7 Thingy Thing

Posted on March 23, 2012 by esteban

— 1 —

This is my first attempt at this 7 thingy thing. If I’m really bad at it, you can blame Maria at “Another Cup of Coffee“. She’s urged me to do this from time to time. If I’m lucky, I might actually beat her to the “Publish” button this week.

— 2 —

We’ve had 5-7 inches of rain this week in Tulsa, following a drought that began a year ago. It’s been glorious! The air has that crisp cleanliness of spring and my weeds are doing just fine, thank you. Time to tune-up the lawn mower and start the Zyrtec regimen.

— 3 —

Income taxes. Ugh. We’re approaching the red zone for the filing deadline. I call it the red zone because until I join the ranks, I’ll have to endure all the Facebook posts and tweets of the folks who get theirs finished before I do. I don’t like feeling like a slacker.

— 4 —

I just finished the “A Quick Journey Through the Bible” portion of the The Great Adventure Bible study program offered through my parish. I highly recommend this series of studies. It will not make you a bible scholar or theologian (Jeff Cavins refers to it as a “helicopter flight over the Bible”), but if you’re like me and have trouble maintaining any private study of the Bible, this program will keep you moving along and give you more reasons to participate in the community life of your parish. I encourage you to look for it at a church in your area. One of them is undoubtedly doing a portion of it.

— 5 —

Do you live in Tulsa? Have you always wanted to learn some piano? Check out Megan’s Piano Lessons. I’ve been taking from Megan for two months and she’s been able to get this old dog to do new tricks, better than any of her predecessors. The method she’s using really seems to work for me and I’m having great fun with it.

(Hint: She gives lessons over Skype too!)

Sorry, no plans to release a CD any time soon.

— 6 —

My aunt says that we have gypsy blood in our veins. Everyone in my family has an insatiable love of traveling and I’m fortunate to have visited many parts of Europe and Central America. I’m pretty much ready to drop everything at a moment’s notice and hit the road. I’m pretty antsy at the moment to head west somewhere.

I’ve recently become a fan of the website “BootsnAll – One-stop Indie Travel Guide.” They regularly torment me (in a good way) with all sorts of interesting travel ideas. The post I saw today has me itching for a trip to central Europe. So much of the world left to see!

— 7 —

Umm … how did I do?

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Superbolt of Lightning, Very Very Frightening

Posted on March 20, 2012 by esteban

(Galileo!)

I had been having a rough night sleeping anyway.

Then about 3:30am, I was jolted out of sleep by something new. It had been raining and thundering all night as it was, but I sensed something different was happening.

As I became fully awake, I knew that this particular thunder had been rolling across the city from west to east for a good 10 seconds. As it passed my house, everything began to shake and the light fixture over my bed began to dance the hula. No joke. It sounded like it was ready to start dropping bits and pieces.

I started to wonder if this might actually be an earthquake, being so similar in sight and sound to the one experienced some months ago.

It took me a few seconds to focus on what was actually happening. The ground was still, but everything else was shaking.

“Thunder-quake” some are calling it. Apparently, it’s really a “super-bolt” of lightning, which occurs only 5 times out of a million bolts.

Thank God for that! I don’t think my house would take too many of those. Tomorrow I’m expecting reports of all sorts of psychotic animals and frayed nerves among the citizenry.

Here’s what the local news has to say about it.

Goodness, another weather phenomena to check off the list in Oklahoma. It does keep things interesting.

Slainte!

Posted on March 18, 2012 by esteban

I thoroughly enjoyed St. Patrick’s Day.

The day started with a fun recording of Catholic Weekend. It must have sounded fun too, because Captain Jeff accused me of having too much Irish in my coffee. I didn’t have any, actually.

Later in the day, while out running some errands, I picked up this terrific Reuben sandwich from Tulsa’s Petty Fine Foods grocery/deli. Let me tell you, this was some of the finest corned beef I’ve ever had and the sandwich, while nothing special to look at, it was proportioned just right.

I ate it in Woodward Park among the blooming red buds and some particularly twitchy squirrels.

The evening was spent with my great friends, Jim and Kerry Fox. Along with their two young daughters, we watched some basketball, enjoyed the backyard with the kids, and supped on Jim’s corned beef and cabbage. There might have been a few Irish beers too.

The culinary fare ended with this: Guinness Chocolate Cake from Antoinette’s Baking Company, and mint chocolate chip ice cream. A perfect combination I would say.

All in all, this was a 4 napkin day of good food and great friends.

Saint Patrick’s Day

Posted on March 15, 2012 by esteban

Glendalough

Near the Cliff of Moher

Near the Cliffs of Moher

Clew Bay from the top of Croagh Patrick

Glendalough

Glendalough

Hill of Tara

Glendalough

St. Brigid's Cathedral (now Church of Ireland)

Lough Derg

Kylemore Abbey

Glendalough

Cliffs of Moher

Glendalough

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On behalf of Saint Patrick’s Day, and since I’m Irish, and because I had the privilege of touring the northern part of Ireland with a group of Newman Center students in 2005, here are some photos we took that show just how idyllic the country really is.

If you can, go there. Immerse yourself. Visit the holy places. Visit the historic places. But most importantly, meet the people and share a pint with them.

Before you go, read this reflection, “Praying St. Patrick’s Breastplate”, by my buddy Pat Gohn on Patheos.com.

NewAdvent.org has the whole prayer and whole bunch of information about St. Patrick here.

Apropos

Quote

Posted on March 14, 2012 by esteban

“We do not really want a religion that is right where we are right. We want a religion that is right where we are wrong. We do not want, as the newspapers say, a church that will move with the world. We want a church that will move the world.”

- G. K. Chesterton