Taking Care of Business

I'm a tad early with the blog posting today, which means that it has the strong possibility of actually being coherent (imagine that!). Steph's working on getting the little gaffer to sleep, a job I relinquished about 10 minutes into it (tonight, not in general). Theo's really funny in his personality--when he wants to play, he looks for me, because he knows that I'll do fun things like throw him in the air, carry him around on my shoulders (note to my dad: I'm now realizing your pain at having your hair pulled by child perched on shoulders--sorry about that), and generally roughhouse with him.

Okay, brief pit stop because I can't get over that word, "roughhouse." It doesn't look like it should have two h's does it? And yet, Microsoft tells me that it's okay, so I'm in the clear. I've been approved by Bill Gates' spell checker, and thus I am clean. I think it belongs in the category of other incomprehensible words like "vacuum."

Moving on. When Theo wants to play, he looks for me. When he wants to sleep, he looks for Steph. She's got these lullabies she sings him that he will not go to sleep without. Such a funny little boy. I wonder where he got it from?

Pretty good day today. Beautiful, sunny, and hot--25 degrees. I'm trying to figure out which adjective most correctly describes the weather here in central Alberta. So far I've come up with "frenetic", "schizophrenic", "rowdy", "unpredictable", and "tempestuous." Okay, that last one came from Microsoft Word again. Busted. Anyway, according to Environment Canada, it's supposed to be 26 tomorrow, but only 13 on Sunday. Hmm. The last time I saw something that changed that fast was when Theo grabbed the TV remote and started pressing random buttons. Some change indeed.

Okay, I'm sure I could've come up with something funnier, but who wants to sit at computer giggling to themselves? Not me.

Anyway, the day started off on a good note and only went up. At chapel this morning, we had a guy doing a presentation that was called, "Learn to speak Chinese in 30 minutes." I had to go. He's a dude who is in charge of an English-language training school in China, and he did his seminar in the same way English is taught in China--immersion. Except he was immersing us, so it was all in Chinese. Even though we didn't understand what he was saying at first, we got it eventually, and he was just a really funny man. Good times were had by all.

Laughter. That's what it is. Sorry, I'll bring you up to speed on my internal monologue. I was wondering why chapel (and school in general) has seemed, well, heavy over the last little while. Take this into your situation, too--I'm specifically thinking of the church you attend, but it also works for the job you do. Anyway, I have a book I'm reading in one of my classes, and it pinpoints eight different characteristics of healthy churches. No, it's not a stupid "8 Keys to Success" book; it's actually based on empirical evidence from thousands of surveys they've done over the course of 10 years. One of the key components is laughter. In fact, the statistics are startling.

Of high quality, high growth churches, 68% of the congregation responded "true" or "very true" to the statement, "There is a lot of laughter in our congregation." Conversely, only 32% of low quality, low growth church members answered the same way. Interesting, isn't it? And yet, it makes sense. When are you most vulnerable? When you laugh. As my prof said about a prof he had when he was attending Prairie (no lie), "He'd get you laughing uproariously, and then he'd stick the knife in." People who laugh together are more willing to open up to each other. It's a proven fact.

After the funny guy from China (yes, he too is a Prairie grad), I went off to class and had a rip-roaring discussion about the headship of the church. Interesting stuff. I could write paragraphs and paragraphs about it, but I don't need you falling asleep on your keyboard, especially if you're reading this at work. It was fun for nerds like me.

After class, I actually went--hold on to your chairs--to the gym and worked out. Man, it's been a while. I used to be quite regimented about going to the gym, but I've slacked terribly. But I forgot how good it feels to go work out. I'm no muscle-head, but getting a good sweat going really makes you feel energized. And like a hangover (not that I'd know what one of those feels like), it stuck with me the whole day--in a good way. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

The one thing I hate about gyms, though, is the sense of competition among the guys there. Inevitably, I'll set a machine on a certain weight and go through an exercise, and then some other guy will come up and jack the thing all the way to the top. Then, when he's done, he'll leave the pin at the highest setting, even though I'm waiting right there, just to make me move it back. I almost feel like saying, "I realize you're stronger than me, and so you're probably more manly. Now can I get on with it?"

It's no wonder female-only gyms have cropped up. It's hard enough for me as a guy to go in there; I can't imagine being a girl and having to not only put up with the apes beating their chests, but also have to get leered at all day. Yuck. I think I'm going to open my own line of gyms that cater to the guy who just wants to go to the gym to get healthy. It'll welcome scrawny guys and fat guys alike--it'll be the anti-stereotype gym. I think I'm onto something here.

That said, there was nobody in the gym when I went today. Had the place completely to myself. Note to self: go to the gym at lunchtime more often.

Well, I could go on and on, but I think I'll call it a night (and a week). This weekend promises to be fun. We're going over to my cousin's for dinner tomorrow, which I'm looking forward to immensely, and then heading off to the dinosaur museum in Drumheller on Monday, which should be so much fun. Not sure Theo will appreciate it yet, but I will. Yes, I have been before, but I'm looking forward to going again. The first time I went, I didn't know what to expect; now that I know what's there, I'm looking forward to going. It's kind of like watching "The Sixth Sense" a second time. You know very well what the plot twist is at the end (which I won't explicitly mention, just in case you're the one person in the world who doesn't know), and so you watch with a different mindset.

Enough philosophy; I said I'd call it a night. Wife is doing sudoku, so I might have lost her for the evening. That or I'll have to fight her for it. Note to self: buy another book. Okay, everyone, I've appreciated your coming by this week (and yes, I know you're coming because I have a hit counter on my page. If you scroll to the bottom and click on the "Site Meter" logo, it'll take you to my stats page, which is quite interesting--click on the "Visits by country" link at the very bottom of the page). See you next week when we do it all again.