Ever watch "Fiddler On The Roof"? There is a great monolog from the beginning of the film:

Main character: A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no? But here, in our little village you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn't easy. You may ask "WHY do we stay up there if it's so dangerous?" Well, we stay because [it] is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: tradition! Traditions, traditions. Without our traditions our lives would be as shaky as, as... as a fiddler on the roof!

TRADITIONS, TRADITIONS

It's easy for me to relate to that scene. My motto used to be live for the experiences. I want transformative experiences, and I want it now. Rite of passages, the climatic second act, joie de vivre, carpe diem, and so on...

But as I get older I want to be drawn to something constant that I'm willing to go back to time and again. I want rituals with depth, traditions with a meaning behind them that runs richer the longer I go on.

The closest thing to traditions in my life right now is my faith, church, and Sunday school. (Note to self: work on community, ie relationships.)

Last week in smallgroup I learned about asking what do I want? What is it that I desire?

Instead of asking that I should be asking what is His desire for me? I need to learn from the silence and stillness, to hear His small voices.

All I want is not to break my neck.

1. the strong voice of the guys worshiping backed by the soft lilts of the girls
2. laughters intermingled with seriousness
3. sharing and insights
4. a can of refreshing milk pearl tea

Yesterday I downloaded Movabletype 4.01 and installed it. It went from this to the much more standards xhtml and css compliance this. (YES that means you folks using IE to access this site). The new blog should be faster and leaner since there are now simpler ways to do things. It was fun although I wouldn't recommend working on an upgrade moments before you're supposed to go to sleep. I'm sure the color scheme will change...or make that needs to change but alas that is for another day.

New site. New laptop. New tires. (Edited: I actually returned the Lenovo laptop and am seriously considering the MacBook Pro. One day I'll be able to say, "Hi I'm Mac." We'll see...)

I also drew something for my sister's catering restaurant 3 Chives, (not to be confused with her other restaurant Goomba in Cupertino) which she will hopefully use for her takeout menus. We'll see....I'll see if I can upload to flickr.

So much time on my hand now, more time yet to get more stuff done—like work on my very old portfolio site! Woot!

The old site will be phased out eventually. Time to move on!

My Kidzone class learned about Heroes this Sunday—heroes give God the credit. We asked them to make "trading cards" of their heroes. These colorful trading cards were cartoony, some with your "normal" super-powered heroes, others not what you expected. Kids are pretty imaginative. Here are some samples of what they drew.

Isabella: Ice, the super horse with frosted power, in bright neon blue
Auriel: Lion (which represent God although she was too embarrassed to admit it was any good so she crumbled it up)
Susannah: Jesus with lava coming out of his finger as his power
Daniel: Moses with superspeed
Caleb: Cow, because he gives us milk, cheese, and meat
Keila: Jesus with shining love power
Jessica: Jesus with smiling power

The last two are pretty cool power, if you think about it. Imaging SUPERJESUS in this scene

Generic Villain: "Blah blah blah monologue about total world domination blah blah blah"
SUPERJESUS: turns the other cheek and unexpectedly a RADIANT LIGHT of GOD'S INFINITE LOVE AND MERCY hits Generic Villain in the stomach
Generic Villain: (throwing up a couple demons) "My LORD and my God!"
SUPERJESUS: "He's yo Daddy."

[Generic Villain walks offscreen RADIATING BEAMS OF HAPPINESS AND PEACE FROM HIS FACE!!!!]

If anyone wants computer parts, send me an email at mikelang at gmail dot come and I will give it to you. Actually they are two desktop PCs, one is a P4 and the other is a Dell Xeon dual processor with plenty of HD, memory, and other niceties. Both are running WinNT 2K servers but you could use it for Ubuntu and such...

If you know of how I could donate these, to a school perhaps, let me know, too.

Oh hopefully you'll lemme know soon since I'm planning to haul it to the Sunnyvale dumpster this Sat.

Thanks

So I finally took the plunge and purchase a Lenovo laptop. I think I'll enjoy using it. I have been thinking about it for several weeks, but when it comes down to it I just wanted something reliable to replace my Dell. I compared Apple, Dell, HP, and Lenovo. Dell and HP are okay. So it actually was a decision between Apple and Lenovo. After talking to several people at church my decision was made. I think I made the right choice. Apple is still such a luxury item I think and the limited softwares totally pushed me towards the Lenovo. My only concern now is Vista but oh well, let's give it a try.

I heard on the drive back from work yesterday of the story of the real Delilah. So apparently the song "Hey There Delilah" is written after the songwriter was introduced to a girl named Delilah. He thought she was really cute and wanted to get to know her. She, however, has a boyfriend. So he went home, threw some chords together, wrote a song for her--"Hey There Delilah."

The story continues. Delilah would go to the gym and the song would play on the loud speakers. Half of her wanted to admit that the song is about her and let the whole world know about it. The other part of her was so sick of hearing the song and regret ever meeting the guy.

Kinda romantic, though if only they actually end up together because he wrote a song for her. I really like the song and the story behind it. Haha.