theparkerfamily.org » Random Musings

double down

evancparker — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 16:53:07 +0000

i walked into Front Royal’s KFC today, expecting their new double down to be something so disgusting that it would put even paula deen’s wretched monstrosities to shame.

instead, i got awesomeness. pure. unadulterated. awesomeness.

don’t get me wrong — one was enough, quite possibly enough for the rest of my existence.

but, wow.

awkward prom date

evancparker — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:31:02 +0000

i’m embarrassed to say, but i’m a chickfila mobile insider — which basically means i’m addicted enough to the deep fried chicken sandwich that they send me special offers to my mobile phone.

this week they’re rolling out a new spicy chicken sandwich, and giving it away at special events in food courts across America — each decorated with all the fanfare of an awkward school dance.

nancyfromwork and i went over during lunch and we were paralyzed by the throwback awkwardness.

oh, and the sandwich was fine and all but — nothing can top the original.

happy beginnings

evancparker — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:53:18 +0000

IMG_5705, originally uploaded by [ecpark].

some of you may have been following the saga of foster mom adventures, an absolutely courageos friend (and m.o.h.) of ours who ignored her own sanity and has given over her life for two children in need of sanctuary.

we were their neck of the woods this weekend, and got to spend some time quality with our maid-of-honor-emeritus and her charges. and by “quality time” i mean “lots of piggy back rides.”

it’s really a beautiful thing how a person can give over her life to children in need, and even more beautiful to see how resilient and wonderful children can be in even the most adverse of circumstances.

it sounds like it’s going to be a long week for the girls, so keep the whole fostermom clan in your thoughts and prayers.

update: turns out there is a happy ending (er, beginning?) to the whole situation. if you haven’t been following, now is the time to start.

Explore the Photo Set (Flickr, friends only):
foster mom’s adventures

choose your superpowers

evancparker — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 03:56:55 +0000

I’m reading a fun (read: trashy) little book called Who Can Save Us Now?: Brand-New Superheroes and Their Amazing (Short) Stories, and while I don’t normally do fiction, this one is pretty good.

so, each hero in each story has a strange new power to meet a modern threat (to become a meerkat, to mind-control televangelists, to never forget a name) which got the lady sparkler and i to thinking about what powers we would take if given the choice …

mine was easy. ever since i was a child, i wanted (a) to have bionic eyes which would zoom, see infrared, take pictures, etc. and (b) the power to be invisible. i’d totally be the little monkey boy who’d come back with the intel and then let the main characters go off and do the dirty work.

she floundered a bit, but soon settled on the ability to fly (“that’s be so cool! zooming in and out of the clouds…”) and to time travel, which — i’ll have you know — includes *both* going backwards and forwards in time, *and* stopping it all together. she also wants a costume that kicks major heiney, too (first draft is above, right).

I thought my desired superpowers say a lot about my personality, but her’s seem an even better match. i’m curious, tho … are we the only ones who have thought this through?

the apocalypse

evancparker — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 02:58:03 +0000

IMG_3515.CR2, originally uploaded by [ecpark].

i’ve been ruminating about this blog post for about two weeks now, which accounts for my recent lull in blog activity. and while it seems rude to start a global panic, i think we need to come to terms with the fact that the world is ending. like, tomorrow.

just listening to npr this morning — my adoring wife’s daily ritual — makes a case for the pending apocalypse that’s at least as good as the case for increasing domestic oil production.

let’s run through the major topics addressed as i refused to get out of bed this morning, hoping the world wouldn’t notice my absence … we’ve got:

flooding in the midwest
drought in the south, panhandle (drier than the Dust Bowl of 1930s)
fires engulfing california (two months earlier than usual)
earthquakes in china (69,000 dead)
cyclones in myanmar (138,000 dead or missing)
plants on European mountain ranges are moving up the mountain, searching for “higher ground”

… and, lest we forget, people are killing each other in iraq, afghanistan, israel/palestine, and (it seems) most of sub-saharan africa and south asia — not to mention drug wars in central and south america.

add this to what you and i already know:

gas prices are through the roof
home values are in the toilet
food staple costs are up 30% in the last year
the stock market has slid back to where it was in July of 1999
consumer confidence index is the third lowest since it began in 1952
presidential approval rating is at 28% (worst sans truman and nixon)
a whopping 14% believe our country is moving in the right direction (lowest ever)

…and what al gore (the guy who invented the interweb) has told us:

the 11 warmest years on record have all been in the last 13 years
the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years
the flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade

… and we’ve pretty well slept with the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and possibly tried to steal their girlfriends. we’ve got conquest, war and famine all sorts of angry. turns out there is even a good, old fashioned plague (locusts in massachusetts) which, in other news, can’t be a good omen for the democratic party.

i was talking to a friend of mine about this “crazy like a fox” idea at lunch today, and it turns out that i am not the only one stockpiling water, duck tape and plastic sheeting. both abcnews and the associated press have come to similar conclusions … and both in the last month.

now, looking at my own reaction — and running through what i remember of the five stages of grief — i have either skipped three stages (straight to depression) or am still in denial. actually, considering i have blacklisted all sources of news from my daily existence (npr, bbc, washington post, even those metro tabloids) i think i’m clearly in “kathleen harris running for public office”-level denial.

that leaves anger (which’ll be easy!), bargaining, depression (that’s easy too!) and then acceptance. of course, all four together might be hard to get through by the time we turn into nothingness, like, tomorrow.

p.s. if you are planning on being raptured, now would be a good time.

Happy Young Christians

evancparker — Sun, 08 Aug 2004 04:28:00 +0000

I left my car at Greenbelt metro last night (long story) and had to go retrieve it this evening. Friends dropped me off a couple blocks FROM Gallery Place to make the trip. I noticed some event just broke at the MCI Center, which sits atop of the metro station, and I started hustling toward the metro entrance, to get in before the crowd.

As I approached, I realized that this wasn”t just a normal MCI Center event. This was something special. Jamming the sidewalk, and spilling over onto the street, were thousands of overweight suburban soccer moms, with feathered hair and “Property of Jesus XXXL” t-shirts. I was entering the Metro system with 10,000 happy Christian females.

I skittered along the edges of the crowd, to see if I could get ahead. At the top of the escalator, there was a GROUP organizing around its leader. Instead of holding up a placard with the group”s name, or a colorful umbrella, this leader was holding up a Christian fish symbol stapled to a paint stirrer.

I decided to take the stairs, deciding in my head that this would be quicker. Turns out that wasn”t exactly the case. After taking 5 minutes to get down 2 flights of stairs, I discovered what was holding up the group. One of the conference attendees, on metal crutches and with leg braces, had decided to bypass the elevator and the escalator in ORDER to take the stairs. It was definitely shaping up to be a long evening.

At the entrance leading INTO the Metro platform, there were lines about 40-50 people deep coming out each of the 20 turnstiles. There were another couple hundred people at the station”s fare kiosks as well. Once again demonstrating my lack of respect for tourists, I skittered along the edge of room, and worked my way in behind a happy Christian mother and her happy Christian family trying to get through the turnstile.

The youngest daughter”s fare card was returning the “stop, take this card to the station manager” error, that means there isn”t enough money on the card or the magnetic strip is dead. Her not-so-happy Christian mother pulled her out of the way, and pushed her elder daughter through instead. While the turnstile was still open FROM daughter number one, she than tried to push the 12 year old through. The doors closed on the little girl, boxing her in the stomach.

After trying the errant card again, the mother turned to the girl, obviously disgusted at the inconvenience, pointed at the station manager kiosk (which is 50 feet away, on the other side of 10,000 happy Christian females) and told her to work it out with the station manager.

The 12 year old (and I for that matter) looked at her like she was crazy, after which the mother (again, obviously disgusted that the girl can”t to anything for herself) snatched the bad card out of her hand, shoved the little girl through on her own card, and started barreling through the crowd at the station manager. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I can”t tell you what happened next. I went through the turnstile, and started wadding down to the platform.

As you might expect, the platform was packed, and the train I needed didn”t SHOW for 18 minutes. When it did show, it was packed. Nothing really bad happened over the next 45 minutes… besides the previously disclosed overweight happy Christian soccer moms with feathered hair. And considering they were happy Christians, they did not seem particularly happy.

Once in the parking lot at Greenbelt, I sprinted to my car, not wanting to get caught up in the exit queue. And it worked, sorta. I was number three in line (behind a white mini-van, and a red hummer, both with Jesus Fishes attached to their backsides) at the left most exit lane, when things started (or more correctly, continued) to go horribly awry.

Turns out the White Mini-van didn”t have a SmartTrip card to use, and she was in a SmartTrip only lane. So she sat there. For a while. Finally, the attendant to the other lane abandoned his post to see what was up. Now, no one is going through either of the lanes. At this point, each exit lane was backed up with 15-20 cars.

The attendant talked to the driver of the mini-van, and it turned out that she not only didn”t have a SmartTrip card, but she didn”t have any money at all. So, she got out of her car, and started filling out a “I don”t have money” form on the hood of her car. This, apparently, was the last straw for the happy Christian female in the Hummer.

At this point, each of the lines were 30-40 cars deep, and the Hummer has about two feet on either side of her bumper to begin executing a three point turn. Now, where she is going, I had no clue. And for those of you who don”t know, Hummer”s can”t DO three point turns in four feet of space.

Somewhere around point 29 in her three point turn, the happy Christian Hummer paused, and assessed the situation. Turns out, she knew exactly where she was going: there was about a 3 foot green embankment that leads back to the parking lot, and in turn to other exits FROM the station. Right as she was reving her engine for the onslaught, the previously stuck Mini-van got her stuff in gear, and finally proceeded through the exit.

As you might guess, at this point, the Hummer is 90 degrees removed FROM the exit, and was blocking up the works so that neither she nor I can get out. For the record, the now 50 cards behind me couldn”t get out either. Over the next several minutes, the happy Christian Hummer executed another 29 point turn to get herself oriented properly once again. After fumbling with her SmartTrip card, she finally exited and let the rest of us do the same.

I am not sure there is a moral to the story, except perhaps that overweight happy Christian soccer moms with feathered hair who derive happiness FROM evangelical Christian conferences don”t appear to be very successful in deriving said happiness. Maybe, just maybe, the need to fix something a little deeper?