October 30, 2010

Moving

Greetings from the deep end!
This blog will no longer be updated at this address. You can read future updates of the Deep Thoughts (From Off The Deep End) blog here

Thanks

October 29, 2010

Air! Air for everyone!!!

Greetings from the deep end!
We have been back in a house for two weeks and a sleep now. It's great. It's beginning to feel more like home and less like a spankin' awesome hotel. I've been cooking again since we finally got the gas hooked up last Friday. I don't know why we ever invented the electric stove. They SUCK!!! Gas is the beez kneez! It cooks hot and fast. When you turn the knob there is instant and even heat. I love it. I love the paved driveway (something we never had in Sheridan). I love the hot running water. I love the carpet space where I can sit on the floor and stretch and tackle Xander and play and have fun. I love that the kids each have their own room, far far away from mine. I love that I have my bed back.

What I think I love the most though, is the air. We had been in the house for a couple of days when I found myself sitting in the living room. For no good reason, I took a deep breath. It tasted good so I took another. It tasted good too. I took a few more. Each tasted as good as the last. Then I started taking normal sized breaths again as I did not want to pass out. What I realized from this little psychotic episode is that air tastes good. Correction, clean, not-pre-breathed or shared air, tastes good. I realized that while we were living in the RV we had been sharing the same breath for 4 months. I would take the breath then pass it to Xander who would pass it to Aryll who would pass it to Pam who would then, in turn, pass it back to me. After the same breath has been breathed a few million times it tends to lose it's flavor, it's crispness, it's ability to give life.

I am now convinced that we never actually slept in the RV. Instead, we just passed the breath around until it lost all O2 and we passed out. I don't share this to make anyone feel bad that they spent the summer breathing nice clean, crisp, non circulated air while the Brown family shared one single worn out puff of exhausted air for 4 months. I share this so that the average person, the person who hasn't spent 4 months living in an RV can appreciate air for the clean, crisp, life giving substance that it is. I am simply sharing perspective. Take a deep breath, enjoy it, then take one for me. Tastes good doesn't it?

October 21, 2010

Eetsa Mario!

Greetings from the deep end!
Ya, we bought a house with a giant pipe in the front yard. It looks a little dopey but we've got that covered. We bought a little plastic Mario (from Super Mario Bros.) and put him in the front yard next to the pipe. All questions about why we have a giant pipe in our front yard will be answered instantly through a simple visual as people drive by. "Why do you have a giant pipe in your front yard?" people will ask in their minds. "Wouldn't you have one too if it meant a direct line to Mario World?" will be our immediate visual response. Yep, this house is pretty cool.


On top of that, have you, dear reader, ever found something that wasn't made for you that seemed like it was made EXACTLY for you? That is this house for me, Pam and the kids. On the upper level it has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, laundry room, kitchen, dining room and living room. The upstairs alone is almost 200 square feet larger than our last home was in total. Then there is the unfinished basement. The total measurement of the new house not counting the garage (that we didn't have before) is somewhere around 2800 sq feet. Wow. This house is perfect for us, it was specially ordered by someone who ordered everything exactly as we would have if we had ordered it ourselves. Then, after ground was broken and the builders were past the point of no return, the contract fell through. Pam and I had our eyes on this house before the walls were up. When we moved to Rapid City it was a frame and siding. We watched it build as we prayed daily for our house in Sheridan to sell. Some 6 weeks after moving to Rapid the house went under contract again. We were sad but believed that God would bring us a better house, though we couldn't imagine a nicer one for us. The day before our Sheridan house went under contract the contract on this house fell through. One week later we had a contract on it.


The last month in the RV was difficult, but totally worth it. In retrospect. If the me from now talked to the me then like I am writing here, past me would probably hurt the now me pretty badly. If you can understand that sentence, you are as big a nerd as I. Congratulations! Welcome to the club. 


So, here I sit in my perfect living room next to my perfect kitchen, in my perfect house with my perfect dog sleeping on her mat next to the TV writing a blog in my perfect comfy living room chair, inviting you to drive by and see what God can do. Just look for the giant green pipe with the little plastic Mario out front :)



October 12, 2010

Will Write Soon

Greetings from the deep end!
So, as far as "the deep end" goes, I'm in it up to here |................................. :/  For those of you that don't know emoticon language (is that even a word? Yes, language is a word), we were not able to move into our house today after all. I have been planning to write a long series or just one really long blog about the whole process but haven't had a conclusion and want to write it from a finished mindset to keep any negative overtones out of the blog. So, since it isn't over yet, I haven't written yet. I have a plan, just gotta do it. I also have a ton of things going on all at once right now and am having trouble sorting it out and getting it organized. So then, dear friends, have no fear, I will write soon. Once things calm down a bit.

September 17, 2010

The Previously Untitled Works of Derick Brown - Based on the Writings and Random Thoughts of Derick Brown

Greetings from the deep end!
I think that when writing, be it blogs or essays, songs or recipes, the title is the most difficult thing to come up with. I can write words all day long. I can write on different topics and in different styles, perhaps not well, but I can do it and I do enjoy it. Naming things, however, is the greatest pain EVER! Anyone who has ever tried to name their children knows exactly what I am talking about. You want a name that flows and sounds natural but you also want it to be unique and stick out in the minds of the people thinking of or using the name. Pam and I went with Xander and Aryll. We picked the names in the second year of our marriage, 2 years before Xander was born and 3.5 years before Aryll was. Why? Because that is how long it takes to come up with a really good name for a kid. The names Pam and I chose ROCK!

See, some people wait until the last minute to name their child. They often think that, "When the baby is born, when we meet him/her, we will know what the perfect name for our child is." People who choose to name children in this fashion really can only have two outcomes. The most common outcome is, they meet the kid and are so engrossed in the new glow of parenthood that their mind shuts off and they name the poor kid whatever random name happens to pop into their head (George, Stan, Hoover, Doctor Montgomery to the ER please...). This is too bad for the poor kid that will share his/her name with forty other kids in their graduating class and have teachers, friends and bosses confuse them for the rest of their lives. Their boss will be like, "Secretary! Get Bob Smith up here right away!" The poor secretary has no idea which "Bob Smith" her boss really wants. So she will close her eyes, point at the list and call whichever of the forty "Bob Smith's" her finger lands on. Next thing you know, the wrong "Bob Smith" gets fired from NASA and the incompetent "Bob Smith" is still trying to send rockets into space and will eventually be responsible for the destruction of half of the moon because the "Bob Smith" that got fired was the one who could do basic addition.

The other, less common outcome is from parents who, when faced with the new child still try for the uncommon name but since their mind isn't working as a part of the new parent vertigo come up with totally random things that a sane person wouldn't name their dog (Weasel, Apple, Passion Fruit, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Extract...). This poor child probably has a celebrity for a parent. I think we can feel for this kid with no further explanation.

All of that brings me back to the general process for naming things. Be it children, blogs, songs or recipes, a name, or title if you will needs to fully represent the subject it is being chosen for. Take the name of the radio show in the movie "O Brother Where Art Thou?", it was called, "Pass the Biscuits, Pappy O'Daniel Flour Hour". This is a great name as it sticks out in the mind of the reader and defines what the (listener, in this case) will be in for. The title tells us that we will obviously be spending the next half hour of radio time hearing about how to make biscuits with an old man named "Pappy" in a 1960's, hippy, love everybody manner.

No real point in the blog today. Mostly just spewing words. Hope you got a good laugh out of it. Assuming that you are actually reading this and didn't quit reading in the first paragraph. Have a good one!

August 27, 2010

Better Than A Fist To The Face

Greetings from the deep end!
So, for about two years now, this day has been approaching. It has been sneaking up very smoothly but very obviously. I honestly don't know how in the world I didn't see it coming. Other than the fact that I am unobservant to a fault when it comes to things of a not-me nature. What can I say? I'm human.

Today, for me, is one of those days where reality and the universe join forces and contrary to popular belief and opinion, prove that I am in fact an adult. This comes as a shock to me. I know it shouldn't, but it does. Especially since it happens so often now a days. I am one of the popular voters who says I am in fact not an adult but rather one who belongs in a lower grade in a middle school somewhere. 12 to 13 years old. 15 tops, and only on a really, really good day. As previously mentioned, however, reality and the stupid universe are here once again to destroy whatever semblance of normalcy in adolescence I once believed I possessed. Today my son, my little baby boy, my little guy, my little dude, turns two.

Parents of children younger than two just cringed at the thought of their little toddler or toddlet becoming a big boy or girl. Parents of older children, or better yet, grandparents all just laughed at me. Thanks for that by the way. You think you are so smart just because you happened to have your kids, keep them alive for more than X amount of years and they happened to have grandkids for you. Doesn't mean you can laugh that the poor blind schmucks like me who would rather sit in our bedroom with our eyes shut watching videos of the kid's first day than accept that they are going to grow up and become big boys and girls. Or even worse... GULP... teenagers.

My parents at this point are probably a little sad that the boy (Xander) is growing up but what they are really thinking is, "That's right boy! This is what you get for getting older, becoming a big boy and then becoming a teenager!" Well, all of you parents that just agreed with what my parents are probably thinking, remember this, every time I have this hit of reality and adulthood, every moment my boy gets older and thereby makes me feel older, you are older as well, by association with me.

With that, I thank you Reality and Universe, for allowing me to not have to go down alone, for allowing others to suffer with me. Because at the end of the day we are all a day older and hopefully a little more grown up, whether we are two, twenty seven or fifty-two.

Oh yea! Congratulations to Me and Pam for keeping a child alive for TWO YEARS!!!

August 25, 2010

Up To My Elbows

Greetings from the deep end!
Have you ever been up to your elbows in anything? I have been, and currently am, at this very moment. Here I sit in my RV/Home in the living room/bedroom/kitchen/play room/TV room/sitting room/dining room/dressing room/office/driving area with toys, blankets and baby clothes, up to my elbows. Does it sound like I have a rant waiting just under the surface of my skin? Does this installment of “The Deep End” feel like it may be about to explode into an angry observation on the negative situation that I have found myself in? Well, it may feel that way but that is not how I feel. Not today anyway. Today I am content. Usually on days where I feel content I have nothing to write about. No funny story to tell about falling into a pond and finding a fish in my pocket later. No rant about how the boy got me up entirely too early. I’m not going to share about cooking, as I haven’t cooked for real since before we moved to Rapid City. Nope, today I have nothing to write about. So then, I guess I will write about all of the injustices I have suffered today.

So, I woke up this morning at 8:00am when the kids woke up. Of course the little punks just cuddled and played until 9:00am. Don’t they know that today is Tuesday and mommy and daddy rely on their little alarm clocks to get them up sooner?

Then I get to work on time and ready for my day only to find that coffee has already been made. Don’t they know that having coffee first thing when I get to work is the worst way to start the day? I get all awake and produce a high quality of work. This coffee first thing in the morning thing must stop.

I got home for lunch at 12:02 after a very productive morning at work (stupid coffee) only to find that the kids were happy, lunch was ready and the plan was for me to lay down with Xander after lunch to put him so sleep. Great, I got to eat lunch with my family then I was forced to take a 20 minute nap so that the BOY could get his rest. Wonderful.

I woke from my nap, put my shoes back on and went to the weekly prayer and staff meeting. I had a wonderful time. Dang it. Staff meeting is supposed to suck! How am I supposed to be relevant if work doesn’t suck? I am being robbed of the basic American right to loathe going to work.

So, then, I return home at my leisure and spend a couple hours playing with Aryll and working on my computer playing with video while Pam and Xander take care of the laundry and get some more movies out of storage. Pam brought back “Happy Gilmore”. Life is just so frustratingly good right now that it is bad. We have come full circle.

Then, just a moment ago Xander interrupted me. UGH HE IS SO ANNOYING!!! He came over with a toy and asked me to play with him. He was kind and cute and didn’t scream or cry. So of course I was forced to spend time with the interrupting monkey and play crocodile with him. Of course he would be respectful of Daddy’s writing time and stop playing without a fight a few minutes later. So frustrating.
It is with that thought, dear reader, that I will leave you with. Even when we are “up to our elbows”, with the right perspective, we can still find something to grump about. Now, where is that crocodile puppet, Xander is just screaming for a good tickle.

July 27, 2010

Extraordinary People

Greetings from the deep end!
There are a few times in a person’s life when, for a brief time, they are paired up with truly extraordinary people. For the past four months I have had that privilege with Shawn Michael Shoup. I have written in past blogs about most of the process of my family and I coming to Rapid City and Destiny foursquare. What I have not written about, until today, is the caring heart and gracious attitude of the man whose position I will be carrying on. I am truly humbled to have spent time with such an extraordinary man. Perhaps a little back story would help the reader understand why I feel this amount of praise is necessary.

At the end of April of this year, I found on the Foursquare website a job opening here in Rapid. I wasn’t sure if Rapid was a place we wanted to go to and I didn’t even tell Pam that I had emailed. It was simply a request for more information. Pastor Brent wrote back that he would like to pursue a relationship with me and Pam to see if God had a plan for all of us. Things progressed. One day I opened Facebook to see that Shawn had invited me to be a friend. Knowing that Shawn was the current Youth Minister I didn’t know what to expect. I accepted the friend request and one way or another Shawn and I began a Facebook email dialogue. Shawn was open and honest in answering my questions about the staff at Destiny, about the youth program here and about the town in general. He never hesitated to give me advice and opportunity to find support and to grow as a youth minister. This was all before Pam and I had our first meeting with Pastors Brent and Tani Parker.

It was obvious to me that Shawn cared very much for his youth kids and wanted to make sure that they were well taken care of in his absence. It was also quite evident that Shawn had a heart for encouraging, networking with and training youth pastors. Over the next weeks, Pam and I had the chance to talk at length with the Parkers and were invited to come to Rapid to visit the church, meet some of the people and get a feel for the Rapid/Destiny situation.

I met Shawn in person first thing the morning after we arrived. I came to the church early for music practice as I was to play the acoustic guitar that morning. Shawn was the first person I saw. We were dressed in like fashion. Both in black button up shirts, jeans and fashionable footwear. We are both very stylish men. That is to say, we both have wives that make us look good. He introduced himself and helped me get set up for music. Meeting with him that day was not an uncomfortable experience. He was not aggressive towards me. He was not hostile as some men would be when faced with the person who could possibly be the one to carry on the work that he had spent over nine years building. Shawn was humble and friendly. That in itself is worth all of the praise I could give to a man, however, my story is not yet complete. In fact, Shawn and I had only begun our time together.

That Tuesday, Pam and I had not yet been hired but we were feeling more and more that this is where God was leading us, I found myself in Shawn’s office. That morning, instead of spending his time doing what he usually did on a Tuesday morning, he spent the time we had showing me how to be a better youth pastor in Sheridan. He introduced me to Twitter and the networking system that opens up. He introduced me to a myriad of online services for youth ministers and he started handing me tangible resources off of his wall. Shawn had no such obligations to me at this point, but as mentioned earlier, Shawn’s heart is for the mentoring and building up of youth ministers so they can better build up their students so that in the end, God be glorified.

That Wednesday we were offered and accepted the position at Destiny. From that day on, I do not believe that there was a single day when Shawn and I were not in communication about one thing or another, from his youth kids and their needs to how the Destiny youth program is run to how to better utilize online programs and applications so that I could be a better minister for my youth kids in Sheridan and for the Destiny kids when I arrived. For four months Shawn has been dedicated to helping prepare me for the trials set before me.

The last month of my life, my first month in Rapid, was spent working in tandem with Shawn. Not many people would be comfortable training their successor. They would feel threatened by the presence of the new guy. If Shawn felt this way he had the grace and patience to not show it but rather to become my friend. Over the last four weeks Shawn and I have worked and sweated next to each other. We made phone calls and emails and texts and Twitter direct messages to each other at all hours of the day and night so that we as a team could better serve the youth of Destiny Forusquare.

Today and tomorrow as Shawn and his family leave Rapid City to pursue the new adventures God has placed before them, I feel sad. My friend is moving away, and I will miss him. Not many predecessors have the integrity and personality that would make the person coming in not want them to leave. It is with this blog that I share my feelings towards one of the most extraordinary people I have ever known. I believe that I will end with this, I believe it is fitting. It is a quote from Pastor Scott in Sheridan, his signature farewell:

Grace, mercy and peace to you and your family, my friend. 

July 24, 2010

Petra Means Rock

Greetings from the deep end!
As promised on Facebook and Twitter one week ago last night, this is my Petra blog.

Twenty years ago, I was seven years old. My friends had introduced me to Petra. A rock band that all of their high school aged brothers and cousins were excited about. I begged my mother to get me what I believed was their first "tape" (a music storing device not as nice as a CD with much less to offer than vinyl) called Beyond Belief. Later I would learn that Beyond Belief was their 12th of album of what would become 21 albums.

Through Petra's music I was introduced to some of the greatest song writing in all of rock music history, via Bob Hartman. I was also introduced to a kind of religion that wasn't about looking real and sounding real but actually getting into the dirt, digging deep, and regardless of mistakes or past sins, being real. Much of my early learning and questions about God were spawned from questions from Petra albums. I learned early with my second Petra cassette that what it means to really be a  man is to be willing so fully surrender to God and His will (This Means War!).

As time went on, around the age of 15, I began to play guitar. I still, 12 years later, cannot play much of what Bob Hartman wrote but I began to search out music to find where I fit. Interestingly enough, I found my home in Christian Rock. Cutting hard metal with biblically solid lyrical background. Four years later I found myself going to college to become a worship leader. Listening back at those first Petra albums that I listened to when I was little, my sound is quite similar. It is evident that the music I listened to twenty years ago is still influencing me today.

As I was growing up there was never an opportunity for me to see Petra play live. A few years ago when I heard they were going to retire I made peace with the fact that I would simply have to wait for an encore performance in heaven. I know what some of you are thinking. THERE WILL BE NO ROCK MUSIC IN HEAVEN!!! I would disagree. I believe that God gave rock and roll to you, and me for that matter. Besides that, God created the sub woofer and I believe that in heaven "22's" are measured in feet not inches. I was gonna skip over all of the biblical characters and just snag John Schlitt and Bob Hartman and have them play for me. Selfish perhaps, but I figure the line to smack Adam would be too long anyway.

That WAS the plan. Shortly after accepting the new job in Rapid City I checked the Hills Alive web site and almost passed out when I looked at the main stage line up and saw a picture of four men. Two I had never seen before, two were men I knew the likenesses of quite well. The caption at the bottom of the picture simply said, Petra.

So, last Friday morning, I woke at ONEcamp. I got up with the kids, packed my bedding, helped pack camp, returned to Rapid City to unload trucks and trailers, take a quick nap and be on the fence in front of the Hills Alive stage twenty minutes before Petra came on the stage. I screamed more than I should, was impressed that the father of Christian Metal guitar still played practically flawlessly, that John Schlitt could still hit all but the very highest notes (the ones that would have broken glass) and that they sounded just like the tapes, CD's and LP's that I have listened to all my life. I stood at the fence, I leaned on it for most of the show, I could reach out and touch the stage right monitor that Mr. Schlitt was using. At one point in the show, Mr. Hartman came to center stage to do a solo, he saw me taking a picture with my phone, leaned towards me and smiled. This was the best show of my life.

Perhaps what touched me the most, and many people may not understand why, but at the end of the show, I was talking to a friend back stage just outside of the back stage fence and I saw Bob Hartman leaving the stage area. He was carrying his own guitar, in a soft case.

The reader at this point may be considering whether or not Derick is over glorifying men. Perhaps a little idol worship is going on here. I say dear friend, that is not so. I simply believe in giving credit where credit is due. I am blessed to have been able to witness the fathers of Christian rock play in my lifetime. These are men who were faithful to the Father when all of Christianity thought they were of the devil. They were obedient when most of the church would have rather had them excommunicated than rock with them. I believe that it was through these men's ministry that I am able to lead worship from the electric guitar and minister to kids the way that I do. We practically had concert style audio at camp last week. I am convinced that if these men had not done what they did, and God had not used another rout to bring freedom to the worshiping masses, that youth camp last week would have been 84 teenagers with hymnals and an old organ.

July 14, 2010

Fell in the Pond.

Greetings from the deep end!
I actually was in the deep end yesterday. Well, kind of. It only came up to my chest. I guess that I'm getting ahead of myself. Bring on the whirly-wiggly-fuzzy-edge-of-the-screen effects and let the story fade into sepia tone. It is time for a little back story.

I am and have been at Kamp Kinship in the Black Hills of South Dakota with Foursquare ONEcamp (dang, that's a lot of titles) since Sunday afternoon. Shortly after I arrived I took a moment to view the camp pond from a window in the sanctuary. I told Shawn that I wanted to go swimming. He laughed a little and said something along the lines of, "see that eight foot circle of rope? That's the swimming area." My plans to go swimming vanished instantly. I did notice, however, that the camp has a few paddle boats and kayaks. I thought that kayaking might be a fun thing to try.

Fast forward to yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon. I had nothing better to do, my kids were either at the zip line, the rock wall or the pond and I thought a nice leisurely trip around the pond would be a nice, relaxing thing to do. I get down to the pond where life guard Amy immediately spots that I am a trouble maker (she has no idea) and gives me the quick, "you gotta wear a life jacket that was made for a guy 1/32nd your size if you are gonna boat". Me, being quick to follow the orders of a sixteen year old with a whistle threw one on. It only smelled a little like fish and B.O. I was waiting on the dock when my kayak arrived. It was the smallest one on the water. A little tiny voice in my head said, "Maybe you oughta wait for a bigger one there Sketch". Sometimes my inner voice calls me Sketch. I told Inner Voice to shut up! I've been on lakes and water and boats my whole life! So I kneel down on the dock, Lyle is holding the boat steady for me. I get my feet in and without really thinking about it drop the rest of myself into the seat.

Have you ever had a time where you thought to yourself something along the lines of, "Wouldn't it be (crazy, weird, funny, crappy, etc...) if...." and then the thing you were gonna think of actually happened. As I slid into the boat it rocked to the right pretty hard. Inner Voice said, "Wouldn't it be interesting if..." Then the water started to rush into the boat with me. Water doesn't belong in the boat with me. I belong in the boat with me. Water is neither welcome or invited to the "me, myself, and I" party in the boat. Water crashed the party. Hard. As the water rose and my head started to go under the water I imagined Lyle on the other side of the boat helping it along. I would have if I were in his shoes. The life jacket that was meant for a person 1/64th of my size joined in on the fun and began choking me. Lyle got the boat right side up enough (THANK GOD FOR LYLE!!!) that I could kick my way out of the boat. I immediately ripped off the murderous life vest, put my feet down and stood up. The water came to mid chest. I looked down and was very glad that I had remembered to take the video camera out of my pocket (THANK GOD AGAIN!!!) My staff badge was full of water and one of the students that was swimming a little ways away said, "Hey Derick! Your puffer is floating behind you!" THANK GOD AGAIN!!!

That is my story. It happened mostly like that. I am now dry and nice smelling again. I was able to remove all sand and pond weed from my shoes, clothing and person. Didn't really learn anything here but you know what? I would be really embarrassed about this if this kind of thing didn't happen to me so regularly.


“I didn’t do it, nobody saw me do it, you can’t prove anything.” Bart Simpson


July 2, 2010

Home Sweet... Car?

Greetings from the deep end!
I was reminded today of something that happened last week while we were still at the ranch. We had parked the RV a couple of days before and I needed to start it to check it's level. I moved back the curtains in the front of the RV, turned the drivers seat forward, jumped in and fired up the beast. Xander ran to the front of the RV and screamed a little. I looked over and saw that he was quite worried. I laughed a little. Well, I am going for the father of the year award and laughing only a little when a situation is HILARIOUS earns you points towards that award. Anyway, I explained to him that it was supposed to start and make those noises. He stopped and thought a bit. He got the most amazing quizzical look on his face, furrowed his eyebrows and pointed to the "captains area" in the front of the RV and said, "Car?" I couldn't help myself, it was too funny to not laugh. I can see it in my minds eye as I write this. "Yes Xander, it's a car." I replied. It didn't sound quite like that as it was filtered through sporadic fits of mirth as I calmed down from the comedic shock that had set in as a result of his statement; "Car". Didn't really learn anything about growing up this time, but it was a cute story that I thought I would share.

June 30, 2010

Coming Soon to a Theater Near You...

Greetings from the deep end!
Have you ever had a morning that was bad? Have you ever had one that was so bad that it could be a movie? Have you ever had one that was so bad it was ALREADY a movie? I have. Robin Williams starred as me. The movie? "RV". I mean, it was just one crazy bad thing after another this morning. If nothing else I think I have learned that it's okay to laugh at yourself after your tears subside (just another unwelcome reminder of a thing I already knew). Wanna know what happened? I didn't think so, but I'm gonna tell you anyway, because hey, you've read this far and if you are still reading, well, that's your choice.

I remember waking up around 6am with a crazy headache and Xander just losing it in his crib. I remember Aryll doing the same and Pam getting them both settled down in the front of the Parsonage. We have dubbed the motor home we are living in "The Parsonage" as it is parked on church grounds. It is not as funny a title as "The Rolling Turd" in the movie "RV" but we address it as the Parsonage just as affectionately. As is my style, I have digressed, point is, crazy headache, crying babies, 6am. I next remember waking at 7am enough to realize that I desperately needed to snag some sinus medication and Ibuprofen. I slammed the pills and a half a bottle of water, put a wet rag on my forehead and laid back down. I remember the pain subsiding around 7:30am and going back to sleep at that time.

Pam woke me at 8am to go "dump" the RV. This is a rather improper word as it inspires such visual definitions as a dump truck "dumping" a load of dirt or gravel at a work site. Let me assure you, the reader, this is NOT what dumping the RV means. If you have seen the movie, my experience of dumping the RV was not that bad. However, anytime you try to "dump" an RV and come away wet, it's nasty. So then, we get to the dump site, Pam chose to come along and bring the children and "help" me with the project. A sound plan, in theory. Usually when Pam helps me with the RV stuff, one of us walks outside to supervise and one stays inside to do the work, whether it be leveling, dumping, hooking up water or electricity. We communicate through our phones, me through my Bluetooth and her through her cell. Again, a great idea for this morning, in theory. I get outside and need Pam to run water through the pipes from inside. My cell says, "calling Pamela". Ring... Ring... Ring... "WAAAH GANGWAGH WAAAH hello? WAHH GAINGWAHH!!!" Dear reader, does this make any sense to you? Me neither. I finally understood that Pam had answered her phone and our two lovely children (affectionately dubbed "The Symphony of Scream") were tuning up in the background. I asked Pam to perform the task which she had joined me for... "Can you flush the toilet?" to which she replied, "WHAT?" to which I replied, "CAN YOU FLUSH THE TOILET?" to which she replied, "I CAN'T HEAR YOU", to which I replied, "DO THAT THING YOU CAME HERE TO DO!!!" To which she replied, "I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE SAYING!!!" I then returned to the inside of the RV to complete the job alone and send the family on their way. Dumping an RV is hectic enough without the symphony providing background tunes. I finished the job at the dump station, to make a long disgusting story short and less disgusting, I left wet and desperately desiring a shower.

Learning the streets in a new town is bad enough when you are in the family car and there is no construction. I got to take a detour in the RV on the way back to the church in a town that I don't know this morning at about 8:45am. I only ended up about a mile from where I originally intended to be. Classic movie prank. I was thinking to myself on the way back that things couldn't get worse for me because the dirty part was done. I was wrong.

I got back to the spot where I wanted to park the RV. I began to level it only so that the jacks would bottom out before it was level. This should not have happened as the infernal thing was on the same spot as it was not more than an hour before. 30 minutes later I was still trying to get it leveled. The on-board leveling system told me that it was level so I went outside to finish hooking up the water and electrical. Pam called to me through the RV walls to tell me that it wasn't level (she could have opened a window). I asked her how she knew and she replied by putting a water bottle on it's side on the table. I think the bottle rolled faster off of the table than the RV can go at top speed. I angrily stomped back inside, started the engine, got the hydraulic jacks turned back on, checked for level (it said it was level) chose to use the bubble levels by the fridge instead and finished the job.

Before we had left for the dump job I had parked my pickup in such a way as to hide the hoses and electrical wires in hopes of keeping them from being stolen while we were away. As I began to back it out of the area between the RV and the building I heard a weird scraping sound. My heart jumped and I slammed on the break. Pam looked over at me, looked under the pickup, shook her head and motioned for me to continue backing up. I obeyed and out from under the pickup popped a fence post. I silently parked my pickup and crawled underneath it to make sure there was no damage. Praise God there wasn't. I went back to try to bend the pole straight (I hadn't showered yet mind you). I grabbed a hold of the fence post and began to pull, I noticed a white car coming up by me as I felt the pole snap. Time went into super slow motion at that point. I remember the pole snapping, me looking down at it and then the force from the break hitting my body. I felt my feet leave the ground before my back smashed into the gravel. Probably looked pretty funny. Didn't feel funny. I looked up enough to see that I was still holding the pole and that the white car probably saw the whole thing. Great. Wonderful. Shuh-weet! I called for Pam. She came out to see me lying on the ground with a fence post across my chest and my hands on my head. She asked what happened and if I was okay. The only lasting damage, and the only mark from my ordeal was a broken blood vessel near my left elbow. Pam helped me up and I went to sit on a nearby step to cry for a minute. Then I picked myself up (thanks Batman's Dad) and went to take a nice short shower. A person really shouldn't take a long shower when they have just dumped their RV and are hoping to make it 5 days before dumping again.

So then, if nothing else, I am again reminded of Batman Begins. Bruce's father says, "And why do we fall, Bruce?  So we can learn to pick ourselves up."

June 16, 2010

When it's All Been Said and Done

Greetings from the deep end!
This is gonna be a short one. I just have a few feelings I want to try to work out. So, I was done with youth tonight, they prayed for me, Pam and the kids. We all shared a bunch of our favorite memories of our times together, and I shared my last words of encouragement and challenge for their future in the youth group. Did fine, didn't get sad, didn't cry, my voice didn't even crack. Gave and received hugs and well wishes, not a tear. Then at 9:03pm I went back to the youth room to shut down for the last time. I shut off the A/C, told the kids I was closing up, and flipped all 6 light switches. As I turned around and looked at the darkened room, lit with only the dim light that came through the windows, I looked at Matt walking out the door with his long board for the last time and stopped moving. I just stopped. Matt seemed to look at me as if he were waiting for me, but I couldn't move, and didn't speak. As Matt turned to leave and the door shut behind him, I found myself all alone in the youth room and suddenly a myriad of thoughts and memories, both good and bad, flooded into my mind. Remembering battles won and lost, kids that came for a long time and kids that were only there for a season.

I walked to the stage and sat down on the second step and began to choke up. I asked God as I looked at the empty room if I had done what I was supposed to do with the kids He gave me in the time He gave them to me. I asked if I were leaving the youth group, the church, in a better position than it was when I arrived. As I asked the question, I wasn't sure of the answer to those questions. As I thought and prayed a song came to mind. I couldn't remember all of the words but I remembered the gist of it...


When It's All Been Said And Done

Verse 1
When it's all been said and done
There is just one thing that matters
Did I do my best to live for truth
Did I live my life for You
Verse 2
When it's all been said and done
All my treasures will mean nothing
Only what I've done for love's reward
Will stand the test of time
Verse 3
Lord Your mercy is so great
That You look beyond our weakness
And find purest gold in miry clay
Making sinners into saints
Verse 4
I will always sing Your praise
Here on earth and ever after
For You've shown me Heaven's my true home
When it's all been said and done
You're my life when life is gone

The song didn't give me any answers, as the song is questions only. I guess that means that God, rather than giving me a solid, easy, yes or no answer, brought to mind a song that only multiplied the questions. Great. Thanks! But that is where I am, did I do what I did here for the right reasons? If I did, then it was worth while, if I didn't, I hope and pray that God will use it anyway. I won't probably know about the impact that my life and actions in Sheridan may have had until heaven. That is the great drawback to ministry, and youth ministry specifically. We do lots and lots of work on hearts, we can't see hearts, and only in heaven will we be able to really see what work God was able to do through our feeble hands and hearts. In the end, "Only what I've done for love's reward, will stand the test of time."



June 5, 2010

Greetings from the deep end!!!
I finished packing up my desk at the ACE program yesterday afternoon. Stupid bittersweet days. I'm really really happy to be moving on to the next adventure in my life. But what I am coming to realize, especially over the last week or so is that I am really leaving one life behind and beginning a new one. So, as we humans do when a life ends, I find myself mourning the loss of what once was and to a degree, still is for the moment but will cease to be in the next 16 days.

I've noticed the people around me that I have worked with for the last 3 to 6 years are starting to plan the future, without me. Plans and situations that I once would have been a big part of I now find myself on the outside of looking on. If I weren't leaving I would feel jealous that I wasn't being included, but my logical mind (I do have a logical mind, in some situations) tells me that life here in Sheridan must go on without me. As I write and my thoughts get organized I realize that moving isn't here one day, gone the next, but rather a process that will be finalized 16 days from now. For me, things in Sheridan are coming to a close. Relationships are ending, projects are being finalized and I am sad. I feel as if I am watching my life slowly end.

The up side to all of this is that I will be reborn into my new life in 17 days. God has a plan and purpose for that new life. For each relationship lost or severed by hundreds of miles one will be made new to take it's place. For each project that I won't be able to work with and watch grow and change and become more and more useful there will be a new project to be birthed and swaddled. In the end, this change is what is best for me and my family. As I said, I look forward to the bright future ahead of me, but I mourn for what will be left and lost.

May 12, 2010

Andromeda Finn - Chapter 1 - Introduction

Greetings from the deep end!
I thought that it would be ever so much fun to start writing a short story today. Enjoy.

Andromeda Finn had a stupid name. Or at least he thought so. Andromeda's parents were a little weird, by everyone's standards, not just his. They had a crazy obsession with stars and planets and galaxies, thus his stupid name. It was because of that name that Andromeda was known as the child of the local "star nuts". His parents were always studying the stars and went to space conventions and made dumb space jokes. Both of them were teachers in the little town where their family had lived for generations. Andromeda's father was a science teacher and mother was a math teacher. Their classrooms were always full of posters and dioramas of the solar system. They were always talking about the stars and having their students do projects about them. The students in the school generally just thought Andromeda's parents were weird. As a seventh grader in a small town junior high of about eight hundred students, where his parents taught, he wasn't able to escape the negative influence of his families insane obsession for even a minute. In big cities kids could hide under the radar, they could fade into the crowd and hide in a mass of people. Andromeda did not get to enjoy that lifestyle. Everyone knew everyone else and he was often picked because his family was different, because his parents were "weird".

In many ways Andromeda was a normal kid. He enjoyed television, video games, movies and music. He was looking forward to learning to drive in a couple years and couldn't wait to get into high school where he might get a little relief from the grief he endured on a daily basis by going to school in the same place where his parents taught. The only real problem in Andromeda's life was the shame he felt from being related to people who he didn't understand, who he didn't feel that he belonged with. Andromeda was uncomfortable in his skin, uncomfortable in his surroundings, uncomfortable as a part of the family he was born into. Even that was common among other thirteen year olds, but Andromeda didn't know that. He only knew that he was unhappy and wanted to be a part of a "normal" family like everyone else.

When at school Andromeda often did everything he could to avoid other people. One day after school, Andromeda was walking down an out-of-the-way hall on his way to his father's classroom to wait for his ride home when he noticed an open door. Andromeda had never noticed a door down that hall before. He quickly decided that he simply hadn't been paying attention in the past and that the door had always been there. Andromeda made to walk by the door and continue on his way when curiosity got the better of him, and Andromeda chose to peek inside. He was astonished at the size of the room. It was easily as large as a gym, perhaps even bigger. The room contained piles and piles of odds and ends, wrestling mats, books, desks, boxes of pictures and trophies. There was an old score board leaned up against a wall next to a pile of old speakers and audio equipment. There was also a pile of old reel to reel video equipment and tapes on shelving in the middle of the room. This stuff looked old. Andromeda knew that the school had been a high school building years before but he had never thought that there may still be things stored from back then.

Taking a few steps into the room, Andromeda called a shy "hello" to see if anyone was in there. No response came so he entered further. As he walked around taking mental notes of all he saw there, Andromeda's mind began to wander, wondering what history left all of these things here. Who had used this stuff, why wasn't it thrown away? He wandered around until he made his way to the shelving with all of the video tapes on it. Andromeda began to read the titles to himself. Most of them were old school plays and football games, but as he came to the last reel his blood ran cold and the small hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. The title of the last video was, "Andromeda Finn".

May 10, 2010

Sad Confessions of a Small Town Techie

Greetings from the deep end!
It's been a while hasn't it? I should write more, but I have seriously been lacking in the inspiration department as of late. This morning I found some inspiration tucked away in a forgotten drawer of my work desk next to the salt and pepper shakers that I keep there for emergencies. Actually, it came from two more much more common and less entertaining places (though I do have salt and pepper shakers in my work desk). First a friend of mine made mention of some of his audio recording technical woes on Facebook and I commented on it. After that comment I was pondering the whole gamut of technology and technological issues when I remembered some technical issues that I had yesterday morning while setting stage and sound for a Pacific Life Bible College missions team at our church in Sheridan. Thus inspiration was born. 

My friend wrote that he was having some technical troubles in the recording studio, to which I replied, "Audio stuff is just like really really expensive legos. You gotta take it all apart and put it back together again from time to time or you aren't getting the full value out of the product." How in the world did I adopt such an optimistic view of technical trouble? Why am I not like the people in the world who would much rather blow up the system than fix it? The answer to that question is simple. My name is Derick Brown... and I am... a... TECHIE!!! 

Techie - web definition - a term, derivative of the word technology, for a person who displays a great, sometimes even obsessive, interest in technology, high-tech devices, and particularly computers...

I enjoy tearing apart a sound system and putting it back together better than it was before. I look forward to such projects almost as much as I look forward to Christmas. Since I hastily rebuilt our system for the traveling group, I get to re-rebuild it for our use this evening. I am so excited. We (Pam, Xander and I) are going to pull all of the cables and snakes in the system, clear the sound board and plug it all back in so that it is more organized and more easily used by the remaining members of the church after Pam the kids and I leave. Think of it as spring cleaning for musicians. We will be throwing away all of the old busted drum sticks that have accumulated behind the drum cage, we are going to untangle the spaghetti bowl of cables and we are going to find out what channels are really shot and which ones are just faking. 


What does this situation have to do with everyman? I say it has everything to do with everyman. Everyman has things in his life that need to be gone over and repaired from time to time. Not so much physical, tangible things as I have been writing about today, but my heart is pushing me more towards speaking of relationships. Every relationship needs to be gone over from time to time so that it can continue to function at its prime potential. It is good to spend some real time with a spouse or friend from time to time and just talk. Take a moment and let them know you still care. Talk about past hurts that haven't been dealt with, untangle emotions and thoughts that may have run away from you over the past however long has it has been since the relationship was last evaluated and repaired. Relationship cleaning is like rebuilding a church sound system, it doesn't have to be done. A person can still continue to just modify things to make things continue to work. The problem with however, is that, the more you modify, the more tangled things get, and the better the chance of a break down. Everything works much better when we can begin again from a fresh build from time to time. Though they are both necessary for a productive system, I do not enjoy rebuilding a relationship as much as I do a sound system, but then again, I am a Techie, not a Relationship-ie. 


April 25, 2010

Sending the Discipled

Greetings from the deep end!
Many things have happened since I last wrote. I have been bursting with ideas and thoughts but have chosen to wait so that my loved ones would not be hurt needlessly. At FLC we believe that we are called to three things 1 - reaching the lost, 2 - discipling the saved, 3 - sending the discipled. It is often said that when we teach or when we serve we gain more than we give. My family's current situation is similar. We have lived and served in Sheridan for six years. We have taught, we have fought and we have loved, but most of all we have learned. God set us in a place where we could be discipled through living life and now we are being sent from our home in Sheridan to a new church family in Rapid City SD.

Pam and I have accepted a position at Destiny Foursquare Church as their new full time youth pastors. Looking into the future we see opportunity to continue being discipled and to continue our growth as leaders and family. This time is looked at with a great deal of excitement and happiness when we consider the possibilities for new friends and family but also with a great deal of sadness as we prepare to leave the family we have gained here over the past six years. Sadly, sometimes we are put in positions where we must "practice what we preach". This time we (me, Pam, Xander and Aryll) are the disciples being sent.

April 14, 2010

If I Only Had a Reset Button

Greetings from the deep end!
The Wizard of Oz is a stupid movie. Yea, I said it, The Wizard of Oz is a stupid movie. I'll say it again! The Wizard of Oz.... Seriously, we all have brains and hearts. We may choose not to use them, but we do all have them. Even courage is found more often than not in humanity. What we really should be searching for, what all of humanity really needs, is a reset button.

A friend was over at my house last night and he showed me how to do a battery pull (reset) on my Blackberry without actually pulling the battery. This morning I tried it and of course it worked and saved me tons of time trying to remove my Otter Box case and then pull the battery, then spend six hours trying to get the case to set on it properly again. I am all thumbs, and this phone case is an engineering masterpiece. By that I mean that you need to have an advance degree in engineering to master the use of it. Anyway, I was thinking about how awesome it was to be able to hit three buttons a couple of times and save myself a half of an hour of frustration. As my thoughts raced out of my control I realized that a human restart button would assuredly save much more than a half hour of frustration for the average human each day!

Think of it, feeling groggy? Hit your reset button. Can't sleep? Hit your reset button. Kid's being schmucks? Press their reset button!

Yea, courage is nothing when compared to the awesomeness that would be the human reset button.

Government need reset? We have a button for that. Students acting up? We have a button for that. Getting fed up? You have a button for that.

It would be AWESOME!!! No more groggy head, no more being overwhelmed. Beautiful. Sing with me people! ♪♫If we only had a reset button♫♪

April 11, 2010

Patience. Carrot or Rod?

Greetings from the deep end!
It would seem that I have regained some of my lost brain power as I feel that it is time to take hold of a more difficult topic than my previous posts have contained. I realize that I have spoken of patience in past blogs but that is okay  because today's post deals solely with the recurrence of the "patience" lesson. Today I realized that the more patience one learns, the more patience one needs. That is to say, one always needs a little more patience than they have at present.

This leads me to one very great very, non-patient question; WHY!?! Why is it that as we go through life, growing up that is, we always need more patience. When is enough enough? Never fear my friends, Derick is on the case. My quest for answers to the "why" question has led me to two possible answers regarding the role of the "patience" lesson in life.

First, patience may be as a carrot dangled in front of a horse. I believe that patience may be simply a lesson that a person strives to gain and is thus led through life with the hope of attaining an impossible goal. "Oh, I don't have enough patience with Xander because he just punched me in the face and I yelled, guess I learned a good lesson and won't have that problem again." The next day, "Oh, Xander just punched me in the face four times and I yelled at him guess I learned my lesson and I won't do that again." Three months later, "Oh, Xander just punched me in the face stomped on my nose and broke my toe and I yelled...." See what I mean? It will never end! Sometimes I really feel like that. I feel that patience can never really be achieved but only added to and that it is in deed a goal that will always be heightened just a little higher than I can reach.

The second possibility is that "patience" is a rod shepherding me towards adulthood. In this case, it would seem that before God will allow me to accomplish the things I wish to accomplish and that I believe He wants me to accomplish I must reach a "patience bar" that He has set before me. It often seems that just as I reach a new level of patience in life God rewards me with new levels of responsibility. Not always a good thing, right? Well, not from the sloth perspective. However, from the perspective of a man-in-training, new levels of responsibility are par for the course.

As often happens, as I have been writing this I have come to a third option and one that better fits the scheme. Patience is both a carrot and a rod. It is a carrot when we are too scared to go ahead on our own and a rod when we are more zealous for the future than we should be. That is one of the most awesome things about patience, it can get you what you need and take you where you want to go, depending on the situation.

Patience is the companion of wisdom.
Saint Augustine 

April 8, 2010

Idiosyncrasies of a Half-Brained Father

Greetings from the deep end!
Three weeks have passed since we have become four. It seems like an eternity. But not in a bad way...well, there is a bad cause for the feeling but it is natural I think. Last night I got home from Youth at about 9:45pm. I had a snack and read some of a book and stayed up hoping that Aryll would go to sleep so that Pam and I could go to bed at the same time. I put the book down at 11:00pm and had planned to go ahead and go to sleep because Pam wanted me to as I had to get up this morning for work. Right after I had put my book down I half rolled over and began to stare at the door. I stared and stared until Pam came into the room. I asked her what time it was and she said it was now 11:30pm! I stared at an open door for thirty minutes! Not only did I stay up until 11:30 and stare at a door (A DOOR!?!) for thirty minutes, but I woke up ten minutes before my alarm at 6:40 this morning.

I have never slept so little as I have since the girl was born. I still function for the most part but if this is growing up, I am not sure I want to anymore. I enjoy sleep; I think it should replace baseball as the national pastime. I actually think that sleep already has become our great nation’s pastime but has not yet gained the title. Growing up is, however, the purpose of my humble little blog, referred to in the title. The "deep end" is referring to my trek into adulthood, and thus justifying this essay as a proper addition to my accounts.

The title of this addition to deep end begins with the word, "idiosyncrasies". Because the word ends in an "s" we know that it is referring to more than one (or multiple) items. The lack of sleep and the zombie like effect it causes are only two of the idiosyncrasies of a new father that I have noticed. Interestingly enough, I have only noticed them this time. I believe that when my son was born, as he made me a true "new father", I was too far gone to notice much of anything. In fact, my earliest memories of Xander's life begin about two months ago. Anyhow, there are a few more issues I have noted, and in no particular order...
  • Twitches, shakes, and knee jerk reactions - These may all stem from one or both of these two causes; lack of sleep and/or the copious amounts of coffee used to combat the other effects of lack of sleep. I guess that really only leaves one option for the root cause of the twitches, shakes and knee jerk reactions - lack of sleep. However, these are still separate conditions from lack of sleep (aka; LOSS - Lack of Sleep Syndrome). 
  • Having the appearance of a long time stoner - As well as being a direct effect of LOSS, having the appearance of being a long time stoner is augmented by the inevitable puke stains acquired from the little one.  
  • The inability to say anything of consequence and the annoying habit of spouting gibberish at random and often inappropriate times - Rather than simply attributing this symptom of new fatherhood to LOSS, I have explored and am leaning toward the cause being three fold. 1.) The mass change within the household a new child brings. 2.) LOSS 3.) The19 month old terror that has decided he wants to be terrible and two NOW! 
  • Being perpetually half-brained - At this juncture, the reader may think to themselves something along the lines of, "Derick, you have always been perpetually half brained!" And that reader may be correct, but I do not believe that I have ever been this half brained. 
  • Prayer life increases - Interestingly enough, and all joking aside, having been at the bottom of the energy barrel for three weeks, I have a better understanding of what it means for God to be strong when we are weak. It doesn't just mean that when we are humble God is strong. I suffer from LOSS but have yet to get sick, or freak out or truly lose my mind, because in the thick of it all, I pray and God continues to make up for my inadequacies. 
I listen to much more aggressive music than most people, and I believe that some of the best music, some of the best, most passionate lyrics come from some of the least likely places. This chorus from Flyleaf's song "Perfect" makes my point perfectly. :)

Perfect in weakness
I'm only perfect in just Your strength alone

Perfect in weakness
I'm only running in just Your strength alone 

April 6, 2010

Iudono waynana nstufff.

Greetings from the deep end!

So, I've been trying to write this one particular story about me being a tech-nerd for about five days now. It was going to be about my new phone and I was going to make jokes about how proud of myself I am that I can be both a tech-nerd and cheap. It didn't happen. I must have written over a thousand words and deleted them all out of frustration because they were neither funny nor were they saying what I wanted them to say. Have you ever tried to say something and "ludono waynana nstufff" comes out? I have. In fact, it wasn't until this morning that I realized that I hadn't updated my Facebook status for over three days. I only change my status when I have something important to say or something particular witty to share. I have had nothing going through my mind since Saturday afternoon.

I don't know what the average person would do in my position but I certainly know what I would do…FREAK OUT!!! So that's what I did. My mother and a friend from Florida talked me down and reminded me that the cause of my current insanity is that I have a newborn baby. Whew, this is normal behavior. Wait a minute!?! THIS IS NORMAL BEHAVIOR!?! Ok, ok. I can accept that, I can accept that I will completely be neurologically shot for a while as a direct effect of having a new kid in the casa. That, however, does not explain the rest of the time. Sure I haven't slept properly since winter camp (four weeks ago) but I should be used to that by now. I'm freaked out here people. I have no idea what to do with myself. Oh well, I guess I'll just hang on Sloopy until my brain comes back. Have a good night people, I am going to go read a good book and take a nap.

March 29, 2010

The Context of Relationship


Greetings from the deep end!

I am a relatively socially inept person who never really grew up and has never really had that many friends. It is only now (at the age of 26) that I have become aware of a few social situations. I have never been the life of the party, I didn't get along too well with my college roommates, and God only knows why Pam was interested in me as I was certainly no charmer. All of that is to qualify my latest observation of the social aspects to modern humanity as being new to me.


Recently I have noticed an annoying little social quirk that I am going to call the "Contextual Relationship". It works like this; in a work setting two people get to know each other and have a certain relationship that is built over time and that both people are relatively comfortable with. They laugh and joke and share personal stories and anecdotes, they have inside jokes and a good feeling of what they can and can't say to the other person without causing discomfort or offence. Now, if we are to observe the same two people when they accidentally run into each other at the grocery store, we find that they are uncomfortable, don't have much to say and what they do say is minimal at best and awkward at worst. Some may even classify the meeting as shy, like the 7th grade dance, boys on one side of the room and girls on the other. This is the contextual relationship, one that is based on and only works in a certain setting. I have even noticed this in myself to the degree that if I know a person from church, I may not even recognize them at the store.


Now, looking back, I can also relate this observation to my childhood. Specifically, remembering having friends at school and being invited to their homes for the first time. It was quite nerve racking as I recall. Not sure what would be expected of me, not sure how their family would react to me. Perhaps this is only a personal problem. Perhaps I am one of only a few who suffers from contextual relationships; whose friendships are bound by a specific set of walls or boundaries. Regardless, I don't like it. I wish to have the same relationship with a person regardless of our surroundings. I would like to be as comfortable with a person in church as I am at work or at the store. I believe that this is a completely irrational occurrence, and that I should do whatever I can to combat it.


Why then, does this contextual relationship anomaly occur? I don't have an answer today. I had hoped that by writing about the situation I would be able to organize my thoughts enough to find the answer, as I often do. However, my brain has failed me. If it continues this behavior I may have to poke it with a Q-Tip. Oops, I take that back, my brain got scared and chose to comply rather than face the Q-Tip consequence. I have thought of a possible cause for the disease, masks. Often one speaks of or hears of the masks that we all as humans wear. We wear our work mask and our church mask and our family or school mask each so that we can be the person we perceive that we need to be for the group of people that are around us. Ah, it all comes together now. The two who are work friends wear their work mask that is comfortable in the situation they find themselves in at work. Then, when they run into each other at the store, they aren't wearing their work mask; they are either wearing their family mask or their store mask or no mask at all. Being caught with the wrong mask on can be quite discomforting, but not more than being caught with no mask at all. Nudity in public is one of humanities greatest fears.


So then, the atrocity that is the contextual relationship boils down to one main cause, fear. If we were all to be able to become ourselves without fear of being disliked or rejected or of offending others, the contextual relationship would cease to be. Each person would have no reason to feel uncomfortable wearing no mask because they would always be wearing no mask. Adam and Eve never felt embarrassed that they had no coverings because they never had any coverings. I believe that it may be a very uncomfortable thing to do, and I am not sure how to go about getting it done, but I believe that if we can all find a way to take off all of our masks and learn to be ourselves all of the time, we can beat contextual relationships. Either that or we will make a pill for it. CONRELATIA, for your contextual relationship disorder, side effects include but are not limited to…

March 25, 2010

These are a few of my favorite things...

Greetings from the deep end!

 My previous post, "Chef BoyarDerick" was a precursor to the blog I wanted to write today...this one! Since cooking has become my dominating hobby, I felt that it would be loads of fun to write about some of my favorite kitchen tools. Not that any reader would enjoy reading about my "stuff", but as I have written before, this blog is not about the reader, it is about me, for my own enjoyment, vomiting thoughts into cyberspace. Paints a pretty picture doesn't it? Leaving that visual, and with no more ado, in no particular order, here are a few of my favorite things...in the kitchen.
  • Bamboo Chop Sticks
    • Do you have a pile of chop sticks in a drawer in your kitchen? I bet not. I have found that these little bamboo tools are most useful for many things from picking meat from crab legs to cleaning dog hair from the bath tub drain. They are cheap and easily replaceable. Just a few weeks ago I was making a stuffed pork roast that was too small for any of my traditional roasters (of which I have 4). Breaking out my MacGyver skills, I took a bread pan and placed six chop sticks in three "X" shapes so that when placed across them, they held the roast about two inches from the bottom of the pan. When using bamboo chop sticks in the oven or on the grill one must remember to soak them in hot water for about 15 minutes prior to heating. I almost had a little accident there, woops!
  • Woks and Peanut Oil
    • I have three woks. An electric one, one with a flat bottom for using on my electric range, and one with the classic domed bottom for using on my gas grill. Each one is special to me in its own way. Many people don't like to use the wok because they find it difficult to use. The key is to cook very hot, and I mean 8 on the 1 to 10 scale, hot. Some people know this but then have the problem of smoking oil and burning food. The secret here is to use Peanut Oil on the hot wok. Peanut Oil has a very high smoke point, that is, it doesn't burn. If the oil doesn't burn, and the food keeps moving, the food doesn't burn either. Then you have awesome food with little oil, really fast
  • Cast Iron
    • Last May, for my birthday, I got my first cast iron skillet. My life was forever changed that day. I have since become a cast iron purist, and have acquired a French oven and griddle. No soap shall ever touch my cast iron, and woe is to any man who tries to use soap on my cast iron. It requires a little more time and some extra steps for storage than your modern non-stick skillets but the difference is well worth it. From searing stew meat to frying tortillas to baking biscuits, cast iron is the bee’s knees.
  • Santoku Knife
    • The Santoku knife is an Asian style set to the classic chef's knife. It has a broader blade with a snub-nose rather than a gradual taper. As for mine, I got it at Ross. The curve of the blade lends to a very comfortable rocking motion while chopping or mincing, and the scallops on the blade keep food from sticking. Though it shows how much of a nerd I am, this knife is one of the coolest things ever.

 

Chef BoyarDerick

Greetings from the deep end!
I have loved to cook since I was five years old and my babysitter let me stir the spaghetti-os. Oh, how I remember standing on a stool with a giant spoon stirring the little yellow circles in red sauce. A fire had been lit. When I was a teenager, after having made stuffed green peppers or some other calamity...again, my mother said something to the effect of, "If you don't like it you can cook!" To which I replied, "Fine! I will!" If you have read the previous installments of this blog you might recognize this as another favorite game that my mother and I would play. So I began to learn. I, being a modern kid, would sit for hours at a time and watch food network. Learning at the feet of such chefs as; Alton Brown, Emeril Lagasse, and Jamie Oliver. Soon I went to college where I learned to cook good food cheap. Did you know that one batch of refried beans and hamburger can be made into burritos for at least four meals? Or maybe that if you buy a 10lb box of chicken you might anger your room mates for taking up half of the freezer space? You do however, save a lot of money, making your room mates displeasure well worth it, for you.

After Pam and I were married, I took the job of head cook; the families, "master chef", if you will. As our married life went on and a couple years passed, I hurt my back and spent a large amount of time watching mid-day television. There is no such thing as good mid-day television, unless you are willing to watch PBS. I love PBS. If PBS were a thing that I could put in my kitchen, I would put it next to my knife block. It was at this time that I was introduced to other great TV Chefs such as; Ming Tsai, Rick Bayless, Jacques Pepin, Julia Child and the whole gang down at America's Test Kitchen. After my back healed, I went back to work and got busy with life. After a few months, I got really tired and worn out. I took some time to evaluate my life and found that I really had no hobbies. There was nothing in my life that I did just for fun. I watched TV and played Video games but they were hardly restful as I only feel rested when I have physically done something or accomplished something that I enjoy. That day I chose to pursue cooking in a more aggressive fashion. From that point on I would experiment and learn and grow in the kitchen.

Now I spend most of my free time thinking up new ways to cook food. I made a green bean sauce a few months ago that shows promise. I have cracked many of my favorite Asian food recipes. My biggest problems now are trying to explain to my wife why I need three types of flour, four types of oil and five types of vinegar. "Do you want good food or not?" I scream at her, to which she answers in like fashion, "I'll just have ONE box of Mac N' Cheese!" Great. I'm glad all my hard work is being appreciated. I suppose I should be happy with her response, at least I still get to play some of my favorite games.

March 22, 2010

Clear Need to Write…Gibberish

Greetings from the deep end!

It is 10:41pm and Aryll is awake for feeding time, she is four days old and sleeping very well. All things considered, life is great. I wanted to write this evening to get my mind calmed but I don't have anything to write about. There isn't anything on my mind at the moment. I don't have any pet peeves or epiphanies to work out. So then, rather than spout gibberish for a few hundred words and wasting everyone's time, I have chosen to write about…writing.

It may sound weird but I think that writing is a bit like having a comfy office chair. I have a comfy office chair; I keep it in my living room. It isn't really an office chair. It is a green chair with white stripes, or is it a white chair with green stripes? Guess what? IT DOESN'T MATTER! It is a cute chair where I can sit comfortably and relax. Writing, for me, is the same. It is a place to be comfortable, to work out my thoughts and feelings. I wouldn't go as far as to call it therapeutic because that would be admitting that I need therapy. I am not crazy. Who said that? Anyway, I often feel that I get caught up in the craziness of life and don't take the time to really consider the ramifications of what is going on. I don't feel that I take enough time to smell the roses and when I do smell them I don't take enough time to really take in the smell. To notice what it smells like, to notice the depth and richness of the flavor. To touch the pedals and feel how soft and silky they are. See, it is not enough to smell the roses. When you only smell in passing, the experience never makes it past the sensory part of the brain. One must process life to remember, to enjoy, and to experience it. That is why I write. So I can process what is going on. So I can take a better part of current events with me into the future. Too much life is lost when we don't take the time to properly enjoy it. Often I may just write gibberish, and that is okay. It is through writing gibberish that I can relax in the comfy chair of my mind.

March 19, 2010

Now, We Are Four


Greetings from the deep end!

That is correct. The deep end just got deeper. Aryll was born yesterday at 5:35pm. Within the hour, I had called all of the family, taken pictures of the baby, cleaned and packed the delivery room stuff to go to the recovery room, taken the baby to the nursery to be cleaned and get her initial inoculations and warmed up as she was too cold. Within that same hour, Pam got cleaned up, ate dinner and walked down to the nursery to see Aryll. The reader, at this point, is probably saying something like, "Did I read that correctly? Did he write WALK? Pam shouldn't be WALKING!?!" Yes, yes I did. Pam has been more normal today than yesterday or for the last few weeks. By the time we went to bed last night, Pam was happy and walking around and taking care of the baby and worrying about me and Xander. (Pam quote at midnight, "My arm hurts from playing Wii the other day.") I was tired and shaky and crying and sore. Am I the only person who sees the injustice here? Isn't it the mother's job to be tired and sore and actually use the recovery room to…I don't know, recover? Isn't the dad supposed to be helpful and rested and at the top of his daddying game? So here I sit, on the recovery hospital bed, playing the schmuck. Once again, my role as protector and provider has been thwarted by Pam's awesomeness, for which there is no charge. So with that, here's to Pam, the mommy of the hour.

March 17, 2010

Crabby Baby or GIVE ME SOME FREAKING COFFEE!!!

Greetings from the deep end!
So, there I was, cold tired, not sleeping well...6:30 am. Xander begins to cry. Not a tired cry, not a hurt cry, not a dirty or hungry cry. No, those are all cries that can be answered, things that can be fixed. This was a non-commercial cry. The kind when a kid sucks in a breath, cries until the breath is gone, takes another breath and repeats...indefinitely, almost a yell rather than a cry. "What's wrong Xander?" we ask. "Waaaaah!" he replies. For an hour and a half before we went to work this morning this went on. I want to know, why we are spending all of this time teaching him words if he isn't going to use them.

Its days like this that I thank God for the day care people who can take him so I don't have to (if I had to spend the day with him only one of us would come out alive). And its days like today where I find myself flat on my face in prayer for them. I don't want to get a phone call that says, "Hello, Mr. Brown? We can't take care of Xander anymore. Your boy is crazy and we want no part in his insanity." Oh what a bad day that would be! They are, however, getting paid. What about me? More importantly, what about Pam!?! Who is paying us? Xander sure as crap isn't. THIS IS NOT A FAIR EXCHANGE PEOPLE! The least the boy could do is get us a really good coffee from time to time. At least the caffeine buzz might take the edge off of the nervous tics that have begun to show.

I am a parent. I am one of those whose thankless job goes on and on and on and on and o... We are the zombies at work. We are the grumpy commuters. We are those whose cars were once full of soda cans and fast food wrappers but are now full of sticky spots and crushed up fish crackers. We are ushering in the next generation. I can't wait until Xander is a bit more grown up. Then I am going to wake him up at 6:30 am every now and again and scream into his ear, "Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!" To which he will reply, "What's wrong Dad?" And all I will respond "GET ME SOME FREAKING COFFEE!"

March 15, 2010

Patience...the lost art.

Greetings from the deep end!
"It's okay honey. The baby will come when she's rea...OUCH!" I must be the only man in history to get hit by his pregnant wife. Well, I haven't actually been hit yet, but if I am not careful Pam is going to lay the smack down. It will hurt. I'm not trying to be annoying. I'm just an impatient person who is trying very hard to learn to be patient. My wife is eight point five months pregnant and IMPATIENT. So much so that she has no patience for her impatient husband who is trying to learn to be patient and thinks that she needs to learn to be patient too. Oops, sorry. My bad! I forgot that a pregnant woman can do no wrong.
There are some other things I forgot too. Like, there is a child inside of her. I don't think that I would want to be patient if I had a six pound alien pushing on my bladder, ALL DAY LONG. I probably wouldn't put patience so high on my list of priorities if I had a six pound bowling ball trying to split my pelvis from the inside. Did I mention that babies like to kick and punch and stretch from the inside too? Yea, they do, I think that would make me really angry. I would hit my husband if after a long day of suffering trying to create and sustain life all he could say was, "its okay honey. The baby will come when she's rea...OUCH!"
So, as for my wife...no patience. Where does that leave me? That's right; I get to practice the great lost art of Ninja Patience. That is, I get to be quiet and keep my patience training to myself...and uh...most importantly...keep my mouth shut. It would seem that patience being the virtue that it is, I should practice it with humility and grace, being more comforting to my wife than "helpful". Patience can't be about misery finding company. I must realize that waiting "patiently" while complaining is not actually being patient. Patience is defined as; quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care; diligence. I need to make sure that as I practice patience it will serve my wife to comfort her, to calm her, to help her wait out the next few days. Also, it should help me keep from getting my tail kicked by a pregnant lady.

March 11, 2010

Drowning in sunlight.

Greetings from the deep end!
It would seem that spring is in the midst of springing. My friend’s cold and snow stopped by yesterday but old man sunshine scared them off. Why is it when a couple of well meaning weather patterns try to get together for a party there is always some "sunshine" who comes along and crashes it? The reader might ask at this point, "are you feelin' a little depressed there big D?" My answer would be a solid "NO!" I'm feeling pretty dang good if I do say so myself. But I am a fairly big guy, and sun (heat) and I don't get along. I was the teenager down on the corner in shorts and a t-shirt during a blizzard at 7:00 am waiting for the school bus. I enjoy cold, because I can always turn the heater up or put on more clothes, but a guy can only get so naked before the police get involved.
Then there is the light itself. I like the dark. I loved winters in BC because I never saw the sun! S.A.D made me G.L.A.D. My mother always used to run around the house behind me opening curtains that I had just shut saying things like, "Do you want to live in a cave?" To which my response was always "YES!" as I turned and ran behind her shutting the curtains again. It was a delightful game. One of my favorites. Right up there with the game called, "Clean your room!", "I already did!" and, "Were you born in a barn?", "MOO!” Mom and I, we had some pretty good times. Who needs Monopoly when you have gems like, "You can't get up from the table until you've eaten all of those onions! I swear you will eat them for every meal until they are all gone young man!" I always, always won that game. He he he.
Oh how I digress. I was complaining about the lovely weather wasn't I? I'm not a total freak; I do understand the niceties of summer and "nice" weather. Seriously though, if the weather were "nice" it would be overcast and 65 degrees Fahrenheit every day of the year. That's all I'm asking for here. Just for creation to bend to my will. That's not too much to ask is it?
However, it is the changing of seasons that denotes the passage of time. So bring it on spring! I can take it! This is how we mark new beginnings, and how we learn to let go of the past, as the winter melts away into new life and the future.

March 9, 2010

Onward

Greetings from the deep end!
Winter camp has come and gone. We had a fantastic time in Buffalo and in the Big Horns last weekend. I believe that it was one of our most successful camps. Caleb Coy brought the word to the kids with a fierce honesty and passion that really seemed to connect in them. I am excited to see what the future will bring with my kids, the Wyoming kids and our future camps.
As always, time passes and life continues on and I now look to "THE NEXT BIG THING". That next big thing will be coming in the next 21 days or so. It will weigh somewhere between six and seven pounds, will wear pink and be called Aryll Marie. For the last eight months, if a person were to ask me if I were excited I would have said no. I would have said something about being nervous that we were having a girl, I would have said "what am I gonna do with a girl!?! I don't even know what to do with the boy!!!" However, time and life (and an unprecedented miracle) have brought me to a place of unmanageable excitement. I do not wish to be "wrapped around her finger" but I am looking forward to experiencing the same growth, adventure and relationship that Xander brought into my life, again...but differently. I realize that no two kids are alike, and that mine will be no exception to that rule. But if Pam's pregnancy is anything to go by, Aryll will be quite similar to Xander. She is the same size and has the same general sleep habits he did. Xander and Aryll both went to youth camps when Pam was at eight months (that is, they both experienced the same volume and music styles at the same point in their development). Aryll rests when Pam drums and gets agitated when she stops, just as Xander did. This gives me hope. Hope that my daughter might like music as much as Pam, Xander and myself. I want my daughter to be an individual and to do her own things and be her own person, but I do not want her to be a black sheep. I want her to love and want to experience the same things that Pam, Xander and I do. I fear that she and I will not get along, that she won't like me, and that we will have nothing in common. This is the same fear I had with Xander. This is my greatest fear as a growing parent, and likely the reason for me not being excited sooner.
This is an illogical fear. Most of my fears are illogical. I suppose that any fear would be illogical, knowing who God is, what He does and how He takes care of his children. How He makes all things work for their betterment. That is all I want, ultimately. To make things work for my children. I want them to have good relationships with each other and their parents. I want them to grow and experience life and love and happiness. I do not want them to suffer needlessly, however, sometimes they will suffer, and I hope that they can learn from it and grow through it. God never said he would keep us from suffering, He never said bad things wouldn't happen, He just said things would turn out well. That is where my final hope lies, and I believe that is why I am now excited about our new arrival, because God will make all things well for me and my children.

March 4, 2010

Adventures In Adulthood

Greetings from the deep end!
Yesterday I had this great idea for a blog. I thought that I would write about my ever lengthening voyage into becoming an adult. A great friend once looked me in the eye and said, "One day Derick, you will be a man." At first I wasn't sure what to think about this as it sounded a little like a joke and a little like...mean. He went on to say that the phrase was something that his mother had always said to him. I took it as friendly ribbing and went on about my day. This was seven years ago. Every now and again my mind chooses to bring up those few words and contemplate them. By "contemplate" I obviously mean "chew on them until they drive me past the point of insane to the point of 'mushy brain'". I think, however, that I might know what they mean, or at least what they mean to me. As a 19 year old kid getting ready to leave home for the first time and go to college in another country I thought it was a hit on my adulthood. I thought at that point in my life that I had already arrived. That I was an adult. That all that a person must attain to achieve "manhood" had magically come to me in my sleep the night before my 18th birthday. I now know that I was very wrong, and perhaps this is what my friend was hinting at. That being, adulthood or manhood or even womanhood for that matter (something I know less and less about every day) is not an all or none thing. A person is not either an adult or not an adult but is ALWAYS in the process of becoming...more. I have realized that growing up does not end at age 18, or when a person moves out of their parents house, but continues on through life.

It would also seem that the most grown up people are still children at heart, that is, the happiest adults that I have ever met, are still able to laugh and play and enjoy life as if they were a child. I find this fact particularly annoying as I try to speak of my current ventures to my mother, who is evil and has no sympathy. I had a diarrhea and urine filled diaper blow up on me and my bed at 6:45 this morning (I was unaware that 6:45 came twice a day). Mother dearest has no sympathy...why? Because she is more grown up than me. She has experienced more of what the college of adulthood has to offer. That which kills me is old hat to her. She only laughed and said "I love you." Well, that's great mother, but love doesn't wash the dirty sheets does it? I only hope that some day I am mature enough to laugh at Xander when he calls me to tell me that his little one has helped him to grow up in a similar manner.

One final thought, perhaps adulthood isn't just a trek into maturity but is an exercise in modifying our perspective on life. Maybe growing up is more gaining God's perspective that says no problem on earth is such a "big deal" when compared to his greatness and the greatness of what and who he has made.

March 3, 2010

"Off the Deep End...Defined"

Greetings from the deep end!
Definitions are the key to successful communication. Specifically, if I write a word in a context that means something different to me than it does to say, my reader, all communication is lost in confusion or misunderstanding. Why bring this up? Because if I am going to write from "off the deep end" we all certainly had better know what I mean by "off the deep end". If I am going to refer to myself as a, "self proclaimed lunatic", we all had better know what that means to me. Not necessarily by the dictionary definition, or by normal contextual definitions. Just like the word "respect" doesn't mean "do what I tell you when I tell you, without question", though contextually, "respect" often does mean that. When I write the word "respect" I often mean, "look at things from my view point and see that I am trying to do the best I can in this situation the best that I know how". That is one of the great problems with E-Communication. There are no tones, no facial expressions, and no little chuckles in our voices. The reader doesn't know that the writing was done with a sarcastic tone or body language. Things that are meant to be serious are often taken as farce and things that are meant to be satirical are often taken seriously. It is my greatest wish at this moment that the reader knows that while my topics are often serious to me; my writing tone is often sarcastic or satirical.
All of that is said to get to this point...."Off the Deep End". One definition of the idiom is to be "irrationally carried away". I think that it would be safe to say at this point that anyone who has known me for more than a day would agree that I am often "irrationally carried away", or that I live in a state of having been "irrationally carried away". I might even go so far as to say that one day when I was in my teen years I was rationally carried away for a time, then, rather than returning to a, "not carried away" state, I simply became "irrationally carried away" and have remained thus ever since.

It is with this mindset that I write this journal. Not "to" anyone in particular, but rather as an outlet for my "off the deep end" type thoughts as I journey through life.