Equilibrium is one of my favorite movies of recent memory. The story centers around a Brave New World society where citizens are required to take regular doses of “Prozium” to rid themselves of emotion. The police force is responsible for enforcing the medication, and also tracks down and eliminates “sense offenders” who skip their medication and seek out art and literature that inflames the emotions.

The reason for the prohibition on feeling is that after the last war, society as a whole decided that it was worth suspending this portion of their human nature if it would prevent the kind of horror they saw in that struggle. Of course, our hero misses a dose of his medication, starts to feel once more, and things play out from there.

Add a good premise to a fair bit of impressive action and martial arts work, and you have a combination that’s a bit reminincent of The Matrix, but wholly more enjoyable than the recent sequel.

Within the last week, my team at work has been split in two and pointed in different directions. Further, my boss is a lame duck, having given his two weeks notice prior to starting at an enviable new job where he’ll be a founding member of a new team creating a new online game. Not only that, but his boss has taken a different opportunity, and has a week or so left as well. So I started making friendly with the team lead of my new team, only to discover yesterday that he, too, is joining up with the new game team. And our single remaining DBA will probably be gone at the end of July due to visa issues. Turmoil! Upheaval! Stress!

The bad: obviously, there’s a certain feeling of instability at the moment, and there’s lots of work to be done to effect this transition and ensure it works well.

The good: it looks like there’s a good chance that I’ll actually be getting to do some programming directly on the game eventually, which should be a fun new challenge. (Up to now, I’ve spent all my time on various support systems, notably the account management/billing system.)

I’m honored to have been invited to participate in the overeducated ramblings over at Socrates’ Front Porch, a weblog aptly described thusly by its perpetrators: “A law school student and a philosophy major discuss whatever comes to mind, sip on iced tea and throw rocks at passing cars.”

The philosophy major in question is my friend Daniel Priest, who also lives in San Marcos, is one of the most interesting people to talk with that I know, and who writes some wonderful poetry. I’m delighted to be in such august and irreverent company.

After the kids were safely bedded down last night, John, Grant and I went down to Cheatham Street Warehouse for Kent Finlay’s Songwriter’s Circle. The Circle is an every-Wednesday affair where anyone who wants to can get up and do an original song or two. It’s always an interesting affair, as the participants range from kids up from College Station who haven’t yet mastered the skill of tuning their guitars to professional singer/songwriters whose performances could bring a tear to anyone’s eye.

Last night was especially enjoyable for two reasons. The first was getting to watch Emily, the quiet, friendly bartender chase out a bunch of bikers because they were being noisy and making it hard for other people to pay attention to the music. The second was Todd Snider.

I’d never heard of Todd before, but he worked the crowd with a Nirvana-meets-Arlo-Guthrie slacker storytelling charisma that was a joy to watch. He did about five songs, every one of which had the audience rapt and/or laughing and made me wish that I’d written it first. His website has a few videos of him performing that are well worth a look. He’s living in Nashville now, but is touring through parts of the US over the next couple of months. If you have a chance to see him, don’t miss it!

The chap in Laredo from whom we were supposed to be buying the Trans Sport freaked out at the last minute, abruptly deciding that he didn’t want to let us take the van to our mechanic until he had payment in hand, in spite of the fact that he had agreed to that arrangment two weeks earlier. (His emails became decidedly bipolar toward the end, veering abruptly from exclamation-point laden abuse in one message to contrite apologies in the next.) Since Laredo is a good three hour drive from San Marcos, and we were already a bit wary even before the breakdown began, we decided to call off that deal altogether.

Besides, holy cow, are Trans Sports ugly. When I play word association games, and someone mentions “Trans Sport,” the first thing to pop out of my mouth is “rhinoplasty.”

Instead we went up to Austin last Friday and found ourselves a Nissan Quest at one of the used car dealerships in the area. Though we ended up spending more for it than we would have for the Pontiac, it had fewer miles on it, seemed to be in fine shape, and was still a fair bit under the Blue Book price.

We’ve instituted a “no food” rule in hopes of keeping the van in reasonably nice condition. We’ll see how long we’re able to hold out against the ravenous tide of children.

If Tuna is the Chicken of the Sea, does that make eggs the Caviar of the Barnyard?

It was eight years ago today that Kathy and I were married. Though the intervening time hasn’t always been easy for either of us, I’m grateful every day that we’ve stuck with it.

Marriage is the crucible God most often uses to forge my character into something better than it would have otherwise been. The pleasure, challenge, and discipline of building a life together pulls me out of selfishness and forces me to think about another person — something that often comes hard for me. It’s rarely like I imagined it from the outside, and is often more work than my lazy nature would choose, but I’m glad that we’ve been able to discover the intricacies of marriage together.

Kathy, I haven’t any idea what life would look like without you. Thanks for being my friend and partner in all we’ve been through. I look forward to learning how to live with you and love you better over the next eight years — and beyond.

I’m swamped at work, so updates have been sparse lately. As a compromise, instead of my usual flowery prose, today you get PowerPoint-style updates:

• Abigail got baptized a couple of weekends back. Very exciting for her, and for her proud daddy who got to jump in the river and help.
• Our van died. We’re in the process of buying a used Pontiac Trans Sport to replace it. If you know good things about the Trans Sport, let us know! If you know bad things, then keep it to yourself — I already mailed the check.
• Emily’s 11th birthday was yesterday. We had a party on Saturday that was great fun. (Thanks everyone!) I got Em a copy of The Once and Future King, one of my favorite books. (She’s been enjoying fantasy a lot lately.)
• The Grant Mazak Band will be playing for Emily & Abby’s school on May 22. Woohoo! Should be fun.

A while back, I mentioned my friend Barry Brake and the fact that he’d been diagnosed with cancer at the beginning of the year. He has been going through chemotherapy for the past several months, and is at long last done. Though it’s been a long, arduous road for him, the cancer appears to have been eradicated, and Barry is gradually returning to full health. As evidence that the chemicals have not damaged his irrepresible sense of humor, he has posted some Glamour Shots of him in his chemo-induced baldness. Hot!

Barry’s chronicle of the last several months makes for excellent reading. It’s an interesting window into how a man of honesty and faith deals with this sort of hardship.

On a related note, Seth is walking in a fund-raiser for cancer on May 30. If you’d like to help the fight against this pernicious disease, sponsoring Seth is one way you can help right now.

This past Saturday, I took the three elder kids to Scarborough Faire, an enormous Renaissance festival a bit south of Dallas. We all had a super time. Favorite things:

• Theater in the Ground mud show. We enjoyed this perennial favorite from the front rows, necessitating a trip to the restroom for cleanup afterward. These guys are some of the funniest live theater I’ve seen.
• Jem Moore’s hammered dulcimer playing. Amazing technique, excellent musicianship. This guy reminds me of why I fell in love with the instrument many years back. He had a giant, four-octave dulcimer, and did the only rendition on that instrument of Bach’s Tocatta & Fugue in D-minor that I’ve ever heard.
• Last Chance Forever does a show that features hunting birds that they’ve rescued and are rehabilitating. Since we live in Texas, red-tailed hawks and vultures are the most common, but they included some falcons, owls, and golden eagles as well. We were rapt.
• Critters: there was a well-stocked petting zoo, as well as the occasional horse, elephant, camel, and llama wandering by.

Altogether, as much fun as a day at an amusement park, and cheaper, less crowded, and (ironically) cleaner. Highly recommended, even if you don’t have a secret desire to be a knight errant or to wear tights.