towing companies are the devil

This morning I got a call from a friend, and I had to help him and another friend retrieve a car that had been towed and impounded. He needed me to help cover part of the payment to get it out of holding from the towing company. They take you to the cleaners.

First you have to pay the police certain fees because your car was towed. Then you have to pay the towing company a towing fee, which in this case was $130, plus a $55/day storage fee. So this guy's car was towed yesterday, and today to get his car back he had to pay the towing company alone $185. So I get there and my friend has cash to pay, and I am planning on paying the remainder of what he owes on my credit card. The woman, which had taken several minutes to even come help us despite the fact that we were the only "customers" there, informed us that they could only take one form of payment.

"No problem," I said. "I'll take the cash, and put it all on my card."

"Jeremiah Perdue?" she asked, looking at my card.

"Yes."

"You're not on the registration for the car."

"Yes I know, it's my friend's, he's right here, you have his driver's license so you know it's him."

"We can only accept payment from the registered owner."

"What? Why?"

"It's company policy. It's to avoid unauthorized payments."

"Well it's clearly authorized, he's right here and you have his ID, I'm right here and you can see mine. So why can't I just pay it?"

"We can only accept payment from the registered owner. We've had worse situations than this before."

"This isn't a bad situation. We're both standing right here and there's nothing unauthorized about this."

"Well it's company policy sir."

At that point I said fine and left to get cash for my portion of the fee. I was so aggravated. I had to go to a liquor store across the street and pay a stupid $1.69 transaction fee to retrieve the cash.

But seriously, those tow truck places are ridiculous. They charge you an initial fee to tow your truck and then $55/day for a car, more if your vehicle is bigger. They've got a bazillion different fees they charge you - and if you don't get your car right away the fees very quickly pile up. I'm all for personal responsibility and not getting your car towed - but the way this whole system works is completely jacked up. Poor people are screwed over big time by it, or people who just don't have enough cash at the moment. The whole thing seems completely unjust and just typing about it now I want to start a crusade against the unfair "business" practices of tow companies. As Michael said, I'm surprised the employees don't wear masks, because they're robbing you. What a racket.

realistic expectations of church

This weekend I'm preaching at Crossroads, and the topic is "Realistic Expectations of Church." Or maybe it's "church." I'm not sure. But I'm preaching about it. I'm really into the topic, but I'm also finding it difficult to try to communicate. Over the course of my life I've been involved in various churches and in a number of Christian communities, friendships, etc. I've also done a lot of reading on ecclesiology (the nature of the church), thinking about it, talking about it, and all that. I'm currently planning on eventually planting a church or some kind of Christian community. So this topic is near and dear to my heart.

I feel like over all this time when I read something in the Bible about the church - the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, the light of the world, the salt of the earth, this redemptive and healing community - when I read about this in Scripture it resonates with something deep inside of me. I feel like I get a glimpse of this incredibly beautiful plan for people living in unity and experiencing the best life has to offer - and it's beyond my ability to describe or put into words effectively.

The sad thing is how many times Christians have turned this glorious thing into an ugly, domineering organization. What God intended to be an incredible breaking-in of His Kingdom they turn into building their own kingdoms, trying to get power over others and make them feel inferior, etc. Nothing is more beautiful than the Body of Christ when it's working right, and nothing is more hideous than it being abusive. I only pray that I can encourage people to see the vision God has for His church, and they're able to connect in their hearts to the indescribable beauty that is God's family.

oops, your daughter's dead!

Check out this article. Apparently two college students were in a car accident - one survived but was in bad shape and in a coma, while the other died. The family of the dead girl thought their girl was the one in a coma, and the coma girl's parents thought their daughter died. They had a memorial service and everything. Now, some time later, the family taking care of the coma girl realized that she wasn't their daughter, and their daughter must've been the dead one.

What the heck?

Read the article here

ah, freshmen

Today I'm subbing for my friend Sarah - she's a Math teacher. The class I'm currently in is full of freshmen, which are an interesting group of kids in many ways. There's this guy in the class who doesn't seem to fit in. Most of the guys are semi-dorky or your average guys. There's one guy in here who is either part of the popular crowd, or is a bit more popular than the average kid in here. He spends a lot of time talking and trying to make girls laugh. He's interacting with these two girls mostly, saying whatever he can to keep their attention and get them to laugh. The things he's saying to make them giggle are pretty inane but they continue to be amused by his antics. I think if the same thing were happening and I was in a class of Juniors or Seniors, these girls would be rolling their eyes at him instead of giggling. I hope he's able to figure that out as time goes on.

Being here and watching the kids interact is a very visible reminder of how much everybody has a strong desire to be loved and accepted. Freshmen usually aren't as good at hiding that as most people. I'm not saying that's a bad thing - it's fun to be around people who are so obviously conscious of what others think that they're almost cute. But cute isn't the right word. It's also a reminder to me to just be myself and not worry about what others think, because trying so hard to be this way or that way is such a waste of time and energy.

star trek ethics

This is pretty geeky. But today I watched a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode called "Ethics." In it, Worf is paralyzed by an accident from the waist down. He doesn't have use of his legs so he considers himself without honor and deserving of death. He asks Commander Riker to help him commit ritual suicide, to "end his life with dignity and honor." Two viewpoints are expressed in response to Worf's desire to commit suicide.

First, Captain Picard believes it's wrong to impose one's own cultural values onto another or even make a judgment regarding the rightness or wrongess of it. He urges the others to honor Worf's request and allow him or help him to commit suicide. Picard champions the cultural relativism that the Federation holds so dear.

Commander Riker, however, takes issue with Worf's request. Riker comes into Worf's hospital room and says he thinks the custom of ritual suicide is "despicable" and lectures Worf on the value of life. He tells Worf that doing this would be a copout, and tells Worf to ask his young son to do it, which is the Klingon custom.

Worf ends up changing his mind and opting not to kill himself. He undergoes a risky operation, and of course has his paralysis cured. It is Star Trek, after all, where nothing ever really changes.

I just thought that the interaction of cultural values was interesting in this episode. Picard's insistence upon honoring Worf's culture and beliefs seemed so weak next to Riker's passionate insistence on the value of life and his challenge to Worf to not be so eager to welcome death. So who was right in this situation? Picard for wanting to honor Worf's cultural values and beliefs, or Riker for calling Worf's culture "despicable" and convincing him to fight for his life?

the good, the bad, and the ugly vol 1

The good: The A's won today and sit tied atop the AL West at 20-19. This despite a spate of injuries and inconsistent play.

The bad: The Sharks lost today and were eliminated from the playoffs by the Oilers. After coming on strong the last part of the season to scream into the playoffs they fell flat on their faces against the Oilers. Bah.

The ugly: I'm supposed to take my dad and his girlfriend to the airport at 4:30am tomorrow morning, and I'm not ready to go to bed yet.

naps are good

It's the end of the semester and I've been working hard trying to finish assignment after assignment. I'm in the library at school and I just paid a visit to one of the reclining chairs they have here. I fell asleep for maybe 15-20 minutes, and I feel a lot better. I hereby salute short naps and think they are much more invigorating than a Pepsi.

chris daughtry voted off

So Chris Daughtry got voted off American Idol tonight. I'm pretty happy about that. I don't think he's the worst of the four, but I'm in Elliot's corner. I do think that Chris, now that he has the expose he's had, needs to win less than any of the other three. So it's a win-win. Plus I really like Elliot. His voice has a great tone to it.

In other news, the end of school draws near, and I'm doing my best to crank essays out and get everything finished in enough time to not make anything too stressful. I have a lot of stuff to turn in for school and then right now's also a busy time when it comes to the youth ministry and Crossroads. Next week I'm preaching about the Da Vinci Code on the weekend, and I still have to get that ready. I've done most of the work on it from a sermon I did a couple years ago, but I need to clean it up a bit. Anyway it's a lot of good stuff going on and I feel really blessed to be able to spend my time on what I spend it on, so I can't complain.

YouTube - King of the Hill- Church!

YouTube - King of the Hill- Church!

Hank Hill goes church shopping. This is funny stuff.

Alice Cooper on God and the Devil

This is from the linked news article, which involves a lengthy interview with Alice Cooper.

"You couldn't believe in God without believing in the Devil. I always tell bands that the most dangerous thing you can do is to believe in the concept of the Devil or the concept of God, because you're not giving them full credit. When you believe in God, you've got to believe in the all-powerful God. He's not just God, He's the all-powerful God and He has total control over everyone's life. The Devil, on the other hand, is a real character that's trying his hardest to tear your life apart. If you believe that this is just mythology, you're a prime target because you know that's exactly what Satan wants: To be a myth. But he's not a myth, of this I'm totally convinced. More than anything in the world, I'm convinced of that."

infuriating neighbors

That is to say, neighbors that are infuriating, not infuriating the neighbors. A new family moved into the apartment directly above ours last night, and they are out of control. Last night I was up past midnight working on a school assignment - the same one I'm currently trying to work on. For the entire evening and into the night, past midnight, there was an unholy cacophony coming through the ceiling. Voices, thumping, things sliding on the floor, electric appliances, televisions: you name it, they were doing it. They apparently have at least two small children that have mistaken the apartment for some sort of race track, because they seem to do nothing but run back and forth above me with the occasional pause for yelling and screaming.

Last night I actually went upstairs and knocked on their door (something I have never once done) asking them to quiet down because it was past midnight and my wife and I were trying to sleep, an endeavor that was largely unsuccessful due to their racket. The dad (I assume) opened the door after I knocked about five times...they were understandably wary of someone knocking on their door past midnight. I told them I lived downstairs and was trying to sleep. I don't think the guy knew english very well, but I'm pretty sure he got the gist of what I was trying to say. He said "I just came" by which I believe he meant that this was their first night in the new place. I told him that it was fine and I'm sure they weren't doing it on purpose, but could he please keep it down because it's late and people are trying to sleep. My request met with marginal success...the bumping and talking became less frequent, and I figured it would be easier to go to sleep than go up again and try to get them to be quiet. After all, little kids in a new place, you can expect them to be excited on the first night, you don't need neighbors getting on your case too.

I've been working on this essay since 3pm today, here in my living room. I have left the house once or twice since. During that time there has not been a span of longer than 2-3 minutes without some ruckus from upstairs. As I type the kids are running back and forth above me, their feet creating an annoying and irregular thumping noise traveling across my ceiling. It sounds as if they're constantly moving large pieces of furniture up there, throwing things at the ground, and knocking things over. I can not believe people could make so much noise so incessantly and so inconsiderately. I mean, seriously. For 8 straight hours? What the crap. That is why I'm typing this post, to try to express my frustration, because it's at a high point.

I'll probably be up late doing schoolwork again...and I hope I don't have to make another visit up there. While moving this week puts a bigger crunch on things, I don't think I could stomach living underneath these people for a day longer than I have to. I thought our previous upstairs-neighbors were bad. This family puts them to shame. And they sometimes played bass guitar through an amp. Good Lord, help me. I want to bang on the ceiling like a crazy man till they shut up. Either that or bang on their stupid faces. Just kidding. Kinda.

variety show fundraiser

Tonight the youth group did a variety show fundraiser thingy. It was a big chaotic but everything came together alright. Thankfully Crossroadians are used to going with the flow. The night featured accordian music, spoken word Metallica, me getting smashed with cake, and more. I think it was a success overall, and I learned a lot for future iterations of the event. Ricky did a great job as emcee and helped smooth out the chaos with his sense of humor. I'm interested to know if he cleared his little stand-up bit with Nicki ahead of time. Heh.

More A's beating the Angels, more fun doing youth ministry, less getting smashed by cake, less being stressed. I'm out.

Protester Yells at Hu; Bush Apologizes

Protester Yells at Hu; Bush Apologizes - Yahoo! News

I'm not one to get all morally indignant and stuff (usually), but the whole US-China thing is sort of annoying. If you just look at it from the perspective of Bush and the other so-called principled people who stand up for what they believe in...

China forces women to have abortions - I heard somewhere in the vicinity of 30 million annually, which makes sense if you consider it's a country of over a billion people. Child labor is rampant, and they ship kids from one province to another in order to increase productivity. China is a land devoid of human rights, where people are controlled and kept down and incredibly mistreated.

So let's say you're somebody who says they stand on principle, and isn't afraid to stand up for what's right. Would you sit there and have a meeting with someone who lords over an oppressive, human-rights nightmare like China, and say absolutely nothing about all that bad stuff going on? How can anybody with any pretension to a pro-life position play nice with "President" Hu, who forces abortions on women who have the gall to become pregnant without authorization?

It just seems a bit lame to me. All those people getting screwed over in China, and for the sake of their economy the rest of the world (or at least most of it, including the U.S. and our so-called principled leaders) pretends none of it happens. That's all.

i had a dream fremont was nuked

You know how some people say that if you die in a dream, you die in real life? It's not true, in case you're wondering. This morning I woke up thinking I had died. I had a dream that for some strange reason I was back at Washington High School taking courses for a Master's Degree. I was in the office doing some paperwork after roller skating to school and making an inappropriate joke, waiting to get my schedule. So we're standing around talking and all of a sudden in the direction of southern Fremont there are two blinding flashes. First a semi-small one, then a massive one that momentarily blinds us all. After this everyone started screaming and we all hit the deck, as we could see and hear some sort of destruction coming our way. I honestly thought I was gonna die and it all seemed real - I just started praying and thinking of how I wouldn't get to see Janelle and the baby anymore, wondered if they were okay, and I prayed that they'd be fine. Imagine my relief when I woke up in my bed.

So if a nuke goes off in Fremont, you heard it here first.