I mispell things!
the above is a picture of mcdill pond. it has been drained in an attempt to use the winter to kill the non-native aquatic plants that have taken it over. i understand why it is being done but driving by it still make me a little sad. it will be even worse this winter because whenever you drove by mcdill you could always count on seeing people ice fishing. that want be happening this winter because when you ice fish immediately over dry dirt the results are always abysmal.
pam has suckered me into being recorded as a test subject for the com. d. department at uwsp. they need subjects with different accents and a southern accent is a rare commodity up here in the land of cheese. therefore, i will go into her department next week so that they can record my voice so their students can then deconstruct the whole thing. as always, i endeavor to persevere in my attempts to help educate the future leaderships of our world. š
SIDE NOTE ā iām presently reading jack kerouacās book āon the road.ā iām only about half way through the book so things may change but at this point i donāt understand why it is considered such a great book. itās okay. iām interested in it enough to finish reading it but it doesnāt stand out as a great work of literature. maybe itās just me.
it was pumpkin carving night at the terrell household. as always it was a ton of fun. i have a pretty great family.
here are some photos from the evening.
SIDE NOTE ā i got to do something cool today.
up until last year i have been a youth minister. during my 18 years in youth ministry i have had some parents of students who were incredibly encouraging to me and the staff that i worked with. i know some youth ministers will complain about parents who are pains but my experience was that those parents are few and far between when compared to the encouraging parents.
anyhow, today i got the chance to prove that i learned from my experience with such great families as the pierces, the pyles, the burgers, the wilkinsons, the stines, the armstrongs, the fletchers, the walters, the forts, the austins, the haltoms, the jones, the smiths, the fraziers, etc., etc. (there are more families than i could ever count so know that if you werenāt mentioned you are probably still in the āmore than i can countā group). i called up the two youth ministers who lead the youth ministry that adam is involved in (a youth ministry at tapestry is not possible right now because the only adolescent we have is named terrell) and told them that i would either like to take them both out to whatever restaurant they would like or cook jambalaya (thanks again guys and girls for the cooking stuff) for their whole staff. they chose the jambalaya and so i cooked it today and fed everyone over at woodlands church. they lead a great youth ministry and iām glad adam is involved in it. thanks to all my previous youth ministry parents for teaching me how to treat a youth minister.
some of the words from last nightās use of lectio divina at tapestry.
it is hard for this alabama native to believe but we had our first snow in point today. that’s right on october 27th we had snow flurries in the stevens point area.
i love it.
i love snow. it is amazing. i’m not sure why but anytime it starts snowing, no matter if it is flurries or a blizzard, it feels like a magical moment. it’s always great.
SIDE NOTE – during lunch i watched “diary of a city priest.” i haven’t read the book but the movie was very interesting.
yes the above picture is of a trebuchet. yes this trebuchet was designed to throw the pumpkins in that wheelbarrow beside it all the way across the field you see in the picture. no i unfortunately did not get to see it operated.
as i told you yesterday we were going to see the pumpkin trebuchet operated today. itās located 15 miles away from us in wisconsin rapids. the pumpkin farm advertizes that it will operate the trebuchet at 1 p.m. therefore, pam, noah, and i drove over to wisconsin rapids and made it there 5-10 minutes before 1 p.m. we were full of excitement at the possibility of seeing pumkins take flight. what we didnāt realize was that these medieval catapults were apparently no designed to operate in small drizzles and strong breezes. at least thatās what we were told by the trebuchet operator.
it changes my whole view of medieval warfare. apparently war only took place in the middle ages on calm, sunny days. i assume that it made the horrific aspect of war a little easier to deal with just knowing that if a storm cloud crossed the sky there was always the possibility of a war rain delay.
anyhow, here are two more pictures from the afternoon. the first is pam trying to make noah turn his head for a photo (adam was away at a birthday party) and the second is a pumpkin interpretation of obama and mccain.
SIDE NOTE ā below is the video we showed tonight at tapestry that matthew made.
iām using this video at tapestry tomorrow night. it should be fun. even better matthew has made another video for tomorrow that goes with the scripture. one of the things that i was hoping would happen within tapestry is that there would be expressions of worship that came from within the community rather than us just using other peopleās stuff. weāve already had a couple of original songs done during our assemblies and now we have a video that has come out of the group.
i get a little more excited each week.
SIDE NOTE ā i think the family is going to see a pumpkin trebuchet tomorrow. if we do i will, of course, have photos.
my highly polished and professional looking graphic for use during the message i am preaching sunday at tapestry. as you can tell i spare no expense in conveying the message of the LORD.
SIDE NOTE ā i want this!
itās an elmo document projector and i can get this used one for $199. some friends of tapestry sent on unexpected check last week that i might use for this. the problem is that while i really think it would come in handy i wonāt be sure until i try it out. unfortunately i canāt find a place around point that will rent one so i canāt just try it with no obligation. then the issue is that these units usually costs $1,000 so this one is a huge deal. i hate decisions like this.
awhile back pam said i needed new clothes. this is a big deal because i rarely buy clothes. my clothes usually come from birthday and CHRISTmas presents. until recently this system had worked pretty well for me. i had clothes and i didn’t have to go shopping. it was the best of both worlds.
a few weeks ago pam said i had to get some new clothes because i had worn out most of my better looking outfits and the others were working terribly out of date. i looked at what i was wearing and determined that she was right. so pam took me shopping and i came back with nice looking clothes.
i know the clothes are nice looking because today everyone has been telling me so. seriously, i have had two different groups of people say “you’re looking very good today.” it’s not something that i am used to. i will probably have to take pam’s advice more often.
