Category: odd

pam, the boys, and i just got back from the mobile, alabama for the weekend. we were there to throw a surprise party for pam’s dad. the surprise was that his birthday isn’t until december 28th and pam’s birthday was actually the 18th, the day the party was thrown. what better way to surprise someone with a surprise party than to hold it on someone else’s birthday. it was a good party and he was definitely surprised.

fred, the explorer, had a “check engine” light on its dashboard come on this afternoon. well, there is 180 miles between mobile and baton rouge and i really didn’t feel like breaking down in-between the two cities so my dad and i took it to autozone to have them pull out their “code checking thingy”. this little device hooks up to an electronic port in the truck and is supposed to tell me why the “check engine” light is on. it took awhile but we finally got the guy to bring the “code checking thingy” to my explorer and plug it in. the “thingy” told us that my truck was suffering from a code “p0455” – which was an “emissions evacuation system leak – gross leak”. this sounded pretty bad to me. still the guy at autozone didn’t know what it meant and nether did my dad or i so we went home to search the internet – the source of all automotive knowledge. after a quick search of the net i found out that my truck was probably suffering from the most deadly of all vehicle problems – a loose gas tank cap.

we tightened the gas cap and the “check engine” light hasn’t come on since then.

i feel better knowing that my truck takes such good care of me.

i just ran across this article concerning santas brawling after the annual santa run in newton, england. every year in newton around 4,000 sanntas run through the streets to raise money for charity. at the end of this year’s race 30 santas started fighting in the street. it became so bad that officers had to use cs spray and batons to beat the disturbance into peace. even though i wasn’t there to see this whole thing the mental picture just makes me laugh.

i wonder if they’re on the “naughty list” now?

alan, the assistant youth minister at parkview, had a wreck today. or maybe i should say that his truck had a wreck today. you see alan wasn’t in his truck at the time of the accident.

alan parked his car in front of the student center and then got out to take some stuff inside. after taking things into the building he had to take some other items into the church office. this was going to keep him busy for awhile.

apparently alan forgot to pull out his emergency brake.

after about 20 minutes of being parked in the same place alan’s truck seems to have decided to go for a little drive. of course, trucks don’t usually realize that they can’t drive themselves and thus when alan’s truck decided to go for a ride it didn’t do very well with steering. instead of a small drive with turns and excitement all his truck was actually able to do was go straight backwards with no control towards the road and ditch that were behind it.

i’m sure this scared alan’s truck to death. of course, it couldn’t have scared the truck near as bad as it did the poor young lady whose car was behind alan’s rampaging truck. you see there were cars waiting at the stop sign that was directly behind alan’s moving truck. one young lady was in line for this stop sign with a car ahead of her and a car behind her and she was right in the route that alan’s truck had decided to take. she honked, and honked, but it is a little known fact that trucks generally have really bad hearing. apparently alan’s truck was unable to hear her honking and thus did not stop until it backed right into her driver’s side door. thankfully her car stopped alan’s truck from running into the ditch.

nobody was hurt from this little adventure and very little damage was done to the vehicles. it’s just too bad that alan’s truck had to learn to stay in one place in this awful manner.

two things:

first, i cut my grass for the last time of the summer today – this should have been done three weeks ago but it’s rained every time that i started to do it. so i have cut my grass for the last time of the lawn growing season and this happened in DECEMBER! living in southern louisiana is a blast.

second, while waiting to cool down enough to shower off the lawn filth that is on my body from cutting the grass i read an article on how koreans’ faces have grown smaller because of eating hamburgers. here’s the article. it actually makes sense. koreans are eating softer foods that are primarily eaten with your front teeth rather than ground down by your molars. this has resulted in a weakening of the muscles of the jaw and over generations produces a smaller jaw bone.

it’s a great, big, stupid world.

i just re-watched the ’05 mustang commercial and found something within it that makes me laugh – i posted it in my entry of november 24th. when the image of steve mcqueen starts driving the mustang a disclaimer pops up on the bottom of the screen. you’re probably used to this because these disclaimers always pop up tell us how the track and driver were special and we should never try to do any of this stuff. here’s what this disclaimer said:

closed cornfield. professional driver

like there is such a thing as an “open cornfield.” it makes me laugh.

every monday morning jessica, alan, and i meet at cc’s coffeehouse. it supposed to be a time of shaping the future of the youth ministry and discussing the over riding big picture concerns of ministry. sometimes we do this. of course, other times we just sit around, drink coffee, and laugh over what has happened during the past week.

yesterday, i arrived earlier than normal only to find out that alan had done the same thing. so we sat around talked with each other and with the other people we knew who seemed to “pop” into cc’s about every 10 minutes or so. while we were there a young lady walked in wearing a ratty pair of fuzzy pink bed room shoes. this was a little odd but the part that disturbed my thought the most was that the rest of her appearance was made up for the day. while, i couldn’t describe her for a police line up or spot her in a crowd, i do remember that she had her makeup on, her hair was nicely fix, and she was wearing nice clothes that were meant for going out into the world and try to impress someone (i don’t have many clothes like this which is why i remember it). she looked very nice, very awake, and very ready for a day around town, except for the fact that she was walking around with a fuzzy pair of pink slippers.

these weren’t even nice slippers that someone could actually think were supposed to be shoes. nope, they were the type that you just slip your toes in. they were the slippers that women put on to keep their feet warm when they are at home and don’t expect anyone worth impressing to show up – the second rate slippers that do a great job of comforting but look like you should walk around with curlers and a muu muu. the fuz on these things was at least four inches high – so it looked like someone had glued large pink cotton balls to the front of her feet. the shoes were also quite dirty. you could tell that these slippers had been used a good bit.

but apparently my slipper wearing friend didn’t care how they looked because she wore them anyway. she order her coffee and left gliding smoothly on her pink cottny foot appareal. it was nice to see a woman who didn’t care about shoe fashion and wasn’t willing to hurt her feet. rather, she was going to wear what she enjoyed. of course, there is also the other possiblity that she had a pair of “cute” shoes that killed her feet in the car and she would put those on as soon as she got to work. i prefer to think the former rather than the latter.

it’s interesting to see what type of internet searches end up linking to this blog. there have been some odd ones in the past. today i believe i have been “googled” for the subject of which i may be the most proud. if you google for “how to fake being sick” (you need to have this phrase in quotes) then this blog will appear on the first page. i found this out by back tracking a visit made from a search engine. we have had guest visiting us on this blog simply to find out how to fake being sick. this whole thing comes from a post i did back in january about the family being sick. it’s nice to know that my writing on this blog has helped people with serious needs. 🙂

of course, it is a little sad that our world has now reached the point that people now have to search the internet in order to figure out how to fake being sick.

for some reasons i always end up in conversations with people who are homeless. tonight i had to go to our local chevron to get some air in my front, driver’s side tire (i go to this chevron because they have free air and water unlike most of the other fuel stations around us). while i was pumping up the tire a heard someone say, “hey, what’s your name?” when i looked up there was a guy that i assumed was homeless looking across my hood at me. i told him my name and and asked his – it was “mack.” well, mack started asking me for directions to highway 61 and the best way to get to la place, louisiana. after, discussing that for a minute or two he asked if i was heading that way. i wasn’t (don’t worry mom i don’t give hitchhikers rides) which he said was good because i shouldn’t pick up hitchhikers anyway. mack then began to tell me the story of why he was trying to get to la place. mack used to work on a ship’s crew. he hit some bad luck and made some poor decisions and life went pretty sour. he’s now trying to straighten things out and has the possibility of a crew job in la place. so we talked while i pumped up my tire and then talked a little longer. i then bought him some coffee and wished him luck. mack went back over to his tree that he had been sitting under when i arrived and sat down in the dark.

i don’t know why but i regularly have conversations with homeless guys in public places. this is fine by me because i like people who just so happen to be homeless – this is why my family and our youth ministry have a strong relationship with the beautiful feet homeless ministry of fort worth, texas. still i seem to have an unusally large amount of interactions with homeless men and women in public places. i think that if i got four other middle-aged, white guys and formed a 5 person caucasian line up for one homeless guy to look at that he would come over and talk to me first 9 out of 10 times. you’ve heard of “animal magnetism?” well i have “homeless magnetism.” maybe i smell different from most other people or i dress ratty? i’m not sure, i just know that i draw homeless people.

i get the privilege of doing hospital visits every tuesday. i know some ministers don’t like visiting the hospital every week but i truly love it. the coolest things always seem to happen when you go to the hospital. you walk in at the right moment just when someone really needs another person there, or you get to remind people who feel all alone that they have a bunch of others who care for them, or you get to see how GOD brings HIS comfort and peace to a room full of chaos, or you simply get to eat the lunch that nobody else wants. sometimes they’re simple but profound joys. usually they’re just plain profound.

today i went to visit a church member who has recently had a stroke. he is recovering quite well but seems to have one problem that may be with him for awhile. we all have going on in our heads what some people refer to as an “internal dialog.” you talk to yourself in your head saying things that you actually do think but would never want to say to the people you are talking with. we hide these things because the people we are talking with are more important than actually saying these things. these are just fleeting thoughts and they don’t deserve the light of day. well this church member has at least temporarily lost his internal dialog and everything he wouldn’t normally say comes out instead staying inside.

so while i’m there asking how he is doing and telling him how things are going at church and with the people we both know and love he is busy blurting out what ever he is thinking. everything he says has to do with our conversation, they’re just not statements that you would normally expect to hear. he asked me about seafood and we talked about it for a little while. during the seafood conversation he blurted out that he has never liked his wife’s fish, in fact he thinks it smells funny. of course, she was right there beside me and heard it all. he then started asking me how things with the youth were going. when i started to tell him about what was happening with the youth he decided to ask me how old i was. i told him i was thirty-six. he responded by saying “you’re really old for a youth minister aren’t you?” when i responded with “yep” he then added “you better get out because you’re really old.”

personally i thought it was hilarious. he would tell me time and time again “i’m not trying to be mean or anything. some people say i’m rash but i just call ’em like i see ’em.”

of course, his wife was embarrassed at first. she’s used to this but she doesn’t liek for new people to go through it. i reassured her that pam, my wife, works with head injuries all the time and therefore i understand that this was something he couldn’t help. it was very cool to see her trying to protect him. she loves him in spite of the fact that he doesn’t like the way she cooks fish. she loves him for who he used to be and loves him for who he is now. other people may be put off by his crass remarks but she knows who he really is. she can tell when it is him talking and when it is merely the stroke saying things.