State of Grace

I am an atheist. I do not believe in God, or any other type of supreme being. Gail believes, but not devoutly - she basically doesn't like the idea of death as being the end. The way she once put it was "I have to believe that there is something else afterwards - that my grandparents aren't just gone, that they're out there somewhere, and I'll see them again someday." So I think she belives in some kind of afterlife, but not necessarily in God. Anyway, we're not a religious family, by any stretch. We don't go to church, or talk about God, or say grace before meals.

This past weekend, we went to visit our friends' cottage on Lake Huron, and a few other friends came on Sunday as well. We had a big BBQ lunch, and just before the kids sat down to eat, one of the mothers started to sing grace - "Oh, the Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord...", and most of the kids sang along. Ryan and Nicholas just stared at everyone, not having any clue of what they were singing or why. Nicholas actually smiled at the end and said "Let's sing it again!"

Once again, I'm forced to wonder how I'm going to handle the inevitable religious questions when they come up - What's God? How did He create the Earth? Is He watching us all the time? Do I tell him "some people believe that the Earth was created by God... but I think it's a load of crap"? At some point, he's going to ask "Why does God allow people to die, or to be hurt?" and I won't have an answer for him (though I suppose religious parents don't either, other than the standard "God works in mysterious ways").

Ryan knows a little about God, from Beavers and kids at school, but eventually he'll want to know more. Should we send him to Sunday school? In a perfect world, I'd like him to be educated on lots of different religions (including atheism), and let him decide what he does or doesn't believe. In the real world, that can't happen. Most religious people are religious because they were brought up religious - they are taught about God and Jesus and the Bible from a very early age, and it never occurs to them to question the teachings. This leads to the faith that is necessary for any religion. You can't just read the Bible, the Qur'an, and whatever other books there are with a totally open mind, and make an informed and unbiased choice as to which one you're going to believe - that just ain't the way it works.

I'm not sure I want someone telling my kids all the standard Bible stories about God and Jesus and whoever else as if they are cold hard facts, but anyone who knows these stories and can give them any kind of religious education is going to believe that they are cold hard facts.

I went to Sunday school for a while as a child, and my parents remember asking me if I liked it. I said that yes, it was fun and all, but they talk about God an awful lot. It's possible that I missed the point entirely.

Open Letter

Here is a hilarious open letter to the Kansas School Board. The board has decided that along with the theory of evolution, they will also teach the theory of "Intelligent Design", which is simply Biblical Creationism disguised as a scientific theory. The letter writer agrees with this decision, and asks that a third theory also be added - the theory that the universe was created by a flying spaghetti monster.

Go ahead, true believers - tell me why this theory is less scientifically plausible than intelligent design, using facts, not beliefs. I dares ya. I double dares ya.

The logic of a three-year-old

I was playing air hockey with Nicholas today when he suddenly stopped the puck and said "Wait daddy!" like there was something crucial that had to be done before continuing. I asked him what the problem was, and he said, with great anxiety in his voice, "There's fluff between my toes! I'll get it out." Wow, thank God we didn't finish the game before he discovered that -- we really dodged a bullet there.

Movie Day

We all went to see Madagascar yesterday, as a kind of a Father's Day outing. We were going to go on a hike, but it was kind of drizzly and cold and miserable, so we figured spending the day inside would be better. Not a bad movie, had some pretty funny parts, though I found it strange that I couldn't for the life of me figure out who did the voice of Alex the lion through the whole thing (it was Ben Stiller). The zebra was Chris Rock and the giraffe was David Schwimmer - hard to mistake their voices. Anyway, Gail had been told that it was more a kids movie than a grown-up movie -- by "grown-up movie" I mean that even though things like The Lion King and Toy Story and The Incredibles were kids movies, they had enough grown-up stuff in them that adults found them funny as well. Gail was told that this wasn't true (or at least as true) for this one and that there was lots more potty humour, but we found it funny. There were references to other movies that kids wouldn't get ("Darn you! Darn you all to heck!"), and I didn't find that there was any more potty humour than any other similar movie -- there was a lot more of that in Shrek, and I loved that movie. Strangely, there were a couple of references in there that looked very Disney-like, though it wasn't a Disney movie. I did find the animation a little choppy, which I thought unusual for a big-budget not-straight-to-DVD movie.

We ordered Chinese food for dinner (because I love Chinese food and it was Father's Day), and watched Tarzan II, which Gail had rented. (Yes, in case you're wondering, having the kids watch two full movies in one day is atypical) Another pretty good movie, which the kids really enjoyed. George Carlin does one of the voices, and he's really good, as always. He even had a line where he talked about someone messing with "his stuff", a reference to one of his classic stand-up routines. The animation was much better than Madagascar as well -- Disney tends to do a great job on animation on the first movie (eg. Lion King, Aladdin, Mulan), and not so good on the animation of any sequels (#2 of any of the above), but this was an exception, as was Lion King 1 1/2.

Once the kids were in bed, Gail and I started watching Hitch, with Will Smith and Kevin James (confession: had to check IMDB cause I couldn't remember his name). He's the dude from King of Queens, which I have never watched, but he was very good in this movie. The dance sequence was classic ("Q-Tip, Q-Tip, Q-Tip, throw it away"). Pretty funny movie overall, though we have about 45 minutes left to watch. Will Smith is his usual smooooooth self - I really like him.

Rock rock till you drop

When leaving the house this morning (I drive both boys to school / babysitter in the morning, Gail picks them up), Ryan mentioned that he wanted to listen to music, and Nicholas, of course, agreed. I told them that I didn't have any kids music, and they said that was OK. I happened to have Soundgarden's Superunknown in the CD player, so I put that on, and Nicholas immediately said "That's rock and roll!" Ryan was also impressed with Chris Cornell and the boys, saying "I like rock and roll music. Whenever we go anywhere, I want to listen to rock and roll music."

Wonderland Security

We went to Canada's Wonderland today - we have season passes this year. On the way in, I'm pulling the wagon with a small cooler bag in it through the metal detector and it beeps. The guard asks if I have any cans or bottles in the cooler bag. I say no and he waves me through. First of all, maybe you should be actually checking for bottles and cans rather than just asking? I did see other people pulling cans of pop out of their backpacks at one of the restaurants; obviously security missed them. When we were at Disney last year, they made us open our bags and backpacks and checked through them for that kinda stuff.

Secondly, why bother having metal detectors if you're not going to check to see why they went off? I could easily have brought in a gun, two knives, and a can of Coke, and security wouldn't have stopped me. Luckily, I'm not a can-of-Coke-wielding psycho.

Graeme the guitar god?

Not bloody likely, but I did have my first guitar lesson last Thursday. Gail bought me a month of free guitar lessons at the school silent auction back in February (for which we paid full price, so it's not like we got a deal or anything, but the money went to the school, so that's fine), and I couldn't get a convenient time until now. So I get 5 Thursday-at-7:30 lessons before I have to start paying, which I probably will. I'm very glad to be getting back into playing guitar - I've picked the thing up probably once or twice a year since Gail and I got married, so it's kind of too bad. If I had been playing a couple of times a week during those ten years, I might be pretty darn good by now.

Anyway, I'll get some one-on-one instruction, plus it'll force me to play more often, so it's all good. My first couple of songs are "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" by Green Day and the intro to "Sweet Home Alabama", both of which use the same chords (G5, C, and D, and Good Riddance has an Em in there too). I played for about a half-hour tonight, and also dug out a couple of other old books as well - I played Stairway to Heaven for the first time in ages. I used to know that one pretty well, but forgot most of it. I did get it back pretty quickly though. My instructor tells me that he's not a great guitar player, but a good teacher, though he seems like a pretty decent guitarist to my untrained ears.

Edmonton and Portland have already been added to the NLL for next season, but with the good comes the bad. It was announced this weekend that Anaheim has suspended operations for next season, so there will be a dispersal draft as well as an expansion draft. Don't know when for either one. Man, the GMs in this league must really be getting used to these drafts, with teams coming and going all the time. Most leagues have to deal with one draft per year -- the entry draft. NLL GMs have to deal with at least two and sometimes three drafts every year. It was also announced that there will be no more new teams next season, so the teams that will be playing are now set, unless someone pulls a Vancouver and pulls out at the last second.

John and Jackie (Gail's dad and stepmom) moved this past weekend, up to a house near Sundridge, about 3 1/2 hours north of here, and an hour north of my parents. Nice place - on Hwy 124 about 3km from Hwy 11, lots of land, right next to a farm (kids would probably love a tour - next visit), with a pond in the back, though John says he's going to have that filled. Not a bad idea - big time mosquito breeding ground. The house itself is a little bigger than their old place in Beachville, with a really nice sun room off the back. We went up on Friday to help move, though the moving part was way less work than the cleaning part - I must have cleaned about 12 windows, inside and out, including three huge picture windows (though Gail's brother did the outside of those). Plus cleaning light fixtures and other stuff, and occasionally making sure the boys weren't in the process of killing themselves or each other. Busy weekend - hopefully this coming week isn't as busy as last week.

With all the cleaning, referreeing, and not sleeping very well, not to mention driving 700 km on Friday and today, I'm bushed. Night all.