A watch

According to my dad, Papa (his maternal grandfather) was a really great guy. He was a quiet, gentle person, and probably the only one in the world who could put up with my great-grandmother, Little Mama. Unfortunately, I didn't get to know him as well as I would've liked, as he passed away while we were on our first stint in Argentina, so the last time I saw him was when I was nine years old.

When he died, the only thing he willed to anyone was his watch, which he left to me. At the time I thought it was pretty cool, but didn't think much of it. What's a teenager going to do with a stuffy old watch? So I left it in a drawer, where it's sat, moving from place to place with us, for many years.

About two months ago I got to wondering about that watch and why it was so special to him and, more significantly, why he would've wanted me to have it. According to my grandmother, it was given to him by his father-in-law, Little Mama's dad. Grampa Dudd (I hope I got that name right) was a typical early 20th-century man: he worked hard, he was a harsh disciplinarian, and he rarely if ever showed emotion. He came from a poor rural background where it was a man's place to provide for his family, but a woman's place to care for them. At some point, he realized that his son-in-law, Papa, was a pretty special person for having married his spitfire of a daughter. Grampa Dudd gave Papa this watch as a gift, an act which amazed the family given his rough personality. My grandmother told me that Papa always really liked me and that he wanted his first great-grandchild to have his watch.

When I pulled the watch out of the drawer I assumed it wouldn't work. Amazingly, after winding it up, it started ticking away. Here's what it looked like at first:

I took it in to a jeweler and had some extensive repair work done, including refinishing the face and replacing the stainless steel band with a brown leather one. I got it back this weekend, and this is what it looks like now:

You'll notice that the face is far less yellowed and has a beautiful pearly look to it. I'm not exactly sure how old the watch is - I've done a little research and it appears to be a model from the late '60s or early '70s, although my grandmother seems to recall Papa receiving it in the early '60s. I'm still considering having the crystal replaced as it's pretty scratched up.

It's definitely not a very modern-looking watch. It's small, much smaller than the Citizen I usually wear. I wore it yesterday to work and it looks pretty cool with a long-sleeve shirt. It certainly won't be an everyday watch; maybe just the occasional trip to church or nice dinners.

Anyway, thanks for the watch Papa. I'm sorry I didn't appreciate it at the time, but I love it now. I wear it with pride knowing that it meant so much to you, who meant so much to others. I promise to take good care of it, and I'll make sure your great-grandson gets to wear it some day too.

164-2

And so ends one of the most bizarre, enlightening, tedious, and personally rewarding processes of my life. Tonight, Clear Lake Baptist Church voted to call Dr. Glenn Young of Devine, Texas, as their new pastor. And with that vote, the commission given to the Pastor Search Committee was completed. We first met back in April of last year. Since then we've met countless times, reviewed 130-some-odd resumes, I've traveled to Europe, Asia, and Canada, my son has gotten glasses, and my wife has born a child. As cliche as it sounds, I've learned far more about myself and how I can relate to God than anything else.

I've learned a lot about how committees should operate - and how they shouldn't. I've learned that the Baptist form of democracy is insanely complex, overly tedious, but strangely enough, it works well. I've learned that God can speak through his Word, through his people, and through an objective process of sitting around a table and scanning resumes.

Most of all, I've learned to my intense amazement that nine people, all of whom have completely different perspectives on life, different relationships with their God, and enormously different personalities, can in fact come to a unanimous agreement on the Will of God. That's something that could only happen when those individuals truly want the Will of God. I guarantee you that I could never get nine people at work to agree on what day of the week it was, but somehow God was able to poke and prod this motley crew of engineers, a hairdresser, a retiree, a principal, and counselors until we all agreed that we'd heard His Voice.

Praise God.

Worthless rewards

I got to thinking the other day about a very strange human phenomenon: rewarding someone with something of no (or negligibly small) value. Let me give a few examples.

There's a recent trend in video gaming of rewarding someone with "Achievements." For example, if you collect all ten stars on a particular level of a game, the game will reward you with the "Superstar Achievement." Or if you finish a level in less than one minute, you'll get the "Speed Demon Achievement." Keep in mind that these achievements don't give you any sort of advantage in playing the game, they're an end unto themselves. Other players can view what achievements you've attained, so they're worth some bragging rights, but that's it. It doesn't cost anything for the developers of the game to give them to the player - the value of the Achievement lies simply in having and being able to say you have it.

Another example: When a sports team wins a game, they're given a trophy. I suppose trophies have some minimal "real" value in that they could be melted down and sold as raw material, but I suspect that rarely happens. The reward itself is the only reward: it has no monetary or economic value.

One last example: When a child does well on a test or school project, the teacher will give them a sticker as a reward. Stickers cost a negligibly small amount, so the worth of that reward is entirely perceived.

So what is it about humans that will make us satisfied to be rewarded with something that has no real value? If we were truly pragmatic, wouldn't we be satisfied only with money, or food, or at least something we could use?

Getting Lost all over again...

Oh, sweet mercy, the long wait is almost over. Lost premieres tomorrow night. It'll only be eight episodes due to the writers' strike (don't get me started), but I'm sure it'll be worth the wait. Here's a bullet list of some of the things that make Lost great. If you don't watch the show, I suspect most of these won't make any sense. If you do watch it, then you'll know exactly why each of these items is so cool.

• Flashbacks
• Flashforwards
• Hatches
• Hurley
• 4-8-15-16-23-42
• Ben's buggy eyes
• Fish biscuits
• Submarines
• Polar bears
• Box companies
• Eko

Most disgusting things I've ever eaten

So, in a slightly different vein, I thought I'd post about some of the more disgusting things I've eaten during my many travels. I pride myself on my ability to eat just about anything you put in front of me. I may not like it, I may not want to take a second bite, but I'll certainly try anything once. This is a trait that I inherited from my dad, who taught me that no matter how disgusting something looks, it's nothing compared to some of the stuff they eat in the Philippines.

So without further ado:

• Chinchulines: grilled cow intestines. My dad and I ate these quite frequently in Argentina. If they're thoroughly cleaned and grilled to the point of crunchiness, they're really quite good.
• Molleja: grilled cow gland. I know that's kind of vague - I'm not actually sure which gland it was. But they were tender and very flavorful.
• Seso. This was something I only had once when Ann went with me to Argentina. The waiter brought it out and, not recognizing it, I asked him what it was. He told me it was seso. Ann looked at me questioningly, so I told her it was cow brain. I tried it and didn't really like it. To her immense credit, Ann tried it too.
• Uni: sea urchin gonads, served as sushi. Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with this taste extravaganza from a post back in October. This is one of the most personally nasty things I've every tried. Anyone who tells you texture in food doesn't bother them has never tried this stuff.
• Broiled ray fin, also from my recent trip to Japan. Not bad. Very salty, and the texture starts to get to you after a while.
• Blutwurst: blood sausage. I refer to the German version here, not the Argentine morcilla, although I've tried both. I found the German quite good, but never really liked it when I was in Argentina, although my dad loved the stuff. Any meat that's served by spreading it on bread is highly questionable in my mind.
• Steak tartar. I ordered this accidentally in Germany. It looks and tastes like raw hamburger meat because that's precisely what it is.
• Chocolate-covered cricket. This was mostly done to gross out my kid sister.
• Sardines. This is the only thing that's ever made me almost throw up. I ate one in Argentina once and literally thought I was gonna chunder all over the table.

Well, that's all I can think of for now. I'm sure some more will occur to me, so I might have to post a follow-up. So what's the nastiest thing you've ever tried?

Sorry for my lack of updates

I do apologize for the lack of posts. It's been a little crazy at work for the last few weeks. My crew has been in town for their final training trip, which means a lot of busy-newss at work. Things have been a little busy at home as well: the Monkey's had a cold, we're preparing for his birthday party tomorrow, Ann has had a rough week at work, the nanny's been sick, and so on.

The good news is that PSC may be drawing to a close. After meeting almost weekly for about nine months now, the end may truly be in sight. With any luck, it'll all be over by the end of February.

Not much on the gaming front lately. I made some good progress on Node 42 over the weekend, and I'll probably be able to post final pictures in the next week or so. I've been playing a little Mario Kart on the Wii, but there's not much I've got going on there. In TV news, I've been watching the new Terminator TV series, which is AWESOME. And I've started a new book called Collapse, about the factors that cause some societies to fail while others succeed. Interesting stuff.

A Tale from the Monkey

I bring to you tonight a story made up entirely by the Monkey himself. He often likes to make up stories during bedtime, usually starring himself as the main protagonist. I have to repeat them back to him in their entirety, which can often be difficult given their elaborateness.

----

The Monkey and his mommy decided to go to the boat show, which was for guys only. So at the boat show, Mommy had to go to the potty, but she couldn't find anywhere to potty because there were only guy bathrooms. She had to potty in her underwear, and so she had to go home to change and left the Monkey at the boat show.

The Monkey wandered over to the sewer and fell in. Then a clock came by and saw the little boy in the sewer. The clock could walk and talk and tick and tock [I swear he made up this rhyme on his own]. The clock had a claw with a button and a controller. So a hand inside the clock pushed the button and moved the controller and the claw came out of a hole in the clock and reached down into the sewer to pick up the Monkey, then put him inside the clock and carried him over to his mommy. The end.

----

That's the story he made up. This gives us a few insights into the mind of the four-year old Monkey.

• He and I are going to do a Guy's Day at the boat show this weekend, and he's pretty excited about it.
• He loves his mommy. A lot.
• He is obsessed with sewers, claws, and clocks.
• He thinks people pottying in their underwear is the funniest thing, which I assume is fairly typical of four-year olds.
• The stories he makes up don't necessarily make a lot of sense from a narrative perspective, but they definitely have visual appeal. I'm going to choose Spielberg to direct the big-screen version of this one.