International House of Branflakes

Saturday, 30 December 2006

...and how may I avoid serving you today?

I'm not sure I've ever been so rudely treated in a consumer transaction in all my life.

Since my first flight in August 2000, I've become quite the little sky-hopper, having caught rides on Air Canada, Air Canada Jazz, bmi (British Midland), Canada 3000, CanJet, easyJet, jetBlue, and WestJet, from 16 different airports. This past week, I added one new airport (San Francisco), and one new airline (United), and I was thoroughly underwhelmed.

In my previous US flight experiences on jetBlue, order and civility were maintained — even at their incredibly busy national hub at Logan in Boston. I was spoken to with courtesy, and was made to feel that my business was appreciated. I didn't receive any special treatment, just the manners that one expects in an interaction with another human being.

If I had to describe the scene at the United check-in gates at SFO, I might describe it as "bazaar-like". There was one woman, whose role, as far as I could tell, was to serve as some sort of carnival barker, straight out of a biography of P.T. Barnum. Every few minutes she'd walk to the front of this long line of people (next to the sign reading, 'Wait Here for Service'), and yelled (I'm paraphrasing) "*disgustedly* I don't know what you're still doing in line. It's all self check-in - staff are doing no check-ins.

I promptly went to the check-in kiosk and was told to speak to an agent. I asked the carnival barker for instructions, and she instructed me to wait in a quickly forming line for assistance. About fifteen minutes later, I was at the head of the line, and a woman came up to me, identified herself as the service supervisor, and asked me why I was standing there. I told her that a United employee had instructed me to wait there for assistance, and she said, "Well, I'm the supervisor for this area, and that's just simply not the case. You should have stayed at your machine and waited for assistance."

After reminding her that the machine instructed me to seek out assistance and that I was following the instructions of staff, she started telling staff members to stop doing what they were doing, and told me to push my way to service, otherwise I might never be called forward.

On the other hand, the United staff at YVR (Vancouver) and all the in-flight crews have been incredibly friendly and helpful. Nonetheless, if the service I received at San Francisco International Airport is typical of what I should expect, then my currently scheduled itinerary from Seattle to Halifax will be my last on United Airlines.

F––– — Would not recommend!!!!!!!!!!!

Update: My flight home at Christmas, also with United, was bumped three days late due to the Denver blizzards, and my original itinerary through Denver was changed to a, you guessed it, San Francisco routing. Aside from the three days of lateness, though, staff were significantly more helpful :)

Tuesday, 5 December 2006

The San Francisco Treat

Hi, everyone, from sunny San Francisco, where the temperature is in the high teens (high 60s for any Yankee types). The land of the Golden Gate Bridge and Rice-a-Roni is treating me very well indeed. Aside from all the falling down that I'm doing. But, anyway.
This is only a quick note and the announcement of a contest. The only prize is glory, but it might still be fun.

My first night here, I had supper at Mel's Drive-In, and it was... delicious. The shocker was, along with my really excellent hot beef sandwich with mashed potatoes, was an assortment of vegetables. On a lark, I tried one and... I LIKED IT. Cue the end credits music, Maestro. The show is over.

Walter is taking his first tentative steps toward omnivorism!

The contest: what vegetable do I like? Hint: I'm not referring to potatoes!

Glory is at stake. Get guessing, readers!

Tuesday, 24 October 2006

You Look Great in White

[I wrote this October 16, as I was flying back to BC from Ottawa.]

Have I ever told you that white is your colour? I know you're a smartass, and that you're going to say that white is a shade. And you'd be right. So shut up. That's not the game we're playing today. Really, though, you look great in white. I think it's because you're so glum and monotonous most of the time, and white just brightens you right up. It makes me forget that usually the very site of you makes me cry.

At least we're not dating, You. If I had to wait as long for someone was dating as I do for you every time we see each other, I'd have gone insane by now. Fortunately, though, we don't see each other that often. Just a couple times a year. And it's always a matter of convenience.... I'm sorry, but I don't want to lie. You always seem to be on my way to someplace I actually what to be, and I just end up dropping in.

It snowed today in Calgary. Flying in from above, Calgary always looks so grey and non-descript, like their idea of æsthetics was to coat every building and street and piece of land with a inch-thick layer of tar sand from a little further north. Today, it was white, and felt so new and clean.

Since my connection was two hours, I decided I would re-clear security. I went outside and felt the brisk wind in my hair, and let the flurries (it could hardly be called snow) fall on my face, and it was glorious. The first snowfall of the season is always one of my favourite times of the year. In Vancouver, I'll likely not get it for weeks or months, if at all this year.

In Real Time, I'm off to make my connection to Victoria now. This will actually get posted in Victoria thanks to the magic of the Internet. Toodley-doo!

[Ok, that's a lie. Internet service in Victoria was lacking like a rock lacks gentle softness. Or like I lack tact.]

[Ok, that's a lie too. The part about Internet service. Not the part about me being a tactless buffoon. I was just a forgetful buffoon as well, and forgot to post it.]

Saturday, 14 October 2006

On the Access Conference and Life in the Westin

For those of you who may not have known, I've been in Ottawa since this Wednesday morning for the Access conference, an annual, Canadian-organized but cosmpolitan gathering of library technology wonks and their friends and well-wishers. As always, the organizers put on a great program. This was my third Access conference, a trend which I hope to continue. So far, I have attended these three conferences as the employee of three different employers, the South Shore Regional Library (Halifax), Okanagan College (Edmonton), and the BC Public Library Services Branch (this year in Ottawa), thanks to assistance from the British Columbia Library Association. This is a trend which I hope not to continue.

Next year's conference is taking place in Victoria, a scant hour from where I live, and a scant(er?) thirty seconds from where my job is officially supposed to be located. This probably means that I will be involved in organizing it somehow. As Cameron Metcalfe said today, when comparing organizing Access to being married, "not a vow you should expect me to renew".

Anyway, last night I went for supper at McDonald's across the street from the Westin. Being the conference venue, that was where I stayed. Now let me tell you, the Westin is divine. The beds had to be made of clouds. And the pillows, bundles of gentle kisses wrapped in the purest silk.

...

No? Was that imagery too terrifyingly creepy for you?

Anyway, four of these Bless'd Pillows resting atop a spring-loaded box of Providence. So you get the picture. Woot. :-D

Now where was I? McDonald's. Right. So, McDonald's is across the street on rue Wellington, and I decided I wanted to look at other places first. Possibly because of the filthy zoo inside, and the teenaged couple outside screaming at each other. Overheard: "Don't you get that you hurt me when you keep getting f**ked up like that?"

I walked a little way down the street. Someone asked me for a quarter, and I saw a drug deal go down right in front of me, so I decided to turn around, and that McDonald's wouldn't be the worst choice I could make that day.

The ultimate point was, it got me thinking. Sitting on my Bless'd Pillows, covered in the Duvet Sacré that my money belongs in better places. That having been said, I refuse on principle to give money to panhandlers, because I'm afraid it might be feeding a drug habit. The exception to this rule is when I feel physically threatened, and will do it to get out to "safety".

Is this principle, though, or greed? Does it only become principle when I start tithing to charity and trying to make a difference in other ways? Am I a bad person for crossing the street and making my trip longer when I see a panhandler, just so I can avoid having to say no, and feeling guilty? Is my guilt justified? Do I ask too many pointless questions, without offering concrete (if poorly-conceived solutions)? Et cetera.

Oh, and I'm writing this from atop a concrete fence structure outside the National Gallery, overlooking the Peace Tower. Swag. No open wireless in this part of town though. Still friggin' swag.

I'm back.

(Addendum: Wedding bells are ringing. Not mine, though! Nosiree! But there's a huge church right across from the National Gallery. All of a sudden, the bells started ringing, and this huge wedding party just come out and formed immediately into this picture-shaped group, like they'd been praciticing it for months. Remarkable.)

Friday, 28 April 2006

Ach!

Hi everybody from an Internet café in sunny (yes! sunny!) Oban, Scotland.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity of a lifetime to visit Mull and the Isle of Iona, permanent home of the Iona Community. It was a moving and spiritually profound place, and I hope I'll be able to return someday. Pictures will be uploaded when I can get free or reasonably-priced Internet access at my hotel.

I love it here, and I'm sure I'll return someday.

Talk to you all soon.

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Tuesday, 11 April 2006

In This Post, I am Lazy

Greed:	Medium
Gluttony:	Medium
Wrath:	Low
Sloth:	High
Envy:	Very Low
Lust:	Medium
Pride:	Very Low

The Seven Deadly Sins Quiz on 4degreez.com

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Wednesday, 5 April 2006

Information Overload!

I think this great research paper on The Cure for Information Overload is well worth everyone's serious attention.

If you find yourself with a couple free seconds, it's worth taking a look at.

I'll be trying to post something a bit more substantial this weekend.

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Monday, 3 April 2006

...but my books only have pictures!

Borrowed (without intent to return) from Amy's LiveJournal:

Grab the nearest book.

Open it to page 161.

Find the fifth sentence.

Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

Don't search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.

"That is, character classes are limited to containing specific sets of characters, so within them you may only use metasymbols that describe other specific sets of characters, or that describe other specific individual characters.
- Larry Wall or Tom Christensen, Programming Perl
Oy.

Sunday, 26 February 2006

They Must Have Been Republican

Last week, I got to go to Oregon for fun and amusement. And work. The Code4Lib conference at Oregon State University in the sleepy town of Corvallis, population 53,000. It was an excellent conference, and I brought back a lot of neat ideas about:

improving the catalogue

pushing services out to users

the future of the Integrated Library System (and it's not looking good)

why new standards are good, but new library standards are bad

why libraries insist on reinventing the wheel (a hard job) when lots of good wheels already exist, and our time would be better spent inventing a bolt that meant we could use existing wheels (an easier job) and taking the newly-found extra time to pay attention to things we've ignored

beer, and that librarians seem to love it

Lots of people in the library blogosphere (particularly Art Rhyno and Peter Binkley who I happen to read regularly) can talk about these ideas in a way more intelligent way than I can. Maybe when I grow up, I can be like them.

My amusing anecdote comes courtesy of our always delightful and well-armed friends at Customs and Border Protection, a division of the USCIS. They asked me my reason for going to the States, and I explained I was going to a conference for people working in library technology, and I handed them the conference information form.

Code4Lib is a loosely structured camp/conference for library technologists to commune, gather/create/share ideas and software, be inspired, and forge collaborations, said the form. "Loosely structured? Commune?", the gentlemen with the rubber gloves opined. "You can tell this thing is in Corvallis."

Oregon, as you may not be aware is a hotbed of American liberalism, the likes of which is seen in few other states. For example, Oregon is the only state which permits physician-assisted suicide. Said Stephen Colbert, when talking about the odds of the Seattle Seahawks losing the Superbowl (pretty good), it's "not that Seattle doesn't have guts: it's sandwiched dangerously between two Canadas. Canada Canada and Oregon, California's Canada. Now, save your letters, Oregon; I don't read anything written on birch bark." I'm pretty sure they were Republican.

Also, Americans can be dumb. I present to you, faithful readers, for your amusement, The American Fueling Experience.

100% Gasoline. For seriously.

Back with more real opinions and thoughts about stuff soon. :-)

Saturday, 17 December 2005

I'm... It?

I sucked at tag so bad. It was the late 1980s, and I was a chubby little bugger with a broad smile, a poor diet, big hair and completely un-aerodynamic curls. That, and I hated every kind of physical activity that my parents tried to get me involved in: hockey, soccer, ..., that's about it, actually. What's with my siblings doing figure skating, tennis, badminton, basketball, track and field, volleyball, floor hockey and just about every other sport imaginable, but I only got to try two before they gave up on me.

Tag was that thing that was sort of like baseball, except there weren't bases, and there weren't balls, and you just ran a lot. It was like baseball in that people always seemed to know where I was going, and got there first to make me "it". And I would then be it forever. It sucked bad.

So anyway, to relate this anything I care about (and it's a stretch), I got "tagged" recently. Apparently, on the Internet, it's now classé to fill out irritating Internet surveys and tag your friends to answer them, otherwise YOU'LL BE UNLUCKY IN LOVE FOR SEVEN YEARS AND ANYBODY YOU TRY TO DATE WILL GET CRUSHED BY A FERRY BOAT.

Today's iteration: Five Weird Habits of Walter Branflakes

If I'm in a bathroom with a bathtub or shower, I need to check behind the shower curtain/door before I... deal with the matter at hand — even my own bathroom, in my locked apartment. What it someone were to be hiding in there?So, peoples, do the neurotic a favour. Open your shower curtains.

If I'm in a public place and hear people singing or a band playing instruments, I invent a harmony line for the music at hand and join in (very quietly).

I conduct the radio, which can get hairy when the radio doesn't seem to have a defined beat. It also looks pretty silly, and can get dangerous when you drive a standard like I do.

I hate the phone so bad that I haven't called one person outside my family since I moved to BC. I feel really bad about it, since there are a lot of people I miss really terribly back home, and the Internet isn't the communication medium everyone makes it out to be.

I quote things a lot. Movies, television, music, family, co-workers, political figures. I figure that if it's good enough to be quotable, it will probably express my idea with more... moreness... than I ever could. The Japanese call that umami, like the taste sensation you get from MSG. My friends call it annoying.

So that's my list. Who will I tag?

~~Tricky~~? Taken. ~~Minako~~? Taken. ~~Jenni~~? Taken. ~~Marilyn~~? Taken. I got in the game too late.

Let's go with: Nancy, Lauren, Heather, Kristin, and MEAT.

Most likely to do this? Lauren.
Least likely: MEAT. I don't even know if he exists any more. As far as I know, nobody's talked to him in ages.

Everyone is pretty unlikely, actually, but that's the name of the game, I guess.

Friday, 9 December 2005

On Atonement

I received the most interesting comment from a perfect stranger named Tim on my last post. For those who don't addictively read my comments, I wanted to share it and provide some thoughts.

Initially quoting me, he says: "Heâ€™s so hell-bent on making someone pay for defiling the world He created for us that he needs to find one person to carry all those sins, and then to die for them. And would it be good enough for any old person to do that. No. He has to concieve a Son, because this salvation business ainâ€™t nothinâ€™ but a Family Thing."

He then continues on his own: That's probably the weirdest way I've ever heard anyone talk about atonement. But you realize what you said? That's actually what makes Christianity amazing... It's not that he's "hell-bent on making someone pay" in the way that a criminal desires vengeance. It's Justice, and it makes perfect sense... God is holy, pure, righteous, and just. It's really popular to talk/think like you're talking, but what's it based on? Intuition? Since I'm a fan of the Bible, here's an interesting bit that deals with our perception of Christ from the letter to the Corinthians that Paul (the guy in the Bible) wrote:

[He then quotes 1 Corinthians 1:18-31. I have redacted it to this link from the NRSV, though he quoted New King James. Every translation has its place.]

Anyway, if you actually read that; don't you think it's cool? Maybe it's kind of hard to wrap your head around without reading more of the Bible, but I just have to say that the Bible is actually an amazing book. You can read the same stuff so many times and if you are reading to learn (not necessarily with the intent of proving or disproving your point of view, for as Plutarch so wisely said- "It is impossible for anyone to learn that which he thinks he already knows"), you will learn!

I'm not trying to provoke hostility here.. I know that people tend to get hostile or frustrated when one quotes the Bible, but the Bible really ought to be quoted in the context of God. I went through a pretty major crisis of faith when I started university (I'm a Geology student, so it had to happen!), so I just wanted to share that... I don't even know how I found this blog, actually. Kinda random. So that's that.

Contrary to Tim's implication, I own a Bible, and I've even read some of it. Paul is one of my favourite writers, for it is in the closing of some of Paul's letters, particularly 1 Corinthians — "Stand firm in your faith; be courageous, be strong. Let all you do be done in love." — and 1 Thessalonians — "Encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." — that we find this distilled essence of what it means for us to be Christian.

The reason why what I say sounds about atonement sounds weird is we look at atonement differently. You think of substitutionary atonement; that is, that Jesus died on the cross in our place, individually and collectively, as propitiation for our sins. Propitiation is exactly where my problem lies — that Jesus must die in order for "it [to] become consistent with [God's] character and government to pardon and bless sinners." (Propitiation – Wikipedia). If I believe in atonement at all, which is questionable at best, I believe in the moral influence view of it, in which Christ's death is not a substitute for our own, but an exemplar of God's great love and the devotion and obedience of the Christ.

I cannot comprehend substitutionary atonement for the same reason I cannot comprehend the death penalty, because I find justice in compassion and forgiveness, not revenge. Say, for example, that I kill another person, a member of your family. How does my death equate with justice; surely it does not return your family member to you. Likewise, I sin, and God will forgive my sins, thus saving me from death, but only if someone (the Christ) is punished for my sins instead. My trouble comes in that God cannot simply forgive.

Tuesday, 22 November 2005

Crisis of Faith

Let me set the stage for you.

It's right around Passover in the year 7 or 8 CE, a nice spring day in Nazareth. There's going to be wedding the next day; all the preparations are ready. There are three characters in our little scene:

Levi, who is called Biff: the protagonist, and narrator. A Jewish boy, apprenticed to his father as a stonecutter, about 13 years old. Funny, irreverant. (Hopelessly) in (hopeless) love.

Joshua: another young boy, again around 13. Very philosophical, and incredibly wise for his age. Kind and honest. Biff is his best friend.

Maggie: a young Jewish woman, also about the same age. She's the bride in this wedding, betrothed to Jakan, the son of Iban, a Pharisee and important member of the Sanhedrin. As appalling as at might seem to us, remember that 13 or 14 was a routine age for marriage in the Promised Land in those times.

Right. So, to contine, Maggie is (not-so) secretly in love with Joshua, and Biff is (not-so) secretly in love with Maggie. Biff is also in love with Joshua's mother, Mary, but only in a sort of mainly joking "she's my backup wife" sort-of way. So anyway, it's the day before Maggie's wedding, and she asks Biff to get Joshua to meet her that evening. Joshua knows it's so Maggie can profess her feelings for him. He knows he can't carry through on anything he might feel for her, so he asks Biff to go in his place, and pretend to be him, so Maggie's feelings won't be hurt.

I fell backward on the ground and there was in my head a bright light, and the rest of the world existed in the senses of touch and smell and God. There, on the ground beside the synagogue, Maggie and I indulged desires we had carried for years, mine for her, and hers for Joshua. That neither of us knew what we were doing made no difference. It was pure and it happened and it was marvelous. And when we finished we lay there holding each other, and Maggie said, "I love you, Joshua."
"I love you, Maggie," I said. And ever so slightly she loosened her embrace.
"I couldn't mary Jakan without—I couldn't let you go without—without letting you know."
"He knows, Maggie."
"Biff?"
I thought she might scream, that she might leap up and run away, that she might do any one of a hundred things to take me from Heaven to Hell, but after only a second she nuzzled close to me again.
"Thank you for being here," she said.

- excerpted from Lamb, by Christopher Moore

If you haven't figured it out already, Maggie is better known today as Mary Magdala, or sometimes Mary Magdalene. She is the one, scripture says, who found Jesus' tomb empty the first Easter morning. She was with him in his last days, and one can assume, through much of his ministry as well. Joshua is just Greek for Jesus, so it's not that much of a stretch. And Levi, who is called Biff is Jesus' childhood best friend.

Purists would complain that the character of Biff completely fictional, and that including Jesus as a character in a story with extra-marital relationships (for which he is in part responsible) is nothing short of blasphemy. I think they're wrong. Though very little is written about it, it's very likely that Jesus lived a largely normal childhood, had friends, played, and did everything else a normal child did in the first century.

There's something about the humanity in this portrayal of Christ that I like, that he was one of us. The book as a whole is, of course, wickedly funny, and I recommend you find a copy of it at your local public library, and read it just as soon as possible.

But that brings me to my recent crisis of faith. Did Jesus' humanity appeal to me in this portrayal because I already think of him as a person? Am I so unsure in my faith that I can't even say for sure that Jesus was the Son of God? Was Jesus anything more than a worker of miracles, a man of wisdom and kindness and acceptance, and a prophet of God?

I've puzzled over these questions for a little bit, and haven't come any closer to finding answers that work for me. I still find church (when I go) to be a place where I feel at home. I'm surrounded there by by a love largely rooted in a God that maybe none of us is understanding correctly, speaking about and listening to fallible scriptures written by people with biases and prejudices just like us, singing hymns of praise with memorable tunes, and words of questionable accuracy. It's a comfortable place, but having said what I just have, my presence there feels almost quasi-apostate.

It's not that I have a problem in my relationship with God. He or She, and I, are doing just fine, thank you very much. We even talk once in a while, though it's not as often as I feel I should. My trouble is, the belief system to which I allegedly adhere places the divinity of his Son front and centre. While I can accept and believe (without proof, I might add) that God exists and that he loves me, the precise nature of his son seems... insignificant.

When I was still discerning for ministry just a year ago, one question I was asked was to describe what I believed God was. And I said, "I believe that God loves me, and all the rest is crap." It just doesn't matter. It would seem that Christian doctrine disagrees with me.

How do I put Christian doctrine as it exists, and my fractured, shattered belief system back together?

Sunday, 6 November 2005

On Mission

Mission is not a small word.

Don't get me wrong. Phonetically, it only has two syllables. In this sense, it is a much smaller word than, say, onomatopoetically, or pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, or even, syllable. These words, tounge-tying as they may be, express not horrifically exciting, or broad, or significant concepts [though you might disagree if you're a fictional coal miner afflicted with pneumonoult...]

Mission is not a small word. A mission can be a journey or a quest, sometimes military, of some significance. A mission statement is a statement of beliefs which one will follow, a credo, a motto, a set of guiding principles. Mission is the name of several places, including towns in British Columbia (in the Fraser Valley, near Abbotsford), South Dakota and Texas.

I live in an area of Kelowna called the Mission. It's an almost exclusively residential area, with reasonably sized (for a city) lots, green space, foliage, beautiful mountain views, schools and not a lot of traffic. The specific area I'm in seems to have been built in the 1970s, and not renovated for modernity's sake since then. As a result, my apartment is in a house with a stucco'd exterior, and the inside is covered with enough dark wood panelling to heat this place for an entire winter.

I've also noticed that, for a city of its size, Kelowna has an inordinate number of churches, a large number of them highly conservative theologically, and extremely evangelical in practice. A result is a truly amazing number of religious schools: Catholic, Lutheran, Pentecostal (the Kelowna "Christian" School, as though the rest of the church-run schools aren't, I suppose), and so on. I wonder if this trend of evangelism has a historical basis in Kelowna's founding. If Kelowna's early years saw developed focused in what is now the downtown, a particularly eager group of Christians, perhaps, set out to take God's message to the (then) more rural, unchurched areas, and thus started the Okanagan Mission. I don't know if that's true, but it seems plausible.

These observations were drawn together by my experience travelling to Kelowna from Nova Scotia; six days in a car travelling across New England, Ontario, the US Midwest, Saskatchewan and Alberta. I was struck by the pervasiveness of radio in the United States.

Let us consider, for example, a typical Canadian conurbation (one of my new favourite words). I'm going to use Pictou County, in Nova Scotia: New Glasgow, Stellarton, Trenton, Westville, and for kicks, the slightly distant Pictou town, total population around 35 000. I could just as easily use the cities of Vernon or Penticton here in British Columbia, which are similar in size. Pictou County has one local radio station, CKEC, and a CBC transmitter. Compare that with Minot, a city of 36 000 in northwestern North Dakota, which has ten radio stations, several of them locally originating, and six of them self-describing as "Christian radio".

This is not something isolated to small Minot. Driving on Interstate highways, far away (for the most part) from large cities, one is exposed to mainly AM radio, which propogates over greater distances. The majority of stations I was able to receive were either Christian radio or conservative talk radio. Sadly, I don't think I heard Air America Radio once. Several of the programs I listened to really disturbed me. One was a program extolling the virtues of (I swear I am not making this up) Christian financial planning.

In one call, the hosts advised a man to quit the part-time job which helped him to support his family. The reason: he was selling beer at the local stadium at sporting events, and this wasn't Christian. Sure, his family might not be able to eat. Sure, he wasn't having any himself. But God has a plan; he'll provide. What absolute "God has a plan for you; it's just not this, because you'll obviously be damned forever, because we think the Bible says so" Calvinist crap. I think. I really need to read more theology. Then I'd know whether it's Calvinist or not.

The other thing that really bothered me was a letter from the mother of a three-year old, who wrote (ostensibly for the three-year old — yes, really) about how she loved witnessing (that's a friendly word for evangelizing) people by handing out Christian-themed pamphlets to people while in a grocery store, because, seriously, who's going to be mean and turn down a three-year old girl? It bothers me because the girl can't possibly understand the Message (capitalized for the evangelicals who are reading) she's sharing. At best, she understands that Jesus was born in a church filled with hay and cows on Christmas Day, and that church is where she goes to play in the Nursery on Sunday.

Coming up next: pictures (I hope!), and a possible crisis of faith.