Category: Of Random Interest

Is Stanford Worth It?

Our team­mate Lind­sey found a great arti­cle about the return-on-invest­ment of elite schools like Stan­ford.

Pregnancy, Skydiving, and Asphalt. Ouch.

On Shay­na Richard­son’s first ever solo jump her main para­chute and her back­up mal­func­tioned and she hit the ground face-first at 50mph. Ouch. While in the hos­pi­tal she learned she was preg­nant. The baby seems to be fine. found via my pas­tor

Actual Details On The Giant Black Box Called Springfield

Rich Tatum post­ed a fas­ci­nat­ing arti­cle on the recent Assem­blies of God restruc­tur­ing process. These are the kind of details I’d like to get from head­quar­ters instead of the usu­al rah-rah stuff I get in the min­is­ters’ let­ter or Enrich­ment Jour­nal.

The Facebook In The WSJ

Extreme­ly pop­u­lar web­site the Face­book seems to be alarm­ing some col­lege admin­is­tra­tors.

In The Dorms This Morning

I was on cam­pus this morn­ing strolling through Toy­on, and I noticed a lot of appar­ent­ly dorm-spon­sored fly­ers cel­e­brat­ing Hanukah and Kwan­zaa. I noticed some­thing was miss­ing, and so I asked a stu­dent if there were any dorm-spon­sored Christ­mas acknowl­edge­ments any­where in the dorm. She said no.

I Just Coined a New Word

Gum­nas­tics:
(1) as a noun, the fas­ci­nat­ing facial con­tor­tions of a tooth­less per­son
(2) as an adjec­tive (gum­nas­tic), of or per­tain­ing to the facial motions of the untoothed

College Factoid

“The aver­age age of an under­grad­u­ate stu­dent is 26, reports the Amer­i­can Coun­cil on Edu­ca­tion. But the aver­age age of an under­grad­u­ate liv­ing on cam­pus is 20, the group says.” (source: Alco­hol mak­ers on tricky path in mar­ket­ing to col­lege crowd)

Overwhelming Generosity

Paula and I loved our first microwave. It had this awe­some dial that did every­thing. You did­n’t need to punch a number–you just turned the dial and mag­ic hap­pened.

One sad day our microwave died. Food stopped warm­ing yet the microwave kept churn­ing, lead­ing us to sur­mise that radi­a­tion was seep­ing into our chro­mo­somes.

So we got a replace­ment microwave from a friend. It was great, but the light did­n’t work and the food did­n’t rotate. And we often sus­pect­ed that radi­a­tion was still seep­ing into our chro­mo­somes (but only half of them owing to the lack of rota­tion).

And that’s just one rea­son we’re so grate­ful for last night: many of the Assem­blies of God church­es in the South Bay threw a Christ­mas par­ty to cel­e­brate AG US Mis­sion­ar­ies. We and the Har­lows were the recip­i­ents of out­ra­geous gen­eros­i­ty. Dana got books, stuffed ani­mals, a play tea set, a stroller, some garb, and an enor­mous lady­bug pil­low (with match­ing sheets and cov­er).

And we got a ful­ly func­tion­al microwave. No more radi­a­tion-steeped DNA, no more inex­plic­a­ble tans, just hot tasty food on demand.

And the icing on the cake? Not too long ago an alum­nus of our min­istry gave me a PSP (a com­plete­ly unex­pect­ed and much appre­ci­at­ed gift).

We are blessed beyond mea­sure. Say what you will about the hier­ar­chy of the Assem­blies of God, the tremen­dous gen­eros­i­ty of our laypeo­ple is unmatched.

Because I Like Quoting Myself

Here is the thought that has been my eschat­a­log­i­cal anchor for at least five years: we will be just as sur­prised by the details of the Sec­ond Com­ing as were the Phar­isees by the details of the First.