Author: Robert

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merry CHRISTmas

merry CHRISTmas
here’s hoping that you’ve had an incredible day full of joy. i know people always worry about “taking CHRIST out of CHRISTmas” with all the commercialization (which i find odd because i’m not sure anyone would ever be strong enough to take CHRIST out of a place) but i have to say that the moments my kids see the present under the tree is an amazingly great moment. the mystery of what’s in those boxes is fascinating.

btw, if you’re curious about the picture it’s from elf yourself. here’s my online elf dance.

my run for the day
distance – 5.0 miles (intervals)
total time – 42:43
pace – 8:33/mile

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going postal

empty
i’m not sure what i have done to offend the u.s. post office but it must have been something big. in the past week i have received two packages that were messed up in route to my house or office. the first package was a timex watch. this is the watch that i use while running. i bought it about four months ago and two weeks ago it died. i took it back to walmart (the evil empire where i bought this watch in a moment of weakness) and they gave me a box to place the watch in and mail to timex for a warranty repair. after a week i received a box with a brand new watch in it. unfortunately, during the postal process one of the buttons of the watch was continually pressed in and thus the battery was dead when i received the new watch. i called timex and they told me they would send me a new one which i received in working order yesterday.

the second package is a longer story. for pam’s birthday i order an autographed copy of a book from an author she likes. i figured it would be a great little gift. unfortunately, when the book arrived it wasn’t autographed. i called the company up and they said it was obviously their fault and they would correct it by sending out another book that was autographed. they mailed it and it arrived yesterday. when i picked up the package it felt a little lite. when i opened the envelope i realized what was wrong … the envelope was empty. since i can’t imagine a company mailing an empty envelope i prefer to blame the post office. i think that over the years all the increases in the price of a stamp have lead to a surplus of research money within the post office. the postal workers have used this money to developed a dematerializing laser that can go into an envelope and remove it’s contents without every opening the envelope. this way the post office can mess up the plans of husbands and make them look bad. this is part of the post office’s master plan to cause a revolution. if they tick off enough wives, by making the wives think ill of their husbands, they will eventually reach a critical mass of upset wives and a civil war will begin. married women all over the nation will go crazy and cause major destruction. this will cause people to forget the term “” and instead think that “going wival” is a better term for going crazy.

darn those postal workers and their cunning plans.
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growing & going

within the households of our friends and our own it has become a tradition during the CHRISTmas season to write a “year in review” newsletter. pam and i always look forward to reading these. this year we’ve noticed a trend – some of our friends write nothing about themselves within their newsletters. they describe the changes that their kids have gone through but nothing of themselves. pam and i started talking about this and we are convinced that part of the reason for this may be that they have not changed any during the past year. their kids have grown and developed and thus need to be re-described to everyone. whenever someone grows they need to be “re-described” because they have changed. you can see this in the newsletters we enjoy the most. in these newsletters our friends describe themselves again because they have grown during the year. they have learned new things, developed within things that they were already a part of – they’ve grown.

of course, this probably isn’t true. these friends probably have grown and developed and they were just so excited about their kids that they forgot to mention it. i’m thankful for their newsletters because they remind me that i want to continue growing and developing throughout my life.

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the view tonight

peace on earth
tonight i got to introduce allot of our youth to the game i know as bonco (i say “the game i now as bonco” because it is absolutely nothing like the game most people know as “bonco”). i compare it to “spoons” with dice. it’s an absolute blast and therefore it was a ton off fun to watch everyone play it. i would consider writing the rules down here but it’s the type of thing that you have to play in order to understand.

SIDE NOTE – the photo above is the terrell family CHRISTmas photo and obviously has nothing to do with bonco.

my run for the day
distance – 8.1 miles
total time – 1:16:11
pace – 9:24/mile

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what’s next?

i haven’t even finished my first half-marathon yet (that will happen january 14th at the first light half-martathon) and my brother-n-law has convinced me to go ahead and start planning for a marathon in nashville – the country music marathon. this is probably stupid but somehow in my mind i have convinced myself that since i was able to run the golden fliers 10 miler this past saturday i should be able to run a full marathon. it’s makes since since a marathon is only 2.6 times the length of the 10 mile race. i’m not sure that my logic is too great on this point.

my run for the day
distance – 4.0 miles
total time – 37:21
pace – 9:20/mile

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coward

last night i received a rather rude comment from the youth ministry website. i’ve editted the comment due to language but here it is:

You “Christians” are such HYPOCRITS!!! ****?***?***!!! You shun us homosexuals and “evil, immoral people” and stay hoarded up inside your CULT. (Yes, I DID say cult) I am a proud Atheist, and if god did exist, he’d be STRIKING YOU WITH LIGHTNING!!! You should Treat other people nicely, like your bible and god says…

wordpress has a built in moderation feature that i had setup on the comments posted on the youth ministry website. this means that comment was just sent to me for approval rather than being posted on the website. since, the commenter left an email address i figured i would email him/her back. if he/she responded back and was okay with me editting out the profanity then i would consider allowing the comment to be posted – though i do think it is rude to go to an organization and post such comments. so i emailed the following response to the commenter who listed his email as “freethinker@hotmail.com.”

hi freethinker,

my name is robert terrell, i’m the youth minister at parkview, and the person who runs the youth ministry website that you left the following comment on:

“You “Christians” are such HYPOCRITS!!! ****?***?***!!! You shun us homosexuals and “evil, immoral people” and stay hoarded up inside your CULT. (Yes, I DID say cult) I am a proud Atheist, and if god did exist, he’d be STRIKING YOU WITH LIGHTNING!!! You should Treat other people nicely, like your bible and god says…”

apparently you know things about me that i don’t know. the people i know who are homosexual have never told me that i shun them but i guess i’ll take your word for it. all though i know allot of people of many faiths (and lack of faiths too) i’m not sure i know any people that i would describe as “evil, immoral” but maybe you can point some out to me so i can stop shunning them. i will agree with you that we/i should treat other people nicely … which is what i try to do though i do fail every now and then (kind of like going onto someone’s website and chewing them out for no reason).

is there something specific on our website that offends you or are you just interested in judging us based on stereotypes? if there is something specific i would gladly listen. until i hear something specific i probably won’t be allowing your comment to stay on the website. i am serious though i will listen to any complaint you have concerning what i have placed on the website or personally done and i will consider changing it.

robert

of course, the email has a fake email address and therefore my email was returned to me as undeliverable. COWARD! i don’t have a problem with someone disagreeing with me. i’m cool with people questioning what i believe. i’ll freely admit that i mess up in following what i believe and i need people to point it out when i do. yet i don’t really have much respect for someone who comes on the website that i run and leaves such comments anonymously.

freethinker please “man up” or sulk to the coward’s place on the internet.

my run for the day
distance – 2.0 miles (speed work of 4 half mile quick runs)
time – 13:34
pace – 6:47/mile

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i want this ringtone

last night during our interim pastor’s speech during our church’s choir musical someone’s phone rang. that’s not too big of a surprise because random ringtones are a common occurrence within modern gatherings. this ringtone was great because it was the cricket sound you always hear on t.v. when something boring is happening. it went off twice during his talk. i nearly busted out loud laughing.

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10 miler

today i ran my first >5k race. i ran in the golden fliers 10 miler this morning. it was a double lap race around the lsu lakes. i’ve done this distance and longer before but i’ve never done it in a race. everything changes in a road race. i don’t like being passed by people. this wouldn’t be a problem if a was fast but since i’m not i just try to judge how fast various people will run and then start off with the ones that i think will run at my pace. this usually means the eighty year old runners. of course, it never works out that i actually judge correctly. i always seem to pick the fast 80 year old to hang around and therefore my pace ends up too fast. that’s why races are hard – trying to push myself but not burning out. this means choosing the correct pace. i was worried that i would start out to fast and burn out half way through the race. i finished the race in 1:34:29 (a pace of 9:26/mile). i was pretty pleased because of two things:

  • a had energy left over at the end of the race – which means that i could have continued the pace or a slightly faster one throughout a half-marathon of 13.1 miles.
  • i passed an 80 year old lady in the last 100 yards of the race. i laughed at her while i was passing her and it made her break down and cry. i don’t even think she finished the race. she just walked away in defeat before the finish line. it felt good. 😉

now i have to continue training for the first light half marathon january 14th. as things are going presently i think i may even try a full marathon.

my run for the day
distance – 10 miles
total time – 1:34:29
pace – 9:26/mile

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random quote – crucifixion

a crucified messiah, son of GOD or GOD must have seemed a contradiction in terms to anyone, jew, greek, roman, or barbarian, asked to believe such a claim, and it will certainly have been thought offensive and foolish.

–martin hengel, crucifixion, p. 10.

i particularly like it when hengel demonstrates that “madness” or “amentia” may be a better modern translation of “?????” (folly) than the kjv translation “folly.”

[Listening to: ‘Til I Met You – The Swift – The Swift (3:52)]
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should i shout this?


i watched the pixar movie “cars today and as usual i thought pixar did a great job with it. it was a good kids’ movie, the animation was amazing as usual, and had a very good point to it’s overall theme.

on a side note tonight i began to wonder why it is that most of the people who speak the loudest when it public actually have the least to say. i was at blockbuster tonight returning the videos that we had gotten from blockbuster online. as a part of blockbuster online i receive a free in store movie for each mailed movie i return. while i was in the store i heard the movie ramblings of a couple across the store. it was easy to hear them because they were shouting to each other. they needed to speak so loudly because they were standing three feet away from each other. it can be really hard to hear each other when you are 36 inches from each other. the only redeeming pat of their shouting was that they were idiots. thuse their conversation was very entertaining. one of them kept shouting about how he had heard really good things about this movie “clark.” the female then said she hadn’t heard of the film, grabbed it from him, and declared that it was “clerks 2” not “clark.”