Category: personal

The video above is of the weather about an hour into deer hunting yesterday. I expected it to snow a little yesterday but I didn’t realize that it was going to end up snowing enough to cover the ground. It continued to snow for the two hours after this video that I continued to hunt. It is too early for such snow. We’re supposed to have flurries right now. Yes, they might be heavy flurries but still flurries.

So I sat in the deer stand slowly being covered by snow and randomly scaring deer. I scared 5 of the them: 1 because I had to stop reading my kindle (touchscreen kindles freak out when snow lands on their screens) and had to put it in my bag, I looked around but didn’t see the deer when I decided to move, he, however, did see me, 2 others were scared by walking up downwind from me and catching my scent, and then I scared 2 more when I was walking out – just call me the deer scarer. It was an enjoyable evening even though I didn’t get a deer.

The reason I am posting this is so that I can share with you this work of art that Eric G made for me. Eric said that me bow hunting in a deer stand in such bad weather (it wasn’t just snowing, it was also cold and windy) I had finally become a real Wisconsinite because unlike gun season (which is only 9 days long) you can blow off bad days when bow hunting because it is a much longer season. Apparently for Eric, choosing to stick it out in bad weather equals being a Wisconsinite and the reward for being a Wisconsinite is cheese cut into a slice of cheese.

I felt very honored … and then ate the Wisconsin cheese slice.

SIDE NOTE – I tend to read my kindle when bow hunting because it requires less movement to “flip” pages. I may have to rethink this for snowy days. My kindle kept swapping fonts because of the snow interacting with the kindle’s touchscreen.

I can’t tell you the number of times it has come in handy owning a gorilla costume. Seriously, my boys and I have gotten a fair amount of use out of it. You should get one for yourself and you will suddenly find lots of uses for it that you never imagined.

Tomorrow it will come in handy as part of my “Trunk or Treat” setup for giving the “thread” kids at Tapestry a fun memory before church. I have the whole thing worked out in my head and just need to finish a few of the decorations for tomorrow, which is the perfect thing to do while watching college football.

Here’s hoping that this doesn’t actually backfire and accidentally scare the kids. I can see some kids on a counselor’s couch years from now explaining why he is scared of church because of the gorillas that obviously live in churches. Additionally to this fear Eric G is trying to convince me to do the message for the church tomorrow while in the costume. As much as I would enjoy doing that I figure it is probably best that I not to do so.

SIDE NOTE – I thought it would be funny to have the song where Gwen Stefani spells out “bananas” playing in the background. Apparently I had never actually heard the song other thank her spelling bananas and saying she isn’t a hollaback girl. After listening I think it is best not to have it playing in the background.

SIDE NOTE – for those who might be wondering what it looked like, here is a photo from today.

Just a normal Tapestry worship gathering with a gorilla playing games with the kiddos. It’s what we do. #TapestryStyle #YesThatsThePastor #GorillaTalkingSmack

A post shared by Tapestry (@sptapestry) on Oct 29, 2017 at 10:38am PDT

I’m not one to curse. At one time in my life I was (boy was I), but then I turned 16 and I decided that I really didn’t like using curse words or vulgarities. They don’t really bother me when other people say them. I was a workman’s compensation adjuster in a shipyard when I graduated from college. You really haven’t been good and cursed out till you have told a shipbuilder that he won’t be receiving his workman’s compensation next week because you have denied his claim. When you can receive that salty word slapping and remain calm then you can handle most things in life. So like I previously wrote, I’m not usually bothered by other people cursing (except if you are very vulgar in public in front of children or using the Lord’s name in vain just to get my goat), but I don’t use them myself.

Except for one phrase that makes me laugh. I might not say it out loud but I think it a fair amount. The phrase is “ass hat” and it makes me laugh every time I hear it used. I don’t know what it is about the phrase (the picture of an ass hat, the sounds of the words together, the perfect description of the stupidity that just occurred in front of me), but whatever it is I love the phrase. However, I still don’t say it out loud.

That’s why Pam and I developed another word phrase to take the place of ass hat. We now say that someone is being a butt fedora. I may actually like butt fedora better than ass hat. The original phrase is more succinct but butt fedora (that was fun) brings up a more vivid mental picture in my mind. It is a wonderful phrase to describe someone who has done something incredibly dumb.

That guy keeps on driving in the left lane. What a butt fedora!

See, it works. Makes me smile just to think of it. I hope you have a day with few butt fedora interactions.

A while back my brother and I signed up for the Robinhood app which allows for commission free stock market trades. Our dad belong to a group of friends who got together each month, played penny ante poker, and made small stock market trades together. They called it the yenom club. “Yenom” is “money” spelled backwards. It was always small amounts of money because the whole thing was for fun. I don’t know if they ever actually made any money (or yenom) but I remember them coming to our house every so often and playing poker. I assume they actually invested too.

So Ken and I decided to do some small investing through Robinhood and then we could brag/trash-talk a little back and forth concerning who is doing better.  Right now he is kicking my rear. Ken won (via a “refer a customer get a free stock” thingie) a free share of Apple stock.  Since this is just fun money one free share of AAPL (worth $157.10 as I write this) is a huge hurdle for me to overcome. I too “earned” a few free shares, but the highest value of any of my free shares was $4. Ken is going to have to do some truly terrible investing and I am going to have to do some remarkable investing in order for me to catch up to him. But catch up to him I will!

If I can only find a few more shares like ZAGG I’ll be able to catch up to him. This wonderful little stock has increased in value 105%. So while I’m not saying that I am Warren Buffett, I am saying that I successfully picked a stock that doubled in value in less than 5 months. Of course, it will probably all go to pot next week.

At least I am smart enough to place my retirement elsewhere.

SIDE NOTE – I have been having a blast doing small stock purchases with Robinhood. I believe my brother had been having fun too. My retirement is through index and mutual funds, so it is fun to own some individual shares of companies I like. If you want to try it and would like a free share (I get one too and thereby you would help me to get a little closer to beating my dear brother) you can do so through this referral link.

SIDE SIDE NOTE – if you aren’t saving for retirement please begin to do so. The earlier the better.

SIDE SIDE SIDE NOTE – if you haven’t frozen your credit since the Equifax hack please do so. You can find instructions from Clark Howard on how to freeze your credit here.

It is a momentous evening. Tonight Clive is watching The Outlaw Josey Wales for the first time. TOJW is my favorite movie. i don’t remember how any times I have seen it. At one time in my life I was watching it once a month. Clive will end up seeing it many, many times. As you can tell from the photo above he is very excited about watching this great movie.

The Terrell family has had basset hounds around us for a long time. Pam, the boys, and I love the breed. We love that they are laid back, and yet manipulative. We love that they are clownish, and yet oddly noble at the same time. We love that they are a big dog that is also a medium size dog. They are seriously awesome.

In December we chose to finally put down our male, Roux, when it had become obvious to us and our vet that he was seriously hurting from the cancer that was riddling his body. We were sad but our girl, Montana, was still with us. That changed two months ago.

When Montana died we thought we would go without a dog for a little while and then start the search at the end of the Summer. I say “search” because we like rescue dogs and finding the right rescue dog isn’t the same as just finding a puppy somewhere.¹ You have to search to find the right one.

Montana was a rescue through the Looziana Basset Rescue (a great organization) and Roux was a stray that we adopted after some friends/neighbors found him in their front yard (most likely just dropped off in our neighborhood by an owner who didn’t want or couldn’t afford to deal with the heart worms Roux had), and said we had to take him because he looked like he could be Montana’s brother. We loved both our rescues. So we started looking.

I say “we” but I really mean Pam. I may be the dog person, but she is the queen of research. Seriously, it is amazing how good she is at finding stuff. She scoured the basset hound rescue societies. We weren’t looking too hard, but a couple of times Pam found a dog that would spark our interest. Then thanks to a former youth (thanks Hannah) Pam got in touch with Leslie from Looziana Basset Rescue concerning whether there might be a dog with them that would be a good fit for us. She sent us a few low rez photos and a grainy video of a dog they had just received.

Below is the video.

video-1502740834 from Robert Terrell on Vimeo.

This was the day after the soon to be Jurgen “Clive” (they were calling him “Quinn”, which is amazing because he is obviously a “Clive”) had been fixed. Still he walks happy. I think it says a ton about the temperament of a dog when he walks happy the day after he has been “snipped”. We all agreed on this and we decided we needed to see him when we went down to Alabama.

The soon to be Clive had been living on the streets in New Orleans. He had heartworms which would have to be treated, but they were willing to wave the normal adoption fee if we agreed to pay for the treatment. We thought we would take a look at him. Pretty much the second we saw him in the flesh we instantly agreed that we wanted him to be a Terrell. He is just such a happy dog.

So, please meet Jürgen “Clive” Terrell. The first dog that I have been allowed by the family to name (I’ve tried to name our other dogs but i have always been “name jacked”² by the boys and Pam). He is, of course, named after Jürgen Moltmann and Clive Staples Lewis. He is primarily called Clive but J.C. works too.³ He is wonderful and you will see him tooling around Point with me. After three days with him I am pretty well convinced that he is the greatest dog alive in the world today. Please don’t hesitate to stop us and say “hi”. Clive will stop for anybody who wishes to pet him, particularly those who offer food for the privilege of doing so. Because of his namesakes he will also gladly stop to bark about theology.

1. Rescue dogs are the best. When you get a rescue you save a dog from neglect and possible death. Please always consider adopting first. [↩]
2. I had wonderful names for our three previous dogs and was convinced each time that it was best to go with a different name. Favorite “name jacking” story is our first family dog who I wanted to name “Nero” after a great quote at the beginning of FF Bruce’s book “Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free”. The quote was “One day men will name the sons Paul, and their dogs Nero”. So I was going to call our dog “Nero”. Then Adam (who was like 4 at the time asked if Nero was a bad man? I couldn’t lie to him and when I said yes Adam said “please don’t name my dog after a bad man, how about Hero instead”. ARGH KIDS! [↩]
3. MCB for Most Chill Basset has also been adopted as a usable name for Clive, though MCB has to be said in the manner that JTP is said on the TV show “the Goldbergs” [↩]

Sunday at Tapestry I spoke about the songs of Mary and Zechariah (Luke 1:46-80) and considered what we could learn from them in light of the hatred that was shown in Charlottesville over the weekend.

Specifically I said that the beauty of the songs of the Christian faith is that they often do two things very well:

1. Remind us of Who God is (i.e. the One who does great thing for and through His people)
2. Remind us os who we are (i.e. the ones for whom God has done great things and through whom He wants to do more)

When we remember Who He is and who we are we do a great job of standing against evil. When we forget those two things we don’t do such a good job. So we sing and when we sing we remind each other and remember.

Tonight people at UVA are showing that the songs of true Christian faith are powerful in combating evil. Sing, remember, and act in love.

Those on the lawn are now singing Amazing Grace. pic.twitter.com/1aVVaouw71

— Allison Wrabel (@craftypanda) August 17, 2017

HT Pamela.