second verse, hopefully different from the first

let's try this again
i’m committed now. i’ve signed up for the green bay marathon and will begin training in ernest for it. i’ve got to try and keep up with my beast of a brother-in-law, jim, and his wife, jill. hopefully the training for this marathon will end differently than the last one.

rsb & american idol

for those who used to be a part of the parkview youth ministry i thought you would get a kick out of knowing that the new american idol commercial has the robbie seay band song “rise” as its background music. rsb did the music for parkview’s 2004 disciplenow. he was a great guy and did some great music but had absolutely no concept of time. you can see the commerical here.

btw, the album that “rise” comes off of the album “give yourself away” which kicks butt.

it has begun

the painting has begun
after finishing my weekday visit to the coffee shop, emy j’s, to try and meet people, pam and i started the painting of our home. we’ve started with the living room and the goal is to finish the living room and the foyer by the end of the weekend. pam and i are not big fans of houses that are full of rooms all painted with the same neutral color. both of the previous homes that we have owned have been full of color by the time we were through with them. houses should be full of color, baking, laughter, books, and conversations – that’s what makes them homes.

seven years ago pam came up with the idea of getting an interior decorator to come to our house just to pick out colors and help arrange our rooms. we’re too cheap and interested in doing things ourselves to actually want a decorator to do everything for us – from painting to getting new things. all we want is someone to help make sure the colors of our rooms and furniture go well and flow together. so we got a decorator for two hours to pick colors and give advice. we liked the results of this strategy in baton rouge and therefore we decided to do it again. we snagged a senior interior design uwsp student and bought a couple of hours of her time. she came back with great colors – ones that we probably wouldn’t have chosen on our own but once we saw them we really liked them.

now we have to finish everything we start. i’ll post a photo tomorrow.

SIDE NOTE – based on a discussion on postmodern interpretations of shakespeare i had with a uwsp grad student (he’s teaching me how to do this so that i can try it out when pam and i go to see julius caeser in february) i started to read dan delillo’s “white noise.” it’s great. i think it’s incredible. weird, but incredible.

SIDE SIDE NOTE – pam and i watched “the nanny diaries” last night and since it is based on a true story i have been reminded once again of how desperately some people need to be slapped to shake them out of their stupidity. i know i’ve said this once before but i really think i could do the world some serious good by walking around and slapping people when they are stupid. i would, of course, start with myself.

SIDE SIDE SIDE NOTE – the fam and i are going to see “spam-a-lot” in may. woohoo!

2008

i guess i’m supposed to post the perfunctory “happy new year” post. of course, it’s a good bit easier to do this as i sit in the “man cave” in my home using the new “pieces parts” computer that my dad and CHRISTmas money provided (the 22″ widescreen monitor is a huge step up from the 15″ crt’s i’ve been using). so here’ it is.

i hope the very best for all of you for 2008. i believe that very best comes from being in a growing and challenging relationship with JESUS CHRIST so ultimately that’s what i wish for each of you, but if that does not turn out to be your thing i still wish the very best for you in all that you do and hope for in the year.

here’s what i’m hoping for in 2008:

  • to start a church that follows JESUS CHRIST as best as it can
  • to take my wife out on more dates than i did in 2007 – this probably won’t be that hard because the 2007 standard wasn’t the best i’ve ever set.
  • to take my boys fishing every other week during the season – i’m not sure they or i could handle ice fishing every other week.
  • to do a better job of staying in touch with my friends – specifically with hand written letters.
  • to read 26 books the audio book s i listen to when i run don’t count because that’s “listening” not “reading).
  • to drink 8 glasses of water a day
  • to post enough photos on flickr to keep my mom and dad happy (i’m not sure this is possible).
  • to finish at least one marathon.
  • to start work on a doctoral degree.
  • to finish painting the inside of my house
  • to rememorize psalm 22
  • i guess that’s it for now.

    SIDE NOTE – if you have a few moments for prayer our friends the lees could use prayer for their son, isaac. CHRISTmas day they had to call an ambulance for their son, who was laboring to breath and spitting up a mixture of milk and blood. it turns out that isaac has a disease going on in his lungs and right now the lees are all in the hospital pumping isaac full of antiboitics and waiting for the doctors to figure out if the disease is viral or bacterial. the good news is that isaac has been getting a little better each day and should be out of picu by now. please for isaac and his parents, kevin & julie.

    i'm a ninja! (or soon will be)


    i’m very excited. i just bought myself a CHRISTmas present. i just purchased a few tiny tv remotes (which sounds cooler but is $10 more under it’s other name “ninja remote“). it’s a cool little universal television remote that i can use to take control of any tv at a restaurant, waiting room, or (most fun of all) my father-in-law’s house. last year i used my then functioning pocket pc to “possess” my father-in-law’s “pride and joy” television. last CHRISTmas jim (my brother-in-law), jill (his wife), my dad, and i spent 15 minutes entertaining ourselves by randomly switching channels, turning the volume up & down, and turning off my father-n-law’s t.v., while he freaked out about how he was going to have to return the thing for service because it definitely wasn’t supposed to be acting like that. pam completely freaked out about the whole situation but the rest of us had a blast.

    since, i bought three of these things, if my brother and brother-in-law are nice i might just send them one each.

    saint or blood hound?

    it’s really pretty amazing what santa can do. i mean, we travel to baton rouge and mobile for the week of CHRISTmas and santa tracks us dow3n and brings my kids gifts with him. we know it’s him because my youngest son made sure that there wee no santa gifts in the van before we left. still santa was able to track us down and there were gifts this morning. his a crafty one.

    SIDE NOTE – my parents got my youngest son the air havoc battle heli set (remote controlled mini helicopters that fight each other). – i have no idea what i have done to my parents that caused them to hate me so much.

    revolution

    one of the books i just finished reading is george barna’s book “revolution.” it’s pretty interesting. i’m not sure i agree with all of his main points but i do what what he has to say very interesting. if nothing else i completely agree with him that the modern church has been way to focused on itself. we have focused our money on building bigger and nicer buildings and arenas, concentrating our efforts on getting more people into our programs and activities, spending more time and money just trying to get as many people as possible into a one hour service while calling that church, and we haven’t really been about living out the kingdom of heaven. in “jim and casper go to church” casper, and avowed aethist, asks jim “is this what JESUS told you guys to do?” i think it’s a great question to ask and one that i believe we should consider. i wonder how different many of our decisions would be if we seriously asked that questions before anything we did.

    br

    we’re back in mobilbe now after spending the weekend in baton rouge. pam graduated (woohoo), we saw people we love, and we hung out at a few places we love (mainly eating establishments). it was a great weekend and pam and i are both so thankful for our friends that we got to spend time with and wish we had been able to spend time with many others that we love.

    i was able to finish “under the banner of heaven” and it was pretty cool.

    i’m watching an hbo documentary called “hard as nails.” it’s … ummmm … interesting. i guess.

    btw, happy CHRISTmas adam.