This week’s question was inspired by one of those “fun facts” columns in a local news weekly. There’s no list for you to look at; instead, this week’s question requires that you have a look around your own home!

• First to play last week: Otowi of Otowi. Congratulations!

(According to the rules, “First to Play” requires you to be the first to include the link to the specific entry in which you answered the questions, not just the general link to your blog.)

Here is this week’s “Sunday Seven” question. Either answer in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your blog…but either way, leave a link to your journal so that everyone else can visit! To be counted as “first to play,” you must be the first player to either answer the questions in a comment or to provide a complete link to the specific entry in your blog in which you answer the questions. A general link to your blog cannot count. Enjoy!

THIS WEEK’S QUESTION:
Name seven things in your home that you have at least seven of.

Either answer the question in a comment or answer it in your journal and include the link in a comment. (To be considered “first to play,” a link must be to the specific entry in which you answered the question.) You may include this link in the URL space when leaving your comment, or in the comment itself. As long as it’s there in one spot or the other.

Are you guys “Saturday Sixed” out or something? Last week I was one response away from having no “first to play” at all. Thank goodness Yen came in and saved the day!

This week, since food is always a good topic, I’ll give that one a shot. Hope you enjoy…and hope you don’t get too hungry!

• First to play last week: Yen of It’s Where the Heart Is…. Congratulations!

(According to the rules, “First to Play” requires you to be the first to include the link to the specific entry in which you answered the questions, not just the general link to your blog.)

Here are this week’s “Saturday Six” questions. Either answer the questions in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your journal…but either way, leave a link to your journal so that everyone else can visit! To be counted as “first to play,” you must be the first player to either answer the questions in a comment or to provide a complete link to the specific entry in your journal in which you answer the questions. A link to your journal in general cannot count. Enjoy!

1. What was the last meal you ordered in a restaurant?

2. What was the last meal you cooked for yourself?

3. Who was the last person you shared a meal with?

4. Take the quiz: What Pasta Dish Are You?

5. If you could only have one pasta dish for the rest of your life, which one would you choose?

6. Check your pantry: counting products like soups that contain noodles, dry pasta and boxed meals like Hamburger Helper, how many items do you have that contain some pasta?

If you have a Reader’s Choice question you’d like to see asked (and answered), send me an email! I’d love to be able to include it in a future edition of the Saturday Six.

My Answers:
1. She-crab soup and a Meatloaf Melt

2. Cubed Steak and Macaroni

3. My friend Archie. I was able to work in one last lunch with him before he leaves for California next week.

4. You Are Fettuccine Alfredo — Yeah, never would have seen that coming!

Compared to most people, you have rich and decadent tastes.

You’re the type most likely to appreciate every aspect of a five star meal.

5. By sheer coincidence, of course, Fettuccine Alfredo!

6. Nine. Don’t tell my physical trainer.

No, this isn’t a new meme…although you are more than welcome to start one of your own from it if you want to.

Earlier this week, author Dave Freeman died after a fall at his home.  He was just 47 — far too young to die.  Though you may not immediately recognize the name, you’ll surely recognize the title of his book:  100 Things to Do Before You Die.  It was one of those “bucket list”-type endeavors, which suggested things no one should leave this earth without experiencing first-hand.  Sadly, Freeman himself only got halfway through his own list.

Maybe he was happy with that.  Maybe he didn’t need to hit all 100.  Some of us are happy with completing a short list.  Others are the “over-achievers” who aren’t really satisfied until they hit 200.  At least.

I’ve never tried to come up with a list of things, because I think I’m more of the under-achiever type where something like that is concerned.  My list would be pretty short, but I’d be okay with that.  Then again, there’s the hypochondriac in me who would become convinced that as soon as I finished the last thing on my list, I’d be hit by lightning — or a bus — and be done.  Game over.  It’d be enough to make me actually fear the last few things left undone on such a list.

Living with fear sucks sometimes.

But I think that beyond that, I’ve never wanted a checklist of things to do before I “check out,” because I don’t like the reminder of how short life is.

Sometimes it takes us a long time to just stop and look back over our own shoulder and really see what we have and haven’t accomplished.  And it’s never all that fun when you realize that of the accomplishments you have genuinely made, none stand out in the grand scheme of things.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that:  sometimes it’s that one little dependable cog in the machine that keeps the whole operation going.

But I wonder lately how one knows for sure when it’s time to try to become more than just another cog.  Not for credit or recognition by any means.  But for just fulfilling your life in ways you never before realized you might, or in doing things you never realized you had a need to do.

Forgive me, my friends, if I sound a little cryptic; I don’t mean to be…I guess I’m just thinking out loud this morning.

What’s your measuring stick for making changes in your life?  How do you know, when one of those proverbial “new doors” opens up, that it’s really one you need to walk through?

Aside from the fact that John McCain chose as his running mate someone who hasn’t even completed a single term as governor of the country’s least populous state, my biggest laugh at McCain’s decision, hands down, was found at Mrs. Linklater’s Guide to the Universe:

“This reminds me of when the Republicans put a guy who organized horse shows in charge of FEMA.”

Meanwhile, the governor of Alaska is a perfect choice to attract those angry women voters who don’t care anything about issues as long as a woman is somewhere in the mix.

But it sort of shoots McCain’s criticism of Obama as “inexperienced” right in the butt.  Wonder what he’ll find to complain about next?

Each year, Beloit College releases its “Mindset List,” which applies common pop culture to rising college freshmen to give those of who are older a better perspective of the world view these students might have from what they have experienced (and haven’t experienced) in their short lifetime.

Here are my top ten shockers from the big list created for the College Class of 2012:

1. Gas stations have never fixed flats, but most serve cappuccino.
2. Films have never been X rated, only NC-17.
3. IBM has never made typewriters.
4. McDonald’s and Burger King have always used vegetable oil for cooking french fries.
5. The Tonight Show has always been hosted by Jay Leno and started at 11:35 EST.
6. Personal privacy has always been threatened.
7. Caller ID has always been available on phones.
8. Iced tea has always come in cans and bottles.
9. 98.6 F or otherwise has always been confirmed in the ear.
10. Radio stations have never been required to present both sides of public issues.

Enlightening.  And frightening.

Here’s their full list of 60 items, with my own added disclaimer that reading it will likely make you feel very, very old.

Someone pass the Geritol.

Last night, I got to see my friend Archie lead worship one last time before he and his wife, Rebekah, move out to California to start a new church in the San Francisco Bay area.

It was awesome getting to see him perform one more time.

It was bittersweet, too. But I figure there’s a pretty good chance that you already guessed that part.

The title of this post should actually contain a little asterisk that refers to a footnote that reads, “One last time…at least for now.” I’m definitely going to start banking some courage for another 4-hour plane ride some day.

I hate flying.  But in this case, it’d be worth it.

Meanwhile, if you live in that part of California, some amazing people are heading your way soon! And if you’re not careful, before you even realize that it’s happening, they just might change you.  For the better.

That’s what they managed to do to yours truly.

Last weekend, if you missed it, there were two editions of the Sunday Seven. Both were part of the Arch-a-thon, a special weekend event I held for a good friend of mine here in Charleston who is very soon to be a good friend way out in California. If you missed the details on that, click here for the details.

This week, we’re back to one set of questions. And this week, the topic is movie gadgets that we wish we could actually own and use. Here’s one list of 10 great gadgets that it’d be cool to possess. Use that one as a starting point if you need it, and then go from there.

• First to play last week’s first set: Something Purple of Em’s Detour, All Things Beautiful. Congratulations!
• First to play last week’s second set: Donna of Threads and Knots. Congratulations!
  (According to the rules, “First to Play” requires you to be the first to include the link to the specific entry in which you answered the questions, not just the general link to your blog.)

Here is this week’s “Sunday Seven” question. Either answer in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your blog…but either way, leave a link to your journal so that everyone else can visit! To be counted as “first to play,” you must be the first player to either answer the questions in a comment or to provide a complete link to the specific entry in your blog in which you answer the questions. A general link to your blog cannot count. Enjoy!

THIS WEEK’S QUESTION:
Name seven cool movie gadgets you’d like to own.

Either answer the question in a comment or answer it in your journal and include the link in a comment. (To be considered “first to play,” a link must be to the specific entry in which you answered the question.) You may include this link in the URL space when leaving your comment, or in the comment itself. As long as it’s there in one spot or the other.

My Answers:
1. The Magic Remote Control (from Click) - How awesome would it be to freeze everything when you need to or fast forward to see what happens next
2. Cloaking Device (from Predator) - Yeah, there are plenty of times when I wish I could be invisible. (Or more invisible than I already am!)
3. Phaser (from Star Trek movies) - Okay, I’ll admit that I’d keep mine on Stun…but that would still be cool!
4. Neuralizer (from Men in Black) - One corny joke too many? I’ll make you forget I ever said it!
5. Holodeck (from Star Trek movies) - So I could program any location, complete with people of my own choosing to spend time with whenever I wanted? I may never walk out of there!
6. Memory Recorder/Player (from Brainstorm) - I’ve always thought this was one of the coolest devices ever invented, but it almost requires an invasion of privacy to really experience something new.
7. Transporter (from Star Trek movies) - So I hit a few buttons and in a matter of seconds I could “beam over” to any location from any location? I’m so there!

Last weekend, there were two editions of the Saturday Six as part of the Arch-a-thon, a special event I held for a good friend of mine here in Charleston who is very soon to be a good friend way out in California. If you missed the details on that, click here for the whole picture.

This week, we’re back to one set of questions. Thanks for stopping by and for playing this week’s set.

• First to play last week’s first set: Otowi of Otowi. Congratulations!
• First to play last week’s second set: Cat. of Sweet Memes. Congratulations!
  (According to the rules, “First to Play” requires you to be the first to include the link to the specific entry in which you answered the questions, not just the general link to your blog.)

Here are this week’s “Saturday Six” questions. Either answer the questions in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your journal…but either way, leave a link to your journal so that everyone else can visit! To be counted as “first to play,” you must be the first player to either answer the questions in a comment or to provide a complete link to the specific entry in your journal in which you answer the questions. A link to your journal in general cannot count. Enjoy!

1. On an average night, do you tend to get more sleep than you need, less sleep than you need, or just about exactly how much you need?

2. Do you have trouble sleeping well in a bed other than your own, i.e., a hotel room?

3. Do you have trouble sleeping in a sleeping bag or tent?

4. Take the quiz: What Does Your Bed Say About You?

5. Has anyone ever told you that you snore? Did you believe them at the time?

6. When was the last time you woke up in the middle of the night thinking you had overslept? How many hours did you have left to sleep before you had to get up?

If you have a Reader’s Choice question you’d like to see asked (and answered), send me an email! I’d love to be able to include it in a future edition of the Saturday Six.

MY ANSWERS:
1. I tend to get less than I need, but I think I’ve grown accustomed to getting less so maybe what I get is largely what I need. Make sense?

2. Not really. I can sleep wherever if I need to.

3. Depends on who I’m camping with and how safe the location feels.

4.
Outward appearances aren’t important to you at all. You think that the over emphasis on looks to be shallow.

You try to be an organized person, but you often fall behind. Certain parts of your life tend to fall into chaos.

You are not very high maintenance in general, but you are high maintenance about a few things.

In relationships, you tend to kick back and let the other person be in charge.

You tend to be a down to earth, practical person. You think in terms of what is actual.

You are a bit of a homebody, but you can also make yourself at home anywhere.

5. Yes. Yes…with this schnoz, how could I not?

6. I’ve been doing this a lot lately, but it’s a stressful month for me. It just happened this morning at about 2:10am, and I didn’t even have anything to do today!

When it comes to fast food advertising, it’s clear that only Chick-Fil-A gets animal humor.

Back in June, I pointed out that a new line of Captain D’s spots have people who are about to eat things other than seafood being “attacked” by a giant fish that slaps them around until they eat seafood after all. Why, I asked at the time, would a fish want people to eat fish?

Here’s one of the spots in question:

Now there’s Burger King, with a new spot featuring a man hiding in a hotel room, about to eat a chicken sandwich, when a cow shows up at the door, apparently angry that a hamburger is not what’s for dinner. Why, I ask now, would a cow want people to eat hamburgers?

See for yourself:

Chick-Fil-A, on the other hand, has the ad campaign that makes sense. Their cows how old up signs that read, “Eat Mor Chickin.” Cows, after all, don’t know much about the silent e.

Get it? Cows wanting you to eat chicken. So you won’t eat cows. So they won’t end up as the main course.

Is that so hard to understand?

The Amethyst Initiative is designed to bring the debate over lowering the legal drinking age from 21 to 18 to the forefront in 2009. As hard as it may be to believe, educators from colleges across the country actually support dropping the drinking age.

They claim that doing so would curb the desire for binge drinking among their students. Opponents say that raising the drinking age created a drop in the number of drunken driving fatalities.

One of the typical arguments about why the drinking age should be lowered really ticks me off. It goes something like this:

“If an 18-year-old can join the military and die for his country, he ought to be able to drink.”

That is one of the stupidest lines of reasoning I’ve ever heard.

For one thing, the military teaches discipline and responsibility. Chugging a beer does not.

But let’s apply that same logic with a similar argument: one might argue that driving a car carries great responsibility. It certainly should be left to responsible people. In North and South Dakota, a driver with a beginner’s permit can legally drive alone as early as 14 1/2 years of age.

So if, by those states’ laws, someone 14 1/2 is legally-responsible enough to drive a car, why doesn’t that mean that he should be legally-responsible enough to be shipped overseas into a warzone and potentially die for his country?

If we’re going to compare totally unrelated things and pretend that they’re identical, then let’s go all out! The youngest age that any state suggests a child can do anything “grown up” ought to be the universal age at which he should be able to do all things “grown up,” right?

So forget about sending them to high school…just pluck them up right out of middle school and ship them off to a Quonset hut somewhere before they know what hit ‘em. And don’t forget to pack plenty of beer so they can take their minds off the irrational logic over why being able to do one thing ought to automatically mean being able to do something else that’s totally different.

Any parents out there jumping for joy at that thought? Didn’t think so. Because there’s a reason that different things are appropriate at different ages.

If I ever have kids and they want to attend a college that supports lowering the drinking age just because it doesn’t want to deal with educating its students about alcohol dangers or with enforcing alcohol rules on campus, I’d have a real hard time paying tuition there. They sure don’t sound capable of sending a good message to kids as far as I’m concerned.

I suspect that for most people, the thought of someone bringing a gun into a classroom is a scary thought.

Apparently, it’s not that scary an idea for some teachers in Texas, because a small school district in Harrold, Texas has decided to let teachers and school staff members carry concealed firearms.

Just ponder that a second and ask yourself if you’d be okay with that if your child was in that classroom.

Granted, the intent of this unusual, unorthodox decision is to protect students against school shootings.  But in most cases, that’s what police resource officers are for.  Unfortunately, the school is a half-hour away from the nearest sheriff’s office, so a quick police response is unlikely.  And there are specific conditions anyone who carries a handgun must follow to the letter to minimize problems.

But if I were a parent in Texas, I think I’d be calling for a new police substation rather than gun-toting teachers.

So this officially concludes the Arch-a-thon.

I have not gotten an update from Archie, yet, so I don’t know if he has received a donation that will force me to post that awful picture — yes, one even worse than that mullet shot — but I do know that a few donations have come in.  I won’t know who gave what, and that’s fine with me.

Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect from this in terms of raising even a buck.  The fact that something has come in really makes me feel good and I want to thank all of you, whomever of you decided to donate.  As I said from the beginning, I know the economy isn’t the best right now, and I know it’s a bad time to have made such a request.

But I appreciate you, my readers, for sticking with me through this, or for having the patience, if this idea wasn’t to your liking, to just step back and give me this weekend; and I hope you’ll return soon.

I will leave the Arch-a-thon tab at the top of the page active for a while, so you can still get to that if you like.  No pressure.  No constant reminders.  Just there if you need it

Thanks again for helping them and thanks for keeping them in your prayers.  That means a lot to them and to me.

You may well ask why I would write nearly 50 posts to try to raise funds for people I’ve only known a year and could, conceivably, never see again for the rest of my life.  (After all, to get to see them, I’ve got to get up enough courage to get on an airplane for a four hour flight!)

Actually, I think I will see them again, and I don’t just mean that in a “70 years from now up in Heaven” kind of way.

Well, let me answer it this way:  if, after reading these posts, you come away thinking, “Wow, that Patrick is really a nice guy,” then I have totally failed to make the right point.

I’m not a nice guy; I’m the most self-centered person I know.  By a long shot.   This blog is about me…that’s why it’s called Patrick’s Place.  But this weekend isn’t about me.  That’s why it’s called the Arch-a-thon.

It’s about them.  It’s about their dream and how they’re serving God in fulfilling that dream.

It’s about setting aside the sadness of seeing them move away, and there’s a lot of that.  It’s about helping them, however I can, actually make that move that ugly, selfish side of me doesn’t want to make.  It’s about lifting up these two folks whom I admire so much.

And it’s about Proverbs 17:17, and thanking Archie for having been there for me.

That’s what it is about.

Adjustments are almost never easy.  Because they usually involve resetting our comfort zones.  And our comfort zones are comfortable because they don’t change.

Thus the conundrum.

At this hour, church is just letting out.  On the first Sunday in which Archie has officially “left the building.”

It’ll be fine.  It’ll be okay.

Change happens, and in this case, for a good reason.

I’ll be fine.  I’ll be okay.  Because I know this particular change is happening for an awesome reason.

Things were not meant to go on forever the way they are right this second.  Life happens.  (And don’t you just want to slug whoever came up with that little phrase?!?)

But think about it: if nothing was ever meant to change, we’d never get married, have families of our own, relocate here or there, form new friendships or grow in any way.

We’d just stay with our parents and never go from diapers to big-boy pants.  And that would not be pretty.

So we have to find ways to celebrate changes, even when we don’t like them.  I learned that lesson — or kind of did — earlier this year in the old workplace, where some responsibilities I had and enjoyed were basically reassigned and I was suddenly shut out from doing those particular duties.  It stung a little, I’ll admit.  And it felt like an insult to my intelligence when a manager tried to deliver the “change is good” speech.

Change often doesn’t feel good at the time.

But change is good.  Change is necessary.  It’s how we grow.   And like it or not, it’s often what we need.

I can’t believe I’m doing this.

Just.  Can’t.  Believe.  It.

Yes, I had a mullet phase in high school.  Not only that, for a very brief period, through maybe two haircut cycles, I not only had the mullet thing going on, but I also had a wave in the back to get that ridiculous 1980s curl thing going on in the back.

No, it wasn’t pretty.  Not even a little.

And now, for my friends, Archie and Bekah, to whom I hope you will seriously consider making a monetary donation or keeping in your prayers as they leave for California at the end of the month, I’m going to run the pic.  After the jump.  (Because I don’t want this thing on my front page!)

Okay.

Here we go.  You can’t tell that I’m stalling, right?

Getting ready to take the plunge…  Continue reading “Arch-a-thon Post #46: The Mullet”