April Showers, Part II: Rain of a different kind

Well, it is still raining outside. The sun did come out but it soon disappeared back behind another wall of clouds and the Good Lord has blessed us with rain to feed the Earth (and the grass) to help it provide its fruits. Currently I am monopolizing the technology in our home; the computer/internet and the TV.
While April showers can bring us May flowers (or tornados). There are showers of a different kind that bring a totally different prize that I am perusing on TV. These showers are ones of sweat, blood, and tears. They are showers of Gatorade mixed with spit, trying to quench the thirst that wells up in the pursuit of immortality. They are showers of ice shavings that fly up off the ice as players jockey for position against each other. They are showers of vulcanized rubber that rain down on unkind iron, painted crimson red. These are the showers that lead down the road to the toughest trophy to win in all sport. These are the showers that bring the Stanley Cup.
For those that might not be of the Hockey-savvy type, the Stanley Cup (hereafter referred to as “the Cup”) is the trophy awarded to the team that wins the National Hockey League (NHL) playoffs. It is unique amongst all professional sports trophies because there is only ONE Cup. It began as an ordinary silver chalice given to the winner of an old time hockey league in Canada in the late 1890’s, paid for by Lord Stanley, a wealthy Canadian mogul (and legend has it, a huge hockey fan). The cup was bought by the NHL in the mid 1900’s (Still the same original cup) to be its own trophy, awarded to its playoff champion. The cup traveled with each person on the wining team for one day after they won it then the teams would have to give it back to be passed on to the next team. This tradition continues today, as the bowl of the chalice has carried everything from holy water for baptisms to the best wine or beer a champion’s ransom can fetch.
You may have caught the word immortality in that second paragraph above. If you are wondering why I used that word it is because that each person on the team which wins the Cup, has his name inscribed on the Cup. Since the Cup is a “roaming” trophy, this person will have his name on the cup…well…forever. Today the Cup has many different bands (levels), with each player to win it still etched into sports lore. The cup weighs nearly fifty pounds.
It is considered the toughest trophy in sports to win because for three months (late March to early June) the players endure a “second season” of the most physically intense competition in sports. Check (an upright body slam or simply a hit) after check, shift (a time when you are on the ice) after shift, grinding away at your body. All of this on ice; cold, unbending, unforgiving; played with wooden sticks and a puck of vulcanized hard rubber. Players know what is at stake and they do just about anything to inch their team one step closer to the “Holy Grail” of sports.
So, as the rain continues to fail outside, I will continue to watch the rain fall on my TV, enjoying each and every drop.

April Showers, Part I: Earthquakes and such

It is raining outside. The sound of thunder has been rumbling in the sky for the past half an hour or so. No lightning yet, but it may well be on its way. Oops…spoke too soon; just saw the first flash. I am glad I got my morning run in early today. This kind of weather unsettles me a bit. Where I am from we are lucky to hear thunder once a summer. That’s not to say that it never storms in Alaska. In fact, lightning sets off wildfires a lot in the interior part of the state. But I live in the South Central. I guess that’s the breaks of living in a state that is really six or seven states all rolled into one.
But I don’t think thunder and lightning unsettles me more than earthquakes “shake up (no pun intended)” Midwesterners. Really, I don’t think any of you “scaredy cats” have anything to worry about. One of my good friends at the LCMS seminary in Ft. Wayne was born and raised in Los Angles…just a hair’s width from the infamous San Andreas fault line. He lived through the quake in 1994 which shook somewhere about eight point something on the Richter Scale.
Time to go off on a tangent here. For those that don’t know how the Richter Scale works, each whole-number increase stands for a tenfold increase in power released by the quake. Thus, a quake that registers 2.5 on the scale is 10 times as powerful as one that registers 1.5. One that registers 3.5 is 100 times as powerful, one that registers 4.5 is 1000 times as powerful, and so on.
So the quake that Dave, my friend at sem, lived through was about a 1000 times as powerful as the quake that rattled our dishes a few weeks ago. It caused significant damage to buildings that were designed to resistant that kind of motion. And the quake lasted for a full 45 seconds. I don’t think the quake here lasted much more than 15 or 20 seconds.
But both of these quakes pail in comparison to the quake that shook AK (Alaska) on March 27, 1964. My dad was a seven year-old boy playing outside when the quake tore through the South Central part of the state. It was about 5:30 in the afternoon on a Friday. He says he remembers the earth buckling and throwing him to the ground and that he couldn’t regain his balance for some time afterwards. He recalls the earth rolling in waves like the ocean does.
In reality the quake lasted about five, terrifying minutes (300 hundred seconds of not being able to move, pinned to the rolling ground). For the beginning and end of the quake it registered about 8.6 on the Richter Scale. But for an entire minute, the Earth shook at 9.2 on the Richter scale, nearly 10,000 times the power released by the Midwest quake a few weeks ago. To put the power of the quake into real perspective it pushed the Matanuska-Susitna Valley 500 ft wider than it had been before. That’s right folks, it took the Alaska Mountain Range (a far northern branch of the Rocky Mountains), and spread it a tenth of a mile wider than it was. Seams small, but were are talking about literally moving mountains!! To make that picture a little more see-able it would have moved about half the Chicago skyline into Lake Michigan. Damage from the tsunamis produced by the quake was reported as far south as CHILE…that’s half the world away in South America!!!
Even more eerie was that fact that this particular Friday was Good Friday. A grim reminder of when the Savior of the Nations hung on a cross on a Friday afternoon. And when he cried out, as He who knew no sin, became sin for us, the Earth shook.
So the next time I hear someone in the Midwest talk about the quake, I might go off the deep end. It wasn’t an earthquake people…it was a dish rattler.
By the way…is that the sun coming out?

Fast fallen is the eventide.

Well, here is my first post. I was told by another blogger that the first one is the most important for getting your blog up and running, so I guess the pressure is on! In college I tinked with a Xanga posting, but it was short-lived. I had much too much going on my freshman year. I have been relatively faithful to my Facebook (I can be found under the title Michael Vasilie in the Concordia Chicago network). I suppose the reason for blogging is to pass along ideas, thoughts, concerns, questions, etc. to those who might care to read. Well, as a very private person who tends to internalize things, this will provide a challenge for me. But hey, if I can learn to communicate like this, it's bound to make me a better communicator, period, right? My wife will love that...excuse the sarcasm. I will warn the reader about a few things up front. I am a Native Alaskan...that's not to be confused with Alaskan Native (no, I have no Eskimo blood in me). But I was born an raised in the 49th state and with that distinction comes a few things that others might find perplexing. The first and foremost thing is my loyalty to family, friends, and coworkers. If you are counted in this fold you can count on a few things. First and foremost, I have got your back. I will jump in front of a bullet, (insert dangerous, fast-moving object here), or anything else for you. Why? Well where I am from that is just how it is. We take care of our own. The second thing you'll need to know about me is that I feel like everything in some way, shape, or form, is my fault...that is, if it goes wrong. If it is good, then something aside from my doing, made it that way. Call it being humble, call it lack of self confidence, call it, well...whatever you like. The bottom line is that I hate to disappoint people, and I hate it when people are disappointed, at me or otherwise. So if I am caught apologizing to you, you can safely presume that I feel like I screwed up in some fashion and it is my way of taking responsibility for it. The last thing you'll need to know about me is that I am a Lutheran Musician. That's a two part title for good reason. First and foremost, Lutheran. Well, Luther would have called himself a Christian so I'll go ahead and say that is assumed. I make no bones about the fact that I think we are as close to "getting it right" as you can...how can you go wrong with the INERRANT WORD OF GOD as your guide? The second part of that is the musician part. My parents both worked when I was a young child (pre-preschool) so I spent a lot of time being raised by my aunt and uncle. In fact, I called my aunt "Mom" before I actually called my real mother that. My uncle, a master of the piano, and the hymnal, would play hymns to put me to sleep, or would sing them to me with my aunt (who was once "Ms. Alaska”). She has a beautiful voice. So I learned to sing the song of the church from a very early age. Not just "Jesus, loves me" as important as that hymn can be, but also A Mighty Fortress, Muede bin Ich, and Thy Strong Word. So music and the Faith were a part of my upbringing.
Well I think that gets the preliminary intro out of the way. It's late. I better get in bed. No wife to cuddle with tonight though. She's in Minnesota. Guess, I'll have to settle for a dream.