Lance Jones, 1967-2007

Lance Jones was a friend of mine from high school.  Actually, all 37 of us in that class were friends to one degree or another.  Lance died Thursday after a lengthy bout with leukemia. 

Lance played all of the sports with us in high school.  In baseball, he was a great utility player, and could be depended on to play just about any position he was asked.  In our state playoff run in 1985, he came through with some great plays for us.  Right after high school, he joined the Army where he spent four years as a paratrooper.  His unit was one of the first in the Panama invasion in December of 1989. 

We didn’t hang out much after high school, but it was always great to stop and talk with him whenever I saw him around town from time to time.  I don’t think I ever saw him without his kids close by.  His family was important to him.

When we played baseball in school, a “bedwetter” was a term we used to describe somebody who hadn’t got a hit yet in the season.  It was also used a little more loosely to describe somebody who wasn’t quite up to a given task.  I remember Lance announcing to us that he had joined the Army, and had the goal of being Airborne.  “I want to prove to myself I can do it,” he explained.  “I’m no bedwetter.”  We laughed.  Looking back on it, I’m glad he was doing it for himself.  He certainly didn’t need to prove anything to anybody else. 

Lance contracted Leukemia about four years ago, and had a full bone marrow transplant that cured him the first time around.  I saw him last year some time, and physically, he looked like he could go a few rounds.  It came back with a vengeance a few months ago. 

Lance was a member of the Umatilla Confederated Tribes and left behind a wife, two sons, and a daughter.  He and his wife set up the Native American Bone Marrow bank in the Northwest.  I loved what the East Oregonian had to say about him:  “He was a warrior, whether in fighting in combat or for his life.”

So long, Jonesy, you’ll be missed.  Save us some seats. 

Weekend DVD: The Exorcism of Emily Rose

It’s not really the weekend, but I do have some time this spring vacation to check out some dvd’s.  Here’s the first one so far this week.

I had initially hesitated to watch the film The Exorcism of Emily Rose because, as a rule, I try to stay away from movies that deal with demonic possession and other such activity.  After reading a few online reviews, though, I found that this film was much different in its approach to the subject, and has a lot to say about the spiritual realm from a Christian perspective.  I’m glad I went ahead and got it now. 

Father Murphy is on trial for negligent homicide in the death of Emily Rose, a young college girl who has returned to her family home after encountering strange apparitions and exhibiting bizarre behaviors.  She is initially given a peculiar pair of diagnoses, psychosis and seizures.  Medications prove ineffective, and the family calls in their priest, Father Moore, to assess Emily from a spiritual point of view.  Moore concludes that Emily is possessed by a demonic entity, and begins the process of an exorcism, sanctioned by the archdiocese.  The exorcism fails, and Emily is doomed to live out the rest of her short life battling the forces within her.  Father Moore remains close to Emily, though, and visits her daily.  He is with her the night that she dies, and he immediately is taken into custody and charged because he failed to have the family seek Medical help when she obviously needed it. 

Emily’s story unfolds throughout the film, and along the way, we are given more and more insight to the depth and gravity of her situation.  I won’t spoil the end for you, but Father Moore’s jury decision is a statement about the state of our own Christian lives.  In fact, I found many parallels between elements in this film and that of our own lives:  The doubting defender who proceeds with the case based on the little faith that she does have.  Her actions override what her heart does not know. 

I connected with this film on a very deep emotional, spiritual, and psychological level.  For obvious reasons, I don’t recommend this for the whole family.  Specifically, there are some very disturbing images that aren’t good for kids, even some of your older teenagers.  However, this film is based on a true story, and one that needed to be told.  I picked up the “Widescreen Unrated Version”.  I’m unsure as to how this compares with the regular theatrical version. 

4.5 out of 5 stars.  Unrated, but this had several disturbing images of demonic activity.  No nudity/sexual situations, and no offensive language.

Technorati tags: The Exorcism of Emily Rose, dvd, movie review, film

USA Today/ESPN has Oregon State at #2

USATODAY.com

Da Beavs slid into the #2 spot in the nation this week by continuing their winning ways with a pair of wins over Cal Poly.  Looks like they even got a vote for #1.  Just glancing through the poll board, I’m guessing that vote came from either Nino Giarratano (San Francisco) or, more likely, Ken Knutson, from the UW Huskies.  He appears to be the only voter on that panel from the Pacific Northwest.

Way to go Beavs!

Technorati Tags: Beaver Baseball, NCAA, Oregon State University, baseball polls

The Arrow of Time

Every year since 1976, Diego and Susy Goldberg have taken individual photographs of themselves and their subsequent three children.  “We photograph ourselves,” they explain, “to stop, for a fleeting moment, the arrow of time passing by.”

When they began the process, I’m sure they never envisioned a system like the internet that would allow anybody else in the world to see the progression of their family.  But they have graciously uploaded their photographs and have created a website for all of us to remember how quickly it goes by. 

HT:  Carlos Whittaker

Technorati tags: photographs, family, time

Oregon State climbs to #3

Oregon State moved up two spots to #3 in the Collegiate Baseball poll today, and up one notch to #4 in the USA Today/ESPN poll. Last week saw some impressive wins over San Francisco. They are now 20-3, and their win percentage is behind only Vanderbilt (21-1) and Florida State (23-0).

Indiana Jones IV

It’s true.  At 64, Harrison Ford is going to revive the role of Indiana Jones in the latest sequel, Indiana Jones and the Ancient Prophecy.   Filming has already started.  The movie will also feature Sean Connery and Cate Blanchett. 

Some 25 years after the original movie, is this  a wise move on Ford’s part?  Apparently, he thinks it is.  Functionpix is quoting him as saying that he has been in training since March 2006 and has built himself into a “24 year old muscle beach fanatic”.  I guess we’ll have to see.  Hey, if Sylvester Stallone can do it, maybe so can Harrison Ford.  I just hope the film turns out to be worthy of his efforts. 

 

Technorati tags: Harrison Ford, Indiana Jones IV, Sean Connery, Cate Blanchett, movies

The Care and Feeding of Blogs

My itinerant posts here haven’t been because I’ve suddenly lost interest in blogging.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  I’ve been running two other blogs, and this one has kind of taken a back seat, for the time being anyway.  RickScheibner.net is my professional blog that I’ve been using for my school admin education purposes, and FatBloggers has been chronicling my recent weight loss efforts.  Sad to say, I’ve only been posting to this one when I come up with something particularly blogworthy.

So if I’m still in your reader, thanks for sticking with me.  Sorry I haven’t had much to post lately.  Life, ya know.

PS–If you haven’t checked out Windows Live Writer yet, and you do any kind of blogging on a regular basis, you need to do so now.  Here’s a sign of the times:  Microsoft now has a Blog This! extension for FireFox that you can use to blog a page that you happen to be on at the moment. 

Technorati tags: blogging

Beavers #5 in Collegiate Baseball poll

USATODAY.com

It was supposed to be a rebuilding year for the Oregon State Beavers. Baseball, after all, doesn’t play well in Corvallis, the land of 40-inch annual precipitation.   The Beavers lost the heart of the pitching rotation from last year’s College World Series Championship team, but that hasn’t kept them from starting out this season in strong fashion.  The Beavers are 17-3 as of right now, and just played their first home game in newly-refurbished Goss Stadium at Coleman Field. 

“Refurbished” is an understatement, though.  Expanded seating, new field turf, and a huge Jumbotron-like scoreboard have all been added to the field recently.  Current capacity is right at 2,000, but plans are underway to increase that by 2008. 

So will our beloved Beavs make it to the CWS again this year?  Only time will tell, but Pat Casey & Co. are sure off to a good start. 

Update:  Looks like the USA Today/ESPN poll has them at #5 also.  Woo hoo!

Technorati Tags: Oregon State Baseball, Beavers, College World Series, Goss Stadium

A second look at Google Docs

In the beginning was Writely.  And Google saw that it was good. Google purchased the online word processor for many bags of silver…

Ok, enough of the Biblical references.  Point is, I wrote about Google Docs about a year or so ago, while they were still Writely and not owned by Google.  I made the point that, yeah, it was a good enough service for basic word processing needs, but that was about it.  Formatting quality left a lot to be desired.  If you were looking for a better alternative to Microsoft Office, there was always OpenOffice.org that didn’t cost anything. 

Fast forward to this year.  I still use OpenOffice.org for most of my office suite needs, but darn if Google Docs hasn’t come in handy for me the last few weeks.  Taking notes in class, for example, or even getting started on an assignment.  I’ve even sat in some meetings where I took notes in Google Docs.  Not just a word processor any more, the service also includes a basic spreadsheet function.  I worked on taxes over this weekend, and the spreadsheet came in really handy for keeping track of my deductions.

The advantage that I’ve seen for using Google Docs has been Google’s way of storing and archiving documents.  It works a lot like GMail, if you’re familiar with that.  For those of you who aren’t, GMail basically lets you archive messages, put them in folders (or “tags”), and makes them available for searching later.    No need to delete anything; there’s almost 3 gigabytes of storage space available in one account. 

Compare that with how you normally store documents on your computer.  There’s the always-ready My Documents folder, but if you’re like me, you only use that part of the time.  What folder did I put that letter in that I wrote 6 months ago?  With Google Docs, it’s only a search-click away. 

Even with these improvements, though, Google Docs still doesn’t handle some things well.  Specifically, they don’t implement tables very well.  And forget about text boxes.  From what I can tell, that’s not even an option.  And of course, the way a document is laid out on the screen doesn’t translate to the printer very well.  Word and OpenOffice.org both have an excellent what-you-see-is-what-you-get factor. 

So, use Google Docs to begin and organize your important papers and spreadsheets.  You can even share it with other people to look at or edit.  When it comes time for a printed document, though, downloaded as either a .doc or .odt file, open it with the appropriate software, and format it the way you need to. 

Technorati Tags: Google Docs, word processing, online tools

Brad Delp, gone at 55

Brad Delp was one of the most recognizable voices in the 1970’s.  He joined the band Boston along with guitarist Tom Scholz, a musician who was involved in cutting-edge recording techniques at the time.  The combination brought us such classics as More Than A Feeling, Don’t Look Back, Long Time, and Amanda.  Their legal battles with Epic are legendary, but we got some great music out of the deal.

Their website was changed just this afternoon to say simply, “We’ve just lost the nicest guy in rock and roll.”

My take:  Those first three albums alone are worth investing in a good turntable, amp, and set of speakers.  The digital realm has just never done justice to the one-two analog punch of Delp and Scholz.  About ten years ago, I walked into a used record store and heard Long Time playing on an actual turntable.  I was immediately blown away by the warmth and depth that those production values had given to vinyl.  You just can’t get that on an iPod.   This is truly a sad day in the music world.

Technorati tags: Brad Delp, Boston, music