The Spirituality of the Cellphone

Last April, I listened to this message at Mars Hill from a guy named Shane Hips, entitled The Spirituality of the Cellphone. He used to be in advertising (working the Porshe account) and then went to seminary became a pastor (Mennoite, even, I think) and wrote a book around this stuff. The message goes through the spirituality around the mediums of spoken mediums (oral culture), written mediums (literate culture) and technological mediums (digital culture). Bear with me, this is good stuff. Here's a five minute synopsis video that I got from Tom R.

MSU/KC Game Bet

If you have a moment, please send my friend Ross a quick text message (317-506-6437) asking him to pay his $10 debt to Dave for the MSU/KC game. Thanks! Ross is a bitter Purdue fan who got his hopes up after a fluke win in the Big Ten Championship. He also has a good sense of humor, so feel free to mess with him.

Crossroads Paintball at Killer Paintball

We had our annual Crossroads youth group paintball game today. It was a cold, nasty rainy day that eventually turned into snow, so thankfully it was indoors. It's a blast having Nate old enough to play. This was his second year playing and he had a blast. We had a ton of kids, both high school and junior high, including a bunch of kid's friends that had never come to any of our stuff before.

We've been playing paintball for at least 10 years as a youth group, sometimes twice a year. In the beginning (when I was a little younger) I loved it. Now, I enjoy hearing the kid's stories, leading packs of junior high kids to victory (rarely happens) and putting the hurt on some of the kids who deserve it most (comon, I'm being honest. everyone who works with kids wants to do this).

Two of the kids in our youth group (Jake and Sarah) parents own Killer Paintball, and they took great care of us. We had the place pretty much to ourselves, with about 35 people in our group. Being indoors was great because we could move between games really quickly and the games went a little quicker since they weren't so spread out.

We played all sorts of versions, including paratroooper (people are dropped into the game every 10 seconds), protect the president (secret service try and keep the president alive and move him across the course) and a sniper round (one of the other Dad's and I sat in a perch and got to pick off kids left and right). This was Fez's first solo-planned paintball round and he did a great job (with a little help from his wife, of course).

You can see the rest of the pictures here.

Tammy with my Twin from biggest loser

Bob from biggest loser was in town with the Morellis. This picture is of my neighbor Tammy with Bob at my gym.

Comment's from Nate's Wrestling Coach

I took this video at Nate's wrestling banquet tonight (on my iPhone and then edited it/cropped it via iMovie). I thought these were cool comments about Nate from his coach Steve Potter (who went to high school with Cathie) about Nate's abilities and toughness. Very proud moment for me as his Dad.

Old McDonald Remake

Crazy Love

I'm three chapters into the book Crazy Love and digging it so far. I have to order another copy because mine is gone. I came across this book one day when Phil Wing posted perhaps the cheesiest status ever on Facebook:

Don't read the book Crazy Love unless you really want to love Jesus more.

I was compelled to look the book up and see what would make Phil post such a goofy status.... Which leads to why I don't have the book any more.

Let me step back a second and do the Wayne's World "time warp" back to Sunday. Joe's message was on loving others and sharing the great news of Jesus with our friends. He had a handout where we made a list of friends to pray for so that the church as a whole could pray for the people and that we could pray for them regularly. So Wednesday morning I was praying for the people on my list, including the friend I had met up with who happened to be in a meeting down in Florida. This guy and I no longer work together, but we keep in touch and have a very close friendship. Over the past six years I've known him we've had lots of conversations about church, about the bible and about our faith.

We had dinner last night and we were talking about church and what he's doing with it. He was telling me about his wife's faith and he shared with me that he's in a different place than her. We talked about the fact that he believed that what comes around, goes around, but wasn't sure beyond that. He asked a lot about how I made the decision that Jesus was the way for me and how it affected my life. My friend shared that based on what he'd seen in my life and what Jesus was doing for me, he wanted to learn more and figure out how to do the same in his own life. It was a great conversation. He asked if I had a book or something else that would help him understand how Jesus fits in...which is where the book Crazy Love comes in.

I sat down this morning and felt like God was nudging me to give this book to my friend. I pushed back, figuring I hadn't finished it yet and maybe should read it first to see if it was the right book to share with him. I ran into him again later today at the airport and once again felt a nudge to give him the book. He said he'd start it right away and was pretty excited about it. We'll see if it was the right book. Maybe God really is smarter than me... Or maybe I was just feeling the after-affects of our night out last night. I'm always amazed at the way God uses a guy like me, in the world he's put me in with the friends I've got.

I have an office once again!

My office is not always the cleanest, as some will attest to. I normally give it a good cleaning every year or so whether it needs it or not. I'm convinced that if I had a bigger trash can, it would stay clean forever. (I'm deluded about other things as well).

I ended up moving my office to the back room in our basement that used to be Jess Shinn's room. Cathie had been wanting to make this her Scrapbooking room for the past 7 years or so, and never got around to it. The nice thing about having my office back year is that I now have a door, so the kids can play in the basement while I'm working.

Because the furnace and water softener are on the other side of this room, I installed a brand new door between the two rooms. That could have definitely gone better. I did a fair amount of cutting, hammering and smashing. I still need to get all of the trim back up.

Nate Running

Nate asked me the other week if he could run with me. It came out of nowhere, and I felt bad for not having asked him. I remember as a kid when my Dad would invite us to go running with him in the morning. My Dad ran in the morning, which made it even less appealing, and I would go once or twice - long enough to forget that I didn't like it.

The kids have a mile run that they do periodically at school as part of their gym class. Nate told me he finished first place in his class in the mile, and wanted to start running with me.

We've been out 3 times since then. We started at a mile the first time, with Nate hauling and me trying to reign him back a bit. We did that first mile in about 8 minutes, without him stopping.

The next run we did about 1.6 miles at around an 8:45 pace. During both runs, I would see him holding his sides at times. He was cramping up, but didn't want to say anything or stop. I told him that there's nothing wrong with working up to this and his response was "If I push through this, it'll make me tougher."

Nate and I ran yesterday, running this route, about 2 miles, at a pace of an 8m 50c mile. Nate is built to be a runner. He's 75 lbs and 5' tall with long legs. The coolest part for me is just having the time with him to run and talk, and have him like the running as well.

We've been talking about signing up for a race in the area, which would be fun to do together - a 5k or 10k probably.

Bahama Bob's

On Saturday night we went to the Ray's for the first official Bahama Bob's party of the year. Over time, Bob has built out this amazing cabana in his back yard, gradually adding a full bar, fire place, space heaters, TVs, couches and everything else you'd only expect to see in the Bahamas.

We hung out in the cabana while Bob had Jimmy Buffett live playing on one set of TVs and the NCAA tournament on another. Apparently Bob's clocks were broken, because he kept asking, "What time is it?" . I tried a bunch of responses, only one of which seemed to be the right one:

1. Summer Time? - Too High School Musical-ish, I guess.
2. Hammer Time? - Reminded Bob too much of his MC Hammer flared pants
3. Tequila Time - The only correct time for a man who is half Mexican and half Syrian.
   

Brad dispensed his wisdom to anyone who would listen. The hand gesture Brad is making in the picture above on the left is normally followed with, "So here's the deal..." Bradly did his best to get in every single picture taken. Eli (or Brad's mini-me as he likes to be called) soon followed suit, as you can see below.

Bob was thrilled with the sweet gift that Cathie and I brought him. When I was looking for something in our basement, I was looking on the top of some cabinets in a back room and found a wrapped Christmas present. I thought I'd stumbled across a birthday present from Cathie, only to read the inscription, "From Mom and Dad, To Thad" The package was from the people who'd owned our house about nine years ago. I opened it to find this sweet, giant paisley shirt (my brother Dan owns this shirt and still wears it) and a nice gold tie clip with Buckingham Palace inscribed on the face. Bob was honored, thrilled and delighted all at once.

Sunday Morning Speial Order Breakfast

In the presence of Greatness

I bought Cathie her dream present of matching his and hers Snuggies. Our picture made the We Match web site.

Sammy the Snake

Em loves every kid of animal, including snakes. She caught this
gardner snake and was thrilled.

Maddie's "new" Bike

We went to our fourth bike shop today and came across this gently used
bike at a ridiculous price. Madde loved it (the color was all she
really cared about) so we went with it. Can't beat $45, which was
$100+ less than everything else we looked at. I did a gain sharing
model with Maddie and gave her a % of our savings.

Lola is Cupid

"Dad, Lola is cute and stupid! She's Cupid!"

Dave and Cathie's matching Snuggiea

My brother Jon is always talking about how much he loves Snuggies. He
bought Cathie and I theae matching Snuggies to help show us why they
are so wonderful. They are pretty much backwards bathrobes made of
cheap felt. Sorry Jon, I'm not convinced.

Jim Cramer on the Daily Show

If you haven't seen it yet, check out the interview between Jim Cramer on the Daily Show with John Stewart. I've never taken any of his financial advice, but I watch the guy all the time when I travel because he's amusing and possibly nuts. This entire episode of the daily show is hilarious, but be sure and watch the intro that shows Jim Cramer on the Martha Stewart show and the actual interview about 7 minutes in. Stewart is pretty serious and Jim Cramer is overly contrite on the show, apologizing for everything ever done in the world. Either way, it's amusing.

I am interesting and well read

I came across this through Technorati as a link to my blog. I guess it's fairly recursive and maybe self-serving to quote someone quoting my blog, but I've always loved a good recursive loop. I thought this was an interesting view (and just so happens to refer to me as interesting and well-read) on something I'd written late last year about my life in the future. I'm not sure how the author Wes is connected to my blog or me. but I think he knew my Mom back in the day (which was a Wednesday, incidentally):

Read this if you think you'll live to be 50-60 years old or if you're that now

If you're between 50 to 60 years old, I would invite your comments and insights in response to a post from Dave Kurt who writes a really interesting and well-read personal blog.

This is a guy who is in his 30s, revels in being a family guy, has a job that requires him to travel a fair amount and who wants to be known as somebody who serves others.

In this post, he writes about what he wants his life looks like when he hits the 50s and 60s and when he's an empty-nester and a grandfather.

He's thought about this and you can see his focus and his vision for where he wants to be at that point in his life. He lists 12-pretty specific goals. I'm impressed and his list seems like an exercise worth emulating by others.

His list includes both silly and serious items, but I'm sure they reflect his personality and his values.

QUESTION: For those who have made to this empty-nester and grandparent phase, did you think through where you wanted to be when you were younger? For those who are younger, have you thought about or are you doing that now?

The Poison Dart

A bunch of friends at Calvary Baptist put together this giant Dart War for their youth group every year. They've got a new theme every year and it seems to get more and more elaborate each time. This is the trailer for the video that Reagan Rose put together. Amazing. Give him a call if you need any professional video stuff done. He's good. Web site stuff, too.

The Poinson Dart Trailer/Promo from Reagan Rose on Vimeo.

H20 Basement

I walked down into the basement and felt a "squish" combined with a "splash" followed by a pit in my stomach. My sump pump had gotten stuck and flooded the basement. For the first half hour I was angry at myself as I'd talked last week about replacing my sump pump. After canceling all my meetings, I started trying to figure out what to do. Cathie and I updated our facebook status to let people know what was going on and what we needed and then I opened up the phonebook. The first company I called was Johnny on the Spot carpet cleaning who gave me a range of $800-$3000 to get the water out of my basement. For that price, I think it should have included a massage and dinner. I called around until I found someone who would do the water extraction for $300 and we set about clearing out our basement. Meanwhile, our facebook statuses were noticed by neighbors and Alex was kind enough to bring Paul's de-humidifier over.

We cleared out everything from the basement, which was a lot of crap. My Dad called and offered to help followed by our Pastor Joe Muzzi coming over along with Jen Niemi. Dad, Joe, Cathie and I got a lot of the stuff out of the basement and then Jen and Cathie focused on getting rid of some of the junk. My office was a job that I had to deal with on my own. I have hundreds of cables and power cords a slew of computers and other crap down there. I had to face my demons by myself, because I was the only one who knew what I needed to do and where things went. I then went and rented a giant commercial de-humidifier while the guys suctioned out the water and set fans around the room under the carpet to dry things out.

At some point, I came to grips with the fact that it could have been a lot worse. My house didn't burn down like the Raitz's, we didn't really lose much stuff, I was home to deal with it, no one has cancer, we have friends who gathered around us to help us out.