After a two month unscheduled blogging hiatus, I am making a return. I’ve been fairly busy the past two months, and quite honestly always found something else to do other than sit down and write a post for my blog. So now I am hoping to post on a more regular basis, although it probably won’t be daily.
The world is now a much better place.
WordPress has this section where you can see how many hits your blog has had, and what the search terms were that they entered into a search engine. Today someone came to my blog that had entered the search term “bathroom tornado.” Not sure what that says about my blog, but I thought it was pretty funny!
1. I’ve enjoyed watching the Olympics, but can’t they show something else in prime time other than swimming? I can only take so much of it.
2. I don’t think any one would watch the women’s beach volleyball if the players actually wore clothes. And when did synchronized diving become an Olympic sport?
3. I’ve enjoyed Facebook. I’ve been able to reconnect with some old friends, and keep connected to new ones. If you have a Facebook account, request me as a friend.
4. Twitter has been fun, too. I’ve been able to meet some new people through Twitter.
5. I’m trying to get into running. I’ve always thought it looked fun, but never did it. Tonight I got just over a half-mile in before the lightning scared me enough to make me go inside. I was running long enough for a bug to hit the back of my throat and almost cause a hacking fit.
6. I finally broke down and traded in my Nokia 6010 that I’ve had for 4 years for a new cell phone. At first it was hard parting with ole reliable, but I’m really liking my new phone now.
7. School starts up on Monday. Where did the summer go?
8. Sunday Church is loaning a truck to Freedom Ridge. This is an answer to prayer.
9. Our house in Houston still hasn’t sold. When is it going to sell?
10. Had an impromptu lunch today at BK with a friend. No one in my family likes BK, so I’m glad Eric went with me. Thanks, Eric!
11. Looking forward to speaking at Pathway this Sunday. If you’re in the area, come join me there!
This coming Sunday, August 17, I am speaking at Pathway Church in Johnston IA. It’s right by Des Moines. Anyway, their pastor (Dan Hudson) is going to be out of town taking his daughter off to college. So he asked me to fill in for him, which I gladly agreed to do. After I agreed, he then informed me that they are going through the 10 Commandments and my week will be the Commandment “don’t commit adultery”. So out of all the Commandments, I get the one that is PG13! I think Dan did that on purpose.
Actually, I’m looking forward to it and appreciate Dan giving me the opportunity. If you can come to Pathway, I’d appreciate seeing some familiar faces in the crowd. They start at 10, and click here for directions. If you are coming, let me know and I’ll look for you.
I haven’t seen Heath Ledger in a lot of movies, but I really liked him in The Patriot. I actually own that movie on DVD. Then Heath went and acted in the movie about some cowboys out West. I never saw that movie, never wanted to see it, and never will see it, but I know enough about it to know what the movie is about. Needless to say, I was disappointed in Heath and haven’t been able to watch The Patriot since then.
I went today to see The Dark Knight where Heath plays Batman’s nemesis “The Joker”, hoping that he would redeem himself in my eyes. He did a fantastic job. He was creeping me out in some scenes and was very believable as the insane, sadistic, madman.
I think I might just be able to get out my “The Patriot” DVD again. (UPDATE: I thought he was GREAT in A Knight’s Tale.)
I have shared with you about our house in Houston that is for sale. It has been on the market since the first of December, and to date we have received ZERO offers. We have been living in the Ames area, paying the mortgage and utilities and homeowner association fees for a house we are not even living in. Needless to say it has not been easy OR fun. Now we are even having to pay for someone to mow the yard! It’s driving me nuts.
Our realtor is having an open house on Saturday, July 12, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. PLEASE pray now and during that time that someone will show up, love the house, and buy the house from us. We are ready to be done with it and get on with life here.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
When I started blogging I made a personal commitment that I would post as regularly as possible, but only if I had something to say. I don’t want to blog just for blogging’s sake. Well, for the past 10 days or so I haven’t had a lot to say because I’ve been REALLY busy. Let me tell you why …
We have been living in a duplex that is 1000 square feet with one bathroom. Not a lot of room, especially when you throw 2 teenage daughters, two dogs, and a cat into the mix. Well, we just recently moved into another rental (a house this time) that is HUUUGE compared to where we were, and the rent is a little cheaper. This house was built in 1875 when Ulysses S. Grant was president. But I think it will serve its purpose for us while we wait for our Houston house to sell.
So I’ve been busy, because we’ve been moving, and because I’ve been extra busy I haven’t had a lot to post. Now that I’m getting back into a routine, I’m hoping to post more regularly.
When I was a kid, it seemed like summers were when things slowed down and the phrase “the lazy days of summer” had some truth to it. I think summers are the busiest time of the year now. What’s up with that?
I’ve been kinda busy lately, so I haven’t been posting as much as I like to do. So I am going to try to catch up with some details so you know what’s going on …
1. I’m liking Twitter. Even though the only people I know who are doing it are my daughters, it is still pretty cool. Twitter is still relatively new, so I figure more people will jump on board as time passes. I encourage you to sign up, and you can follow me here.
2. We are moving to a different house next week. Right now we’re in a 1000 sq ft duplex with one bathroom. We’re moving to another rental, but this time it is a much larger house for a little cheaper rent. If you want to help us carry some heavy stuff, let me know.
3. I performed a wedding on Saturday. They had it outside, and I had been kinda worried for them since the weather has been really weird. But the weather was almost perfect. They are a cute couple, and it was my first wedding to do as Freedom Ridge’s pastor.
4. Our house in Houston still has not sold. Sometimes I wonder what God is doing.
5. I found some office space in downtown Ames that I’d like to get for Freedom Ridge. I’d be more productive getting out of the house, and it would get us some “face time” in town. It cost around $300 a month, and that is with utilities included. Anyone out there want to buy us a year’s worth of office space?
6. We got our car fixed, so it now goes in reverse again. We took it to Max’s Auto outside of Ames and saved ourselves almost $200 over the quote the mechanic in Ames quoted me.
7. Life is good.
Today, June 14, is Flag Day in honor of the day that the Stars & Stripes were adopted as our national flag way back in 1777. Also, this is the same day that the US Army was founded two years earlier in 1775.
This country isn’t perfect, but there is no other place I would rather call home. The freedoms we have here and unlike any other place, and we need to make sure that we do our part to protect them. I’ve always admired those who joined the service and literally lay their life on the line to protect our country and freedoms.
If you read this and you are an American, my words to you are “don’t be lazy, don’t be apathetic, and don’t feel like you are owed something. Be thankful, and do your part.”
Remember after 9/11 when everyone rallied behind the flag?? Those were the days. America IS a great place.
I went to Ozark Christian College in Joplin MO from 1986 to 1990, and I remember being able to by gas for 69 cents a gallon. I had a ‘79 Honda Civic and I could fill that thing up for about 7 bucks. Those were the days.
For about the last 18 months I have already been adapting my driving habits, mainly just by combining errands into one big one instead of running a bunch of little ones. If I can put off an errand for a day or two or three in order to combine it with something else, that’s what I do.
Lately I have been wondering how the rising gas prices are going to change our way of life. The obvious thing is everything else is going to get more expensive, but I think a much larger issue is that people’s sphere of activity is going to shrink dramatically. We’re going to become a much smaller society. Recreational activities and vacations are going to be closer to home. Neighborhood stores will become more important. People may even find jobs closer to home, or move closer to their jobs.
I’ve been especially interested in how this is going to affect churches. I’ve talked to some pastors and they’ve already seen the effect through lower offerings. I think people will start to find churches “closer to home” rather than driving many miles to a particular church. Here’s an interesting article about gas prices and the church.
How has the high gas prices affected you? Have you made any changes?
This is going to be a longer post than normal. I usually try to keep it around a couple hundred words or so, but there’s a lot to say about this one … and there’s pictures to look at. We went to Parkersburg on May 31 to do what we could do. Here’s my thoughts about the day:
1. I was amazed at the extent of the damage. This town took a direct hit. Just look at the pictures and you can tell.
2. This is the guy who owns the house we first helped with. He was needing help carrying large stuff out to the street. His home was eventually going to be bulldozed and have to be rebuilt. I asked him how long he had lived there, and he said 35 years. They had built the home brand new. He had a really good attitude, because he kept saying it was just a house and they could get another one. He was also funny, because he kept saying “I apologize. My wife isn’t a very good housekeeper.” The next picture is a front view of his house, and the third picture is a shot of a board sticking out of the back of his house.
3. There were several “comfort dogs” around town. These were volunteers who took their well-trained dogs around town to help relieve stress from many of the storm victims and volunteers. They come from as far away as Boston and Kansas City to provide this service. You can find out more about them at Animal Assisted Crisis Response.
4. This is my wife (pink shirt) and my daughter (not pink shirt) in the upper level of a home.
5. Here’s some more pictures of damage.
6. This is me with my two daughters. The volunteers would check in at the local church, and from there you would be assigned to a work site. There were several shuttles that would be pulled either by a truck or a tractor and take you to your work site.
7. This is the second house we worked with. The house was totally blown off of the basement and wrapped around a tree in the front yard (see the second picture.) The basement was made out of cinder blocks, and the whole back wall caved into the basement. The basement was filled with a lot of debris. I am hoping these people were not home when the tornado hit, because their basement would not have been a safe place to be.
8. I want to give a big shout out to Target. They had a tent set up right outside the area where volunteers were to check in. They were passing out water, work gloves, sunscreen, a lot of snacks, and some fruit. We didn’t have any sunscreen, so we went over there and I asked them how much it cost. The woman working there said it was all free! Very cool.
9. The Red Cross impressed me again. I went to Pascagoula, Mississippi, to help with clean up after Hurricane Katrina and that was my first experience with the Red Cross. They were on top of things as they drove through the neighborhoods bringing food and drink to the families and volunteers. I witnessed the same thing in Parkersburg. Again, very cool.
10. Parkersburg was not the only town that got hit. Please pray for everyone in that part of the state, because it is going to take some time to recover.
11. The extent of the damage was massive. Seeing pictures here and on TV does not do it justice. If you can go help out there, do yourself a favor and go help.
If you went to Parkersburg or any nearby area to volunteer, please comment because I’d like to hear about your experience.
I don’t have a whole lot of time to write at the present time, but I just wanted to let you know that we did make it to Parkersburg on Saturday to help with the clean up from the Tornado. I will be out of town for the next couple days, so on Wednesday I will get you some details about our trip as well as post several pictures.
If you have watched any amount of TV, you have undoubtedly seen one of those Viagra or Cialis commercials. I’m sure those drugs serve their purpose, but do they need to advertise those things during family friendly programming? I hate watching a TV show and having to turn the channel during the commercials! I don’t want my daughters to know that you don’t have to “worry about interruptions” or if you take this drug you will be able to sit in a bath tub overlooking a beach or to constantly hear the song “Viva Viagra!” I’m not a prude, but there is a time and a place for things. Something else I haven’t understood is when during a TV show that is rated TVPG they will advertise an upcoming TV show with a preview that is rated TV14. Doesn’t make sense to me.
I remember as a kid when they would advertise lady’s undergarments, the clothing would actually be on a mannequin with a live person talking about it. We have come a long way in what is shown and talked about on TV. Sometimes the good ole’ days really were good.
That’s my rant for today.
My old church met in a school, so we would do the set up and break down every Sunday. I’d be lying if I told you it never got a little tedious, but overall it was a lot of fun and something I didn’t mind doing. I would meet a church member named Oscar at 7am every Sunday, we would hook up the trailer to his truck, haul it the 6 miles to the school, and unload it and begin setting stuff up. It soon became a time I looked forward to, and through the course of that singular purpose we developed a friendship.
Oscar visited our church on the very first Sunday. The truck the church owned actually broke down on that first Sunday and we weren’t able to use it to get the trailer back to the storage unit. Oscar volunteered to pull the trailer back with his truck, and he never missed a Sunday helping out with the trailer after that, unless he was out of town (which wasn’t very often).
Now I am living in Iowa. Oscar was in Indiana on a job, and he “dropped by” to see us. I looked at mapquest, and he made a 496.59 mile trip to drop by. He was here for about 3 hours before he had to head back to Houston. I’m glad he stopped by; it was very good to see him.
My family has finally joined this century and signed up for unlimited texting. Our daughters have been begging for awhile, but we’ve been putting them off. I actually kinda wanted it, too, so we finally got it.
So if you want to touch base or send a short note, you can text me without it costing me 15 cents.
We have this wireless thermometer at our house that we bought from Gander Mountain. It has a sensor
that you put outside, then the small base sits inside your house so you can see what the temperature is. It measures the indoor temperature, the outdoor temperature, and the relative humidity. It also shows you the coldest and warmest temperatures it has measured to date.
We set it up the beginning of January right after we moved here. The coldest day we experienced was -12.7. Today was the warmest so far at 75. That is a 87.7 degree difference. I think I finally stopped shivering today.
Today I went in and got my Iowa driver’s license so my daughter could take her learner’s permit test. The cool thing was I got it instantly. They took my picture, printed it out, and gave me my license about 3 minutes later.
The bad thing is the license is the ugliest things I’ve ever seen, and I’m not talking about my picture. It has too much pink on it, some pastel bluish color on it, and some embossed flowers. It is waaaay to feminine. It’s a good thing I can keep it tucked away in my wallet, because if I had to wear it around my neck I would probably get the snot beat out of me.
Somebody down at the DMV needs to do some serious redesigning.
This morning it was very foggy, and I happened to be driving on Highway 30. Most of the time I could only see a couple hundred yards in front of me, so I was trying to be very cautious and was driving a little slower than I normally would. Occasionally the fog would break to where I could see further, but most of the time is was pretty thick.
I came up on one area, and a semi-truck, obviously growing impatient from waiting and stressed from the fog, decided to gun it and turn left from his lanes across the entire highway right in front of me. I hit my brakes and all the junk I have in the back of my Jeep slid up towards the front. This is one of the occasions where if there was a second’s difference I would probably be fishing in heaven right now instead of writing this post.
After I resumed my speed I realized there was a thumping in my chest. My heart was really racing.
I was out and about in town the other day and noticed that the gas price had done its normal thing and risen by 10 cents almost instantly to $3.16. I will never understand that. But I drove by one gas station on Lincoln Way where the price was still $3.06, I needed fuel, so I pulled in and filled up. It’s a sad sad day when $3.06 is cheap for a gallon of gas. I used to wish gas would get back down to $1 a gallon. Now I’d be happy if it got down to $2.
Back on March 6th and 8th I made a post about a virus that had infiltrated my computer. It was creating numerous popups and causing my computer to run very slow. I received a custom cleaner from my anti-virus people, and it cleaned a lot of stuff off. But then some of it would return almost immediately.
I ran my Yahoo anti-spy program, and it would find a lot of stuff including a trojan called “Tesllar A.” It would quarantine it, but it would be back almost immediately causing problems. I suspected it was the main cause of all my problems.
I contacted Yahoo and asked why it wouldn’t clean it, and they told me to run the anti-spy program in safe mode. I did and it cleaned it off! A simple solution that I wish I would have tried two weeks ago.
I’m glad I’ve got my computer back. It’s put me behind on some things, but now I can get back in the groove.
Today I am turning 40, if you can believe it. When I turned 30 it was kinda hard as I saw my youth fleeting away from me and I was no longer in my 20’s. Now I’m turning 40 and it is no big deal. It looks weird to actually type out the number 40, but age is a state of mind, right? You’re only as old as you feel, and I’m feeling pretty good.
By the way, Carlos Ray Norris, also know as Chuck Norris, turns 68 today. Happy Birthday, Chuck.
We got up today and headed out towards a church here in town that we haven’t checked out yet. I looked at their website last night and thought it said they started at 10, and we were leaving the house at 9:50. For the first time that I can ever remember, I was going to be late to church. I blame our tardiness on the time change, and the fact that I live with 3 other women and only one bathroom.
We got to the church building and there were still people walking around in the lobby, so I thought “Great. Everyone else is running late so we are on time!” We were greeted, I looked at the bulletin, and it said church started at 10:30. So we were actually 25 minutes early. Apparently at 10 they have a fellowship time with drinks and donuts in the gym, then the service actually started at 10:30. Now that I look at their website I can see that.
They were the friendliest group of people we have met yet. Several made it a point to meet us, and visit a little bit. Nice people.
During the service, a lady over my left shoulder was snoring. It’s not because the service was bad; I’m sure she was trying to catch up on that hour of sleep that she lost.
All around it was a good day.
The virus is getting the best of me. My anti-virus software people gave me a plan of action, which I tried to do. Part of it was running the scanner again, and I did. It scanned for 15 hours (yes, hours) and was 53% done when it mysteriously shut down. I’m gonna have to contact them again and possibly get a custom cleaner created.
It was probably some 13 year old kid out there with too much time on his hands that created this thing I’ve got. I wish he would use his powers for good instead of evil.
I’m feeling OK; it is my computer I’m talking about. I have a laptop that I use for work stuff, and yesterday evening it began acting kinda weird. It was running slooooowwww, popups began shootin’ up like crazy, and it was nearly impossible to do anything on it. I stayed up until 1:30 AM trying to run my virus scan, which went very slow, and it would shut down before it was finished. I ran my yahoo anti-spy and it found a lot of stuff. I would delete it, run the anti-spy again, and everything would be right back where it was. I downloaded another adware program and it did the same thing … find stuff, delete it, but it was still there.
I contacted my virus scan people, and they said I have a rogue application on my computer and there were some special steps I had to go through to get rid of the problem. I am in the middle of it right now, so I’m hoping it takes care of it. There’s plenty of stuff I need to be doing right now, and messing with a computer is not one of them.
I don’t have anyone to blame but myself. The moral of the story: make sure your anti-virus software is up to date. Come to find out, mine wasn’t. It’s usually those common sense things that get past you. I think I’ll go kick myself.
I have never been a big fan of coffee. I like the smell of it, but the taste of it is not so great. I’ve tried it with half a cup of sugar and cream, but still can’t do it. Since moving to Iowa, I’ve been to Starbucks 3 times, Cafe Milo once, and I’ve stopped by the local convenience store 3 times to get a hot drink. Maybe the cold weather has triggered a survival instinct inside of me. I’ve had more in the last 8 weeks than I’ve had in my entire life.
But to be fair, I’m not getting plain old coffee. I’m getting stuff that has chocolate in it, which I love. Chocolate is one of my downfalls.
Today I got to go down to the Indianola Church and preach and share with them what will be going on here in Ames. Their preacher, Tony Brandt, is a good guy and he wanted to give me the chance to share with the people of his church about what we’ll be doing. I have never attended there on a Sunday, but they seem to have a lot of good stuff going on there. The place was full with a lot of young families. It was a lot of fun!
My family and I went to a program tonight that was put on by Campus Christian Fellowship. It was held at North Grand Church, and they were doing it as a fund raiser for a mission trip they have coming up to Mexico and one to Russia. They fed everyone supper as they put on the program that consisted of some skits, some singing, some music, some dancing, and other stuff. It was really enjoyable. It was neat to see these young people who are all trying to live for Jesus serve and take part in this. You guys did a great job!
I had lunch yesterday with a young man that I haven’t seen in at least 3 1/2 years. He’s taking classes at DMACC now and is a really sharp guy. It was good to catch up and I look forward to hanging out with him more in the future. And to top things off, he has the same name as me, so it is easy to remember. 
It was good to see you Nate!
I’m back from my bus trip. It was an experience, and wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. But I don’t want to do it again anytime soon. Although I think everyone should have the experience of riding a greyhound at least once in their lifetime.
I was supposed to leave Ames at 1:10 a.m., but the bus was coming from Minnesota and there was quite a bit of snow, so it was late. I left at 3:10 a.m., but I still made it to Houston by 12:15 a.m. There was one guy on the bus who was coming from somewhere in South Dakota, and he had been on the bus since 3 p.m. and still had a few hours left by the time I got off in Houston. I thought I had it bad.
But I’m back safely and glad to be home.
I’m gonna be doing something I have never done before. I actually tried avoiding it, but to no avail. I have to make a quick trip to Houston to pick up our other vehicle (my Jeep, which I can’t wait to get), and do some things to the house we have on the market. I’m not flying, but I am actually taking a bus. 24 hours on a bus … not looking forward to it. I’ve downloaded a bunch of sermons to listen to, and have a couple books to read, so it won’t be a total waste. But I’ll be glad to get there.
We’ve been living in Ames for just over a month now. We’ve had snow pretty consistently, too, which I don’t really mind right now. Yesterday and last night we got about 8 inches or so, so school was canceled and the girls got to stay home.
One thing I’ve noticed that really amazes me is that a lot of people still ride their bikes in the middle of winter time. I’ll see several people all bundled up riding their bicycle down the street through several inches of snow. I like riding my bike, but I’ve never tried the winter version of it. And I don’t plan on doing so anytime soon. It’s crazy.
Since we haven’t officially started our church yet, I get the opportunity to visit other churches and see what they are doing. My family and I have been visiting some churches in the area. I love going to church with my family. Usually I’m at the church building by the time they get there to get their duties ready, and afterwards I meet them at the house or a nearby restaurant. So to be able to drive up, get out of the car, and walk in and sit together has been a neat experience.
Anyway, I’ve made an observation. A lot of these guys who have been doing the preaching have been good, and some of them don’t know the fine art of brevity. Now, I am in no way perfect (just ask my wife!), but today we visited a place and I wanted to rip my hair out. The guy spoke for 50 minutes when it should have only taken 15 minutes max. It’s one thing to figure out what to say; but it is a totally different thing to figure out what NOT to say.
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