Category: personal

i just received my amazon associate report and looks like i could start making a living rom this blogging thing. i’ve earned a whopping $3.58 over the past year. yep, that should support the family for a while.

i guess i should post some more links if i am really going to get any click throughs and have anyone buy a book through my amazon associate account. here are the books i have been reading lately.

• exclusion & embrace: a theological exploration of identity, otherness, and reconciliation by miroslav volf – a difficult but very good read. volf is awesome.
• your GOD is too safe: rediscovering the wonder of a GOD you can’t control by mark buchanan – we went through this in our small group. we then went through another buchanan book, “things unseen: living in light of forever.” i enjoyed this book but i was the only one in the small group who did.
• mere CHRISTianity by c.s. lewis – we are going through this now in our small group. oh how i love lewis … and the small group that i am a part of.
• the roundtable pulpit by john mcclure – dr. mcclure has helped me a little with the dissertation/project for my d.min. his book is really good (though the cover looks pretty stupid). a wonderful book on collaboration in preaching.

other recent terrell buys from amazon.

• logitech tablet keyboard for ipad – this was noah thing. i tried to convince him to get a keyboard case instead but he doesn’t like them for some reason.
• asus transformer tablet – this was adam’s graduation present along with the keyboard dock. we talked and figured out that a tablet desktop combination was probably better for his college experience than a laptop would be. i’m a little jealous.

now go buy some of this crap … i mean great stuff … so i can get a little more amazon love.

i am presently on the downhill slide of writing the final project proposal for my d.min dissertation/project. so i’m taking a few moments away from working on the questionnaire that i will use to quantify the study and writing a few random thoughts.

• wordless jazz, classical, ambient or foreign music are the only things that seems to work for me when i am studying. music with words just seems to get in the way of my mind.
• after 8 months of not running more than 40 miles a month i believe i am finally back in the training groove. this is great because my goal is to PR at the whistlestop marathon in ashland, wi in october. pam and i are excited about this because it will be a good chance to see adam at northland college.
• speaking of which, i can’t believe that adam is graduating this week. how can he be old enough to go to college? parenting has made me more and more thankful for my parents. right now i am just very thankful that they didn’t completely lose it when i graduated and went away to school. i am not sure i will be able to do the same thing.
• every now and then i miss seeing johnny b. it would be a lot of fun to hang out with him for a little while right now. maybe go on a bus ride for an afternoon like we did once in baton rouge.
• i used the word epaulette today in a digital message. not sure why but i find that oddly pleasing.
• it is funny how your body can so thoroughly adjust to its environmental context. saturday i was roasting in the 88 degree weather while i ran. 5 years ago in baton rouge i would have thought it was a very pleasant day for a run.
• btw, when did it become summer in wisconsin? aren’t we still supposed to be in the season of spring?

spent the morning with eric g trying to find northerns. we found a few. not an amazing day of fishing but not a bad one. a nice way to spend a morning.

hey threads. as a church we have a couple of opportunities to love on our neighbors by providing meals.

• eric & natalie glaze’s neighbors are about to give birth (actually only the female is but we’ll give a little credit to the guy). they don’t have any family around point so the glazes asked if they would like some help with meals after their baby is born. they were thrilled. she is a vegetarian/almost vegan while he is a slightly picky omnivore. we’re looking for people who would provide different meals that are friendly to both. interested? either contact the glazes or me and i will put you in contact with them.
• the faxons are about to gain a few more kids (which is saying something considering how many they already have). they have a friend who is going through chemo and his kids can’t be around him or his wife for reasons of contagion. therefore the faxons will be keeping the three kids for a while. it would be cool to help with some meals for the faxons while the kids are there and then the family when he is through with his treatment. this will mean feeding 11 people. their friends are islamic so this means we will need to try and make the food halal (angel has some instructions concerning this). we have a little time before this starts (june) but we need to start planning now. the faxons might also need some help with getting one of the children to school every now and then.

ladies and gents this is what the church does. let’s get to it.

i just heard a story on npr concerning a girl in missouri her made her own prom dress out of cardboard. the photo above is the creator of the dress modeling it. in my opinion the dress looks pretty nice. turns out she has done this several times before. she made one out of can pop tabs that i am particularly impressed by because i have to imagine the same amount of work is required for working with pop tabs as is involved in making chainmail. anyhow, i love the fact that she took her prom as an opportunity to display a part of her real self (i.e. in this case her creativity and skill) rather than just an opportunity to show skin.

jason kottke says this is done with calcium carbide and water. all i know is it is amazing. i really want to do this.

this reminds me that i need to get my potato cannon back into working order.

i want as many people as possible to be able to contribute to each week’s message at tapestry. i seek input during the development of the message (and will seek even more later as i research coolaboration effectiveness for my d.min) and i seek input during the message itself. of course, some people will never actually speak up during the message so i’m exploring a new way of encouraging involvement from people with input who are not fans of speaking in public.

for the past few months i have been setting up a youversion.com scripture “event” for each sermon. these events are nice but they don’t really let everyone participate with each other. i won’t to encourage more involvement and participation not encourage more ways to just recieve. so ihave been wanting to do something different for awhile. thus message.tapestry.org amobile ready site that will post each week’s scripture, related links, the slides from the message, and various church related things. everyone can then comment during the message with their thoughts, input, questions, etc. it is basically a blog that you can interact with on your smartphone or tablet.

i actually have an android app that already connects with the website. it will be on the android market/google play in a week or so (thanks drew). an ios app will have to wait awhile because the cost structure is different. of course, you don’t really need the app to access the site and participate, it just makes it a little bit easier.

this should be fun to see how this thing is used.

i’m not sure why but a while back i started photoshopping profile pics for various websites i am on. i don’t do it all the time. just every now and then. the above photo is my new pic for facebook.

here are a few of the older ones.

     

   

after almost 1 1/2 years of pam and the boys saying over and over that we should remove the cyst on montana’s back i finally gave it and had it removed today. don’t worry folks i take good care of my dogs. it is just that the cyst is just an encapsulated oil gland that was causing no harm to her. it isn’t pretty and people who saw the cyst for the first time usually thought that it was some sort of cancerous tumor but it really wasn’t harmful to her so i felt no real need for us to put her through surgery to remove it. after all it is merely a cosmetic issue.

so i let it sit on her back for a long time. it got a little worse every day. it began to reach a point where our vet said it really needed to go. so i gave in and montana had surgery today. turns out it had become infected so it was really time for it to go. she pulled through fine and is back to her gorgeous self only with a really tough looking scar now.

here are before and after photos. montana will have the staples in her incision for 21 days. then everything should be back to normal.

 

of course, pamela wanted to see the cyst so i asked the vet if he could save it for her. she’ll be thrilled when she gets home. i, on the other hand, want to throw up.