Mystery Solved... Still Amazing!

I did some research on the painting elephant...

"Just for clarification, with these realistic figural works, the elephant is still the only one making the marks on the paper but the paintings are learned series of brushstrokes not Hong painting a still life on her own."

Does this mean something?

De Plane Boss, De Plane.

My Sister and I all got matching Tatoos!

They are all ancient Korean symbols of birth order.

Mine (First Son):



















SoeYun's (Oldest Daughter):



















KeyLyn (Youngest Daughter):

I am in love with this girl!

How 'bout them Patriots?

O.k., so, I don't admit this very often, but a part of me likes the Patriots. I was rooting for them yesterday, but it seems to me that the Giants, "out-patrioted," the Patriots.

I remember the Superbowl following the 2001 season where the Pats faced the Rams. The Rams were heavy favorites, and rightly so. They were of course, the "fastest show on turf." I was rooting for the Rams pretty hard that year, and thought that the "lucky team" from New England had no shot. I remember the introductions very vividly that year, the Rams all being introduced individually, which was perfectly normal. What wasn't so normal though was the Patriots introductions. "The New England Patriots have requested to be introduced as a team." After which they all ran on the field together. I remember an announcer, or maybe someone where I was watching the game saying, "uh oh."

They then did what the Patriots do. They kept it close by playing great defense, til the 4th quarter in which Tom Brady marched down the field to win a close game at the end.

I remember being impressed by that, both Tom Brady's cool-headedness and the introduction thing.

Ever since then, I have admired the Patriots attitude of "no one is bigger than the team attitude. You want more money, or want to hold out? Alright, you can go find it somewhere else." In an era of Keyshawn Johnson's, that is such a breath of fresh air. Randy Moss this year took a major paycut to play for this team. They told him, this is what we have for you, we would love to have you, but this is all we are going to do. They told that to the best wide receiver in the game!

Anyway. I watched the highlights of the Giants stepping off the plane all dressed in matching black suits and sunglasses, and thought to myself... "Uh oh." And then the Giants did what the Patriots usually do. Kept it close into the fourth quarter, and then won it at the end.

Hats off to the New York Giants.

SoeBeck's Principles of Youth Ministry

So, my one adoring reader asked me to please post something new, so here you go.

I have a fundamental principle in youth ministry. For all of those youth ministers out there, pull up a chair and listen up, because I have some sage advice for you:

Don't do lock-ins. Seriously, they are evil and of Satan.

Now, I don't really like Lock-outs either, overnight events where you move around every few hours to different places - i.e. bowling alley, ice-rink, etc., such as the one we are doing tomorrow night. Lock-outs though are 100 times better than lock-ins, and are necessary to do once a year or so to get everyone off your back to have a lock-in.

Of the devil, I'm telling you.

Also of the devil are Gym's, like the one I just joined. That's what I am looking forward to the most about heaven, awesome abs with no working out. Yup, that's what I look forward to the most.

Oh, and the hanging out with our Lord and Saviour.

Is there going to be sex in heaven? That is a fun topic to discuss. This guy thinks, yes.

I'm out.

The Physics of Santa

The Physics of Santa Claus

---

1. No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.
2. There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to the Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.
3. Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, and assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of his sleigh, jump down the chimnye, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course we know to be false but for the purpose of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking aabout .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
4. The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 punds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (refer to point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal load, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
5. 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entereing the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy per SECOND, EACH! In short, hey will burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create a deafening sonic boom in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousanths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal* forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead by now.
* Please note that centrifugal is a made-up non existent word. The real word should be centripetal. Centrifugal is a made up force that physics people HATE! So please, everyone use the world centripetal, not centrifugal. Thanks!

Oh darn that first digit!

Tomorrow I turn 30. Wow. Life is never how you picture it. Thanks be to God for life, and life abundantly.

At a loss...

Holly and I broke up this last Saturday. It was the hardest thing I have ever been through, and I have been through quite a bit in this short life. I am hopeful as ever that we may get things worked out someday soon and live happily ever after*... but for now that seems to be on hold. Thanks for everyone's concern and well wishes. I am blessed to have such great friends and family in my life.

*I know things are never happily ever after, thank-you very much.

Well, sometimes my life just don't make sense at all
When the mountains look so big
And my faith just seems so small

So hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace

And I wake up in the night and feel the dark
It's so hot inside my soul
I swear there must be blisters on my heart

So hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace

Surrender don't come natural to me
I'd rather fight You for something I don't really want
Than to take what You give that I need
And I've beat my head against so many walls
Now I'm falling down, I'm falling on my knees

And this Salvation Army band is playing this hymn
And Your grace rings out so deep
It makes my resistance seem so thin

I'm singing hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace

You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace

I know, I never post.

I have had some major life things going on, it will all be resolved soon. I will be around more then, I promise!

In the meantime here is Zombie Love! It's in 2 parts. After you watch the first, there will be a link for the second. Making that was a lot of fun!

See you all soon.

New Movie Starring Yours Truly...

Well, maybe not starring me, but I'm in it nonetheless!

Here is the trailer!

Pat Robertson = Hypocrite

What in the world? I already disliked you plenty.

How in the world can you back a candidate that you disagree with on almost every social issue, merely because he has a chance to defeat Hilary. For shame.

Oops!

We have been doing church wrong for years!

We have it figured out now though, so come buy our new tell-all book for only 19.95!

It will tell you how we screwed up real bad.

Not to toot my own horn...

But this weeks podcast may be the best one we have ever done! Get it HERE.

To see our other 3 new ones go to Darin's Blog.

Peace.

Finally!

The first couple episodes of "The Office" this year were funny, but not hysterical. I started questioning whether or not the show could pull off an hour. Then last nights episode...

Pure magic!

"It's like eating a hot circle of garbage."

Michael and Dwight discussing the decision to hold the pizza boy hostage:
“You had to! What other choice did you have?”
“I could have paid for the pizza!”

“get back to selling multiple reams like a man!”

The part where Andy was getting the little nods from Jim when Jim was mocking him was great.

So many more quotes. It took a few episodes, but I got an episode where I laughed from start to finish. Here is to the greatest show on TV!

News Mishap

Brant called and told me about this incident that happened at a local station down where he lives last weekend. He kept waiting for it to pop-up on you tube. Well, here it is:

I love this commercial!

Man, love that music from the Last of the Mohicans!

Fascinating and Heartbeaking.

Read this article about 7 women's stories about abortion. Not a Christian publication by any means.

My Dad

KeyChun Song is pretty amazing. He can windmill kick you in the face in an instant, he can heal you by sticking needles in you and making you drink the nasty stuff, and he can mesmerize you with a story. He is a great man. Not that he doesn't have his flaws (like we all do). He is hard-headed and has a bit of a temper. He is a proud man, sometimes to a fault.

Being with him in Korea was like that a bit. He had moments of being wonderful and moments of being a bit boorish (I will admit that I am not accustomed to being with my parents for 24 hours a day anymore either). There is a day I will never forget though, and shows me just how much my Dad has grown.

I explained in my last blog entry (I know it has been awhile) a little bit about how my Dad's sister and her husband (whom are both ministering in my Great-grandfather's church) were raising a fuss about it being the "80th" anniversary, and not the "75th". I would like tell you what my Dad did in light of that situation. Like I alluded to before, the first son is the top of the food chain in asian culture. What people don't understand about Asians, and especially Koreans, is how fiercely proud of a people they are. I think we see them in this country as being polite and respectful and small in stature, and we think they are such a humble and unassuming people. Please, don't believe that for one second. :) They will put their families in financial ruin, because they cannot be seen as lesser in the eyes of others, or admit they are erred or flawed in some way. Pride is something that asian males just have.

My dad is no different, although I have seen improvement in this over the years. When my Dad and I were talking about Aunt Doki that morning that he got the call to come speak, he told me that he was going to go their church service that night. He told me that he was going to speak to them from the Bible and be done with it. He hoped that they would hear what he had to say, but he wasn't going to worry about it. He was just going there to speak the truth and let that play out. This was a big deal in itself. Like I said before, it was expected that his younger siblings would come to him. Yet, this was my Dad, the first born, going and seeking them out. Which is pretty much a social no-no. Anyway, that was his plan.

We went sight-seeing that day, and had my uncle drop the three of us off at their church building so that we could attend their Wednesday night service. We went up to the second floor where they were holding the church service, and saw they had already started. My mom and I quietly slipped in the back and saw that their church service consisted of my aunt, her husband, and one other lady. My Dad told me later that his heart broke when he saw that. He told me that he went from wanting to be right and see justice, to just wanting to cry. My aunt saw my Dad walk in, and lost it. She started sobbing in the middle of the singing. My Dad again, went over to her and consoled her. He helped her find the page of the song they were singing, and helped her turn to the scripture they were reading. You could hear his voice reading over all the others. After the sermon, we all went downstairs and met in their office. We all sat down, and I watched my Dad speak softly to my Aunt and Uncle. He let them air their grievances, and while he didn't necessarily agree with what they had to say, he let them say their piece anyway. He spoke to them tenderily, lovingly, and yet sternly at times. He allowed Jesus to show up. We all talked after awhile and things were better. Much of the tension was relieved, and all seemed ok. We got up to leave, and as my Dad stepped out of the building, he turned to my Aunt and handed her all the cash in his wallet. He told her it was for the church, and to use it for the work of the body.

My Dad has come a long way. The Lord has started a work in him, that one day will be completed in Heaven.

Impressions of Korea: It's Huge.

I had an awesome trip to the Motherland, Seoul, South Korea. I guess it has changed a lot since the last time I was there, some 26 years ago. Allow me to say that 20 hours on a plane is brutal. No matter how comfy the seats, or if you have "300", "Zoolander", and the "Matrix" on the I-pod, it is just a long, long time to sit. Here are Papa and Mama Song chillin' on the plane before take off.



















22 hours later...


















We landed in Incheon (about an hour outside of Seoul) Sunday, about 4 pm (our flight left Saturday morning about 6 am). There were several of my Dad's siblings (my dad is the first of 10 kids) waiting for us. It was neat to get to meet some of them for the first time that I can remember.










We were wisked away to a church service at the president of the convention's church. I was absolutely exhausted, and don't remember too much about that night. I know that I was really happy to get to my hotel room.




















The morning we got up and went to the pharmacy district so that my dad could purchase some books about Herbal Medicine. I took the chance to walk around a bit and check out the city a little bit. If you include the entire metro area around Seoul, the city is 20 million people. There are people and cars and buildings everywhere. It truly is massive. There are vendors on the streets that sell things like plants, and food, and bread.



















This is more of the East Gate district of Seoul.










I guess this is a good time to explain the reason we went to Seoul in the first place. The Korean Christian Churches/Churches of Christ were celebrating their 75th anniversary. They have a conference every year, kind of like the North American Christian Convention for the Christian Churches here in the states. My great-grandfather started the Christian Church/Church of Christ movement in Korea along with the first Christian College. It was bizarre because there was no American Christian Church missionary or anyone that came over to evangelize Korea. My great-grandfather just read the scriptures and decided to simply call his churches, "Christian churches." Years later when the Christian churches sent missionaries to Korea, they were informed they already had some christian churches (you already have some? They say they already have some. Yes, it's very nice). It is interesting as well to point out that the practices of the Christian church there, are almost identical to the Christian churches in the States. Water baptism, communion every week, etc. After my great-grandfather passed, my grandfather continued to plant churches and pastor the first church my great-grandfather started. Anyway, the 75th anniversary was a big deal, obviously, so they wanted to celebrate the legacy that my great-grandfather had left behind. They asked the my Father and I be there to accept a commendation on behalf of the Song family. This is my dad at the Hotel before the ceremony.




















Of course before the ceremony, we had to eat some korean food. I ate korean food all week and wanted more! Every where I went I asked if they served dog, as I was determined to eat dog while I was there. Every time I asked I was looked at with a worried look, as if the mere question was insulting. Whatever, I know they have it somewhere, but I never got any.































This is the opening of the 75th anniversary celebration. It was pretty awesome.



















This is my Dad accepting the "major award" on stage. He was so proud.




















Later that night, we skipped out on the Robert Shuler sermon (I was already thinking positively) and went to my aunt Hyun-Sook's house. She has an art shop on the first floor from which she sells pottery and ceremics which she makes. She is very talented.





































The next morning I was going a little crazy because I hadn't had a chance to explore Seoul. So, I woke up early, strapped on my backpack, and started walking in the rain. It was incredible, even though I couldn't find an umbrella! The fourth picture there is a coffee shop I stopped in to get dry, drink some warm coffee, and ring my socks out (the workers were excited about that). I also took a moment to read the old bible and the day's letter that Holly gave me when I left.










This is a picture of one of the Budhist Temple's in the city. I felt sorrow for the many, many people that are in the bondage of worshipping a false God. I took a moment to pray for them and the many westerners that come to visit places like this every year.










Mmmmm... diet Coke.











The last morning of the convention, Wednesday, both my dad and woke up at 5 am. We just talked about our week and started to talk about why my Aunt Doki hadn't come to see us. My dad is the first son, which means that the younger siblings are to seek him out. And my Aunt Doki hadn't even so much as called. I knew that there was something going on, so I asked him about it. He told me that Doki and her husband (who were now pastors at my great-grandfather's original church) were really upset at the convention because they said that he didn't start the first christian church 75 years ago, but rather 80. They wrote letters to newspapers and were boycotting the ceremony because of it. They also informed my one of my aunts that if my dad came to be a part of the ceremony, that my Dad would be considered an enemy. My dad told me that he was just excited that someone wanted to recognize the legacy of the Song family, and that a number wasn't really that important. He went and took a shower, and while he was in the shower, he was praying that being the last day of the conference, if God wanted him to give him a chance to speak, he would be open to speaking. After he got out of the shower, he received a phone call from the convention, asking if he would want to come and speak later that morning. The picture above is one of the many that he took after he got done speaking.






































After the conference ended about noon, my uncle Chungee rented a van, and we took a tour of Seoul.





























This is Yoido, Full Gospel Church. The largest church in the world. They claim 200,000 + a weekend. That 9 or 10 story building is their children's ministry area. They have another behind it for the teens.





































This is the campus of Seoul Foreign School, the school my mom taught at. I spent the first 2 years of my life living here.



















This is Seoul Christian University. The president of the school offered me a free scholarship to get my masters and doctorate if I wanted to.










This is the hospital I stayed at when I had Spinal Meningitis. I was 3 months old.



















This is the Chosun Dynasty Palace. This palace was built in 1310 and the Chosun Dynasty lasted until 1910.











This is the Ramada Seoul, the hotel we stayed at while we were there.

The next day, we got up, and drove to the airport. 20 more hours on a plane, and I was home.

The end.