Category: personal

the following story was done to me which should make it not funny (because i’m such a nice guy and no one should ever do anything bad to such a nice guy as me) but it’s so good that even i think it is funny. therefore, for you’re amusement i will tell how i have been abused.

i received an anonymous homosexual proposition today on my cell phone. this afternoon i received a phone call with a “724” area code. my usual habit is to ignore phone numbers that i don’t know and wait for a message. so i ignored this phone call until the message arrived. the message said, “i found your number at barnes and noble in the bathroom and was wondering if you would like to get together tonight i’ll be staying at the marriott and if you are interested in getting together tonight call and let me know.” it sounded homosexual to me and i asked a few other people what they thought about a random guy calling and asking me to get together. they all agreed that it sounded gay.

of course, the real question was how did my cell phone number get in the bathroom stall of the barnes and noble book store?

that’s when i remembered having a discussion with alan a few months ago about phone numbers in bathrooms. i need to admit something here. i’m fascinated by “bathroom poetry.” i can’t help it. when i see something written on the stall i just want to read it. i was discussing this with alan a few months ago and we both started wondering if anyone actually ever calls the numbers that are so often a part of the writings found on bathroom stalls. i suggested then that it all might just be a practical joke that friends pull on each other. we both thought that would be a great joke – leaving your friend’s real phone number on the bathroom stall for people to call. apparently, alan thought it was too good of a joke to pass up because he went to barnes and noble and wrote my cell phone number on the bathroom stall.

alan admitted to the whole thing tonight when i confronted him on it. the problem is that i think the whole thing is hilarious. i mean it’s really hard to get mad when i think it’s simply a great practical joke. of course, i’m going to write his phone number in the bathroom of a sleazy truck stop now but i still admire his vigor in getting the first attack.

here’s my first attempt at using photoshop to create a background for our summer calendar. the photo was mine so i don’t even have to pay for that. i think i’m going to have to goof off with some other photos but i do love the idea of using a “pineapple” within the calendar because it is a traditional symbol of welcome.

the past two years i have gotten the graphic background for our summer calendar from sarti design and i’ve been real please with them. i would just buy their “elements” package for the summer calendar background and consider the rest of the images “gravy.” the problem this year is that sarti doesn’t have a new “elements” package out and thus no new summer calendar image.

this left me with three options:

1) use an old image
2) track now another graphic design company that sells cheap images
3) learn enough adobe photoshop to do my own

i chose option number three and i have been working on images try to get one a like. i’ll post them when i am finally satisfied with one or two of them. it hasn’t really been as hard as i would have thought that it would have been, but of course, i’m not finished yet.

sorry for not posting the past several days. it’s just that life has been busy (excuse me montana just spent 15 minutes licking my face – argh! dog breath – being a basset hound she may be small in statue but at 50 pounds of weight she can still be quite forceful. where was i?) anyhow allot has been going on and i’ve been pretty tired when i’ve gotten home and thus pretty much gone to sleep. i’m actually about to leave again. the family and i are going to the red stick animation festival to learn all about animation and then i’m speaking at a crawfish boil for baton rouge high and joining back up with the fam for more animation. it should be a fun evening.

the family went to see parkview high school’s rendition of grease last night. it was quite good and i was really proud of all the youth from the parkview youth ministry who were in it. i love going to see our kids in plays, sports, band thingys, dances, etc.

i’ll write something more substantive when i actually have time. i’ll also post some information concerning “global encounter” and our summer plans. summer calendars should be out next week.

7:50 a.m. arrive at church & spend a little time updating my itune’s
library so everything will register properly on my ipod (swapping from
realplayer to itunes was not seamless).

8:15 a.m. try to teach an older church member how to use the projector
and sound board so that she can show a dvd for her bible study only to
find out that she doesn’t even know how to operate a dvd player (the
10 minute training suddenly changed into a 30 minute quick overview)

9:15 a.m. go to court with a church member who is struggling through a
custody hearing. i get to discuss “hope” with her in the courtroom in
which her fate will be decided.

10:00 a.m. receive a phone call from a youth who graduated two years
ago and has been transferred to iraq. my only job is to give as much
comfort as possible for 30 minutes

10:50 a.m. arrive back at my study and begin working again on our summer calendar
publication (which is two months late because of budget issues at the
church).

11:55 a.m. leave for lunch but get called form the school saying my
youngest son is sick so i rush back up to the church (where our school
is) and find out noah has a small headaches (headaches are a big deal
with him). we decide together that a little tylenol should take care
of everything (which turns out to be great because if i had checked
him out of school he would have missed a pizza party at school and
noah doesn’t miss pizza for any readon – the boy loves it).

12:45 p.m. since i no longer have time to rush home, eat and get back
for my 1:30 p.m. appointment i go to cane’s and get some chicken
strips.

1:30 p.m. meet with church member discussing life insurance.

2:00 p.m. chase life insurance agent away to meet with my 2:00 p.m.
appointment with a teen helping him to prepare a testimony for
speaking with some kids.

2:10 p.m. the teen still hasn’t arrived

2:15 p.m. start listening to a different teenager on how his life
sucks – some call this counseling. basically i just listened to him,
directed his conversation back onto topic a few times, and helped him
realize that GOD is not demanding that he become someone else’s
picture of who he should be.

3:15 p.m. receive a call from one of our teens saying that one of the
11th & one of the 8th graders at our school had been in a car accident
and were in the icu at one of our hospitals but no one was sure which
hospital.

3:30 p.m. receive several calls form other teens who are worried about
their friends but don’t know what hospital they are at.

4:30 p.m. finally figure out which hospital the student’s are at. i
take the boys home and wait for pam to get home from work before
leaving for the hospital.

5:40 p.m. leave for the hospital and meet with the teen’s dad and try
to reassure him that god is watching over and they are loved. the
hospital is full of eighth grade girls who are there out of “concern”
(and a need to be in the midst of the action)

7:30 p.m. arrive back home and thank GOD for two things 1)an
incredible family that puts up with allot, and 2)a calling that every
now and then gives me the chance to be a part of god making a
difference.

i was finally able to see born into brothels last night and it was disturbing and amazing.

every now and then in preparing for a message or a series of messages i will spend a half day or whole day at a place that inspires or teaches me concerning whatever the message is about. for example, when i was talking about suffering i spent the afternoon in a local emergency room working on the message but also just soaking up what was going on around me. awhile back for a message on community i spent the day at a mall watching people (the mall is a place that looks like a great community place – a large gathering area – but instead is a place of disconectedness). i try to do this every now and then and i find it very helpful.

in the near future i will be speaking about being on journey with CHRIST and therefore i figured i would spend the day traveling around baton rouge on it’s brcats public transportation system. the public transit service in baton rouge is not a very big deal. it’s a good system, it’s just that it’s not a very popular thing in louisiana to use public transportation and thus everyone tries to use their own vehicle instead. so i went to experience brcats for myself. jonathan, our minister of belonging, decided he wanted to go with me so i had a buddy for the day (really only about a half day). having a buddy meant i couldn’t really “write” anything while i was traveling but it did make for an enjoyable time. i’m still processing the day trying to figure out what to say from it. it may turn out that unlike most of my “message field trips” this one may not “produce” allot. all i know right now is that it was a good time.

so our catholic brothers and sisters now have their new pope but my question is how do you feel about yourself when everyone is referring to you as a “transitional pope“? basically benedict is the papal equivalent of eating a cracker in-between items of a tasting competition (wine, chili, etc.) to remove the taste of the previous bite you had. how lousy is this for benedict that he was pretty much chosen because the roman catholic cardinals figured he would be bland enough and die soon enough to prepare for another more significant pope?

interestingly i think the same thing happens with long term evangelical ministers. if you have a long tenure, significant pastor/minister at a church it doesn’t seem uncommon to me for the next pastor to be at that church for a short while and then move on thus preparing the way for another more significant pastor. it’s a “transitional pastor.” of course, that doesn’t usually involve the death of the “transitional poastor” and a “transitional pope” will need to die before the transition takes place.

dave barry has done another “play by play” on tonight’s 24 episode. it’s quite humorous. you can view it by CLICKING HERE.

i love flickr. if you are not familiar with flickr let me briefly describe the site. it is simply the best photo blog/sharing site on the internet. it’s a wonderful community within which to be involved in and i love it.

i loved them before but i love them even more after what they have done today. today, they added another year to my pro account that i purchased back in december. they also doubled the photo transfer amount that i had with my pro account and then gave me to “free” pro accounts to give away to friends. flickr has simply been a great experience to be involved in.