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 Charlie Knox26, m, resident of spa, northern ireland, a thinker, who tries to be real, enjoys the company of nala(left), indebted to jesus for his grace and instruction in life and whose, amongst other things, studying sports science at UUJ. enjoy rugby a whole lot! |
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Friday, August 29, 2003 Some Quotes via The Week 'A sucession of small duties always faithfully done demands no less that do herois actions' Rousseau 'Reality is the leading cause of stress for those in touch with it' Lily Tomlin 'Happiness is a how, not a what; a talent not an object' Hermann Heese posted by charlie | 9:36 PM | Doh! Graeme's car just got broken into. $350 stereo nicked. No sign of the guys who did it. posted by charlie | 9:32 PM | Past few days in short + Coached every day from 9-1 + Built some SAQ ladders for coaching. We bought all the stuff from Home Depot and constructed them in Tucker's living room + Watched Tucker's and Darren's team get scalped at Chitown futbol + Ate more pizza at Connie's + Watched Stigmata and chatted about some of the stuff that came up in it with the boys + Visited Chinatown - crazy stuff - just like an area from China has been lifted and set in Chicago + Went to another FIRE game (they beat Colorado Rapids 2-1) with the soccer guys from school. OUr van broke down on the way and we had to squeeze 13 of us into another vehicle. After Tucker sorted the car thing out we went back into the city and tried to find somewhere to eat. We ended up trying to walk thru a drive thru at Wendy's but were unsucessful so we drove thru and then ate our stuff in the car park - was a fun time hanging out with the guys outside of soccer practice - definitely got to know some of them better. + Graeme (watson) arrived. Friend from Northern Ireland who now lives with his wife in Pennsylvania. + Caught the train downtown + Met a bloke called Larry - he was selling water on Michigan Avenue and chatted away to us when we sat down beside him. He came across as pretty poor - as we watched people's response to him it ws interesting that the most acknowledement he got was from a kid who insisted on saying by-bye to him as she walked by - Jesus said something about children's hearts didn't he - i saw what he meant tonite - to the kid Larry wasn't some annoying poor guy - he was a person! + Ate more flipping pizza - again from gino east - i now feel overly full posted by charlie | 5:10 AM | Monday, August 25, 2003 Went to a cool arcade game spot last night called GAMEWORKS. It has every arcade game thinkable including my favourite, TIME CRISIS (1,2&3). Basically we paid $27 for a 3 hour card and played as many games as we wanted. I got somewhere near 30 plays in and the other boys the same - not bad for $7 each. posted by charlie | 10:53 PM | i finally beat marky at chess last night - flipping right!!! since then we've stalemated twice (25.8.03 & 26.8.03) and i've lost once (10 minutes ago) posted by charlie | 10:50 PM | EHAWEHAWEHAW (siren noise) Tucker got pulled over by the police last night for doing 40mph in a 30 mph zone. Despite his polite attempts to avoid penalty, he was given a ticket. He has a few choices now..... 1/ plead guilty. $75. get it put on his record(may effect insurance) 2/ go to a 4 hour driving school. $105. no record kept of offence. 3/ go to court and contest the booking. At least he doesn't get penalty points! posted by charlie | 10:49 PM | Church We went to Tucker’s church yesterday. It’s a fairly small, predominantly African American church, based around a brethren way of thinking – although in practice it was a little livelier that most brethrens back home (lots of Amens, Hallelujahs, Preach its…etc). There was few parts of the service that I enjoyed particularly. (+)They ask any visitors to identify themselves by standing up and introducing themselves. While this is pretty uncomfortable in front of so many people, you could tell both by their response then and also after the service that they were glad to have you with them. I felt real welcome in the community by the time I was leaving. (+)Another thing I liked was what they did before intercessory prayer. For at least 10/15 minutes before they prayed they took time for people in the congregation to share either a praise/thanks or a prayer request. In doing this you could see that they were genuinely interested in how people were doing. As people spoke there was a real sense of empathy with them – some laughs/ celebration when people were sharing about blessings but also a sense of pain and sadness when people shared their heartaches. There was just a real family atmosphere – people going through good times and bad times but going through them together – aint that what church is all about. (+)Aside from these the sermon was packed with wisdom (spoken slowly, thoughfully and packed with life experience), there was a duet by two of the praise leaders who both had amazing voices and communion. (-)I didn’t enjoy communion a lot. Here’s why. The bread(waifer) and wine were kept in a plastic sachet, not unlike a milk sachet that you might get at a café. First of all you had to try and peel the top plastic film off to get at the waifer. Peeling the film off was both difficult and noisy – not great for a time that is supposed to be quiet and reflective. After this we took the waifer, which tasted very like and felt very like chewing cardboard. Nonetheless we moved to the next step which involved peeling the foil lid off the sachet, again this was very noisy. After we had taken the wine from the sachet, a bin was passed across in front of us and we disposed of our little package. All in all it was tacky but probably worse than that - very distracting – maybe one would get used to it. All in all – I enjoyed this different church service… posted by charlie | 10:42 PM | Sunday, August 24, 2003 Hateful moment As i said, we went shopping the other day. I had the same hateful moment occur a couple of times as we looked around. It went something like this. I was just looking around some clothes shops for some clothes that i liked or some that were bargains. As i looked around if i spotted something, i made a bee-line for it to examine it a little closer. As i got closer i began to think - 'yeah a quite like that, it might suit me, it isn't too expensive either' ANd then i would check to see if they had my size. However as i flicked through the goods on a few occasions i saw that they didn't seem to have my waist size, or a medium or large sticker. Instead they seem to be measured in Sizes eg. Size 10 or Size 12. I wonder is this some american way of measuring clothes size. And then the hateful moment begins as i begin to suspect the worst. As i examine the wider area around me, my suspicisions are confirmed - i am in fact standing right in the middle of the Womens section. For the past minute or so i have been fixated with some piece of Womens clothing and now i must attempt to shuffle myself away without being noticed. As i move away i slowly elevate my head to see if anyone saw my obvious blooper and as i near the front of my shop my steps get faster as i get closer to the relative safety of the hallway outside. What a hateful feeling it is when you realise you are in the wrong place. posted by charlie | 8:08 PM | Again the action has been non-stop since my last post. On Wednesday evening we went to watch Chicago Fire playing against Los Angeles Galaxy. The fire won by one goal. The crowd at the match was pretty different to the crowds at the game back home. Not to many hardcore supporters - at least they don't show it much! Not like the thuggish Linfield supporters at home!! On Thursday after soccer practice we packed up our bags and headed out to a place called Gurnee - home of many outlet stores and also six flags, Great America theme park. We spent the evening shopping a wee bit and then after a feed at Wendy's headed to the motel we booked a nite in - where i was able to get a bath for the first time in a long time!! The next morning we headed early to six flags and spent the day getting fired about the atmosphere by all sorts of twisting and looping, fast rides (check out Big Drop, Superman, Vertical Velocity, Raging Bull - they were my favourites). I also got to fulfil a childhood dream going on the River Rocker in one of those circular raft things. Yesterday was a slightly slower paced day when we watched some soccer, tried to swim some only to be told the water was closed because of Bacteria (they told me this after i'd been in the water for 2/3 minutes!!), we played some chess (can't beat Marky yet - like playing Gregory at FIFA) and then last night we went to the cinema to see Jacky Chan's new movie, 'The Medallion'. ALot of the movie was shot in Ireland and the baddies den is situated beneath Dunluce Castle. Apart from enjoying seeing NI in the flick, i didn't really like the movie very much. Lee Evans aint a great actor, and the plot was a bit too far fetched to be set in places that i know in real time. We all reckoned Jacky Chan is trying to fire out too many movies and is running out of creative ideas. That all said going to the cinema is fun in itself. So another fun few days. A week to go now. posted by charlie | 7:42 PM | Wednesday, August 20, 2003 Up and Out in Downtown Chicago Tonite we headed up to the observatory at the top of the John Hancock Tower, Chicago's second biggest building. The building itself is phenomenal, pretty mindblowing to think that it's over 4 times higher (100 stories) than Belfast's biggest building, Windsor House (23 stories). It blows my mind the amount of architecture, engineering and construction that has went into the building in order for it to stand up - i did a bit of building myself at Sprickles this past spring - a few 3-block-high walls - i was impressed with my work - how much more skill has went into these towers!! Anyway - suffice to say they left me in awe!The view at the top is also fantastic - we timed it to get sunset so we saw the city in the light and the dark. One other cool/funny thing was the amount of spiders on the windows at the top - there was 100's of them - some of them pretty big - they definitely weren't scared of heights!! After the tower we headed for some Chicago style pizza at Gino's-east. The pizza is real thick with lots of thick cheese, lots of tomato and a massive crust. Between the pizza and the free refills of coke my stomach was definitely heading out - almost to the point of pain! One thing fairly unique to Gino east is the way that they allow people to write all over the wall - 1000's of people over the years have signed them to the point where the grafitti almost looks like wallpaper. We left the B-hinch mark just for fun! A fun nite - about to get even better as i get some sleep. posted by charlie | 4:56 AM | Tuesday, August 19, 2003 Indoor Soccer Tonite we went down to an indoor soccer facility - the only one of it's kind in Chicago (check out the website for pictures) - where Tucker's team was playing. Darren got a chance to play and starred in the process scoring a hatrick, contributing quite a bit to their 4-3 win. I was really impressed by the facility. It came about through the vision of one christian guy in the construction industry, who loved soccer and who also wanted to contribute something to the community in Chicago. He was able to aqquire an old industrial place and converted it to the soccer halls. It's clear that this place has a pretty positive impact on a community where recreation isn't always available. This type of thing excites me alot - christians getting involved in the real world, bringing blessing to others - just passing on what God has done for them. posted by charlie | 3:49 AM | Monday, August 18, 2003 We went grocery shopping today after soccer practice - not something i do alot!! I now appreciate my mother's effort in this field much, much more. posted by charlie | 11:34 PM | Get your sacred milk with a bible verse on it @ Promised Land Dairies! Talk about milkin' the old christian market!! posted by charlie | 11:29 PM | All go in Arkansas (the content of this blog will probably bore the tears out of you - I'm using it more like a diary to remember what we got up to) Back from Arkansas now. Had a great time down there - never stopped though. On the way down we stopped at the St Louis arch - pretty impressive structure(check out the photos at the website). We we arrived we jumped in Tucker's pool and played water polo into the night. The following day headed over to John Brown and hooked up with Johnny and a few other folks over there - it was weird to be in the place where Johnny spends so much of his time. Later that day we went back home - played some Golf about Tucker's house and then some volleyball in the pool. For tea we headed out to a restaurant - i had a massive steak and all sorts of other goodies - i'm concluding that american portions are always much bigger. After the feed we went go karting and then for a round of crazy golf - i came last - however i did get an idea to do a crazy golf course at home - not a lot of capital input needed and not too many maintenance costs and i think people would use it - just need some land now to bring crazy golf to Ballynahinch!! The non-stop activity began again the next morning (7:30!!!!!) when we headed out for a round of golf at a local course - again i came last but it was fun - especially the buggies! Following this we went back to JBU and spent some time ovet there playing table tennis, basketball and some soccer. We also picked up Johnny and he came to stay the night with us. That night the Tucker's had a big house party, again with some great food. We shaked more hands that night - i remember very few of the names! We rounded the night of in the pool. The next morning we woke for church, a new one called Grace Point. After church we went by the head offices of Wal-MArt - one of the biggest companies in the world(over 3500 supermarkets)- the buildings though are by no means fancy - they are really plain - the offices are just a converted warehouse really - Tucker's dad works there. Pretty interesting to hear about the growth of this organisation from someone within. After a feed we did the 10 hour journey back to Chicago. posted by charlie | 11:23 PM | Thursday, August 14, 2003 Question to TXTR's Do any of you SMS people know a site on the web where one can get free texts? If you do please leave them in the message box below. posted by charlie | 12:40 PM | Random thought..... Chewing gum - when i was a kid i used to swallow it, despite the many warnings from my parents. Now i can't think of anything worse than swallowing my gum - it just aint good for you - funny how things change. Marky said he has to swallow Hubba Bubba cos it tastes good. posted by charlie | 12:38 PM | Going South.... Right now it's 7:30 (AM!) - i know it aint like me to be up at this time. We just about to head on a 10 hour car journey down to Arkansas (where Johnny goes to Uni and where Tucker hails from). Pretty tired - last night when we arrived the boys and I decided to join a few old friends going to see 'Matrix Reloaded' at the IMAX cinema. With the time difference and all that we were pretty tired (Marky even started snoring pretty loud at one point) but it was fun - that screen is massive - i aint been to the Odyessy one yet. I had already seen the movie but good to see it again - it frazzled my head a bit the last time - i understood a few more things this time about - the 'architect' scene still baffles me though!! Anyway heading south....... posted by charlie | 12:36 PM | Don't watch 'The Core' We has arrived safely and on time. Right now I'm sitting in Tucker's apartment which is situated in a Hispanic neighbourhood called La Villita (Little Village). Journey was fun - i just love travellling. We flew from Dublin to Philadelphia and then to Chicago. The movie on show was 'The Core' - pants really - a pretty poor re-run on the Armageddon concept - going into earth rather than out of it. The service from US Airways wasnt great either - they seem to have had to make big cutbacks since september 11th - you have to pay for earphones, there was no free food on the domestic flight, you didn't even get a full can of drink either. Anyhow, i still enjoyed the journey - you just don't expect easyjet type service on an expensive flight like that. I suppose they did the most important thing and got us here. posted by charlie | 12:27 PM | Tuesday, August 12, 2003 Chi town here we come This time tomorrow i will be somewhere over the Atlantic en route to Chicago. I'm going for two and half weeks with two young fellas from Ballynahinch to spend time in the city doing a whole load of different things. (Last night we had a fundrasier bbq/goodbye for Johnny at the house and raised over £250 which was brilliant. the night was good craic with many teenagers and adolescents rediscovering their childhood's on the bouncy castle.) I'll hopefully get time in CHicago to keep y'all posted on what we're up to across the water.... posted by charlie | 4:08 PM | Lightning takes out our modem!! I aint been able to check emails or blog because the lightning frazzled our modem last week during the storm. Right now i'm using a cheap but very good internet shop on the Lower Ormeau road. All that said the lightning was pretty superb - powerful, loud and pretty dang scary. A little reminder that human power is pretty poor compared the divine. posted by charlie | 4:02 PM | Monday, August 04, 2003 What amazing weather we had today. I was able to enjoy plenty of time outside. Some at the lake with Nala, our in-heat dog, some out on the bike around the local roads, some with a few friends out in their gardens and then finally tonite, some time with Al McIlveen up in the river at Bloody Bridge. Coming home the sun was going down, leaving a beautiful red skyline and some beautiful silouhettes left by the Dromara Hills. Thank God for it all. posted by charlie | 10:11 PM | Frank Skinner on Frank Skinner... I bought Frank Skinner's autobiography. Just fancied some light reading, perhaps for when i'm travelling to Chicago. I suppose one of the reasons i bought the book is because i love to read or hear people's stories - how they have arrived where they are at, what drives and motivates them, what they value, where they want to go. Secondly i chose the Skinner biography because having listened to a few of his interviews on his chat show, particuarly the one with Jordan, i've begun to quite like him. Alongside his lightning wit he also came across as a fairly decent guy, who was genuinely interested and sympathetic to some of the hard things that Jordan shared about. Anyway, that might all be a load of rubbish. I suppose i'm just interested to find out a bit more about him. posted by charlie | 10:05 PM | Was on TV tonite for 5 seconds, on the BBC NI news. They interviewed me this morning outside the city hall. They were asking about Councillors wages or something - i didn't really understand exactly what they were talking about and so i speeled for a minute or two. In the end they used one sentence 'Yeah Sure, they deserve to get paid for the work they put in.' I didn't see the smippet but my aunty was telling me. There's another 5 minutes on the fame tally - i'll get to 15 minutes someday! posted by charlie | 9:58 PM | Sunday, August 03, 2003 one to expand on sometime... 'Holiness aint boring' In this world we have this picture that holiness is real boring and repressive and that sin is real fun and adventurous - what a pile of ****!!! We need to reverse these perceptions - not least by the lives that we live. My thoughts on this were catalysted by meeting up with a friend from school who just became a Christian and who also refuted lots of the lifestyle he had before. Not in a judgemental way, but more in a 'that was just crap compared to this' kinda way. He said living for God is a wholesome, life bringing thing - its far better. Free from the costs of the many activities he had engaged himself in before and also purpose and meaning in things - he talked of feeling safe that God would take of him. I think chatting to him and thinking a little more about it has caused me to become far less ashamed of life in God, to again affirm that it is 'life to the full' and that any other alternatives definitely don't deliver on what they (or the media or mates) say they will. Life apart from God is missing out. I don't think i doubted this a whole lot for myself but i definitely did wonder if i and a few of those around me were just weird. it was good to have these things affirmed from someone whos lived a different life more recently. posted by charlie | 11:53 PM | Nala is in heat for the first time. As we drove into to the driveway tonight we were met by a big black shaggy haired dog fleeing - it appears we almost caught them red handed. We're hoping her relative inexperience in this field will mean that we aint got any puppies coming our way!! posted by charlie | 11:45 PM | You say it best when you say nothing at all... in ukraine, because of the language barrier very often you have communicate and connect with people in non verbal ways much more than in normal life - eg. a hug, a gift, the passing of a football or rugby ball, a dance. Perhaps that is why so many of have such good relationships with some of these people - we gave them more than words. posted by charlie | 11:40 PM | 'Nowhere in the New Testament does it say they "went to church"…We can't go to church because we are the church.' from 'Emerging Church: Dan Kimball via jcooper posted by charlie | 11:11 PM | |
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