Month: February 2005

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random chinese arts

random chinese artsi made it back from dropping my kids off in mobile for the weekend early this afternoon. before going home i wanted to go to the church and download my pictures that i took at the beginning of the feminar friday night (the student ministry’s girls only mini-retreat). so i headed down sherwood forest towards the church. that’s where i saw a chinese arts festival being held in front of a strip mall. the only connection i can think of is that the hunan chinese restaurant is located in the strip mall.

i thought it was cool and decided to stop and watch. i have to say that there is nothing quite like watching a bunch of anglos demonstrate chinese culture (almost everyone involved in the program was anglo). there was kung fu, music, asian dancing, and big freaky dragon things. i stayed and watched for about thirty minutes and then left. who knew that baton rouge was the seat of chinese culture?

here are a few more pictures from the strip mall chinese culture thingy – picture #1, picture #2, picture #3, and picture #4. you can also view my pictures from the feminar here.

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an upcoming post

i just arrived in mobile to drop my kids off with my in-laws for mardi gras weekend. this way the boys get to participate within some parades in mobile (a much more family friendly atmosphere than new orleans) and pamela and i get a weekend alone. about twenty minutes ago my dad just finished telling me the latest news of saraland, alabama. i don’t won’t to steal my dad’s thunder but i have to tell you this story. my dad will blog about this later, probably tomorrow and do a better job of it with pictures and such.

presently the state of alabama is working on expanding highway 158 from two lanes to four (a much needed improvement by the area of the university of mobile). as a part of the project they were using an excavator to clean out a swampy area beside the road. it’s really rained alot around here and apparently no one consider the possibility of the land being too damp for the weight of the excavator. thus when it went down to the swampy area one side began to sink and the whole machine tilted over on it’s side. this would usually be bad but not a case for panic because you could always come back when the land was drier and pull the machine back up. the problem here was that ground was VERY wet and the excavator began to submerge into the soil. pulling the excavator right side up is one thing but pulling it completely out of the ground is something completely different.

not wanting to lose the $200,000 machine the city sent another excavator down near the first in an attempt to pull it upright and away form danger. this would have been a brilliant idea if it were not for the fact that the second excavator began to sink submerge too. it sank straight down, tracks first, fast and deep. in the past three days the first excavator has sunk to the point that all you can see of it is the track on the high side and the second one has sunk straight down to the point that only the excavating arm is visible. thus the city now has two $200,000 machine underground.

the city has been quoted the price of $65,000 a piece to have an outside contractor with a super-sized crane come in and lift the machines out of the ground. that wouldn’t even include the cost of the rebuilding the engines which have now be engulfed and no doubt in-filled with mud. someone else has come in and said they would pay $20,000 to the city for each vehicle and then remove them. it will be interesting to see what the city thinks is cheaper.

my dad’s blog will surely have a better story concerning this and pictures of the events.

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hospitality – what is it good for?

do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. hebrews 13:2

lunch @ deangelosover the past four to five months my wife, pam, and i have really been dealing with the biblical concept of hospitality. truthfully hospitality is a concept that i find frustrating. it frustrates me because i don’t understand it. it is completely foreign to what i have been told in this world. hospitality is much more than just “having people over.” hospitality focuses on the “alien” or “stranger”. it means bringing those who are on the “margins of society” into your lives. it is not just meeting the needs of food, clothing, or lodging, though that is definitely a part of it. hospitality involves bringing those who are on the margins actually into your lives and homes.

in my opinion hospitality is simply not practiced very well within western CHRISTianity. if nothing else i know that i don’t practice it very well. yet it is of incredible importance in both the old and new testaments. this means that the follower of CHRIST, which i am trying to be, needs to practice it. this is not something that is easy for me to practice. i would rather give money to help, or go to the place of need and serve. bringing the “alien and stranger” into my house is something else entirely.

pam and i have been taking small steps. we had a homeless friend over awhile back for supper with our kids and us. it was a wonderful experience. the next step for us is to “adopt” two l.s.u. students who are from india. according to the university these guys have been in the states for two years and are still desperate to know someone. we’ve made the contact and started the process of getting them over to our houses regularly. the next step is actually getting them into our homes. we’re not doing this as some form of evangelism to india (though if they come to know CHRIST i would be please as punch). we are not trying nor will we attempt to prostelize them. this is merely an attempt to bring some guys who are on the margins of american society into our homes and practice hospitality.

i don’t really know what i’m doing but i do know that i really want to understand what GOD means by “do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers” and i guess this is the start of understanding that.

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the basset 500

basset eyei feel like i have been blogging alot over the past month about my dog, montana. it’s just that she is so new to us (we’ve only had her for six weeks) and i personally find this one foot tall, cat-poop eating dog fascinating. therefore, i want to describe the “basset 500” to you. whenever montana gets excited her body responds with a need to run. since she is primarily an “inside” dog this means that the desire to run usually hits her while she’s in the house. as many of you know the terrell home is built with the living room, kitchen, study, and den all forming a circle. this circle is montana’s track of choice. when we came into the house this afternoon that was enough of a reason for montana to get excited and thus the circle of the “basset 500” began to be raced.

you really wouldn’t think that a basset hound could run very fast but you would be wrong to think that. she may have short legs but she has a long body and this gives her short legs a very long reach with each stride. imagine a very short cheetah. he short legs and long body end up producing a great velocity. montana is a red and white blazing missile when she starts running. of course, being a basset hound she’s a “red and white blazing missile” that is cruising a height of your shins.

now many of you may not know this about me but i have weak shins. i know it sounds stupid but my shins are really sensitive. we all have our weaknesses. superman has his kyrponite, spiderman has his teenage insecurities, and i, robert terrell, have my weak shins. it’s something i have had to live with for all of my days.

you see that’s the problem with having a basset hound in the house. once she starts running the “basset 500” and really gets going with all her blazing speed someone is gonna get hurt. today it was my shins. montana ran head first into both of my shins and knocked me straight onto my rear. of course, montana’s head is much harder than my weak shins and therefore she didn’t feel the slightest thing. instead she saw me falling down as the perfect opportunity to jump on me and lick me to death. gotta love the basset.

SIDE NOTE – this afternoon i introduced my children to the original bbc version of “mr. bean.” noah didn’t like it but adam loved it.

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the beauty of a team

i’ve been majorly sick the past week. starting sunday afternoon i developed the mother of all flu’s. it was awful. i didn’t go anywhere near the church until earlier this morning. truthfully i didn’t care what happened at the church – not because i don’t care about my family that is there but rather because i didn’t care about much other than when my next dose of medicine was coming up and how long i could sleep that time. i felt miserable. this post however is not about me. it’s about the staff that i work with.

i work with two wonderful people, jessica and alan. together we make up the youth ministry staff that leads a team of volunteers in getting the youth ministry going and grooving. technically i’m their boss, but truthfully we are a team. they didn’t miss a beat without me there even though we have a pretty major girls event this weekend (the feminar). everything, including our wednesday night service (the view) ran wonderfully. kids were assured of GOD’s love, parent’s were assured that they matter within the youth ministry and everyone was pushed and encouraged in following our wonderfully dangerous LORD and SAVIOR. and i had nothing to do with it.

i love my staff.

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ah, life is good

after four days of being stuck in the house because of the mother of all flu’s i’m presently sitting in the cc’s coffee house on seigen lane drinking a grande decaf mocha and eating some banana bread. i took pam’s car to church this morning taking the boys to school and stopping in the office to make sure that life had gone on without me (as anyone who knows the youth ministry knows everything went great without me there. jessica and alan make everything happen and all i do is stand around and take the credit for it all). afterwards i went to drop off pam’s car at our mechanic. sunday pam’s car started having trouble going into reverse. now personally i’m not entirely sure why we have to have the reverse gear. i think life should always go forward with our past merely pushing and supporting us. you should never live your life in reverse looks backwards. i tried this answer with pam but she insisted that she needed to be able to go in reverse. once again she has rejected my logic.

anyway, i took her car to berry automotive once again trying my “life should always go forward” joke and once again getting a blank look from the person i told it to. unfortunately, since no one was at the church office when i went this morning i couldn’t secure a ride back from berry’s automotive. therefore, i decided to walk across the street and have a cup of coffee while i phoned a few people for a ride. i called bill, my pastor, and secured a ride up to the church with him. then i went to order my coffee. this is where life became good.

there where three barristers working at the siegen lane cc’s this morning. i knew all three of them and better than that all three of them knew me. it’s not unusual for me to know one or even a couple of people working at cc’s but knowing everyone working at the store at a single moment has never happened to me before. even better than just knowing them, and being known by them was that they all three initiated a conversation with me. not just some “hey lets have small talk while i fix your drink” conversation but rather an extended conversation jumping from ” where’s that coffee cup that you used to always bring?” to “how are things at church?” and “how’s pam?” we ended our conversation with a discussion of the best cheeseburger in town (riverside patty hands down). i didn’t even have to tell them what i wanted to drink, they knew it already. while other people were in the cc’s i was the one who was the “regular”. for some of you this is no big deal. you’re probably a ‘regular” at several different spots but that’s not true for me. cc’s is the only spot that i am a “regular” at and it feels good to be a “regular”.

now, i’m going to go back and finish my banana nut bread.

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interactive surgery

i believe i’m almost over this cold or flu or whatever it has been. i’m able to stay awake much longer and i feel pretty decent most of the time that i am awake. the main problem is that i’m very weak. i’ve only eaten two bowls of soup since lunch sunday and therefore i just don’t have much energy.

anyhow, i was reading a couple of blogs that i like and CHRISTian hedonist posted a link to virtual knee replacement surgery. you too can enter the world of orthopedic surgery. who needs medical school? after this interactive web site you should be able to bust into the operating room and take over a surgery. just remember to maintain a sterile environment.

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top ten uses for a dog

francis-cookingwhen i get sick i get majorly sick, just ask pam. i’m out for days. all i do is sleep. of course, me being sick is not really the point i wanted to make during this entry. instead i want to talk about how great it is to have a basset hound. the only thing i do well when i am sick is sleep and it just so happens that basset hounds are experts at sleeping. even better than being expert sleepers bassets love to sleep beside people. every time i lay down montana is there to jump on the couch and lie down with me. 45 pounds of slightly smelly bed warmer. just what the doctor ordered.

the good side of being sick has been that my body picked the absolute best days of the year to be sick on. it has been rainy and cold (at least i think it is cold – i haven’t been outside the house since 7 p.m. sunday). the perfect weather for being sick in. pam is making her fantastic chicken noodle soup tonight and that will only make things better. so let me hit the facts again:

  • sick
  • cold, rainy weather
  • basset hound warming device
  • homemade chicken noodle soup

if you got to be sick then that’s the way to be sick.

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not as good as the new?

i’ve been sick since sunday afternoon. this has basically translated into me sleeping…alot. all i’ve eaten since lunch sunday has been 4 spoonfuls of soup and 10 crackers. needless to say life has been pretty boring and i don’t really have anything to blog about.

i did watch original the manchurian candidate (1962) today (thanks to my lovely wife who graciously grabbed me a few movies to watch during my convalescence). i usually think that the original of something is typically the way to go. i’m no a real big fan of remakes. but that’s not true in this case. the original manchurian candidate is a good movie and i enjoyed it BUT the 2004 remake of the manchurian candidate is much better. i thought the plot of the 2004 film was much more realistic.

well, i’ve typed as much as i can. i’m worn out and need to sleep.