The Inner Ring

In case you haven't been paying attention the last few days, the list of blogs I link to has grown substantially. Why? Because all of a sudden, there are quite a few blogs by good friends of mine that have gone up! I'm quite pleased with the emersion of this nifty little blog ring, as it makes me feel uber-connected with friends of mine who are anywhere but close to here.

Take some time and peruse those blogs in the "Fellow Shipmates" section of the sidebar and find out what's going on in other parts of the country and the world.

The Silent Hill Guide to Decorating Your Home

I recently went to see the "Silent Hill" movie.

It was freaking hilarious. Of course, I mean "freaking hilarious" in the same way that I find Final Destination 2 to be "freaking hilarious." If you like to laugh at bad horror movies that weren't trying to be funny, run, don't walk, to the nearest theatre playing this film.

As a result of playing the Silent Hill games and seeing the Silent Hill movies, I created The Silent Hill Guide to Decorating Your Home and posted it on the goat herd. I would stick it up here, but it's late, I'm lazy, I don't wanna, AND visiting the goat herd is never a bad thing. :)

Be forewarned: If you haven't seen the movie or played the game, it won't be quite as funny. It will, however, be very, very disturbing.

Enjoy!

Man Overboard

Disclaimer:

Every once in a great while, I just feel like writing something both unpleasant and beautiful. I decided to share one such brief unpleasantness with all of you. Bear two things in mind: Its only meaning is what you bring to it, and it is short and will be over soon.

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It moved too quickly. The rope was around my ankle, and the weight at the other end pulled me over. Down beneath the sea I fell, clawing at the crushing cords. Fingers feverishly searched my pant-leg until they found the familiar handle of my knife, then turned their energy to the work of cutting the dead weight free. The relief of the liberation was short lived. I no longer knew which direction was up.

I saw lights above and below. I knew not which to trust. The ones below flickered with the frailty of old regret, wisdom, and ghosts. The lights above pulsed with ferocty and power, then faded, then lived again in brilliance. I glanced again at the ancient lights below in time to see a lethe frame slide beneath me, teeth flashing in the glare of the lights above.

My body thrust me upward. It struggled in the brine, clawing towards the pounding, throbbing lights above. Please, God, let this be the right direction. Let me be close to a life boat!

I reached a rippling membrane that stretched across the bursting lights. My hand pressed against it, and it passed through it into the cold, empty beyond. Oh, God, no. This was the wrong direction.

My sight started to fade. I had no time. Either I broke through to the nothing beyond, or turn back towards the spectral glow and waiting teeth.

I lunged towards the undulating membrane.

I erupted into a world where space rested between falling drops of water. I gasped, and emptiness filled my lungs. I could not swim, but only thrash about in the portal I had made. A ribbon of light tore apart the black, bringing with it a crashing roar.

My senses returned to me. Thank God. This was the surface. I had chosen the right direction.

I drifted in the storm, completely helpless. My eyes caught the husk of my ship, ablaze on the waves beyond. One minute it was in a valley, the next high atop a mountain peak. The water grew thick around my weak limbs. My strength would not return me to my vessel. There was nothing I could do.

The burning frame of the ship crumbled under the power of the waves. Men and women, like burning seraphim before God, danced from the deck in to the sea. Whatever screams I might have heard were stifled by the wind and the thunder and the perverse beauty of the scene. The fiery wreck dropped again in to a valley of water. It did not summit the wave's peak when it crested the next moment. Nothing remained of it but the fire's afterimage on my retina.

The lights below pulsed, and the lights above answered. The water between became clear in the fading illumination, disclosing the presence of teeth. The weight of my body grew too much for my arms and legs.

No. This is wrong. I must have gone in the wrong direction.

My eyes closed. My mouth opened. Water filled my lungs. My eyes opened to the lights below surrounding me and a flash of teeth before me.

Springtime for Pullman...

Just click on any of the pictures for larger images. Enjoy. :)

Good Friday

"This is love, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

-Somewhere in I John.

Today, remember the reason that we call ourselves Christians.

An Ecclesiastical Thought

Inspired by various comments on Valparaiso's most recent post:

When the old pass a torch to the young, what other burdens are passed along with it? Do the old see the young as the next generation of leaders to be trained and prepared to take the reins, or as an opportunity to make right all the wrongs they have done and believe themselves too old to do anything about?

Robinson Crusoe is an interesting example to bring up. In the book, he bucked against the teachings of his father - "Value the middle path in life!" - and set out for high adventure, fame, gold, and glory. Instead, he found God on the high seas, and the encounter with the ensuing storm left him stranded on that desert island. As he waited there, his solitude presented him with the opportunity to once again know the Lord, and come to terms with the teachings of his father. Only once he had lost everything did he come to grasp the importance of humility. It is this lesson that is worth passing from old to young that transcends the deterioration of the world - all we have is dust. Do not worry about fame, fortune, or high adventure. If they are to come, they will come, and those who seek them find ruin and great sorrow. No ammount of ambition and fortune seeking ever wrought peace.

In the end, all things - the young and the old - will all fall in to the sea, and what they left behind will drown in an endless march of sand. The old will train the young to inherit these empires of dirt. But then the young will become old, and the unborn will become young, and they too will inherit the wind as their fathers did and their fathers before them. They stack their bricks and bend their steel in vain, for in the end nothing they do will be able to overpower the steady onslaught of sand.

Meaningless, meaningless... a chasing after the wind! There is nothing new under the sun! What was now is, and what has already been is yet to come again!

No Rain

As in, the mellow yet compelling song by Blind Mellon.

Or a metaphor for the lack of updates on this blog for a while.

I'm currently using most of my writing skills to try and get work done here during the last few weeks of class. Some exciting things have been happening in the lab regarding my project, but I just don't have a whole lot of time in the next few weeks to write about them here. Once April 22nd has come and gone (the last day for running subjects before dead week), I should have more time. Until then, if you need me, I'll be in the lab.