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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
my new favorite show
i have to admit a dirty little secret. i love the reality t.v. show my big, fat boss. i haven’t seen all of the shows so i can’t speak for all their content but the two episodes i have seen have been hilarious. i love the fact that the show’s producers constantly try to throw “curve balls” at the pseudo-contestants within the show. it’s great to see them try to make sense of things and then have the producers change directions on them again and again.
i haven’t given up blogging!
i just figured that i would make sure all of you know that i have not given up blogging. we’ve been (jessica, alan, and i) hard on the JESUS project retreat that starts tomorrow and that has taken up most of my energy and time over the past three weeks. i will begin posting again after the retreat.
i would like to report that tonight my family and i saw a red hat society at the city cafe. if you are new to the concept of a red hat society then i’ll explain. these societies are basically groups of older women who like to wear clothes that don’t match (i.e red hats with purple clothes) and then parade around in public. i’m not real sure what the joy of being mismatched is but i hope it is a large joy because these women truly seem to enjoy being in front of others with clothes that don’t make any sense. more power to them.
the JESUS project – plain white t-shirt
i don’t really ever use this blog as a promotional tool for the youth ministry but i figure that there is nothing to stop from doing it and no rule against it so i’m going to promote something right now. november 19-21 is our annual fall retreat – the JESUS project. this year’s theme is “plain white t shirt” and we are going to focus on living simpler lives. randy riggins from clearpoint church in pasadena, texas will be speaking and coby rosson from our henderson, kentucky world changers project will be leading us in singing. it is always a great weekend.
incredible
my family and i went to see “the incredibles” today and it was great. i love pixar. their movies are consistently great. “the incredibles” lived up to this standard.
as if one movie wasn’t enough pam and i then went to see “friday night lights“. it was a very good movie though the cinematography is so shaky that i thought i would get car sick. it was meant to be shaky and i liked the effect for a little while but it kept going through out the whole movie. i felt like i was on a two hour long roller-coaster.
if you haven’t seen friday night lights it is a movie that’s not so much about football as it is about commitment to sport going awry. all the adults involved in the movie push these 17 year old kids to the point that the kids lose their chance to be teenagers. the adults are all completely wacko. they treat the sport as though it is the only thing in life that matters. personally, i love passionate people. i am constantly amazed by people who commit their lives and energies to reaching a goal. i love college and pro sports because of this. it is a pleasure to see people work incredibly hard and overcome physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual obstacles to achieve their desires. i’m fine with people being fanatical about college and pro sports. in fact i admire some of this.
of course, high school sports are an entirely different thing. it always seems like the fanatics within high school sports are adults who are just trying to push teens to accomplish goals for them. i can not understand parents and adults chewing out coaches simply because the coach didn’t play their son enough or because they didn’t like the plays that were called. i’ve seen it happen. some people take high school sports far too seriously.