parenthood

When I get into a show, I get into a show. It can be a bit of a problem. (see: Mickey Mouse Club, LOST, Friday Night Lights.) One of my favorite things about following a show is the pay-off you get when something happens between the characters and you can only fully appreciate the moment because you know everything that has come before it.

NBC's Parenthood is currently in its third season and it had one of those moments last night. (Fair warning this contains spoilers about the show.) I started watching it because I liked the movie a lot (trivia: a friend of mine in Orlando lives down the street from the house the movie filmed at) and it had a lot of the same behind-the-scenes folks as Friday Night Lights. I've been particularly pumped when FNL actors show up on Parenthood. Lyla as Max's behavioral aide? Score! Vince playing the role of Haddie's boyfriend? Go Lions! I miss having a team to cheer for like I did on FNL, but Parenthood is appointment television for me.

Michael B. Jordan, the actor who plays Haddie's boyfriend Alex is awesome. His arrival onto the show during its second season caused trouble for Haddie's family because her parents didn't want them dating. He was older than her, had dropped out of school and was recovering from problems with alcohol. Parents were understandably concerned. But Alex has cleaned things up and long story short, they work things out and he even plays basketball with Haddie's little brother and the rest of the family. In the beginning of this third season, he gets into some trouble with the law and Haddie's dad helps him out. However, shortly after that Alex decides that he and Haddie should call things off. Haddie doesn't respond well to the news and here's what happens when he takes her home and runs into her mom:



This is hands down one of my favorite scenes ever on this show. Several things about it get to me:

- The use of doors. Doors are instrumental to this scene. You see Alex and Haddie come in through the front door, hear Haddie slam her bedroom door, see Alex leave through the front door and see Haddie and her mom talk through the previously mentioned slammed door.

- Alex and this mom have come so far in their relationship. She tells him he's now like family. I don't think that Monica Potter, the actress who plays Haddie's mom, gets the credit she deserves for playing this role. She owns it. This mom is such a control freak, but she manages to somehow make the character likable and, I think, relatable. She just wants what is best for her kids. In this scene, things that are out of her control unravel before her eyes and she has to not be as pushy as she normally is. I don't think you can appreciate how she handles those interactions with her daughter and Alex without knowing how those kinds of things have previously played out. I love the look of restrained panic on her face, the way she pats the back of Alex's head when they hug, how she takes a deep breath once he has left and how instead of giving into her temptation to open Haddie's door, she gives her daughter some space by simply saying, "I love you."

- I love Alex's acknowledgment that he feels lucky to have gotten to know a good mom after losing his own a long time ago. I know these characters are not real, but my heart goes out to Alex when you see his response to Haddie's mom speaking into his hurt, validating him and telling him they love him. (Michael B. Jordan's agent needs to start his campaign for a best guest star Emmy or something.) Not only is he losing his girlfriend, he's losing the closest thing he has had to a family in a long time. He has been forgiven of his past and is loved by these people. And that's a lot to take in. As I get ready to go to bed, my prayer is that I would be as overwhelmed with the forgiveness and love my Creator has for me.

I don't know where this story line will lead to next, but if it includes more scenes like this one, it looks like my Tuesday night plans won't be changing anytime soon.

joy

I've gotten into the habit of watching the 6:30 national news at night. NBC's Brian Williams is my anchor of choice. One of my least favorite things about watching the news, though, is hearing about the unemployment rate, especially because I am part of that percentage of people they talk about. While I am in this in between period, I have picked up some habits like spending too much time on Facebook and eating more junk food than I normally do and should. But some good ones have also developed. I get the proper amount of rest. I do some sort of exercise 4 or 5 days a week. I also make more of an attempt to take note of things, superficial or not, that bring me joy. Some of those things of late have been:

- A former student of mine now volunteers with the Youth Group at his church in college. One Saturday morning I woke up to a text message from him with the following picture:

As I scrolled down I read the attached caption: "middle school lock in. need i say more." Getting that text was especially sweet since I lead a few lock-ins with that student when he was a middle schooler.

- Re-reading some of my favorite books (Ender's Game, Harry Potter) and discovering some really good new ones (The Wednesday Wars, The Help, Room).

- Mat Kearney's latest album came out over the summer. I got a copy the day it came out, but waited to listen to it when I had a short road trip a few days later. Track 2 instantly became my favorite song. It is one of the few songs right now that can almost always lift my mood.



- Hearing my Dad say he was proud of me for being one of two final candidates for a job (even though I ended up not getting the job).

- Seeing the excitement on the faces of the team members of the Tampa Bay Rays when they won their Wild Card spot and overcame their nine game deficit. That was such good television.

- Getting Vanilla Coke from a fountain (courtesy of the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine).

- Visiting my elementary school and the secretaries in the office remembering me!

- Remembering my high school fight song when I went to a game and heard the band play it.

- Auditioning for Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Didn't make it pass the written test, but got a free shirt.

- My cousin Josh telling me he got engaged.

- Exploring the woods of a nearby Tampa park with great music playing in my ears. The soundtrack was music I'd heard on the show Friday Night Lights: "Remember Me as a Time of Day" by Explosions in the Sky, "Deus Ex Machina" by If These Trees Could Talk, "Stokkseyri" by Jonsi and Alex and "Devil Knows Your Dead" by Delta Spirit.

- Speaking of Friday Night Lights, I literally stood up and cheered when Kyle Chandler won the Emmy for Best Actor in a Drama for his work in that show:

In the words of Entertainment Weekly: "Clear eyes. Full hearts. Didn't lose."

an epic send-off

Confession: During my sophomore year of college, I would often watch The View. But only because I thought Meredith Vieira was awesome. I remember thinking that she was funny, attractive and that I wanted to do something cool enough to get me interviewed by her one day. But I never felt like I could fully enjoy her because she was on The View. Then in 2006, right around the same time I made a transition in jobs, she announced she was going to be an anchor on the Today show. Finally! She was going to be on a show I could watch without shame.

In 2008, I had the opportunity to lead a group of high school students on a missions trip to New York City. Part of my preparation involved going on an orientation trip with other leaders. I loved being in a city I'd never been to before surrounded by things I'd only ever heard or read about. Hands down my favorite memory from that trip was when our group leader took us to Rockefeller Center and we were right outside the set of Today. It was around 10pm at night on a weekday, so there weren't too many people around. I peered through the windows of the Today set, but could only see one guy cleaning up. Although I didn't get to see Meredith in person, I made sure to take a picture of the next best thing:

Now, as I make another job transition, so does Meredith. This morning was her last day on Today. I don't watch regularly, but set my alarm to wake up and watch. I didn't really have any expectations for the show, but thought it was one of the best send-offs I've ever seen on TV. Below is video from what I think was the best part of the morning: Yes, it might be over the top and a bit cheesy. But what stood out to me the most was how that surprise (and the other things they did for her) displayed how well they knew her and appreciated, valued and loved her. It was all so intentional. Maybe it was a ploy to get some good ratings, but I thought it was a great display of care for another person and it reminded me of the good good-byes I've recently been given. I admit I'm probably a bit of a sucker for this kind of thing right now with all the changes I've had going on, but who wouldn't love to have something like this put together in his/her honor?

lights

The final season of Friday Night Lights has already aired on DirecTV, but I get to watch it starting Friday, April 15, on NBC. I've managed to stay clear of any major spoilers so far, and I hope I can keep it up. I stumbled across the following promo that DirecTV showed before it aired the finale and I am ready to see what happens in Dillon this year.

super 8

A movie written and directed by J.J. Abrams? starring Coach Taylor? music composed by Michael Giacchino? I'm there.

grateful

Some things I've been especially grateful for this last week...

1.) going to Chick-fil-a and watching the original 3 Ninjas movie with Reese

2.) phone calls from my friends Brad & Jenna, James and David that came at just the right time

3.) the awesome staff at the Waterford Chick-fil-a and my Chick-fil-a mug (in the above picture) that gets me free drinks at that store

4.) a rainy day followed by cooler weather

5.) encouragement & truth

6.) free rentals at Blockbuster Express

7.) overly enthusiastic contestants on Wheel of Fortune

8.) finding a Mat Kearney concert download on iTunes and having enough left on my gift card so that it cost me nothing

9.) getting to enjoy time with one of my favorite students, Michael, courtesy of the new banana pudding milkshake at Chick-fil-a one day and Simply Frozen Yogurt the next

10.) the following conversation with my dad, who loves singing and is really into karaoke:

me: Have you been watching American Idol?
Dad: Yes.
me: I watched it last night because I wanted to see the new judges.
Dad: Yeah, they've got Jennifer, Tyler and the Dawg.
me (once I was done laughing): It's really funny that you call him "the dawg."
Dad: That's what he says. If I meet him one day, that's what I'll call him. I'll be like, "What's up, dawg?!"

underground

I've been drinking the John Eldredge Kool-Aid lately and reading Wild at Heart. In one of the chapters I recently read, he talks about Frederick Buechner's father committing suicide when Buechner was only ten years old. When Eldredge wonders how a young boy handles a tragedy like that, he shares the following excerpt from Buechner's book The Sacred Journey as an answer:

"A child takes life as it comes because he has no other way of taking it. The world had come to an end that Saturday morning, but each time we had moved to another place, I had seen a world come to an end, and there had always been another world to replace it. When somebody you love dies, Mark Twain said, it is like when your house burns down; it isn't for years that you realize the full extent of your loss. For me it was longer than most, if indeed I have realized it fully even yet, and in the meantime the loss came to get buried so deep in me that after a time I scarcely ever took it out to look at it at all, let alone speak of it."

After thinking I should add The Sacred Journey to my reading list, I pulled out my pen and marked that passage. As someone who lost his mom at a young age and has only recently started to realize the profound effect that event has had on my life and who I am as a person, I appreciate Buechner's words. It's actually startling to me how well his words describe me as a 13 year old trying to figure out life after experiencing that loss. I often avoided the subject. When my dad wanted to talk about my mom, I remember sometimes simply telling him, "I don't want to talk about it." So we didn't.

Instead I obsessed over school work...like staying up until one in the morning doing homework and practicing my saxophone obsessed. I guess it seemed easier to control. But when things at school didn't go well, it got ugly. The most vivid memory I have of that playing out was toward the end of my 8th grade year. Our English teacher, Mrs. Barnes, assigned our class to do a project on the book Ender's Game. I was furious at Mrs. Barnes when she determined I could have been a little more creative with my work and awarded me 93 out of 95 points on the project instead of the full 95 I felt I deserved. I proceeded to argue with Mrs. Barnes about my alleged lack of creativity and she told me, "Jason, you still got an A." Certainly a truthful statement, but I was so mad it didn't matter. You would have thought the world had ended. As Buechner states, though, my world had already come to an end. I just wasn't aware of it.

A counselor I've seen has said that something in me went underground when my mom died. I don't like how that sounds, but I can't deny that it feels true. I have theories as to what "went underground," but they remain theories in progress for the time being.

I still miss my mom. She was funny, loved the Lord, made really great spaghetti, hugged me when I cried, hooked me up with quality after-school snacks, took me to a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles concert for my 11th birthday, stood in line with me for hours to meet the girl of my dreams from the Mickey Mouse Club (and gave me a stuffed bear to give to her!) and always managed to surprise me with thoughtful and creative Christmas gifts. It reminds me how grateful I am for the time I did have with her.

videos

The last few days I've been wondering what I should post on here. I would love to write something life-inspiring or share some deep thoughts that lead to "Aha!" moments, but I've got nothing. So let's keep it simple: Here are some videos that I like in one spot so that I no longer have to search for them individually.

#1: I am a big fan of Mat Kearney and last April I had the opportunity to go to one of his concerts. I was in a good mood for about a week following that show. He co-headlined with another artist named Ingrid Michaelson. I'd never heard of her before, but left the concert grateful I had discovered another musician to follow. Her song "Soldier" has been played more times in my car than is probably healthy. That was the song she started her set off with and I loved how she displayed her sense of humor with a tribute to Lady Gaga about 3/4 of the way through the song:



#2: Last May I said adios to my friends Jack, Kate, Sawyer and the rest of the gang from the island of LOST. I was way too into the show, but wouldn't have had it any other way. This is one of my favorite LOST videos that promoted season 5..."We have to go back!":



#3: I don't watch "The Office" a ton, but loved the episode where Jim and Pam got married and this dance:



#4: If you don't watch "Friday Night Lights," you should. This clip is probably my favorite moment from season 4. When I watch it in the context of the entire season, I cry every time. Fair warning that it contains a big spoiler for the season:



#5: I am currently in between jobs, so this video that I put together of the Youth Group at church celebrating its 5th year has come to mean a lot to me:



#6: This video was probably my favorite part of the Oscars last week...



#7: A bonus LOST video that I found today! It has the theme song from "Friday Night Lights" - one of the best theme songs ever - combined with footage from LOST...

unexpected

tonight i found myself with an unexpected free evening. i was planning on going to the high school football game, but the day's rain postponed the game until monday. i eventually found myself browsing the walls of blockbuster looking for something fun to watch. i narrowed my choices down to charlie wilson's war, a spanish movie called la misma luna and dan in real life. i wasn't completely sold on charlie wilson's war, i felt like keeping up with the subtitles of la misma luna would be too much work for a friday night, and although i'd seen dan in real life when it was in theaters, all i could really remember about it was that i liked it. so dan in real life came home with me.

if you haven't seen it, i definitely recommend it. i've been pretty tired lately. a bit worn out and grumpy, too. things are fine overall, but i haven't completely felt like myself. i got to go on vacation last week and visit my cousin jeremy, his wife(my cousin-in-law) kierstin and their son (my nephew cousin) eli in tennessee. it was a much needed and enjoyable rest filled with good conversation, good laughs, good music and really good food. a refreshing time. i always love being with that part of my family.

i mention that because i think it helps (me, at least) make sense of why this movie got to me the way it did. in one scene, there is a family talent show. the two brothers perform the song, "let my love open the door":



i know i've heard this song before, but i heard it differently tonight. i felt as though the words "let my love open the door" were being sung to me by God. a reminder to not close myself off from Him. while i was in tennessee i came across John 14:1, where Christ says, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me." i guess my heart has been troubled lately and it hasn't really been open to God. i've been trusting myself more than anything.

after the movie, i looked up the lyrics to the song and here is what i found:

When people keep repeating
That you'll never fall in love
When everybody keeps retreating
But you can't seem to get enough
Let my love open the door
Let my love open the door
Let my love open the door
To your heart

When everything feels all over
When everybody seems unkind
I'll give you a four-leaf clover
Take all the worry out of your mind
Let my love open the door
Let my love open the door
Let my love open the door
To your heart

I have the only key to your heart
I can stop you falling apart
Try today, you'll find this way
Come on and give me a chance to say
Let my love open the door

It's all I'm living for
Release yourself from misery
Only one thing's gonna set you free
That's my love

Let my love open the door
Let my love open the door
Let my love open the door
To your heart

When tragedy befalls you
Don't let them bring you down
Love can cure your problem
You're so lucky I'm around
Let my love open the door
Let my love open the door
Let my love open the door
To your heart

pete townshend is the name of the guy who wrote the song. i don't know anything about him personally, but despite some of the lyrics being a little cheesy, i feel like these are words that the Savior could have written, especially when it says, "Release yourself from misery. Only one thing's gonna set you free. That's my love." it was a great reminder to me that the Lord has given me a new heart and that the only place to put my trust is in Him. the last place i expected to be reminded of that truth was in this movie. glad that game got postponed.

circle f flashback

today i got to visit friends at circle f. although i don't work there anymore, i love to visit when i get a chance. i was particularly excited to go today since i knew a lot of the counselors this summer back when they were campers. it's crazy to me to look at pictures from almost ten years ago and then today...

me with Jordan, one of the guys in my first cabin, in 1999

me with Jordan today , who is now a sophomore in college

me with Logan, in 2001

me with Logan today...could i look any smaller???

Afton, me, Cecily and Ashley in 2002

me and Afton today

me and Cecily today

me with Austin in 2002

me with Austin today, as he prepares to be a freshman in high school

Jake on my shoulders, with Drew in 2003

me and Jake today

i feel so fortunate and blessed that i've gotten to be a part of something so cool, and that i have so many lasting relationships because of it.

juno

i've always been a fan of movies. when i was in high school, i would spend summers catching the twilight showing of movies at the amc theater for something like 4 bucks a ticket. i loved it. every now and then a movie would come along that i would see in the theater multiple times. for a while i had a crush on sandra bullock and thought she was the best thing ever, so i saw movies like speed 2 several times in the theater just because she was in it. seeing speed 2 more than once proves how much of a die hard fan i was back in those days. i actually remember seeing the first speed with my dad and telling him i liked it so much that i thought it was better than the lion king. to this day, i have a soft spot for her.

one time my cousins were in town and they introduced me to the joy of watching happy gilmore. we laughed so hard at that movie and ben stiller saying, "read the name tag. you're in my world now, grandma."

i think in my junior year i became fascinated with the cheesy horror flick and wasted more hours than was healthy on viewings of i know what you did last summer.

while i was home in tampa over christmas, i saw a movie that i'd been hearing a lot about called juno. the short synopsis is that it's a story about a junior in high school named juno who becomes pregnant and decides to give the baby up for adoption. while there were a few moments that made me uncomfortable, it was the most fun i'd had at a movie in a long time. line after line had me laughing out loud. i read a lot about movies and i so appreciated that the laughs mostly came from clever dialogue. and for all of the sarcastic one liners, it had a lot of heart and sincerity.

on sunday, my roommate and i checked out the kite runner, a faithful adaption of one of my favorite books. it tells a pretty heavy story and we felt like we needed a pick-me-up after watching it. my roommate thought juno looked funny and i thought i could handle seeing it again, so we headed back out after a quick bite to eat at home. what i didn't expect was to like the movie even more after seeing it the second time. even tonight lines from the movie ran through my head and before i knew it i was laughing to myself. i'm a big fan of sarcasm, and i felt like this movie had plenty of it to go around.

below is a video of two of the guys in the movie that shows a quick clip with one of my favorite moments between juno and the father of her child, paulie bleeker. it's nothing fancy, but simple and funny...to me at least.

random and funny

last october our church staff went to a conference in atlanta. we were treated to music from a variety of artists, many i had never heard of. my favorite performer i heard during those days was a guy named dave barnes. if you haven't heard of him, check him out (especially the songs "until you," "what am i gonna do" and "butterflies," just to name a few).

he happens to be coming to orlando this tuesday for a concert. i already have a meeting scheduled during part of the show, but i'm hoping i'll at least get to catch some of it.

some friends and i were talking about how much we enjoy his music and they told me he has some pretty funny videos on you tube. so i checked some of them out when i got home tonight, and this was one of my favorites. it's pretty random, but gave me a good laugh and some good tips for your upcoming valentine's day.

my morning

i usually try to do something energizing on wednesday mornings since it is a youth group night. recently i've been going to the gym, but today i decided to get out and explore an area of town i've not really been to before. so i braved the orlando traffic (it took close to 45 minutes to drive about 9 miles!) and headed over to winter park to enjoy the coldest morning of the season so far. here are some pics i took to document my excursion.

as i walked down park avenue, i saw this really cool old car.

this is a shot of the amtrak train station.


central park.

most of the benches in the central park have these dedication plaques on them. this was one of my favorites.

this was by far my favorite find of the morning. a time capsule buried into the ground back in 1976.

since it was cool enough for me to wear a long sleeved shirt without sweating, i was in the mood for something warm. determined to not get something from a chain coffee shop, i found this shop. this is the inside of the shop, and below...

...is the outdoor seating area of the shop. while the mocha was good (although so strong that i was still jittery when i got home), i'm sad to say that the organic cookie i picked up was a letdown. i'm a big fan of cookies, and this supposedly good for me cookie tasted anything but good. at least i know better for the next time around.

chili's in lake wales

i love the melted part.

rocking out

I think that in the years to come I will look back at this summer as one of the busiest I've ever had. I could write a lot, but just wanted to post two pics I took with my cell phone this past weekend. My favorite band, Lifehouse, came to Tampa and I got to go to the show with one of my favorite people, my cousin Justin. The first pic is the band after their last song and the second shot is one of Jut & me.




The show reminded me that I love Lifehouse and my cousin Jut even more.

weekend menu

For the first time in about 7 years I had a weekend during the summer to do almost anything I wanted. While I feel a little guilty about all of my friends that are working hard at camp, I have to admit it was a blast. I ate with a different person at every meal this weekend. And I ate out, so I need to be hitting the gym again this week. Here was my menu for the weekend:

Friday
1.) Lunch at Qdoba with Selig, one of my high school students. We ran some errands and I forgot to pay for the fax I sent at Kinko's, so we made our way back there before heading home.

2.) Mid-afternoon snack with Travis at Chick-fil-A. Check out the monster fudge brownie a la modes that they hooked us up with.



3.) Dinner at the Puckett's with other Christ Kingdom staff. Bubbalou's pulled pork and homemade whipped cream!

Saturday
1.) Panera breakfast with my friend Anne. We use to help out with the middle school students at UPC back in the day. It was great to see her. And I ate healthy there with a smoothie.

2.) Lunch at ABC Pizza, an old restaurant in Tampa. $7.99 for a large pizza and 2 liter bottle of Coke! Even better was getting to visit with Martha, a friend of mine from high school. We'd not seen each other for at least a year, so I loved catching up with her.



3.) Father's Day Dinner with the pops. He went for the steak, I just had a side salad. My body needed a break.

Sunday
1.) My traditional Sunday morning Panera breakfast bagel where I catch up on some of my one-year Bible reading and usually see a Puckett or two.

2.) Lunch at Chipotle with my small group.

3.) Another side salad dinner, this time with my roommate Dan. We went to Bennigan's, where my friend Beau (one of my favorite Circle F folks) works. We got to sit in his section and hang out with him.

All that to say I've definitely been putting my Cingular rebate card to good use.

feeling the love

Things are good, but the past week or so has been kind of emotional because camp at Circle F has started and I'm not there for every bit of it. I've been there off and on and I'm glad I've been able to make it work. The first set of campers arrived on Sunday and I was there yesterday to help take cabin photos. We have the cabin take a regular picture and then let them do something fun for the second one. Below is the picture the Pioneer Girls had me take with them. Sad and fun all at the same time.

hits & misses

Some moments from the past few weeks:

hit: Last Tuesday I got to have lunch with Ande, which was really encouraging and refreshing. He cracked me up later in the week with a phone call confirming that I am on the bulletin board at Cheeburger Cheeburger.

hit: From 2004-2006 I led a Life Group of guys during their 7th and 8th grade years. They are now freshmen (sophomores as of Tuesday) and one of them, Andrew, is moving to Maryland with his family in June. So we had a reunion/send-off for Andrew and it was a good time. Cool to see these guys come back together after doing different things the past year.



hit: Vanilla Coke is back! Now I just need the folks at Chick-fil-A to serve it again.

miss: I dropped several hundred (gulp) bucks on a new radiator and CV boot for my car and I've got a feeling something else is going to go on it soon. While the expense is a miss, the hit is that I unknowingly drove with my busted radiator for a while before I noticed it was leaking. And my car never overheated. Definitely God watching over me because car trouble is one of those things that can set me off.

hit: I got to have lunch with Lisa, Beau and Ashley from Circle F. Joe and Kristin came over, too, and Jamie's on his way this week. It's like the Circle F Inn at our place.

hit: Back in my U-Life days we had an award show called the Golden Frogs. I decided the youth needed something like that, so last Wednesday we celebrated the randomness of the Christ Kingdom youth with the 1st Annual Golden Ninja Awards. I felt like it went well, but I got confirmation today when I asked one of the students if she was proud of the Ninja she received. She nodded and told me it's standing on her dresser. Below is what one (that's right - we had six models of them) of the Ninjas looked like and under that is a shot of the winners.





miss: I saw Shrek 3 today and I don't know if it was because I was tired or not, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I did the first two.

hit: Today at church one of my students invited me to take communion with her and one of her siblings. Without the prompting of a parent or anything! I loved it.

I'm sure there are more of both, but that's all I can think of right now.

recovery

Cousin Jeremy has a new cd coming out on May 22. You should buy it. You should also eat at Chick-fil-A, watch Scrubs, Lost and Heroes and read Ender's Game and The Kite Runner. But for now, just buy this cd.

muggles rejoice

Summer is looking good. And it definitely has nothing to do with my west-facing bedroom heating up from about 5:30 until sunset every afternoon. No, my friends, the trailer for Harry Potter 5 went online today and it looks pretty sweet. Although I don't remember Ron pumping his fist in the book like he does here, this preview makes it look like an awesome adventure. The kids are growing up, and I'll be there to support the rebellion beginning July 13.