the unlikely orange

i went running this morning. that in and of itself is an accomplishment, believe me. at 6:30 in the morning on the 31st of december it is dark. and cold. and the wind just whips its mocking screams into your brittle ears, "you're a fool! stay inside and watch sportscenter!" but something posessed me to run. so i did. (run, by the way, is a relative term in that some people run like gazelles and others run like cheetahs and still others run like crippled wildebeasts. i'll give you three guesses which one of the above best describes me.) anyway, as i was running, it began to snow. and not just snow, but really snow. the ground was completely covered in less than five minutes. i actually thought it was pretty cool because i felt like some really dedicated athelete, working out in whatever weather conditions. i imagined that i was in some video montage with an inspirational trumpet-laden song in the background while the camera followed my cheetah-like speed ...

as i have already written, i was able to attend the last game of the regular season for the pittsburgh steelers against the cleveland browns in heinz field. i've already discussed my experience at the game, but i haven't yet written about the fact that the steelers won the game, pushing their record to 12-4 to wrap up the regular season. here are some of my thoughts on the game: -yes we were playing cleveland. and cleveland really is terrible this year (and pretty much every year it seems). and yes, the game was "meaningless." however, i love that tomlin and the players took it seriously from beginning to end. i remember watching the colts in the 2005 postseason in the divisional round of the playoffs, when the steelers came to town. they hadn't played in a couple of weeks, and when they had played in the waning weeks of the regular season they had rested and not played to win. when the steelers came to town and brought playoff intensity with them, the co...

well, by now you probably know that i went to the steeler game on sunday, and you might be wondering how it went. well, in a word: incredible. in an image (or a few): here are a couple of my favorite shots: i want to write a bit more later about the game itself, and the end of the regular season, but here i just want to say a bit about my experience at the game. first of all, thanks to my dad and seth and some guys called chris and andy for finding a way to help get me to heinz field. i am very grateful. dad and i got up and left around 9 or so and got up to pittsburgh and parked. we walked across the seventh street bridge (the andy warhol bridge) and walked through all the tailgating, just enjoying the atmosphere and the energy. we stopped at the clark grill (in the old clark candy building) and had wings before heading over to the stadium. we got in there around 11:30 and watched the guys warming up before heading to the store where i got a terrible towel (i hadn't brought...

you see this stadium? that's where i will be on sunday morning. and all afternoon. that's right. i'm going to the game today. my dad got us tickets, and we're headed to the stadium. i've been to the stadium for a pretty cool tour once, but i have never been there for a game. so this will be my first time, my virgin experience. again, i've seen the steelers at giants stadium in new jersey, but never at the big ketchup bottle. so, i am really excited. really REALLY excited. part of my own excitement is that i am normally worshipping at a different type of cathedral on sunday mornings. not that i'll be worshipping per se, but i will be at a different type of cathedral: a football cathedral. with 60-some thousand other attendees. all of us screaming our heads off. and waving terrible towels. i am absolutely excited about this, and will have more to say about it tomorrow, obviously. for now, as the steelers look to beat the brown streaks for the 11th consecuti...

thought you might enjoy some pics of the sunrise this morning. i'll be back tomorrow.

what child is this? a poem by gregory a. milinovich there’s a chill in the air tonight. the darkness hangs like an old heavy robe cloaking this quivering scene in a solemn sacred holiness. o holy night! there is labor in the air tonight, in the silver streams of breath flowing from the nostrils of the sleepy cow, and in the heavy hanging drapes of thick, black cold. here is a winter solstice, a starlit symphony of silence and sound, an impending salvation. the wind is a weapon tonight, waging war on the skin, tearing like teeth and talon through branch and bark. the stars are iron bars, too cold to touch, too bright to ignore. o holy night! the air is thick with labor. the seed sown in another season will feel its first frost tonight. finally, birth emerges, shivering, in screams and blood, with grunts and gasps, with light and hope. finally, life emerges from this folded night with all the earthiness of birth and all the mystery of heaven. with admiration, with curiosity—with all our ...

i updated my facebook status yesterday to wish all my facebook friends a blessed christmas. i wrote this: i'm wishing you a richly blessed christmas, the kind where hope gets born again in you. a friend of mine commented on that status: sure beats the other kind. i don't know if that was a genuine or sarcastic comment, but it certainly got me thinking about the variety of ways to experience christmas: as a happy holiday, a nice break from routine, a celebration of 'stuff,' a wonderful time to be with family, a time to relive certain meaningful traditions, and so on. there are so many good things about christmas that are peripheral. i mean, they are still good things, but they aren't the main point. the main point, of course, is that a bloody screaming little baby, who was God with skin on, was born one day, and that forever changed the course of history. the main point, of course, is that because of that birth there amongs the animals, the people who walked...

bob - (hope you don't mind if i spell your name backwards). i miss you! lunchtime just isn't the same without you and some sweet plinko action. oh well. have a great birthday today. how old are you now? i'm gonna' guess...97. hope i didn't overbid!

"phyllis is basically saying, 'hey michael, i know you did so much to help the office this year, but i only care about you a homemade oven mitt's worth.'" -michael scott

wow. it is monday morning and i have a sports headache this big. you might think that it is only attributable to the steelers pitiful performance yesterday in tennessee. and that was certainly part of it, but i need to give credit where credit is due. so, in no particular order: -thanks to dwayne bowe for scoring me all of 2.8 points, and to both ronny brown and leon washington for crapping on my team as well. oh, and let's not leave out phillip rivers the quarterback for the team i was playing. after my quarterback, peyton manning threw up 32.66 points for me, i thought i was golden. but that was until rivers decided to go ahead and go off with 35.18 points. thanks, phil. that was the championship game. and unless greg jennings scores 40 points in tonight's game, i'm done. a buffalo bills-type loss. thanks, guys. -thanks to the steelers defense, who looked tired and lazy and out-willed by the titans, and who ruined my sunday afternoon. thanks, guys. -hey wait, there's...

nothing clever today, and no time to elaborate, i just want the steelers to play well, to show some improvements on offense, and to stay healthy. if they win, that would be great too. go steelers!

we took the kids to see santa claus this week, and amazingly there were no tears! cade was a bit apprehensive about it, and just had a bit of a blank stare for most of the time, although he did do 'the elvis lip' thing he does when we ask him to smile. they did a great job and jack earnestly told him what he and cade want for christmas. he even told him that he would be leaving him a pickle! jackson is really excited about santa's arrival this year, so much so that he informed me that i need to get the snow off the roof so that it is safe for him to land on the roof with his sleigh and all. it is fun to see christmas through the eyes of children. when he hears "santa claus is coming to town" his eyes just light up with joy. as a dad, that's about the best christmas gift ever. if you don't check back in before christmas, of if i don't get much of a chance to update, i hope you simply have a wonderful christmas time. gracepeace, greg.

happy birthday, lis! hope your big day is charming. btw, you never got back to me about that question i asked you. in case you forgot, i was just wondering...who is the boss? let me know.

chuck, happy birthday, bro! o, for a thousand curly locks! i'm also diggin' the pose you're strikin' here in your profile pic. its sort of "wicked witch of the west" meets "supreme court justice." have a nice birthday and say hi to john for me. peace.

this year, for my contribution to sharing christmas in the blogosphere, i have put together a little video of our christmas season so far. it is 4 minutes long, set to a sufjan stevens song called "come on! lets boogey to the elf dance." pay special attention to the really cool wreath that shannon made. and the sweet dance moves that my children continue to learn from me. merry christmas, everybody. enjoy.

like i did last year, i'll be exercising my metrosexuality and sharing christmas again this year, along with some of my more girly friends. megan, at day with the demos is organizing again this year, and i'll be sharing a little bit of our christmas with you tomorrow, so be sure and tune in not only here, but also at megan's site for a whole christmas experience. feliz navidad!

happy birthday, eugene! btw, i love your new glasses in this profile pic. omg, they totally don't make your eyebrows look bigger. are we related? cause most of my relatives have eyebrows like yours. ttyl.

haven't finished your christmas shopping? well, good for you. you are officially being rewarded for putting it off until the last minute. just this week, fast food giant burger king has put a new product on the market that will make you the most popular gift giver at christmas since aunt clara. it is a body spray for men called 'flame' and contains a wonderful hint of flame-broiled meat. i mean, what guy doesn't want to smell like a cooked cow? tell me that women wouldn't be just drooling over a man who smells slightly like a whopper. seriously. go here and buy this for the men in your life. they will never stop thanking you.

umm...if there's anyone still looking for a christmas present for me, you can find this shirt for 15 tiny little dollars here.

happy birthday, ludwig! oooh and i love your new red scarf from abrecrombie! solid. your hair cracks me up in this picture - lol!

the following is mostly a quote (with a few editorial adaptions) from frederick buechner in his book beyond words: daily readings in the abc's of faith. i want to go through life with my eyes wide open for the miracles all around me... "The young pastor and his wife do all the same things you do in the Christmas season. They string the lights and hang the ornaments. They supervise the hanging of the stockings. They tuck in the children. They lug the presents down out of hiding and pile them under the tree. Just as they're about to fall exhausted into bed on Christmas Eve, the husband remembers his neighbor's sheep. The man asked him to feed them for him while he was away, and in the press of other matters that night he forgot all about them. So down the hill he goes through knee-deep snow. He gets two bales of hay from the barn and carries them out to the shed. There's a forty-watt bulb hanging by its cord from the low roof, and he turns it on. The shee...

well, i haven't had a chance yet to reflect artfully on this steelers victory, but i thought i would just write right now so as to share with you my excitment in this moment. the game ended a few hours ago, but i am still on a steelers right now, full of a potent mixture of adrenaline, disbelief, and excitement for the weeks ahead. today, in baltimore (where the steelers hadn't won since 2002 - that's 5 straight losses), the steelers beat the ravens and clinced the afc north division. in case you didn't hear me, let me repeat: THE STEELERS ARE DIVISION CHAMPS! yeah baby! that is worthy of some capital letters! now, the game wasn't pretty by any stretch of the imagination, but steelers games this season rarely are. the blueprint du jour was to keep pace with the ravens with our strong defense until the final moments of the game. actually, we basically outplayed the ravens through most of the game, but killed ourselves with some special team mistakes and drop...

the ravens, as a professional american football team, hail from the city of baltimore, which was also the home of that somewhat strange and macabre poet edgar allan poe (who, by the way, at the age of 26 married his 13-year old cousin). poe, of course, wrote " the raven ," a famous poem about the black bird that landed upon his door and spoke only the word, "nevermore." --- the football team from baltimore, which arrived there in 1996 after escaping cleveland, derives its name from the previously mentioned poem. it is not at all unusual for teams to have names that represent some of the culture or history of the city that is their home. thus you have the steelers from pittsburgh, the texans from houston, the seahawks from seattle, etc. however, what is unusual in this particular case is that those charged with choosing a moniker for the newly formed team in 1996 settled on a bird that is the source of such disdain, even within the poem from which they get the ...

look, i don't know who is writing the fortunes for fortune cookies these days, but some performance evaluation might be in order. i mean, really? really? does my fortune cookie really say what i just read? "someone will invite you to a karaoke party." um...great. thanks. and i was happy when they started putting chinese phrases and words on the back of fortunes. i mean, what better time to learn a new language than when crunching up tooth-shattering dessert after a msg-laden pork-sprinkled entree. i actually enjoyed learning the chinese words for bathroom and indigestion. but do i really need to know that nan gua is chinese for pumpkin? i mean, isn't that like learning the chinese word for kansas? if i ever visit china or get into a conversation someone who only speaks chinese, i am quite certain that the word pumpkin will never, ever be used. however, the phrase that was on the caedmon's fortune might come in handy: "fa shao" is to have a...

'tis the season for tv christmas specials. we all have our favorites, and some of the new ones that have come out (like 'olive the other reindeer' for example) are pretty good, too. but this clip is from the 1987 special: "a claymation christmas." this particular scene is a rendition of 'we three kings' that instantly moved that song to the top of my list of christmas carols, where it remains today. i simply remember laughing and laughing everytime the chorus rolled around (don't forget that i was 11). anyway, enjoy this clip and answer me this question: what are your favorite tv christmas specials?

apparently, my 'open letter to tony romo' has attracted a little attention and been well recieved. funny stuff to me, since i thought of the thing while sitting on the can. anyway i submitted it to an awesome steelers blog that i love, and it made it to the main page here and then from there it got noticed in other places like here ! wow! people actually liked it!

this is a featured video over at youtube right now, and while i am probably very naive about the organization behind this and what not, i think that this video is awesome. i can't help but think about the people who are not given these kind of rights, and how, as a matthew 25 christian, i need to be part of the solution to that. an inspiring and challenging video for me. run time: 4:31. enjoy, greg.

hi there, and welcome to the little room in my basement that we like to call "the art room." but first a warning: entering this room is not advised for the faint of heart. a myriad of visual stimuli await all those who dare enter. strange juxtapositions and combinations of previously known items may cause a kind of dizziness or even vertigo. all that said, come on in. some of you might enjoy seeing where i make most of my collages. look around. just don't go all slugworth on me and steal any secrets....