Desert Song

Here's a great song from Hillsong, that I've been listening too a lot lately.
Fitting song for the struggles of the current church, economic & cultural climate.

Chainsaw

Last night I decided to cut up some old logs that are in our "woods". I use the term "woods" loosely, since our portion of it isn't very deep, but I digress...

Anyways, seeing that I'm not exactly John Bunyan (the lumberman came from St. Paul), I decided to use a chainsaw.

That worked well for the majority of the time, until I decided to cut this big, thick tree that had broke off near the base (3-4 feet off the ground). I was aware that, upon getting through the trunk, I would want to keep my tender toes & ankles away from the falling trunk.

As it turned out, I ran into a different problem. While casually off in la-la land, I got to the point where the top "halves" of the trunk fell slightly together, "binding" my chainsaw in the trunk......in other words, plain stuck.

No having a certain degree of pride, I decided that I need to get this out without any help. So, I set about cutting with my handsaw from the other end.

After awhile I would test what's left by jumping up and down on the cut area. Remember the scene in "Fireproof" where the Kirk Cameron character is smashing stuff, knocking over garbage cans, etc. That's the kind of moment I probably gave my neighbors if they saw me in the woods jumping up and down like a gorilla. (I probably gave a few frustrated grunts as well).

I did that alternating cycle for about 15 minutes before the "light came on" in my head, and I went to get my power saw. With the aid of electricity, and several strategic cuts later, the two pieces fell together, and all was well....just as darkness set.

All in a days work?

80 degrees in Virginia

This past weekend my wife and I, along with our two boys had an chance to visit her relatives in Virgina.

It was a great weekend of relaxing, enjoying the sunny 80 degree weather, and watching the boys jump around on the trampoline, and play "dog ball".

The "dog" of "dogball" is a stuffed toy tied around on a rope, that swings above the trampoline. You try to avoid it, or hit it in a certain manner (without touching the trampoline). My boys loved the combination of all things related to jumping up and down.

We even got to spend some time on the lake (paddle-boat) and creek (canoe).

Equally important was the lack of technology, well....MY technology to be specific. Since I didn't have cell coverage, I could turn off my phone, which meant I could turn off my emails (work and personal) and turn off my interest in checking internet news. One phone, 3 options, total departure from the busy norm.

All in all, a great extended weekend.

Soooo much to catch up on.....

....don't know where to start.

1) Had a cold for what seems like 2 months now

2) Congrats to the Steelers on winning a Super Bowl (again).

- heard that the Pittsburgh area had a 2 hour delay on Monday (not weather related). Also heard a negative reaction to that (from people who have no sense of adventure.....about what "message" it's sending). C'mon, kids are going to understand the value of schooling....relax.

3) Found out that there is a marketed product called the "Long-Sleeve Praise & Worship Leotard" (okay, so it doesn't rank up there with the "Shamm-WOW", and it didn't get any commercial endorsements in the Super Bowl, but you can check this out further by clicking here . Comes in Black, White, Red or Purple all for $23.63

I'd post a photo, but I'd probably receive "angst" from the same people who complained about the 2-hour delay.

4) Started playing this little online game called "Streak for the Cash". It's something that fantasy baseball/football players play when they don't want to play fantasy basketball/hockey/Nascar/bass fishing.....yup....fantasy bass fishing. Do I play to win cash....technically, but my chances of winning are .0000000000001% that it's more of just something to do. Basically you need to build a streak of correct winning picks....easier said than done. I've got a longest winning streak of 4, and a longest losing streak of 7, so that gives you an idea of how well it's going.

5) I stumbled across some old emails when I was looking for a baby picture of my oldest son, and found them interesting. I might compile them a bit further for my reading interest. Different time, different place (in life, and location). If anything, my writing has gotten worse with time....

6) My wife's birthday is today, so happy 29th dear!

Fireproof

This weekend I got a chance to see "Fireproof" with my wife. We had 2 showings at our church, and from what I can tell, both were well attended.

If you haven't seen the movie yet, I highly recommend it. It's something that we as a faith community can get behind.

There are books (Love Dare), curriculum (kits, participants guides, DVDs) and other ways to help promote this concept.

Of course, the best way to promote staying married is to "live the life".....




(C.Cameron isn't even that distracting, he does well)....thankfully it's a higher production value than some of his other "Christian" offerings (yes, I'm talking about you, Mr. Left Behind).

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone.

I'm looking forward to a little time off, okay 1 day, after a whirlwind of activity.

We haven't had much snow in the east, but have had our share of ice and cold winter weather. The wind makes all the difference (negatively).

It's the kind of weather that makes reading a book in front of a fire enjoyable....if you have a fireplace. If you don't have a fireplace....well that's a different kind of trouble...

I was in line with a lady today who was complaining about Christmas "today". She said out-loud, to no one in particular, why do we spend so much money at Christmas, and become so busy.....why can't it be like the "old" days.

You mean like the days without indoor plumbing, the days during the World Wars, the Crazy 60's/70's, "Cold" War, Gas shortage, recession of the 80's.....which days might you be referring to???

Ironically she was in line to buy something...sooo....if you don't want to spend so much money, why are you buying more stuff?????

Sure culture/society has something to do with it all, but if you want to change the way you perceive Christmas and the Holiday season, than do it....

....but like always, I kept my mouth shut, and minded my own business.

What is Up

Life moves along these days at a pretty stiff pace. When I here "12 days of Christmas", I'm usually thinking of the time before it, when we get extremely busy at work.

When I'm not at church in the evening, or at work, I've taken an evening (okay 2) to play NCAA Football on xBox. I'm living in the past, because I have the year when B.Quinn and Mardze were great. I shutout Michigan the other night for a cheap, video-game thrill.

I think I'm going to take a Sunday afternoon, use my created player who's rated 99 (why give him weaknesses) and try to lead the university of Toledo to a national championship (Go Mud Hens!).

On a professional level, I am rooting for the 'Birds to make every Eagles fan's Christmas wish: an improbable trip to the playoffs with 2 wins over the Redskins and Cowboys. They created this mess by losing to the Bears, and tying the Bengals, but maybe....just maybe...



(No Kittys were harmed in the making of this image)

(Though in somewhat related news, we are now down to 1 kitty: Joshie is no longer with us).

Da Weekend

It's always interesting from retail perspective, to see the time and energy put into the "black friday-saturday" weekend, and then measure the results. I'm always excited to see how we'll do, increase sales from last year, position ourselves for a great last 6 weeks of the year etc.

As I drove into work at 5:45am on black friday I had to smile at the radio announcer describe lines outside retailers, and the madness associated with the day. At least I didn't have lines or unruly behavior (or dealth/injury...see i.e. Walmart) to deal with, or so I thought....

Enter the After-Thanksgiving Webkinz Promotion:



We, like most retailers sell the furry, soft loveable Webkinz, gatekeepers to their own private virtual world.

Well, marketing decided to offer the first 100 customers in our stores a promotion where a customer would get a webkinz for $.01 (normally $12.99).

This brought the crowds....

I was working at our smallest store (2,000 sq foot) and the lines were the length of the store, for people waiting to check out.

We only have 2 cash registers, so for the first 30-45 minutes we were quickly working through the line of customers. It was crazy, frenetic, and somehow both energizing and tiring at the same time.

One hour later we still had a good customer flow, but the pace had changed back to "normal".

Needless to say, even with a lot of $.01 transactions, we did more sales in that one hour, than we sometimes do, total, on our slowest days.....and that was from 7am to 8am on Black Friday.

At least people were decent, and no major issues erupted.....I never saw the store so full of people.

Lots of happy customers.....now I hope to see them again for the rest of the year.

Oh....Deer

I find this picture equally disturbing and hilarious.

Needless to say, me 'n the bambis aren't getting along these days.

Long story short, I hit a deer in the mountains of Virginia at 2:00 am in the morning. That in of itself is a separate story, but the deer decided my right side of the car needed to reflect sunlight in a concave manner. 2 door and 1 fender panel later and we're playing the waiting game for vehicle repair.

Thankfully we can (and could) still drive the car. It could have been worse.

However, I now suffer from a deer 'phobia. With the time change I now am driving the back-roads to our house in the dark, or near dusk and see deer. Thankfully none of them are as close to the road as "Virginia", but it's slightly unnerving none-the-less.

None of them have ended up like the one above in the picture, can you imagine going to that guys/gal's house? I think I'd use the door knocker, or my own knuckles...

"Why didn't you ring the doorbell?"

Um.....

Cringe Factor

Have you recently been in a public place, and had to cringe at how "Christians" sometimes act?

I was in a supermarket recently, and a lady (apparently) got cut in line by another lady's friend. This didn't sit well with the offended lady, and she was quick to tell everyone around her.

Apparently the other lady, who was of another ethnicity, gave a form of an apology on the way out, to which the offended lady gave the whole "I didn't feel it was right, blah, blah, blah and then in the (seemingly) most insincere way gave the "but God bless you".

CRINGE.....

Let's see, you just spouted your mouth about being offended, and you offer a weak "God Bless You" like that's supposed to make everything alright. What a HORRIBLE example to everyone around you.

Jon Acuff, blogger for "Stufff Christians Like" (yes, 3 F's), wrote about this a number of months ago. The insincere stuff christians do in the name of closing a argument/discussion/slam on the person next to you. The whole, Trevor may have 3 nose rings, a "Mom" tatoo, but "God Bless him" or "Johnny might be making a huge mistake going to Tri-State Community College instead of Harvard, but "bless his heart".

The last thing the world needs is insincerity in their relationships/encounters with Gods people.

Me.....in a landslide

After a careful analysis of the reporting constituencies....I'm please to announce that I win (and I didn't even have to resort to smear tactics!).

Rockin the Hairnet

This might be the only picture of me, in my relatively brief existence, in a hairnet. I found it amusing.. notice the concentration etched on the face!!

Someone Has a Sense of Humor...

I saw this CD recently where the sleepytime worship creators took Third Day songs and made lullaby renditions of them.

It made me smile when the first song was "Cry to Jesus".

Sometimes "sleepy-time" only arrives after a time of "crying to Jesus".

SNA

Okay, so I missed the boat in naming our worship service something that could be used as a cool acronymn. Instead will still be referring to Sunday Night Alive as Sunday Night Alive and not SNA. See the image below, it included some of the print overlays, but get an idea.

Last time.....?;

For a city that doesn't celebrate many sporting success (see last major championship: 1983), when was the last time the 4 major sports teams all made the playoffs (and yes, I'm counting the Eagles making it, despite giving away a game to the Bears).

We've had (in recent memory) unparalleled success this calendar year by the Sixers, Phillies & Flyers. In reality, the Eagles used to be (and in many cases still are) the class of the city, as they've had the most success in the past decade.

Still need the Eagles to come throught, but this could be the start of a run like the Boston and New Yorks', and LA's have enjoyed.

Google = 10

Wow, I saw recently that Google is celebrating it's 10 year anniversary.

It's crazy to think that 1) the word "google" wasn't in our vocabulary 10 years ago, and 2) how fast time flies.

I would have been finishing my first year of college, and the whole IT world was rapidly expanding/changing.

Tech stocks were doing well, things were on the upswing.

Speaking of the upswing, I read an article where the national deficit in 1979 was 1.5 trillion. As it turned out, President Bush added 1.5 trillion to the national deficit in the past year alone.

I won't claim to know how all this plays out in the end, but it's hard to see our kids, and our kid's kids getting many tax breaks in the future (refunds, yes....breaks....no).

MWS

Recently, Michael W. Smith gave a private concert for the "Berean folks". It was cool to be a part of a small gathering (approx 150 people) and interact with him on that level.

The day before he was with the President of the U.S., in Washington, and the next day with the President of Berean....in Cincy. I hope it wasn't too big of a change for him.

He was gracious in meeting all the managers/management and signed pictures. I should have gotten a picture of everyone taking a picture with their camera phone. It was a pretty crazy sight.

Normally I don't get too caught up in meeting people like this, but he's a legend, so it ranks higher than riding a bus with Philip Yancey (and his afro) in Denver, CO.

Oh, and the W's for Whitaker...

Kids Against Hunger

Recently I was part of a group who look time to pack meals for starving kids across the world.

It was a pretty cool venture. We set up 4 assembly lines and then went about packing soy, rice, chicken flavored vitamens, and dried vegetables into bags. The bags were then weighed and sealed, packed in boxes and stacked onto skids.

In 2 hours we did 3 skids worth, thousands of meals. I believe each meal cost .25 cents, each bag fed 6 people for $1.50

A sobering venture, but worthwhile non-the-less.

We always think of Africa for starving, orphaned kids, but these meals were also going to some of the most improverished parts of the United States (specifically the Appalachian mountain region) and across the world.

Check out www.feedingchildren.org

Great Wolf Lodge

I'll admit, when I heard we were going to the Great Wolf Lodge in Ohio, I thought, okay...it's going to be small but adequate, old but comfortable. Basically something you'd find in small-town america but better than a dingy dump of a motel. I mean...it has "lodge" in the title. Must have had Canadian infuences (think Red-Green show).



Was I ever wrong..........

Talk about a great place to have a conference! Waterpark, symposium/movie theater, conference area, great rooms, fantastic food! The place was HUGE. Lots of wood, stone and fake wood, fake stone everwhere.

Little did I realize that it's a chain of locations (currently 12) that include the Pocono Mountains area.

I didn't check out the rates, but it's definitely something that my family will take advantage of in the future (great for kids and family) and hopefully even the extended family.

Got to Love Those Canadians

So a group of guys from CANADA played for us this week as well. They've been around for almost 10 years, but I didnt' really know their music.

This song is one of their best...combining both of their vocals and pretty cool message as well.

I ate supper with the drummer and bassist, and they're pretty good, unassuming guys.

About the video, it's the best live version I could find that didn't sound like they were completely in a phone booth (or radio booth) thought there is a good version that includes clips from "Passion of the Christ".