Month: November 2004

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a powerfully true statement said in an incredibly sad way

i just saw a toys r us commercial that ended with the following statement that saddens me:

the only thing better than seeing joy on a child’s face is knowing that you put it there

in my opinion, the statement is very true. seeing joy on your child’s face and knowing that you were able to produce that joy is amazingly pleasing. just consider how hard people will work to produce a smile on the face of an infant. there is an immense sense of pride that comes from being the one who is able to bring a smile to a child’s face. i’m not sadden my the statement in and of itself because i agree with what it is saying.

what saddens me is the connection made between producing joy merely by buying something for the child. the whole commercial is about waking up early so that you can be the first to toys r us to buy the most sought after toys first. the implication is that if you rush to toys r us and obtain the most sought after toys then you will be able to produce joy within your child.

what a bunch of baloney.

toys don’t last and neither do the smiles that they produce. of course, toys r us isn’t going to tell anybody that. nope, toys r us (and walmart, target, etc) are going to try and convince people that buying things will bring the joy that parents want their children to have.

i saw a ton of smiles on the faces of my boys today and it had nothing to do with buying anything. instead, it involved having a b b gun shooting competition and involving them in a family wide game of trivial pursuit. my kids will remember this day for the rest of their lives. yet, toys r us wants us to think that buying something is what is most important.

don’t swallow the lie.

a side note
i watched the iron chef tonight for the first time in over a year. i had forgotten how much i loved this show. it is the wwe of the cooking world. i laugh just thinking about it. whose cuisine shall reign supreme?

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the church must go on

i’m not sure why but apparently the church tradition within baton rouge is to cancel church for thanksgiving. almost every church does it. almost all wednesday night services are canceled through out the city. it just doesn’t make any sense. you have this holiday that is specifically designed to be about thanking our CREATOR and what do we do? we cancel all the services that are specifically about thanking HIM.

this completely confuses me.

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which pill will you choose – matrix reference for a non-matrix entry

i’m presently at my parents’ house in mobile, alabama for thanksgiving. my parents house is not my home and therefore i basically not used to the things found within it. this morning when i went to the bathroom to take a shower i was faced with a enormous decision that i was not prepared for. the decision was between yellow and green soap. within my parents guest shower there are two different significantly used soaps. one is green and one is yellow. these soaps have both been used to the point that all markings have been washed off of them. for most people this wouldn’t be a problem because they would simply smell the individual soaps and be able to tell what they were. the problem here is that i have a pathetically inadequate sense of smell – which is a huge asset in working with middle school boys. i can’t smell anything except very strong smells.

so i reached out grabbed each soap and took a whiff. nothing. it was hopeless. which soap would i use. i guessed that the yellow soap was probably dial – a soap that i usually like – yet i wasn’t sure. the green soap was probably irish spring – my favorite soap of all times – but i had no way of knowing for sure. this was an important decision. if i chose the wrong soap it would throw off my whole day. irish spring would be great, dial would be okay, but what if it were another type of soap. surely there are other soaps that are green and yellow. this was all too much stress for a shower.

i chose green – i’m fairly sure that it was irish spring. of course, for all i know i could smell like anything right now.

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turn over & turkey

i just thought i would tell everyone and anyone who reads this blog (basically my parents – hi mom! hi dad!) that fred, the explorer crossed the 100,000 mile threshold this evening while on a trip from baton rouge, louisiana to mobile, alabama. i took a picture of the moment but i’m not sure that it came out – i was using a VERY cheap digital camera without a flash while it was dark. the whole family celebrated for a moment or two and then moved on.

a side note – i had the most incredible shopping experience of my life today. i went to american key & locksmith today to have a few duplicates of keys made so that i would have spare of everything. when i entered the busy store – i love key stores because they are always so full of random things that have probably been in the same place for years – i was overwhelmed by the smell of freshly smoked meat. i looked to my right and noticed a banquet table of various meat products in the middle of the store. the locksmith who was helping me with my keys most have noticed that i was overtaken by the smell because he immediately told me that the food was for customers and therefore i could dig in. my time waiting for the keys to be made was spent joyfully eating two smoked turkey sandwiches. it was the best experience i have ever had in a store bar none. in fact, the only way it could have been better would have been for me to have a lazy boy recliner there to sit in while i ate my smoked turkey sandwiches.

why couldn’t walmart do something like that. shopping would be so much better if you got a free smoked turkey sandwich every where you went.

p.s. speaking of my ford explorer and keys made me think of the new mustang gt ’05 cornfield add. if you haven’t seen it or you just want to watch it again here it is.

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wallpaper

i found this today. it is national geographic’s photos of the year. i think the pictures are gorgeous and make pretty cool wallpaper. of course, this is where one of the cooler and simpler features of the powerbook shows itself off. the powerbook comes with the ability to randomly change desktop wallpapers randomly through out the day. i’m sure you can do this with windows with an additional program but the apple has it built in. it’s so cool to have another amazing picture on my desktop every thirty minutes or so.

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how is this supposed to be a good movie?

i watched the way we were tonight. i can not believe that this is supposed to be a great movie. pam fell asleep during it and i merely finished watching it because i figured i had too. it was slow overall and i felt like the whole thing had been made for a bad hallmark commercial. truly a loser of a film.

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hoorah

i’ve finally discovered how to use rss. i had posted on my woeful inadequacy in geekdom on october 21st. in that post brad taught me the meaning of “rss” but unfortunately for all concerned i still didn’t have a grasp of what the meaning of “rss” meant. though i now knew what “rss” meant i had absolutely no idea what to do with “rss”.

thanks be to my.yahoo.com and the upgrade that they have recently gone through i am now able to use “rss.” my yahoo.com now allows me to use “rss” to feed the blogs i read to my home page. this way i can simply look at my home page and see if the blogs i like have any new entries. now that i’ve seen “rss” work on one page i understand it completely and can use it. i know that i can get blogging software that will check these things for me. yippee! life is good.

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okay maybe GOD didn’t tell me to do anything

on november 1st i wrote about the fact that a couple of people who had agreed to help out with an event later told me that GOD had told them that they weren’t supposed to be a part of the retreat. at the time i actually knew that they wanted to be a part of our college ministry’s tailgate party at the l.s.u. v. ole miss football game. well, a small problem developed – i.e. rain – and the tailgate party was canceled.

interestingly enough these two individuals suddenly came to me asking if they could now be a part of the retreat again. interesting how GOD will changed after the other event was canceled.

i just wish that had be honest in the beginning and said “i really want to go to the tailgate party.” i would have been fine with that. we can always find more leaders. i learned a long time ago that no one, including myself, is indispensable. GOD always provides someone else who can and probably will do a better job. GOD provided the leaders we needed for the retreat. in fact, he forced me to use two people who i hadn’t planned on using. of course, these two people ended up being the two best leaders of the weekend. they were amazing.

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it’s over

the JESUS project – our fall/winter retreat is over. this means that my life is alot less hectic and i can begin to blog again. the retreat was great. some highlights of the weekend were:

  • the worship services
  • the spontaneous mud slide that formed after it rained on us.
  • the three-on-three team of middle schoolers who almost beat all the high school students.
  • alot of “down” time.

right now our house is party central with two neighborhood kids here. pam and i have tried unsuccessfully to get them to go home for a little while. they just keep on coming back. i really do enjoy having them here except for the fact that the overall decibel level of the house increases significantly when they are here. for some reason everyone feels the need to shout even the most simple statements. i’ve discussed this before february 23, 2004. it’s still as true today.

i would actually retreat to my bedroom and hide in there except for the fact that i kind of think that is what they want. i’m not sure but that all the noise is not a well planned attempt to chase me away from the living room and den so that they can have it all to themselves. i won’t give into this audio terrorism. silence lovers of the world unite.

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the “it’s over” blues

ever since college i have had a problem dealing with “big events” being over. in college these big events were my finals. for me each quarter’s finals were an “all encompassing” event. every last bit of my energy and focus went towards them. when i was doing something else (being with my family, going to church, working, etc) then i was focused on finals. it consumed all of my free time. i loved it because it meant i always had something to be working on.

retreats, mission trips, and other youth ministry events do the same thing for me now. when i have a major event coming up i never have to wonder what i’m supposed to be doing. any spare moment can be used in doing something for the event. a better advertising scheme, developing the small group material, determining how to better support my leadership, etc. there is always something to do.

the problem with this is when the event is over. i shouldn’t have alot of free time that i have been used to doing something with. for a few days after an event i am in a sort of malaise while i get used to the normal non-rushed schedule of life without a major event. it happens every time.

the whole thing drives my wife crazy. she sees me get up and look around like there is something to be done and then go sit done again. then i do the whole thing again. surely something has to be done. there has to be something i have forgotten. of course, there isn’t because the event is over.

after a day or two i will actually be able to rest.