Author: Robert

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last of the blazing fast hot dogs

today was pinewood derby day for the terrell household. noah went frst and his vehicle “hot wings” a hugely large pencil type car did decently. three years ago when i first tried pinewood derby cars with adam we were last with the car never actually making it across the finish line. this was noah’s first year and my goal was simply for noah’s vehicle cross the finish line on its own each time. it did! in fact it finish in third place all but one time. this was a great start for noah’s pinewood derby experience.

adam’s car was the story of the day. adam wanted his car to look like a hotdog. so that’s what we did, we made it look like a hot dog. it was quite funny to look at. it wasn’t like the oscar meyer wiener mobile which merely resembles a hotdog. adam’s car looked exactly like a hotdog. we figured that we would win the “judges’ favorite” award and just give up on doing anything speed-wise. of course, the fates had a different plan in mind. apparently GOD’s must perfect aerodynamic design is hotdog shaped. that can be the only explanation for you see adam’s hotdog car was a speed demon today. the first race was composed of three very sleek, speedy designs versus the demon dog of racing. everyone received a good laugh looking at the starting gate – car versus dog. when the dog was released it was a different story. the dog leaped from the gate with the speed of a greyhound.

go dog, go! (this is for all the dr. seuss fans in the house)

it was amazing to see a hotdog two lengths ahead of all the race car shaped vehicles. the crowd roared, adam’s face beamed, my dad the hotdog designer cheered, pam the painter stood slapping, and i the axle perfecter screamed in disbelief. we all thought this was a fluke until the second race where upon the speedy hotdog again humiliated the rest of the crowd. it raced 4 times and on the last race finally had a bad run, being beat for first by a very slim margin. when they calculated all the speeds it turned out that adam’s hotdog demon had the second fastest average speed – missing first place by 25 one thousandths of a second. it was truly fast food.

next year i believe we will again reject the fast looking race car designs. maybe we’ll have adam’s vehicle like a blazing hockey stick or speedy refrigerator.

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nancy regan says “just say no”

i’m glad that i don’t do drugs (i mean beside caffeine and a serious love for naprosyn as a pain reliever). this was confirmed today by the hangover that i am now experiencing form the epoxy fumes that have been in the youth ministry office all day today. this week we have had the two back doors within the youth ministry office closed off. this means that dry wall has been placed over the hole where the doors were and it is all being mudded and painted now. before the painters could paint the wall they had to put texture on it. the texture comes in a can and it releases tons of noxious fumes. within a minute the whole suite was engulfed in these fumes. in stead of being smart and finding something to do outside the room i decided to stick it out. of course, this meant that i was pretty much “huffing” the fumes for the hour i was in there. everytime i took a breathe i was basically sniffing modeling glue and anyone who has ever watched the movie “airplane” knows that’s not a good thing to do.

i finally decided i had had too much of the whole thing and walked outside. i suddenly realized that i was definitely too dizzy to be walking anyway. it probably looked really good having the youth minister walk out of his study looking like a drunk. i couldn’t have walked a straight line if i had been stopped by police. anyway, now my head is killing me and i’m having a wonderful conversation with a large pink elephant named “fred.”

with this said don’t do drugs! they’re bad for you. and stay away from texture can fumes. they’re bad for you to.

i think i need some aleve (naprosyn) now.

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strong bad rules

i was going to place a picture of my new and legal license plate on the blog but i ran into a small problem. i watched the strong bad email and the thnikkaman and that has completely dumbfounded me. i can’t figure our what the thnikkaman is and at the very same time i am enamored by him. i want to know more about him, even though i think he is basically stupid. if you haven’t watched it yet you should go watch the new strong bad email @ www.homestarrunner.com. i think it is quite funny.

i have a new lackey whose name is alan lusk. many of you know who alan is already. well he has joined the bunch at parkview and will now be around all the time to join in the fun. you can email alan @ talan@parkviewyouth.org.

i vacummed out my car this afternoon and then washed the carpet in it. i decided to leave the windows open to let it air out after washing the carpets. of course, while it was “airing” out it had to rain and therefore i had to roll the windows up. this means that tomorrow when i enter the car it will smell all mildewed and the carpet will need to be washed again.

on a final note, the church is painting the student ministry suite today and tomorrow. it is gray and should look nice.

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i’m legal

it’s taken three years but i finally have a louisiana tag on my car. i went to the license breau today and finally had everything they wanted. it feels good to be legal. the missouri tags on my car expired february 2001. i’m finally a law abiding citizen. i’ll write more later, for now we’re going out to celebrate my legal status.

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rain, rain, stay here for the night

it has rain on-again-off-again through out the day. it’s now night time, i’m about to go to bed, and it is raining again. i hope that it rains long and hard all night. there is very little better than sleeping during a rain storm. i love it. if it can’t rain all night then i would be okay with it raining hard a few times and waking me up so i could experience it. the rainy season that we have in baton rouge is one of the best parts of living in bayou land. i especially love the “gully washers” we have when it rains so hard that the drainage system can’t handle it for a short time period and the water backs up. it’s the coolest thing when you look out and see water squirting out of the holes of a manhole cover.

i find that i even like driving during storms. there is nothing quite like driving when it is really pouring down, hitting puddles and sending spray for twenty feet is just plain cool. i love the rain.

lightning is another story completely. i don’t like lightning when i am at home because i keep on thinking that it will blow up the electronics in my home. when i am driving and away from home lightning is great – quite fun to watch – but not when i am home.

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lights out

tonight at the view the power cut off. we’ve had a fair number of storms around here in baton rouge and they have caused a decent number of power outages. particularly this afternoon. the power cut out three times while i was developing the powerpoint for the worship at the view. at the view everything was going fine until about 7:20 when the power cut off. this meant i pretty much lost everyone’s attention. the power came back on but i was pretty sure that i had lost control. we finished the service and the cut off again. typically the youth and adults hang out after the service for a good while. usually there are people around the student center over an hour after the view is over. it’s wonderful. i really enjoy everyone enjoying being around each other. of course, when the power cut out everyone left. apparently everyone enjoys being around one another until the lights cut out. apparently i have developed a ministry full of people scared of the dark. it’s sad but true.

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fright scene

today i was “one eyed” by an old man. I was walking into the locker room at foxy’s gym & racquet club to take a shower after playing racquetball when I was greeted with a scary image. the doors that enter into the men’s locker room are double doors that swing inward. i pushed these doors open and was forcefully walking into the locker room when i was greeted by an old man standing about 4 feet in front of me. actually he didn’t know he was greeting me. you see this very wrinkled man was standing with his back to the door with absolutely no clothes on what so ever. this would have been bad enough as it were but one fact made it worse. you see the very wrinkled, very naked, very old man wasn’t really standing in front of me. no, he was bending over from the waste to pick something up from the floor. this means that i was greeted by the rear of an incredibly old, extremely wrinkled, frighteningly naked man.

i don’t really dislike old people or even very wrinkled people. some of my friends are old and wrinkled. it’s just that i don’t usually see these friends naked. the nudity changes everything. then you add the bending over and things just get worse. the whole event has scarred me for life and will probably give me nightmares for the next week.

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head cold

i have a head cold right now. i’ve been taking care of noah all day (here “taking care of” translates to feeding him and letting him watch way too much television) and that’s not fun when all i really want to do is be dosed up with alka seltzer cold medicine or maybe nyquil and sleeping in bed. i hate colds!

all i’ve done today is try to sleep and fail and then try to stay awake and fail. it really stinks. i could have used this day to read allot and catch up on the studying i need to do for our disciplenow in march (19-21) http:parkviewyouth.org/holy.html. it would have been a great day of focusing on researching so that i could write the disciplenow material. the main problem is that every time i start to read all the ink on the page melts and forms weird shapes that look absolutely nothing like letters or words. i feel like i’m trying to read chinese. this would actually be okay, because i could simply enjoy the images but every time i start to focus on them they change and then before i know it i’ve passed out again. then i wake up freezing and wondering why i’m so cold, only to realize that i’m covered by two blankets and sweating profusely. i hate being sick.

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the puking family

friday through today have been days of vomit at the terrell household. friday keebler (the terrell family cat who thinks he is a dog) began to barf all over the place. cat vomit is not one of the more pleasant things in the world. in fact, the only thing worse than cat vomit is actually having the watch the cat throw up. when keebler throws up it involves his whole body. it’s like the puke begins at his tails and has to be forced horizontally towards his mouth. it’s very painful to watch and the overall sound of the cat gagging just makes the experience that much more painful. thankfully, i never saw him throw up.

what i did end up seeing was cat vomit all over the house. then keebler got to see me down on my hands and knees cleaning up the barf. the stupid cat has now cost us the price of s steam cleaner and a decent amount of elbow grease (it’s pam’s elbow grease that has been used but i still feel the pain of it).

after a weekend of cat puke i walked into the house this evening to see noah (my 7 year old) tossing his biscuits into a large pot. he had just finished a bag of cheetos which gave the vomit have a lovely tint of color. the poor fellow has thrown up one more time since earlier today. i don’t like it when my kids are sick (i’m not real thrilled when the cat gets sick but i really don’t like it when my kids are sick). of course, noah is thrilled because he knows that the puke will keep him from having to go to school tomorrow. i dread the day when he is old enough to stay home by himself and has learned how to fake being sick.

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excuse me

friday, i was at a class retreat for a local private school. as a part of the retreat there was a worship service and a within that there was a sermon. while the sermon was going on i went to sit in the group of kids. i figured that my mere presence (as intimidating as it is) would calm everyone down. the message had just started when suddenly i head “brrrrriipppp” about two people away from me. it was a loud, long, and vicious rip of personality that appeared to have come from the lower orifice of a person not three feet away from me. of course, his position was easily determined because of the fact that everyone in a nice little circle around him turned around and looked straight at him. everyone smirked and laughed but he kept on looking straight ahead. after all, what could he do?

i didn’t say anything to him because i figured there was no need to tell him not to fart during the message. after about 5 minutes of the message once again the sound came from the same guy. everyone started laughing again. it was an embarrassed sort of laughter. everyone was hurting for this kid. i still didn’t say anything to him because i simply wasn’t sure what to say. surely, he wasn’t doing this on purpose, so why tell him to keep it quiet. i simply assumed that he was trying to release a silent but deadly and it slipped out louder than he had expected. while pondering this another fart was released.

we were all really embarrassed for the kid but he just kept looking forward. i figured now i had to say something to him, but what would i say? how do you tell someone to keep the farting quiet? how do you tell someone not to have stomach problems?

while contemplating this i saw the kid’s foot movie and heard the fart sound again. turns out he had been making the noise with his foot the whole time. suddenlt it all made sense. it had seemed kind of wierd the whole time that i never smelled anything.