25 things about me

25 Things about me stolen from Facebook

1. I have been married for 7 plus years to a beautiful wife Laura and we now have an adorable son Carver Lee who is 8 months old. We also have her Purse Dog Beast who is a Bichon/Pom and I have the best dog Phoenix who is a sometimes smelly Golden Retriever.
2. I work at 3 different places yet still have time to spend 2 -3 full days to hang out with my son.
3. Hockey is my favorite sport, yet I have not played it in almost 15 years. Now I play softball.
4. I get a little OCD when it comes to trying to find something online - like a vehicle on Craigslist. I do this repeatedly during a day even when I know I can't afford it or won't be able to for a few years.
5. My dream is to become a full time Children's Pastor.
6. I recently went to Mac and I never want to go back.
7. As I get older, I listen to a lot more Talk Radio and lot less music.
8. I somewhat shamefully like to listen to country music - more 90's country than todays country.
9. I still consider my best friend Gabe Marshall - even though I haven't seen him in more than 8 years and have only talked to him a few times since then.
10. Once, Blair and I dropped off his mom's Cat at a girls house as a prank. I still don't understand why. Mrs D is mad at me to this day for that one.
11. A few weeks later I dropped off a dead squirrel at the same girls house. This might make me a serial killer. I'm still not sure why I did that. However, she was my girlfriend a few weeks later. However, it didn't last very long. Kind of like all of my relationships before Laura.
12. I got married at 21 and felt like I waited a long time because my parents were married at 19 and 20 and my sisters both got married when they were 18.
13. I had the opportunity to perform at the White House in 2003.
14. I have been to 40 states. These are the ones I am missing: Vermont, Rhode Island, South Dakota, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Montana, Maine, Delaware , Connecticut and Alaska. I think I have passed through Delaware and Connecticut I just can't say for sure. One day I hope to see them all - especially Alaska.
15. I have spent about 6 weeks working in England and love it. I could totally live there.
16. I used to live in a house that used to be owned by Hank Williams Jr's sister.
17. After being married for 6 years, my wife found out I can play the trumpet.
18. I really really like the idea of reading, however when it comes to the act I mostly fall asleep. I never finished a book I was supposed to read in High School. Cliff notes are amazing. Do they even make them anymore or is all online?
19. When Carver learns to ride a bike or tricycle, I want to learn the unicycle.
20. I am hoping to get a VW Trike for my 29th or 30th Birthday.
21. My most prized possession as a 7 year old was my nunchucks. I used to attack the Gordon Girls with them and my sisters. One day they disappeared and I was very sad. 10 years later, Beth Gordon Eichelberger found them in a tree in her back yard while doing yard work. I treasure them still.
22. I love Baseball. I collected cards as a kid and kind of lost my passion until I got married. My wife was a fan, so I started following. Now, I am way to much of a baseball geek for her taste.
23. Laura and I used to sit and dream about opening some type of Teen Center one day.
24. My favorite TV show is Lost. I admit I have a problem and listen to Lost Podcasts. I also enjoy Fringe, Terminator, Sons of Anarchy and Dexter and NCIS.
25. I used to be a professional Yo-Yo man.

Mmmm.....Bacon

Many of you know that I am quite the bacon fan. From bacon flavored chewing gum to ice cream to air fresheners - I love it all. Eric Earling posted this on Facebook and I had to check it out and drool. The guys over at BBQAddicts came up with this recipe. I will have to try it out this summer while camping. I just better make sure I have cell reception to call the paramedics when I have a heart attack.

Northwest Children's Ministry Network

Towed!

Saturdays are supposed to be relaxing. This morning started out great. I slept in until a whopping 7:30am. Laura and Carver and I went to the Sawmill for Breakfast and then had a few projects to complete. We managed to finish putting up the fireplace mantle - just the painting left. My garage has been a disaster zone for about a month now with stuff needing to go to the dump. I put on my canopy on my truck and loaded it to the max for a dump run. Notice the old Love Sac falling out of the back. I was on my way to the church office to pick up a few more things for the dump and my truck broke down. After waiting for about an hour, a tow truck picked me up and now I am down a vehicle and probably a few hundred bucks. It's a real anti-motivation power move to have your truck break down when your getting so much accomplished. I really don't feel like doing much of anything now. I think I'll order a pizza and shoot some people on Xbox now.

Watch what you post!

Yesterday I learned a lesson about blogging - Sometimes people may read it! My boss called me into his office and asked me if I had some kind of blog. I sheepishly replied "yeah". Apparently someone in management has a google alert so that if someone writes about C**tas it sends him an email. He then reads to content to evaluate it. Apparently, my blog popped up on his alert, but the company filter would not let him read it. So there are a few rumors around work about my indencent blog. Okay, I made up the indecent part, but I was given a bit of a warning. I told my boss that I don't write anything about the company - just him.

Fighting it off!

I kind of feel like I look in this picture. It's been almost 2 weeks now that I have been fighting off a cold. Pardon the pun, but I am just sick of it. I think that one of us will start to get better and then pick it up from the other one. I am starting to think that we need to put ourselves into some type of isolation cell so that we can all get better. That kind of sounds like a cage when it comes to Carver. Social Services would probably get a call on this one. Until I get better, I will just keep pushing forward with life in hopes of not getting others sick and try to keep caught up on projects and work.

24 hours and still going

It's 3am and I have been up since 3:30 yesterday morning with just a short hour nap to keep going. I just got home from work and I need to unwind a bit and I just have to tell this story. The thing that I love about being Children's Ministry the best is hanging out with the kids. When I get the chance, I try to make it to a kids sports game or play or meet to show support and also connect with their parents. One of the girls at the Rock has a huge passion for Gymnastics. She recently told her dad that she really feels God's presence when she is doing gymnastics. She knows that doing this, brings God pleasure. How cool is that! God made us all so unique and different. We may be athletically inclined, or musical or even organization. God gives us all talents to use for him. He loves to see us using these talents and passions. It worked out for me to get off work a little bit early from my first shift to go to her meet today. Being my first meet, I thought it would take 2 maybe 3 hours. Well that stretched into about 5. It seems like a long time, but it was totally worth it. All these girls train for at least 10 hours a week and work extremely hard. It was alot of fun cheering her on and hanging out with her family. This family encourages me so much. I see Godly parents who work hard at teaching good character and Jesus' love to their 5 children. I want to be a dad like that - just not the whole 5 kid part.

Snotfaced and Happy

So this past week has been a long one. All three of us have been sick and our normal babysitters had out of town friends over. Luckily I worked it out to have Friday off for my body to recuperate or at the very least work on some home projects. On Saturday I was wondering if I was going to have enough in me to make it Sunday morning. I don't really have anyone I can call in to cover for me right now, so I was just praying I would get better. Sure enough, God is always faithful. I was feeling good enough to press on. Pretty interesting, I prayed that God would be made strong in my weakness. Then I taught about Shadrach, Meschach and Abenego (I have know idea how they are really spelled - and they aren't there God given names in the first place). You talk about some guys who let God be strong in their weakness. Did God show up before they were put in the fire? Yeah, maybe he gave them the strength to stand. But he really showed Himself when they were engulfed in flames. I wish I had faith like that. Anyways, this morning went really well. I was totally jazzed about teaching kids about Christ and making the right choices. I was excited to teach again at 5:00 at Gold Creek. Well I was excited until I got home and felt like death warmed over. Again I pulled myself together and the service went great. I came home to an empty house - this means I can play Xbox. After killing a few people and getting killed much more I came upstairs to check my temperature. A fever and I feel like junk. But you know what, I love working in Children's Ministry. I have a beautiful son who is teething and growing and walking with some assistance. I have an amazing beautiful wife and God takes care of my needs. Life is good.

Powertools and blood

I worked it out to have 3 day weekend. I really needed it because I have a nasty cold and need the rest. I also have a promised project of tiling the fireplace and building a new mantle to accomplish. So I am laying on the couch watching Horton Hears a Who and Laura breaks out her pink hammer and tools and starts chipping away at the old tile. I don't know if its a guy thing or what, but I see pink tools and I think I can knock that out with some power tools much quicker. So I hand her Carver and find the compressor and tools. I blasted away the old tile in about 30 minutes with my power tools and Non Pink Hammer. At the same time, I managed to shoot tile pieces into my hands and arms so lets just say the underlayment has some character. I despise tiling. After this project, we should be done tiling for a while. I hope.

What do you think?

One of the things I really enjoy doing is sitting in coffee shops and working or playing a game or just hanging out over a cup of joe. My favorite coffee shop is The Spotted Cow. They have good coffee, ice cream and best of all -free wifi. This afternoon I brought my Macbook and some paperwork to work on. I was surrounded by others either reading or working on their computers. The normal protocol is to grab a seat, buy a drink and enjoy the ambiance. You can stay for hours and sip the same coffee or even move on to a glass of water. It's all good. All was well today until the table next to me was empty. At that point a young lady walked into the shop and sat down with some books and a laptop. She was working for a while and I realized, she never got up to get coffee. I thought it was a bit strange. Well after sitting there for almost 2 hours, I realized I better get home. I got up and noticed she did have a cup of coffee. However, it was not from the Spotted Cow - it was Starbucks. Boo...

Life Changes and Goals

The past two years Laura and I have sate down in early January and talked about what we want to accomplish in the next year. Its really strange because so many things have to do with the house and projects. It really makes me feel like an adult. For so long, I yearned for these things - you know responsibility and all. Now I have them and just want to retreat. Retreating is not an option and truthfully not who I want to be. I have a few goals for this next year and I thought I would share them with 3 people who read my blog. Here they are in no particular order:

1. Grow Spiritually : I have become lazy in this and I truly desire for God to change my heart.
2. Spend more time away from Media - less TV more reading, more writing, more time playing with Carver
3. Lose 10 lbs - eating healthier would help this
4. Plan Children's Ministry lessons more than a week ahead of time.
5. Language - This started working in a truck all day long -its bled out and I don't like it
6. I want to have more authentic conversations with my guy friends. Life's to short to just talk about work, sports, kids, church and beer.

A little Poker

I am always up for a good game. It can be Poker, Fill or Bust, Sequence, Killer Bunnies, Time's up, Quelf or just about anything. I get extremely competitive sometimes to the point some people don't want to play with me. I am trying to work on that. Tonight I am playing some good old fashioned Texas Hold Em with the family. It should be fun. Laura's Aunt Laura is in town and she talks some good smack. It's just to bad were not playing for money.

Flopping around

A close friend and relative made a post in December stating something like New Year's Resolutions are dumb, change now. It makes a lot of sense. We often wait for an event to inspire us or give us ar eason to change. When I was in youth group it was always camp or youth retreats or mission trips. Those camp experiences were great. They were extremely moving and all your friends were being inspired as well. However, most of the time those feelings ended up like the gym in February - fleeting. The times when I felt God speaking to me the most, was when I was still before Him. It was when I was open to what He had to say to me. One time I was in church - when you have parents like I do, you were there quite a bit. I felt God telling me to just leave and get away from all the distraction and just be with him. He was telling me that I lost my first love. I had lost my love for him. I was so caught up in life and being a teenager that I failed to let him be the center of it. Another time, when I was 17 I was still before the Lord and I felt him telling me that he had big plans for me. His plan was for me to go into Ministry. I didn't know exactly what that looked like, but hey I went to a big baptist church so I had an idea. Well I am doing that now - serving Christ or "Ministry" that is. Quite a bit of actually, but I want more. I am feeling distracted. My mind is telling me that it is because I am not serving him full time. I am working a full time job during the week and working at two churches serving Him. My mind is telling me that God called me to ministry - so I should be focusing on only that.
This morning on my way to work at 4am I was thinking and talking to God a bit and I was feeling like a fish out of water. As a kid in Miami I fished all the time. My favorite part was the fight. You set the hook, then let your drag out a bit and reel him in. When you finally land him up on the bank you reach down to pull the hook out of his mouth. The fish will always start flopping around. Maybe because he has a hook in his mouth, or because he can't breathe or maybe I'm just scary to look at. The fish is out of his element. He is not where he was designed to be. He was created to be in the water, under the lily pads just swimming around. Well right now, I am that fish out of water. I am not where I am supposed to be. My mind is telling me one thing, but heart is telling me another. It's not because I am not Full time Children's Pastor, its that I not giving God my full time. I am not being open to what He has for me. I am not being humble enough to let Him speak to me. So I don't have any New Years resolutions. They don't stick, just stink and make you feel guilty. I just want to be still before God. I want to listen to what He has for me.

Exciting News at The Rock

Yesterday at The Rock Church we voted in our new Lead Pastor - Scott Fenton. I have no doubt that God has brought him to us and I am excited to see what that is. I am anxious to get to know and work with him. He is very genuine and very passionate about sharing God's love with our community. The past few months have been a challenging time for the dedicated. It has been exciting to see many people step up to the plate in new areas of service. At the same time, I am glad that the Pastor Search Committee, Laura and the Elders can take a step back and not have to meet so often at all those ungodly hours. Welcome Scott and Angela and Elle and Luke!