I've been going through the gospels over the past two months, trying to get excited about them, trying to dig into them, and it's been so dry for me. I'm telling the kids in Fusion why they should dig into the word of God while I'm struggling with it myself. I've heard the stories in so many ways, that tend to read them like I do a fiction book at times. I've tried different versions of the bible - the message, study bibles without different results. When others have been in this place, I've always had advice to give like "Pray before hand and ask God to speak to you" or "Try a different version of the bible" or "Journal on what you're reading". Not much help. I started reading the Psalms this morning and it really connected with me.

This is my kind of hotel. I got back to my room, the bed was pulled back, a robe laid out for me, mints on the pillow and the TV on. They knew I woulndn't want to turn the TV on for myself! How 'bout that!

These Smoking Gun letters to the FCC about the Janet Jackson thing are hilarious.

I'm learning more and more about the Creole/Cajun culture every day I'm down here. New sayings "Hows-yer-momanthem?" (How's your momma and them?). You can have open alcohol in the car down here. As long as some one else holds the class while you're driving, you're fine. I knew you could walk the streets with alcohol, but I didn't know it went to that extent.

I had a great creole dinner tonight. Found out that cajun food is more the Lafayette area, creole is a combination of French, Black, Mexican and American food, where cajun is more a southern french food. Tonight for dinner we ate at a dive on Bourbon street in the French Quarter. I had oysters on the half shell, boiled crawfish, fried crawfish and turtle soup. Great stuff. From there, I grabbed a daquari and wandered up and down bourbon street, people watching. What music and culture. The Zydaco music, the blues, the jazz is amazing.

I was running on the treadmill this morning and I was going crazy. There was no TV, no music, I didn't have my MP3 player. I had 30 minutes of quiet - time to think about how much I hate doing cardio.

I watched the movie Glengary Glenross last night on the plane. Great movie about sales. Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris. It deals with the leveraged insecurities of people in the field of sales, and what ends they'll go to for success.

I did not win an Oscar.

Looking back on the three days I took off work last week, i learned something. I need to be more intentional with my vacation time. Because I was home, life still happened. I had stuff going on Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night and Saturday night - not to mention stuff during the day. All good stuff, lots of church stuff, lots of christian stuff. But I made it more important than my family, which is why I took the time off work to begin with. Next time I take off work, we're either going away, or not doing stuff, unless it's with my familiy.

Helped someone from my small group move on Saturday. Didn't really want to, but I'm glad I did. It went pretty smoothly, and I had a good time connecting with the the guy who was moving, who's a recent addition to my small group. From church there was Will, Matt Gielow and Joe helping out. We made it fun.

I just flew into New Orleans, staying at the Marriott a couple of blocks from Bourbon street in the French Quarter. I've got meetings tomorrow and Tuesday here and in Baton Rouge, and then I fly out Tuesday night, back around 8 or 9, home the rest of the week. I've got a couple of my co-workers, natives of N'Leans, showing me around tomorrow.

I had a poker party on Friday night. Had a bunch of guys from my small group over along with a neighbor and a guy from the gym. We started off with a Texas no-limit hold 'em tournament and then played poker the rest of the night. It was a good time. We played in my garage, which still reeks of cigars. The kitchen chairs that I had in the garage reek of cigars. Can't have a poker party without cigars.

Went to see the Passion on Saturday. Cathie and I got there about 45 minutes early to get a good seat and waited in line. There were about fifty people in front of us, so I figured we'd get a good seat. By the time we'd gotten into the theatre it was full. FULL. People had rushed in, saved 5 or 6 rows at a time. This sounds petty, but it pissed me off. I went to take a seat and was stopped by a man who told me he'd saved the seats and the manager said it was alright. I explained that none of the 100 people he'd saved these seats for had waited in line, and to be fair to eveyrone, he should probably let them grab their own. He disagreed, I expressed my great displeasure, and I sat elsewhere, before I made too big of an ass of myself.

I thought the movie was very well done, very graphic, very true. Can't really say it was "great", but it made me think. Aside from the brutality of the whippings and the crucifixion, the thing that struck me the most was Mary. Seeing her watch her son tried, beaten and crucified made me think about how I would feel if I were in her situation, having to stand by and watch my son go through this and be powerless to stop it, knowing he was doing it of his own free-will. It reminded me of a time about five years ago when it finally clicked to me that God felt this same way about his son; that he loves Jesus as much as I love my kids. That this was as hard or harder for him to watch as it would be for me. Because of his infinitiy, I figured he could process it much differently than I would.
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Maddie had a follow-up doctor's appointment to see how she's doing today. She'd been having some headaches the past few days, but apparently because she wasn't resting enough the past few days.

We had our storyboarding meeting the other day. Every month or so, a group of us get together for dinner and to workshop the upcoming series that we're doing at Crossroads. Joanne Ickes facilitiates the whole thing, which is an amazing feat in and of itself. You've got a group of ADD people (myself one of the worst) blurting out ideas, some good, some bad, some neutral - jumping from one idea to the next, interrupting, bouncing, and playing off of each other. Joanne is able to facilitate this in such a way that people feel listened to, productive and loved. While all this is going on, 5 people are on their laptops, searching the internet, their archives, song lyrics, instant messaging, etc. It's chaotic, but a great time. I look forward to this every month.

I'm speaking at a conference tomorrow - The Internal Auditor's Group, in Lansing. Should be a hoot. Here's what I'm presenting on.

Had a scare today... I was at the library working on my presentation for tomorrow and I got a call from Cathie telling me that Maddie was hurt. Turns out she'd been in the back yard playing with a friend when she fell off the swingset and hit her head, right on the temple. She came running in, and lost conciousness. From there, she went in and out of conciousness, and then complained that she couldn't see well out of the eye near where she'd been hit. Cathie took her into the emergency room where they checked her out and did a cat-scan. Looks like everything's okay - she has a concussion, but that's about it.

Interesting perspective on Christian Music Marketing:
Open up the latest Newsboys disc, "Adoration: The Worship Album," and out pops an ad pitching "The Official Bible of the Newsboys." The book is the "NIV Student Bible," and the leaflet includes a bold quote from Newsboys frontman Peter Furler: "The NIV Student Bible has been and continues to be my daily read."

Cathie and I went to see the movie Fifty first dates last night. I thought it was a good movie, not great. Adam Sandler was really the straightman in the movie, but not as serious as Punch Drunk Love. The movie's about a girl who forgets everything from the previous day, each morning when she's awake. We went out for coffee after the movie and we made a list of everything we would tell the other first thing in the morning if the other had this condition.

I'm in town all week. I'm speaking at a conference tomorrow afternon and then I'm off the rest of the week while the kids are home for mid-winter break. The following week I head down to New Orleans for a couple of days and then to Kansas City, back Wednesday. The next week I head to New York City for a couple of days, back Tuesday night.

Got this idea from Noel:
Step 1: Open your iTunes or other music player.
Step 2: Put all of your music on random.
Step 3: Write down the first 20 songs it plays no matter how embarrassing

Tourniquet by Evanesence
As Lovers Go - Dashboard Confessional
I Don't Know - Ozzy Osbourne
Irish Day - Iona
Lady D'Arbanville - Cat Stevens
Busted Stuff - Dave Matthews Band
Angels - Shaded Red
Together - 100 Portraits
A Different Drum - Peter Gabriel
Supermodels - Kendell Payne
I'll Talk to You tomorrow - Calibretto 13
What if - Creed
It's raining Men - The Weather Girls
Lady Wisdom - Earthsuit
Jesus, Mary Star of the Sea - Zwan
The Spirit of Radio - Rush
Just as I Am - Acquire the Fire
New Year's Day - U2
Say I - Creed

Hmm.. Looks like I need to go through and prune my collection of stuff I don't like anymore... (It's raining men is NOT included in that mix)

My dad ran into a guy I knew back in High School named Miguel. I can't exactly remember how I met him, but I remember that he hung out in our Campus Life club and we hung out together occasionally. My dad ran into him the other day at church and he asked how I was doing. He told my Dad what an impact I'd had on his life, and said that I was one of a few people who'd really made a difference for him. Go figure. I guess you never really know the big picture of how you're life's going to impact others. I look back at that time and just remember what a hypocrite I was and all the things I wish I could have done differently. I guess God can even work with that stuff towards good.

We went to the Buck Enterprises concert last night to see Dan perform. Dan's the worship leader at Crossroads and founder of the band. Buck is a ska band that's been around since 1994 and has a great horns section. I'd asked him to dedicate a song to me, and sure enough, he did. Just not the song I was thinking. Midway through the concert I heard "This next song goes out to Dave" at which point in time they launched into a cover of the song She's got a way by Billy Joel.