The DJ

We used to have a guy on our team that would always introduce himself on customer calls by using his first, middle, and last names. This was especially odd because he actually went by his middle name. But what was even odder was that he also switched to his “radio voice” when he’d get on the calls. It was a very dramatic, very exaggerated enunciation of every word with dramatic pauses thrown in for extra effect.

“Hello! This is Samuel…James…Henderson, and I’ll be your ITL…on this project.”

And he did it the exact same way on every…single…call (see what I did there).

“Hello! This is Samuel…James…Henderson, and I’ll be your ITL…on this project. If you have any issues…any issues at all…I’ll be the person…that will assist you.”

I always imagined that what would follow next after this introduction would be something like this.

“If you’re caller…number four, you’ll have the privilege of being the first on your team to complete…end-to-end testing. Simply wait until you hear ‘Believer’…by Imagine Dragons…and then call into our studios. Make sure you say the phrase…that pays…‘I work with Samuel…James…Henderson!’ And now a word…from our sponsors. The sales team will now come on…and promise a bunch of things…that we won’t be able…to deliver.”

Pursued

I was watching an episode of The Big Bang Theory today, and in it, Leonard is pursued my Sheldon’s new assistant, Alex. At first, Leonard doesn’t realize that Alex is after him, but once he does, he relishes the attention. Not because he’s actually considering leaving his girlfriend, Penny, to pursue Alex, but because he enjoys being wanted. After being rejected by women for so long, he’s finally able to enjoy being wanted by two women at the same time.

I had a similar thing happen to me in college. I had a long-term girlfriend when suddenly I made a new girl friend. At first, it was just nice to get to know someone new, but then she developed feelings for me. And those feelings drove her to pursue me romantically. I was flattered by the attention. It was nice to be wanted by two women at the same time. I had spent so much of my life being ignored or glanced over by women that it was a refreshing change to have them want me instead. It boosted my ego and self-confidence.

Everyone likes to be pursued. It makes us feel alive and wanted. Many of us considered unpopular by the “in crowd” develop insecurities of not being enough or being ostracized by a world that didn’t take the time to get to know us, because we didn’t fit into their little mold of perfection. We desperately crave the attention that never comes. We look at people passing on the street, hoping that they’ll make eye contact and acknowledge us. We want beautiful women to do a double take and consider us a viable partner. But we’re lucky to get one glance much less two (it’s still never happened to me to this day). So, it’s nice when someone likes you for who you really are. But even more than that, it’s nice when they value you more than other choices they have.

So, I strongly related to Leonard walking around with his chest puffed out, relishing the attention from beautiful woman and relishing the jealousy it created in the other. It’s every nerd’s fantasy. I’ve often wondered how I’d do on the open market now. Would my maturity, security, and proven track record make me sexy to the right woman? Would the time and effort I’ve made to keep myself in shape put me ahead in the game for a man my age? Or would I always be the nerd, not quite handsome enough to make a woman look twice?

Luckily, I don’t need to worry about such things. And hopefully I never do. It was hard enough to get one beautiful woman to love me. I’d rather not have to start all over.

Good Friday

I had coffee with my sister and her father this afternoon. During the conversation, we got on the topic of religion. It should be noted that I’m a Christian, my sister’s father is for the purpose of this post a Hindu, and my sister is somewhere in between both of those.

My sister was relating a story about her work, where someone came on a conference call and wished everyone a Happy Good Friday. She was disturbed by the use of “Happy” when acknowledging the day, because the day itself marks the anniversary of Jesus’ death. “How can it be happy if you’re remembering someone’s death? It’s sad, no?” she asked.

While I see her point, I don’t agree with it. Christians don’t view Jesus’ death as a sad event, which is even why we call the day Good Friday. It is a day of redemption. A day of forgiveness that cleans the slate and allows us access to eternity with God. We are thankful of the willing sacrifice of Jesus, but more importantly, we are aware that the story didn’t end there. If you take that one day out of context and you don’t combine it with the Resurrection three days later, then I can see how you’d view it as sad. Most deaths are permanent, so they represent a finality that hints at never seeing that person again. It is sad to think of not having more conversations, spending more time, or making more memories with that person. But you can’t stop at Friday in the story of Easter, so there is no reason to be sad.

My sister clarified that the sad part wasn’t just that Jesus died, but that it was our sins that put Him there. That’s true, and it’s a whole other point. We did put Jesus on that cross, and we have to own up to that. But to focus on that over the larger sacrifice and what it represented is self-centered, instead of Jesus-centered. The story is not about what we did, but about what Jesus did…for us. And if we focus on Jesus, then it’s a day of celebration, not of sadness.

My sister’s father pointed out that the sadness has more of a historical context than a Biblical or religious context. He said that since the death of Jesus occurred on a Friday the 13th that it’s generally accepted to be a bad thing. Intrigued by this statement, I decided to do some research on this.

According to the book The Final Days of Jesus: The Most Important Week of the Most Important Person Who Ever Lived, Jesus’ death most likely occurred in AD 33. While many scholars have tried to argue that it actually occurred in AD 30 instead, the historical evidence doesn’t support that.

In the Bible, we know that John the Baptist’s ministry began before Jesus’ and that it occurred “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar . . .” (Luke 3:1). We know from Roman historians that Tiberius was confirmed as Caesar by the Roman Senate on August 19, AD 14. So, if we extrapolate that his fifteenth year of reign started in late AD 28, then we can assume that John’s ministry most likely started in early AD 29, and we have a starting point for our timeline.

Since Jesus’ ministry began shortly after John’s, we can surmise that it began in late AD 29. In the gospel of Luke, he mentions that “Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age” (Luke 3:23). If we follow the commonly-held belief that Jesus was born in 6 or 5 BC, then He would have been around 32 years old, which would easily place Him at “about thirty years of age.”

The gospel of John mentions that Jesus attended three Passover meals, with the last being shortly before His death. The other gospels also mention a possible fourth that is not recorded in John. So, we can assume from this that His ministry lasted about four years. Since Passover falls in March or April, the first would have been in AD 30 with the last occurring in AD 33.

Since Jesus’ death occurred on “the day of Preparation” (John 19:31), or Friday, we know that it coincided with Passover. The most common calendar used in Jesus’ day was the Pharisaic-rabbinic calendar, and we know from Exodus that Passover always occurred on the fifteenth day of Nisan. In AD 33, Nisan 15 was April 3.

Why did you just slog through that long history lesson to reconstruct the timeline of Jesus’ death? Great question! AD 33 was a common year starting on a Thursday. This means that it had three occurrences of Friday the 13th during the year…February, March, and November. Based on the timeline we constructed, Jesus’ death most likely occurred on April 3, which means that it could not have occurred on a Friday the 13th. Which makes total sense, since the myth of Friday the 13th is most commonly associated to King Philip attempting to arrest or kill all of the Knights Templar on October 13, 1307 in order to seize their reputed wealth. But that’s another story.

Date Night...er...Morning

Yesterday evening, my spousal unit sent me a random article about a partial lunar eclipse that was happening that night…or actually early this morning. Her only comment was, “Are you game for this?!” Of course I was, as I always am. We love astronomical events like this.

What I didn’t realize was that it started at midnight and went for six hours with the peak hitting at around three a.m. When she told me that later on, my reply was, “I’m not staying up until three in the morning.” She agreed. So, we made a pact. If one of us got up around that time to use the bathroom (as inevitably happens almost every night), then that person would wake the other person up. If neither of us woke up, then it wasn’t meant to be.

At 2:35 a.m. exactly, my mind switched on. It wasn’t so much that I had to use the bathroom (although I definitely did the more I tried not to think about having to use the bathroom), but more just a sudden awareness of space and time around me. So, I pulled some warm clothes on and trudged outside to assess the eclipse situation. After all, there was no reason to wake up my spousal unit if we couldn’t see anything. It was a gorgeous night…er…morning; cool, crisp, and not a cloud in the sky. The eclipse was on full display, having turned 90% of the moon a rusty, red color. So, I trudged back inside to get backup.

It was awesome to sit in the driveway, freezing our backsides off, wrapped in multiple blankets, munching on mini cinnamon pinwheels…and just talk. We rarely get to do this because our son always interrupts us. It was like a date night. We laughed, we complained about our neighbor’s dog barking at the moon, and we watched the white part of the moon get smaller and smaller.

I don’t know too many people that would enjoy that or be willing to get up at three in the morning to watch an eclipse. It made me realize how special my spousal unit is and how lucky I am to be married to her. How many people can say they’ve had a date under the stars at three in the morning in the light of a rust-red moon?

Like a Rock

I have a running joke with my wife about the fact that I can't float on my back in the pool. Well, she thinks I'm joking when in fact I'm completely serious. She doesn't believe that a person is incapable of floating in water, even though I've repeatedly assured her that I sink like a stone. I've even demonstrated the phenomenon for her, but she told me that I was doing it wrong. I didn't realize there was a right and wrong way to sink to the bottom of the pool, but I guess I've mastered it.

Well today, I was watching The Big Bang Theory, and lo and behold, Sheldon admitted to have the exact same problem! He said the issue was that he had a higher than normal body density, which sounds completely reasonable and plausible. So now, I finally have a reason for my inability to float in the pool that my wife can't refute. It must be true, because not only did I see it on TV, but Dr. Sheldon Cooper is generally accepted as a genius, so he must know more than us.

West Target Story

Something was going down in the Target today.  I walked right into the middle of a stand-off between the plus-sized mannequins and the stick-thing mannequins.  Nobody was moving, but you could feel the tension all over the entire store.  I was waiting for the two sides to start snapping their fingers as they did a choreographed dance around each other.  My money was on the plus-sized mannequins.  They looked more than capable of holding their own against the undersized and overmatched skinnier mannequins across the aisle.