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".

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. 

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.

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♫♪

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 

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 

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.

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 7^th 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…

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.