Babies

Bummer

I just found out I missed National Milk Chocolate Day.  It was Saturday.  Boo.  Why didn't anybody tell me?  Just because you like Dark Chocolate doesn't mean you have to keep a milk guy in the dark.

 

I'll figure out some way to make it up......

Just a reminder....

The Bourne Ultimatum opens this upcoming weekend.  If the first two movies were any indication, it should be a humdinger.  And Julia Stiles is in it....

I'm going to do a refresher course this week and review "Identity" and "Supremacy."  Ya know, just for continuity sake.....

Movie Review - The Simpsons Movie

Before I write my review, I have to give a warning.  Certain people get and enjoy the Simpsons and certain people don't.  This review is for the people who fall into the former category.

After roughly 18 years, The Simpsons finally made it to the big screen.  As one might guess, the premise of the story runs something like this:  Homer does something stupid.  Marge warns him.  He ignores her and does something worse.  She gets upset and the rest of the episode involves trying to set things right.  Does that sound familiar?  That's pretty much how it goes in this movie.

I liked this movie.  I got to see all sorts of my favorite characters like Dr. Nick and Disco Stu and Ralph and Martin and Carl.  The story was mildly preposterous, but that's to be expected with Homer and the family.  As with the television series, the movie was full of sarcastic barbs aimed at politics, religion and pop culture.  Most of it was pretty funny stuff.  I found myself laughing out loud early and often in this movie.  And for those who follow the television show closely, it more resembled the middle years then the most recent years (IMHO).

I'm going to give The Simpson's movie a 9.  I laughed a lot and Ned Flanders got some primo screen time.

Looking back..

**This is a relatively meaningless post, but I do find it interesting looking back on some of the things I've said in the past and remembering what was going on at the time.**

As I'm sometimes fond of doing, I like to look back at what I've blogged in the past.  Tonight, I looked back at the last few July's.  Interesting to remember where I was at.  

Three years ago....

I visited Milwaukee (intentionally),
I was reading a book titled Choosing God's Best, and
Saw The Bourne Supremacy.

Two Years ago....

Saw Chelsea play DC United,
I got my hair cut and was rather self-conscious about it,
Visited Frontline for the first time, and
Had an awesome peanut butter shake.

One year ago...

Saw the HSO perform,
Watched Italy win the World Cup, and
Saw Superman Returns.

He's gone.

For the past three weeks, I've had the joyful privilege of hosting a friend and old roommate at the house.  It was nice to see his smiling mug and hear an audio account of some of the adventures that I had only read about over the past year.  It was nice to have someone at home when I got home from work.  Most of my evenings at home are silent because there's no one there to talk to.  So that was a lovely change.  We also got to talk about our common loves:  music, soccer and women.  So it was great to have him around.

 

But he's gone now.  Next week he'll be back in the motherland, gearing up for a new school year and all the fun that that holds.  And I'll miss him, but God is using him to do good things for the Kingdom and I am comforted in that.  He's doing good work.  Pray for him.

On the other side of the radio

Mark your calendars.  One month from today, on Tuesday, August 26th I will be a guest DJ on WJTL.  That's right, I'm making my triumphant return to the airwaves (I used to have a regular gig on WVMM during the college years).  I will be a guest DJ with Kristi Leigh from 4:00 - 5:00pm.  Feel free to tune in on their website, or on your radio ( 90.3FM).

 

Also, we're finally getting Outlook here at work.  It's very exciting.  Goodbye Lotus Notes!!

A little less conversation

So this month, is the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death.  In honor of this milestone, the good folks at Hershey have come up with quite an interesting little confection.  For a limited time, consumers can purchase Reese's Peanut Butter and Banana Cups.  I'm not sure what you're thinking at this point, but maybe it's something along the lines of "eww!"  Several months ago, I would have said that, but since I'm a recent convert to the banana I thought they sounded good.

 

I got a chance to taste them over the past two days and I liked them.  Just think normal peanut butter cup, with a hint of banana.  The banana taste (there are real banana flakes in the banana creme) is actually rather complimentary to the chocolate and peanut butter.  It's certainly a different taste, but it's a good different.  Unless you don't like bananas.  Then it's a bad different. 

 

These guys are available for a limited time, and since Elvis was the "king," the normal two-packs actually contain two king cups.  So they're a bit more expensive.  Just so you know..

Would you still love me...

If I told you that I liked synchronized swimming?

 

It's true.  I do.  I was recently watching a documentary on PBS about synchro and it followed a male swimmer.  It was very interesting to watch because I had never seen a guy doing synchro.  And I was suprised to see that he participated in group, duet and solo competitions.  So I wanted to blog about this documentary and then it occurred to me that people may want to know why in the world I was watching a doc on synchro anyways.  So I thought I'd might as well just spill the beans.

 

Why do I like it?  Besides the obvious fact that it's 99.7% of the participants are women?  I like it because I think it's similar to dancing.  But you're in a pool.  And you're often upside-down.  But there's lots of creativity that goes into the routines and it seems that it takes a lot of practice to get everybody in sync.  And I can appreciate that.

 

Feel free to use the comments section to express your disgust and/or your favorite swimmers.

That which is on my mind

On Sunday in church, Pastor Phil spoke out of Mark 7. The story involved a Greek woman who's daughter was possessed by a demon. The woman left her home to see out Jesus and ask Him to heal her. It's an interesting story when you look at it, because it's seems as if Jesus is actually giving this woman grief. Which isn't like Jesus. You rarely see Him speak like this to seekers. Usually it's the Pharisees.
(To listen to the sermon, click on the West Shore link on the right and select Sermon Central, and then click the play button).

As he was closing the message, he quoted Luke 18:1: "Then Jesus told His disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up." (italics mine) If I recall, Phil was tying the persistence of the Greek woman with persistence in prayer. Phil's message really resonated with me. How? Well, I pray for numerous things. I am daily going to God for my family and friends and their situations. I don't do that as much for myself. Every once in a while, I'll pray for my future wife. Every once in a while, I'll pray for my job situation. And often I will sometimes not even pray about something important. Only recently, did I figure it might be a good idea to pray about my future housing situation. That seems like a no-brainer, but as much as I think, sometimes I don't. I should have prayed for my weekend (which I discussed yesterday), but I really didn't even start praying for that until Wednesday of last week!

You know how often times you hear something once and it's interesting to hear? But then when you hear it again from a completely different source, you sit up and take notice? I mentioned the passage that Phil shared out of Luke. Well, on Monday, I was listening to a podcast by Erwin McManus, who is the pastor of Mosaic, out in Los Angeles. Erwin was talking about when his first book, Soul Cravings came out, sales suffered. He talked about he gradually came to realize that he never prayed about sales of the book. He had wanted the book to be placed not in the Christianity section, but in the new age section. But that never happened. So the people that he wanted to read the book, weren't reading it. He started praying and things happened.

And this is what got me: While there are so many things that I pray about, there are so many more things that I don't pray about. And this is what I've resolved. While it's important to petition for the needs and requests of others, it's not wrong to petition God for the things that you desire. For a time, I thought it was selfish to pray for myself, thinking that the prayers of other people would cover me. I've since learned that that's not the right way to think. So now I'm trying to start a new habit. Of praying for myself. I have a prayer journal that I've kept on and off for the past two years. I'm going to be more regular about writing prayers in my journal. There are so many empty pages that seem to beckon me. And not only am I going to pray more, but I'm going to be more persistent. I've also given some thought to fasting in some manner on a regular basis. Not quite sure how, but it's something I should probably pray about.

Please pray for me. I appreciate any and all prayers.

A long week...

I have a feeling that I will be writing a lot of stuff this week in my little online diary.

 

I was thinking, as I often do, about my friends.  Specifically, about the absence of sports-lovers in my daily life.  Watching sports (whether live or on the telly) is something that I enjoy doing.  And I enjoy doing it with people.  Not a whole herd of people mind you(the Super Bowl soiree being the one departure from that rule), but maybe one or two other people.  I used to have one or two other sporting fools who I could count on for referee analysis, but not so much anymore. 

 

So the obvious solution to this issue is to find new friends, right?  Well, I've been working on that, but most of the recent additions to the roster of friends aren't the sporting-type.  So now I'm considering how I can cast a little wider net.  I'm not exactly sure what that means or what it involves, but I have an idea in my head.

 

And in case you were curious to know the roots of today's thoughts, here's the 4-1-1.  I've been seriously mulling over going to a Redskins game this fall.  But I do not want to go alone.  And I do not know any other Redskins fans.  So then I decide to consider who the Redskins are playing and see if I can find a fan of the opposition who might want to come along.  This idea would have worked well this year, except for the fact that it was this year.  All my Bills fans are otherwise disposed this year.  And I don't know any fans of the Detroit Lions (Astute readers will note that every NFL team actually plays eight home games, and I have only made reference to two of this season's home games - the discrepancy lies in the fact that these two games are the cheapest available on the secondary market.).

 

More on the morrow..

Not on the schedule

NewsFlash!!  Sometimes things don't go as planned.

Such was my weekend.  I had high hopes and big plans.  Those who knew of my plans knew of their largeness.  But God had other ideas.  I was to stay local this weekend.  And ya know what?  It worked out well. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to see that volcano, but that was something I wanted to do.  But it wasn't going to be this weekend.

I have to admit that I really didn't put much prayer into my plans until the very end.  Perhaps if I had put some more prayer into it, I might have been able to save myself five hours in Concourse B at Harrisburg International.  This is a good segue into something else I want to discuss, but I think I'll save that until tomorrow.

Despite the change of plans, I found this weekend to be very enjoyable.  I don't know why I ended up staying around local and I may never know.  Maybe it was so I could interact with my waitress at Texas Roadhouse.  Maybe it was the conversation that I had with my hiking partner on Saturday.  Maybe it was so I was able to eat lunch and hang out with my small group peeps (hello peeps!).  And maybe it was none of these things.  Regardless, I'm cool with it.

I can do it different

This thought came to me this morning at work.  The boss is out today and I am handling some of his responsibilities.  When he gets an invoice, he saves it as "mm-dd-yyyy funding request."  This is saved in a 2007 sub-folder inside a folder titled "weekly billing."  Wouldn't it just be easier (since we already know it's a funding request), just to say "mmddyyyy?"  Wouldn't that be simpler?  The answer is yes and while I was tempted to save the file my way, I deferred to his method because I don't want to rock the boat.  Which got me thinking..

 

How often do we have ideas for a new way to do something, but defer because we think the parties affected aren't hip to the idea?  Or maybe we defer because people are too comfortable with the old way?  It's worked before so don't go changin' it!  Next time you're in that sort of situation, think about the people you're working with or trying to affect.  If you're a creative person trying to influence a linear-thinking type of person, you may have a tough road ahead of you.  You may see the whole picture in one big panoramic shot, while they may see the picture as a puzzle.  And in order to see the whole picture, you have to fit all the pieces together.  I think that because of my boss' legal background, he's a linear-thinker.  And perhaps that's why I don't seem to gel with him as well as I did my previous boss.

 

What's interesting is that I have many linear friends (you know who you are) and we seem to get along well.  So what's the difference?  I think I have more patience and common ground with my friends (hence the title "friends") than in work situations.  I tend to view my friends as key figures in my life.  I think I view work as a drama where we have different actors playing roles that have no effect on my "real world."  It's kind of an odd way to think about it, but I think that's how I separate the two.

 

This has been your semi-monthly look into my mind.  Please join us next time when I talk about Johnny Appleseed and his love for apples.

SYTYCD

Top Three

1. Jamie and Hok
2. Sabra and Dominic
3. Lauren and Neil

Bottom Three

1. Sarah and Pasha
2. Anya and Danny
3. Lacey and Cameron

For You

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, illed with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.

-Philippians 1.9-11

And lo, it was good

The weekend, that is.  It's been a while since I've had a solid-all-around-good-bordering-on-great weekend. 

 

Let's discuss some of the key elements of this weekend:

Chick-fil-a - The. Best. Chicken. Sandwich.

Live minor-league baseball - it was an ideal night to be in the stands and we had a great view of the field, plus we got free hats.

Working out - That's how I get my Saturday off to a great start.  After I've worked out, I'm ready to hit the farmer's market

Oatmeal Chocolate-Chip Cookies - from the afore-mentioned farmer's market.  Good stuff.

The Pizza Grille - mm mm mm good (the extra mm was b/c it was free).

Bruster's - Their Mint Chocolate Chip is delightful (and even more so when it's free)

Travel Planning - I always enjoy plotting my next adventure.

Steak - on the grill. 

Worship - some super-awesome-crazy worship with my peeps closed out my weekend on a high note.

These things were all key contributors to this successful weekend.  Thanks to all those who had a part in it.

Be Thou My Vision

At the wedding last Saturday, we sang this beautiful hymn.  I've posted the lyrics before, so what I thought I would do this time, is I would post the lyrics to verse six.  There are only five verses that I know of, so I've just pretty much made up the sixth verse.  But it consists of the four most meaningful lines of the hymn to me.

Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

Another article

It seems today will the day of a thousand posts (or at least two or three).  Now, I have an article from today's Patriot-News talking about a limited-time offer the Catholic church has made to members of the Harrisburg Diocese.

Goings on in Iraq

There is a division of soldiers in Iraq and they have a blog.  I follow this blog, because there's a WSEFC member in this particular division.  Read here about how they are in the process of helping an Iraqi girl.

What's in a word?

I may have talked about this before, so if it sounds familiar, I guess it is.  I'm sure that we're all aware of words.  You are certainly aware that I jest misspelled the word "just."  Or maybe I just misused it.  So how do we decide to use the words we use?  For me it's feelings vs. interpretation.

 

I know that around certain people, I have to choose my words carefully.  It's not because they're sensitive (although I know you are).  Rather, it's because of the fact that they really pay attention to the words that people speak and if you don't speak precisely what you mean, you will know it.  Because you will have to do a follow-up.  And I don't like having to correct myself.

 

So why am I writing about this now?  Well, I was shooting a note to a friend earlier in the day and I used a word that encapsulated my feelings (for the record, the word was "proud").  That was the word that came immediately to my mind.  But then I stopped to think about it.  I considered using the word "impressed" instead, but while that word may have more accurately conveyed my feelings, I wasn't impressed.  I know what you're thinking.  If you weren't impressed, then how would using that word accurately convey your feelings?  Well, it's not me so much as it is my reader.  I don't want them to be confused (proud?  what are you, my dad?), but at the same time, using a more commonly-used word may not quite express my feelings.  So I did use the word "proud."  Because I was.  If you're a friend and ya done good, I'm proud.  Or perhaps I'll say "nicely done" or "nice work."  

 

But if you buy a Chelsea shirt, it won't be nicely done, and I won't be proud or impressed.  But I'll still love you as a friend.

Why I Blog - Reason #4

I sometimes have thoughts or experiences that I want to tell somebody about.  But when I get home, there's nobody there to share them with.  On average, I see my roommate maybe three or four times a week.  I don't see any of you on a daily basis.  So if there's something that I want to share or pass along, this is the best way that I know to do it.  Here's a perfect "for instance."

On the way home from church tonight (about 2115) I saw the most beautiful sky I have seen in a long time.  It had just rained so there were dark clouds all around.  But right near the edge of the horizon, there were no clouds.  Just a yellow-orange sky.  That contrasted with the purple rain clouds just created a beautiful scene.  I really wish I would have had my camera.  I was so awestruck, I said "good grief" aloud.  Then I thanked God.

I wish I had someone who I could have shared that with tonight personally.  But I don't, so I'm sharing it with you.

And now I'm going to go wash some dishes.

Good morning!!

Hi!!

 

I hope you have a terrific day today!

 

And in case I dont see you, good afternoon, good evening and good night!

two months to go...

Season Opener:  Fins vs. Skins, 1:00pm

Movie Trailers

It has been a looong while since I've posted any trailers, so I thought I would post some which caught my eye:

The Golden Compass

August Rush

The Bourne Ultimatum

Here comes the bride....

Apologies for the screwed-up formatting

Wedding number two.  I enjoyed the ceremony and hope one day to actually see it.  I enjoyed hearing the pastor share about the bride and groom.  I also loved the fact that when the bride spoke, I could hear the smile in her voice. At the reception, they were showing family photos in a slideshow and I enjoyed watching the look on the face of the groom's father as the pictures appeared on the screen.  He was just leaning against a pillar and would smile anew everytime the photo changed. They had chocolate cake.  And I should have bought more cookies.

But here's what I really want to discuss  This summer, the weddings I've attended are for close friends that I consider to be key contacts in my life.  As such, I've decided to ditch the wedding card and I've gone freestyle.  This summer, I have written short notes to my friends to share my feelings and my prayers with them.  What's interesting, is that I didn't used to be that person.  I wasn't that person who said to my friend "I'm praying for you."  Or "I'm happy for you."  Now, I can't help but say it.  But that's not all.  In both of the  weddings that I've been to, what I've written in the letters has been verbally confirmed from the pastor during the ceremony.  And that makes me excited.  Sometimes when you write things, you wonder if it's really the right thing to say.  But then to have them confirmed by someone else, it's a great feeling.  Not a feeling of pride mind you, but a feeling that your heart is in the right place when you're expressing yourself.

Movie Review - Transformers

So I've seen three movies this week, but I decided to review the one movie which would have the most general interest.  So Transformers it is.

 

If you're looking for a fun action movie this month, this movie would be a good pick.  Especially if you're a male and actually had some Transformers when you were younger.  I myself had a few whose names I can't recall (but by describing them to my roommate he was actually able to tell me their names.  He impresses me.).  Onto the movie.  Shia LeBouf plays Sam Whitwikki (sp) the main human character in the movie.  He does a suprisingly decent job in stepping out on his own in a mainstream film (he starred in "The Battle of Shaker Heights" but how many of you saw that?).  He has some nice comedic timing, but it remains to be seen whether he will be able to carry films by himself (he next plays second fiddle to Harrison Ford in Indy 4).  Josh Dumahl (sp), Jon Voight and John Turturro are the other big names in the film.  They were minor, and Voight didn't even look like he belonged.  But enough about people, let's talk machines. 

 

The graphics in this movie were stellar.  (Spoiler ahead) That decepticon that attacked the base survivors in the desert was pretty cool.  They did a great job in general with all the machines.  AND they gave them personality.  There's this rather amusing scene in the backyard where the autobots are trying to hide from Sam's parents.  And then there's the little fact that the autobots have learned the english language based off of what they've picked up from our media.  That's fun.  The battle scenes were pretty captivating, though at times it was hard to tell who was autobot and who was decepticon.  I think they tried to make the autobots brighter by their paint schemes, but when they transformed, Bumblebee and Prime were the only ones who were obvious to me.

 

There were a handful of cheesy moments in the movie, but thanks to Michael Bay, the action was heated enough that the cheese didn't weigh the movie down.  This movie clocks in at almost 150 minutes, but it doesn't feel like it.  I'm giving it a "9."  I'll see it again.

Exit, stage left!

So I've been thinking. (That seems to be my most popular opening line, but I can't help it.  I'm a thinker)  What's a fun thing that I can try my hand at?  It's nothing that I've hinted about recently, but I did post something about it maybe a year or two ago.  Can anybody remember what it was?  It was around Christmas-time...

 

Before you go digging through the archives, allow me to save you the trouble.  I am seriously considering audtioning for a play at the Hershey Area Playhouse.   The name of the production is "The Homecoming" and apparently, it's the prequel to "The Waltons."  I used to do a lot of plays in my grammar school days and I enjoyed it.  So I'll keep you posted.  Auditions aren't until September so I have a lot of time to get distracted with other dalliances.  But it could be fun....

Quote of the day

From Mr. Charles Shultz: 

"All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt."

Heard on Sunday

Great sermon on Sunday from Pastor Phil.  He said the following, which really resonated with me:  

"There is a freedom that enslaves us, and a slavery that can free us."

The "freedom" mentioned is, of course, sin.  The freedom to do whatever we want, regardless of God's law.  There's a whole lot of freedom there in this mortal world, but in the end, we're still talking death.  Talking further about sin, Phil mentioned several times that a journey of thousands of miles starts with one step at a time.  His point, was that sin is a road that we travel.  We don't just wake up one day and decide to sin.  There are little baby steps that we take that lead us to sin once.  Then more baby steps and we sin again and again and again.  Before long, we've created a habit, or maybe an addiction.  And all it took, was one little harmless sin.

I would like to direct your attention to Psalms 1.1-2, which says  

1 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.   2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night

.   Pastor Phil pointed out that there is a progression in verse one.  The man starts at a walk, but comes to a standstill and then takes a seat.  And the contrast is in the recommended activities in verse two.
 

Feel free to check out the sermon on the West Shore website (link over there --->).  It'll be up until Sunday morning.

To my readers

Just wanted to take a moment to thank you.  Thank you for being interested in the things I have to say.  There's a lot of different things that compete for your time, I certainly know that.  Your viewing this page means that you find some value in the letters that I type on this page on a somewhat-regular occurrence.  And I appreciate that.

So thank you.  And be blessed!