It’s starting to hit home that one week from now we will be on an airplane, with the kiddos, headed for our Washington vacation and Andrew’s wedding. We’ve gotten to the list-making stage. What all do we need to take? What will the weather be like? (It’s a lot different on the coast than it is in Leavenworth where the wedding will be!) What suitcases are we taking along? How many bags will we have to check? Do we have seats assigned on all the flights? And on and on and on.

For me, the most stressful part of the trip is from now until we are at Seatac with a rental car and all our bags. After that, it’s all downhill. I don’t think it’s really gonna be as bad as I’m worried it will be… but I can be a good worrier. I’m really looking forward to this vacation, though - both for Andrew & Heather’s wedding and just for the chance to get away - almost 2 full weeks away from the office once you count the holiday this week and then our trip. It’ll be so nice.

Stay focused, Chris… still three more days of work.

Ten years ago today, on a sweltering night in Charlotte, NC, friends and family gathered as Becky and I exchanged our vows and became husband and wife. I don’t remember a whole lot about the ceremony itself; the pictures, though, show a geeky boy of 21 looking warm in a basic tuxedo, and a girl looking beautiful if a bit uncomfortable in a white dress and veil. We look so young! Were we really ready to start upon a lifetime together?

Ten years later we have been through much. New places to live, new jobs, new friends; two beautiful little girls added to our family; a lot of what we promised in our vows: sometimes better, sometimes worse, sometimes richer, sometimes poorer, sometimes sickness, sometimes health. One of the few constants through it all has been my wife Becky by my side, supporting, encouraging, and loving me. While we have our ups and downs, we truly do make a great team.

That night ten years ago my buddy Daniel sang a song that Rich Mullins wrote that included these lines:

If you find a love that’s tender,
If you find someone who’s true
Then thank the Lord -
He’s been doubly good to you.

And truly He has been good. I love you, Becky, and thanks for 10 wonderful years.

Once today is complete I will have only 6 more working days until vacation… and oh my, am I ever looking forward to it. My brother Andrew is getting married on July 12 and we are using that as an excuse to take a week’s vacation to Washington. (The state, not the district.) We have several days of sightseeing and relaxation scheduled around the wedding, and it should be a great time. We’ll hit Seattle, the Pacific coast, the mountains, and back to Seattle before heading home.

Preparations have been in a lull for a while - there was the frenzy months ago when we purchased our airline tickets, made hotel reservations, etc, but then we put it aside and it’s just been lurking… and now we are back to planning in earnest. At this point Becky is starting to figure out what all needs to be brought along, how we can fit it into as few bags as possible, and so on.

I’ll admit it - the one thing I’m nervous/fearful of on this trip is the airline travel. We’re taking the girls on their first airplane trip, which will be fun, and we’ve planned in longish layovers, to try to ensure things go smoothly… but it’s still a cross-country airline trip, and we’re still connecting through Chicago O’Hare. I will be praying much that things just go smoothly. Once we’re in Seattle with our rental car and all our baggage, the next week should be just brilliant fun.

So that’s my little update for today. I’ll try for a more substantive post tomorrow as a major milestone occurs in the Hubbs household.

Well, I haven’t done a meme in a while, and Jeff tagged me for this one, so I’ll give it a go.

The rules of the “game” are simple:
1. list your top ten favorite films (in no particular order).
2. if you’re tagged, you’ve got to post and tag 3-5 other people.
3. give a tag back (some link love) to the one who tagged you in your post
4. give a hat tip (HT) to Dan (I have no idea who Dan is, but hey, there ya go).

This is gonna be a challenge for me, because I haven’t watched that many movies lately, and really, how do you go about choosing favorites? Simply by number of times watched? At least you’ll get 10 from me here that I really like. Maybe not the 10 greatest movies I’ve ever seen, but 10 that I’d be happy to sit down and watch again semi-regularly or would recommend to a friend. Oh, and off the top, I’m not gonna say Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, because they’re almost prerequisites for this kind of list, and it seems boring. So, in no particular order…

1. The Princess Bride
An oldie but goodie. Yes, I can quote far too much of it. But to leave it off the list would be, well, inconceivable. And how can you dislike a movie with Andre the Giant?

2. Lost in Translation
Bill Murray. So good. Scarlett Johannson. Amazing. Slow, light on plot, heavy on atmosphere. I loved it.

3. That Thing You Do
So I’m a sucker for a movie about musicians who briefly make the bigtime. Tom Hanks is such a fantastic character in this movie, and yeah, if I’m one of the guys in the film, hands down, I’m the drummer.

4. Fiddler on the Roof
I really need to include a musical on here somewhere, and Fiddler is a great musical. It’s been far too long since I’ve watched this one. But Topol captures Tevye so well, and the songs are classics.

5. Once
OK, so I’m gonna include a second musical on here, and it’s gonna be a film that I’ve only seen, well, once. Low-budget, first-time actors, but the story feels real in a way that very few films seem to manage. I need to buy this one.

6. Apollo 13
Jeff mentioned this one in his list, but I’m gonna include it here, too. Sure, Tom Hanks is great in the starring role, but Ed Harris is the guy that makes the movie for me. And how can I not love a movie where the true heroes are nerdy engineers? Can you build a CO2 scrubber from this random assortment of parts?

7. Heat
Michael Mann at his best, and Pacino and DeNiro to boot. A big crime drama, spread across Southern California, with the atmosphere and expanse that Mann seems to do so well. Oh, and did I mention Pacino and DeNiro?

8. The Matrix
Can we just forget that this is supposedly the beginning of a movie trilogy? This movie works so well by itself - the cyberpunk genre, the stop-action camera work, the ridiculous action scenes… so much fun.

9. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Too many of the old song-and-dance movies were very weakly plotted, with just enough plot to string things together between musical numbers. Mitty isn’t one of those. Yes, it provides ample opportunity for Danny Kaye to mug for the camera, do some hilarious song-and-dance routines (how can you not love Anatole of Paris?), and generally cut up, but they actually belong as part of the plot. Lots of fun.

10. L.A. Confidential
It was harder than I thought coming up with a tenth film, but this one deserves a spot here. A gritty film noir filled with all the elements you could want - dirty cops, femme fatales, Hollywoord in its heyday. Add in Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, and James Cromwell, and you’ve got a great film.

Now, then, who to tag? Rae. CanaDan. Bridget.

No, Dad, regardless of the title, I’m not talking about Wagner or Puccini or that kind of opera… sorry. But with Firefox 3 coming out yesterday, I figured I’d be the contrarian and give that other browser a try; Opera was promising more features with version 9.5, and I hadn’t played with Opera in quite a while. So yesterday was Opera trial day. Mind you, I’m a quite-happy Firefox user, but I figured I should give it a try.

My first impression when starting Opera: It’s pretty. I like the UI, though admittedly I’m a sucker for new, shiny toys. But it looks good. And the rendering looks good, and it seems fast. So far, so good. Sadly, on my list of comments/thoughts about Opera, that’s pretty much the end of the good things.

Then there’s my list of annoyances. First stop: Gmail. I keep Gmail open all the time, and use the Google Talk function embedded in Gmail as my primary chat engine. It seems to be the only thing that’ll function here at work. Well, the GTalk panel doesn’t even load in Gmail. Quick Google search, and ah, I can use the &nobrowsercheck option in the URL. Then it shows up. Cool!

But it ends up there’s a reason Gmail doesn’t load chat in Opera; it doesn’t work. You can’t initiate a chat with anybody from the chat panel, it won’t pop up the little window. If someone else starts the chat, then you can pop it up, but you can’t pop it out; it’s stuck within the main Opera window. No good to me.

Another Google search provides my next try for GTalk: load it up in the “Panel” aka sidebar. It loads up better there, but again you can’t pop out chat sessions; they’re all stuck within the panel. Given that I like to have more than one session going at once at times, this just won’t work for me. Bummer.

Oh, and as long as I’m talking about searches - one weird thing: the hotkey to get up to the search box is different between Opera and Firefox/IE. FF/IE both use CTRL-K to put your cursor in the search box. Opera uses CRTL-E. Would it have been that hard to stay consistent?

Firefox users who check out Opera quickly notice that there are no extensions for Opera like there are for Firefox. Opera proponents quickly point out that some of the most popular “extended” functionality in Firefox is built-in to Opera natively; they cite Mouse Gestures and Content Blocking as examples. Now, Mouse Gestures I have to give them. I love using Mouse Gestures and they work well in Opera. Content Blocking… not so much.

I’m hooked on Adblock for Firefox. It just works. The net it casts for ads catches most all the ads without filtering out the pictures I want to see. Opera has a built-in “content blocker”, but it’s not very user-friendly. Right-click on a blank area of the screen, and choose Block Content. Then it highlights all the blockable items on the screen. Then you have to click on the ones you want to block. By default, it blocks everything from a pretty high level in the domain the ad is hosted. This is fine if the ad you’re blocking is from an adserver, but for some of the sites I visit, the ads are hosted right on the domain… which means Opera ends up blocking ALL the images from that domain, including the ones I want. Yes, you can fine-tune it, but it requires opening up another dialog, and it’s a pain. I’ll take the Adblock extension for Firefox any day.

Other little annoyances: I’ve grown to love the Remember The Milk extension for Firefox that embeds my to-do list into my Gmail screen. Not available in Opera. The drag-and-drop arrangement for my fantasy baseball team in Yahoo Fantasy Sports? Not available in Opera. It’s little things like that here and there that make my choice easy.

This morning with some relief I clicked on my Firefox shortcut and was happy to see FF version 3 loading up. This is a browser worth keeping.

Tomorrow is June 17, 2008. Tomorrow, two records that I have long anticipated will be released and find their way into my hands: Coldplay’s Viva la Vida, or Death and all His Friends, and Ben Shive’s The Ill-Tempered Klavier. An odd pairing, you ask? Not so fast. Let’s compare for a minute.

Coldplay: has a drummer named Will.
Ben Shive: has played on a record with a drummer named Will.

Coldplay: Lead singer Chris Martin has children with unusual Biblical names like Apple and Moses.
Ben Shive: Has children with unusual Biblical names like Ezra and Jude.

Coldplay: Lots of piano-driven songs.
Ben Shive: The dude was born with a piano already attached to his fingers.

Coldplay: Song on first record called Daylight
Ben Shive: Song on first record called She Is The Rising Sun.

Coldplay: Two band members had cameos in the movie Shaun of the Dead
Ben Shive: Has appearances in many Andy Gullahorn-directed short films.

Coldplay: New record available for $10 tomorrow at Best Buy and Target.
Ben Shive: New record available for $10 tomorrow at the Rabbit Room Store.

Eerie how the similarities stack up, isn’t it?

The bigger question to me is this: a year from now, which one of these records will have gotten more play on my iPod? If I were to hazard a guess… it won’t be the band with the leader who shares my name and birth month; it’ll be the guy with whom I went to Best Buy last time he was in town. Guess we’ll find out.

Father’s Day 2008 wasn’t quite what any of us had been planning, but it’s still gone pretty well. After finishing a tasty breakfast that Becky made for me, we spent most of the morning and afternoon cleaning up the basement - washing things down with a bleach solution, sweeping up dirt and grime, repacking boxes that had gotten wet, scraping peeling paint off the walls, and starting to repaint. Slowly it’s coming back together.

Tonight we went out to Chili’s for supper, and while the food was quite tasty, it was weird to have it served on paper plates and in plastic cups with plastic utensils. With all of Cedar Rapids still on a water conservation plan, though, everyone in the city is doing something similar. Thankfully they were able to get a second water pumping station back online today, so the risk of totally losing water has lessened considerably, and the restrictions on water use have eased a bit. People are quite happy they can take showers once again.

By tomorrow night or Tuesday at the latest we should have stuff mostly put back together and have it feel more like “normal” at home; it’ll probably be the end of the week before the river has receded and we can see how many roads will need repaired before they can be used again. It will be nice to have the bridges back open, though; if they are all closed for too much longer it will become quite difficult to bring in trucks of supplies to restock the stores. But I think it’s going to turn out OK.

It will be a long rebuilding process for Cedar Rapids. It won’t be weeks or months; it’ll be years. There are thousands of houses to repair or demolish and rebuild; hundreds of businesses that have been severely damaged, bridges and roads that have been totally washed away; the heart of the city decimated by a deluge the scale of which we have never before seen. But the sunshine gives us hope - an internal assurance that the sorrow now measured by muddy waterlines on painted siding will be eventually superseded by the joy of new buildings, fresh paint, and restored community. Through it all, we hope and trust that God is good. And tomorrow morning we will find new mercies.

Back when I reviewed Andrew Peterson’s book on this blog, the publisher, Multnomah Books, asked if I’d be interested in reviewing others on the blog, and I said yes. I wasn’t interested in reading this one, but Becky was, so she did. She was planning on writing a review this week, but with the flood situation, she hasn’t had time. I’m going to post the publisher-provided summary instead.

Belleville, Illinois and Wyoming Territories, 1861

Born into a life of privilege, fourteen-year-old Belinda never questions her security, even as she leaves Illinois with her family to discover new adventures in the Oregon Territory. But when disaster falls, Belinda is left wounded, weak, and alone. Her faith in God gives her the only strength she knows in a harsh new world.

Belinda’s journey takes her to a snow-covered mining camp and a red-roofed brothel in the Wyoming mountains, but not before she must spend a lonely winter with the man who took away the life she knew. Throughout the grief and hope of a strange land, Belinda must decide if her faith is big enough to allow her to forgive.

The satisfying conclusion to the Crossroads of Grace series, With Endless Sight offers a rich story of family, new beginnings, and the freedom that grace can bring.

You can buy With Endless Sight at Amazon.

What a beautiful day today was. Sunshine, cool temps… such a nice change from the weeks of rain. We’re even forecast to get several more sunny days here over the next week. Let’s pray that it happens.

Well, we’ve had shop vacs of one sort or another running continuously in the basement now for about 30 hours. I finally went and bought one of my own so I wouldn’t keep being scared of burning out the motor on a borrowed vac. The water has slowed down to the point where I don’t think much maintenance will be needed… which is a very good feeling. We’ve still got a lot of cleanup to do, but we’ll leave all the fans and the dehumidifier running all night and I imagine we’ll be in pretty good shape tomorrow.

Thanks to all of you who have prayed, called, emailed, and otherwise checked in. We were blessed here in Hiawatha to be on high ground. There are thousands down in Cedar Rapids who will be demolishing and rebuilding houses and businesses over the next months and years. It’s going to be a long, difficult recovery.

I mentioned it to Dad this morning on the phone: as soon as the water showed up in my basement, I started praying for good weather with an incredible fervor. Barely had the first prayer left my lips, though, then I felt a sense of guilt - why was I only praying now, when the water had been in other people’s basements, homes, and businesses, for days now? I am reminded that I need to hold up my neighbors in prayer with the same attention that I pray for myself and my family. A good lesson to learn, even in the midst of the flood.