Band names, pollen allergies, and a video to spare

Thanks for all of the great suggestions for an 80's tribute band name. I will be compiling all of them for the guys to look through. When we settle on one, I'll be sure and post it here.

Evidently, before all this rain began the evil Emperor Pollen arrived. All day long I have been sneezing, hacking, and wiping my nose. Well I guess I'm in for at least three more weeks of misery.

Check out this video of Rob Drydek formerly of the show "Rob & Big". He is always positive, and this clip is no different. "Happy star saved my life!"
I love it.

Two days in a row!

Check out what Tony Morgan, one of the staff guys at Newspring Church, has to say on his blog today. It's some good stuff to think about, especially concerning how willing we are to share the story of what Jesus has done for us.

Tonight I am practicing with Jake, Steven, Rhett, and some of the members of Stealing Scarlet for the 80's music we'll be doing at Relay for Life this year. We need to come up with a name for the band. We were called "Pink Smoke Ring" the only other time we actually played. Pink smoke ring is a cooking term that I saw on a menu at Smoky Bones restaurant in Columbia. We are changing the name due to the fact that people hear Pink Smoke Ring and they think marijuana. Since we're playing old 80's tunes we thought a cool name would be something that would have some 80's significance like, "Biff McFly", "Clubber Lang's Blues", or "Sweep the Leg".

I would love to hear your suggestions for a cheesy band name. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Too good to be true

I am fully aware of the fact that I only posted one entry on the blog last week. This will be the last time that I officially apologize for my lack of blogging. Some weeks I am inspired to write more than others. I know that if I wrote everyday it would be easier for my 3 faithful readers to follow, but I can't promise I'll ever get there. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the sporadic thoughts I do put on here for your enjoyment.

Today I went to eat with a friend at Five Guys Burgers on Pelham Road when something grabbed my attention. Located in the same strip mall as Five Guys is an Italian Ice place called Rita's. The logo for Rita's is what caught my eye. According to the Rita's logo there are three things a person can get inside their establishment, and they are: Ice, Custard, Happiness.

I have no doubt that ice and custard are readily available when you walk in a Rita's anywhere in the country, but happiness?!? Come on now Rita, do you think we are dumb enough to believe that? I just don't think they can stand behind that promise. It makes me wonder if anyone has ever asked for their money back because they were sad when they entered and still were sad as they left. "The French Vanilla frozen custard was amazing, but when I ordered I was grieving the loss of my great aunt Mildred and my golden retriever Lucky who were both tragically killed in a sand storm and now that I'm finished my emotional pain hasn't diminished and it is accompanied by a brain freeze headache." I'd love to hear the response to that.

Just for fun, let's take Rita at her word, if your feeling a little depressed, sad, irritated, edgy, stressed out, or just lethargic head over to Rita's and enjoy a cup of frozen happiness! Tell her I sent you.

Best comment from Friday

Thanks for all the comments to Friday's post about the dumbness of time change. Evidently, there are many of you like me who see yourselves as experts on stupidity. That is actually one of the only topics I would consider myself an expert on.

All of the responses helped make the point, but the one that I think seemed to end the debate altogether was from Carla. I shouldn't be surprised since she is one of the smartest people I know. Her comment was: "-Definitively stating that something is "the dumbest thing in the world" unless you have actually seen everything in the world. ;)" On that note I will just say, case closed.

A few other things you may find interesting:

- Here's something to pray about: as you pray for the new opportunity concerning the land on Hwy. 290, also pray that we will be allowed to continue meeting at Greer High School. It will take some time before we will be able to worship at the new property, and in the meantime we will still need to meet at GHS.

- Bracketology is in full force. The Marshall family will be filling out our NCAA tournament brackets in the next couple of days. Check out this funny set of brackets that my buddy Dave told me about. Personally, I think Alpha-Bits and Golden Grahams are seeded way too low.

- I love being a Dad. Nothing special happened over the weekend to make me write this, I just was thinking a few minutes ago about how cool it is that God lets me have two daughters, not to mention a beautiful wife. I'm pretty sure that was a run-on sentence. My apologies to Dr. Silas Garrison. (freshman English prof.)

Hope your Monday hasn't been too tough. Have a great week!

Dumb and Dumber

You might recall that last Friday I used the space on this blog to remind all of you about the switch to daylight savings time. On Sunday, Blake came to worship tired and made the following statement: "Time change is the dumbest thing in the world". When he was challenged on the truthfulness of the statement instead of simply saying something like, "well it's not the dumbest thing in the world, but I don't like it" or "I don't see the need for it" he steadfastly maintained that there was nothing in the world dumber than moving our clocks ahead one hour.

Here's what I want y'all to do for me just to help me have some fun with Blake: Leave comments on here of things that are dumber (more dumb?) than time change. I'll start you off with a couple:

- smoking crack
- sub-prime mortgages
- giving birth to a child for Michael Jackson
- swimming off the coast of Australia in a wet suit filled with raw meat
- child abuse

I am looking forward to your comments.

Catching up with more random thoughts

I realize that it's already Wednesday, and this is the first blog of the week from me. There's a reason for that, and I will discuss it in my first bullet point now:

- I woke up Monday morning with some kind of funkified virus. The worst part of it was a fever that hit me about 11:00 a.m., that's when I left the office. I came home, got under the electric blanket and stayed there until about 4:00. Yesterday was much better, and today I am back to normal. Well, as normal as I'll ever be.

- We had a great time on Sunday afternoon celebrating the end of basketball season at Pizza Inn with Grace's team. Emily and I coached them this year, and it was fun to see how far the girls came in their ability to dribble, shoot, and pass during the course of the season. The parents were nice enough to give both me and Emily itunes gift cards for coaching this year. Most of mine has already been spent.

- Unleash is tomorrow. For the last couple of years the folks at New Spring Church in Anderson have put on this one day conference. We went last year and it was well worth the time and money. Perry's message during the final session last year was the most relevant and uplifting message directed toward Pastors I had ever heard. I have it on my ipod, and I listen to it every couple of months to be reminded of why I do what I do. I am looking forward to what God has given him to say to us tomorrow.

- Remember to keep praying about the exciting opportunity God has brought us to with the land on Hwy. 290. Pray for wisdom for me and the rest of the team working on the project, and pray that the mission of telling our community about true freedom will be renewed in our hearts. I'll keep you updated on the next steps in the process as they happen.

Spring Forward

This has certainly been an interesting week as far as weather is concerned. Four inches of snow at my house on Sunday evening, and now on Friday it's sunny and warm. The old saying about living in South Carolina is true, "If you don't like the weather here just wait a minute."

The arrival of warmer weather means Spring is not far behind, and that means it's time to move our clocks ahead one hour. I know it's hard to believe, but this Saturday is the night you lose an hour of sleep. The great part is that we'll have more sunlight in the afternoon. That will come in handy for doing yard work, going fishing, or just sitting on the porch. If you're wondering where the idea for changing time came form in the first place you can read all about it here.

Remember to move those clocks ahead so we can see each other Sunday at 10:30!

Buddy and the Snowman

Yesterday Grace and I went out into the snow to slide, throw snow at one another, and just generally have fun. It didn't take us long to realize that there was actually enough snow on the ground to make a snowman! Those of you who live here in the sunny south know that this a rare occurrence.

After several minutes we had made something that could be passed off as a snowman, but it wouldn't win any awards. The snow was not sticking together very well so it was nearly impossible to build the traditional three section (head, thorax, abdomen) snowman made of giant snowballs. Ours was more like a tower that kind of rose out of the ground and came to a point. In the end it ended up looking much more like a real snowman once we added the hat, scarf, and carrot nose that Sherry provided for our creation.

Once we finished Grace gave me specific instructions not to knock it down, because she wanted to see how long it would last before it melted. That leads us to Buddy our spoiled rotten dog. (I am just as guilty of spoiling him as anyone by the way) This morning I took Buddy outside for his morning business, and he couldn't concentrate on the task at hand because of the snowman. He kept looking at it, hopping around, and I realized that he was scared! Of course I tried to help him overcome this irrational fear by dragging him towards the abominable snowman. He didn't like that at all. I finally had to take him to another part of the yard where he couldn't see it so he could do his duty, if you know what I mean.

There's no reason why a healthy dog of Buddy's size should fear a partially melted, pile of snow with sticks for arms and green M&M's for eyes. (We didn't have any coal available) Of course Buddy is a dog and doesn't have the capacity for rational thought. On the other hand, I am a human being that has that ability, and I can be guilty of the same thing. Not fearing snowmen,(If you have that fear please get treated for it) but fearing the unfamiliar and the unknown. How often do I put off doing something because I'm not sure off the result? How often do I let an opportunity to try something new pass by because I've never done it before? I wonder if God thinks I'm being silly, the way I thought Buddy was?

It reminds me of what David wrote in a song a long time ago:

The LORD is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?

That even applies to snowmen.