moonlight spills on comic books

- Jane has been in town since Tuesday night, that's been great. I took her with me to the soup kitchen yesterday which she enjoyed. It was good to show her how I spend my Wednesdays. I had a meeting at New Brunswick Seminary in the morning and we ran into a camp friend Kyle, who we had lunch with. It was a nice unexpected surprise. We intended on going rock climbing this afternoon but it's raining here which put a damper (pun intended) on those plans, so we went to the movies instead. We saw "Watchmen." I am still trying to figure out if I liked it or not. It was depressing yet also thought provoking. I can see why it has gotten mixed reviews though.
- We're heading to Upstate for the weekend since Miriam is preaching at Bellevue. Unfortunately I will not get to hear her since I am heading back on a train Saturday night. It's confirmation Sunday at Westfield and I really need to be there. If the trains run on schedule the trip should only take about 30 minutes longer than driving and I'll be able to get some good work done.

And oh it's gonna drop, gonna fill your cup

I've gotten on this kick of only updating once a week but life has been fairly normal as of late, nothing much to report beyond the daily grind. March is that type of month, huh? I remember back in grade school March was a supper lame month because you got one day off during the whole month for staff development but the month dragged on forever. March meant spring break in college but in seminary it means reading week which means midterms. And above all that March is a pretty gray month. So it's not surprising that March becomes a basic, simple, day in day out, daily grind type of month. That said, here's what's been going on:
- Good week. Sun was out a lot. I like the sun. The beer I brewed for the Smokey Mountain trip was bottled on Monday, hopefully it turns out good.
- Good weekend. We went to a preaching event on Friday night called "You Say I Preach Like a Woman?" featuring three sermons from my female classmates. It was good and a nice affirming event that women are indeed called just the same as men. Saturday was Miriam's bosses dad's memorial service. It was a very good service, really a good time of remembering the life he lead and the people he influenced. Sunday was church stuff as usual which is always fun and as spring rolls around becomes more and more exciting and energetic.
- That said, I am nearing the end of my time at the Presbyterian Church of Westfield and trying not to think about it too much because it's sad to think about leaving. I've put in 3 years with the youth of this church and I've grown so much because of my time there, it will surely be a place I'll never forget. So let's stop talking about it because it makes me sad.

took it to the chop shop, got the dang top dropped

- Miriam was in DC this weekend which means I got very little accomplished. For example, this blog post about Miriam being gone and me getting nothing done was meant to be published yesterday. I did get some reading done which was good and finished up a paper. Having this whole week off and doing school work the entire time meant that I was pretty drained and loath to do any work but I did.
- I am getting really pumped for the trip to the Smokies with Miriam's family coming up in a couple weeks. I brewed a batch of beer for the trip and will bottle either tomorrow or Tuesday. Hopefully it turns out as good as my first batch!
- This week starts my final 5 weeks of seminary, one of which will be spent hiking (sweet!). It's really hard to believe I'm nearly done. Pretty soon I will be a Master of Divinity and will prefer to be called Master of Divinity Barnes much like Ph.D's go by Dr. So-and-So (I think Master of Divinity sounds cooler, kind of like He-man, Master of the Universe).
- I finally purchased the new TV on the Radio album yesterday. I really enjoyed their first two albums but the iTunes samples for the new album didn't sound that great when I first listened to them. I went back and listened to them yesterday and bought the album right away. I've listened to it 3 times already, it's really good.

the harrowing adventures of...

- We had a great weekend. Saturday's weather was marvelous. I had an ultimate frisbee game in the morning complete with a muddy field. I rode my bike back and forth from the game since it was so nice. It was my first time on the bike in a month, probably and it showed. It's amazing how in riding a lot you get so comfortable on the bike and how you lose that a bit when you don't ride. In the afternoon we checked out a collegiate bike race over at the University, it was a lot of fun. In the Men's A race, a Princeton Senior Nick Frey dominated the field. We find out from someone in the group we were hanging out with that he is basically a professional and went to the world championships this year representing the USA under-23 team. He's beast. We rode our bikes back and forth from the race, taking advantage of the sunlight and nice weather.
- Sunday brought its normal routine with a little bit of tiredness from the springing ahead but I managed.
- No classes this week but lots of work to do. I am preaching at Westfield tomorrow evening for a lenten service and I've got two paper due early next week. Needless to say I'll be busy this week!

ghost under rocks

I'm sitting in a coffee shop in Princeton listening to Sigur Ros and trying to sermonize. How's it going you ask? I'm blogging right now...you tell me. I have to preach for a lenten service at Westfield on Tuesday. Normally I'd be practically done with my sermon by now but alas, I am not.
This week has been a lot less busy that the last. Nothing too exciting this week other than the half snow day on Monday. It allowed me to get caught up on some work even if I still had class in the afternoon. Pretty laid back weekend this weekend, first one in a while. The weather should be pretty nice which is a plus. We're hoping to catch a few of the bike races going on over at the university on Saturday which should be fun. Their doing a criterium race (read: short course, lots of turns, lots of laps) on the university campus which should be pretty fun to watch.
That is all for now.

represent queens but raised up in brooklyn

- We went to the city twice this week, oh my! It's funny, prior to going to India I was overwhelmed by the city and it made my anxious as all get out. Since going to India, NYC seems like Wyoming, needless to say these trips were actually fun and not too intense.
- Miriam had to go into the city for work on Thursday so I met up with her in the afternoon. We met up on the Upper West Side and went to the RCA offices on Riverside, right on the Hudson. The woman we were meeting had a corner office on the 18th floor staring down the Hudson towards downtown, it was awesome! We met up with one of Miriam's friends for dinner and had some good Thai in the Hell's Kitchen area. We then headed to the Lower East Side to The National Underground to hear one of our favorite bands play (Basement Band). They were supposed to go on sometime between 8:30 and 9 but didn't go on until 9:40. Miriam was exhausted from getting the 7:30 train into the city so we only stayed for about 6 songs and then headed back to Princeton.
- Saturday we headed in to meet up with Jane, who had extra tickets to Will Ferrell's one man show "You're Welcome America." We hung out before the show, walked around visited Central Park, had lunch and then caught the show. The show was hilarious, a bit raunchy at times but so funny. Ferrell did a fantastic job and we had seats in the front row of the balcony which was sweet.
- I helped in worship today and totally messed up the call to the offering, it was embarrassing. I finished the prayers of the people and turned around to Tina saying, "you need to do the call to offering." I completely blanked and just said "And now...the offering." It was absurd but I recovered a little. On a better note though we went to an Indian restaurant for lunch and had Dosa's which were one of my favorite things from India. Very good.