Blogging the Assembly!

Next week I'll be attending the Churchwide Assembly of the ELCA in Chicago as a volunteer. I'll be able to sit in on the business sessions and any other assembly event I like (as long as I'm not scheduled to be helping out at the time!).

St. John's is generously allowing me to count this experience toward my continuing education hours - and thereby use continuing ed. days and funds. When I proposed this to the council, I suggested that I could take advantage of St. John's fledgling web site to blog live from the assembly. It would be a way to generate some interest with the site, keep people back home in the loop, provide some awareness of the larger church, and put some content online, all in one fell swoop.

So I've established a new blog to post my experiences and reflections in Chicago - Dispatches from the 2007 ELCA Churchwide Assembly. I'll be updating it periodically before and after the assembly, and frequently (as in, multiple posts per day, I hope) while I'm there.

I'm looking forward to participating in an important event in the life of my church - and documenting some of the experience for those who can't be there themselves. Please hop on over to the assembly blog and check it out! Meanwhile, this blog isn't going anywhere. You'll continue to find the normal stuff here, just like always.

A tragedy at Lifest

I made an appearance at the outdoor Christian music festival Lifest this evening, to catch some performances with a group of high schoolers from St. John's who were camping out there.

It was a beautiful night out, but it was hard to get into the music - just as I was arriving (although I wouldn't know until hours later), a young girl fell to her death on a giant swing thrill ride. The reports are still coming in, but it sounds as though she and another rider were hoisted up by the crane, but when they pulled the ripcord, there was a snapping sound and the girl fell. The other rider remained suspended.

Many reports indicated that the fall was nearly 100 feet, which would make sense if the fall happened when the ripcord was pulled, at the top of the ride. Other reports are giving the height at 40-50 feet - a terrible fall, regardless.

I feel terrible for everyone involved - what a horrible accident. Please remember the victim's family and friends, as well as those who witnessed her fall, in your prayers tonight.

Sad, sad, sad...

Yes, that is in fact me, so caught up momentarily in the wonders of the iPhone that I'm completely oblivious to the wonders of my fiancée. It's a good thing she had friends to visit with she hadn't seen in a while. *blush* Hi, honey - I love you!

Click for larger version - thanks, Erin!

Ginormous news!

Literally. "Ginormous" has been officially added to the latest edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. I've always thought it was a fun little word, and I've noticed Gretchen uses it often, so it's nice to see it cross over from neologism to "proper" word. =)

(Side note: would you believe "ginormous" has been in use since the late 1940s? It seemed much newer a word to me, somehow.)