Happy Birthday Weekend

That was a long full weekend.
Friday started off with our annual Technical Services Department inventory where we try to account for all the books, etc. that Voyager says we have in various departmental locations. Of the nearly 400 items I was responsible for I found all but four. One of those I'm positive is buried in my office. One I'm pretty sure is just gone. The other two I don't think anybody'll miss but hopefully they'll turn up somewhere. It's a long, hard process but I'm glad we do it. After work I joined a professor from the college for a game of The War of the Ring. It was supposed to involve a team from the library and a team from Information Technology but it ended up just being me and Dr. Fratt. He took the basic game, which is based on the events depicted in The Lord of the Rings, and turned it into a huge elaborate setup. He made a massive map of Middle Earth, maybe 6'X12' and then set up mountain ranges and fortresses and has lots of miniature soldiers as well as 6" LotR action figures. We played for a few rounds over a couple of hours as he taught me the game. It was fun. After that I headed up to Grayslake, about 20-30 min. from Trinity, to the College of Lake County where one of the college students from church had a drawing in an art gallery show at the college. The show was a juried show for Lake County artists so it was more than just a student show and entries had to be judged to get in. Josiah told me about it last Sunday at church and invited me to the opening. He's a gifted artist and I remember some of the stuff he'd drawn back when he was in the junior high youth group and being impressed. It was a neat drawing and a big honor for him to be included in the show. I'm glad I made it. When I got home I watched The Phantom of the Opera. I don't know how closely the movie sticks to the musical but I was glad to finally get the story that goes with the soundtrack.
Saturday I hosted my first Coen brothers' movie marathon. We started around 10:30 a.m. and watched Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo, O Brother, Where Art Thou, and then watched Hudsucker again for the late comers. Dianne came for whole thing and made chili for lunch. She also brought Riesen and Dove chocolate. Steve got home around the end of Fargo and Catherine soon followed. We took a break between Fargo and O Brother and went to the park to stretch out a little and throw the aerobie. When we got back we found that Aaron had joined us. We had some ice cream with our second Hudsucker and eventually everybody left around 10:30. I enjoyed the chance to watch the four movies in succession like that. Also just before everybody left I had another friend turn up whom I hadn't seen in a few months. It turned out that he had been in jail for something someone else had done and had recently been released when the other person confessed. He had a great testimony of how God had been working in his life while he was in jail and it was good to spend some time visiting and catching up. After everybody left I watched Intolerable Cruelty for good measure. I love the Baron's testimony.

Sunday morning we had a another good sermon on Jonah, ch.3, confession, and God's compassion from our associate pastor whom Steve's taken to calling 2nd John. The senior pastor is 1st John and one of our former deacons who also preaches occasionally is 3rd John. While we were hanging around after the service Ann Schwaar gathered a bunch of people around me in a circle and they sang Happy Birthday. Then we went out to Golden Corral for lunch. After lunch some friends felt bad that I didn't have a birthday cake so they went to Bakers Square and bought me a French Silk pie which Sarah took home to refrigerate while a few of us went and played a couple of rounds of disc golf in Libertyville. Following golf we went over to Sarah, Danni, and Mary's for pie and to watch the movie Thank You for Smoking. That was a pretty funny black comedy about a tobacco lobbyist. Finally we made it home. It was a great weekend but very tiring.