Back!  Sorta …

It’s been awhile since any real interesting updates other than various news items I personally found interesting.  Probably because there’s more interesting stuff happening in the world than in our own lives.   Both of us have been busy with work and other things that we haven’t really been able to take a break or take a vacation together.  Thankfully we know some folk down at Virginia Beach and were able to stay with them for a long weekend getaway last week.  The weather was nice, the food was great and it was relaxing.  Unfortunately, we really only took two photos of our trip:

As you can see Sharka had a good time.    Some of the other highlights of our beach trip include:

• Chewy learning how to play a kids violin with some of the other adults.  I ended up playing Dig Dug Deeper with the kids.  This way the kids wouldn’t try and steal the violin bows from the adults who were trying to play.
• The beach was what I remembered growing up as a kid: crowded and cold water temps.  I miss Hawaii’s warm waters.
• We ate at Cracker Barrel.  The first for one of those among us.
• We watched Bring it On: All or Nothing – The first one wasn’t bad and I’d admit this one wasn’t that bad either though it basically was the same thing.
• The Redskins lost to the Panthers 3-47 … ARRRRRGGGG!  No Pizza For Us!
• Driving home only took 4 hours including 30 minutes for lunch at a Chic-fil-A.  Which I just noticed.  Chick-fil-A is having a Labor Day promotion!  Wear any football logo and get 3 chicken strips for Free!
• I suck a bowling.  My excuse is that the lanes were dirty and I couldn’t slide on my planting foot.  I think that fact caused me to pull a muscle in my hip.
• I thought I was competitive.  I was outdone.

More random stuff that’s happened over the past week that probably needs commenting or mentioning …

• The International Space Stations computers had a virus on it.
• Skins lost to the Jags 3-24.  Again no pizza!!!!!  That’s a total of 6 points in two weeks.  Doesn’t look good for the season opener.
• 250GB cap is COMCASTIC!  Comcast will implement a 250GB bandwidth cap starting October 1st.  Man I luv me some FIOS.
• After the Skins vs Jags game I watched Obama’s acceptance speech at the DNC.  Talk about Rock Star setting.  I must admit the event was historic as he is the first minority nominated to be a parties Presidential candidate.  I applaud his hard work and enduring spirit.  I did find his speech somewhat misleading and “self-centric”.  There was just too much about what will be done for the “self” – it’s all about “me, me, me.”  No not about Obama but about us as individuals and how us as individuals need catering to and made to feel important.  When will the US begin to look to the world and it’s responsibility to those less fortunate than the US.  Oh wait.  It’s all about US.  (You get the dual meaning?)  Don’t think I’m just bashing Obama because I typically do.  He’s a politician just like McCain and I expect the same from him.  We’ll see after his speech what happens.
• With all the buzz about Obama’s historic nomination what does McCain do?  He announces his VP who is none other than the Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin!  A woman VP choice who just took the winds out of Obama’s sails.  Smooth move McCain.  Smooth move.
• A friend organized an outing to see Batman: The Dark Knight at our local IMAX.  IT WAS HUGE!!!  Like 90ft by 60ft HUGE!  Movie was most excellent!  Highly recommended.  Right now it’s a toss up between Iron Man and this movie as best of the year for me.
• After the movie we wandered around DC looking for food and ended up at California Tortella.  A bitter reminder that we need to eat at this place every so often only to remind us how much better Chipotle is!
• Interesting article about sermon style in the Post.  I think I would have liked to have heard a few of them.  Typically I enjoy an expository style sermon but I do find pop-culture/life application sermons refreshing as well.

Was wondering when this would happen.

Yep It’s Monday …

• We got our fix of pizza tonight.  Papa John’s Redskins pizza – 2 toppings wheat crust pizza.  One touchdown but they won so we got our standard two-topping pizza (pineapple and ham) but this time with their new wheat crust.  I sorta thought it was like eating unleavened bread.  I think I prefer their original crust better.  But hey, wheat is healthier right?
• Finally watched the Obama/McCain Civil Talk with Rick Warren last night.  Even though I started to watch it pretty late at night, it was so compelling I couldn’t turn it off.  If you’re thinking about who to vote for I strongly encourage you to watch the video feeds that are still available off of CNN.com’s website or by just going to the article I linked to.  My overall thoughts:
• McCain laughs like Mike Myers.
• McCain looks like Dr. Evil.  Then I realized all that stiff body language was because of his time spent in that rope prison he described and the torture he endured.  He’s still kinda pasty though.
• Before going into the interview I thought Obama was much more articulate than he actually is.  I don’t understand how all the media outlets are saying Obama was great when to the average Joe (me) he seemed extremely ill-prepared and contradictory when not giving a canned speech.  Too much stuttering, “ummms” and time taken when answering questions.  It was like he was trying to look for the “correct” responses to say to please the audience rather than speak with conviction.  It really made him look inexperienced, scared and morally weak.  When he becomes President I hope he’s not like that before other heads of state.  I can just see him doing that and his actions and words causing some international incident because of some silly misunderstanding.
• Obama has no idea on how to dodge a question and gave some extremely bad answers (“It’s above my pay grade.” – duh!  We’re not talking about now but when you become President) 
• McCain on the other hand had this natural flow to what he said.  He seemed prepared, that he has actually thought out many ideas and situations that plague this country and the world.  Even when he dodges the question he puts his spin on it.
• McCain uses too many military references, especially to the current conflict in Iraqi.  He needs to tone that down a bit.
• Rick Warren seemed to treat both candidates differently.  He asked the same questions which was smart but the atmosphere he created for each candidate was different.  With Obama it was this close, sorta brotherhood relationship.  They were buddy-buddy, laughing, carrying on and the questions actually were given more detail (as in to help his thought process out more).  With McCain, it seemed like Warren was giving him this elder respect thing.  Not so many jokes or carrying on even though McCain was trying to show he had personality.  Probably my only down mark for the whole show.  They tried to make it fair and balanced but in terms of atmosphere I don’t think it was.  Granted I don’t think that changed the way each candidate came through though.  McCain definitely did better than Obama.
• I don’t know them but the person who took the pictures, I just read his web-comic.  What a wedding idea. 
  I don’t think we could have gotten away with that.  200+ older
  generation Chinese dressing up?  Yeah, not gonna happen.  Some really
  nice costumes.  The Tie-Fighter and the Captain Pike are probably the
  best.  I’ve seen the character with the burlap bag for a face before
  and just don’t know if he’s supposed to be Scarecrow or not.
• Michael Phelps won 8 Gold medals.  Unless you’ve been living in a cave I’m sure you’ve heard it already.  But the odd thing is as a Baltimore native he doesn’t make the “O” emphasis when the National Anthem is played.

All You Need Is Two For A Fellowship

If you missed it, both Obama and McCain were interviewed by Rick Warren, the author of The Purpose Driven Life, last night on CNN. I still have to watch the actual interview but I found this to be a great example of encouragement between believers and even more reason to be part of a fellowship:

Do we ever show our faith during times of persecution?  I find it a great reminder to read this while also hearing a similar message today at church. 

I wonder what God is telling me …

Please Lucas Take My Money …

• Had the day off since I had gotten my schedule mixed up thinking that this was our churches retreat weekend.  With all the running around and increase in work load over the past few months it was nice to just have nothing to do except to take the car to the shop for some scheduled maintenance and to watch the new Star Wars movie: The Clone Wars.  First reaction to the movie was that it wasn’t that bad.  I enjoyed it but I could tell it was geared more towards the 8-12 age group and not as gritty as the Cartoon Network Clone Wars episodes.  The movie did a good job in expanding the universe and bridging the gap between Episode 2, the CN: Clone Wars episodes and Episode 3.  The animation was interesting only because it was all CG but they made some of the coloring look like it was done with a paint brush.  It was definitely an interesting style of animation.
• Funniest thing I heard was before the movie started.  Sitting in front
  of me was an obvious Star Wars fan. Keep in mind we can generalize the
  fandom as either being skinny with glasses or greasy and rotund.  Dude
  matched the latter category.  During the pre-previews they showed a
  clip of the upcoming “Biggest Loser”
  season.  After the clip was over the dude said “That’s the dumbest
  thing I ever heard of.”  I almost broke out laughing thinking of the
  irony involved in the situation.
• Keeping with the Star Wars theme … WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THIS?!?  WHY!!!

We’re away for one weekend and look what happens …

• At first he denied it.  Then he admits to it while everyone is watching the Olympics.  Tricky, tricky.
• Russia invades Georgia!  Man, I was thinking “Where’s Patrick Swayze when you need him?“
• The Orioles let Tampa claim Chad Bradford off of waivers (aka Post-trade deadline trade) for the the infamous “Player to be named later.”  I should get a jersey with that phrase on it.  Even with Bradford playing well and the O’s not having a consistent bullpen since Albers went down this move was just to free up some cash so they can purpose some free agents this winter.
• The Chesapeak Bay Bridge was snarled with traffic because a tractor-trailer plunged off of the side.  The driver was killed.  Apparently, a 19-year old caused the accident due to falling asleep at the wheel with potentially alchol consumption being a factor. 
• The Celebrity Death Trifecta has started!  First it was Bernie Mac, who of all the Kings of Comedy I find the funniest and he was in the 2007 Transformers movie.  Then it was Isaac Hayes of “Shaft” and “Chef” fame.  I wonder what his phaeton level was.  So who’s next?  I have some thoughts but I won’t reveal them, just yet.
• Lastly, the Olympics are only a few days old and there’s ALREADY SCANDAL!!! First the feet then the girl.  Oh, those crafty Chinese.

Church Advancement This Weekend

Chewy and I attended our church’s retreat this weekend.  I use the word “advancement” in the title only because of what my best friend, who is a non-believer, said to me several years ago.  That went something like: If it’s an event that is supposed to help you grow spiritually then why use the word retreat?  Retreat in a military sense means to draw back so why would you want to withdraw spiritually?  Yes, it does make sense.  However, we believers see these “retreats” as methods to help a person grow in their spiritual walk while retreating from our normal day life.  Personally, I like the idea that it’s a spiritual advancement and the focus of the event.  No retreating for me. 

From a spiritual teaching aspect, I really enjoyed the “Walk Through the Old Testament” program and the worship time. Even the food was half decent this year.  Not that it was planned but we were both pretty anti-social during this retreat.  Yeah, not the best thing during a church retreat.  Most of it I blame on our work schedule.  Chewy’s just been grinding the stone these last several months and I’ve just been busier than normal as well.  If anything I did catch up on my sleep this weekend.  That’s something I doubt I’d ever would have said some 10 years ago.

Some memorable phrases said during the retreat:

• Do you ever feel like Moses?  Which one?  The one who felt like he couldn’t do anything or the one who saved God’s people?  (That being a paraphrase)  Not that I ever compared myself to Moses but there are a lot of times that I shrink before a God given challenge.  Moses on the other hand got through it.  I just shrink.
• This is an example of when the minority was correct (in reference to Caleb and the 12 spies).  I snicker only because of some theological decisions our church is going through.  The group that I side with some how got labeled the “minority.” 
• Some liberal pastor said that the place where the Jews crossed the Red Sea was only 4-inches deep.  Then a lady in the audience said “What a miracle!”  The pastor asked why and her response was that it was a miracle that the Egyptian soldiers drowned in 4 inches of water. (Yet another paraphrase)

Common Sense: 1 – Stupidity: 675,456,235

Yeah for Canada!  No orange safety plug for YOU!

More Twists and Turns …

• More interesting news about the Berwyn Heights Major and his package of weed.
• Are we even open to Christianity?

YOU STILL HAVE TIME!!!!

To order your Papa John’s Redskins Monday Special.  They demolished the Colts last night 30-16 with 4 touchdowns.  Each TD is one topping and a win means double the toppings!.  EIGHT TOPPINGS!!!