of a small holding whose land has been taken away by a backroom deal. The author has undertaken detailed research with regard to his choice of setting and the descriptions of the characters and how they lived. His choice of the setting itself was not capricious, but one based on his following the legends of this vagabond back through the ages. Certainly though this portrayal is a mixture of legend, fact, and fiction. It is told in a carefully crafted and layered style so that the narrative and actions of the characters are fully developed and contained within the context of each scene and each part of the tale. Now, onto the second novel in the series, Scarlet.

Tech Savvy

I am someone who spends a great deal of his day working on a computer. Yet I am not as tech-savvy as I would like to be or as hip and "with it" with regard to these machines as you might think given what I do for a living. You know who I blame for this? Well, my woes are actually the fault of two causes.

1). The IT Department where I work. I mean, whenever I run into troubles with networking or hardware or software, these oompa-loompas come rushing to my aid the second that they sense I am stuck or whenever they find me violently weeping under my desk. I mean, how am I ever going to learn anything about these contraptions and how they operate if some little orange man rushes to my rescue the second that the soup gets a bit thick?

2). Inertia. Inertia is a great word. Folks likely have heard this term and, moreover, can probably use it effectively in a sentence. ("My, your inertia gleams in the moonlight darling.") But, just as likely, most folks couldn't define this word if I threatened them with a sock packed with cold butter. Inertia is the tendency of an object in motion to stay in motion unless acted on by an external force, or in my case, the tendency of an object at rest to remain at rest, unless said external force starts poking at things that it shouldn't. In this definition, I am the object at rest, or better yet, I am the one who doesn't know anything whatsoever about the computers that he is using and yelling at. Likely I will remain in this state until something changes.

Maybe the answer is that I need someone from the IT Department not to fix or solve my computer problems when they arise, but to threaten me or poke me with a stick until I learn how to solve my own issues.

Plinko

I came to know the game called "plinko" from watching The Price is Right as a kid. The plinko game board is flat with a regular pattern of pegs sticking out from its surface and bumpers along the side edges. A player stands at the top of the board and places a disk at the first row of pegs and lets it fall down under gravity. The disk then bounces and rebounds and careens off the pegs, moving willy-nilly, this way and that way, ever downward toward the bottom of the board. At that point the disk falls into one of a number of slots labeled with specific prizes.

The other day I heard someone use the term plinko and it gave me pause. I thought about the game and how that disk bounces around in a beguiling pattern. Just when you think you can make an accurate guess as to which slot it will end up in, it takes a couple of bounces in the opposite direction. I sometimes feel like my life is a game of plinko. It seems that so much of it is random and out of my control. If you are like me, someone who tries to stay in control of all their life variables as much as possible, then this erratic bouncing of life's prize disk is infuriating and gives rise to untold levels of anxiety and worry. Furthermore, even though my lifestyle is fairly lavish by any worldly definition, there are moments where I live on edge with the perilous, uneasy sense that I am just a couple of unexpectedly bad bounces away from my disk landing in the "busted" slot.

The Bride Collector

Imagine the beauty that would overwhelm our souls if we could see each other in the same light in which God views us ...

I have just finished the thriller The Bride Collector by Ted Dekker. This novel was written on several different levels. On the surface it is the story of a psychotic killer who is systematically abducting women and brutally killing them, all the while he is being pursued by a relentless FBI agent. On another level it follows a touching love story between the FBI agent and a young lady who provides assistance. If the story remained confined to these two threads, it would be a fairly generic story told time and again by countless authors. However, this tale, at its core, latches onto something more beautiful and profound.

The bride collector is the label given by the FBI to the mass murderer. This man, Quinton Gauld, is not killing women for sport or with evil intent in his mind. He believes that he has been charged by God to deliver the most beautiful women alive to be His brides. In order to purify them to be in God's presence, he must drain them of their blood and their humanity. He believes that he is operating solely out of love and devotion. However, in his mind, he somehow knows that something in his thinking and logic is amiss, that he is a sinner. In his conflict, he leaves a note with one of the brides. This note leads the FBI to an establishment housing a number of patients with mental disorders but who are exceptionally bright. One of the patients is a young woman named Paradise. Paradise is gifted with visions of the past and an acute ability to understand people, but she is psychotic and highly agoraphobic. Tentatively, she begins to work through her personal limitations and issues with the lead FBI agent on the case, Brad Raines. Slowly, however, feelings of trust and a bond of love begin to develop.

Yet how can there be true love between a handsome, talented, and outgoing agent and a homely, introverted, disconnected woman? Some might think that this notion is unrealistic or far-fetched. However, when both can see past the veneer of humanity, see past the labels, see past the baggage of the years that cloud vision, they ultimately can see into the heart and mind.

900? ... 900!

Today is a day of celebration on this site. Please don a conical party-type hat and serve yourself a piece of virtual cake (don't worry, it has no calories or fat grams and is loaded with riboflavinoids). There is something special about the number 900. A few that flock to the top of my frothy mind include:

• 900 is the number of blog posts that I have posted to this site.
  
• Of the integers from 1 to 10, 900 is evenly divisible by all but 7 and 8.
  
• Over the course of my lifetime, I have averaged writing roughly 1 post every 18 days.
  
• State route 900 in Washington (aka the "Evergreen State") extends 16.20 miles from Tukwila to Issaquah.
  
• A 900 in skateboarding is an aerial spin maneuver with 2.5 rotations.
  
• The year 900 was a leap year and marked the beginning of the postclassic period in Mesoamerica.
  
• The Romans represented the number 900 as CM
  
• The number 900 is used twice in the Bible.
  
• The Cabal distinguishes 900 different species of death.
  

Thanks once again to my loyal cadre of regular visitors and commenters. You are much appreciated. See you on the road to a cool G.

What's in a Name?

In William Shakespeare's classic Romeo and Juliet, Juliet pondered aloud, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." But I'm afraid that she got it wrong. If that which we call a rose was actually called, "steaming dung", I don't think that they would be such a big hit as an anniversary gift.

But this germ of a thought, somehow caused me to be on the lookout for business names that are so inappropriate that I can't help but think that they must affect profit margins. Over the course of just a few days driving around my local community, I had more than enough fodder for a decent size blog post. Here is what I found:

• Dressbarn (women's fashions) - that's right, let's make extremely image conscious women feel like beasts of burden.
  
• The Revolt (local restaurant) - "Honey, how was your supper?" ... "I think that it is staging a revolt in my lower intestines!"
  
• Hairphenalia (women's hair salon) - let's offend the literati with home-grown made up gibberish for a name!
  
• BJs Wholesale (bulk warehouse) - O.K., I'm not in high school anymore, but this still causes me to giggle like a giddy school girl.
  
• Wings 'n Things (local restaurant) - I firmly believe that anybody who is not a cretin would refuse to patronize any establishment that purposefully has a " 'n " in their name, just on general principles.
  

So, what places in your neighborhood do you think have naming issues?

A-maize-ing

You might know that it is referred to by the American Indians as maize. But to you and me it is good ol' corn. Popped, boiled, baked, and microwaved. Slathered in butter and sprinkled with salt. Tasty and delicious. However, for a Massachusetts family of four, corn has come to represent the mark of the beast. What started as an afternoon of good, clean, family fun quickly turned into pure frozen terror.

I came across this story from a number of different news outlets the other morning. A family with two regulation size younglings, paid for the opportunity to wander through a corn maze in the happening town of Danvers (the "mile-behind city"). After a few minutes they got disoriented and lost their way and could not seem to make any progress toward locating an exit. They were obviously lost amongst the niblets for a long while, because closing time rolled around and the owners closed up the shop and headed off for a nightcap at Skeeter's watering hole. Then inky blackness started to close in on the once plucky group of corn explorers. As the night wrapped itself around them, they began to scream in utter panic. I believe that they even considered cannibalizing the youngest child should the Zagnut bars in their fanny packs run out or if they were feeling a bit peckish.

Apparently they forgot they could walk through the corn in a straight line back toward the parking area. They also seemed to forget that the corn field was only about an acre in size. Oh, and they forgot that all of them, including baby Unser Herman, were loaded with enough electronic communication gizmos and GPS devices to stage a Navy Seal mission. Ultimately, the end game of this episode was captured on a 911 emergency call. The dispatcher initially thought the whole thing was a poorly played joke, but as his laughter quelled, he finally understood that this group of "average" folks (apparently with roots in West Virginia) tweren't fooling. He then made an off-handed comment about the need to "thin the herd" before finally sending over new recruit, Deputy Barney Pimpleface, to lead them to safety. Oh, for corn sake!