I'm so excited!

Perfect for a consumer like me

I am definitely a consumer who likes to try new things. That's probably a reason candy sells so well to me...ok, I really just like it also. But they do a good job coming up with inventive NEW! variations on a theme. Come on, who can resist the inside out Reese's Cup? Seriously. Anyway, though I've been this type of consumer for the product I am about to tell you for a long time, but I just realized last night that it is the perfect product for a consumer like me: toothpaste. Think about it: there's always some new flavor or claim it makes, but it's not bad for you (like candy)—it's actually good for you, and you're never going to stop using it, so you don't have to feel bad buying new boxes of it when your other tubes aren't even used up yet. Like last night—I didn't need new toothpaste, but I started looking at it and ended up buying two boxes. Doesn't this flava flav sound good: Crest Lemon Ice? And doesn't this sound intriguing: Colgate Oxygen? Yeah, I thought so too.

Break food doubling as Brian's birthday cake

(Leah, if you still read this, does this look semi-familiar? Though, this time it is supposed to be a cat. I realized this is my 3rd animal-shaped cake.)

Observe a moment of silence

This weekend I lost my rearview mirror in a tragic high five accident.

Random commentary my boss found

Radical Hollywood Star Inspires College Play

(College = Bethel.)
It's one of those things that hilarious...in a sad, sad sort of way.

[In case it expires, find the full text here: Radical Hollywood Star Inspires College Play]

just plain irksome

I've realized that it's not when someone disagrees with me that gets me, it's when that person has a completely illogical way of arriving at his/her opinion. It drives me nuts. Mostly because I can't even begin to think about how to talk about it with that person. I would have much easier time with someone simply telling me, "What you're doing offends me morally," than that person saying s/he doesn't like it for some other reason that makes no logical sense and also for some reason does not apply to another person engaging in the same behavior.

There. There's my vague rant/vent. ... vagrant vent...

Bethel has a new president!

Barry C. Bartel

Restaurant commentaries

I was racking my brain (oops, accidentally typed "brian," which would have had a completely different meaning all together...) for something semi-interesting to post since it's been a while now, and I realized, "Wow, I ate at a lot of restaurants this weekend." Here's a review:

The Breadbasket (Newton): I'm sad to say that I think the tastiness factor of the BB has gone down. My verenike and gravy were not as flavorful as I remembered. :( They have added bohne berrogi, which is cool, but the sauce is more like sweetened condensed milk than what I think of as true bohne berrogi sauce. [ :( #2 ] They still have the most kick-ass horseradish sauce though.

Great Wall (Hutchinson): We chose it for its Mongolian BBQ, and it was tasty. And also well-priced. You can eat from the full Chinese hot buffet and/or the Mongolian BBQ (an all-you-can-eat Mongolian BBQ) for supper for $7.99. Lunch is $6.25. I did only one plate of Mongolian BBQ and, while the selection is not quite that of the Mong. BBQ I've been to in KC, I thought the taste was just as good.

Italian Garden (Wichita): I've eaten at this restaurant a number of times, and I continue to think it's an excellent value. A meal of lasagna (of which I took half home and had for supper the next night) that comes with cooked carrots and snap peas, salad, and breadsticks costs $6.25, I think. They make their own pasta, and the breadsticks are my favorite breadsticks. There are at least two locations, and I prefer the atmosphere of the one on 21st Street.

Which of your teachers are always with you?

My first grade teacher speaks to me nearly every day—in my mind. Almost any time I am walking down stairs, I hear her say, "Never walk down stairs with your hands in your pockets." Because, obviously, if you tripped, you'd be screwed and you'd probably smash your face all up at the bottom. It's a common sense thing, but her face speaking those words always pops into my mind when I'm on the staircase, especially when I have my hands in my pockets (which I then promptly remove). Funny, because she wasn't even particularly one of my favorite teachers.

Naked Sunday!

From: Faith Church
Subject: No Air Conditioning on Sunday

We just learned that the installation of the new air conditioners will not be finished by this Sunday. Dress accordingly.

[I guess this goes along right nicely with Good Friday...it's as if the celebration has been extended by divine intervention.]

.

Students:

Sometime last night, significant vandalism occurred in Haury. A fire extinguisher was released in the stairwell near faculty offices (the north side). Needless to say, it is everywhere! In addition to that, some of the new plastic convo and chapel sign holders were broken. Lastly, these vandals threw a bicycle into Patty Shelly's window and broke it.

Impressions of Mennonite Disaster Service

See also Impressions of New Orleans

As mentioned below, I spent a week with Mennonite Disaster Service working on hurricane/flood cleanup in New Orleans. One of the reasons it ranks up there as one of the best experiences of my life is due to MDS. MDS is really quite a unique organization since it involves/is supported by so many different varieties of Mennonites/Anabaptists. Our group was made up of 15 college students and three staff members. The other groups in our unit for that week were a group made up mostly of middle-aged couples from Eden Mennonite Church and a group of seven new order Amish young men, as well as their sponsor/driver, a 43-year-old former Amish man. Our leaders were Mennonites from Canada and Colorado, and also a Weaverland Conference couple from Pennsylvania. What a great mix of people! It was so fun to watch all of the groups come together as one, and we had a blast together. A couple of nights, the Amish guys and the college kids went down to the French Quarter and Bourbon Street, and I heard lots of memories shared from the college students in our room at night and on the van ride home about the great time they had with the Amish guys. The best new friendships I made were with Dan (of the Weaverland Conference couple) and Lister (the sponsor/driver for the Amish group).

Some might say that MDS is not as organized as it could be. However, I enjoyed this more relaxed style. Not to say that our days were relaxing though! We put in full 8- to 9-hour days of manual labor. The “relaxed style” I was referring to is that in the mornings, everyone would sort of be in charge of assigning him/herself to a work group, you might not know what tools are going to which work site, etc. So the feel was both relaxed and hardworking at the same time. We also had a lot of fun at our work sites. The work may have been hard and sometimes gross and always dirty, but we all enjoyed each other. Some of the Amish guys had volunteered with another Christian organization and commented that they strongly preferred working with MDS. Apparently with this other organization, you are treated more like an employee—hours are incredibly strict and you are expected to get a certain amount of work done each day. You might get to socialize for a bit after supper, but people are expected to be in bed early, and there is a “lights out.” Not so with MDS! :) I mean, we were respectful of a 10:30 quiet time, but that was not really much of a problem since we were all pretty tuckered out after a day’s work, and the next day would begin again in just a few hours.

Anyway, I loved working with MDS and hope to do it again when I can. I would also love to “retire” into MDS.

See also Impressions of New Orleans

Impressions of New Orleans

See also Impressions of Mennonite Disaster Service

[I typed this up last week and am finally getting around to posting it.] Late Saturday (March 25) I returned from a week long trip to New Orleans, doing hurricane/flood clean-up with Mennonite Disaster Service. It was one of those things that makes my “best things I’ve done in my life” list. Here are some of my impressions of the city as of March 2006.

It’s difficult to believe that the hurricane was seven months ago. One month ago would maybe be believable. Can you believe that much of the city still does not have electricity? Many intersections without stoplights; many streets without streetlights. Neighborhoods are pitch black at night. If you can still call them neighborhoods. Much of the city is pretty much a ghost town. The neighborhoods in which we stayed and worked were mostly devoid of people; sort of eerie, really. You can understand why many people are afraid to stay in their paper-thin FEMA trailers...on streets with no one else around and that remain unlit after the sun goes down. Would you believe that many of the houses have not even been entered except for by search and rescue teams? Most of the apartments and houses our group entered were just as they had been left seven months prior...tables set for family meals, laundry in the washing machine, dogs (now no longer living, of course) shut into a garage where I’m sure the owners believed they would be safe. Those particular owners hadn’t even been inside to find out if their dogs had made it out or not; students in our group had to inform the husband. His response was, “Don’t tell my wife.” We would go into an apartment or a house, and belongings would look fairly normal but nothing was. Couches and carpets are still seven months later wet from flood waters. Houses have been shut up this long and the air there is so humid that nothing has had the chance to dry out. Suddenly, people’s entire possessions become trash. An entire city’s possessions out on the curb. Where will it even all be dumped? Virtually nothing can be kept because it is all covered in mold. Mold climbs the walls from floor to ceiling in many cases. It all has to go. So we would enter these houses, discard of all of their belongings, tear out their floors/ceilings/walls, and eight hours to two and a half days later, all that is left is a shell of a house. Will people even be able to come back and rebuild? Will the mold removal chemicals work well enough on the studs that houses will be safe to live in once rebuilt?

A whole other factor all together is the lower 9th ward. This area lies right below one of the main levee breaks and is also a poorer section of the city. This was the first time I’d heard the rumor that the government blew up the levee here in order to divert the water away from the French Quarter and the Garden District. I don’t subscribe to this belief, but some people definitely do. This area is more or less flattened. Others observed that it looks like tornado damage, except that many trees are still standing and the area of damage is larger. Houses were washed clean off of their foundations. You can see the foundations but can’t spot the houses. The image that comes immediately to mind when I think of my tour through the lower 9th ward is of a house that was picked up off of its foundation and some time later set back down on it. But between the house and its foundation is an upside down pickup truck. The afternoon we were there, we saw search and rescue teams and dogs. As we came back by that location later, there were many flashing lights. That evening at a restaurant, the tv news reported that the body of a child had been found that afternoon in the lower 9th.

See also Impressions of Mennonite Disaster Service

Fun Amish factoid

When learning about the differences between new order and old order Amish at one point last week, a new order Amish guy told us that it is not uncommon for the woman in an old order couple to be pregnant before the couple got married. I found that interesting because it is not what I would have guessed.

Buh-bye

Well, I'm off to New Orleans for a week of service with MDS / accompanying the spring break service trip. See you, my faithful readers, upon my return.

Moment today I most felt like a dumbass

So around my place of employment you notice if someone's wearing a suit because, aside from one or two key people, no one really does—unless it's board meeting time. Then suits come out of the woodwork. Or wherever it is they've been hiding...along with the "good" cafeteria food. And it is board meeting time right now. I was just coming back from lunch, and a guy who works here was coming in my direction from across campus...wearing a suit. As I pass him I say/laugh in that voice that is both talking and knowingly laughing, "I take it you must have an interaction with the board today." Response: "Nope. Funeral." So that puts the ol' kibosh on the talk/laugh pretty quickly.

{Sidenote: I ran spellcheck on this post and for "dumbass" it suggested "Dempsey" ... Dale Dempsey, anyone?}

The underlying thing I want to underscore is don't underestimate this product for your underarms, though it seems underpublicized

I've always been an antiperspirant kind of gal (as opposed to a deodorant kind of gal). I know all of the "health risks" of the aluminum in antiperspirant are still disputed and that we're all exposed to aluminum in other forms probably daily, but it can't hurt to cut it out where you can, right? So the other day I was at Alco (!!) browsing the deodorant/antiperspirant section, though I was in no need of buying more, and I saw this: Adidas Absorbent-Deo Wetness Control. It's a deodorant that is aluminum free, seems to claim it uses some sort of cotton technology, and contends that it works as well as antiperspirant. Always one to be drawn in by advertising, I thought I might as well give it a try. It's only day four of using the product, but I would like to give it my two thumbs up. So far, it does seem to work as well as the antiperspirant I had been using. I recommend it. And if you're the type who likes to have all of your brands match, while I'm at it, I'll also recommend the Adidas Rev II windpants. They are the best windpants ever. I have two pairs.

**SPECIAL BONUS**
Other fun words beginning with "under"

• underbred
• underbrim
• undercard
• undercoat
• undercool
• underdrawers
• underling
• undersexed
• underskirt
• understrapper
• underthrust

Sobering thought

So here's something fun: A marquee of a video rental store in town advertises, "Now Hiring Managers $30-35K First Year." Hm, maybe I should double my salary and work as a video store manager...

Naming sex offenders

[This is about the same person I mentioned in this previous post. By the way, the Xanga mentioned has since been shut down by its owner.]

The local paper ran a front page story about this kid, naming him and his mother, who sits on the school board. There were definitely mixed responses, from ardent applause to fervid reproach. I can't decide whether I think this was appropriate; I'm curious to hear the opinion of someone who has worked with victims. The information is already out there in the public sphere—you can easily do an online search of sex offenders in your city or county or by name, so it's not like the paper exposed something that couldn't already be known. I read two signed responses from later in the week: one from the editorial board and one from a rape-crisis counselor, both supporting the decision. The editorial board cited the relevancy of the mother's school board position, keeping its readers safe, and reporting public record. The rape-crisis counselor corroborated the "keeping other people safe" opinion.

I don't think the paper did anything illegal, but I question at least its consistency. A search on KBI's website results in 47 matches for the city, 58 for the county. Why is this one offender picked out and not the others? The only other time I remember a sex offender being named in the paper (other than in the Daily Record) was when there was one whom the state had failed to register. Or he had failed to register or whatever the proper steps are. I might be completely wrong, but my feeling is that this high school student is perhaps less of an immediate threat to others because he is 16. No, teenagers' parents do not know where they are all the time, what they are doing all of the time, but at least they have more accountability to someone than adults. I don't know. Opinions?

Verification of a legend

Everyone remember the story of one of the most famous Bethel pranks ever—where some guys attached a chain and cable to a cop's rear axle and also to a tree and then sped by honking and the cop took off after them and dropped his rear axle? Well, last night, someone I know admitted to being one of those guys. Interesting.