Hosive

this is what my sweet t has been saving for. armed with $90 worth of gift certificates, a $10 coupon and my toysrus credit card which gets me 4% off, we headed to times square for the flagship toys r us to pick up guitar hero world tour(the full band game). theresa affirms that i am the master of the deal and laughs at how i accumulate discounts and coupons.

she loves guitar hero but when rock band came out, we resisted the temptation to jump ship to a different franchise. she is an early adopter and i am loyalist….with a common love for nintendo. so that combo left us waiting for guitar hero to catch up and then exceed the current band playing technology. with wifi access to the new guitar hero community, this is an endless box of musical fun. this is the real wii music….as opposed to that title that bears the name.

i wanted to get this early on sunday to avoid the crowds and lugging it around and through those masses; especially around times square…. but the store said they would not have them. i know that they lie and went to see after lunch. i didn’t want to wake up early and find out that they have decided to start telling the truth.

they are liars. they had at least 10 on display just for the wii…and 10 each for the other platforms. we picked out a box that looked pretty decent and the cashier immediately put it on the ground and put on the counter a pre-roped box with easy carry handle.

as i carried the box through the city, people gawked, pointed and lusted at our prize.

look at theresa tear into it! she can’t wait! i like making her happy. this year has been about that. more of her year since so much of her life is orbited around my life with the church and my work.

this is a small pleasure in life since i’ll wind up paying $50-$60 bucks out of pocket for the whole set….the price of a regular game.

there’s a lot of stuff here….drums, a guitar, the game, a mike, stickers….and tons of foam and packaging.

i am zero good at these games so theresa made steph play until steph was falling asleep with one eye open.

here’s the down side of early adopting….crappy products out of the box. the first few off the assembly line may not have all the bugs removed. theresa said that two of the drum panels were not responsive. she went online to find that many people had problems from the one theresa experienced to drums being too responsive. luckily, activision responded quickly and will issue tuning kits that will hopefully fix the problem. that seems to have satisfied the rabid fans. for now.

but when we invited people over…..they seemed to have fun just the same. these test drummers play their instruments hard so there were fewer problems with responsiveness. playing together seems to be a big hit. we’ve got all the instruments with the three included in the set and the old guitar from the original game.

so come on over and play in the magical fall with us. with theresa at the very least while i watch and laugh.

the magical fall is in full swing as we headed to nj and the meadowlands for a coldplay show. i got to see a free show at msg in the spring but coldplay decided not to make a return visit to the city on this leg. i likely will not see them again on this tour if they do wind up playing a full show at msg since their shows are pretty uniform. their sunday and monday shows at izod were nearly identical!

i haven’t been to a show at the meadowlands since i went to see u2 with debby fung two tours ago way back in 2001. i think the arena was named something else but i forget what. its hard to find a sponsor for this place especially since the nets are rumored to be moving to brooklyn in a few years, rendering this a tenant-less arena….not too marketable.

here we are at our pretty decent seats right by the side of the stage….i thought we would be closer to mid arena. norm and steph had tickets in the next section but we were on opposite ends of our sections so it felt like we were two sections apart!

as we waited for things to start, we saw the crowd rise, take pictures and react to gwyneth and her mom blythe danner make their way to their seats across the arena from us. they seemed to enjoy the concert a lot.

my hair is long and floppy these days. no more spiking for a bit. i’m tired of gel….and it being the reason i have to check bags in. $15-$25 per bag!

i didn’t get any good shots of the opening act, duffy….mostly because she played in the dark with minimal lighting effect. she was a treat since i rarely know the opening acts…but duffy has been headlining her own club shows and i have her debut cd after i saw her tear it up on conan. while i enjoyed her, most were waiting for coldplay. she did her best to charm and warm the crowd. she said that this was the largest crowd she had ever played in front of.

coldplay started the concert with new songs from their latest album and then proceeded to forget they had  new material and went into their greatest hits mode. the crowd was into the latter but i want to hear the new tunes. however, it’s nice to hear old favorites. they did play more of their new stuff later.

this was the best coldplay show i’ve seen….they’ve become(even more)polished and create an intimate, light and playful connection with the crowd. they move around a lot and play with fervent energy. i sometimes complain that their shows with the cameras on are better than when they are off. but they brought it tonite!

the other knock on them of course is that they play short shows. they played like 17/18 full songs; they only had a one song encore. and they played under an hour and a half. by contrast, u2(old guys)play 23/24 full songs and go for nearly 2 hours. billy joel(another old guy)played 3 hours at shea over the summer….twice!

but what we got from them was magical. my favorites of the new songs live were lovers in japan, death and all of his friends and viva la vida. of the older stuff, i still love fix you…their most transcendant song. the hardest part and the scientist(acoustic)were also excellent. i wish they would have played longer versions of god put a smile on my face and talk. i could have done without speed of sound.

i joked with justin that most people will sit for the majority of the show waiting and standing only for yellow. that joke became prophecy as the people around me did not really know the new stuff.

i stood, sang and cheered the whole time. i do love you coldplay….but play longer shows! especially since you’ve jacked up the prices.

still a nice little night with my sweet t. she was pretty happy.

i usually don’t share that much about ministry which leads people to wonder if i do any ministry at all as a pastor. it seems like i am doing anything but ministry with all the concerts, shows, restaurants, trips i attend and the interests i pursue. the reality is that i do a lot of ministry…i work as much(or more)as i play. i spend the main part of my life working. and that’s the point….i am blessed to live a rich, rich life.

i minister…..but i have a life apart from ministry which i actively pursue. i’ve grown up in the church i’ve seen the dudes who do nothing but think, eat, drink, sleep and throw up ministry. that’s all they blog about because they’ve got nothing else to blog about. that’s all they can bring out from their souls. i don’t want to be near anything like that because i’ve seen those dudes flame out and wind up selling insurance, electrical wires, heart attacks, something, anything…you name it.

my friend dj chuang says that i am one of the more healthy ministers he has encountered with a good chance of doing this work long term. this is high praise from someone who spends a lot of time hanging and tracking with ministers. i don’t know if i believe my own press(i was trained not to)but i know that there are other things in me i want to pursue in addition to ministry. maybe too many things. and i’ve got a lot of other things i want to talk to people about besides churchy church.

but once in awhile, there is something joyous i would like to share about my church life:

a bunch of couples went to the weekend to remember conference to recharge our marriages. it was a great time to dine, hang out, laugh and be encouraged with other couples. i love the people in my church and i love being with them.

i love wendy and ernie who are so different and yet are on the same page. i love mike who takes over so i can relax and rest my brain. i love the quiet grace that oli ghaw-lee exudes. i love the divergent reactions peggy and leo have when we laugh about sex. i love joking around too much with chris and wayne. i love the generous hearts of their wives, rebecca and pam. i love calvin’s deep spirituality. i love carol’s deep madness(which she hides until she feels more steady). i love them like a parent who’s crazy about their kid when everyone else just sees another baby.

these were vibrant times together.

as for the teaching times, topics included resolving conflict, communication skills, sex, fatherhood and challenges to marriage.

I didn’t learn a lot of new things as the conference as the program was designed to cast a wide net to catch everyone including new marrieds and total space cadet couples. for example, during the sharing time some shared that they learned that “they were supposed to work together” and “i have to love my wife”. being in and around ministry and marriages for 18 years, i could have taught the class or at least parts of it. and i do teach this stuff….in my pre-marital sessions with couples.

but what was helpful were the exercises that got me and theresa to talk. we had a great time interacting and laughing. at some points, we laughed too loud as the couples near us weren’t always having a good time. one husband spent the project time lecturing his wife. another couple looked like they had just survived a bombing. we laughed softer when we became aware of them.

we were even given a date night where we were to go to a restaurant, wine and dine and then let the night run its magical course. we spent our time at a suburban mega-grocery-mart going through the aisles getting stuff we could not get in the city for prices we could never find in the city. there were 4 other shoppers in the whole place, giving us free reign of the store. doesn’t sound romantic but we spent an hour and a half just talking and enjoying each other. time that we don’t have a lot of because….we are both out a lot doing ministry! there’s my alibi right there for all those haters! church work does dominate a lot of our lives so it was great to have that extended time together….even if it was at a supermarket….besides,that’s exactly what theresa wanted to do! her eyes lit up as we drove past the strip malls.

and the rest of the night?

a few weeks ago i went to my 20 year high school reunion. i would have posted earlier but i blinked and a few weeks passed. just like i blinked and it was 20 years.

this time passing quickly is mostly a good thing….i feel the richness and fullness of life….which makes time just fly. recently, chris rock joked that when you have(a good life)time passes quicker…when you have(a crappy life), time just crawls and you wind up playing the time game at work….begging for time to move. so time blowing by…..its a double edged blessing.

going to reunions can be a mind game…will anyone remember you? will you see people that you want to see? will it be a waste of money for a drink and some finger food? there are a lot of fears running through your head. especially after my 10 year reunion where there were a few folks i was excited to see but inexplicably did not recognize me. what a nightmare!

i wonder what mental obstacles stopped some of my classmates from coming.

i ate those fears and went with anticipation of seeing people especially people that i may not have seen in 20 years…..not since the 80′s!

most of the people i connected with were from this strange civic education program that i was part of at bronx science. it was a social experiment envisioned by lawrence kohlberg of moral development theory fame. the community had mixed results especially the day we learned that dr. kohlberg drowned himself but the upside were these deeper relationships because of the time spent together. my closer friends during my high school years came from c.e.p……many who i had hoped to see. no luck with the majority of those but i did connect with a few i saw from the 10 year and one dear friend from 20 years ago.

i think about 200 of my peers showed up…which is about 20%. that’s right, 20%…the rumor is that because we were the 50th anniversary class, they let in more students that year pushing the class from the usual 800 to the astounding 1000. in fact, when i was in college i met another student from nyc.  i then found out that she also graduated from my high school.  the same year i graduated! 1988! we were from the same school and the same year…and never met each other!

hoping to see some of my friends from the missing 800 at the 25, 30, 35 and 40 year reunions. 45 and 50 will likely be a crapshoot….just hoping to make it to those!

live music is one of our loves. live music outdoors, weather permitting is a special treat. live music outdoors in central park….to start the fall….magic. the swell season, the couple from the movie once has been touring doing music from the film as well as old frames songs and new pieces.

i wish i knew some more of their older stuff. we were hoping for more songs from the movie. but glen hansard puts on a great great show with high emotion and energy. he led the crowd in some singing which he confessed he was warned not to do because “nyc is too cool for school” but he did it anyway. after the third sing along with the very reactive crowd, he declared that he felt like bono!

marketa did some numbers too. i love a band with multiple singers, voices and styles. same vibes but different voice mediums to transmit.

she was charming, imp like and joyful. she was walking around amongst the crowd beyond the safety of the artists area and was very much like a regular person. maybe she can run for vice president too.

she looked a lot thinner than she did in the movie. either the touring has been a grind or the camera does put on the lbs. or both.

rumsey field is a great venue: intimate and smaller than you’d think….perhaps half the floor or less of an arena. with trees all around, the night sky and the autmn breeze….a terrific place for the swell season. keane did a show here last year too but i got scared off by the ga/standing room only not knowing how big the field was…strange fear since theresa and i frequently go to ga shows and have no problems getting in the front row. btw……

we got railing……it was a pretty casual atmosphere. at first i was kicking myself for not getting there earlier. but i got a good spot that made it easier her to come in and not get angry stares. but she wound up coming down the middle of the field anyway and was the most hated woman in the place. but she don’t care.

and we had a magical romantic night in the city of blinding lights.