I just about passed out working out today. Kirk, Dan and I worked legs today - and didn't do it in a real typical way. One guy had a large rubber band hooked to him via a harness, and the other end was hooked to the guy behind you. We'd then run 40 yard sprints with the other person acting as an anchor behind you. We did 6 sets of 40 yard sprints in each direction - first 6 forward - and then 6 running backwards. I was hating it while doing it, but felt great afterwards. After the first set of sprints, I started hyperventilating and got dizzy. Dan found out the hard way not to eat cinnamon toast crunch right before working out. Kirk a great trainer - and knows just how far he can push you, and how to get the most out of you. There's enough trash talking going on at the same time to keep everyone competitive, but there's a fair amount of grace cut as long as you're working to the best of your ability.

Check out Noel's Tuesday, November 11, 2003 Post in his blog, reviewing the Matrix: Revolutions movie. After seeing that Noel liked the movie, I'm guessing Jason and Will will change their tunes.

Will's soul has been recently disclosed.
Jason's soul has not been doing much journeying lately.
Mark's mind has been stirring recently.

Noel turned me on to this site dedicated to theologically questionable church signs.

My brother Jon and his wife Beth came to visit on Saturday. The whole time they were with us, Jon kept trying to say intellingent things, and pose for pictures, hoping he'd make it into my blog somehow. Jon and Beth hung out with us during the day, and we went out Saturday night. I know there are a lot of families that aren't this way, but we have a blast getting together with my brothers/sister and their spouses. My brother Jon and I have always been great friends, since we were little. He's a couple years younger than me, and he was the best man in my wedding, and I was the best man in his. Jon is one of the most generous guys I know, and if there was a masters degree in spotting holes in others that are fun to poke at, it'd be him. Somehow growing up, Jon was able to get away with just about anything by sitting around quietly after the fact until people forgot he was there. Jon being in a room completely changes the dynamic - especially in a family situation - typically for the better. Some of Jon's best work is when he's able to say something to my Mom, and I get yelled at for him. Jon is able to tease his nieces and nephews to the point that either they'll chew him out, or their parents will. My sister-in-law Beth is a Doctor - pursuing a fellowship in hematology and oncology. She's brilliant yet humble about it. The kids love her - she's they're "Aunt Bethie". My favorite line from Jon during his visit while talking about Jess (our roommate) was "Do you look through her stuff when she's gone? 'Cause you know she's looking through your stuff when you leave." Classic Jon

Periodically, I like to check and see how people came across my blog. The blogger software will let you see the site that referred someone to mine - whether they typed it in directly or came across it via a search engine. To date, here are some of the oddest search criteria that led people to my site:

• Dave Matthews Wife Pictures


• anne frank's thoughts about margret


• special ops and famous pictures


• guy who looks just like dave matthews


• Bullying Qoute


• where can i find pictures of abused homosexuals


• analyzing margaritaville lyrics


• why did xerox company choose Anne Mulcahy, how is she better


• jessica simpson swimming with dolphins pictures


• "this world has nothing for me" next world everything lyrics

I just finished watching a video of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardobe - part of C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia. When I read the books as a kid, I never saw past the story line to any larger story. Each time I read it or watch it, I'm amazed at how C.S. Lewis retold the core elements of the Gospel in these books - especially in this first book. After watching the video with my kids today, I sat down and started reading it again. Reading through the part of the book where Aslan makes a deal with the Witch to die in Edmund's place opens up a part of the gospel I'd never though of before - it really shows the the majesty of the savior and the humilty of his death. I guess it may sound silly that it takes a kids book to point these things out to me. Oh well.

I'm home tonight. I'm back here in beautiful Kansas City next Wednesday night, and home during the entire week of Thanksgiving. After next week's flight, I hit my NorthWest Gold Elite status. It may not sound like a big deal, but the perks are nice - including early boarding, extra luggage and automatic first class upgrades. Working in an industry where most of the people travel heavily, people can recite the various plans and tiers to achieve them for just about every hotel and airline out there, and people weare them as a badge of honor. I've made this flight between Detroit and K.C. so many times that I know the guy who works at the metal detector at the K.C. airport by name.

Interesting Relevant article on Matrix:Revolutions, but it doesn't really touch on the fact that in spite of these flaws, it was still an entertaining movie. Interesting discorse at the end of the article, worth reading. My favorite comment is:
Why do so many people hate the matrix? My top 3 suggestions:
1. They didn't understand it (eg. the writer of this review), and feel the need to vent their frustration.
2. They read a negative review, and then went and saw the movie. Inevitably they noticed all the negative things pointed out by the review, and failed to appreciate the work as a whole.
3. They expected installments 2 and 3 to be exactly the same as the first movie, only different.

"I had mixed reactions to Revolutions in general. I was disappointed to see the “theory” of the Matrix completely drop off in Revolutions. For example, The Architect comes in at the end to become this grandfatherly twin of the Oracle who is necessary to preserve the balance between good and evil. Duh! Come on, where’s The Architect in his masochistic evil glory? The exclusion of The Architect was sourly disappointing, because along with him the theory of the Matrix was nowhere in sight.

I'm in Kansas City and I feel like crap. My head is full of flem and I'm in meeting all day, hooped up on cold medicine. I have a couple of presentations to do tomorrow, but I can barely think straight let alone present before a large group.

Good article on the quality comeback of the Simpsons over the past years. Probably only of interest to true Simpsons aficionados. Plus, it uses the phrase Jump the Shark.

My wife's cousin sent these pictures of the Southern California fire that were taken by one of the guys in her neighborhood. Everyone was safe, and the houses weren't harmed.

My wife likes to forward these things to me because she knows how they annoy me. This e-mail chain is one of the finest examples of shame and manipulation in the name of Jesus that I've seen. Man, these annoy me:
~Jesus Test~

This is an easy test, you score 100 or zero. It's your choice. If you aren't
ashamed to do this, please follow the directions.

Jesus said, "if you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you before my
Father."
Not ashamed - Pass this on . . . only if you mean it.
Yes, I do Love God.
He is my source of existence and Savior.
He keeps me functioning each and everyday.
Without Him, I will be nothing.
Without Him, I am nothing but with Him I can do all things through Christ
that strengthens me.
Phil 4:13
_____
This is the simplest test . . . ! If you Love God, and are not ashamed of all
the marvelous things he has done for you.
Send this to ten people and the person who sent it to you!

What a cool site! Check out the Wake Boarding game. This is a huge potential time-waster.

There's a Mom at my church who is a constant source of encouragement to me. Over the past few years, Cathie and I receive regular notes and e-mails encouraging and thanking me for my time with their boys, and Cathie for supporting me in what I do. Especially with Jr. High youth ministry, you can't rely on the kids themselves to give much back short-term - you've got to look waaaay in the future, so every little bit helps. Here's an excerpt from her e-mail regarding our small group last night:
Just a quick thank you. The boys had such a great time last night. Nick loved it and wants to come every time. Zach was so happy that Nick loved it. We all feel great when we have a place to share our faith experience and it is well received. Thanks for loving kids. Thanks to Cathie for holding down the fort.

Had a great Sanctuary (church for the rest of us - targeted at 6 - 12th grade) last night teaching about Worship. J did an amazing job coordinating the whole experience - starting with some phoneomenal teaching and then some well put together "experiental" time to go off and chew on some of what we'd just talked about. The crux of the message was about worship not being a time, but a lifestyle. J teaches from the heart and with such a great vulternability about him, the kids really connected with what he was saying. I've got a pretty good idea most of the time where he's headed with his talks - but when he was playing clip from dashboard confessional confessional unplugged doing The Best Deceptions. In this clip, there's a group of 50 or so 20-something's sitting around Chris Carrabba (the only guy in the band) singing along to an acoustic version of the song - singing out of key, singing passionately. The kids came to the conclusion that the passion in their singing was because the song probably meant something to them - maybe they'd lived through a breakup and they had a connection to the song. J then took us through a couple of songs and the meanings behind them, and then we sang - like the kids in the video - passionately, fervently. It made for great worship that really struck me. Sanctuary just keeps getting better each time - we're drawing new kids in, and getting the old ones back. J really seems to be getting into his groove on this, and it shows.

Last night in my Pyros (Jr. High Guys) small group, we talked about what it means to be a godly man. After they got done with some of the standard answers (Joe, Jason, nice, good, etc) I asked them if they'd rather be Tony Hawk or a Godly man. None of them chose being a Godly man - and here's where some great truth came out. They said that a Godly men were boring and nice. We then talked about Aragorn, from the Lord of the Rings - across the board - they thought he was cool - because he was dangerous, a leader, he came through, he was loyal, he stood up for the little guy, smoked the bad guy, etc. Most of them didn't see Jesus this way. We then watched the battle of Helm's Deep from the Two Towers where Aragorn prepares and leads the people against Saruman and Lord Saron's forces. We finished it up with a great discussion of what Traits Jesus has in common with Aragorn, both compassion and danger all wrapped into one - that Jesus could be Mother Teresa to the hurting, but Aragorn to the Pharisees. This is such a great group of guys - and the fact that they're bringing their friends to the group tells me a lot about how it's going.

It's about that time for me to begin looking at new cell phones, the Treo 600, Samsung i600 and Motorola MPX200. It's embaressing the amount of time I've put into researching these phones. Because of work, I'm on my cell as much as 3 or 4 hours a day, and because I'm a nerd, I want to have the latest/greatest technology. The thing these three phones have in common is the built in PDA. The Samsung and the Motorola both run the Mobile PocketPC operating system and the Treo runs the Palm OS. I'd prefer PocketPC because it's a little sexier, with a little cleaner syncronization and integration into Microsoft Applications. The cool thing with the Treo is that it has a thumb key-pad that allows you to receive and send e-mails on the fly, as well as Instant Message from your cell fairly easily. The downside to the phone is that it's a little bigger, and Sprint coverage seems to blows in the Metro Detroit area. The Motorola phone is tiny - about the same size as my current T720, but AT&T's plans are pretty expenseive - I'd rather stick with Verizon. The Samsung i600 is a little larger, but I've heard good things about it and I'm hoping to get a chance to play with it this week. I work with a fairly geeky crowd (go figure in the computer industry?) that drool over the latest phones and could give you a pro/con list a mile long for each model phone out there. If you're looking for the latest/greatest information on cell phones, or if you want to see just how consumed people are with them - check out Howard Forums.

I'm easily amused.

Great article in RELEVANT magazine on the Christian Subculture: “What makes the stuff so half-assed, so thin, so weak and cumulatively so demoralizing … has nothing to do with faith. The problem is lack of faith. [The Christian subculture] is a bad Xerox of the mainstream, not a truly distinctive or separate achievement. Without the courage to lead, it numbly follows, picking up the major media’s scraps and gluing them back together with a cross on top.”