JVC's Almost Over

jvc47, originally uploaded by jvc_mw.

The above picture is one from my community having dinner. We were pretty good about eating together in the weeknights. At least a couple nights a week, all seven of us would eat together. Today we begin our two day trek to dis-orientation (silly name, I know), which is the unofficial end to my JVC year. I'm actually contracted to work until August 3, so it's not quite over, but it practically is.

This isn't the complete reflection on the year, but for starters, JVC has been a good experience. Of course, like all things, some of what I was expecting wasn't there, and other things that were I hadn't thought about at all. Our community wasn't hardcore spiritual (which was a semi-fear of mine). It emphasized more the personal spiritual element than the communal. The personalities in the house simply lead it to be that way. I sometimes wished we were more communally spiritual, but it just wasn't the house's personality. You get used to it, and start to enjoy the benefits of the laid-back approach.

I think we lived pretty well. Everyone probably had issue with everyone else at some point. You can't help that, though. And hopefully it brings growth. Jack Bauer and the movie Wedding Crashers were house favorites. The house was freezing in the winter (I slept next to a drafty window, so to stay warm I slept in flannel pajama pants, a sweatshirt with the hoodie up, in flannel sheets, and under 4 blankets--toasty), and hotter than it is outside in the summer, which isn't too bad until it reaches over 90 degrees. We had one car break-in (stole a radio) and one window broken. We threw at least 4 parties, not to mention impromptu beer pong. Life was good.

I think most everybody is glad they did this, if only because they had nothing else to do. Also, I think most everybody is ready to move on. That's a good place to be, I'd say.

Summerfest Rocks

Summerfest is apparently the world's largest music festival. That means, 11 days of seven main stages and multiple minor stages of music. Each stage has a headliner, and one main stage has the festival headliner. Like, on last Friday, the festival headliner was Def Leppard, but another stage had Sum 41 as it's headliner. Anyways, we got hooked up as volunteers, which means we get to go to the festival on the day we volunteer for free, and then get tickets to come back another day for free ($15 otherwise). All this for like 3 hours of ridiculously easy work.

REO Speedwagon was the first band I saw. Actually, I only saw them sing "Take on the Run" (the one the goes, "Heard it from a friend who/heard from a friend who/heard from another you been messin' around..."). The mics were all f*ck*d up, so it didn't sound good, but I can now say I hear REO live. The rest of that night was pretty uneventful for me. Saw Wolfmother (pretty cool rock band) and Jacks Mannequin (from the guy who was in Something Corporate, alternative rockish). Nothing to write home about, but that might be cause I was tired.

The next day Rocked, though! I didn't see their whole set, but I saw Styx play "Come Sail Away", followed by "Renegade" (my favorite dueling piano bar song). Absolutely awesome! Then I saw Def Leppard for an hour or so, only recognizing like 2 songs (they saved the other ones for after I left), but it was still cool. Most of them are middle-aged looking foggies, but one of their guitarists was jacked. I mean, nevermind looking good for a 40-something year-old. Jacked. I left early, cause from there...

I went to see OAR. Actually, I went to the stage they were at, forced my way to the seat-part of a picnic table, and watched them play on a monitor cause that's as close as I was gonna get. Still, it was pretty sweet seeing them play. When the finished with "Craziest Game of Poker", everyone apparently brought a deck of cards and threw them into the air. Pretty funny stuff, I thought.


Two nights ago, I worked and went to see Lewis Black do a comedy skit. He was a pretty funny guy, as usual. Talking about Santa Claus and stupid politics. Good stuff. John Mayer with Ben Folds was the main main show, but I didn't have the money to see them. AFI was also there, as was Weird Al. I think I made a smart choice with Lewis Black, but there was no shortage of talent there that night.

Last night I saw Less than Jake, and Reel Big Fish. Less than Jake puts on a pretty good show, but I didn't know a single song they played. I attribute that to me overestimating what I knew of theirs. I think I only know one song, come to think about it. "Dope Man." Wasn't played, though. Reel Big Fish, on the other hand, rocked the house, and I knew a lot of their songs. They have tons of energy, and did this one really impressive thing where they took a song of theirs and played it in different styles: reggae, ska, punk, blues, hardcore metal, as a love song, and as an old-skool hip-hop song. Amazing!

What I'm looking forward to now is G. Love and Special Sauce on Sunday. I've never seen them live before, but I'm a fan.

I also missed some sweet groups, like Razhel, Arrested Development, the Fray, ASIA, Plain White T's, Rusted Root, Keller Williams, Ludacris, etc. What a festival!

Happy belated Fourth of July, everyone.

Sounds Inviting

This is today's first reading. I like it.

Eph 2:19-22
Brothers and sisters:
You are no longer strangers and sojourners,
but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones
and members of the household of God,
built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets,
with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone.
Through him the whole structure is held together
and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord;
in him you also are being built together
into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

I think it sounds better if its removed from Paul's goal of convincing Jews that they don't need to be Jews anymore. And that's the beauty of the Bible, or all writing for that matter: the words can have so much meaning, even beyond the goals of the writer. Hermeneutics, gotta love it!