I Hate...

The other night I bought Cinnamon Rolls. I don’t know why I did this because I hate one part of making Cinnamon Rolls and that means I hate making them all together. But I sure do love to eat them. I like to open Cinnamon rolls because they make a popping noise that usually scares Jessica and I think makes her pee a little. I also like baking them because I really don’t have to do anything besides sit on the coach and watch basketball and wait for the timer to go off. But the part I really hate, the process that ruins Cinnamon rolls for me every time is the application of the frosting. Frosting a hot batch of Cinnamon might be the most frustrating thing I’ve done this week. I hate it. I can’t ever get frosting into all the little crevasses (hehe…crevasses is a really funny word). This is no new problem. I have hated frosting Cinnamon rolls since I can remember. This time was the worst though because the frosting was all hard and I felt like I was spreading a piece of steak on a roll. It just doesn’t work.

This whole process made think of all the things I hate and I came to the conclusion that the reason for hating these things was really quite ridiculous. So I decided to tell you about some of the things I hate. Some of them are meaningless and I should probably just forget about them but some of the others I will hate until I die. This isn’t meant to be a rant or anything like that. It is just weird to think of how we come to conclusions some times.

1. I hate frosting Cinnamon rolls. (already explained)

2. I hate tying my shoes because eventually they are going to come untied and I will just have to tie them again. So why not let them hang loose?

3. I hate making my bed because I am just going to get in it again in approximately 17 hours. Making it is just a waste of time.

4. I hate cleaning the toilet because every time I finish I immediately have to pee and I destroy my work.

5. I hate running because walking is just easier.

6. I hate walking because the birds get to fly.

7. I hate doing my hair because putting gel in it makes my hand feel like I grabbed onto a big dead slimy fish that smelled like chemicals.

8. I hate having long hair because then I have to do something with it and I already explained that I hate doing my hair and if I don’t do my hair it looks like a mommy bird and her baby birds live in a nest on top of my head.

9. I hate scooping liter boxes because it makes me want to barf every time and because no one has to scoop my liter and I think cats should be self cleaning.

10. I hate my pillow sometimes because it gets to lie in bed all day and I don’t.

11. I hate shaving because by the end of the day I feel my face and realize I didn’t really accomplish anything.

12. I hate broccoli salad because it is made up of three overwhelmingly repulsive things; broccoli, yellow raisins, and a dressing that smells and tastes like puke. (It also makes you puke)

13. I hate Chocolate milk because in grade school I once had a carton that was expired and tasted like band aids.

14. I hate sitting in a chair that isn’t facing the door because I am afraid someone will sneak up behind me a give me a John Wilkes Booth.

15. I hate sleeping furthest away from the door because I want to get in a fight sometimes and I don’t want my wife to get into a fight before I do. Oh yeah and I want to protect my wife from harm too.

16. I hate when worship leaders read the Book of Psalm and put special verbal emphasis on the word ‘Selah’ to make it sound more spiritual because ‘Selah’ is a musical term and isn’t meant to be said out loud. It’s like reading a hymnal and saying “treble cleft” every time you see one.

17. I hate cheese that isn’t melted because I used to eat craft singles as a snack and then I had a bad piece of cheese and it made me violently ill.

18. I hate most Christmas music because most Christmas music has nothing to do with what Christmas is all about.

19. I hate leftovers because when they sit in the fridge they get all solid and weird looking. They kind of look like the stuff that Orks emerge from in Lord of the Rings and who wants to eat that?

20. I hate Michigan U-turns because who wants to drive in the opposite direction of where they are going in order to get where they are going.

21. I hate fanny packs because the people who wear them rarely wear them on their fannys.

22. I hate roller-skating (not rollerblading) because it reminds me of when I used to like the song “Don’t go chasing Waterfalls” by TLC. I used to belt that song at the top of my lungs at roller-skating parties in fourth grade.

I hate day planners because they are a conspiracy by boring people to rid the world of spontaneity and fun.

23.

24. I hate Microsoft Excel because it makes me feel like an idiot every time I use it.

25. I hate the Loop on the top of the back pleat on button-down shirts because no one knows what it is used for and nobody even knows what it’s actually called.

26. I hate that I hate so many dumb things for so many dumb reasons.

And the list goes on and on. It is weird how past experiences and presuppositions impact how we make decisions and how we feel. Since making this list I have been informed of an easier way to frost cinnamon rolls. You take the frosting and put it on the oven while the rolls are baking so that it isn’t hard anymore. Then you just take a spoon full, or a dollop if you will, and place one on each roll. Then the frosting flows down the roll like a river flowing down the side of a mountain filling in all the crevasses (hehe…still funny) and killing all the tiny mountain dwellers trying to find gold in a small stream. Don’t judge me because I was honest about the things that bother me. You all know you have your own little quirks. So what irks you? Thanks for reading!

Booth Didn't Stop Me...

I don’t particularly like the theatre. I think it has something to do with guys wearing makeup and fake stairs on the set that go to nowhere. (Any path that goes nowhere frustrates me) It might also have something to do with the fact that I am an Abraham Lincoln fan and Abraham Lincoln was shot in a theatre. Every time I go to the theatre and hear a loud noise I instinctively look behind me to make sure a relative of John Wilkes Booth didn’t just try to shoot me in the head.

Despite my dislike of most theatre productions I will occasionally see one that I like. Last Friday, Jessica and I went to go see a production of “All Shook Up” at Jimtown High School. A student from the youth group was performing so despite my hesitation we went. I was hesitant to go for a couple of reasons. First, as I have already explained, I don’t like the theatre. Second, this was a musical. That makes it even worse than just a regular play because the music is usually so loud I can’t hear John Wilkes Booth XXVI sneak up behind me. Third, it was a High School musical. That usually means people who don’t really have any talent try to sing, dance and act. And when you go to a musical at a High School you always get the song “We’re all in this together” stuck in your head for some reason. Fourth, I was hesitant to go because I was feeling a little gaseous and that doesn’t bode well for confined areas with lots of people around.

I was pleasantly surprised that this High School actually had some talented singers who acted and danced. The show, although very long, was actually very good. It made me laugh, tap my foot, sing along and at times it made me a bit uncomfortable. The musical was a collection of songs by Elvis that included Jail House Rock, Heartbreak Hotel, One Night With You, Blue Suede shoes, and Burning Love. All these songs left me with the impression that they just don’t make music like they used to. It also made me want to buy leather jackets and a West Coast Chopper for Jessica and I to ride off into the sun on as we belted out “Love Me Tender” at the top of our lungs.

The basic premise of the story is that Chad, a hip-swiveling, guitar-playing roustabout, is released from prison and comes to a small quiet town with music in his soul and dancing in his feet. Apparently Chad has Super powers and can fix broken juke boxes with his mind and make people fall in love at the drop of a hat. Chad’s arrival in the town causes an uproar because a dictator-esk mayor won’t let anyone in her town dance, fall in love, neck (that means make out, by the way, I like that rule), swivel their hips, or let their hair stand more than 3 centimeters off their head. The rest of the play consists of people finding joy in life again and replacing a list of rules for love. Even the mean old mayor falls in love in the end. My favorite character was Dennis. He looked like a guy who watched the Weather Channel a lot and knew too much about different types of wood. I guess the only reason I liked him was because he talked funny and was always the underdog but still somehow managed to get a girl in the end.

At intermission Jessica and I sat and drank pop and at chips we paid way too much for as we talked about how we wish we were born in a different era so we could listen to oldies all the time and roll our pant legs up and not get laughed at. We also noticed all the high school kids around. Is it just me or did high school students get a lot younger and more immature since I’ve my days at Rockford High? Maybe I was just as immature and small but thought I was big and cool. And what is up with guys wearing tight pants that they tuck into their brightly colored high tops? Who started that fashion? I think some really popular guy had all his clothes in the wash one morning so he had to borrow his sisters pants, his brothers shoes (his brother who happened to be Ronald McDonald and had an extra pair of size 24 neon colored clown shoes lying around), and then went to Pac Sun before school to buy a pink v-neck t-shirt that wouldn’t fit my nephew Atreyu that weighs less than 8 pounds. That’s probably how it started.

After intermission the musical started to get a little weird. The main character, Chad, fell in love with a guy named Ed who wasn’t really a guy at all but a girl named Natalie who was trying to win the affection of Chad by dressing like a guy and coloring a fake beard on her face. I don’t know why you would dress up like a guy to do that but it worked out pretty well for her. Next, the Stalin-like Mayor had an electric guitar duel with Chad while she wore a red kilt and angels and demons dressed like the Fonz danced around and taunted each other. To make things worse they were dueling with guitars that had no strings on them and to a song that didn’t have a guitar part to it. (Plus they mimicked an “E” chord the whole time and everyone knows you don’t have a guitar duel when you can only play one chord.)

However, the musical redeemed itself in the end when everyone who was in love married a person they weren’t pursuing but obviously belonged with. The whole thing was a bizarre, musically sweet rendition of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night made that much better by a guy in the dance crew who didn’t really know what he was doing but got on stage and danced like an old man made completely out of wood and a little bit of rubber because his girlfriend told him too. (That was the guy I watched when I got bored with the rest of the production.) If you want a full review of the play you can look it up on Wikipedia. Oh yeah, and no one tried to sneak in to the theatre and shoot the president…or me for that matter. Thanks for reading!

I Realized...

I realized a few things today. First I realized that having left over, flat Mountain Dew for breakfast with no food in your stomach before you go lifting is a bad idea. Second, I realized that most of the eighth graders I know would trade all of their life’s savings, their parent’s house, their neighbor’s dog, and their best friend’s kidney and left big toe for one Monster. Third, I realized that I hadn’t updated my blog in a week. I realized this because one of my friends and fellow blogie (one who blogs) told me that when he tried to view my blog it freaked out and directed him to a hundred different websites. I had a similar experience when I went to check out the problem except instead of sending me to a different website my computer started yelling at me in different languages and shot quarters out of the CD drive at my face! (Okay, that last part might be an exaggeration…)Anyways, I’m sorry if any of you experienced technical difficulties when trying to access this page. They should all be fixed now.

The reason I haven’t updated my blog in a while is because I haven’t been feeling too creative lately. I drove the short bus for the school two days last week and I think when you drive the short bus you get uncreative, start to wear sweat pants in public places, listen to too much talk radio, and start stopping at rail road crossings for no reason… even when you are jogging. (Short Bus Driving effects may vary in severity from person to person.) But I haven’t driven the short bus for like four or five days now so I think my creative juices are starting to flow. (What are creative juices? Can you drink them? Do they smell bad?)

Jessica and I went to visit my sister and brother-in-law again in Chicago. Okay, we really went to visit their son Atreyu but it was nice to see all of them in the mean time. And since we were headed to Chicago we decided to get lost twice just for traditions sake. I know what question you are all dying to ask so I’ll go ahead and answer it for you. No, Atreyu has not started riding animals yet nor has he started to perfect his shot from behind the ark. In fact, he just sits there and eats, poops, farts, burps, sleeps, and gets the hiccups. So basically he has the life every man on the face of the planet wishes they had. He doesn’t even have to change his own clothes. Man, was I so jealous. So on Saturday when Atreyu was sleeping, farting, eating pooping, burping, and getting the hiccups the rest of us went shopping. Or I should say the girls went shopping and I followed them around from store to store like a lost puppy who was hoping someone walked him past a store that sold something with at least a hint of masculinity. That happened as soon as soon as we stopped for lunch in the food quart.

You see every time I go to Chicago I like to get an authentic slice of Chicago style pizza. So, obviously my food quart choice was Sbarro’s. (Thank you Michael Scott) After the pizza the wandering continued. I realized that shopping was invented for women. For those of you guys who think you like shopping; you’re wrong. You like buying things. Shopping is not buying things. Shopping is wandering around a mall wishing you could buy things. While the ladies shopped I had a good time people watching. I saw a guy with a huge mullet (undoubtedly coming from a wrestling tournament), two girls wearing full soccer gear (seriously, couldn’t they wait to go to the mall when they weren’t covered in grass stains and girl sweat? And where do you play soccer outside in early march when there is still snow on the ground?), and a guy wearing his pants around his knees and carrying more chains around his neck than all the dogs in West Virginian combined. After the mall we returned to my sister’s house and played Mexican trains until dinner.

After dinner we headed down stairs for the concert. When I say concert I mean six adults playing Sing Star and Rock Band. When our family gets together we do several embarrassing things but to the outside world the most embarrassing has to be when we try to sing and play instruments together. We started off slow with a few tunes by Lifehouse and Whitney Houston but the party really got started when we created a playlist of Brittany Spears, M.C. Hammer, and Vanilla Ice. I realized two things that night. First, the 80’s were not kind to Whitney and her hair. Second, a tone deaf, mute, Amish guy who has never heard any music besides hymns in his whole life could rap better than me; but nobody can play Bon Jovi’s ‘Dead or Alive’ on a fake plastic guitar with their eyes closed better than I can.

So my weekend of realizations wasn’t long but it was fun. And while I was driving back to Elkhart without getting lost I had one more realization. What you do with the time you have with your family doesn’t matter all that much because people watching, shopping, and doing embarrassing things with your family is a whole lot better than people watching, shopping, and doing embarrassing things without them. We worry too much about having some fantastic event planned for when we have company and we forget that the reason the company wants to come over in the first place is so they can just spend time with us. Don’t let planned events ruin quality time and cherish every moment you get to spend with those you love because you can’t ever get them back. Well that’s enough realizing for one blog. I’m gonna go buy a Mountain Dew with the quarters my computer gave me. (Drinking Mountain Dew on a full stomach before you do nothing is a good idea…but that’s not a realization. It’s just common sense.)Thanks for reading!

Read...Read...(Snore)...Read

Secondhand Jesus

Trading Rumors of God for a first hand Faith
By: Glenn Packiam

I read a lot of books. That might make me sound like a really smart person but don’t be deceived, I’m not a really smart person. I am a person who likes to look really smart so I buy a lot of books and put them on my book shelves. But I’m not a wasteful person so when I spend the money to buy books and put them on my shelf to make me look smart I also read them. When I go into a book store I am like a kid in a toy store who passes up the plain old brown football for the Nerf gun that has 64 triggers, can shoot underwater, is painted bright orange with lightning bolts and can also make you coffee and fix you breakfast. I only want the books that are bright and shiny and have interesting covers. I just finished reading Secondhand Jesus by Glenn Packiam. I don’t know how this book got on my shelf. It doesn’t have a flashy cover or a super clever title so the reason I picked it up and started reading it is beyond my comprehension. I have a running theory. I believe that a really boring person came in my office and thought that my books were to brightly colored so he added a dull one to the bunch to balance out the excitement.

My favorite books are those that I argue against. I find that I grow the most when I read books that cause me to think or cause me to rethink and retest by belief structure. They are covered in my own hand writing where I argue against the writer and some hair brained idea presented in the text. Secondhand Jesus is a bit safe for my liking. Safe like going skateboarding with two matresses strapped to your body for protection. Sure you don't get hurt, but you can't move enough to learn any new tricks either. The author didn’t cause me to stretch or to consider a way of thinking other than my own. Usually I read a book in a week or less but this one took me three to finish because I kept falling asleep reading it. If you are looking for a book that confirms what you already know or believe then I would defiantly give it a read but if you are looking to grow and test your faith look elsewhere.

In this book, Glenn Packiam unpacks the idea that most Christians accept what they hear from the pulpit or other books as truth and never really discover God on their own. He uses several examples concerning the Ark of the Covenant to show that some have accepted rumors of God as truth. The idea and theme of this book is a good one, Christians do need to seek and understand God for themselves, but the book seems a little repetitive and some of the evidence he uses to prove his point is sketchy at best.

In one chapter the author combats the rumor that God is please with our goodness. He uses a passage of Scripture from 1 Samuel 6 where God slaughtered a whole mess of guys because they looked in the Ark to prove his point. Packiam has this to say about why the men died, “Now, here’s the punch: To lift the cover of the Ark of the Covenant is to stare the law of God in the face without the cover of blood. It is to say that you are holy enough, good enough, to handle God’s law without the mercy of God’s forgiveness or the atoning power of the blood.” (This is where I started writing in by book and yelling at the author.)This verse preaches really well but adds some facts that just aren’t there. First of all, we don’t know that the Ten Commandments were the only thing in the Ark so how do we know they were opening it just to look at the law? Second, God has killed lots of people for touching the Ark who didn’t even try to look inside it. I understand that no one was, is, or ever will be good enough to fulfill the whole law, but this section of scripture says nothing about that. It says God struck down men because they tried to look inside the Ark. They died because they directly disobeyed God’s commandments concerning how to handle the Ark. (Read Numbers 4, specifically verse 15 where God tells them a certain family is to carry it a certain way so that no one else touches the Holy objects and dies.) The men who carried the Ark weren’t good enough on their own to approach God or his law either but they didn’t die. This part of the book is really a stretch.

I tried to think of some good quotes from this book that would be helpful to others but all the ones I came up with were quotes Packiam took from other books by other authors. This book as some cool stories about what happened in his church and the author writes some beautiful worship songs but you can get the gist of his message by reading Acts 17:10-12 (About the Bereans and their desire to know God’s Word personally) in combination with the works of C.S. Lewis (Particularly The Problem of Pain, The Weight of Glory, and Mere Christianity which are quoted numerous times in Secondhand Jesus.)After you get done with those go to a Christian book store and pick out the brightest colored book you can find and read it with discernment. I think the experience will be extremely valuable for you. While you do that I will make sure that sneaky boring guy doesn’t put anymore ‘safe’ books on my shelf. Thanks for reading!

Babies Smell Good

There were approximately 216,000 babies born yesterday. That’s 150 babies every minute. (And because of that fact I bought 1000 shares of Huggies’ stock and I am retiring tomorrow.) Only one of those 216,000 babies born was important. I know some people will argue over this point but those people can go write their own blog…Okay, all the rest of the babies were important too and every human life is equally valuable in God’s eyes. I’m not disputing that but only one can be the best baby born on February 23, 2010 and that baby is my nephew.

Atreyu Douglas White was born at 6:20 in the morning yesterday. Shortly thereafter he dunked his first basketball and rode his first bull. He is the adopted son of my sister Kara and brother in law Chad. Now I know what you’re thinking, “Atreyu? Where did that come from?” I thought the exact same thing. The name actually comes from a movie that was a favorite of mine and my two siblings when we were kids, “The Neverending Story”. (The name of this movie never made any sense to me for two reasons. First, the movie ended so obviously it was never ending. Second, there was a sequel. How can there be a sequel to a story that doesn’t end?) Anyways, Atreyu is the main character who rides on that weird looking albino flying dog thing. So naturally we expect my nephew to grow up and have the ability to control animals with his mind, talk to animals, and ride anything that moves without a saddle. (Which he has already proven true by riding that bull.) I also expect to call him Trey, which means eventually he will play basketball for Michigan State and knock down three pointers with his eyes closed.

Jessica and I left after work last night to drive over to Hobart, Indiana where Atreyu was born. This means we had to drive towards Chicago…and every time we drive towards Chicago something goes wrong. This time we were driving down IN-2 and noticed a flock of police cars flying past us. (Yes, police officers travel in flocks, not packs.) They were headed toward an accident scene further up the road. When we approached the accident we realized that there were actually several flocks of police cars. (Actually they would be called a gaggle at this point because they were no longer flying.) I speculate that a gas truck exploded and created a huge crater in the ground where the police found a massive oil field and decided to keep the oil to themselves so the surrounded the crater with their cars. Needless to say, due to the crater the road was closed and we had to find another way around. So we traveled into the wilderness that is northern Indiana. I swear we passed sights that were used in the filming of “Deliverance”. I even saw a guy sitting on a tree branch playing the dueling banjos song by himself.

Somewhere along the way I couldn’t help but thinking, “My camera is being shipped from Chicago to Elkhart right now. I bet that UPS truck I just passed is carrying my camera. That’s ironic.” Eventually we worked our way out of the deep south and found IN-2 again. After we retrieved dinner from McDonalds (by the way Shamrock shakes are back and they are delicious) we got lost…but only for like 5 minutes. When we finally made it to the hospital I decided I was never traveling toward Chicago coming from the west again.

We were ushered up to Atreyu’s room by my brother in law and I got to hold my nephew for the first time. Come to think of it, that was the first time I had ever held a new born. If you have never held a new born before let me tell what it’s like. You hold them kind of like you hold a very expensive vase that you got for your wedding from a guy that has more money than he knows what to do with. You hold them tight but not too tight because like that vase, they are the most valuable thing you have ever touched. And while you hold them you look at it you think, “Wow! This was created by the most imaginative and wonderful artist ever!” You slowly start to realize that the vase you once held isn’t that valuable after all. The most valuable things in life are the people you love and the God who created them. You also realize that babies smell really good…until they poop their pants.

As a newlywed holding my first nephew in my arms I started to understand the great privilege and great responsibility it is to father a child. I also saw the look on my sister’s and brother in law’s face as they held their child. It was a mix of excitement, fatigue, and “Whoa…I’m a parent…what do I do now?” It gave me a greater appreciation for my parents. I am convinced that no couple in the history of the world is or was ever completely ready for parenthood. Despite this my parents made the choice to trust God with their children and raise them has He commanded. That choice created a godly legacy that gathered around a bassinet last night and marveled at the new addition to our family. Thank you Mom and Dad for your obedience to our heavenly father and His Word.

After we all took our turn talking to Atreyu in that annoying but appropriate baby voice and Yvonne (my other sister) took 5,486,653 pictures of his tiny baby feet, we all headed for our various sleeping facilities. Jessica and I had to drive back to Elkhart. That means that we had another opportunity to get lost. But we were smart this time. We took the toll road the whole way home instead of saving the $3.25 and taking the winding back roads that always get us lost.

Despite a four hour round trip and getting lost a couple times I came to one positive conclusion; Life is sacred and valuable. Okay, maybe I came to more than one conclusion but that was the most important one. The others include; holding a 7 pound baby for an extended period of time is a great workout, baby poop is made up of 90% pine tar and 10% digested food, and baby’s heads are shaped funny because their skull bones haven’t developed yet. I love Atreyu and can’t wait to teach him how to wrestle, burp, fart, snowboard, gut a deer, love bacon, eat more pizza than is advisable in one sitting, and to write sweet blogs. Thanks for reading!

Making Lemonade

There is a popular quote, “When life hands you lemons make lemonade.” Well…on Tuesday, life didn’t so much hand me lemons as much as it threw them at my unsuspecting face. And I don’t really feel like making lemonade because some of the lemons are still orbiting, waiting to make their final attack. So instead of making a delicious beverage I am going to follow another famous quote, “When life throws lemons at your head blog about it and then curl up and take a nap.”

Tuesday was supposed to be an adventure, the type of adventure where the participants travel to a far away land on the back of a unicorn to find a wonderful feast waiting for them. It was not supposed to be the type of adventure where the participants travel through the worst weather possible, get lost in a jungle, get chased by cannibalistic tribesmen (tribesmen who wear nothing but loin clothes and want to eat your pet dog named Snickers), trip over a log and sprain their ankles, get to the feast late, find out they don’t have a seat, and then only get to eat scraps of the wonderful feast that is being held. Then they finally arrive home after a three hour car ride in a blizzard they realize they left their camera in the coat check back at the feast. This adventure I am talking about was a Switchfoot concert in Chicago. And there weren’t really any half naked tribesmen but there might as well have been.

The drive to Chicago was actually pretty pleasant. We didn’t get lost at all and I found out that Shamrock Shakes are back at McDonalds. The only down side to this part of the trip was that I had to listen to country music AND a Josh Groban Christmas CD because I was out voted by the three girls that accompanied me. The problems started as we approached Chicago. It was rush hour, which means we saw old men with walkers passing us on the expressway. We finally found our exit and GPS took over (by GPS I mean Brittany Marshall’s sense of direction in the otherwise confusing concrete jungle that is down town Chicago). She gave me all the right directions, I just missed them. And every time I had to loop back around because of one way streets stress level rose. We finally decided to leave our car in a parking lot that doubled as a McDonalds. It cost $12 an hour to park there but if you bought food you got one free hour. After parking and leaving the car and walking a couple blacks we decided it was to expensive to park at the McParksalot and moved the car to a Walgreens where parking was free but not allowed for long periods of time. We risked it anyway.

We finally made it to the House of Blues where the concert was at about 7:15pm (It actually started at 7:00pm). When we entered the HOB we were frisked and the security guard found that I was concealing a camera (which for some ridiculous reason was banned from the concert). So he made me pay $5 to check my camera at the coat check where a lady who had already had too much to drink and could barely speak English handed me a ticket to remind me to pick up my belongings. I put the ticket in my wallet and moved on. As we climbed the 18 flights of stairs it takes to reach the venue we started to hear the screams of a dying cat mixed with the crying of 2 year old with a harmonica stuck in her wind pipe. When we reached the top we realized that the sound was actually coming from the opening band called “Paper Tongues.” There were no seats, and there was no standing room left within sight of the stage so we wondered around until the screaming stopped and I bought a t-shirt and a CD. We finally found a spot to stand right behind a giant pillar where we had to watch most of the concert on a 19” LCD screen and were constantly distracted by dozens of flashes from the cameras no one were supposed to have.

Switchfoot was amazing! And the lead singer Jon Foreman almost made up for our horrendous view by climbing around the old opera house like a cat with monkey fingers and a really good health insurance policy. They played almost every song of their new album “Hello Hurricane” and even left time for the older unforgettable Switchfoot anthems like “Gone” and “Dare you to Move”. Our eyes were blocked from seeing most of the show by four elderly men trying to reclaim their youth by head banging and some sort of seizure dancing but our ears were reminded that Switchfoot is one of the most talented, creative, and entertaining bands touring today. (If you haven’t picked up their new album you should be ashamed of yourself.) I would not recommend seeing a popular band in concert at the House of blues because they just don’t have the capacity or enough good site lines to be considered a great venue.

When the concert ended and Switchfoot took their final bows we made a dash for the exits because we were all tired of standing on our toes trying to get a glimpse of Foreman swinging his guitar above his head and we desperately desired the comfortable seats of the Malibu. Also, we were all secretly racing back to the Walgreens in hopes that we would get there before our car was towed. On our way out I ran right past the now fully drunk Asian lady at the coat check with my ticket still out of sight in my right butt pocket. We got back to the car a pulled away from the Walgreens before anyone stopped us and charged us for parking. We got out of the city quickly enough but it was on the expressway that I made a navigational error. I exited the expressway 60 miles before I was supposed to. (To bad GPS, a.k.a. Brittany Marshall, doesn’t work out side of Chicago.) I was on the right road, just way to early. So instead of cruising down I-94 at 70 mph we were stuck behind a livestock truck on a back country road going 40.

When we got past Michigan City the blizzard hit. Apparently, cutting out Indiana’s snow plowing budget was the way the state battled unemployment this year because none of the roads (expressways or back roads) had been touched. And if they had it was by a teenager with two ice skates stuck to sideways to the bottom of his car. I am thankful for those two ice skates because they made enough of a two track for me to tell which way the road was turning. It took us 3.5 hours to complete a trip that should have only taken 2 hours. When we got home I realized our camera was still with the Asian lady in Chicago and didn’t care enough to lose any sleep over it.

So here I sit three days later drinking Sprite because I’m to bitter to make real lemonade and holding a coat check ticket that is worth the price of my camera + the cost of shipping that camera from Chicago to Elkhart + the $5 I spend to check the camera in the first place all the while thinking that a glass of lemonade actually tastes pretty good right now and that a nap isn’t really necessary. I was in a bad mood Tuesday because the concert didn’t go the way I thought it would. Today, I am laughing at myself because of all the stupid errors I made that caused the concert to not go the way I expected it to. Sometimes stressful situations make us realize that the lemons life threw at us were actually lemonade the whole time and that God was splashing us in the face to wake us up and help us take ourselves less seriously. ‘Cause once you get past the stinging in your eyes, being splashed in the face with lemonade is actually pretty funny. Thanks for reading!

Valentine's Day

Valentine’s day has been around for years…over a thousand actually. It is the reason we have the colors pink and red, the reason we have little hearts with stupid messages on them, the reason guys hate roses, the reason so many people are born in November and the reason some grown men get a chance to wear a diaper, shoot a bow and arrow while pretending to fly if only for one day. But now Valentine’s Day has come and gone again. Those of you who are glad it’s gone probably don’t even call it Valentine’s day. You probably call it something lame like Singles Awareness Day to make yourself feel better about not getting anything. For those of you who like V-Day, I hesitate even writing this blog because it might cast a shadow over your wonderful Valentine’s experience. But the truth must be told…

Most people believe that Valentine’s Day was born to remember some old priests who eventually became martyrs on February 14^th, 269. I do not want to make light of sacrifice of these men and their devotion to the Lord but I must say that this is not the true origin of Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day is the result of the World Holiday Summit of 1329. The summit was held in what used to be known as the City of Corinth and was the Brain Child of Valerie Smith and Alfred Tines. The purpose of the Summit was to create a new holiday between Christmas and Easter. They invited their mutual friend Guy Lasier to help argue their case.

You see Valerie was an elementary aged teacher who simply wanted a day off from teaching where she could just let her students eat candy and write notes to each other all day without consequences. Alfred Tines was the owner of a small greeting card company that desired to make their name (originally Wallscratch but changed to Hallmark when popularity grew) known around the world. Guy was simply that…a guy…a guy who was sick of treating his girlfriend properly all year long and desired to have just one day to make her feel really special so he could ignore her needs the rest of the year.

These three plotted together to come up with a holiday that would accomplish all of their goals. They gave the holiday the name Val and Tines Day which was eventually shortened and changed to Valentine’s Day. They used the story of three martyrs killed on February 14^th to cover up their true selfish motives, provide them with a convenient date, and validate their holiday’s name (the three martyrs all shared the name of Saint Valentine). The publicized theme of their holiday was celebrating love. They got the idea from 1 Corinthians 13 which is of course the love chapter of the Bible and is part of a larger “love” letter written to the people of Corinth where this fraudulent summit was held.

With no reason to do otherwise, the jury, conveniently made up of 10 catholic priests and two candy heart makers, voted to make Valentine’s Day and Internationally celebrated Holiday. Ever Since that fateful day, those of us who celebrate Valentine’s Day follow in the footsteps of its creators. Guys drive frantically to the grocery store to buy roses for their wives and girlfriends before all the not-so-wilted ones are gone and hope to find some clearance sale candy before it’s too late. Teachers sit back and watch little Sally give Timmy a heart shaped Valentine. Then they watch Sally run crying to the girl’s bathroom because Timmy used her Valentine to wipe his nose and clean the dog poop of the bottom of his shoe. And worst of all, Greeting Card companies sit back and watch billions of dollars roll into their pockets as people of all ages pay $5.95 for a card that took $0.04 to make in a factory in Japan.

Well I’ve had enough! By all means celebrate Valentine’s Day! Make it special! Spend $50 on roses that won’t last two weeks. But don’t let be any excuse to be lazy the rest of the year. Maybe, you can celebrate Valentines on another day too. Maybe you can treat your wife, girlfriend, husband, boyfriend, mom, dad, dog, pet rock, lizard, broom in the closet, hamster, or package of bacon like you love them every day of the year and not just on February 14^th. It’s just like Sundays at church. If you don’t acknowledge God the rest of the week, do expect to catch up on your worship on Sundays. Happy Val and Tines day! Thanks for Reading!

Post Script: The Story Posted Here in no way reflects reality. I made it up…for fun…because I thought the real version was boring…and I like to make up stories…and eat bacon…and……………….fart sometimes.

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