SteveJamieson.com

First up, Shakespeare in the Park. Saint Louis has an excellent Shakespeare festival every year in Forrest Park. This year featured a performance of _The Tempest_. While perhaps not Shakespeare’s finest work, the performance was rather good. Many of the actors had a really good time with their parts, and the set was awesome. I also thoroughly enjoyed the hilarious antics of Juggling Jeff—one of the pre-show entertainment acts. The overall experience was so good, I went twice! The first time was with some co-workers one day after work. The other was with my Dad when he visited during Father’s Day weekend.

Second, cool summer movies. ‘Nuff said.

Third, June is the month of conferences. Things got off to an early start in May when I went to the IUG (Innovative Users Group) conference in San Francisco. The conference was good, and I was also happy to have the chance to meet up with one of my first college friends, Kimberly. Earlier this month, I went to the annual MOBIUS (Missouri Bibliographic Information User System) conference in Lake Ozark, MO. Spanning only two days, it was rather short and uneventful. Although, I did get to enjoy the Japanese garden at the Lodge of the Four Seasons where the conference was held and where I stayed. After that, I got to hold down the fort… er… library while several of my coworkers went to the ATLA (American Theological Library Association) conference. Finally, just last weekend I went up with some coworkers to the ALA (American Library Association) conference in Chicago for a day to see the vendor exhibits. The really fun part was getting to spend Friday evening with John & Ellise. We had an excellent dinner at the Red Star Tavern, enjoyed some of the Swedish Days festival in downtown Geneva, and then watched Shaun of the Dead.

Next on the schedule, I’ll be spending a good part of July editing an article for publication in Presbyterion, the seminary’s journal.

I think it’s official, Dance Dance Revolution is a recognized weight loss tool. The Associated Press recently ran an article on that subject. As for me, thanks to watching what I eat and some occasional hour-long DDR sessions, I’m down 15 pounds. Sorry Jed, no Pixar DVD’s for you.

It is official. Today I have hit the quarter century mark.

Wow.

What will the next 25 years have in store for me? I graduate in May, and hopefully I’ll start pastoral ministry soon after. Marriage? Children? House? The possibilities are mind-boggling!

As for celebrations, today was rather uneventful—I had class and a staff meeting. Last Friday I had some people over for a You Don’t Know Jack party to celebrate “The Beginning of the End” (i.e. the start of my final semester), Groundhog Day, and perhaps partially my birthday. However, Cynthia doesn’t think that’s good enough, so she promised that she and Rudy would celebrate with me this Friday.

Happy New Year all! 2004 is here, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s off to a fine start. On New Year’s Eve, I was scheduled to preach at my church’s annual New Year’s Eve Communion Service. In preparation for this event, I had written a sermon on the Lord’s Supper for my preaching class last semester. Although I got a B+ on the sermon, I had only put 2 days into it, and I wasn’t satisfied with it. During my trip home for Christmas, I spent a considerable quantity of time improving the sermon. The revised version turned out much better, and went over well at the service.

After the service, rather than go across the street to Forest Park where the big St. Louis New Year bash was being held, I went to a small party at the home of the McGarrys. This turned out to be a wise decision, since the organizers of the events at the park had planned on 25,000 people and 3-4x as many showed up. Needless to say, it was a mess over there, and I was glad to avoid it. Anyway, the party with the McGarrys was the expected subdued yet fun affair featuring a variety of cheeses, people I’ve never met before, a quick round of Taboo, an appearance by the other Steve Jam(i)eson, and a screening of Airplane 2.

And then there was the pickled herring. Amongst the wide variety of cheeses I noticed a bowl of gray matter that appeared to have a fishy texture. Upon inquiring what it was, Jessica challenged me to eat it before being informed of its identity. And just to prove that it was safe, she placed a piece of the mystery matter on a cracker and consumed it. Nevertheless, I declined for the moment. Later in the evening however, the challenge came up again. Despite having discovered that the substance at hand was pickled herring, I agreed to give it a try. Feeling like I was on “Fear Factor”, I took a bite from the chunk of the repellent smelling fish on cracker that I had been given. For the first nanosecond of mastication it was tolerable, but soon my taste-buds began to rebel against this foul fish. My face contorted in many strange ways as I chewed and fought the urge to puke. After I managed to swallow the small bite, I immediately downed a can of soda to wash away the revolting aftertaste. Jessica can keep her pickled herring. As for me, I have a new rule: If it looks nasty and smells nasty, by no means am I to put it in my mouth!

Well, time is about to tell, and—structured person that I am—I suppose I’ll go in chronological order. Up first then is the long-awaited “Trilogy Tuesday” Lord of the Rings Marathon. So on Tuesday, December 16th, I got up at a reasonable hour in the morning and gathered all the things that I thought I would need like tickets, stuff to study, lunch, etc. I then set out to the seminary where I had arranged to pick up Nick. We arrived around 11 or something like that IIRC, and found a rather long line outside the theater. At the head, some people had set up a table with a seating chart so that people could reserve seats and not have to stand out in the cold. Nick and I grabbed a block of seats for everyone in our party. Although a good idea, the whole thing ultimately turned out to be pretty useless as they let us into the theater maybe 15 minutes later and the powers that be gave us name tags to use to reserve our seats. Before picking up said tags, we got cool VIP passes on lanyards, and were able to buy vouchers that entitled us to unlimited popcorn and soda for only $10.

The VIP pass

With seats in our possession, the wait began. Our group gradually showed up, as did several people from my church who either got tickets on their own, or were part of Brian’s group. I found the DDR machine in the arcade and played a round, which revealed to me how awesome the hard pad is. I ate my lunch in the theater’s cafeteria. The McGarrys got a game of Nerts going. Unfortunately, I was a bit distracted because show time was approaching and Jed had not yet arrived.

When show time arrived, I left Jed’s ticket at the customer service counter and went into the theater just in time for the beginning of the Extended Edition of Fellowship of the Ring. However, not long after, a confused figure entered the darkened theater. Jed had arrived and had gotten the powers that be to allow him into the theater to fetch me. I took him to the customer service desk, grabbed the ticket (which was just sitting there unattended, mind you), and took our seats in time for Gandalf’s arrival in Hobbiton.

During the breaks, Sarah McGarry and I challenged each other to some rounds of DDR. And during the break before our 11 PM premiere showing of RotK, we got to feel special with our VIP passes as we walked past the people lining for the two midnight showings.

Our fellow Trilogy Tuesday goers were a fun bunch. There was much cheering throughout, and the humorous portions still captured laughter even though everyone in there had probably seen the first two movies more times than anyone would care to count. When all was said and done, this 12-hour experience was definitely worth it. It was a little difficult watching the first two with all the anticipation for RotK having reached its climax. Part of me just wanted to skip ahead. Nevertheless, I managed refocus my attention, and I was able to enjoy the grand perspective that one receives when watching all three films together.

As a special bonus, when RotK was done, everyone attending Trilogy Tuesday received a collectible film frame from Sideshow Weta that was commissioned especially for Trilogy Tuesday and is not available in stores (although there were plenty up on eBay the very next day). Each frame contains a unique film frame from each of the three movies.

An example Film Frame Collectible from Sideshow Weta

The images in my Film Frame

My best guesses for the frames that I received are:

1. FotR: Frodo laying under Bilbo’s trolls after being stabbed by the Witch-King.
2. TT: Eomer riding with the nigh dead Theodred back to Edoras.
3. RotK: Close-up on Pippin standing in front of Gandalf before Denethor.

Finally, after claiming our Film Frames, my group said goodbye and goodnight. However, just as we were doing so, much to my surprise, one of my professors came bounding out of one of the midnight showings for a pit-stop. Brief greetings were exchanged, and then I went home to crash.