Slow Posting

Posting has been a little slow lately. Let me try to explain why.

1.) I’ve been working a lot on a web design project for the Endless Mountain Music Festival. This has been eating up a fair amount of my free time.

2.) Danielle and I have been ridiculously busy. Between church, PowerKidz, photography, birthday gatherings, other gatherings, etc. etc. etc. our free time seems to have dwindled.

I’ve finally gotten to the point where I’m going to have to start saying “no” to certain things, which I really hate to do, but I refuse to run myself ragged. That doesn’t do me any good, or Danielle, God, or anyone else for that matter.

3.) Anything not covered by #’s 1 and 2.

A lot of great stuff is going on in our lives at the moment. Danielle has been experiencing a lot less jaw pain, which is awesome! Things at work are going well for both of us. We have amazing friends, an amazing church family, 24 is getting crazy, March Madness is here, and the list goes on.

I hope to pick up the posting pace at some point, but that remains to be seen.

Save Baby Knut!

I ran across an interesting story about a polar bear named Knut over the last couple of days. One animal rights activist’s suggestion of how the bear should be taken care of shocked me.

Over at Reuters, they have more information regarding Knut, a baby polar bear whose mother abandoned him at the Berlin Zoo. I don’t mean to make a general remark about all animal rights activists, but one Frank Albrecht’s comments that the bear should be killed rather than raised by humans was quite shocking.

It just seems to me that if your are in the business of looking out for animals, that you would want to save them, not kill them. I understand that a polar bear being raised in captivity is much different than it would be if it were to be raised in the wild, but why not let the little guy live? I don’t think it’s going to hurt anyone. At least he has a chance in captivity.

So, I say, Save Baby Knut!

I Love March Madness

When it comes to sports, there are few things better than the Men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament – more affectionately referred to as March Madness.

I love sports, but there is just something special about March Madness. I think a lot of it has to due with the fact that it’s win or go home, every single game. It’s not like the NBA where you have 5 and 7 game series in order to move on to the next round.

I’ll just throw in the fact that your’s truly, in one of my brackets on ESPN, picked 30 out of the first 32 games correctly. This is probably due more to sheer luck than it is any skill on my part.

For instance, I just thought Ohio State (the #1 team in the country) was going to lose to Xavier, but an Ohio State player hit a deep 3 point shot with only 2 seconds left in regualtion. The game is currently in overtime as I write this post.

Even though my perennial favorite, Duke, is absent from the tournament following a first round loss, I’m loving this year’s March Madness!

Why Doesn’t This Surprise Me?

I read a quote attributed to James Cromwell. I looked up the original source, just to make sure it was true, but it doesn’t really surprise me that much.

The quote goes thusly:

I can’t handle living in the United States of America when I know the last two elections were rigged, and that we were denied our right to vote, where we live in a country where 32 per cent of the people vote and even those people’s votes don’t count, and the people who should really have a stake, kids, don’t have a say at all – people of colour, very little to say, unions, practically nothing any more … we’re losing our jobs …

I’m not even sure where to start on that one. Let’s go from the beginning.

1.) Do you really have proof the last two elections were rigged? Beyond a reasonable doubt? I, and I’m sure my fellow Americans, would love to see that proof.

2.) 32% of Americans vote. That’s a sad statistic, but to somehow say that is America’s problem, I don’t buy that. If people would take their responsibility seriously and get out and vote, we wouldn’t have this issue. If you don’t vote, don’t complain, that’s always been my stand.

3.) Yes, kids can’t vote. Are you seriously suggesting that we let 5 and 6 year old kids vote? I doubt it, and I think James was just trying to hype up his point, but that is a ludicrous statement. We have rules set in place for a reason. To say, “here Timmy, I know you’re only 6, but go vote for the next President,” seems more than slightly bizarre to me. Chances are Timmy would say, “what’s a President?”

4.) People of color have just as much to say as anyone else. They get one vote, the same amount any one of us gets. Let your vote be heard, even if you think it doesn’t count. If everyone thought that way, we would have some serious issues on our hands.

5.) I’m not entirely sure that unions having nothing to say is such a bad thing. I’ll be honest. I don’t know a lot about unions and how they work and they’re whole purpose, but a union not having too much to say (in regards to political issues, NOT work-related issues), might not be a bad thing.

Having now heard how Mr. Cromwell feels about the good old U.S. of A. I’m surprised that he agreed at all to appear on 24, which by the way, is one of my favorite TV shows. Of course, James does play Jack’s crooked father, so maybe that is some sort of statement for him. Who knows.

I am all for freedom of speech, but these kind of hyped up accusations drive me bonkers.

Going Over the Hedge

This past weekend, Danielle and I and are friends, Dave and Jenna, took a group of 8 kids to Carlisle for the annual Breakaway weekend. This year’s weekend was themed around the film, Over the Hedge.

These weekends are always a blast, and this year was no exception. In spite of my worrying, we arrived at the conference center with plenty of time to sign in and unpack before the evening service began.

The services start out with lots of loud, energetic music playing while the kids hit beach balls in the air and get some of their energy out of their systems. Praise and worship time usually follows soon after, followed by short lessons, more singing, prayer, and of course – game time.

As I mentioned, the theme was about going over the hedges in our lives that keep us from telling our friends about Jesus and about God’s great love for them. It seems so simple when you look at it from a child’s perspective, and yet so difficult sometimes when looked at from an adult perspective. I know the weekend definitely challenged me.

The kids were also treated to some puppet shows featuring Joe the Gardner and his puppet friend Kenny, who was shown working up the courage to witness to one of his friends throughout the weekend.

As an added treat, the boys won the points competition this year. All weekend long points are calculated based on games, Bible verse memorization, and other activities. Since the girls’ team lost, their mascot (the raccoon) had to take a pie in the face at the end of the weekend.

It’s funny, because the first night the kids wanted to stay up just about all night long, but by the second night, Dave and I were actually the last ones asleep.

We had our share of mishaps along the way, including me getting sick and one of our campers locking both doors leading into our bathroom, but we had a great time. I’m always exhausted when I come home from the retreat, but it is well worth it.

I wish I could more adequately put down in words everything we experienced this weekend, but sometimes that is a difficult thing to do.

I would be remiss if I didn’t share the message we learned from this weekend by the end of this post. Please know, whomever you are, that God is real. God loves you. He loves you more than anything in the world. He sent His Son Jesus to die for you so that you can have forgiveness of sins and spend eternity with Him. It’s really that simple when it comes right down to it. It all boils down to:

1. God Loves
2. God Gave (He gave his Son, Jesus)
3. We Believe (in Jesus and accept Him as our Savior)
4. We Receive (the gift of eternal life)