There was a rather extensive post about the John Mayer Trio in the last version of this website. Unfortunately, that post doesn't exist anymore, but my love for all things John Mayer does. A few new pieces of information:
There is now an official website for the John Mayer Trio located at . It has a bio and a complete list of fall tour dates.
The best news is that the fall tour dates include a show at the Quest in Minneapolis on September 23, and a show at Eagles's Ballroom in Milwaukee on the 24th. Eagle's Ballroom is the same place that Jason Mraz recorded his . Both shows are easily makeable from school, with Saturday the 24th looking like the better bet. Now I just need to find out when tickets go on sale.
Oh yeah, I was right that they would be called "JM3" as well.
The two youth pastors - Brandon & Brandon - and a bunch of students left today for a week long mission trip to Belize. None of the interns, (myself, Molly and Megan) are going, so for a full week we will be "alone" at work. Anyway, Megan had the brilliant idea of meeting the group at the airport to say goodbye and whatnot. It's just that they met at the airport at 5:15am. We decided to do it, and we met at the church at 4:30am in matching outfits with signs that read "We L?ve Belize Team!". Megan brought miniature American flags - I don't know why either - for us to wave... it was really quite ridiculous. No one knew we were going to be there and it brought some smiles to people's faces which made the trip worth it. I didn't even sleep last night, figuring that three or four hours of sleep would only make things worse instead of better.
After saying goodbye to the Belize Team, we went to Perkin's for breakfast, where I ordered the Tremendous Twelve®. In case you aren't familiar, the Tremendous Twelve® is:
Three eggs (over easy)
Four bacon strips or sausage links (I got sausage)
Hashbrowns (with ranch, naturally)
Four pancakes
I finished nearly all of it save about 1/3 of the pankcakes, at which point I felt like I was going to vomit. Thankfully, though, Megan and Molly were very supportive and encouraging and I finished my tremendous breakfast with no vomiting.
After two hours of sleep between 8 and 10am I headed back to church to meet some people who wanted to see the movie Dark Water. Actually, I'm fairly certain that I was the only one who wanted to see the movie and everyone else just said they would go with me out of courtesy. Now, the movie was advertised as being written by the same author as The Ring, so I figured that I would mess myself at least twice during the film, but that was not the case. I mean, the movie didn't suck, but as far as scary movies go it wasn't the best. At least it wasn't as bad as Boogeyman.
Which brings me to my next point - candy (I need to work on my transitions). Have you ever opened a box of Nerds, only to realize that each individual Nerd is covered in a thin layer of fur? Yeah, it happened yesterday. Laina, who I work with at church and who has forced me to wear diapers because of her overflowing abdunance of humor, came running into the office and told me to look at her box of Nerds. . What the heck is that stuff? Mold? Fur? I ate one of them, and nothing seemed to happen. Laina ate the whole box. She didn't feel good later that night, but she is okay now. We decided to call them Furds... get it?
I'm off to hang out with T.J., a former co-camp counselor who also worked at Rosebud this summer. He's silly.
I haven't had much to do the last week, but I have gotten alot done. Mostly watching movies and reading books, but in other areas, too.
I told my brother that I would treat him to see Star Wars Episode III over a month ago, but I either haven't had the time or the money until this last week. We were going to go on Wednesday, but because of time constraints and limited showing times, we ended up seeing War of the Worlds instead. War of the Worlds was a great movie. It was sort of like Independence Day from a civilian point of view. Lots of action and awesome special effects. We saw Star Wars on Saturday. Everyone that I have talked to said it was an awesome movie even though you know exactly what is going to happen. I would very much agree.
I mentioned in my first new post that I wanted to see the movie Crash. Sunday evening, I saw the movie with my mom. What an incredibly powerful movie. There is a description of the movie in the aforementioned post. It deals bluntly with the problems of racism and prejudice in a very moving way. I think that if I were still enrolled in the Film & Religion class I took a year ago, I could write a 10 page paper about this film.
I rented the movies Hostage and Coach Carter this weekend as well. Both are pretty good movies, Coach Carter being the better of the two, in my opinion. It was like a modern, urbanized Hoosiers. Who wouldn't like that?
Don't think I've been spending all of my time letting my mind rot in front of various screens, though. I've been reading a lot as well. This last week I bought and read , the tragic story of who is perhaps the greatest natural card player of all time. Stu Ungar, if you have not heard of him, won the 1980, 1981, and 1997 World Series of Poker, the most prestigious poker event in the world. He was truly a "gambling man," betting away most of his poker earnings (nearly $30 million) on sports, horse racing, and everything else imagineable. He once bet $500,000 on a single round of golf. His lavish lifestyle and addiction to cocaine eventually got the best of him, and he died in 1998.
I finished David Crowder's , which I was reading slowly as a devotional during the past few weeks. Although I am well aware of Crowder's abilities as a songwriter and musician, I was a bit suprised at his talent for writing. After a few introductory chapters, Crowder goes through a few selected Psalms and deconstructs them, giving his insight into their meaning. His message is not new, but it is certainly refreshing. He reminds us that
Our condition is the same. Our habit is the Christ. He is what covers us. He is what identifies us. We wear Him into every moment, and when we live with this awareness, we praise Christ.
With the impending realease of the big-screen adaptation of C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, I bought a book called . I have read the Chronicles of Narnia several times, the most recent being last summer, and am well aware of the Christian allegory contained in them, but I thought it might be a good idea to read up on the topic. I would be reading this book right now, but I am reading . I began reading the Harry Potter series several summers ago, but for some reason I stopped after the third book, even though I absoluetly adore the books. With right around the corner (10 days), I still have books 4 and 5 to read. Hopefully I can finish both books before the release of number six. Ten days to read 1,500 pages...
The biggest thing that happened the last week, without a doubt, was the wedding of my older brother, Skip. He married a wonderful girl named Whitney on Saturday. The wedding was outside, at Whitney's parents' house and it was gorgeous. I kept thinking to myself that it looked like a movie. There were a ton of friends and family present, and I heard some of the funniest things. It is well known by now in my family that I plan on going in to ministry, but just because they know it doesn't mean they get it. At one point an uncle of mine said, "aren't you a reverend or something?" One of Skip's friends said to me, "so what the f*** are you gonna do?" When I told him I was going into youth ministry, he said, "oh, that's noble." Ahhhhh...
Anyway, congratulations to Skip and Whitney Bouma. I love you guys and I hope that you have a wonderful life together. Also, I might need a place to crash when I graduate.
JakeBouma.com is a weblog maintained since 2005 by Jake Bouma, an ecclesial junkie and (imprudently) aspiring polymath who was recently diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma.
