i don't want any trouble.

ohh good grief.

Today, I got home early and mentally prepared myself before heading off to the saddest place on earth (essentially the anti-disneyland). I sat in my room, said a little prayer, picked up my papers, and trudged the 4 blocks over to the Davis DMV. You see, I received a letter in the mail saying that my license was going to expire on my birthday this year. Since I had opted to mail in my renewal last time, I have no choice but to go and face the sheer circus-side-show that is the DMV line (apparently you can only opt out once).

Did you ever grow up watching Charlie Brown? Charlie would always try to kick the football, and Lucy would always persuade him that she would hold it for him, only to pull it away at the last minute when he winds up to kick so he’ll fall flat on his butt. Then, the next time he’ll go kick the football, Lucy will do the same thing. And the next, and the next. Each time, she manages to persuade him that this time it’ll be different.

Every time I go to the DMV, I keep telling myself that this time will be better. This time I’ll make an appointment and that will make the wait much less awful and I’ll be in and out in a jiffy. I keep telling myself that I’ll be able to submit my form and not have to pull a number and wait in one of those orange plastic chairs that only 145,626,345 butts have been on previously (I don’t imagine the happy people at the DMV are wiping these down with purell daily). And so with semi-confidence…I make an appointment using their online system, trying to assuage that lump in my throat that, hey, I made an appointment this time so everything’s gravy.

This time was no different. Of course they couldn’t find my appointment. Of course I had my confirmation number and of course they said oops they must’ve not synced with their system. Of course I had to pull a ticket. Of course I had to sit on the diseased orange seat. Of course the change of address needs to be in blue pen. Of course it ended up taking an hour and a half.


To get a new driver’s license.


Even though I look the same as I did the last time.


And my eye color is still the same.


And my ethnicity didn’t change since the last time.


**sigh**


I believe the words I’m looking for are: oohh good grief.

lukewarm

“And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation.

“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’” Revelations 3:14-22

Tonight, Francis Chan spoke at Bayside again, this time on this passage in Revelations. His message served as a reminder of our calling to an eternal purpose. To me, this message seemed to tie in both the retreat message about transforming our lives through seeking what God is doing (much like Brian's kid does with the HS students in his youth group) and what we've been studying in our currently Acacia series on finding purpose in daily living.

Recently, one of the questions from a sunday school study asked what Paul would say if he needed to describe DCCC. When I read passages like the above about the church in Laodicea, I would hope that this wouldn't be what is said about our church. The message cautioned against allowing ourselves to become lukewarm, and invites us to look inwardly to identify if we are or not.

I think the sermon will be posted on the bayside site, and will update this blog-post when the sermon does post.

his eyes said yes, but his wife said no

On Wednesday, for small group, we were going over Ephesians 5:21-33 (you know…that one passage on marriage). In the discussion questions, the application ones were pretty much geared toward married people (which our group conveniently has none of), so…what exactly were we to do? Well, one of our guys suggested altering the question to how can we support those in Acacia that are married.

Of course, for me, this presents challenges when it comes to practical application. After all, aside from going up to billy or geo and saying in the deepest voice I can muster while avoiding direct eye contact: hey bro…I support you …what other ways can I apply this? Then dave brings up a point that I never really thought before. A lot of times, we will do things without thinking about potential downstream effects on a buddy’s marriage. For example, if I say: hey let’s play some board games to everyone around me. It could be very possible that I can see that Geo may really want to go, but I also see Lisa is shaking her head because maybe that day was their weekly scheduled his/hers pedicure day. Well, that difference of opinion could easily cause (unintended) tension at home.

So how do you remedy that? One possibility suggested was to go straight to the wife (or husband). Now granted, this does sound like the start of a ball-and-chain joke, but here me out here. If you approach the other person first…just to check before asking your buddy, then, if there’s a prior engagement, you won’t be causing any tension by asking the guy.

Another possibility is to maybe not give the guy a hard time. I know…for us guys it’s easy to give our friends grief for being married (i.e. ball-and-chain jokes)…sometimes it’s unintentional, sometimes not. But I’ll bet at the heart of that laughter, that kind of joking could still get really annoying for said married guy. I guess I never really worried about this kind of stuff before, but now that more of my friends are married…this does come up quite often these days. I dunno…just an observation that was sitting on my mind since Wednesday night.

50 beans | BB Small Lot – Ethiopian Nekisse

On a recent trip to SF, I swung by blue bottle with an old buddy of mine for a cup of new orleans iced coffee (and possibly some beans). There, we came across their usual seasonal blends of direct-sourced coffee and their usual hayes valley blend. Then, in a separate display, they had these little tins that resembled candy containers. Initially, I had thought that maybe they had branched out to offering some kitschy chocolate covered coffee beans or something, but apparently, upon closer inspection, these were in reality a new line of small lot coffee, which they source in small batches and roast up to order.

At first glance, the canister is definitely different then their usual brown-bag feel. It gives a good solid-in-the-hand feel (at ~45/lb it ought to come with a better container), and upon breaking the seal, you get a whiff of the beans…freshly roasted but not burnt. My first taste will be with a V60 pourover, coarse grind (hario mini-mill), first pour/bloom for ~10 sec, followed by ~45 sec brew time (doing this at work…I don’t have scale/timer here – timing done with speedmaster).

The aroma is quite pleasant – it’s definitely one of the better smelling coffees I’ve brewed. The taste is sweeter than the last roast I had (Guatemalan from Temple Café), and had a more pronounced fruit flavor. Another reviewer noted that it had a light blue and blackberry flavor, which I didn’t experience (to me it felt more citrus-like). Of course I’m not very good at describing flavors and smells so you’ll have to bear with me.

The first taste carried a changing flavor, depending on what part of the mouth is experiencing it. At the back, you can feel the roast and the caramelized flavor comes out a bit. The citrus taste comes out a bit at the left side of my tongue. At the tip…I taste nothing (kinda sad actually – maybe that’s cuz I killed off all those taste-buds the last time I had Korean food). One thing I will point out though, this coffee has a creamy texture to it (no I didn’t put creamer in it)…almost as if someone had melted some butter into it (I know that sounds weird).

All in all, a good tasting cup of coffee. I’m not going to pretend that I am an expert at reviewing coffee. All I can say is that it was definitely tasty and I enjoyed it. For more technical information, here’s some information provided by the roaster:

Location: Aleta Wondo, Sidama, SNNPR, Ethiopia
Altitude: 1700-2000 meters
Varietal: Heirloom Ethiopian varietals
Processing: Dry-processed
Preparation Methods: Pour Over, French Press, Espresso, Siphon

the great fluoride debate??

At tonight's Finance & Budget Commission meeting, the commission chair (who also sits on the water advisory committee) commented in passing that the next three water committee meetings will be discussing fluoride in water. Apparently there had been a stand at the davis farmers market for the last few weeks expressing opposition to the addition of fluoride and calling for discussion to revisit the fluoridation of the Davis water supply with the new water project.

Of course, this is a bit confusing to me...is there a great fluoride debate going on that I'm completely unaware about?? It was pretty much my assumption that this issue had been laid to rest some 40+ years ago...that fluoridation of water was, as hailed by the US CDC, as one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century. So what's there to oppose when it comes to adding fluoride to water?

Anyways, in other news, we were presented with a mid-year city budget report. One of the line-items that jumped out was a revenue line from the sale of davisville books (apparently detailing the history of Davis). The revenue brought in from sales of the book? A whopping $23 (with a budget forecast of $60 - our budget woes are over!). I like the fact that property tax, which brings in roughly $15m in revenue, gets the same coverage on the budget summary as davisville book sales.

Anywho, it was another productive meeting (that coincided with the NCAA championship game - clearly time well spent). Maybe next time we can blow 20min on more hotly contested topics such as water fluoridation and the benefits of having city parks.

50 beans | some call it sticks, some call it art

Ever wonder what life as a coffee stir stick would be like? There’s that anticipation that your destination would be heaven inside the bottom of a coffee cup, then not-so-heaven when tossed in the garbage. Well, what happens if you never get to that coffee cup? What happens if you never fulfill your wooden-stir-stick destiny? Well, I’m certain that’s exactly what was going through the minds of some 60,000 wooden stirrers (if they had minds that is…) as they were purchased from some local grocery store in Sumter, South Carolina.

You see, local artist Jonathan Brilliant developed a method of weaving together wooden coffee stir sticks (much like the 7 inch round-tip ones you can get at Starbucks) to create free flowing sculptures that feature no adhesive binding of any kind, and rely solely on the tensile strength of the stir sticks themselves. This piece, created in 2007 in Sumter, South Carolina (incidentally the location of the start of the Civil War…just a random observation…) took roughly 60,000 stir sticks and 14 days to create, and held together for an amazing 6 months (remember…no glue!!) before starting to fall to pieces. Of course, not all the stir sticks were wasted, the pieces were donated to local schools… presumably for arts & crafts projects and not for kids to use in their coffees (kids shouldn’t drink coffee…stunts growth apparently).

 
Apparently this guy also did one last year at fresno state...see below: