I found this passage from Thomas Merton’s Thoughts in Solitude rather compelling:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Sorry I’ve not had much to post here lately, especially after haranguing some of you over Christmas for never stopping by for a read. Our current project at work has been sucking up all of my work time, as well as several Saturdays, a holiday, and whatever other time it can sink its venomous fangs into. Add that to extra band performances, several birthdays, a housewarming, taxes, trips to San Antonio, and the usual demands of parenting, and there’s not been much of me left over for writing.

I’d like to say that things will be getting better soon, but I don’t see immediate relief in sight, and am once again having to think hard about priorities and how to juggle them appropriately. More on all of that as it becomes more clear…

I offer this with no other comment than that the kids and I had fun doing it.

Since I was the last sentient being in North America not to have seen it, I slipped out last night to catch Return of the King at our local Cineplex. (A big thanks to Kathy, incidentally, for getting the kids into bed single-handed. You’re awesome, woman!)

I won’t be able to add much to the volumes that have already been written about it, but I thought it a fitting capstone to the trilogy. Well-done, loads of fun to watch, and generally a delight. The ending is painfully bittersweet, and I found myself aching for Sam, who had been through hell (or a good facsimile thereof) and back to support Frodo, and still lost him in the end, though admittedly to a more benign fate than might have faced in Mordor.

It’s admittedly long overdue, but I’ve finally posted a new series of photos of kids and family. Go visit Ringing Out 2003 to see how big our brood has become, and to get some inkling of what sorts of mischief they’ve been causing.

Well, that was a bit of excitement.

The kids were tucked in bed, Kathy had dropped off to sleep, and I was playing Grand Theft Auto, enjoying the pyrotechnics as I caused cars to burst into flame and explode. At about 12:30, someone started ringing the doorbell insistently. Annoyed at what I expected was some college drunk or neighborhood kid playing a prank, I went to the door. Opening it revealed less of a change of atmosphere from the game than I expected: a woman shouting “My car’s on fire!” and a Ford Explorer parked on the opposite curb with flames licking out of the engine compartment.

I ran around back where we keep our hose, disconnected it, and ran around to the front with it. (With its reel and multiple lengths, it probably exceeded the 20lb lifting limit that my doctor imposed for another week, but I figured if there was any circumstance that justified slowing up my recovery, this was probably it.) We pulled it out to the car, and the woman’s husband started dousing the fire. It quickly became apparent, however, that a garden hose wasn’t up to the task.

I popped inside and called 911, and then went back out to see the fire growing. Though I expect it wasn’t more than a minute or two, the wait until we heard sirens seemed interminable, as the fire began to spread. By the time the fire trucks arrived, the interior of the car was full of flame, and the horn started sounding as the wiring shorted out. There were several dramatic showers of sparks, collapsings of glass, and other pyrotechnics, and I doubted for a while whether the fireman were going to win out before the surrounding trees and grass caught fire.

Fortunately, they were able to contain the fire in about five minutes once they had the big hoses turned on it. We stood around for another 20 minutes or so waiting for the wrecker to haul the charred carcass, now lacking seats, windows, and a dashboard, back to the owner’s house.

Given the sirens, flashing lights, and sounding horn of the flaming car, I was somewhat amazed that the neighborhood didn’t show up in force, but evidently I live on a street of sound sleepers. Mercifully, everyone was uninjured, though a bit in shock, and was able to return home an hour or so after this crazy adventure started. And I have determined that I unequivocally prefer simulated car fires to the real thing.

The iTunes Music Store has been sitting on my computer, touting its ease-of-use charms, it’s alluring per-song purchases, for months now. But I was strong! I knew I could get the same songs without DRM cheaper on eBay! I could just put the discs I wanted on my wish list, and someone would eventually get them for me. Patience would be rewarded. I can do this! I can…

And then this came along, and I was undone. I bought my first song through the iTunes music store. Farewell, virtues of patience and self-restraint. Hello, instant gratification. Who knew the price of a soul was only $0.99 plus tax?

There is nothing — I repeat, nothing! — that this great nation of ours cannot assimilate and turn into a breaded, fried nugget! Kathy brought home Pizza Bites recently, which look for all the world like wee meat McNuggets, but compellingly and disturbingly taste like pepperoni pizza on the inside. They’re nearly as cognitively dissonant as those clear New York Seltzer root beers from a few years back.

We use Apple’s iPhoto to manage our photo library, which as of this morning is 6,000 photos strong. Unfortunately, iPhoto has grown slower and slower as time goes on, and had become nearly unusable by the time I added the latest batch of photos.

So I did a little strategic web searching, and found two suggestions that have helped immensely:

1. Turn off drop shadows and borders in the program’s preferences.
2. Organize your photos by roll, and then collapse all the rolls you’re not actively using by option-clicking on one of the little collapse/expand arrows.

After doing these two things, iPhoto has sped up by about an order of magnitude. Ah, relief.

One of the great purposes of that arts is to make us see things we already know with new eyes, to bring a freshness to subjects that, while important, may have grown a bit threadbare with repetition. With that in mind, I recommend a reading of the just-completed The Christmas Story Uncut, a Houston pastor’s creative retelling of Mary and Joseph’s extraordinary experiences two millenia ago.