A recent blog by Natalia and a chance run-in with the enormous likeness of Clay Aiken (advertising his turn in Spamalot) on the side of a bus today has caused me to think.

If all the American Idols chosen throughout the years didn’t make it big afterwards—like hit albums, celebrity gossip followings, Broadway starring roles, etc.—would there be hundreds of thousands of wanna-be’s lined up across America trying to be the next “American Idol?”

Hmmm...things that make me go hmmm...

Seriously, if that indeed was the case, wouldn’t it be in Fox’s every interest to make sure that every chosen American Idol obtain not just mediocre celebrity status, but major celebrity status?

Sundays are...busy. Among other ministries during the week, on Sundays: my wife is part of the praise-worship team, and I am often an usher. There is such busy-ness at church, especially because almost everyone I know is involved in one ministry or another. And, it is not often that I feel that this is truly the Lord’s Sabbath Day for me or, sometimes, even for my friends here.

While Pastors are encouraged to—and rightfully do—take one other day to be their Sabbath (sometimes, on Mondays) to rest in the Lord, we don’t. I think it is very important to remember that. And yet, the workers are indeed few...everywhere.

If we ever get to the place where what we do is an Orthodox performance without love, that’s step one, and Satan has a foothold.
Pastor John MacArthur, Jr. | Satan’s Attacks on the Spirit-Filled Church

So, it is with utter joy to hear recent sermons, like the ones from visiting pastors King-Fai Choi (of CBCGB) and David Koo emphasize the importance of just worshipping God on Sundays rather than applying to church our worldly knowledge of how to do things successfully in the world (and thereby corrupt our worship of God).

I pray for healing, renewal and growth.

It’s been a long time since my last post (not to mention I’ve not been able to read my favorite Xangans’ posts). We’ve been extremely busy just trying our best to prepare for the baby’s coming, closing on our place, getting ready for the move and me trying to finish up at the end the company’s evil empire’s fiscal year.

I thought I’d take a trip down photo-memory lane. Here are some photos from a few years ago, when I first started at this company and I commuted 4 hours per day to and from work. It is more evident in the last 2 photos: I love night photography!!!!

75 Main Street, Dobbs Ferry, NY 10755

In the midst of madness and chaotic transition management in the last days up in Dobbs Ferry, I had drawn on a dry-erase board in the main conference room an image of this building with a maddened employee fleeing from those front doors. Unfortunately, everyone knew it was me. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately), the image on the board remained—no one wanted to erase it—through a full 2 months of meetings involving the top levels of management of the company.

The view out our 5th Floor window onto the Hudson River.

Passing by the New York Public Library walking downtown from Grand Central.

Another shot from the same corner.

Because we need to have fun at work sometimes, too! These two guard a “giant” owl named Cornelius who use to sit on a fire escape in Oceana’s Dobbs Ferry office.

Do you think I am a horrible employee?

Speaking to my wife about leaving earlier than usual this evening (to get to her parent’s home for a Chinese New Year dinner), I asked her if she could leave by 4:00PM. I got into work this morning by 8:00AM to get out by then. When she said that she couldn’t because she told her boss she’d be leaving by 4:45PM today (not earlier than usual, but on time), I asked her to leave anyway because so many people take off earlier for a variety of other things (too many to list here, but you know what I’m talking about).

My wife replied, “I can’t, [name of boss] has been really moody the last few days, not very happy.” My immediate thought in response was, “so what if she’s moody?”

EDIT: 2/7/08 @ 1500 — I should clarify. We give enough of our lives to our careers, our jobs and our bosses. And we often make excuses to ourselves, taking away our personal time (time for family, friends, God, etc.) in order to appease our bosses. I used to think that by working more and more hours, I could appease my employers and there would be some reward in that. Truth be told, there is much folly in that thinking, especially in this economic climate. Moreover, I know my wife’s boss, and she has been evil-ly manipulative to my wife many times over the years.

EDIT: 2/8/08 @ 1134 — It’s amazing how far I’ve not come.

The play that epitomized last night’s Super Bowl XLII: Giants QB Eli Manning miraculously eluding would-be sackers to deliver a 33-yard completion to WR David Tyree a few plays before the game-winning TD pass to Plaxico Burress. As even Patriots WR Randy Moss admitted after the game, the Giants simply wanted it more. What an awesome game!

Because my brother already made this for me for January, I decided to use this one before the month was over. Has anyone seen the teaser for the new Star Trek movie? For those who didn’t know, this next installment entitled simply “Star Trek” is about the earlier voyages of a younger Kirk and Spock, taking place even before the original series. It is in production and scheduled for December 2008 release.

I’m super excited. Yes, I have just outed myself as a Star Trek fan (call us whatever you will). For why I am such a fan (dating back years), that must wait for another blog entry (too much psychological, sociological significance there).

For this movie (in effect, Star Trek XI), the powers-that-be at Paramount wiped the slate clean and started from scratch, getting rid of Mark Berman (who had engineered the resurrection of the Trek franchise with “The Next Generation” TV-series in 1987 and followed with several more TV-series and movies) and replacing him with J.J. Abrams, director/producer/writer of such movies as Mission Impossible III and Cloverfield as well as the TV-series Lost and Alias.

The only thing I have trouble grasping is the casting. It makes me feel like it’ll turn out to be a comedy. While the cast includes some actors known more for their serious action roles such as Karl Urban (as Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy), Eric Bana, Ben Cross (as Sarek), Winona Ryder, there is the very visible comedic actors John Cho (of Harold and Kumar fame, as Sulu) and Simon Pegg (writer/actor in Hot Fuzz and Shawn of the Dead, as Scotty). This is too funny!

5 seconds | F3.2 | ISO 80

A few days ago, my wife and I woke up in the middle of the night to a blinding spotlight shining right into our room. This also happened to us when we first moved to Fort Lee; but then, I thought it was a helicopter shining a spotlight right at us. Well, because our building is perched atop a plateau (the famous Palisades) and we’re on the 20th floor, the moon—setting on the horizon in the early morning hours—seems just that to us, a huge 3,474 km wide spotlight.

Of course, viewed from our bed and away from the window, the moon looked even larger through the frame of the windows. Walking right up to my window and out onto the balcony to take a picture, the moon seems to decrease in size when compared to the rest of the western N.J. skyline. Perspective. Still, it’s still pretty big in the sky.

And yes, I was freezing my butt off on the balcony on the 15° night.

We had awoken early in Madrid to catch the Renfe high-speed train to Seville; so our first (half) day in Seville started off really slow and sluggish. And, as we arrived at the Santa Justa Station in this beautiful city, we realized we had forgotten to plan out our stay here. Our hotel (Hotel Alcora), on the west side of the Guadalquivir River, offered hourly shuttle bus rides across the bridge into Seville; they even picked us up from the train station.

After checking-in, we hopped back onto the shuttle for the quick 10-minute ride into Seville. Dropped off near the University of Seville and without a plan, we started to just wander around the ancient city.

The luxury hotel at Avenida de Roma just northwest of the University of Seville.
October 8, 2007

Seville (Sevilla) is the capital of both the Autonomous Community of Andalusia and the Province of Seville, and being more than 2,000 years old, has a rich history of joyful living as well as being the birthplace of the flamenco (la sevillana). In the south of Spain, we relished the 70-80° standard temperatures at this time of year, a welcome respite from the night-time chill in Madrid. Since we only started off at 4:00 PM that first day, we didn’t wander too far from the portion of Seville known as “Old City.”

A large lime tree (one of many) throughout the city.
October 8, 2007

Up from Avenida de Roma, past the Puerta de Jerez and up Avenida de le Constitucion, we made our way to obe of the oldest and largest Gothic cathedrals in the world, known simply as the Cathedral of Seville.

With S and her sister in front of the Cathedral.
October 8, 2007

A very rare moment in Spain where I’m in my own shot. We were silly and exhausted, but wanted to keep wandering through the city despite ourselves. Unlike most of the Old City, the Avenida de la Constitucion was newly-paved with concrete and carried a new trolley system that runs from the southern end (at Calle San Fernando) to the Plaza Nueva.

The Giralda Tower of the Gothic Cathedral viewed from Plaza del Truinfo.
October 8, 2007

We soaked in all the beautiful architecture and structures. This section isn’t called Old City for nothing, and I instantly knew carrying three 2GB SD memory cards on this trip was a good precaution. By trip’s end, I would fill up all three to capacity. More on the Giralda Tower and the Cathedral in the next installment, when we actually got to go inside and up top.

Postcard shopping on one of Seville’s tiny streets.
October 8, 2007

Since most of the tours (and museums) had closed for the day—the Spanish siestas usually took up most of the afternoon hours and right into the early evening—there was nothing left to do, but walk through the quaint small streets of the Old City quarters, marveling at the “life” of the Sevillian. Man, people eat at all hours, regardless of the time of day.

Looking for a restaurant, wandering on Calle Consuelo.
October 8, 2007

It was amazing to me how a street or a road on the map seemed like a normal American street; and yet, when you find it, you almost walk right past because it’s the size of an alleyway, driveway or in most cases, even smaller!

On Calle Mateos Gago, looking towards the Giralda Cathedral Tower at dusk.
October 8, 2007

With the sun almost completely set, it provided the perfect backdrop to the darkened streets and the illuminated Giralda Tower. I really enjoy capturing moments like this...

Found a restaurant on Calle Mateos Gago.
October 8, 2007

...and this, in the natural light...

The Giralda Tower.
October 8, 2007

...and these.

Plaza del Triunfo.
October 8, 2007

Dessert!
October 8, 2007

We had dessert while sitting outside a restaurant on Calle Almirante Lobo, waiting for our 11:15 p.m. shuttle bus pick-up. Everyone else (as Americans) “needed” ice cream. Me? A refreshing lemon sorbet (not pictured) hit the spot just right!

Yes, sometimes, simply wandering is a pretty good way to see a new city.

P.S. For those astute regular subscribers, you will have noticed a little difference in my photos: I removed the white border on them. It’s mostly to give more space to the photo itself, but also a change in look; I was getting bored with the borders and white looked too antiseptic. Let me know what you think! Border or no border?

Xanga. I worked on a site update last Friday night. WHAT DO YOU THINK? I extended the width to 1024 pixels because almost everyone views at higher than 800 pixels wide these days and most websites have begun to acknowledge that by expanding. And (most importantly), this gives me more space for text and pictures.

Birthdays. What a wonderful surprise celebration for malfunction54 and my birthday over the weekend, as arranged by our lovely spouses. God is so good to me. Some pictures to follow as well.

Spain. I’ve been putting together the next installment of Spain, which will be posted in the next day or so. I’m trying to make it more of a real travelogue than simply a posting of pictures, as tempting as that sounds.

Work. As my friend, Ray, said about his work this past week, “it just keeps on getting worse day after day.” Truer words have not been said of what my job has been degenerating to in the last 2-3 years, and incredibly more in the last 12 months. Unbelievably so, because face it, no one ever feels like it could get worse. Amazingly, it has. We are in disbelief. I appeal to all you wise people out there! Can someone tell me a reason to stay at a job if, despite all that you’ve put into it, you know that there will be no growth for you, for your department and the things that you’re working on?