SALUD!

This is basically a shout out "Thank You" to Colin and Liz Delaney.

Long day today, Monday, so I knew a beer was in my future. I popped the top of Samuel Adams Boston Ale and poured it into the wonderful house warming gift they got me five years ago. So, for that, I say thanks for the great mugs and I toast this beer to you two and the lovely family you have.

Clothes Make the Man

It's weird and humbling experience to see your old clothes hung up and ready to be redistributed. When you see the specific item you find yourself instantly transported back to a memory connecting that insignificant piece of cloth to a time in your life, be it bad or good it's still a part of you. Now it lays in wait, the old robe you wore on Christmas morning, those comfortable jeans that spent days breaking in, all for someone who needs them more.

I donated a large bag of my clothes to the Common Ground Community. They have a Clothing Closet where anyone can come in and take what they need with no limit. They also have a food pantry and a community meal on Weds. This only scratches the surface of their Ministry. They serve the cedar grove community and many "outdoor friends" with meals, food, and clothes. The children get homework help and everyone gets a good dose of Christian Love.

But, a few weeks ago I delivered the clothes in a large trash bag. Yesterday I took a walk around and found some of my pieces on hangers waiting for someone to get excited by prospects of new-to-them attire. I touched them, almost sad that they were no longer mine. However, even though I may never see the person who chooses my extras or see the benefits that are yielded from them, I know that feeling far out ways any inkling of longing to have my clothes back. Perhaps a new career was won with one of my old dress shirts, legs are now warm because of a pair of jeans, or a teenager has a "cool" new t-shirt to bum around in.

No matter what, the capacity of giving and love Common Ground Community has provided is, for lack of a better word, Amazing. ..."whatever you do to the least of mine, you do to me." Jesus' words from the bible. Whenever taken to heart can completely change who you are. It may just be the simple start of donating some clothes that will launch you into an all-out, full time, sell everything you have and move away type of Love. But, who knows...

(if you want to know more about the CGC or if you want to donate food and clothes, let me know and I will point you in the right direction)

Can You Come Out and Play?

It has been awhile and though nothing specifically blog worthy has come from life in the past couple of weeks a bunch of little things can come together as one good "update" blog.

Recently I was asked a questions that had not been directed to me in many years. "Can you come out and play?" Let me back date this, Eliz and I have been getting to know some of the neighborhood kids. Call it a mission, getting involved in the neighborhood, or having fun with kids, whatever, we are doing it. This involves roughly seven to ten kidos that like to drop by and say hello. One of whom, knocked on our door early Saturday morning, knowing it was just the two of us and no children of our own. Joey, the quick minded seven year old from two houses down, looked up at me Saturday morning ruffled hair and inquired if was free for some recreational time. Which came out as "can you come out and play?" I silently laughed at the query, declined, and then went to watch my favorite Saturday morning cartoons. It felt good to be instantly transported back to my younger years when request such as that were how you pleasantly asked parents permission to run the streets with their children. I think I am going to start asking my friends no matter the age if they would like to "come out and play." Because really, now we just ask if they want to Hang Out, and how boring does that sound. I say bring on the PLAY!

Secondly, this week I made pizza on the grill for the second time. This involves making the pizza dough from scratch. Which, truthfully, means the kitchen is spattered with flour, water, yeast, and quite frankly, sticky mess. But, the grill is suppose to simulate a wood oven.

Everything is cooked on the oven the crust and the toppings. It turned out ok. We have our friends Scott and Sarah over and I think they enjoyed it. It may not beat Johnny's, but the ingredients are fresh, and it looks pretty cool cooking on the grill. Oh, and I happen to have a picture for you.

It's not the worst pizza I have eaten. In fact, it's better than that major chain which makes their pizzas WAY too greasy, who shall remain nameless (Pizza Hut, yeah, it's them, you know).

I think I am going to try to carry my camera around and take more photos my week. That way my next post will be my week in photos. Hmm, I like that idea. Maybe I will actually do it. Here's a starter. A picture of my beautiful wife and HER cat doing what she (the cat) does best, get in the way.

Follow Up on "Paybacks"

So, from reading my previous post of "Paybacks" you may of heard or read about how the Coffee and Grinder went AWOL last weekend. Well, apparently, the owners of Coffee and Grinder were also willing put the story out there in the WWW. So here is a link to how it went down from their perspective. This is from a buddy of mine, Scott's, blog Called Igniting Vision. The post can be found "Coffee and Grinder Take a Holiday". Enjoy.

Man's Worst Feature

Have you ever noticed how ugly knees are. It doesn't matter to whom they belong, there still ugly. I mean you can have a big, fat dude standing next to Claudia Schiffer and the one thing in common is...ugly knees.

These Belong To Eva Longoria

These Guys will have your running for the hills.

See what I mean. Come On, I know people have "fetishes" but really, knees give me the creeps. I am not saying I wouldn't disregard someone because of the condition of their knees, but don't expect me to dabble them with whip cream and lick it off, I mean, I married, so I wouldn't do that with you anyway. Too bad there isn't a way to work out or condition your knees so they look more like a muscle or a puppy. How cool would it be to have a couple of cute puppy faces preceding you as you walk down the road instead of moving bone. When people whistle at you the knees are the first to turn. Course, it would change the old adage "my dogs are barking." We would have to come up with another term for our feet...maybe we use mules, the are another animal overworked and under appreciated. We can say "my mules sure are a baying." I think it would fit in at a NASCAR convention.

Knees Knees

Everywhere I turn

Knees Knees

You fail to make me yearn

Knees Knees

You're as ugly as sin

Knees Knees

I can't wait for winter again.

Paybacks

Last weekend I came home after a hard saturday of running sound at church, hanging with friends, and missing my wife (as she had been in South Africa for a mission trip). I arrived at the house around 11:00 pm. I saw the incredibly awful movie District Nine, save yourself the time and money and skip it.

As I opened the door, only about two feet, a felt a catch as if there was something blocking the door. I looked down to see our comfy, yellow couch in the way...This was odd and my first thought was "Oh crap, someone broke in." Needless to say I was part right. I looked around and found my entire living room had been moved and rearranged. Immediately my mind took me to the guilty culprits. Each attempt to contact them ended with a seemingly innocent voicemail or an unanswered texts. I laughed, then plotted my revenge.

Today that revenge was enacted! The two perpetrators, dear

friends of mine, know not of this blog, and as no one really reads it anyway, I feel this little bread crumb or physical evidence shall not betray me. But, these friends of mine are quite the coffee connoisseurs. So, using means of my own, I gained entry into their home and temporarily "removed" their coffee grinder and maker. The idea is for them to come home, from camping ( a four day adventure) to no means of making an eye opening beverage. However, this was only step one.

Step two involved taking the maker and grinder around the cit

y on photo vacation for the two appliances. Pictures of th

em enjoying the local sites and activities will be emailed to th

em, from an anonymous email address. They will eventually get them back, but not without a little bit of a wait...and hopefully a laugh.

These are some of the pictures, with some dark roasted captions too:

Having an afternoon pick me up

Cooling down.

Meeting New Friends.

This Game Just Got Interesting, or at Least Involved

Ring Ring

I am afraid God is calling and I don't know how long I can keep ignoring the call. I just spent the weekend working at Common-ground with the youth of Grace Community UMC. It was pretty awesome and we did some good work.

But, I feel the urge to do more and I am afraid where it will end. If I jump into the pool is there any way other than the deep end, hole heart, mind, and energy. We are talking about a life makeover. And that is the scary part...

My New Hobby

So, at the ripe old age of almost 30, I decided to take on Mountain Biking. And it is kicking my Ass. I went for a ride today in the woods by the river near my house. I ended up doing to endos, which stands for end over end. Which means I flew over the bike, hit the ground, and for the cherry on top, had the bike fly on top of me. Twice! Then in fit of brilliance I went on a trail crossover with ramps.

Down the first hill, hit the first ramp, smile on my face. I catch air, my bike goes to the right, and I to the left. As a man, I can't let the trail win, so I dust myself off, put myself on the bike and set my face, determined to give it another go. Same trail and same result.

This time I land on my wrist and the bike falls behind me. I lay on the ground for a while looking up admiring the trees and thanking God that I am ok. This time I let the trail win and go home.

My wife asks me why I started such a round and dangerous hobby this late in life. I tell I don't know, but I have fun and ride by a motto, "Ride Hard and Fall Hard." The falling hard part I got down. I just need to work on the riding hard part. But I will get it.

Chicken or the Church

Have you ever noticed how the high crime areas tend to have more churches per ca pita? At least, in Shreveport, it seems this way. It begs the questions, though, Which came first, the church or the crime?

I am sure there is a "book turning" sociology paper published in some dark, moldy section of an unpopulated library with their version of the correct answer. But, if it demands research, I am almost not interested.

It is fun to pontificate about though. I wonder if a group got together and said "Crime is too much, we must fight it. I know, lets build a church, a beacon of hope." And if they did this did the dissenting faction say "If they are going to build a church, then we are too." So that eventually small ones were on every block and larger facilities lined the main roads. Or was it the opposite way.

"Man, this part of town has too many churches, lets rock things up." Then the crime/gangs move in. Wouldn't it be interesting if their colors changed with the liturgical calender, deep purples, reds and an occasional rainbow. That could prove decidedly hazardous to any preacher on the pulpit, sporting the stohl of the day.

The area of my mind consumed with nonsense like the chicken and the egg, will now have to make room for the parable of the churches and the crime. Now I must go repent. I am fearing damnation of trivializing intercity churches or maybe I should be more concerned with making fun of gangstas.

Return to Old

In this day of texting, tweats, facebook, smart phones and the like, we have lost sight of our good old fashion roots. And, as expected, without proper apprciation of where we have been, we can not truely move forward as humanbeings. As such, this is an homage to the old days of Billy the Kid, John Wayne, and slower times

MADE IT HOME FROM VACATION STOP
MONTANA IS THE WILD WEST STOP
CAN NOT WAIT TO GO BACK STOP
PRICE ON MY HEAD THOUGH STOP
DO NOT KNOW WHEN THAT WILL BE STOP

I think Western Union would be proud.

Until Another Day

I find procrastination to be a funny and fickle fiend. Take my wife for example. She has her big pharmacy liscensing exam on Monday at 3pm. She has persuaded me that she needed to take Thursday and Friday off to study, which I agree with. She has spent time studying, but she has also started doing things that she has never, or rarely, ever done so as to keep from burying her head in a book.

Just now she is walking through the house using a shark (a small horsepowered vaccum) on our rugs. When I told her of my insperation to write about her, she also informed me that she wiped down the baseboards in the dinning room. This was definetly out of character for her. That's when I knew, for her even housework is better than studying. Procrastination has sunks it's teeth in her like that of a rabid dog attaches it pursuers.

She will eventually, with my help, run out of things to do and return to her books. I can not fault her as I have been caught in that trap as well. But, I know she will rock that test and put procrastination in its place. Cause she's my gal.

Lackadaisical Approach to Blogging

So, it's been a while since I have posted anything. It's not because there is nothing going on, nor is it because the world has not been interesting enough to find oddities and idiocies in everyday life. Many times I have said, "I should blog about this." But, I never do, and I realize now why. It's because no one ever reads this. Why lay words that fall not upon deaf ears but no ears at all.

This blog sits in the back of my mind like an infected puss filled boil, festering as if to always remind you it is here waiting for decisive action before healing. I know I am the root of the problem and the answer to the problem. I need to focus more on getting out there and promoting my blog for readers to enjoy. Maybe the best way to get people to read is to be consistent. More likely I am harboring ill-fated thoughts of grandeur.

I am one of millions who have the access to the Internet and the cognisance to write down thoughts and opinions. I know the self serving dribble spewed forth from the mouths of cynics, bureaucrats, religious yahoos, and many more. But, just as I don't want to read their blogs, I become nothing more than a loathing contributory of endless Internet crap...self-deprecating and boring.

So, if motivation strikes or attitudes change I may attempt a regular written soliloquy, but until then deal.