LOST Season 2 Finale

I have to admit at first viewing I was disappointed, but after a second viewing I beginning to appreciate it. Frankly the anticipation was better.

People who were in the hatch before the survivors
Who is Rizinski?
Rizinski-figured out how to hotwire the blast doors, how to make and draw in black light paint on the back of the blast door a map of the dharma stations
Kelvin Inman-The US officer in Desert Storm who taught Sayid how to interrogate people. Turns out he is the guy who found Desmond washed up on the beach and brought him into t he hatch and taught him what to do. He says he signed up on the Dharma initiative. He says his partner Rizinski, who he seems to look up to, killed himself. He wears the protective suit outside of the hatch, but Desmond sees that it has a rip in it and follows him and finds that he takes it off later. The infection/sickness scare is apparently a hoax designed to scare the hatch people to stay in the hatch. Inman seems to be leading Desmond out of the hatch the day Desmond follows him. His pants are ripped and he stands there pretty long to let Desmond see it. Also he says "goodbye." Inman seems amazingly unaware of Desmond following him. But then later that he realized Desmond was following him. Desmond accidently kills Inman and since he isn't in the hatch, the 108 minutes lapse, the hyroglyphics appear on the 108 min countdown board and everything metal starts flying through the room at the wall with the magnetic whatever behind it. This apparently is what causes Oceanic Flt 815 to crash.

Note:the same kind of disorientation that Desmond had on the beach when Inman found him was what Sawyer, Kate, & Jack experienced as a result of the tazer? darts that they were shot with.

We learn on the boat dock that "the others" characters that we know thus far are really named:
Tom=the bearded boat guy (who took Walt & confronted the survivors when they were chasing after Michael)
P or Bea=Ms. Clue (The woman who interrogated Michael about Walt and released Hurley at the boat dock)
The Leader(name as yet unknown)=Henry Gale (now that was a good twist!)

Parting words between Henry Gale and Michael:
follow a compass bearing of 325 and you will be rescued
once you leave you'll never be able to get back here
we're the good guys Michael
Bon voyage Michael (in a James bond villian, your boat is about to explode, kind of way)

Hurley is released to go worn survivors to leave the others alone.
Your friends are coming home with us.

Michael and Hurley both leave with obvious regrets.

Questions we are left with:
Are Locke, Echo, and Desmond dead?
Where are the others taking Jack, Kate, and Sawyer?
Sayid, Jin, & Jun are back on the sail boat. Why didn't Sayid wait around for Jack & the gang?
What is the others real encampment like?
What did they want with Walt?
Why did they let Walt go when Henry Gale told Jack they would never let him go?
Now will the magnetic pressure go off every 108 minutes? (Seems unlikely)
Were the others using the magnetic thing for their power?
Who were the guys on one of the two ice caps who were looking for the magnetic reading?
And why did they call Desmond's girlfriend?
How could she know that that might lead her to Desmond?

There was another Hanso foundation commercial with the website www.hansocareers.com. It had 5 job openings listed that were interesting. It'll be interesting to see what next season brings.

Appreciating Anticipation

We are really getting moved in to our house. We don't have our paintings hung yet and the basement is undone, but almost there. We all really love the house. Thank you God!
I've had a couple of great calls this last weekend. Friday we had 2 real house fires. Saturday I got involved in the tail end of a foot pursuit that yield multiple baggies of Pot. Sunday we had a car spontaneously combust in the parking lot of SuperTarget. So work has been pretty fun.
Not a lot to say tonight. I'm looking forward to the season finale of LOST but I'm also not looking forward to it, because it means we are doomed to a 3 month barren wilderness of reruns. It just reminds me how much the anticipation of LOST and of most things is often as good as the thing itself. Its something our culture is losing, with our mad demands for everything to be faster, faster, faster. But how do you teach impatient people about appreciating anticipation?

Since I don't believe in coincidence

Tonight I ran into a unique problem. We live in our new house and yet our lease on our rental is not up yet. So I have 2 houses. At the rental is my lawn tractor which I no longer need, my new yard is too small for it. Because of the crazy way I transported things from one house to the other, a trailer that connects to the lawn tractor was stuck over here at the new house. I finally got our garage in order today so we could fit all our stuff in and still park in it. But I had to get rid of the trailer, no room. I was going to drive over get the lawn tractor drive it back here, pull the trailer back there and then drive home. As I thought things over this evening I decided just to push the small light trailer over by hand and walk back. I got strange looks pushing it down the street. As I came over the crest of the hill I could see our rental and all the neighbor kids were playing on our porch? They didn't notice me. As I got closer they moved to the garage door and two of the boys started pulling the garage door up! By this time I was across the street. I yelled "BUSTED!" as I walked toward them with the trailer. They all froze, which I think is a sign that these kids are still good kids. I asked them if any of them owned the house to which they all mumbled "no"s. I then educated them about how burglary is a felony which means you go to prison for a long time instead of a short stint in jail. Then I pulled my wallet and showed them my badge and explained how breaking into a police officers house might not be an especially bright idea. I asked the 2 boys what their names were and they told me. I then opened the garage and stowed the trailer locking the garage door behind me (it had been unlocked because we shut the power off to the house and the garage door opener wouldn't operate). Since I don't believe in coincidence, I know God had a purpose in that. This may be a day that is etched in one of those kids memories for the rest of their life, maybe even something that keeps them from getting into other kinds of trouble. That is the strange thing about how God uses us, most of the time we don't get to see the result of the work he uses us to do. It doesn't mean what we do is meaningless or useless, it just means we have to use our imaginations if we want an answer to the question "why?"

LOST
OK I have another hatch insignia for you from this weeks episode. The hatch the others appeared to be guarding with rifles is pictured below. As close as I can tell it looks like an "=" sign.
It was interesting what Ms. Clue said about Walt to Michael. She hinted that he has telepathic powers of some kind, allowing him to appear places that he is not. We saw Walt do this a couple times, appearing soaking wet to survivors on the island, once to Shannon, can't remember who else. These powers were hinted at in the episode where Walt was reading a book about birds and then one flew into the window of the room he was reading the book in, and again when he was reading a Spanish comic book with a polar bear in it and then minutes later a polar bear is chasing Walt and Michael through the jungle. Interesting... This week there was another Hanso Foundation commercial with a new website listed www.letyourcompassguideyou.com (I think) It takes you to a page with a compass that follows your mouse until you put the mouse on the 108 degree mark. 108 from there it takes you back to the Hanso website which I couldn't pimp any new info out of. Next week sounds like it will be a good one.

Also my brother's family and mine started meeting for church at our house last Sunday. It was fun. I lead the kids thru the creation story and compared it to the analogy of collecting and assembling items for a fish tank before you bring the fish home. We adults are going to alternate teaching the kids, as a problem is already arising, namely a prophet is not respected in his home town. I think our kids will benefit from seeing scripture through several different people's eyes. We adults are also going to read through and discuss weekly the book "Total Forgiveness" by RT Kendall. I think we are all looking forward to it.

That's all for now.

How can I be good?

I am a shallow person. I justify my own actions to make me feel better about the evils I have committed.
I committed such an evil the other day. At a certain incident I elected not to take enforcement action against a legitimate perpetrator because the victim was being a jerk. I wanted to punish this victim(seems like I've talked about that before). I wanted the victim who was being jerky to know who the boss was, namely me. This of course made the perpetrator, who was handicapped, very grateful and loyal. I was plagued all weekend about having usurped justice.

KJV (Kurt's Jazzy Version)
Matthew 5:46 If you show justice only to those who respect you, what good is that? Everybody does that! 47 And if you protect only those who seem good, what good is that? Everbody comes from the factory with that built in. 44 I'm asking more of you. You must show justice to those who disrespect you and protect even those who seem bad. 48 You must be more than just made in God's image. You must act like God acts, giving justice and protection to the good and the evil. He is the God of 77 second chances and so must you be.

So I come back into work Monday ready to go and apologize to the vicitm and cite the perpetrator. The vicitm called and complained to my sergeant. I did cite the perpetrator, who's gratefulness and loyalty immediately fizzled and disappeared, turning into self-pity and dismissiveness. I was still going to apologize, but this itch in the back of mind kept reminding me that no other officer would go apologize like this and not cause I'm better than them. I'm not. I think because they know things I don't know yet. As I was working out over my lunch my supervisor came in and said the victim had called complaining again. I told him that I had cited the perp and he said that I shouldn't go talk to the vicitm, not to give them the pleasure, not to reward the squeaky wheel. I think he is right. I'm so concerned with making sure people know I have done the right thing, and not concerned enough with just doing the right thing and going unrecognized. I want to be a hero. I want too badly to be recognized. My sin.

LOST : The Dharma stations

In this most recent episode of Lost Mr. Echo and John Locke find station 5 the Pearl. I'm still having trouble seeing a connection between the station name and...well anything. Below of course is the swan insignia. Anybody remember what station that is? The Pearl was #5 out of 6 according to the video they watched, but John Locke's map showed 7 or 8 stations on the exterior of the octagon and one in te center. Was the Pearl the center one? The center one was the one marked by the question mark (see my prior blog entries for pics). If it is how can it be 5 out of 6 when the map showed more stations?

In addition, Mr. Echo had a flashback in his dream where images were flashing quickly by right before he appeared inside the Swan with his brother. When I slowed the images down this arrow station insignia was in it. It could be a compass too I guess given the fourfold breakup of the circle (four directions) and the arrow is pointing north just like the compass Sayid had on a 1st season episode. Was this from the station that we saw the tail section survivors in when they had taken Michael, Jin, & Sawyer prisoner. It had been lit by fire light I believe. If so that still leaves the station that Claire was in. Anybody remember what station that was? That makes four "we've" been in.

In addition, 2 weeks ago during the episode there was a bogus comercial for the Hanso foundation mixed in with the other real commercials. If you go to www.thehansofoundation.com it gives some interesting insight into what direction the Dharma project is going in. Check it out.
Another website which I believe is the one they gave on the commercial is www.hansorg.com It also is interesting. It has this quote hidden 3/4 of the way down the web page

A Nations birth predicts it's own demise and rebirth 2 10 13 18 21 44

This of course also equals 108 just like the first set of numbers. Interesting quote especially given the letters on that website. I just love a mystery!

The death of a dream OR the casting out of a demon

I got rid of the Pinto! It's gone forever. I sold it for $140 to a salvage yard. This happened through the course of moving and some soul searching about who I need to be in this new place. For one my progress on the car had been snail-like since we moved here and it had kept any of us from parking in the garage. My wife never once got to park in the garage at our old house. For that reason I questioned deeply if it could fit into our new life here and our new house. In addition the change my life has undergone is quite dramatic. I went from a life where a favorite activity, studying and talking about scripture, was my job and I need a distraction in my off time, to a life where my favorite activity must become my premiere distraction. My off time needs to be spent on our house church. The car just didn't make sense anymore, it did before, but not now. Finally my dad, who helped financially with different phases of the cars development "freed" me to get rid of the car without any guilt from him. With those three factors weighing on me there was only one choice. I piled every Pinto part I had almost 2 cars worth of parts into the Pinto and U-pull-it came and pulled it away to the bone yard. Hopefully it will be a treasure trove of high performance parts to some under funded automaniac somewhere. Needless to say I felt a great weight lifted from my shoulders when I got rid of it. It definetly felt more like casting out a demon than the death of a dream. It got me to thinking about how we grasp so tightly and desperately on to things sometimes, only to later realize that those things are either no longer useful or never were useful. Maybe the things I am holding most tightly to should be questioned the most.

We moved into our new house in the last 2 weeks and it is a great house! We still have our rental house till halfway thru June so we have been able to move slowly using our minivan. It took a lot longer but I saved that $29.99 I would have had to pay to U-Haul and thats what's important.

Being on patrol has been fun. I really like finally having the car to myself now that I'm out of training. Everyone always asks about what crazy stuff I've seen lately. The other morning I'm driving to work and I see the lights of a police cruiser ahead. As I get closer I see it is one of ours and as I look off to the right of the road in the field is a car fully engulfed in flames reaching 15 feet into the sky! Then more flashing lights draw my attention to the left side of the road. A car with all its doors open and the driver and passenger spread eagle against 2 of the 6 police cruisers surrounding their car, all as the police dog watches ready to pounce if they try to run. The officer who pulled them over apparently asked what they knew about the burning car and they said "we were just watching it." He said baloney and they confessed, "OK we stole it 5 minutes ago and thought it would be fun to watch it burn."

In related news, I accepted a lateral transfer from the patrol division to a community policing job where I and another officer will develop an office thatwill serve as a liason between local businesses and the Police dept. and I will get to teach DARE/GREAT curriculum to 6-8 graders. I don't know exactly what the job will be like but it seems like it will have a lot of my favorite parts of youth ministry in it.

Lastly and most importantly we took the girl's to see the Wiggles in concert the other night in Council Bluffs. They ROCKED! The whole hour and a half show was total audience participation, dancing and singing. All I can say is "fruit salad yummy yummy." And no there not gay...OK well maybe there gay but it was still fun.

Anyway that is the catch up on us and the explanation for the site name change...again.