Which Would You Rather Have...

...a PS3 or a lifetime supply of tacos from Taco Bell? If you would be willing to trade in your PS3, Taco Bell will give you $12,500 in Taco Bell Bucks. That's enough Bucks to get approximately 20,000 tacos which comes to one a day for about 54 years. Don't wait too long...you only have until December 1st to decide, and the offer is only good for the first person to take them up on the offer. Click the picture to read the whole story.

A Good Show

Here I am, sitting at my computer, listening to smooth jazz on Sky.fm while a french vanilla candle burns in my office. That is how I like to relax (either sitting at the computer or reading a good book). I am on vacation for a week, and this is what I pictured myself doing, so I am happy. It happens to be about four and a half hours later than I expected to be doing this, but that's OK.

A group from the church made plans to see The Rockettes tonight at Nokia Theatre. I never had a desire to go, but Brooke was wanting to go. At one point, she asked for tickets for her birthday, but we worked out something else. But then somebody at church offered us tickets (all three of us). Brooke explained I was not too interested, but she and Amanda would love to go. So I intended to stay home by myself tonight with a candle burning and smooth jazz in the background. That changed when I had to fill in as bus driver last minute.

So I went to see The Rockettes with Brooke, Amanda and about 13 other people from church, and I've got to tell you, it was a good show. I really enjoyed the "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers". But since I wasn't that excited about the program when I first got there, my original plan was to head out during the last scene and pull the bus around to pick up everybody at the front doors after the show was over.

That was before I saw what Scene 12 was going to be. It was called 'The Living Nativity and was described in the stagebill like this: "The presentation of 'The Living Nativity' upholds a tradition begun by St. Francis of Assisi in 1223, and has been a revered part of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular since 1933." Wow, what looked to be a pretty outspoken, public presentation of the true meaning of Christmas...how could I miss that? And WOW, it was impressive! It was definitely my favorite scene of the night and it was incredible to sit there and hear Scripture read and the real Christmas story presented. There was a lot of applause afterwards. It made thankful that not all of America has become so open-minded that their brains have fallen out. That once scene alone made the whole night worth the trip.

It was a good show.

Broke Back Deer Camp

The guys were all at deer camp. They had to bunk two to a room. No one wanted to room with Daryl because he snored so badly. They decided it wasn't fair to make one of them stay with him the whole time, so they voted to take turns.

The first guy slept with Daryl and comes to breakfast the next morning with his hair a mess and his eyes all bloodshot.

They said, "Man, what happened to you?" He said, "Daryl snored so loudly, I just sat up and watched him all night."

The next night it was a different guy's turn. In the morning, same thing--hair all standing up, eyes all blood-shot. They said, "Man, what happened to you? You look awful!" He said, "Man, that Daryl shakes the roof. I watched him all night."

The third night was Frank's turn. Frank was a big burly ex-football player; a man's man. The next morning he came to breakfast bright eyed and bushy tailed. "Good morning," he said.

They couldn't believe it! They said, "Man, what happened?" He said, "Well, we got ready for bed. I went and tucked Daryl into bed and kissed him good night. He sat up and watched me all night long."

I Love My Job

A friend asked me tonight how my day was. My reply was what it often is when people ask, "Keeping busy. Not too much exciting going on." That's how I like it...always enough to do (for today AND tomorrow) and nothing too crazy going on.

I suppose my friend was asking about my life in general, but I was thinking about my job when I answered. I love my job. Here are a few reasons why:

• This picture, for instance. Pastor David took it (a LONG time ago). He also happens to be the same one who "edited" it so nicely. It's nice to have a boss who is fun. I like the fact that I can laugh with Pastor, play racquetball with him and even exchange paint balls (and the bruises that go with them). He's never had to say, "You do what I say because I'm the boss." He leads by example and is easy to follow. No matter how much I grow spiritually or in my job, he's always growing too, so I can always look up to him.
• Our staff makes a great team. Different personalities, different gifts, one goal...to serve our church and reach people for Christ. Eva, who cleans the church, is the picture of steadfastness and a great example of standing firm in the midst of some of the worst stuff life can throw your way. Shaun, our youth pastor, is a great friend who has taught me a lot about what it means to love people. If you need help, Shaun will do anything to help you (even to his own hurt). Tammy is our church secretary and definitely one of the hardest workers on staff. Her job requires her to be involved in most every aspect of what goes on at the church, but when something needs to be done outside of her official job duties, nobody has to tell her what to do...she just jumps in and helps get it done. Stan is an associate pastor who will be planting his own church in just a few months. I enjoy having a friend like him I can be real with....about my personal life and the personal struggles in ministry. And then there's my other friend, Brad, who is our worship leader. I don't feel called to a speaking/traveling ministry, but if I ever did that, I would want to take Brad with me. He's anointed, he's real, he can make me laugh and he can take something simple and make me go "hhmmmmm" thinking about it much deeper than I would have before. Our newest staff member is Jason, and it's pretty cool working with him because he grew up in youth group when I was youth pastor. He is our audio/visual guy and he does a great job, but it's awesome getting to watch him step into ministry opportunities and grow in those areas as well. He has a real heart and passion for God that challenges and encourages me. And then there is our children's director, Brooke. She loves kids, loves having fun, loves making people happy and loves using exclamation marks whenever she writes anything!!!! She's just a bubbly, happy person who wants to make everybody else happy. And did I mention how cute she is? I hope you don't think it's inappropriate for me to say that...or think that it's inappropriate that I sneak over to her office and steal a quick kiss from time to time. (She's my wife if you didn't know.)
• OK, my list is getting too long now. Brooke will accuse me of writing a book and Jason will not have time to read my whole post. I will end with this one last thing I like about my job. I like the fact that I have new opportunities to learn and grow. I don't like too much "adventure" in my life, but I like a challenge and an opportunity to grow. I don't so much like the things I learn while putting in my first toilet by myself and stuff like that, but I do appreciate the opportunities to grow working with people, taking on new responsibilities and learning how to improve on the things I am already doing. Staying busy and having a chance to grow...I like that.

So I'll quit here for now. I thank the Lord for my job and cannot think of anyplace else I would rather be going to work tomorrow or any other people I would rather be working with.

Mainstream Media Jihad Against Israel

Mainstream media jihad against Israel

Why John McCain is Not Good for Conservatives

Short version: because he is NOT a conservative, he and his pals have under-minded President Bush and now he is playing the chameleon and trying to look like a conservative in his 2008 run for the White House. Click picture for the full story.

Why Do We Treat China As A Friend?

The Washington Post reports that a Chinese submarine secretly stalked the USS Kitty Hawk battle group surfacing close enough to show it could have fired it's torpedoes successfully on the aircraft carrier. Click the photo above to read the whole story. This is just of MANY, MANY, MANY reasons why it is not a good idea for the U.S. to continue pretending that China is a friend.

Playing House

As soon as Amanda saw this computer box sitting around, she thought "play house". She asked Daddy for some help, and this is what we came up with. Mommy later helped "paint it" with some pink polka dots (literally).

16 Geocaches Today!

We went to a geocaching breakfast today and then headed out for Ft. Worth cache run today. This was one of the first ones we hit. This was an area in front of a courthouse that is a small garden-like area full of native Texas plants. As we drove up to the cache, we saw 6-7 ladies there who take care of the plants. I told Amanda we were not going to be able to get the cache because of the ladies there and the small size of the area. Amanda wanted to try being geo-sneaky, so we gave it a try. As we approached where the ladies were, the greeted us warmly and explained a little about the plants that were there. We thanked them and walked on, but one of the ladies followed us. She walked up to me and said, "we are not muggles". A "muggle" is a person us geocachers watch out for because they might see us grabbing a cache and then come mess with it not knowing what it is. She had seen my GPS and was telling me she was a fellow geocacher. As it turned out, she was the owner of the cache! She's the one who took this picture of us.

As I tell my friends that I introduce to geocaching...if there's an evergreen tree in the area, check there first!

When we saw the name of this cache (QT2), we knew we had to head that way. No, the cache was not at the actual QT store, but we did stop by there. We saw then Hummer limmo and snapped a quick picture.
This was our last cache for the day, and it was an "interesting" one. Here's our log:

OK Rob {cache owner}, I gotta tell ya...we didn't like this one! To be honest, we did NOT read the description and you did warn us but... Well here's the story.

GeoPunkin and I went to the geocaching breakfast in the area today (GCYEAA) and then headed out on a cache run. We had found 12 caches and GeoPunkin was about ready to call it a day. I told her 3 more and we could have 15. We visit our local QT at least once a day, so I told her we'd grab two more and then one at the QT (where we could also grab a drink). I saw QT and that was it. All my fault, but I did not read the cache description. I was thinking lamp post cache or something. Well, we got to QT, saw we still had nearly 1/4 mile to go and headed out after the cache. The plant growth was not really in bloom which helped, but it was thick and taller than GeoPunkin in some places! In all honesty, there is nothing wrong with this cache, we were just tired and this was the toughest one we did for the day. It really was a good place a good hide.

Thanks for all your caches...especially the ones we got to today.

First To Find

We ran to grab two new caches today before picking up Amanda from school. The one Brooke is holding was her first FTF (first to find)!

Lost in the Land of Linux - November 9

Well, the quest continues. I am still lost a goose, but something about Linux has me hooked and I'm determined to give it a try. My friend Jason, ever so kindly, commented on my last blog and suggested that I look for "Linux for Dummies" at Barnes and Noble. Well, Jason, I'm even smarter than that...I looked for it at the library. It was not at my branch, so I settled for Moving to Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye. I got to start reading it already...but I'm getting ahead of myself.


After helping Amanda finish her homework tonight, I headed out with two cards...my library card and a $25 Best Buy gift card. I was going to the library to look for a Linux book and to Best Buy to see if I could find a wireless network card to that will work on a Linux laptop. Although I'm lost, I do have this Linux laptop up and running with Ubuntu, and I can stretch out the network cable and blog from this computer in my living room. I thought it might be nice to do my blogging or Linux Googling without being tied to the network cable, so I decided to look for the wireless network card. When I asked the guy at Best Buy about a card for a Linux laptop, his only answer was "Let's ask the Geek Squad" that is set up there at the store. They showed me to a Buffalo card they said would run on Linux even though the box did not mention it. The card was $29, so using my gift card, I only paid $7 with tax.

When I got home, the first thing I did was go to Buffalo's web site and see if the card did indeed run on Linux. I saw no mention of it, so I called the 24 hour support line. During the 45 minutes that I waited to speak to a person (!), I did some research online and determined that the card does run in Linux. I also had time to start reading my Linux library book.

At Best Buy and now at Buffalo tech support, I found out just what a small crowd this Linux group is. Tech support told me that the card would run in Linux, but they don't offer Linux support. As my friend Meagan would say, "Sorry for your luck!".

So I read what I could online, found nothing I could understand and finally decided to plug the thing in and just see what would happen. The short answer is NOTHING!! Right now, I can't even get the power light to come on the card, let alone try to figure out how to configure the thing. I'm not even sure if Ubuntu/Linux is reading my PCMCIA slot.

I've had about all of this I can take for the night, at least as far as the network card goes. I may read a bit more of Moving to Linux, but then I'm putting that down too and relaxing with A More Elite Soldier (a book my friend Stan bought me which I am enjoying and hope to finish this weekend). So I'm preparing to leave the Land of Linux and will keep you updated on my journey.

The Watchmaker

click picture

Her Grief Has Knocked Her Off Her Rocker

Cindy Sheehan, sometimes given the title "Peace Mom" continues to stray further from what is best for America. As angry as she makes me sometimes, I can't minimize her loss. She lost a son in a war she feels we should not be fighting. Her loss is tragic (as is the loss of each and every American soldier), and I'm sure it is compounded by her belief we should not even be fighting this war. But I believe her grief has knocked her off her rocker...her attempts at "peace" would do nothing but erode our country's security and any chance for peace.

Case in point. She was just arrested in Washington DC trying to deliver petitions, supposedly signed by 80,000 Americans, opposed to the use of military force to resolve the dispute over Iran's nuclear program. I guess that she has not heard Iran say they are willing to share their missile systems with other nations, including those who would aniline the US if possible? Does she honestly think that her son, a member of the US armed forces, would support the US sitting this one out while Iran sells/gives this dangerous technology to terrorists?

NYC Wants to Choose: Boy or Girl

NEW YORK - The city wants to make it easier for transgender New Yorkers to switch the sex listed on their birth certificate even without undergoing sex-change surgery, putting the city at the forefront of efforts to redefine gender. Read all about this thinly-veiled step toward gay marriage. "Hey, my birth certificate says I'm a girl, therefore, you can't stop me from marrying this guy." Blucchk!

Professor Forces Students to Support Homosexual Adoption Class Project

The lawsuit, Brooker v. The Governors of Missouri State University (MSU), was filed on Oct. 30 by the Alliance Defend Fund on behalf of Emily Brooker, a student in the university's school of social work. The ADF, a Christian legal group that advocates religious freedom, accuses tax-funded MSU of retaliating against Brooker because she refused to sign a letter to the Missouri Legislature in support of homosexual adoption as part of a class project. Full story here.

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday

This was Sunday afternoon. Amanda spent Saturday night and Sunday morning with GeaMa (pronounced Gee-Ma) and PaPa D. I picked her up after lunch and we went to Boulder Park to find a few caches.

The cammo shirt was new and Amanda thought it would be appropriate for geocaching.

Three finds in this park and they were all ammo boxes.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

So that was Sunday afternoon. We only got three caches (we found 3 out of 4 we were looking for), but we had a great time just being together. Not two minutes after we got back to the car it started raining.

Monday
I've been trying to figure out what to do with the turtles since the weather finally seems (er...seemed) to be turning cool. Little George has been dug in for almost a week, so I figured he may be ready to hibernate. Grumpy has been hiding under the log pile and Grace has been hiding in the hole in one of the cinder blocks. Since it is getting down into the 40's at night, I dug a little hole for Grumpy and another one for Grace, put them in it and covered their shells with a shallow layer of dirt. Since Little George was already dug in, I covered him with a rug from the garage and then put a larger one over the area where George and Grace were placed under the log pile.

Well, the warm weather Sunday and rain/thunderstorms Sunday night brought the turtles back out. On Monday I picked up up their carpet pieces and hung them out to dry. Amanda and I made a trip to the pet store to buy some fresh grub in case they were hungry. By the time I got around to feeding them, Little George had dug back in, Grumpy did not want to eat and Grace ate two night crawlers! I hope they know what they are doing as far as hibernating for the winter goes because I sure don't!

Tuesday
I'm busy at church with all the normal stuff, plus I'm beginning to get ready for our first in-house pictorial directory. Right now, I'm just inputting data. This time around I will learn how to use the photo directory software we got as well as some new PDF software we need to get so that the directory can be secure online. I also hope to learn how to put all of this info into Microsoft Access. I took a beginning Access class a couple years ago, but I never did anything with what I learned, so I forgot most all of it. I'm taking off the entire week of Thanksgiving, so I hope to spend some time then reacquainting myself with Access.

And then tonight I went for a swim...figuratively. Imagine not knowing how to swim and deciding to wade into a 3 ft. deep fountain to practice swimming. Now imagine just jumping off the diving board into the deep end. And now imagine being thrown from a ship into the middle of the ocean, the Artic ocean...during a storm no less, to learn how to swim! That's what I felt like tonight as I gave Linux another shot. I've got Ubuntu loaded onto the computer and so I can surf the web and use the office suite, but that's about it. I can't get media to play and I certainly can't install anything I download from the Internet. I felt like I was trying to learn to swim in the middle of a storm in the Artic Ocean. I've had about all I can take for now, so I'll let that computer sit for a while and then give it another try this weekend or something.

Wednesday

Amanda has a CD called Crazy Praise. It's got all kids of great kids' praise songs. Amanda loves them and I love them. I've got one of the songs stuck in my head, so I'll must make it my theme song for the day - Someone Around You:

Someone around you needs to know God's love
Someone around you needs to know God's love
Take it upon yourself to show God's love
Someone around you needs to know God's love

A Strange Feeling

So I mentioned a while back ago that I was trying out Unbutu, a Linux desktop operating system. I was looking for a computer that I could install the operating system on and try it out. Well, I have a computer a friend asked me to look at, but I am waiting for them to get me the original software before I can fix it, and they are using another system. So I've installed Ubuntu and trying to learn a little about Linux.

I got the new operating system installed and running. One of the first things I did was go online, and the browser they had installed was Firefox. Since I knew a newer version was available, I downloaded it and tried to install it. Two hours and MUCH Google-ing later, I still could not figure out how to install the file I had downloaded. I finally found an IRC chat channel where I could get help (for the uninitiated, IRC chat is similar to chat rooms where people gather to discuss various topics). I could not find anybody to help me with my Linux issues, but they did point me to a web page that helped me.

So now I've downloaded and installed two updates. I am still a major newbie, but I feel like I learned a few things tonight. But it was a strange feeling..I am the person most of my friends turn to when they have computer questions because I'm the computer geek. I guess Linux is the domain of the uber-geek!

www.ObsessionTheMovie.com

Oops!

USAF Settles With NJ Elementary School Accidentally Strafed by F-16
Click the picture to read the story

This Says It All