362

362

Yes that right.. I weighed today for the first time in probably a couple of years and I weigh three hundred and sixty-two pounds..wow... I also now wear a 54 waist pants and I can't live like this any more... I've already learned from watching all my siblings that I will get diabetes...but do I need to rush it any faster? I've always had a weight problem since I was a kid. Food was my sanctuary when I was tense...and it still is. I've got to change that.

Chocolate is my heaven... and I've got to change that..or maybe just not go to heaven near as often..

Finally, I've got to move. somehow I've gotten very sedentary the last couple of years. Work used to keep me very active and now it does not because I have a great staff. I still work long hours and I've got that church gig too...tends to exhaust me and I really don't want to do anything else.

But now I'm committing to change. Not just a new years resolution but a change in my daily lifestyle. I've got to move. I started walking today.

I'm not doing a bunch of measurements and posting all that stuff and tracking my progress on sizes etc. I am laying out there for all to see that I'm too fat and I've got to make a change...I'd love your prayers and support and if you are so motivated..join me in this little exploit. No races to see who loses more faster. Just hoping to see progress. ... and I'll fail and I hope I get back up and get going again. Maybe that's why I'm letting you in on the deal. I'm gonna check my weight weekly...I'm gonna post weekly weight and approx miles walked each week. If I share it with you ... I'm a little more sold out on doing it....

If I drop some weight...maybe I can start riding a bike again too... I blogged about that way back when gas was $4.oo a gal.. would still be good for me..

Here is to a healthier, fuller and more active life!!!

Seven Pounds

FYI..I'm going to talk about this movie on this blog post and I'd love to hear your feedback on the movie..if you have not seen it do not read this and then get mad at me for ruining it for you.....

spoiler alert..spoiler alert.spoiler alert..spoiler alert.spoiler alert..spoiler alert..spoiler alert..spoiler alert..spoiler alert..spoiler alert..spoiler alert..spoiler alert..spoiler alert..spoiler alert...............etc..

Now.. I saw the ads and the movie intrigued me. They did a good job of getting me interested and not letting me know what was really going on.

I didn't go research it because I wanted to be surprised at the movie.

Then my daughter tells me I must go see it and that I will cry. She said she boo hoo'd big time and she knew me and she knew I would too. I trust my daughter as she has seen me cry in church and at movies and other events and so she knew it would touch my heart...

I post this on twitter and a some friends want to go too... awesome... more people to know I'm a cry baby (Glover ...who went...already knows)...

So I'm not going to lay the movie out for you to surprise you with the plot..if you're reading this you either don't care to see it or you've seen it and want to know what I think and you want to tell me what you think..

I loved the movie.. I cried...and I mean .... It's a wonderful life kind of crying.. nearly sobbing in public like my momma died kinda crying..almost. Still a little more emotional than I care to be out in the open public.. my church knows me and knows that's a part of who I am but EVERYONE doesn't need to know it.. NEXT.

Rich guy taking his wife out to dinner... looks at his blackberry (I do this way too often).. swerves in to on coming traffic and kills his wife and 6 others... my thoughts on this is he is giving up the metaphorical "pound of flesh" for each person he killed.. helping others who deserve it (not what Christ would do but he's not Christ...but by making this selection he does ensure that the good things of good people continue on... Christ didn't select everyone to be his disciple to carry on his teachings and way of life so in a way I can see this as a Christ like move... he will help far more people in this world by selecting the right ones to help...ok??

I liked it when he burned the guy running the nursing home... I liked it when he gave the abused woman his home (how will she pay the taxes?) That when I started getting weepy..

Was not sure about what was going on with Woody Harrelson's character at first but later a saw what was happening.

He stated that his life was less than remarkable in a conversation with Rosario Dawson's character which tends to tell us he believes he's worthless... after who he killed and the impact on many people's lives I can see that.

Some were not happy that it seemed he never overcame that worthlessness. I believe after his night with Ms. Dawson's character...and he ran to the Hospital to see what the odds were for a rare blood type heart transplant...the story was telling us he now wanted to live. I believe at that point he was trying to find hope for his own life so that he could spend it with her. Then the gift he was now willing to give was not just his money, his possessions and his body parts because he was worthless... he was willing to give his life..which now had meaning, for the one that he loved. I believe he was redeemed in his relationship with her..by helping her and her helping him in a way he couldn't help himself....so I cried a lot more...

And then of course the end with Ms. Dawson's character finds Woody's character and looks in to his eyes... so she could see the eyes of the one she loves... can they do that??? They've been doing that in movies for a long time but I've never been sure it could actually happen..

@Drun..did you find out if jellyfish stings render donor body parts useless?

I love the flick.. it was what I needed after weeks of peak volume and tense days at work and lots of church responsibilities around the holiday season.. it was a great release for me and I'm glad my daughter told me to see it.. can't watch it in public again though...have to do it at home...late at night...by myself.. like I do "It's a Wonderful Life"..

Let me know what you think..did you hate it? Love it?? Not sure?? Let me know..

Eating at Cheddars tonight..

I saw one of my favorite young ladies with the last name of Anderson that's not my daughter but I'd take her any time and do anything for her any time... and that's what I'm doing here. Donna and I ate at Cheddar's tonight and Katie did not wait on our table but she brought us our food then we conversed and had fun while she worked.. she also pointed out a young man of interest named Josh.. She told me to yell at him and I did...she was then terrified that I yelled at him..just what did she think I would do??

I later called his name at other times and Katie seemed undone by this and yet she felt compelled to tell us about her wonderful date with him where he... was nice.. I won't go in to details because Katie might get mad.. Katie then made a comment about making sure that I blogged about this experience tonight..so here it is. I've known Katie for a few years now and she is such a super awesome girl.. well young lady.. you should get to know her more here.

Here is a pic of Josh and Katie.. I think it's the one she showed us at the restaurant..

Peace out folks..

Hannah and her txting exploits..

Ok I lied.. I'm not too busy to blog until after Christmas.. or maybe I just find this topic way more important than the delivery of your boxes... not really just kidding. But..the phone bill came in today and I just though it would be really cool to let you see a glimps of a small part of my family life..that part involved in phone bills and texting..

I find texting to be a very strange phenomena in that people use telephones to NOT talk to others..just send them little messages like you might get from a western union office dozens of years ago..except faster and cheaper.. I actually like txting. I think it works for many in that you can manage the conversation among other things you are doing vs when you're talking you tend to have to get singularly focused. It has been funny when friends of mine have sent me replies to txts that they got from someone else... maby too many balls in ther air there???

Anyway..my daughter Hannah loves to txt... so I started a new feature over there to the right side of my blog...check it out..give me some feedback and I'll keep you posted each month on how she's doing. My daughter does make me cry sometimes...she also makes me mad... and she makes me laugh.. this is the funny part.. we have hundreds of roll over minutes every month we don't use but she will txt every waking minute she can if she's able. Why not just call em???

Boxes....Boxes....Boxes....

Hey folks... it's that time of year that many of you like to call Christmas... for people like Kathy Dunn or others that are very intimately tied to the church calendar... it's advent. Many have other holidays around this time of year from Hanukkah to Kwanzaa.. People in my business call it PEAK.

This is not a post on theology... This is not a post on faith...

This is post regarding the fact that I get very frustrated this time of year as my full time job gets very very busy in the business of delivering lots and lots of boxes.

We have to hire extra people.. they all don't do such a great job all the time..this requires lots of conference calls..and discussions about action plans to do better and people telling me when I must be on calls on weekends.. ugh..

Most of you are planning parties or enveloping yourselves in the atmosphere of anticipation and waiting for our coming King or celebrations of family and friends.. I have to force some of this in to what is the busiest time of year for me in my industry..the transportation industry.. along with what is a pretty busy time of year in the religious business.. you know.. special musical events, Christmas eve services, Christmas parties that fall on days when you really think you should be practicing music for the coming Sunday, Christmas parties falling on days when you wish you could just go home and go in to a coma, Christmas parties that are taking place while you know that many of your employees are working 14-15+ hour days to make sure you get that present you ordered.

I want to have a festive spirit but in the back of my mind I'm always wondering if there is service failures happening and am I going to be on some conference call tomorrow to explain why we didn't do as well as we should..

I look forward to the day when package pressure will mean..well... nothing..I can't think of anything funny to put there. I'll be glad when I don't have to worry about another peak and my full time job will be planning special Christmas music and going to Christmas parties and being part of Christmas eve services..

I say all that to say this.. I doubt you will see another post until after December 25th 2008..I hope to have a Christmas post.. but if you want to see what's up in my life just watch my updates on facebook or twitter (which is what drives my facebook updates anyway). Grace and peace to you all...

Mark Lee: Guitar player for Third Day.

Ok, I'm 48 years old and I don't get all giddy about rock bands, or rock stars or movie stars... personally I would tend not to interrupt them if I saw them eating dinner or whatever. I figure their lives are pretty abnormal as it is and I don't need to be one more addition to it.

BUT

On twitter I follow a few people that are doing pretty well as musicians in the CCM genre of music. Brandon Heath who really does not post many tweets but I like one of his songs so I started following him on twitter.

Bart Millard of Mercy Me just because I've liked these guys for a long time and their cover tune grab bags are great and Bart will announce them being posted via twitter.

I also follow Brandon Todd Wright who is a real up an comer and will have a song on the next song discovery CD coming out from worship leader magazine..

Finally.. I follow Mark Lee..the guitar player for Third Day...

The great thing about following Mark and Bart is that the tweets they post really show that they deal with a lot of the same things the rest of us deal with. They are parts of bands that are huge in Christian music. I'm sure they do ok for themselves. Now Bart always posts via txt so there is no way he can interact with folks on twitter unless there is technology out there I don't understand..
But Mark Lee...he's on twitter just like the rest of us.. and he has quite a few people following him.. but then a couple of weeks ago I got an e-mail that he was following me (actually he is now following everyone that follows him on twitter)..that's pretty cool.

A few days ago a friend of mine posted a tweet about going to a metal concert in Denver and Mark Lee actually responded... hey wow..that's cool.

Today Mark posted info about a quiz you could take to see if you could determine if a phrase was scripture or Shakespeare.

I went there and scored a 70.. boo for me...

I asked Mark how he did...not really thinking that he would respond..(I am olderbutnotup by the way) ..now I thought that this was pretty cool..now for you naysayers out there...


Here is his twitter profile..

here is his blog link

read this it's pretty funny..

here is his band..



I'm still not all giddy or whatever but I think it's pretty cool how Mark is just a guy on twitter who happens to play for one of the biggest Christian Rock bands ever.. and I like them to boot.. fell in love with them when C. Caraway introduced them to me via the offerings CD. Just kind of a cool thing that happened today.

Gas Prices again...

Don't know if you can read this picture from my facebook but .. I'm pretty frustrated about how much our gas costs in the greater Lufkin/Angelina County area. It's about a quarter a gallon more than in Tyler TX. I made some twitter posts about that and I got some feedback on my facebook feed (don't know if you can read that to the left).

Buck eighty-nine in North Texas and a buck fifty-nine in Oklahoma. Edie says it's high in the Chicagoland area but don't we Texans expect that? Sorry Edie.. I guess growing up in Texas where we have active oil drilling platforms around us.. where I grew up there were oil pump stations in all the pastures around my home(Galveston County). We should have cheaper gas in Texas right? I remember a few years ago working in New Jersey for a week and the gas was a dime cheaper than Lufkin and they pumped it for me too. Go figure...

I know when I drive to Conroe that the price of gas in Riverside is always 10 cents, 20 cents, 25 cents cheaper than Lufkin.

I have no idea how many gallons of gas get sold in Lufkin each day...I tried to find it but no luck.. but just imagine that you could sell something 12% higher than others around you over and over and over again..day in and day out.

Cha ching...

Catching you up...

I hope I don't make this too long but here's what's been up lately..

Friday Octoboer 17th.. drive to Conroe to do some work around my in-laws house.. almost hit a deer and scared the crap out of everyone.

Saturday October 18th.. Clean out my wife's aunt's house and get stuff for the 2nd "Send Hannah to Rome" garage sale (see pic of truck for our spoils).

Sunday October 19th.. Breif worship confessional..

Rain Down

To Every Nation

You Never Let Go

Communion-Come Ye Sinners

Went home, ate lunch, took a nap, drove to Fort Worth...Hannah did most of the driving on this trip..


, ate at Uncle Julio's with Donna, Hannah and Katie Anderson.. yeah. a table full of Andersons... but not all mine.

Monday October 20th.. Spent the morning hanging out with Katie on the TCU campus as she showed us around. Ate Lunch at Fuzzies and saw Nikolee Beyers (our super awesome student intern from last summer).

Saw Aaron Marez that morning too and he did our orientation meeting.. that was cool.

Hung out around the college of communications that afternoon and took a tour and saw Brittany Brookshire Adams.. she gave us all big hugs and we hugged her back and she introduced Hannah to her class.. that was cool. Also looked around the radio, TV, film department and that's where Hannah would like to study.. heck so would I.. looked pretty fun.

Drove back to Lufkin then drove (by myself) to Waco to do Fortune 100 transportation work.. hit a deer east of Marlin. No one hurt.. including the deer I think.. the PT Cruiser got a little damage though.

Tuesday Oct 21st.. Worked in Waco, age at Rudy's that night. Stopped at Sonic and got a sonic blast.. shot the last needed video I have to do to complete my half of the Todd and Artie eats video.. now if I could just get time to put it all on a CD and ship it to you.

Wednesday Oct 22nd.. worked in Waco that morning and drove back to rehearse for drug court entertainment.

Thursday Oct 23rd.. Worked that day then did entertainment for Judge White's drug court and drug court graduation at our Fellowship Hall. We did:

Unclouded Day

I'll Fly Away

Everything (Caraway, Anderson, et. al.)

The Road to Recovery (Muchow)

Friday Oct 24th Worked and went to the first half of the LP/University Park game (the half with no score).

Saturday Oct 25th Learned "Audience of One" by Big Daddy Weave and "Give me Your Eyes" by Brandon Heath. Cleaned House..moved all of Hannah's garage sale stuff out of the guest room in to the "media room" (that's a future name for what is now a junk room). Did laundry, practiced Audience of One with Shawn Reith. Hung out with Cory Glover and many of his friends who came in for his Ordination that occured Sunday night. Tell him he needs to blog. Went home early because I had to get up early for church..

Sunday Oct 26th.. video worship confessional and more..

Yes.. our wallpaper is coming off the wall in our bedroom... we'll be fixing that some day soon.

And that's a PBJ..yes I ate it right after shooting that vid.

Oh and by the way. We had myself on Acoustic Guitar and Amanda Hutchinson on bass..that was our whole band.. We had several singers and thank you Scott Skelton, Tara Watson, Bill Malnar and Tina Peavey for being there along with Amanda..

You can see the video of Cory's ordination here.

Monday Oct 27th..worked that day and vegged that night..watched some dvr'd shows and ate and skipped bible study.. I was too worn out. Forgive me.

Tuesday Oct 28th..worked at you know where that day and that night planned, scanned and e-mailed music for the next couple of weeks. I have even updated my sidebar here on my blog with the music that is planned for the next few weeks. I also went to the Goodiers to get more garage sale stuff for Hannah. I plan to head to the Tyson's Thursday and get their offerings to the Rome trip.

OK, my hands are cramping.. I think that's enough.

Flea Market Montgomery

I learned about this from the world famous Katie Anderson



Then I saw this and thought it was funny too.

Charles

Worship Confessional 10/19/08

Worship Confessional (video #2)

First.. I forgot to mention I had no electric guitars or drummer on Sunday..But we did have Cyndi back who plays acoustic beautifully (finger picks) and sings beautiful harmonies and counter harmonies..we were small but it went very well...

My Saturday

Well folks.. I slept in big time this morning. I think it was almost ten by the time I rolled out of bed... Wow.. I hardly every sleep in that much any more. I don't know why but I have really been droopy lately. Maybe it's the chest congestion that's dragging me down but I'm just whipped lately. Anyway.. I've decided to NOT do My Fridays.. I work on Friday and big deal, I go to work, I complete some reports, I sit on some conference calls, I eat, I go home and maybe go see a movie or go to a Panther football game..

Anyway..I'll do My Saturday's from now on. Well I have a lot to report on today...as I already said I slept in..

Then I did laundry..and more laundry and watched some college football.


This is just a small sample of the workI did today.. I did numerous loads.. as well as tidying around the house some.

Oh and see that cat in the picture.. that's Magic.. I just call him gato.. anyway.. I found him in our bedroom with the tail and hind legs of a squirrel today.. I ran him outside.. that was fun..

Did a little more laundry..

I then took the family to Chili's for supper and enjoyed their chicken club tacos and a couple of Shiner Blacks...



..those things are pretty good...

We then went home and relaxed watching some dvr'd shows we just haven't gotten around to watching.. House, CSI, Criminal Minds...

A good relaxing day with my family...and our little touch of wild kingdom to boot.

I know..it's been a while

I haven't been feeling so hot lately.. a lot of sinus junk and some other discomforts that really don't need to be revealed here. So.. I've been doing a little twitter but I realized I haven't blogged since Oct 1st.

So I thought I'd share a little bit about what I've been contemplating lately..

I'm a big dude... most everyone knows that. I used to be smaller but I've always been a person of size.. hard to find clothes that fit off the rack.. not that many shoes in the store that fit me.. heck.. and I know folks at work will back me up... even my head is a little bigger than most.

But I'm getting frustrated with myself. I'm getting too FAT. I know I'm never going to be like most of my brothers... skinny.. or even just kinda lean. I've been "husky" my whole life. I don't know where my kids get their slim stature but I'm happy for them... I just know I've got to start doing something...

My wife has begun an after school work out program offered by the school. She says it's wearing her out but she's feeling a difference too. Me? Can't seem to make it a priority. I have a hard enough time finding quiet time with my God and my bible so I really just don't know how important getting some exercise is to me .. well I do know.. Not very...

When I was younger.. (years .. many years..) I used to ride my bike everywhere. I loved riding it and it was cheap transportation. In college it was the only way I got around College Station save for a bus on a rainy day or something. No way was I going to move my car from my primo parking space just outside Schumacher Hall ( I lived in Walton thank you..I did not live in those up town spaces in suckmocker).

I rode a little more later in life going on camping trips and stuff like that but then I went to work in the freight business... A business that has seemed to consume my life for the last couple of decades.. throw on top of that finally hearing God's calling on my life and spending many hours on things like Upward Basketball and leading worship in what spare time I have.....no bike riding any longer.

So...I'm getting more and more sedentary as my local fortune 500 transportaion branch grows and I get more employees and drivers and my work life becomes less hands on.

Gas prices get stupid and I start thinking of these...

I went by Pedalocity and they gave me a little look around and a book on Fuji bikes.. I've also been checking them out here .

Wow..there are some very expensive bikes out there.. I'm thinking.. really thinking about getting one I can ride to and from work.. Now how I deal with the sweat.. the clothes.. the rest of those kind of issues.. I'm not sure but I know other people ride bikes to work in other places. I don't want to spend more than around $500 either.. I'm used to $99.00 ten speeds from K-Mart myself so these bike shop bikes really seem "out there".

So.. I'm pricing these, I'm thinking hard, I'm knowing it's not something I can jump it to too quickly or I'm gonna get some big hurt on my body....but I've got to do something and this resonates with me a great deal..

Who knows..maybe you'll be honking and shaking your fist at me soon as I legally use my lane of the road and you think I should have tale lights and turn signals..

Heck..maybe there will even be a pinywoods purgatory in my future.

Any thoughts?

Sonseed

Thank you SCL..

Gospel Fest..on video

My friend Don sent this email out...
---------------------------------------------------
For those who were not able to attend Bonita UMC's Gospel fest this year, it can be viewed and heard at the following link:

www.bonitaumc.org

At the bottom left of that page, click on <1> under "Gospel Fest Video"

There are 3 parts. Part <2> will be uploaded and available by Thursday and then Part <3> on Friday.

There was wide diversity in the musical styles and among those in atttendence -- but there was unity in the Spirit.

DeColores
Don Clark

------------------------------------------------------------------
I haven't had a chance to look at it yet..can't do that from work but I hope to later tonight.

Gospel Fest

A few members or our praise team and myself ventured to Bonita United Methodist Church today and participated in their annual Gospel Fest. My friend Don Clark and others have organized this for a few years now and I've gone every year. This is the first time I've brought church family with me.

It's a great time with all kinds of gospel music performed from CCM (that would be us) to black gospel and even secular tunes with a spiritual message.

Wonderful people from the church also make or bring great food (especially the desserts) and an offering is taken up to help Love Inc.

I tried to take those that were there on a little bit of a spiritual journey with God from our first understanding of a great and wonderful God that we don't understand..to the coming of our messiah to the fact that we are saved and it is time for us to respond.. The set list was..

God of Wonders (Byrd/Hindalong)
Forever (Tomlin)
Rain Down (Crowder)
Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel (a la Sufjan Stevens)
A Beautiful Collision (Crowder)
Jesus Messiah (Tomlin)
How Great Thou Art ( a la Baloche)
All Creatures (a la Crowder on Illuminate)
Surely We Can Change (Crowder).

It was a great time.. some of the gospel groups we heard and worshiped were phenomenal. We received great feedback regarding our presentation as well. It's always a great time to hang out with loving Godly people and worship with them.

Sweet!!!

Read about it here

The David Crowder Band website..

Always has interesting stuff... beyond the norm of other bands.. there used to be Crowder head where there was the bald head .. and next to it were a beard, hair, glasses and ears.. and you could put them on the bald head and make your own Crowder head. My daughter and I used to put his parts in all the wrong places just for fun.. and then re-set and do it again... we imagined that David got a snapshot of each funny looking head made sent to him each time the thing was re-set..and we laughed..and made more goofy looking Crowder heads..

There were also different stories and things you could read about songs as you passed your cursor over the lights that looked like they were a part of some circus sign..

Anyway.. there was an email sent out by the band the other day stating lots of things but one of which was the secret code had not been broken.. they made mention that you could reply to the email with a question and if Mike D got around to it he might respond.. so I replied.."so what's the secret code"..

He emailed me back and told me and I got this..

http://dcb01.com/aster/isk/76001.html

Check it out...

Also.. if you go to his website..and go to the DC*B website..??...listed on the left, you can put your cursor over the remedy emblem on the bottom left and then click on it for an interesting read...

There is a red vine on the upper left that all I can make it do is grow..

If you find something else out let me know...

Oh.. and to get what I got..you click on the * in the upper right.. a remedy bee is released and you must move it with your arrow keys to catch the bugs .. make sure you get all of them!

Hate... I... just in case David is surfing his daily surf.. ;-) >

davidcrowderband.com

Survivor's guilt....

Ike certainly played havoc with many people's lives.. even before he got here many were dealing with a lot of stress and relocating and finding places to eat, sleep, clean up, etc...

Well we're suffering from something that Donna has coined as "Survivor's guilt"

We have been blessed.. and I don't mean blessed because we only lost power or the tree fell away from the house like so many others have declared.

We have fared better than most through this crazy ordeal.

I've already told you about our Brookshire Brothers experience.. amazing.

Well then Ike finally makes his way on to land. Donna hates that the storm is going to hit us while we're asleep. But when we go to bed it's a little breezy with a slight overcast. No big deal.

The storm hits in the early morning and we start watching the weather channel. I get on my computer and start watching the progress of the storm and the path it is taking. I'm watching on line broadcasts from Houston and Beaumont..

I feel so bad for all those folks in Houston and the golden triangle, I hope my brothers are ok (and they are) as well as cousins etc. (they are).

The wind kicks up.. harder gusts and as time goes on the lights flicker... and stay on. Later I hear some big noise on the roof.. I go outside to see what's going on. There is a small limb on the roof. There are a couple of larger limbs down but the trees are all standing secure.. the next gust blows through and scares the heck out of me.. I go inside.

A few hours later we start checking on people and listening to the radio. Seems everyone we talk to has lost power.. Friends tell us that if we have power we're the only people in Lufkin with power.. I know she's wrong because I can see the TV on in the house across the street. Outside that I really don't know.

I'm also checking twitter throughout the day and find that people well north of me have lost power like Jinx but he has twitter up on his BB so I keep him posted on what's up and the storm center and direction and speed and cool stuff like that...

We ride the entire storm out and never lose lights, satellite (which we usually lose when a front comes through), or internet. Amazing. We invite friends over that are in the dark and play some games and watch the USC/Ohio State game.

We have a very well attended casual communion service at church the next morning. It is a beautiful service. Cory, we need to pray like that more often..

Anyway.. I then do fortune 500 transportation company stuff the rest of the day.

No power at work but really it just makes life a little simpler there for a while. I have to say I'm kind of enjoying it..

Donna puts the word out to friends that we have freezer space for those that don't want to lose their food..they can store it with us.

One of Donna's friends offers us some meat that she says she won't eat. Just eat it, don't worry about freezing it for her.

I find out it's meat from the Grand Champion Steer from the Houston Livestock show and Rodeo.






I do not know if this is the actual steer but it could be...

Ok, those steers don't go cheap so I go check this out here. If the steer weights out at around 2000 lbs and dresses around 1400 lbs..going for $300,000 means I was eating meat worth about $214/lb... so that filet I had was worth somewhere around $160..and we got it free.

Wow..

I'm buying a lottery ticket tomorrow.

If I win..I'll feel even more guilty but I will then be a full time minister too...

Lufkin Panther Football is missed

Since we were not able to watch the Lufkin Panthers play this week due to Hurricane Ike.. I thought I would share some video from the nail biting ending of the Lufkin Panther game against John Tyler last week. We barely won 13-12.. everyone was galvanized to the game. Fan excitement was high!!!

What a blessing.. a Brookshire Brothers encounter.

Hey all..Thursday Donna was doing some running around and getting some final purchases done in prep for Ike. One of her stops was Brookshire Brothers at Gaslight in Lufkin, TX.

No doubt the place was busy.. she made her selections and went through the check-out. The checker told her the amount was $350 or so. The amount seemed a little high but considering some of the things she was purchasing and the other things on her mind she went with it.

Once the checker was finished Donna went to put it on her card.. The checker said "Ok you're debt card has been charged, thank you for shopping at Brookshires".

Donna said.. I haven't run my card yet and it's not my debit card. It's my credit card.

The checker tried to figure out what was going on and couldn't. The checker called a manager in and went to check out the register tape and the system and see what happened. He came back to Donna and said "there's not enough stuff in your cart to cost you this much, let me look at this".

Apparently what had happened the previous charge had not been closed out. He was going to just look at the ticket and see where our product started and where the other customer's products ended. The checker told him.."the register tape doesn't print like that any more...they are grouped by product, they are not in the order of being checked".

The manager told Donna.. "Well today is your lucky day. You get your groceries free.". Donna tried to get them to re-ring them but they wouldn't do it. Since she was honest and didn't take advantage of their error and hurt the other customer they were more than glad to give her the groceries..

I'm telling you it was more than $200 in groceries...Free.

I like Brookshire Brothers. Kudos to you BB.

Stuff Christians Like and stuff..

OK a while back I posted this.

Then Monday Sept 8th Stuff Christians Like posted this.

If this every hits the market.. I better get my royalty checks..

His is more detailed.. he just has more time on his hands.

My Friday.. a little late

My Friday was a good day.. nothing really exciting happened but here is a brief run through..





Came to work and I think since we had just had some people visiting our terminal from corporate everyone was a little wired. Everyone was laughing and cutting up and doing our normal "hatin" on each other. We also have one particular member of our staff who loves to get others off of their train of thought and is always hijacking conversations....he was in rare form this Friday.





Later had a very good staff meeting although we didn't bring in Chick-fil-a this time. One of my people had made some awesome chicken spaghetti the night before and she brought the left overs and it was awesome!!! very spicy too!!





Spent the afternoon doing some random tasks and planning music for youth on Sunday night...





I realize I have not been keeping up my set lists.. sorry about that.. I will do better this week.. I think.





Wrapped up the day and met my bride at the house and we headed to .... yes... finally....

Went through the drive through.. drove to the stadium and did some tailgating and went to the LP-John Tyler game. Oh and who are you going to pull for Todd? Lee? JT? or LP? I just thought I'd ask again in case someone missed your post.










Friend of mine (Scott Skelton) took this pic at the game while he was shooting game shots and pics of the band and pride.





LP was underwhelming, but we got the W.





Off to the house and off to bed. Had a busy Saturday ahead...

text messages between a mother and son on the first day at Angelina College

Austin-I'm off

Donna-Good Luck

Austin-I forgot paper

Donna-Get some at bookstore

Austin-I'll b late

Donna-Don't know what to tell u

Austin-and there is no place 2 park

Donna-ask someone, u should have gone ealry

Austin-I had 2 park on the street all the way past the bridge and I 4got 2 get something 2 write with

Donna-I can't help u. Deal with it. U have had time 2 get ur stuff together

Austin-and I'm late

McDonald's Southern Style Chicken Sandwich vs The Chick-fil-a Sandwich

Howdy all...Today I finally taste tested the McDonald's chicken sandwich...but first some history..

I can still remember when the only Chick-fil-a I knew about was in that mall in Houston we went to a couple of times a year. It was always a really cool treat to take part in the delicious chicken they served at that little mall storefront. It was one of the few fast food meals my dad took part in and looked forward to. I guess that's really the reason this food place has such a special place deep down in my soul.

Chick-fil-a is really good. I love the chicken sandwich.. I love their grilled chicken salad... I love their nuggets. I love to buy a nugget tray and bring it in for my weekly staff meeting at the un-named fortune 500 transportation company I work for. I HATE their shakes..because they are so good..

Am I in love with Chick-fil-a? Not really... There are other real restaurants that I really "love" but the thing I like about Chick-fil-a is that it is fast food and it's aways very good. The people are always super friendly, well dressed, neat and tidy. The facility is always pristine. So many positives for a fast food place so it's a good solid choice. The restaurant is also a ritual for me and Donna after band practice (if we don't make it to mid week peak).

Sooo....finally to the alternative.


The McDonald's Southern Style Chicken Sandwich. First of all..it was about a third smaller than the Chick-fil-a sandwich so when I took it out I was a little taken by the size. I didn't compare prices so I don't know what the "value" is but I just know what I'm used to and that wasn't it. Presentation=strike one

The pickle.. the chick-fil-a sandwich has one.. I used to take it off when I was a kid but now it is part of the sandwich experience. It's usually soft and pretty tart. You know it's there from the flavor.

The McD sandwich has a whole bun covered with pickles.. 3 of them..and they are not as sour as the cfa sandwich pickle.. also..they are almost like gummie pickles.. almost crisp but not quite..a little hard, a little soft, a little rubbery, but a weak pickle. Sorry... Pickle= strike two

The chicken itself had a good texture and consistency and the crust was nice but there was little to no flavor..I never realize that cfa chicken was seasoned but it obviously has some seasoning on it because it was missing from the McD sandwich.. chicken=strike three.

the catcher missed the ball on a swinging third strike so the runner runs to first but....

The bread.. I'll tell you that I was never really overwhelmed by the cfa sandwich bun..it was a tool that held the chicken..it was an effective tool in that it didn't detract from the experience. The bread was fine... the McD sandwich??? As I bit in to the bun it was like the bread crust layer peeled off the bread and wrapped itself around my teeth like some adhesive bread coat...and I mean it stuck to my teeth. I had to work it off with my tongue. That was really weird. Bun??=thrown out at first...the sandwich is out.

I guess I'd eat another if I had a chicken sandwich jones on a road trip and the only place to eat at was McD's but usually if I'm stuck with McD's I'm gonna go for their crown jewel the big mac...

I really like Chick-fil-a.

God is good!

My Friday...

Started off very early at La Unica.. picking up 80 burritos to bring it to work.. It was time to have a package handlers appreciation breakfast but most of my package handlers don't have schedules that allow me to take them to breakfast after the morning sort.. or to lunch. So I brought them breakfast burritos..




It was also National Truck Driver Appreciation Week. So for all the hard work that my drivers do I wanted to recognize them and I brought them breakfast in as well.














I got my morning reports done. Had a couple of conference calls...one of which focused on the Tropical storm activity headed our way. Fun fun fun...

Had lunch with my son at Chen's..bought some stuff for the church at Sound Tech, cashed my check and went back to the place that pays my bills.

Got some work done and did some auto insurance shopping as well.

Wrapped up the day and did a couple of quick look arounds at Lowe's and Home Depot for some potential weekend project work then headed home to spend the evening with my son Austin celebrating..












Where we watched




















12 wasn't on the list but we watched it anyway because it was in sequence..











I also made some facebook flair for Emily Grimes that looks like this..










I really didn't finish 12.. I was tired and went to bed after checking LDN.com to make sure the panthers had won...

It was a good day..spent some real quality time with my son, we laughed and enjoyed the movies.. we made food and ate together..we laughed at Italian when we saw and remembered that spiderman was on the sidewalk when the they blew the street and dropped the armored car in to the subway tunnel..

It was a very good Friday.

God is good.

Getting the screws put to us by gas companies..

This was gas in Riverside Texas yesterday.. (8/28/08)

Why is it 3.68 in Lufkin today?

Why will it be whatever it will be tomorrow?

I heard on the news yesterday that the price of oil had actually gone down $2/barrell because of US reserves being released on the market and demand was down...

Not in Lufkin I guess...

Why is it always higher in Lufkin???

I guess Riverside is a major oil manufacturing and distribution hub..

I'm not happy...

A comment about Wii Pray.

Cory posted this on his blog..take a look at it...









My comment was regarding what follow up gaming could come...










Next is Wii Worship..you work your way up from a background singer to the worship leader of the church..





Next is Wii Worship Leader..tour edition. Offers multi-player options such as drummer, lead guitarist and evangelist.





After that..Wii Worship…Megachurch edition: allows you to bring in tech personnel, support staff, and has a syms component along with Worship Leader tour version components.





Any other ideas?

____________________________________________________




Funny thing about this is.. I typed this up a couple of weeks ago and saved it as a draft.. then yesterday Todd sends this out on Twitter...

Sometimes I amaze myself..

Now..please tell me what you think about this..not my expertise in prophesy.. this game called Guitar Praise..

Beer Tasting...

When I was in college.. well by my senior year.. I had begun to explore the world of imported beer. My friend Warren and I would venture over to the Deluxe Burger Bar across from my dorm at A&M and try a different beer each week. We would treat it like it was a fine wine, slurping it back to the back of our pallet, swishing it around in our mouth to get the full flavor and also testing if it was a "bottle" beer or a "glass" beer.



Some beers are made.. in fact all are probably are made this way.. to release certain chemicals when it is poured in to the glass and it changes the flavor of the beer. Hopefully to make it taste better. I prefer some beers poured in to a glass .. others I find to be more tasty straight from the bottle. We usually just stuck to one type of beer each time. Wasn't one to mix my beers.



Well last Friday night.. we performed beer tasting a la Cory Glover.. I'd link his blog but it hasn't changed since the last time you looked at it so don't worry about that...



We would each select a beer..then pour a little of our beer in to a friends glass and taste it.. then share with another and perform the same type of tasting again... finally we would finish our selection. It was a fun time. Jeff had cooked some kind of awesome grilled chicken breasts and Polly had supplied some great potatoes and this sinful dessert.



We laughed and ate and talked and watched Olympics and talked and had a great night... take a look at the selection..
Nice huh?

My Friday...

Today I unplugged.... I have been feeling a little apart from my creator as of late and I needed to get back in rhythm with God.

Cory Glover and I started out kinda early.. well real early for him but not so early for me... I met him at his house at 8 this morning and we loaded up a couple of kayaks, some food and shared some awesome coffee that he made in his French press and headed out to Ratcliff. My blackberry was sitting on my dresser at home.. Now that doesn't happen very often.



















I spent most of my morning in prayer. A lot of "The Jesus Prayer".. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on me, a sinner. I used some Mardi Gras beads we got when we went on a mission trip to New Orleans last summer to aid in this prayer.

Also prayed over my Emmaus team and the pilgrims. I then had some free and open discussion with my creator.

Read some new testament..Matthew and Mark. Ate some lunch then read some more.

Picked up my guitar and sang some praises to my God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Then we took a little trip around the lake in the kayaks.

First time in a kayak for me. Wasn't sure how my svelte build was going to handle that little piece of plastic with the hole in it. Except for some understandable awkwardness in handling at first, it was really cool. We did that for a while and then back to the truck and headed home.

Got cleaned up and rested a little then went to Jeff Goodier's house for a little beer tasting. Cory had brought back some local beers from Colorado when he went on vacation and some that were from the Pac NW. We enjoyed some good food, good beer and good conversation as we sampled the different offerings Mr. Glover brought.

Now I'm back home and ready to hit the sack.. a beautiful day with God today. God is good!

A comment on Perfectly Timing your Communion Walk

I posted this comment here.. read it...it's funny...his blog that is..



The silver spaceship comment had me rolling... Loved this one. We don't have to time our walk in our church though. But we do offer about all the ways you can do it without a common cup.

Early (casual..our code name for contemporary) everyone comes up by rows. They can 1. receive communion by intiction.. pull off a hunk of bread.. dip it in the juice and eat the elements at that time.

OR

at the same time option 2 is available..you can come forward eat a piece of bread and pick up a shot glass out of the silver space ship and drink.

OR

at the same time option 3 is available.. you can come forward, eat a bread chiclet and pick up a shot glass out of the silver space ship and drink.

OR

at 11:00 traditional service you can sit a la drive through and wait on the silver space ship to arrive in your lap along with it's smaller satelite sister ship carrying the bread/chiclets.
Option 1 here is eat a bread chiclet and take a shot glass out of the silver space ship...hold the glass..

OR

break off a piece of bread and take out a shot glass from the silver space ship..hold the glass.

We then say aloud our affirmation of faith and we partake of the cup (the little shot glasses) at one time.

I heard this part (the unison cup) is somewhat new from some older parishioners just last night as little shot glass holders had to be made and affixed to the back of the pews so everyone would have a place to put them once they have received the cup.

I think this is a wise choice as I think I might get confused at times with all those little cups in that big space ship and accidentally pick one up that maybe someone else just didn't do a good job of finishing off properly.

I think we do a very nice job of offering a wide variety of options for communion in our church..we're not little but we're not huge. Actually pretty amazing now that I think about it...how many options we offer.

My Friday...

...had to be deleted because I do not have permission to utilize the brand, emblem, name or image of the company I work with in postings to the internet.

Sorry about that.

Pretty amazing though. I post the video on Friday night on Youtube and on Monday morning I'm getting a call from my boss as to why I'm posting stuff about our company on Youtube. Wow.

1984

Commets for posts..

You know.. from time to time I believe my best thinking is done on OPB's.. that's other people's blogs.



I have no idea how many of you are out there in my segment of the blogosphere and I know many of you circle around the same set of blogs I do so this might become redundant for some of you at times but I am going to re-post some of my comments from other blogs on to my blog here at acts215.



Two reasons. 1. I know some people just hit my blog because they are my friends or co-workers and they don't normally read that many blogs.

2. If I have some really good thoughts.. or funny thoughts.. or just long thoughts that deserve the attention and adornments that only a blog post can bring like pictures....











then I'm going to turn my comments in to blog posts.. I will link back to the original blog but I will re post it here.. and you will know that it is a comment by the title..like my "a comment about Neapolitan ice cream"..it says it's a comment.. the next one you will likely see is .. a comment about "Wii Pray". I will link it back to Glover's blog and then I will share my profound comment along with some artwork/pics/adornments.



Have a great day!



This salutation is in no way intended to be an infringement or a re-representation of Chris' blog by a similar name "It is a great day". Although I do enjoy his blog the few times he posts I do not wish to confuse or confound the blog reading public by utilizing the "great day" phraseology. It is only being used here as an endearing phrase of departure and for no other reason.

David Crowder Band.. I just love em....

They take everyones Youtube videos and make one of their own. Cool!!

Called.. "You shot this video".

Enjoy..

A comment about Neapolitan Ice Cream..

The following was actually my comment regarding Todd's blog post about Neapolitan Ice Cream...his post was in response to my request on his skribit widget.. After posting it I realized I should have blogged this topic myself.. so here it is.


OK, when I was a kid..we didn't buy real ice cream. We didn't make enough money to buy that stuff. We bought mellorine. From wikipedia... Mellorine is a lower cost alternative to ice cream, wherein other fats are used instead of butterfat. It can be made out of both animal fat and vegetable fat.

Mellorine is produced by freezing, while stirring a pasteurized mix of milk-derived nonfat solids and animal or vegetable fat (or both). Afterwards, it is sweetened with a carbohydrate sweetener and the addition of flavouring ingredients.

MMMmmmmm..... anyway.

Every once in a while we would get Neapolitan mellorine..that's a mouth full.. and I have to say, that because I didn't know any better, I enjoyed this frozen delight. (Mellorine that is) In a way I do not get real excited about Neapolitan because when I was young I didn't like anything but chocolate but it always seemed to me that the chocolate in the neapolitan was very intense. It seemed super chocolaty and super sweet..it was almost like special dark candy kind of chocolate...so with that I was excited when I saw it in the freezer...it was way better than the chocolate in the chocolate mellorine container.

Negative regarding this?.. Dad insisted that we eat all three flavors.. can't eat all the choc and leave the other two flavors. Must dip across the colors and keep it even.

So.. I would eat the strawberry first.. my least favorite.. then the vanilla.. then the awesome chocolaty feast of neapolitan mellorine chocolate.

Yeah baby!!

As for strawberry now?? I love Blue Bell strawberry for the same reason Todd does NOT like strawberry. I mean it's like they dump a tub of strawberries in there and mix em up. Love it.

I feel the same way Todd does about Blue Bell's "Great Divide" as I do enjoy a mix of vanilla and choc but then my wife does not have the same philosophy as to why the product was made. She feels it was created for options. I can have chocolate or I can have vanilla... NOOO it's for the purposeful combination of the two flavors ... and should be dipped across the flavors (a la my dad) and not dug out of one side...taking all the chocolate leaving some poor unexpecting fool with a pile of vanilla on one side of the bucket. You have to love family dynamics..

I think we have bought 3 containers of Neapolitan ice cream in the near 25 years we have been married. Not something we think about much but for some reason this thing popped in my head when the Skribit was up..kinda like the stay puft marshmallow man in Ghostbusters..

So.. are you?

I like funny stuff..

Stuff Christians Like has some pretty funny stuff on it. The one today was pretty good. Take a look at it.

But then as I was reading it I got the emoticon about being a bald worship leader...Hey! What's up with that?

So I checked it out too.

I guess I need a & that's well... & since I'm kinda large. Sad thing about it the real reason I'm a bald worship leader is I don't like the wrap around hairdo from mail pattern baldness

and I don't to combovers... ever.