Someone spilled the mashed potatoes and gravity

So, let me first say how much I love people who are currently in Thailand. I thank both Matt and Michelle for their friendship and support over the last little while it has meant a great deal, and to receive emails from both of you this morning was a total and complete blessing.

Ok, now, I realize I haven’t been to philosophical, or introspective lately, but I can’t do much about that, I haven’t had the time or energy to be either introspective or philosophical so I am guessing the majority of my updates in the next week or so will be detail and event oriented. And I think that’s ok, and if you don’t, well then whoopadee do! Ok, something was brought to my attention that I think is worth mentioning. As you may or may not recall, a couple of updates ago was depressing as I quoted the entire song “Something’s Missing” by Grammy Award Winning Artist John Mayer. Well, in an email from Michelle, she stated quite simply and quite truthfully that John Mayer needs Jesus. He has all that stuff, and friends and wealth, and success and so on, but still something was missing. So I agree that John Mayer does need Jesus, and as weird as it seems, I think I am going to pray for him, because he needs it, and many times when you know that there is something missing in your life, some greater sense of purpose or whatever, you are on a path that can be turned toward Jesus, which would be a great thing if you ask me. So even though it seems strange, I am going to pray for John Mayer. Also, that’s what I needed last week. I felt alone and discouraged and sick, and it seemed like the world was caving in on me, but it’s because I for some reason refused to seek strength and courage in Christ, my bad!

Anyway, so that’s that. On the last Monday of every month, Kyle, Shawn and I go to this leadership training, or building time in Sherwood Park, put on by the Alliance Church there. It’s called Emerging Young Leaders, and we meet and we learn another aspect of life that could help us grow in our leadership and so on. Last night we talked about Mentorship, but that’s not where I was going with this. Yesterday, Kyle and I went into Edmonton a bit early, to hit a couple stores, maybe have supper together and just have a day out of Vermilion, which was cool. We went to Old Navy, got some jeans and some shirts. I got a shirt that say’s “Kiss Me I’m Irish”, I’m not really Irish, so the shirt is kind of a lie, but who knows, it might one day work to my advantage, or possibly my demise, depending on who is doing the kissing. Then we hit the bank to deposit our cheques in our depleted bank accounts. Ok, well I should say, my depleted bank account, and from there we visited Christian Publications. I picked up two books. One is for the class I took in Calgary, it’s called “A Post-Modern Primer” or “A Primer for Post-Modernism” I can’t remember the name, but it’s by Stanley J. Grenz. I have fond memories of Nintendo and Nachos and Stanley Grenz. If I remember correctly, he signed my roommate Jon Kramer’s poster too…good times. I also bought a book called “Messy Spirituality” by the late Michael Yaconelli. He is supposed to be one of the God-Fathers of Youth Ministry and a wonderful guy, so when I saw his book, I did an impulse buy and picked it up. I also looked at some Henri Nouwen books, because I have read one of his books and really enjoyed it, and also I have heard him talked about a great deal in the last while, so I thought maybe I would pick up one of his books. Here’s the thing with Nouwen books that drives me crazy. They are tiny, thin, little books, some of them have to be less then 100 pages, yet they are some of the most expensive non-commentary books in the stinkin store! So I haven’t bought anymore Henri Nouwen yet.
From there, Kyle and I made our way to Sherwood Park where we had an early Supper at Boston Pizza. It was decent, although I imagine any Subway Sub made by my sister Ashley (who, on top of being the best Subway Sandwich Artist Ever, is also going to CBC in the fall, how exciting!) would’ve been a billion times better, unless it was a seafood sub, cause those look gross and I would never order one of those! Unfortunately, dinner was quick and we were at the Church over an hour and a half early for the meeting, so Kyle and I sat in the car and chatted as we gazed upon the romantic sunset, which we both commented on.

Anyway, where am I going with this? Oh yeah, after our session on mentoring, which was good by the way, if you have anything to say about mentoring, I would be interested to hear it, we began the long road back to Vermilion. We got into two discussions, the first one was about mentoring, since we had just been learning about it. The second was much longer then the first. We discussed what would happen if all of the sudden, we on earth were without gravity for ten consecutive seconds. This was an intense discussion as to the kind of catastrophic effects it would have on humanity, and I think we covered every possible angle, from people who jump at the exact second we lose gravity, to whales and dolphins jumping in the air, do the effects it would have on sleeping people, to the velocity at which you would begin to float, if you would begin to float, basically, if there was a question you could have regarding what would happen if you were without gravity for ten seconds, we asked it. By the end we were laughing and crying hysterically, because our conversation had become so intense over certain aspects of the theory that we couldn’t help but laugh like crazy, which was dangerous cause Kyle’s eyes were blurring from the tears and it was pretty foggy out to begin with, but we made it ok.

OK, so I am now going to make this even longer, because I just found out that Kyle (the guy who I had this gravity discussion with) wrote about it on his bebo journal thing, and it is so funny so, here it is for you to read and discuss at will.

“I sit here in my office, taking a coffee break (but without coffee or any beverage for that matter). A thought to ponder... it may not be worth your time to think about, but it sparked a interesting debate between my intern and I.
Here's the deal... What if...? What if gravity disappeared from the earth for 10 seconds, and nobody knew that it was going to occur? Assuming that breathing would remain intact, how would it affect this planet? Mass disaster? Minor disaster? How? Here are some of our thoughts...
1) It would depend greatly on WHEN the 10 seconds occurred... if it was day in the 10/40 window (greatest popluated area of the planet) then the disaster would probably be more substantial.
2) I thought that if people jumped they would be in quite a bit of trouble, because the force they used to push off the earth would keep them propelling at that same speed until the 10 seconds of non-gravity expired. Mike says that not that many people would jump at the exact same time... I say there are ALOT of people on this planet... probably quite a few would be jumping in some fashion or another.
3) Driving would cause the most disaster as cars would maintain their speed yet slowly drift off the ground... this would be disastrous almost anywhere in the world (except Antartica and the North Pole).
4) People diving off boats into the ocean would be pretty dead... especially if they were on their way up when the gravity disappeared. Mike thinks maybe 40 people would be diving. I think there are alot of people on earth.
5) Whales that are surfacing would come floating out of the water, BUT all the water they propel towards the sky would also come floating up... it would be a big splash in alot of places when the 10 seconds expire.
6) Planes would probably remain the safest mode of transportation.. because they would just float, unless they are taking off which would really stink for the passengers, who might be launched up close to exiting the atmosphere.
7) Everyone who was shooting a Toyota commercial would probably raise up about 200-300ft before the time expired... they'd leave a nice mark on the pavement... or on the Toyota.
8) Kangaroos would all end up on the Great Barrier Reef or in the Ocean (they would be modern day Dodo birds).
9) Anyone going to the bathroom would be in for a nasty surprise.
10) You could fly around if you had aerosal containers to direct you.
11) People would definitely be freaked out and it would be the talk of the world for the next 2000 years.
12) Mountain climbers would be thankful for the extra boost.
Please feel free to add your comments to this article... there are many things we have overlooked I'm sure. I guess we can never really know what will happen until the gravity does disappear for 10 seconds. I'll end with a couple quotes...
"...if our gravity disappeared It'd blow my mind!" ~ Mike Schalin"
... whoa!" ~ John Olerud
"What's gravity?" ~ Englebert Humperdink”

So that is my discussion with Kyle, and I will make the rest of this short. Song of the Day: “Question Mark” by the late Elliott Smith. It’s a gooder and I listened to it this morning while I was in the shower. If you have the desire and or the means, check it out. Sorry that this update was so long Tim, I know you can’t handle these huge updates, but there was not much I could do about it, it all just came flowing out like a river, that flows, really fast, and doesn’t stop….Peace