Monday, January 19, 2009

It beats a lonely river all night long

Last night we saw Gran Torino. I am no movie critic, and it seems to have gathered some poor reviews, but... I thought it was a GREAT movie. I would almost go so far as to say the best I've seen in a long, long time (imho). There is a fair share of foul language, and the racial slurs are almost embarrassing, but there are some seriously powerful religious undertones. They're almost 'over-tones'. I left the theater with one verse in mind... "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (Jn 15:13). I highly recommend this movie (and stay through the credits to hear the song at the end).

THE WEEKEND - FROZEN PIPES, CHURCH, FOOTBALL PLAYOFFS
It was a surprisingly nice weekend. I spent several hours thawing the pipes at the church on Saturday. In the 10 winters we've been here they have probably frozen at some point every winter. It has ALWAYS been in the well pit, and usually happens when one of the two heat lamps burns out. So I went out in the wind and cold Saturday morning, and sure enough a bulb was out. I replaced a 40 watt with a 150 watt... and it is a pain to do, lemme-tell-ya. The cement top is heavy, and it's just a pain getting in and out. But anyway, it still hadn't thawed by late afternoon, so I knew somethin was up. What's weird was, we actually HAD water in the well pit, but not inside the church. So I got the hair dryer and blew it on the pipes where they come into the church for a long time. No luck. I called Scott, and he knew someone who had one of those big monstrosities that looks like a battery charger, but you hook it to copper pipe and it sends an electrical charge through it. The weirdest thing was... the plastic sink right beside all the piping had both hot and cold water, but nothing else did. That didn't make sense, because the pipes were all in the same place. But anyway, we thawed the pipes to the main sink, then started working our way towards the upstairs. It was finally when we had one cable hooked to the main pipe in the basement, and the other clamp on the main pipe behind the Sunday School desk upstairs, that we finally got water upstairs. That's just weird. It's ALL inside. I know the thermostat is only set on 50 during the week, but... geez. Anyway, I was glad we got it thawed out or I was going to have to cancel for Sunday.

And Sunday morning seemed to go extremely well (to me). I don't know what it was, but I left feeling really good for some reason. I hardly ever feel good after a Sunday morning. We had a couple inches of snow during the night, but it shoveled off easy enough. And even though the snow plows can't seem to plow our road BEFORE church, there were quite a few there. Then we had a relaxing lunch, and a hard nap, and we watched the Arizona Cardinals WIN!!!!!!

I'm not a Cardinals fan, but that's who I've been rooting for in this playoffs. Plus I DO NOT like the Eaglets. And I know everyone feels sorry for Donavon McNabb, but I've never much cared for him. This is strictly in a football sense. I don't know him or anything. I just don't like him as a football player. I do like Curt Warner though. And I thought the interview with number 24 for the Cards (can't remember his name) was superb. He could barely get words out. Very nice. Then we went to the movie instead of watching the Steelers game. We made it home just in time to see the bad collision where Willis McGahee got carted off. We actually made a swing through Applebees after the movie, but it didn't look like any of the regulars were there.

It beats a lonely river all night long.

Peace out; and in.

1 comment:

MR said...

** MOVIE SPOILER, SKIP THIS COMMENT IF YOU INTEND TO SEE "GRAN TORINO" **



That's funny, after seeing Gran Torino I left the theatre thinking "Dan would like that movie." I honestly did. Probably because the "Christ figure" was so pronounced... I mean, outstretched arms and everything. Brilliant casting, since a Clint Eastwood movie brings with it a certain expectation--they didn't really have to develop the character, we already knew him. If I had to pick the character that Clint revived for this movie, I would say it was like an older Sgt. Highway from Heartbreak Ridge.

I liked it, although I'm sure there's someone out there who thinks that he coerced sin and denied them the age that may bring epiphany and redemption. But, they were careful to set the movie in Michigan--which doesn't have capital punishment.