More... Almost Make Sense

Tobiah's Baptism

So this should've been posted months ago. Better late than never. We baptized Tobiah on April 19th...the week after Easter. It was a really cool day. We had family and friends from all over packing out our tiny church.


Here are the boys in their Ethiopian outfits. Also Pastor Mike actually baptizing Tobiah. Corban wanted to see what was going on. My dad then prayed over us which was very moving. While my dad was praying Tobiah was trying to play in the water. (Corban did the same thing when we baptized him a couple years ago!)














After my dad prayed Pastor Mike held Tobiah and explained the responsibilites of the church had just made in raising Tobiah in a Godly church. I then played a song. It's not popular at all song by Wes King off one of his least popular albums. It's called "There is a God". Basically when we were doing our homestudy way back when we started adopting Corban we were asked..."what is one thing you want your children to learn from you." My answer was "that there is a God that is very real, that loves them." I'll try posting the mp3 at the bottom of this post. Needless to say people were crying (I'm not posting the picture of Mari)



















So then after church we had our close friends and family downstairs for food and fun.



























These are great pictures. On the left is Marjorie's parents and us. On the right is my parents and my grandparents (mom's side).


















This is probably my favorite picture of the day. Tobiah was wiped out. He fell asleep in Mari's mom's arms. We then laid him down in a pack and play in the back room (Corban did the same thing a couple years ago!!!)


Here's the mp3. Wes King-There is a God.mp3

Dead and stuff

6/22 Monday update...a day late

the weekend that was:
-Friday was the last day of VBS. YEAH! I know that I have not been called to do children's ministry. Corban LOVED VBS. He ate it up. He was singing songs and non-stop talking about what he did all morning. That was cool.
-Friday afternoon was naps.
-Friday night was....actually I don't know.
-Saturday we had big plans. None of which ever happened. We ended up rained inside almost all day.
-Sunday morning was Sunday morning....except that two girls from my worship team/youth group sang during the offering. WOW!!! Their voices blend so well and the song they sang rocked.
-Sunday night was ultimate frisbee in the park. More kids this week. Two fields. Really good time.

where i am at the moment: Church. My office is really like a back room that everyone in our church walks in....because there's a bathroom in here too......and a little kiddie size drinking fountain.

on my to-do list this week: I'm speaking at camp tonight. They're having staff training this week and I was asked to speak during chapel. Don't know what I'm saying yet. Also since we're headed to my parents this weekend (and I'm skipping out on leading worship), I really need to pick music today so that my friend Ryan (who graciously is filling in for me even though he doesn't go here normally) can work that out.

procrastinating about: nada

book I'm in the midst of: I'm not slacking anymore!!! I started reading two books this week. I'm re-reading Messy Spirituality by Mike Yaconelli. Actually I'm reading it with my pastor. We're reading a chapter a week and talking about it. I'm stoked to read the book again, but more so to be reading it and discussing it with Mike. I've said it before and will again....I REALLY like my pastor. Since I was in a Mike Yaconelli mood...I thought I would read "Get Fired for the Glory of God". I bought this book last year at the youth convention. I had heard Mike speak this message years ago in some seminars....so I wasn't really looking forward to the book. HOWEVER....that's not what the book is. It's a collection of articles Mike wrote for Youthworker magazine. Actually it's EVERY article he wrote for Youthworker. I used to get that magazine and the first thing I would do is turn to the back to read his article. PLUS....there's a CD/DVD in the back with messages Mike delivered. I totally didn't even know that was in there. I AM STOKED!!!!!!

media that seemed to catch my attention this past week: "Groovin" by The Young Rascals. "Be Lifted High" by Michael W. Smith. I also got our marching band show this fall. Not too bad. I think I need to re-write some percussion stuff to make it sound cooler than it is. Sometimes people who write marching music take a song and think "how can I make this sound like marching band" instead of "let's let the marching band sound like they're playing this song for real".

grand revelations this past week: I know this is going to sound like a "I had a birthday whine" and it's really not. I was made aware this week that my body can't do the same things it did when I was in my early 20's. I played hockey Thursday night and frisbee Sunday night and I felt it.

how i’m feeling about this week: I'm looking forward to speaking tonight. I'm looking forward to seeing my parents and my friend Nancy this weekend.

Comic again

So I have failed at blogging every day this month. This week is VBS. Even though it's only in the morning, it has severely messed up my schedule. The last post I had was a comic and I'm going to go back to back.

Yesterday was my birthday. I hid my birthday on Facebook and didn't get blown up. NICE. Wheeze's birthday is today. In light of these events I give you this funny comic.

6/15 Monday update

the weekend that was:
-Friday was another boys day. I know that we ran some errands or something in the morning, but I don't remember what.
-Friday night I watched the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Detroit Red Wings to win the STANLEY CUP!!!!
-Saturday morning Mari had said she needed to run to the store with a girl from work to pick things up for residents. Before she went, we hit some garage sales with the boys. Good family fun
-When she left, she took Tobiah with her. Corban and I used this time to go on a geocaching hike. We did 5 geocaches and walked 1.2 miles along an old railroad bed. He walked the whole way which was awesome because I really didn't want to carry him.
-Saturday night was special movie night. I lost my phone.
-Sunday morning church. Can I just once again say how much I love my pastor? Also, I get to work with some really cool people on the worship team. I enjoy being with them. I enjoy their company. I actually look forward to practice times on Wed. nights.
-I had to once again sing a special number in church. I'm really hoping some people sign up to do music during the summer....or I'll be doing this a lot.
-Sunday afternoon was spent looking for my phone. I even dumped out the trash bag to look through the trash since Tobiah has been putting things in it. We didn't find my phone, but we did find a matchbox car, and two markers.
-Sunday night I started a summer youth thing. We're really just playing games in a central park. We're just hoping kids show up. Last night we had 15 kids. Most of my regular frisbee players weren't even there. It looks like next week I need to buy more cones so we can play two games at once. Very cool.

where i am at the moment: Home with Corban. VBS this morning.

on my to-do list this week: VBS this week. Need to pick music for the next two weeks. Need to order T-shirts. Need to go talk to a local pastor about using their church in case it rains on Sunday nights.

procrastinating about: probably the last two items.

book I'm in the midst of: I'm slacking. I just can't seem to motivate myself to read.

media that seemed to catch my attention this past week: Hockey games. We watched the The Curious Case of Benjamin Button....it was long and lots of talking. Not the most moral of movies. Some thought provoking things though. Musically, I haven't really been listening to much. I dug out Jars of Clay's "Redemption Songs" and Passion's "Hymns: Ancient and Modern"

grand revelations this past week: Last week my revelation was that I was good at what I do. Even now as I read it it seems like I"m patting myself on the back. This week my revelation is that I should not be doing children's ministry.

how i’m feeling about this week: I really don't want to do VBS. That's all.

Frantic

I am frantic right now.

I'm pretty sure I lost my cell phone.

I have torn our house and one of our vehicles apart. I've even cleaned under the stove. Seriously.

I've checked with the two stores I was last in last night. They don't have it. No one turned it in. I've checked their parking lots. Not only is it not in the parking lot there are not bits of broken cell phone because a car ran over it either.

There are lots of thoughts running through my brain as I process this whole thing.

-There are a lot of people that only have my cell phone number. There are more people that the only way I can contact them is with their number that is also in my cell phone. My guess is that you too have lots of people in your cell that fall into one of those two categories.

-Nine years ago when I came to Warren I didn't have a cell. I worked here for years until I got one. My parents have lived most of their lives without one. I've been without my phone for less than 24 hours and I'm freaking out. What's up with that?

-I'm thinking about the parable of the lost coin in Luke 15. Something about the searching the house carefully resonates with me right now. Also, I'm headed out to our first game night in the park with teens in a little bit. Not sure who's showing up and how it'll go. So the idea of angels rejoicing in heaven over one repenting is on my mind too

The upside to all of this is that my 2 year contract is up. So all I have to do is re-up to another 2 year contract and I get a free phone. The downside is that I can't do that until tomorrow afternoon. So I am incommunicado from the world. Is that so bad?

Random Saturday

-So you hear stories of people hoarding money. Stuffing it in mattresses or hiding it in walls. In Israel a loving daughter bought her mom a new mattress and pitched her old one. Then found out her mom had put about a million dollars in the mattress. Frantic searches through 3 local dumps ensued. No money yet. Anyone for a trip to Israel?

-Speaking of weird stories that don't happen in real life.....how about getting hit by a meteor. That doesn't happen right? Guess again. Some kid in Germany has a scar that says differently. For real. He got hit by a meteor. Now that's a story that you can take with you for the rest of your life. So how'd you get that scar.....

-Liar liar pants on fire. Literally.

-Since the Pittsburgh Penguins are the Stanley Cup Champions......I thought it might be fun to look at the coolest trophy in sports. The Cup started as just a bowl donated by Lord Stanley of Preston to be awarded to the best hockey club in Canada. Things change. Rings are added. Name engraved. Here's more info you can look at on your own. My favorite parts are the screw ups and the "firsts" about the cup. Like how would you feel having your name misspelled....on something that will be there forever? Also in the history of the Cup there have only been 4 engraves who work on the cup. AND there are two guys who take turns being with the cup 24 hours a day 365 days a year. Cool job.

-Wheeze's brother Jeff called the Pens in 7.

-What if the Disney Princess stories either didn't go the way the movies did? What if the happy endings weren't the happy endings. That's what artist Dina Goldstein looks to find out. This is humorous and sad at the same time.

-Just in case you weren't sure if it was day time or night time.....there's this.

-In the "I'm not sure how I found this category. This kid creates cool art from traffic cones and barrels....and gets arrested. Come to find out that they don't want you to deface stuff like that. Odd. The link is like a forum....you need to scroll about 3/4 of the way down the page to see a bunch of different stuff he's done. He's an artist I'll give him that.

-I sometimes wish "The Force" was real so I could make small objects like my phone float across the room to me. OR I could just be lazy.

-And finally this girl is going to wear the same dress for an entire year. Gross. But she's spicing it up a bit. See for yourself.

VANDALS!

Sunday was going to be a long day. I knew that. I had the whole church thing like normal, but I was singing special music. Then we were driving 3 hours. I was having a hard time getting excited about the day as I was getting ready for church. Then I heard Marjorie from downstairs...."Aaron you need to come here and see this."

Ugh. What now? Why can't she just take care of it. I'm already running late. Fine. "Is it really important?" "Yes". "Ok be right there."

Upon arriving downstairs I find that she is standing in the front doorway with Tobiah in her arms and Corban is outside yelling, "Come see. Come see Dad."

This is what we found.














So some teenagers in the middle of the night VANDALIZED my van.......with really cool stuff. If you can't read it in the pictures it said stuff like "You're Amazing Aaron." "I love you" "Pastor Aaron Rocks". Kind of cool to be vandalized like that.

So I wiped off the two front windows so I wouldn't wreck on the way to church. Since we had a 3 hour drive and were crossing an international boarder I planned on washing the rest off before we left. What ended up happening was that I got all of the stuff off the sides of the van, but it started down pouring. I didn't get the back of the van.

It was possible the coolest drive to Canada EVER. As cars would pass they would look in to see who Pastor Aaron was and why he rocked. It was funny to see some of their faces when they got a look at me. I know I don't look like your typical pastor. Some waved. Some honked. It was as if I was a rockstar.

Here's the funny part....no teens have confessed to doing it. All the usual culprits know nothing about it.....or so they say.

RSS Feed

I know I'm usually a little late to the game. This is probably no exception. I just thought I'd throw it out there in case anyone's not using one yet, I'd save you some time in your life.

You'll notice in the right column there's a little "Subscribe in a Reader" button. This is to assist you in hooking up an RSS feed. What is an RSS feed?

Well you could wikipedia it. I have found that wikipedia is horrible for internet and tech stuff....because the people that write those articles are the guru's of how it works...and thus explain it in terms that are hard to grasp. Let me break it down for you.

Instead of spending time jumping from blog to blog to see if someone has updated recently....a reader allows you to see who has updated recently...all in the same page. So if I normally follow 15 blogs. Instead of going each one individually I just go into my reader (I use Google reader and have been very happy with it) and it shows me that of the 15 blogs I follow 3 have new posts and shows you the posts....you can also follow the link to the actual blog to read the full post if you'd like too. It saves TONS of time.

With Google reader, you just put in the web address and it follows it for you. You can also apply this other other websites, but I mainly just use it for blogs that I want to follow. Real simple. Saves time. What's not to like?

Thanks to Pastor Matt for suggesting I give this a try. You rock!

Experiment

Corban has always loved "experiments". Since he could was tiny. He loves doing the vinegar and baking soda volcano. We have done magic milk with him. We've done tons of stuff.

Back in April Corban had a birthday. My good friend Wheeze (Anneliese), who the boys call Auntie always buys the coolest gifts. She scours the neither regions looking for the right things for everyone. This year she hit the ball out of the park.

She bought Corban a butterfly garden. Basically it's just a mesh tube. But you send away for caterpillars and watch the entire transformation process. She also got him a book about the whole process. He LOVES books too....so we all learned together.

We waited until a couple weeks ago to get the caterpillars. Where we live, in April it can still snow....so we though we'd give the butterflies a fighting chance.


This is the little container we got with our caterpillars. They stayed in their container until they were in their chrysalis form. He's also studying to be a model.









Here's the empty container. Those little balls....are....yep....you guessed it....poo. And here are our chrysalis. We didn't follow the directions at this stage. We didn't like how it was suppose to be fastened. So we duct taped it up.









After a little more than a week....WE HAVE BUTTERFLIES!!! This morning all 5 had come out of their chrysalis. It was time to let them go. Not all of them wanted to leave, so I needed to lend a hand. Corban was SO EXCITED!

Coffee and the next level

I'm trying to blog every day in June. As previously stated we were in Canada the last couple days. On the way home I took some allergy medicine and it's putting me to sleep. No brain power to write a real blog post. So i drank coffee. So I'll tell you about coffee.

- My friend J bought me some cheap Starbucks coffee at Walmart. Problem was they were whole beans. Then the more I thought about it....I SHOULD HAVE A GRINDER! What kind of coffee drinker doesn't have his own grinder? So I started searching. Problem #2...I'm a cheapskate. My in-laws however found me a grinder for free. And now I'm rocking some sweet dark blend coffee. Thank you J. Thank you in-laws. Now I'm looking around for whole bean coffees just so I have a reason to use my grinder! I'm all about it.

-My family thinks I'm completely addicted to coffee. Honestly I drink two cups in the morning...and usually that's it. I might go to the coffee shop to work on a Tuesday or Wednesday, but I've recently not been doing that either. Occasionally I'll have a cup if I need to be super focused at night.....but rarely. HOWEVER...when we go to my parents house or to Mari's parents....they make me coffee all the time. If there's coffee, I'll drink it. I won't make it for myself, but I'll drink it. So they all think I drink LOTS of coffee when in reality I don't.

-Decaf is silly. It's like fat-free ice cream. It's like salads at McDonalds. However, because I love the taste of coffee, I just bought some decaf so I can have a cup occassionally at night and not stay up until 1 am.

-Canada is full of coffee addicts. I went to pick up donuts the other morning and there was a line of cars out of the parking lot.....people just waiting to get their Tim Horton's.

-Also....Tim Horton's in Canada rips it's citizens off. The sizes are all messed up. Our medium coffee in the states is their large. Roughly the same prices though. So you're paying for much less. SILLY!

-Make more coffee. Click here.

Get Your Groove On

Some people are followers. Some people are trend setters. Get your groove on.

6/8 Monday update

the weekend that was:
-Friday was Ok. Tobiah's physical therapist came to the house in the morning. The guy had broken his foot and hasn't been around for a month or so.
-Friday night was graduation. This year is weird. I know more seniors than any other time in my youth ministry career. Good to see them.
-Saturday was busy. Up early and rolling. Graduation party. Left there and drove hard to Erie to make it to an outdoor wedding at Presque Isle.....which was gorgeous! Great day for it. Then it was shopping and Chic-Fillet.
-Saturday night was hockey game. After watching the Pens come back to tie the series 2-2, Saturday's game was just stupid. It actually wasn't a game at all. Boring hockey.
-Sunday as I was getting ready for church Mari called me downstairs to "see this". Yeah some of my lovely graduating class had written all over the windows of our van with that "write on the windows of your vehicle" paint. It was cool vandalism though. It was stuff like "Pastor Aaron rocks." "We love you" "Amazing Man".
-Sunday was church. I sang God of this City. It IS NOT a Chris Tomlin song. It's a Bluetree song that Chris Tomlin swipped and changed. Bluetree's lyrics are much better. That's the version I sang (however I used Tomlin's chords)
-After church was headed for Canada. Before we left I was washing the windows on the van when it started to rain. I got all the side windows but the back window that said "Pastor Aaron rocks" had to stay. So the whole drive people passing us kept looking in the van to see who Pastor Aaron was. It was like being a rock star.

where i am at the moment: NOT AT HOME!!!! Right this minute I'm at Marjorie's sister's house. But in a short time we're leaving.....and we're leaving our boys here!!!! Mari and I have a B&B tonight at Niagara-on-the-Lake (which is a B&B community with quaint shoping and lots of history and forts near by). We have today and most of tomorrow to ourselves. HEAVEN!

on my to-do list this week: We're not going home until Tuesday night or more likely Wed. So I'm not doing squat until then. Music for this week. Call some people.

procrastinating about: I'm good to go.

book I'm in the midst of: I'm blanking on what it's called. It's a book about CS Lewis.

media that seemed to catch my attention this past week: Other than hockey games I've been pretty busy this week. I have really been into this Madness CD I got at Salvation Army Thrift Store for a buck. Corban loves to dance in his car seat to it.

grand revelations this past week: I'm good at what I do. I don't say this because I'm patting myself on the back. I'm usually my own worst critic. This week through a variety of things that happened, I just felt like I'm not horrible at this ministry gig.

how i’m feeling about this week: I love my wife. I love vacation. I love no responsibilities. Should be a good first part of the week. It'll take me the second half of the week to get back into a routine....EASY GOING!

Communion Thought

Odd thought today as I was taking communion. This didn't happen, but I imagined it happening....and it raised questions....of the stupid sort.

We were taking the bread. It was actually bread. I had gum in my mouth. What if the bread got mixed in with my gum? Would I be mad? At what? So Jesus body is now mixed in with my gum. Do I swallow all of that? If not, is that a problem? Usually when food gets mixed in with my gum it gets all nasty. The gum has to be thrown out immediately. So in this scenario....can I throw it out? Could I throw out my "Jesus Gum"? Am I throwing out the body of Christ too? Do I neatly wrap the body of Christ up in a corner of my bulletin?

What happens if you throw that grape juice back and you choke on it and spew Jesus blood all over the lady in front of you?

Ok I"m done.

cool

Random Saturday

-A couple weeks ago I said that I was going to start carrying around a little notebook. I did. It's been working really well. So last weekend we went on a long weekend to Canada. When we got home I couldn't find it. I found it.........as I pulled it out of the back pocket of some shorts that had already gone through the wash!

-One of the most recognized voices in NHL broadcasting is Mike "Doc" Emerick. He has done the Play-by-Play for A LOT of big hockey games. He's all over the place. So for whatever reason I wikipedia'd him. So yeah...he taught broadcasting at Geneva College at one point!

-Most of us use Wikipedia at least occasionally right? Well what if Wikipedia was a real encyclopedia. Artist Rob Matthews wanted to find out. He printed out all the featured article on Wikipedia and bound them in a giant book. Remember these are only the featured articles.

-We live in a modern world. This story killed me though....Police investigate underage drinking...dude takes off on a 3 mile chase...driving his horse and buggy. No need for a chopper to follow this one. It's not like they were going to ram him. The best part is that this is like one county over and up from us. Awesome.

-In other news of the stupid....a woman in California sued Pepsi (parent company?) because she found out that there weren't any actual berries in Crunchberry cereal. Um yeah. This is for real. Luckily it was thrown out. The judge said anyone with any common sense would've know there are no berries. In other news....the judge said however that Frankenberry was the only cereal with real berries (not really).

-I hope the person who started this Tumblr keeps it up. It rules. It's pictures of people who should be happy but who forget to smile. Pretty funny.

-What if we could just summarize hours of watching a movie into 3 frames of hand drawn art? That would be great. Think of all the time we'd save. How about it. 3 Frame Movies. I like Star Wars.

-For the crayon freak in me....washable crayon rings.

It took me two watches before I really understood what was going on here

Jesus Name

I had one of the coolest opportunities that I've ever had in ministry this past Sunday night. I got to speak at my high school's baccalaureate service. For those who don't know, it's a worship service for graduating seniors. Since moving back to Warren 9 years ago I've really wanted to be asked to speak.

Honestly once asked I started worrying about what needed to be said. Having the opportunity to speak at the school I graduated from and tell them about Jesus seemed to weigh pretty heavy on me. I wrestled a lot with my message....literally wrote it an hour beforehand on Sunday.

The long and the short of the message was really just the Gospel of Jesus. That God did this crazy thing by sending his son to die for us. That Jesus called us to love God first, then those around us. The God LOVES you. I said that last phrase a lot.

I was definitely a different sort of speaker than anything they've had before I think.....I didn't introduce myself or say how happy I was to be there. I just walked up and took the wireless mike and started pacing the stage and telling a story about me getting hit in the head with a ceiling fan. Not your normal pastorly message.

The result though has been very cool. A girl in my youth group talked with a friend of her for a couple hours about who God is. That other girl considers herself an atheist, but wants to talk to me about some questions she has about who God is. I got an e-mail two nights ago from a friend who was talking to the father of a senior...his son and another boy talked about my message for an hour afterward.

I say all of this not to float my own boat....because I had nothing to do with it. I'm more and more convinced that Jesus is what people are looking for. When they are presented with truth, they will always gravitate toward it.

Another "do something" ad

I heard a radio ad today. Once again my heart was crushed.

UNICEF is doing a push to help end children dying from preventable causes. I loved the ad. Their new push is called I Believe In Zero. The gist is that 25,000 children die every day from things that are totally preventable....it's just that no one does anything about it. So they want to see 25,000 turn into 0.

So I came home and checked their website. Not bad. I'm all for anyone who's going to bring light to hunger, starvation, etc. that's going on.

Today

I hope you have (will continue to) enjoyed National Fist Bump Day.

Please hear me when I say that this is definitely one of the most ridiculous things I've read/heard/etc. Talk about idol worship.

I think if anything we need a national head butt day.

Don't they know that Fist Bump is out?

Almost Makes Sense

I don't know how I find some things. Honestly. This is one of them.

It's called Almost Makes Sense .com. This guy just draws cartoons about things he thinks up. I laugh a lot. It's all clean. Just goofy. I spent a lot of time going through his archive. Wow. Really good stuff. (Just a note....I really don't think most of May's comics are that good...so if you click on that link it'll take you to the frontpage....go back in the archives at least a month or so.)Be prepared to see more of these comics on this blog in the future. For now, here are some funny ones...

6/1 Monday update

the weekend that was:
-Friday was pretty normal. Boy day. Errands. I decided late Thursday night that I was going to surprise Mari by taking her out for dinner. I lined up a babysitter Thursday night...but we need to get flowers!
-So Mari and I went out for really good Mexican food. We then went to Salvation Army thrift store where I actually found some shirts!
-Saturday was odd. Mari had signed up for this program called "Women in the Outdoors" a month or so ago. So she left us at like 8 am. So that left me with the boys for the 3rd straight day. BUT WE HAD A PLAN!
-I packed the boys up and we went to Auntie's house (Wheeze). We played at her house in the morning. Corban loved to use her elliptical. We then went to see Grandma Ledebur and Wheeze's parents. Then it was off to hotdogs for lunch. The boys actually took naps in the afternoon after some time on the playground. Then it was more play before we took off for home.
-Saturday night was the first game of the Stanley Cup. Pens lose.
-Sunday morning was pretty much Sunday morning....except that for Sunday school we all just met together and ate donuts and talked. I liked that.
-Sunday afternoon was spent thinking a lot and driving to Jamestown trying to think about what I needed to say Sunday night.
-Sunday night was really cool. I had the opportunity to speak at my high schools baccalaureate service. I've been wanting to speak there for the past 9 years since coming back to Warren. I believe I gave a pretty clear message of God's love for us. I know that I was unconventional from what they usually have. I think I'm the first youth pastor to speak there....possibly ever. Usually they get some senior pastor. No offense....but a lot of senior pastors have forgotten what it's like to be a teenager.
-Sunday night Pens lose again....now down in the series 0-2. It's not looking good.

where i am at the moment: Home. However I'm stoked for next Monday's update because I'll have something other than "Home" to post!!!!

on my to-do list this week: Pick music for this week and next week. I need to meet with some people and contact other people about doing some special music this summer at church.

procrastinating about: I think I'm in a pretty good place right now. I don't know that I'm procrastinating at the moment....or maybe I am but I'm just ignoring it!

book I'm in the midst of: As you may have noticed I've been in quite the funk lately. I'd like to believe that I"m getting out of it. With that, I'm hoping to do some reading. Actually there are couple of books I'm thinking of re-reading.

media that seemed to catch my attention this past week: I've been watching hockey. Mari and I saw two good movies this weekend. Miracle at St. Anna was the first one. It's a Spike Lee movie, but don't let that scare you. This is not your typical Spike Lee movie. It's set in WWII with the Buffalo Soldiers. Cool plot line throughout. I love history particularly this time period. Saw the ending coming, but loved it anyway. The second movie we watched was Seven Pounds staring Will Smith. I have to be honest with you...I had no clue what was going on in this movie most of the way through it. By about the 3/4 mark, I started getting it. By the end I was in love with it. Really good.

grand revelations this past week: I'm a hypocrite.

how i’m feeling about this week: Since I'm not sure what this week will hold I have no reservations. I am looking forward to another Canadian vacation with my wife next week....so full steam ahead!!!!