I mispell things!
in parkview’s worship over the past two week’s chuck quarles has preached about the role of the pastor. i read this article on the ooze today and i thought it was interesting and good.
for those of you following the house selling preparation of the terrell home here’s the work we finished on our house today.
since we had college bible study at our house last night we weren’t able to do anymore. i know this is boring for most of y’all but i figure this will be an interesting way to keep track of what we do over the two weeks before we place our house on the market.
the work continues over the next week.
i’m getting ready to go to bed and i’ve been too busy to really write anything but i thought i would keep my parents updated on the work that is taking place around the house. today we did the following:
we’ll probably be able to start painting the outside of the house towards the end of this week. anyone who is interested in painting, receiving some pizza, and being bossed around by my dogs is welcome to come and join us.
other than having a bee chase me while i ran this afternoon there wasn’t anything real exciting that happened. thanks to the bee i now definitely know where i stand with my oldest son. adam told me that there was a bee chasing me and then he quickly ran over to the other side of the road and continued his run. he pretty much continued to laugh and run while the bee chased me for two blocks. thanks for the help son. i’m so glad i helped bring you into the world.
my run for the day
distance – 1.5 miles
time – 16:03
pace – 10:30/mile
for those who know him and might be interested joe causey was married to nicole tonight. it was a wonderful ceremony and they make a great couple.
otherwise my day was spent meeting with our realtor, blake fowler, figuring out what needs to be done to the house before we put it on the market and the working on that list, which is:
adam and i saw “pirates of the caribbean: at world’s end” today. we both thought it was merely okay. a few days ago grant asked on his blog if there would be any good sequels this summer. i’m beginning to think the answer will be “no.”
two days ago some hit my blog from yahoo by typing in the following search
irs sends out 8 billion pages of forms and instructions every year, laid end to end these forms would stretch around the earth 28 times
i doesn’t seem that funny now that i have typed it out but it made me laugh pretty hard when i first saw it on the site’s statistical report.
my left wrist hate watches.
i like watches. i enjoy having one around for purposes of knowing what time it is and timing things. it’s a good thing to be able to time how long it takes a waiter to bring our food or to be able to bother people who are stuck up about time, because i make sure my watch is set to the time on the atomic clock.
yet my wrist hates watches.
i know this because ever since i first started wearing a watch (which is another story about a fascinating, humid august day when i was 16 but this isn’t the place for that story) my wrist has been slowly destroying them. i’m convinced that my wrist is able to release some watch dissolving acid that was developed through the genetic combinations of my dad drinking cheap beer, my mother reading too many cooking books, and my inherent dna-linked love for pork rinds. of course, modern science doesn’t have a test for “watching dissolving acids” yet so i will have to wait to prove this theory.
all i know for sure is that up until recently i have never been able to keep a watch working for more than six months. it doesn’t seem to matter of what quality the watch is. my wrist is an equal opportunity watch destroyer. it has killed watches ranging from seiko’s to dime store digitals. it doesn’t matter if the watch is gold or plastic my wrist hates it and will destroy it. the expensive, cheap, pretty, ugly, sturdy, and fragile all end up as trophies of destruction to my left wrist’s hatred of time devices.
this was all true until i acquired my present watch. it’s a timex expedition and it has lasted for one and a half years. this is remarkable. i was so please because tuesday i actually had to go and get another battery placed in the watch. that’s never happened before. my wrist always kills the watch before it ever makes it to needing a battery replacement. i don’t know what is so special about this timex because my wrist has demolished many other timex’s before this one. all i do know is that i am very thankful to have found a superhero watch that can stand up to the watch destroying acid that my wrist releases and put my wrist in it’s place. long live the timex expedition watch!
today was a fun day for youth ministry. i was paid to setup and play halo and risk in the student center for 8 hours. not a bad life.
since, i was hanging out with teens most of the day i wasn’t in my study that often. i checked in every now and then just to make sure that i hadn’t missed anything important. during one of those check in’s i found a message from from someone i didn’t recognized. it was a long distance number so i thought i probably should call it back soon. i took a few minutes away form the youth and placed the long distance call. the second the guy answered the phone and i mentioned my name, he kicked into a sales routine for a video casting program that is geared towards ministries. i was dumbfounded. i could not believe that this guy had asked me to call him back on my church’s dime do that he could make a sales call. i had to make sure that he had actually done this so i asked him “let me get this straight. you asked me to call you back long distance so you could try and sell me something?” he said “yes” but then told me that if it was a problem he could call me right back on their line. “nope,” i answered “you pretty much just told me all i ever need to hear about your company. please don’t ever call here again. good bye.”
i don’t know what it is like in the real world but in the church world this crap goes on all the time. i probably get a message each week with a saleperson getting me to call them back so they can give me their sales pitch. it would be one thing if this was a salesperson that i had a relationship with – those phone calls are a good thing. i know who they are and they have built up my trust by following through on what they say and actually carrying on conversations with me passed just selling me something. but these messages are from “cold calls.” why should i use my time to do your job for you?
i was raised by a salesman. i know how hard “cold calls” are. yet i also know that if you build up enough relationships after awhile you don’t have to make that many “cold calls.” i wish more ministry-based businesses care more about relationships than just making sales.
i leave by bragging on one company that i love – uthstuph. i love them because not only do they do things right but we actually know who they are. we weren’t friends before we started buying t-shirts from them but from our first phone call we could tell that they were concerned with more than just making a one time sell to us. jessica, my assistant, and i both know several of the people at uthstuph and it is not uncommon for our “order” calls to go on for quite awhile talking about allot of things that don’t seem related to the sell. it’s because of the fact that they care about our relationship that we have ordered everything we need printed from them over the past 5 years. in fact, sometimes we look for other things we can send their way. those of you who know me know that it is no small thing when i give a business (rather than individuals) glowing reviews in public. i wish more companies were like uthstuph.
the past week i have been basically writing a grant for income in stevens point. the north american mission board wants to help church plants and i have gone through everything they asked over the past 5 months. this week we reached the point of writing out what was actually needed. in order to do that i had to present a ton of demographic information showing whether there is a reason to plant a new church in stevens point or not. the above image is part of what i finished. it doesn’t look like much but i spent many a late night researching to be able to say the little that is on the photo and the ton that is in the 25 pages of supporting information. at one time in my life i actually thought that late night studying would stop after i finished school. HA!
on the movie front i was able to watch “north by northwest” last night when i couldn’t sleep and i was finished with my demographic research. it is amazing film. i love alfred hitchcock.
over the next several weeks we are going to be doing some things before “the view” each week. these will be goof off moments for us to enjoy each other.
I’ll have more details for you at church on sundays & wednesdays
i called my parents today for the holiday phone call and my mom asked why i haven’t blogged in awhile. it’s only been three days but according to my mom she has a blog fix that needs to be met (i’m assuming that admitting there is a problem is the first step to recovery – only 11 more now mom). anyhow, pam and i have been working on the house all day and therefore i’m kind of tired but i will blog anyway.
after hoping and praying for 20 years that i would have the joy of jury duty the day has finally arrived. i know this sounds odd to many of you because you think of jury duty as a chore but that’s not the case with pam and i. we both want to serve on a jury. pam actually was called for jury duty a few years ago but she was never actually chosen. it was a sad time for her but she was at least able to say that she had been on jury duty. that is until yesterday when i received my jury summons. i have officially been called to jury duty … starting in september.
since we are moving to wisconsin at the end of august i don’t really think i’ll be able to make the court date. sometimes it sucks to me.