Technologically Deprived

Do you every feel like God is laughing at you? Well, recently I have had that feeling.

Last weekend my pastor talked about giving up TV and the Internet for a month. He didn't mention it as challenge but something he had done a few months ago and he talked about some of the benefits of it. I decided to go ahead and do the TV end of it, especially since BSF ended I have found myself turning on the TV and then just not turning it off even though there is nothing worth watching on and then I end up wasting a lot of time. But I did have a stipulation ~ if there was something on that I wanted to watch I was going to watch that one show. But I decided against giving up the Internet because I thought all I really do on the Internet is read my friends blogs and recently I have become started to look at news sites pretty frequently and I thought what is the harm in that.

Apparently God had something else in mind. I got home from work Wednesday and I couldn't get an Internet signal so I turned on the TV and I got the same thing ~ nothing! So when Comcast came out to figure out the problem it turns out the cable running from the box on the side of my building to my townhouse got cut, probably by the lawn care guys. Anyway, normally they would just throw down a new cable and have someone else come out and bury it later but because I am in a townhouse they can't do that. There are 3 townhouses between me and the box and therefore 3 sidewalks and that would be a trip hazard. So Comcast is suppose to come out and place a new cable and bury on July 9. JULY 9TH! Without cable I get one channel and all I have seen on it is Matlock and Tellabuddies, not that matters but the sound is too fuzzy to actually hear anything. So now I get survive 2 weeks without any TV or Internet. All weekend I kept thinking "The whole world around Denver could blow up and I would never know it." I couldn't even check the weather. By Sunday afternoon I decided to come to work and check my email and the news sites to make sure nothing did blow up. It is bad enough that my cell phone hardly works in my house but now I have nothing else. For the functional technology I have in my home it could be the 1950's.

So now I am waiting to see what God is going to teach me through all this. Maybe just the idea that I can survive without it? We'll see. July 9th seems like a long way away still and I know at some point during the holiday weekend I will come into the office to check my email and double check that the world around Denver didn't blow up. If you hear of something you think I need to know about please call. (But be forewarned my cell phone will probably drop you ~ several times if we give it the opportunity.)

Let's Go Red Wings!

So this is a little late and I considered not doing this post at all but I decided to go forward with it. To celebrate I thought I would share some of my favorite photos, quotes and tidbits of information that that I have found since they won.



So this is the traditional photo of the team on the ice with the cup. As a side note, I spent time looking for Steve in this photo and couldn't find him. I later read that he didn't think it was his place to go down on the ice after they won so he didn't. Honorable but I find it rather annoying.

Henrik Zetterberg with the Conn Symthe (given to MVP of the playoffs) during the parade. I like his use of it as a hat.

Russ and I like to joke about the Red Wings being the Swedish National Team because they have quite a few Swedish players. Here are the Swedish Red Wings (that played in the playoffs, there are actually few more who didn't play so not in this picture) with the trophies the Wings had won up to that point. So the players are (left to right) Tomas Holstrom, Andreas Lilja, Henrik Zetterberg, Nicklas Lidstrom, Mikael Samuelsson, Niklas Kronwall, and Johan Franzen. And I had to do some research on this one but the trophies are (left to right) the Jennings (given to the goalie(s) who gave up the fewest goals during the regular season), the Campbell Bowl (given to Western Conference champions), Stanley, the President's Trophy (given to the team with the best record in the regular season), and the Conn Symthe (again given to the MVP of the playoffs). You really have to watch hockey to realize what an accomplishment it is to win all of these in a single season.

This picture is actually from game 4 (I think) of the finals. It freaks me out - I have nightmares about this kind of thing but I like the picture.

This is Pavel Datsyuk with the 2 trophies he won at the NHL awards on Thursday night. The one on the left is the Lady Byng (given for the most gentlemanly conduct) and the on the trophy on the right is the Selke (given to the player to the most defensive forward). He took the puck away from an opposing player 144 times during the regular season which is 82 games long. That is impressive, it is really impressive to watch do it. And again you have to really watch hockey to realize just how good he is.

When I went to the Wings-Avs game during round 2 of the play-offs it occurred to me that I haven't picked a new favorite player since Steve retired and Pavel is in currently in the lead. You don't get to hear him talk very often because he isn't very good at English. Here are a few example from the Detroit Free Press:

Datsyuk left the awards show with a good joke. Asked what he'd done the past
week, he was quick with a reply.
"I try to ask my wife because I not remember," Datsyuk said. "I remember party, but don't remember how I wake up at home."

Just as long as you didn't drive home Pavel.

And on Thursday night for the first time they gave out a new award for a lifetime achievement award in hockey - and it was given to Mr. Hockey Gordie Howe. They had a great little clip on him which can be seen on the Detroit Red Wings website if you actually interested.

And lastly Chris Osgood and Nick Lidstrom were on Jay Leno last week. I thought it was pretty funny - you can watch it here if you would like to. http://ballhype.com/video/red_wings_bring_stanley_cup_on_leno/

And hockey withdrawl has already began because now there is nothing new going on and the Detroit papers have nothing to say about hockey.