Mr. Wrong the movie...emphasis on wrong.

Brittany recorded an Ellen Degeneres movie that we watched tonight, Mr. Wrong. It was possibly one of the worst five movies that I've ever seen. Yikes. The only small redeeming thing was a character played by Joan Cusack who I think is hilarious. Otherwise I think it was a waste of film and our time.

Wii madness.

For Christmas this year Brittany's mom said that she wanted to get family members one big gift. Brittany decided that she'd aim high and ask for a Wii. This surprised me because I've never thought of her as a video game person but there is the element of being active that appeals to her. Regardless of it being an expensive Christmas wish it was granted....and knowing that Santa was bringing the Wii we decided to pick up the Wii fit. 

Overall good stuff. The Wii sports games are pretty fun and the Fit especially is clever. The added bonus that I've become excited about is the ability to download many classic games. I never had a Nintendo or Super Nintendo growing up and always had to play those systems at a friend's house. We had a Sega which was fun but not quite the same. 

Today for $5 I bought Super Mario Brothers. It's awesome. The music, the graphics, the sound of squishing the Goombas makes me feel like I'm 8 yrs. old again. I love it.

Satire?

Huh. I didn't know that racism was now considered satire. This certainly doesn't help the Republican party's image.

D-day

So today I officially started writing my thesis paper. The paper itself isn't too daunting (10-15 pgs.) but I think the thought of this being my final work for my program is a bit on the crazy side. I'm not sick of school but I'm excited to being so close to being done. I'm also a bit scared because I'm so close to being done. Internship is a pass/fail grade instead of a letter grade but there's still little room for error. Yikes!

And a small update my from last post....Fred and his cronies never showed.

Happenings

Was reading through the local paper today and came across this. I've actually seen Fred Phelps and his cronies out demonstrating before and it's sad. (It's no wonder why some people say Christians are hypocritical.....) Anyways I found it interesting that he was coming to little ole' Longview to protest this play. 

The best part of this article though was the anti-Fred Phelps link at the bottom of the article.....I'm not whole-heartedly endorsing the website but the banner certainly made me laugh:)

Happy Birthday Mr. Brewster and Mr. Jones!

Hey roomies-Happy Birthday to you both.....Eli I tried to give you a call but your voicemail box isn't set up yet-Jed confirmed this..... I thought this was a good picture from a fun weekend although somebody looks like they have their grumpy pants on.

Anyways, I hope that both of you enjoyed your birthdays. Kind of weird getting closer to 30 huh? Know that I'm so glad to have been your roommate and hope that we can hang out more regularly. (How about a guys' beach weekend sometime?) I pray for you guys both regularly and I hope that your next year is a good one.

I'm still alive

Just a quick update on life. Britt and I survived our Europe trip and got back on the 16th. Since then I've started my internship at a middle school in town which has been going well but making things busy. Tomorrow is our first day of school which is exciting. I'll give more of an update on our trip-which in short was awesome. Good to be home though.

Catching up

So...June came and went. Britt finished teaching on the 12th and I finally finished my "summer semester" on the 26th-whew. We also went to a wedding in Spokane for our friends Drew & Annie-Britt was a bridesmaid. We managed a quick side trip to Coeur d'Alene and then camped a few nights on our way back home.

July brought about strawberries-yum! We went down to La Center with Britt's dad and ended up picking close to 70 lbs. of strawberries. They were so good and they make me never want to buy store bought strawberries again...too bad strawberry season is so short.

We made it to the beach for a few days and since then have just been taking things easy at home. I turn 29 on Thursday and then on Tuesday we leave for a trip to Europe. Whoo hoo!

Yowsa...

So as of late things have been pretty busy. School, school and more school...but it will be over in about three weeks or so. Nothing too eventful has happened and I haven't really made the time to blog as of late. I've also discovered Facebook in the last week or so...it's ridiculous how many people you can get in touch with. A bit on the addicting side as well...one more thing to throw in the mix.

Our summer plans changed a bit as we were supposed to work at camp for two weeks but unfortunately camp was cancelled due to low attendance. Regular camp is still rolling but we were supposed to head up a two week adventure camping program...challenge course, whitewater rafting, rock climbing...which is super fun. No kids though means no camp. Boo. Oh well-we will now have more time to do something else...

"Luke. I am your father."

So I remember hearing about the newer Jedi religion that has been recently officially recognized in New Zealand. I recently read this article and had to chuckle.

Batman trailer

Kudos to Fogey for sending this my way.

One more down.

Today was the last day of the semester and it feels nice. I just got home and I'm a little unsure of what to do with myself. Part of me feels like I should go mow the lawn....the other wants to sit on my rear for a little bit. I think I'll do a little of both before dinnner.

Unfortunately I already have homework for the new semester which starts in two weeks. Boo. It is for my ethics course though which I am excited for. One more down and three to go. Whew.

Bellingham

So last weekend we ventured out for our annual Bellingham pilgrimage. Britt lived in Bellingham for five years and I spent 7 summers and about 2 full years living up there. We enjoyed living there but didn't like the fact that it was so far away from most of our friends and family down south. It's still fun to go visit our friends and get the B-ham experience.

So our weekend began with a drive up Friday night......about 3.25-3.5 hours. We made good time because I decided to go with the flow of traffic in Seattle.....you get passed like you're standing still even at 70! Saturday morning we got up and headed to Lake Samish-home of Ryan Stiles (he has a nice house w/ a big fence) and the home lake of the WWU rowing team. Brittany rowed for four years and loved her experience. Every now and then she'll have a chance to get back in the boat and have some fun. Saturday was one of those days and also about 70 degrees outside. Fun for Britt and it made the girls (all alumni) think about putting a Master's boat together sometime in the future.

Then our trip got really interesting.....we headed to the roller derby, which we didn't even know existed. Overall it was really fun but it reminded us of how weird Bellingham really is. It was fun to see and kind of a cool sport but by no means an event that I would regularly take me child to. Lots of innuendo happening and an unhealthy endorsement of beer with that many kids around.

Post derby we went out to Thai food with our friends Shaun and Tara which was a double bonus. One we like hanging out with them and second, there's not any good Thai food in Longview. Before we headed out of town we ate at Boomer's and had an excellent burger and waffle fries. Mmm. We then headed to the Tulip Festival in Mt. Vernon with our friends Robin and Alan. Most of the tulips were still closed up because of the crazy weather but the daffodils were out and just as beautiful.





Oh yeah-I saw this guy on the way home....I think I could have taken him.

Class time

So I'm sitting in class right now-bored. It's my research class which has been good and I've been enjoying it but the format of the class has afforded a lot of down time. We're working in groups on different research projects and the majority of our class is spent working on our own while we wait for the professor to make the rounds with each and every group. I'm the only school counseling student and therefore am the only one in my group. So I'm a little bored right now.

In regards to the weather, most of you reading this probably already know about the upcoming weekend. If you don't go here for the latest weather warning. Ay Carumba!

Joel Thomas

joelbthomas@gmail.com

Fun photo

I set this as my desktop a few days ago. I just like it. It was taken at Cannon Beach-Silver Point (2nd big rock on the right behind the smaller one) and Jockey Cap (looks like a horse riders helmet) are on the right.

Fun in class

So tonight, some other classmates were giving a presentation on Contextual Family Therapy. This is image was on one of their slides. It made me laugh.

American Idol part 2

So, I'm back home tonight and we put American Idol back on and what do we see again? They sing "Shout to the Lord" again! It's just so weird to me-I don't get it but I guess it's kind of cool.....or something. This time they decided to say "My Jesus" instead of "My Shepherd" which was an interesting switch.

But it gets even better. After that there was this weird celebrity video where all of the these famous people dancing around lip-synching to "I'm a Believer". Another random deal but I started to freak out in the middle of it because.....there was Kobe Bryant was in the video dancing around. As a faithful Blazer fan the sight of any Laker, especially certain ones throws me in convulsions. Yuck. Amazing player but I just can't stand the guy's attitude.

Shout to the Lord....

On American Idol? I'm staying at my brothers house right now because I've got class down here tomorrow. As the show is closing Ryan Seacrest mentions that the remaining contestants are going to close out with the song "Shout to the Lord". I"m thinking "Shout to the Lord from Hillsongs? Like Darlene Zsetch? (or whatever her last name is...) Sure enough it's Hillsongs except.....it's starts off as. "My Shepherd My Savior" instead of "My Jesus My Savior".

I was surprised that they were doing the song in the first place even though they chose to make a little lyrical editing. Interesting to see a worship song appear in the midst of prime time tv mania.

Weird wild stuff

Saw this video on CNN this morning. I don't know a ton about Hinduism but if you're interested in learning about who "Durga" is you can go here.

Friday night

So, all this school year we've had Mexican food for dinner. It started off innocently in the fall and at some point Britt and I realized we had eaten Mexican food for dinner about four Friday's in a row. So Britt had the idea of making Friday nights, "Mexican Fridays" for dinner. It's been fun and I like Mexican food but I'm looking forward to next school year when the theme is "Variety Friday" :)

Anyways tonight we went out to dinner with Britt's dad and took him along to a movie beforehand for helping us on our taxes. We watched 10,000 BC which was decent. Certainly not the best movie that I've seen in the theaters but not the worst either. That title might have to go to Blue Streak....sorry Fogey.

Another highlight from watching the movie was seeing the trailer for The Dark Knight-mmmm.

Hutch read with caution.....

I'm on a blogging tear tonight. Although I'm back in Portland taking classes, I've been off all week because Washington's spring break is the week after Oregon's. We've been trying to use our time wisely and get some good stuff done.

So, last July I was helping out at Camp Firwood for a few weeks. We took kids camping, rock climbing, & white water rafting up in Leavenworth Wa. It was a pretty awesome two weeks of hanging out with kids and being outdoors. Nice. However it did have it's price as during the first week I got some pretty vicious wasp stings. I think I got hit 3-4 times through my shirt sleeves and reacted no differently that I ever have.

Yet still in December the spots where the bees had stung me were still big, nasty, and looking somewhat infected. I probably shouldn't have waited so long to go to the doctor but I was stubborn. Finally I gave in to Britt's suggestions that I go in to get things checked out. I make an appointment and go in to my Dr. who says: "Try this cream and if it doesn't work we'll have to cut it out." Huh? Cut it out? Woah. Never had that type of bee sting before. So sure enough we try some cream to see if it will help the swelling go down which it does but once I finish the medicine it goes back up.

WARNING-If you've got a week stomach (read Hutch) then read with caution. Okay it might not be that bad but on Tuesday I got a new scar. After the first try my doctor decided that the bee stinger must still be left in my arm and is causing the localized swelling. He put me on a different cream to take down the swelling and then had me come back in for my appointment. So I went in a Tuesday and he did a little minor surgery on my arm. Nothing too bad but it was just kind of weird to voluntarily go in and let myself get cut up and get some stitches. Usually stitches happens because of an accident......but now I've got about ten of them in nice neat 1.5 inch line. The arm is a little sore and I'll get the stitches taken out in a little over a week. There's a first for everything.

Bueller...Bueller...

So, at some point during college I found out that Ben Stein was just some guy who was a boring teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off but also a pretty smart cookie. I came across his new movie yesterday that's coming out and was a bit surprised to see what it was about. I've no idea if he's Christian or Jewish in faith but presumably a theist.

Go here to watch the trailer. It certainly has my interest peeked.

It's the end of March....

And it's snowing outside. Bizarre.

I don't think I've ever seen it snow this late in the year but it was fun. We took Britt's mom (for her b-day) and sister snowshoeing just outside of Cougar, Wa. Apparently this is where D.B. Cooper may have ended up if he survived his jump. Regardless we had fun getting out in to the snow and playing for a few hours.

Hmm. Part Two

I think my post from yesterday may have been a bit ambiguous.....check out your Multnomah Ambassador year book-1999 p. 67. Gabe Riley is Gabe Mensinger-I think he lived downstairs that year-Micah Forsythe's section? Anyways-I felt funny about posting yesterday because I didn't want to be seem as if I was trying to spread bad news about someone across cyberspace.....but I felt I had to post because it hit close to home. I knew him. Hugged the guy and drove to Roseburg/Sutherlin on breaks from school. Tragic.

Hmm.

So I'm not sure how ethical/right/or whatever this post is but I was emailed about this today. I had read about this two days ago but there was no photo yet and the article is using the last name Riley instead of Mensinger....

Reading this gives me a heavy heart and brings up lots of feelings that I'm not sure what I think about. It does remind me though that we need to take things one day at a time with our eyes on Jesus. The path is narrow...

Driving adventures

So, I drive a lot because of school and some time see interesting things. On the way home today I was coming off of the Morrison bridge and as I was heading east there was a cop car sitting on the corner of each block.....for about six blocks. I have no clue what was happening-robbery suspect, politician motorcade- but it certainly peeked my interest. I was glad that I didn't caught up in whatever was about to happen.

Then I had a theologian sighting on I-5 when I passed Ray Lubeck in his mini-van. It looked like he had his family with him and I didn't wave because I didn't want to look like a raving lunatic. It was one of the moments where I was thinking...."Would he recognize me....? Ah, just keep driving." Regardless it always fun and satisfying to have those "small world" moments where we see people that we know in unexpected places.

Blazermania!

So, last Friday night we got free tickets to go see the Blazers play the Lakers. It was amazing and obviously a great game ot be at since they won. Now I think that Kobe Bryant is an amazing player and don't want to take anything away from his playing ability.....but on the court I really can't stand the guy.

I feel kind of bad not liking a guy so much but his attitude on the court bugs me......and to make it worse if you breathe on the guy, you commit a foul. This was proved on Friday night as I found my blood pressure going up as the refs kept making questionable calls....any ways I've been wanting to get this off of my chest.

On a positive note the Blazers are going to be amazing next year.....I look forward to it. Now I should get back to class.

Extreme pen spinning

So, I learned how to spin a pen when I was a freshman at Multnomah. I remember sitting on the floor of room 33 and reading a book for Theology Proper (I think) and trying to flip the pen over and over. Finally, it clicked and the pen revolved all the way around my thumb. Today I was reading through the news and found this article. Watch the video-this guy is ridiculous.

Arkansas!

Britt and I had an awesome weekend in Siloam Springs, Ar. with Greg, Carolyn, & Elisa. The weather was a little wet but there was also thunder and lightning which we don't get to see much. Here are some other highlights....


Sonic happy hour was a new experience. That monstrosity of sugary goodness cost about 50 cents.




We also went to a really cool loooonnngggg bookstore in Fayetteville. It was like going in to something from a movie.



We also had the chance to have southern meal at the AQ chicken house. Notice that Greg isn't looking at the camera but rather at the yummy pan fried chicken that he's about to consume....


The special that I got was all you can eat chicken and ribs for 10 bucks. For my sides I got batter dipped fries and fried okra all washed down with sweet tea. I think that one meal equalled all of the calories I should have eaten for the entire weekend.

For Greg

I had meant to post this a few days ago....Greg they are on their way

Mr Moore

A few weeks back we watched Sicko with some friends of ours. Now I know that Mr. Moore is a bit of an extremist, open to some criticism, and presents his films in a very slick one sided presentation...but if you haven't seen this, I think that you should. It's worth watching once and I think generates some good food for thought.

In particular, he focuses about a half hour on the health systems of Great Britain and France which only makes part of me really want to move there. A lot of Europe seems to have figured some things out much better (i.e. free universities, incredible mass transit, etc.) than the good ole' US of A-that's not to say that I don't like the US but I think there are some things we could work on doing better.

A few weekends ago...

So once again we had the chance to go to Cannon Beach last weekend and it was awesome. We had a three day weekend and Annie & Drew went to the beach house to hang out with us. Saturday was wet and nasty but Sunday and Monday were beautiful (albeit cold) and allowed for some good walks on the beach. Here's some pics....

I had fun with the stache:)




The elk were also a first. They were down at the north end of Cannon Beach-kind of cool.

Snowshoeing

Last weekend we went snowshoeing with our friends Drew and Annie. We went up to Trillium Lake on Mt. Hood and did about a five mile loop. Felt good to be outside and dust off our snowshoes which don't get a ton of use but are fun to have.



Annie's dog, Lily was also around for the day.

Wow.

I've eaten dinnner. Getting some 'to do list' stuff done and watching the Blazers crush the Nets almost by 30. Nice.

First post of the new year....

So, it's been a while since I've been in the blog scene. I had grand intentions (as always) of keeping up and regularly posting-i.e. the short lived picture of the week-and the then school seemed to blow up in my face. It stinks when "real life trumps blogging" (thanks Jed) but unfortunately I find that's often the case for me. School gets going crazy and blogging slips down on the priority list. Hutch-kudos for keeping up on a regular basis.

Some highlights since October:
-I read books
-I wrote papers
-We had a Thanksgiving dessert contest with Britt's family-my pumpkin ice cream came up short but got some votes. I think there was about 10 desserts to try. Much too many after eating Thanksgiving dinner.

-Holiday Christmas sweater bowling party. Find the tackiest err I mean.... "best" holiday sweater that you can and wear it proudly as the family goes bowling. Brittany's sweater definitely took top prize:)

-Saw win #9 in the Blazers 13 game winning streak. It's scary how good they are and I'm afraid to start liking them for fear of being let down again. Just like every year. Yet there's always hope in next season.
-We went to Oregon for a few days to see my family
-Xmas Eve I was up with Britt every two hours as she was a bit on the sick side. We spent the majority of Xmas day sitting on the couch. We opened presents in the morning for each other, although Britt's not sure that she remembers that.

I survived last semester and am hoping to survive the current one. Classes just started this week and it's going to be another busy semester. Britt is also thinking about going to back to school most likely through some on-line courses for a Master's degree. This works in conjunction with a continuing ed. class she's taking currently and even better she mentioned we may have to get another computer:) Mmm. New Mac.