Naruto Night

Since September, Andrea and I have been watching Naruto, a highly watched and very popular in Japan, the United States, and many other parts of the world.  Although it is not our favorite anime, it has been enjoyable to watch and does receive a favorable recommendation.  Anyways, as a routine source of comic relief, Naruto Uzumaki - the main character - has an obsessive love for eating miso ramen soup.  Inspired by seeing it so many times, Andrea was ambitious enough to locate all the specialized ingredients from local Asian shops and made her own version of Naruto's miso ramen soup.  It was delicious!

Andrea's Miso-Ramen Soup

Naruto's Miso-Ramen Soup

If you're interested trying the recipe (or want some of the ingredients), let us know and we can give it to you.

And here's a bit of Naruto trivia: Naruto's name is a slang term for those fish swirlies in the lower left part of Nartuo's bowl, and his last name, Uzumaki, means whirlpool.

Just wanted to post something today...

Falling Up  - Good Morning Planetarium

The fight is over now; the bright lights turned somehow.

The strength I have is running out; the current pulls me down.

I'm wondering

Is anybody out there? Who's cold and incomplete inside?

I can hear Him calling, "Come and follow me, my child"

The twilight burns to day with all your love displayed.

The stars they bow in awe when the lost return to you.

Draws up my heart deep from the well.

I know He's finding every lost and broken dream.

7 Quick Takes

-ONE-

All eyes are set on the annual IV Squaredance in Alfred tonight.  Not only will this be a wonderful time to catch up with current Alfred-IV students, but there will be a decent number of alum there also.  But the days of catching up with old friends in this manner, I fear, is coming to an end.  Those who were freshman when I was a senior are seniors themselves now.  Although I am proud of their academic and spiritual growth, its going sobering in some regards to not have everyone together like that until Heaven comes down.

-TWO-

And speaking of Heaven, the Saturn is now completely out of our lives.  The car has been towed and the check has been cashed.  This was our second week as a single-car subscriber and it's been going well so far.  Although driving Andrea to and from work has been time consuming, it's been nice to have that downtime to talk with her. What I'm really waiting for is for Spring to get here so I can ride my bike that I don't have yet.

-THREE-

My Christmas shopping is already half done and its nearly halfway to November.  I'm running a good pace, but I need to pick it up if I'm going to be finished by Black Friday.  I predict next weekend will be a big step in getting that done.

-FOUR-

Both of my Spring classes at BCC are filling up at reasonable paces.  Already, I am starting to think about the work that is going to be involved in having two different sections.  So I have prepped myself to have everything for the Fall Semester done before the end of November - about 2 weeks before the end of the semester.

-FIVE-

Having one car though has not stopped me from sub-teaching.  Wednesday, I went in to sub for a special education teacher.  Lately, I've had pretty good luck calming and maintaining the children and their different "learning opportunities."  But Wednesday morning, I got spit on by a 5 year old girl.  I (still) enjoy working with the special education and disabled children, but the incident reminded me that I wouldn't be cut out for the special education profession.  Also also, they don't pay those teachers enough.

-SIX-

I can't believe that I forgot but... our team won at trivia on Monday night.  Even more remarkably, I found myself somewhat contributing to the victory.  I know roughly how many blades of grass are in an acre (174,440,448) and who won the Stanley Cup in 2008-9 (GO PENS!), both of which were questions which fell into my field of expertise -- pun intended.

-SEVEN-

I don't think I've updated recently about Mission Group or Sunday School.  Both of which have been going very well.  Mission Group in particular has been growing and thinking about my spiritual life (privately and publicly) in ways I haven't before.  Also, it is important to note that all of us our 20 - 39 year olds who are still trying to figure out where we fit in the scary outside world.  So between our really big ideas and self searching, there is plenty to talk about.

If you're looking for more quick takes... see Jen.

Cheap Change #4

Part 1: BCC is not a Green Campus

I can't explain why or how the idea got in my head, but ever since I have been looking for a teaching job, I've always had this vision of turning my full-time place of employment into a mean green recycling machine.  If BCC is where I end up, I will certainly have my work cut out for me.  In particular, I have noticed there aren't any recycling bins in any of the classroom that I have been teaching in.  With all the energy drinks and soda that college students consume during classes and considering that BCC is always looking for new ways to fund themselves, maybe they should try to profit off the 5-cents each container would be worth.  I wonder how many cans and bottles are abandoned there daily.  So since they aren't taking advantage of this opportunity, I took it upon myself to adopt any orphaned bottles that I see walking around campus.  How many, you ask?  Well to date I've been able to take off $1.90 my grocery bills.  So that's 38 cans and bottles.  Expect this to be a recurring item in Cheap Change.

Part 2: The Forgetful Painters

Awhile back, I mentioned that our house was being painted.  They had finished shortly after I blogged about their mysterious presence, but a week later I left the house out of the back door to better admire the work they had done.  To my delight, I saw a dime and a penny on the staircase looking for a home.  As virtuous and caring as I am, I gave them a warm and loving home before the winter season.

Part 3:  The Search for a Mini-Backpack

I have a good friend who was looking for a very particular type of mini-backpack.  Not one to mince other people's words, here's the source text.

The problem: it is no longer 1996. Mini-backpacks have not been around much for some years now, and while I hope in my heart that they will soon make a comeback (every 20 years things are supposed to, right?), I can't wait much longer. I own a purse, but purses are not the same. You have to carry them on one shoulder. I want one with two straps. But not one of those single-compartment drawstring bags made out of the stuff they make windbreaker jackets out of, or whatever. I want one with a main compartment and at least one smaller secondary compartment. Also, I want one that, while not real leather if possible, would serve for a semi-dressy situation (say, something I could bring to school if I were wearing my teaching clothes) as well as a more casual one.

Having no sense in modern fashion, I thought it would be a noble quest to help out my friend.  My wife, however, was much more up to the task.  In the three minutes after informing her of said noble quest, she went through her 3509873053 bags and purses and found something legitimately close and gave it to mini-backpack wanting friend.  We also found a dime and two pennies amongst the purse and bag melee.  Everyone is a winner in this story.

Cheap Change #4: $2.13

Cheap Change Total: $56.19

Trunk or Treat

Andrea dressed up as a Hobbit-lass (note the furry feet) and I went as a ninja.

This Halloween, Andrea and I did something I never had heard of until this year called a "Trunk or Treat." Advertise the event with your local group or church, get a bunch of cars together in a parking lot, get a costume, and hand out candy to cute little kids.  Although I wasn't looking forward to it for most of the week, I actually had a pretty good time.  Our church held the event yesterday while giving away free tracts for children as well as games, cider, hot chocolate and donuts for any children, adults, monsters or any other living thing that asked politely.  Someone also brought a trebuchet to launch candy in the parking lot as well.  We had a decent turnout - more than I expected at least - and everyone seemed to have a good time.