Surviving

This week will be very different for me and Ephriam. Faith and K.C. are in Florida for the week. We all drove down to TN to see Faith's family and her, K.C., and her mom flew out on Sat. morning. Ephriam and I spent the rest of the weekend with Faith's dad. Ephriam and I then drove back home on Sunday so that I could go back to work.

So this week, Ephriam gets to spend the day with grandpa all day until I pick him up after work. I think that he knows that his mommy is gone, but he doesn't say anything or react to it. He stays pretty well entertained so he doesn't think about it all of the time. He has been a very good boy so far, even on the drive home. We have one more trip by ourselves to pick Faith up and then the car rides will be much better again.

I miss them both a lot, but my one big bonus for the week is that I have more free time after Ephriam goes to bed at 8 PM. I don't have to feed and chase after K.C. so I am getting a lot done around the house. Yesterday, I cut the grass, cleaned up the kitchen, and folded laundry. I still have a lot more to do, but I have 3 more nights to do it all. I am hoping to have the house caught up before we leave on Friday.

So that ends my posting drought. If we stay not busy at work, I will probably post more later.

-c

The Busiest Weekend

This past weekend has definitely been my busiest weekend of the year and I wasn't even at all of the events. Faith had more going on, I just had to watch the kids for a while. Here is the recap.

Friday
Started with Mark coming over for dinner and an EDGECORE Meeting (Thats Youth Leadership). We transitioned into Fantasy Baseball draft for about an hour and then back to more Youth Meeting. That all completed around 11 PM and then we hung out for a while and Mark and I watched the new James Bond Movie - 'Casino Royale' Very good movie.

Saturday
Slept until 10 and and went to help my friend with his computer wireless network problems until about 1. Rescured Ephriam from the baby shower that Faith was at and went home and he took a nap. Hung out with Mark for a while and watched 'SWAT' while Ephriam slept. Gave Ephriam some lunch when he woke up and waited for Faith to come home from the party. When Faith got back, I headed out to get the oil changed and make a little run to the grocery. I returned in time to pack the car back up with the children to go to my nephews' combined birthday party. We all finally returned home about 10 PM and crashed.

Sunday
The kids were sleeping in so Faith went to church and I stayed home to take care of the children. After church I got some work done in the yard before Faith went to do the real grocery shopping. Ephriam napped while K.C. played on the floor and I worked on some things in the house. She went down for a nap and Ephriam woke up so we went and played outside while I got the grill ready to cook steaks for dinner. We ate dinner and then left to drop the kids off at Matt and Heather's before heading over to Youth Group. We had Frontline Bible study and finished up the series on the Wheel. Then for the EDGE we all walked down to Flubs and ate ice cream. Picked up the kids around 9 and returned home around 10. Bathed the kids and showered then we crashed too.

All in a full weekend let me tell ya. Hopefully most weekend will not be this busy.

-c

Baseball is almost here!!!!

I am very psyched up this week because Friday is my Fantasy Baseball League Draft night. I will spend the next several days creating my draft sheet to determine who I want to draft for my team. A little more than a week after that is Opening Day. I will finally have a sporting event to look forward to. My Bearcats were a doormat this year and didn't make any tournaments. So they were done for this season about the time that they gave Huggins the boot. I look for them to improve because Mick Cronin is a good recruiter, but it will take some time. It was just weird not following college ball this winter. At least the tournament has been putting up some good games to watch.

But now it is time for Spring, warm weather, popcorn, peanuts, and cracker jacks. I can honestly say I don't care if I ever go back. So bring on the big leaguers and hopefully I will have a good draft on Friday.

-c

Spring Cleaning

If you are like me, you actually look forward to Spring Cleaning. I may not like the cleaning part so much, but I like the warm weather returning and I like to open up my house and make it smell nice again. Its time to shake off the stanky Winter. Here is an article about different things that you should remember to do when doing Spring Cleaning.

How to Organize Spring Cleaning

Springtime is the traditional time to remove the winter blues from your home and make it ready for the long days of summer fun. It's also a good exercise in taking stock of your home and its contents. Just make sure that you share the work--and the credit for a job well done.....more

Neflix Hackers Article

Here is an interesting article that I came across about The Rise of the Netflix Hackers:

In less than 10 years, Netflix has grown into a $700 million DVD rental
powerhouse, shipping more than 1.5 million DVDs a day to its base of 6.3 million
subscribers. But the very systems that have made Netflix so successful --
everything from its sophisticated recommendation engine to a profit-maximizing
formula that determines which subscribers get movies first -- have proven
irresistible to hackers, who are constantly looking for new ways to crack,
manipulate and reverse-engineer the company.

Case in point: Just weeks
after Netflix took its first, long-awaited steps into the digital delivery arena
by rolling out its Watch Now
instant viewing feature, which allows users to stream some movies and TV shows
over the internet, one hacker claims to have figured out how to bypass the
mechanism that tracks and limits a subscriber's viewing time.

Read More Here

MidWeek - Summer trying to return.

Not a whole lot to report so far this week other than Summer decided to return here temporarily. It was 79 degrees here yesterday and they are calling for a chance for snow this weekend. The whole family went for a nice walk yesterday after dinner. K.C. took her first ride sitting up in the double stroller. She really enjoys being outside. Ephriam had fun too. He is going to be a lot of fun to play with outside this year. The other day we kicked a ball around outside while I was manning the grill. He just gets a little bit excited. Well I will enjoy the warm weather while it is here. Hopefully the warm weather will return quickly.

-c

Is it Springtime yet?

So we are only a few weeks from what I consider the unofficial beginning of Spring - MLB Opening Day. As far as I am concerned, if Baseball is being played, then it is Spring. Now I just want it to get warm and it is going to start kicking into the warming trend around here this weekend. It is supposed to hit 60 this weekend. I am really looking forward to Sunny with a high of 75, but I will take all that I can get in the short term.

My fantasy baseball draft is coming up here soon. Hopefully I can make a good run like I did last year only I won't have to win my way through the playoffs. Its always a lot of fun until your team is stuck in the basement. So at least it is fun until June for most of us.

So here is to warmer weather and cookouts........

-C

I'm Back!!!!!

Ok, so it has been several days since I wrote here, but for a change I actually have a good excuse. Last Thursday, I logged in to blog about something and it would not let me because my blog had been marked as a spam blog. It would only let me write drafts. So I had to wait 2 days for Blogger to examine my blog and then unlock it. So Saturday it finally unlocked, but I was way too busy this weekend to to update anything, so now you get this and hopefully more later.

The Afternoon Lull

So I am kickin it at work right now. Not too busy, just chillin and have to do some work every once in a while. This probably means my phone will start ringing off the hook here any minute. I am currently jamming to the Family Force. I am still riding pretty high from their concert on Saturday. It gets me so pumped up about Ichthus. I have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about all of the projects I want to do. Here are some of the things that have been rolling through my brain. I need to purchase and install some closet organizers so that we can fit more crap in our closets. I want to build a little project and play table for Ephriam big enough to put his GeoTrax set on and play with his cars. I am also getting my ideas together for painting this spring and summer. That is all short term projects I hope. I have a lot of ideas for the basement too, but I can't afford to do it all at once and time is always a major factor. Ok, well my phone is starting to ring again. There is my thought of the day.

Xanadu

Here is a pic from the Concert on Saturday. Me, Xanadu from FF5, and my bro Mark. Xanadu is there professional dancer/ hype man/ roadie. He's a cool cat.

Slammin!!!!

Ok, so I typically update this everyday from work and occasionally on the weekends, but we have been getting killed at work. Its amazing what the change in Daylight Savings Time dates does to really screw up Microsoft Outlook Calendars. I haven't had much time to even think let alone Blog. So I will give you the recap of the last several days.

Saturday my wife and I were able to experience something we hadn't had in a very long time. A night with no children!!!!! Ephriam stayed with his Uncle Matt and Aunt Heather for the night and K.C. stayed with Grandma and Grandpa. We got to take our Youth Kids to a concert featuring Decyfer Down, Fireflight, Family Force 5 and Disciple. It was Faith's first concert in over 2 years because she didn't have to stay home with the children. It was a blast. We mainly went to see Family Force 5. They put on a pretty wild show. Disciple was really impressive too. I had never seen them live before. We had a good time and our kids had a blast. The only rough part of th night was that we had to stand in the freezing rain outside for 45 minutes before going in. There were 8 of us all huddled under an umbrella and icicles were forming on the ends. But it was well worth it.

Sunday we had to get the kids back and we ran the nursery during church this week. The family took naps after church and I cooked dinner and got ready for the Frontline Bible Study and Youth Group. We had a good crowd show up for the final week of the Dateability series. Thanks to Justin Lookado for the help on that one. It's good stuff and the kids had a good time with it. They especially liked the quizzes. YG seems to be in a very good development state right now. It took a while for things to recover from Winter break, but it is really starting to pick up. We have some kids that are really getting excited about things and I feel like they are really soaking up the teaching. So I am very encouraged right now with the way things are going. I pray it continues and that our ministry can very extremely effective. Its all about the PDYM - props to Doug Fields and the crew out at Saddleback.

Well, lets see what this week has in store.

The Great Birthday Adventure

Yesterday was my 28th Birthday. It turned out to be quite the eventful evening. My wife had run out to the store to purchase the new TobyMac album for me and was supposed to meet me back home to go to my Parent's house. As I was at home waiting for her, I get a phone call from my dad. Faith was at Target and she had a flat tire. She had called from a payphone because she forgot to take her cell phone. Did you know that pay phones cost 50 Cents now? Crazy!! So I headed out to Target to rescue her. I changed the tire and put the donut on the van and graciously accepted my birthday present from her. I then drove the van to have the tire repaired or replaced and made it in just before the shop closed. So I will be able to pick it up today and everything will be back in business. The hardest part was figuring out how to get all of the tools in and out of the vehicle in their convenient storage location. I still haven't put the Jack back yet. I will probably do that this weekend. So there is my fun story. Here are pics of the flat in the back of the van and the donut.

Power restored 15 years after Hurricane.

Have you ever lost the power in your house during a storm for a few hours? It can really suck when you can't get into the fridge or you lose your AC or heat. The biggest thing that I miss during a power outage is the Internet. A few hours is not a big deal. But try 15 years without power.

A Florida woman who lost power due to hurricane damage has finally regained electricity, CBS 4 reported this weekend. Sound normal? Well, the hurricane that knocked out her power was Hurricane Andrew, which hit 15 years ago. The woman, who didn't want her full name released, had been living in her Cutler Bay home without power since August 24, 1992.

Read More.

Check this video from J-Reezy

This is a video that was made for a Youth Ministry Conference by a Youth Pastor out in California. The song is starting to get stuck in my head. Hope you like.

Valentines Day Hair

Here is my special Valentines day hairdoo. I spent about 45 min outside with a sock hat on working on this special hair style in honor of Valentines Day. Actually I could care less about V-Day, but I still went outside to see what I could do about my icy driveway. Not a whole lot without building a fire or using a hair dryer. Hope that your V-Day is ICY!!!!

Global Warming????

Did anyone notice that as soon as Winter kicked in around here and especially in New York, the news is no longer flooded with articles fearing the Global Warming trend. I saw last night that places in New York have gotten like 120 inches of snow. I guess if the ice caps melt, the polar bears can move to New York. Honestly I wish Global Warming would kick back in again and bring Spring back to us.

Hair of the Day - Elvis

So today I was referred to as Elvis at work by one of my coworkers. I guess because I had the little curly thing going on in the front today. I have a natural wave in the front of my hair too, so that adds to the effect.

Thank you, thank you very much.

More Snow and Working From Home.

I know that the Groundhog said it would be an early Spring, but I am ready for a really early Spring. On Tuesday we got about 5 inches of snow starting in the early afternoon. I left work early to avoid the ugly traffic and bad roads and worked from home the rest of the day. Wednesday I worked from home too because the roads were still pretty ugly looking and since I have the ability to work from home, it was just safer that way.

I got the driveway cleared around noon. The sun was shining so that helped a lot with some melting. Ephriam and I played some in the snow, but his gloves don't work very well against the cold so he had to go back inside.

I have another hair pic to put up from today, but it will have to wait until I get home because I forgot to bring the card reader for my cell phone memory card. Check back soon.

My Hair

Today someone at work mentioned that they look forward to walking past my cube just to see what my hair is going to look like each day. For those of you who know me, you know that I would rather not mess with my hair each day if possible. That is why most of my life I have enjoyed having a short hair cut. I can wake up each day and go about my business without worrying what my hair looks like. Well, lately I have taken it to a whole new level. I have let it grow out on top, and I still don't try to do anything with it when I wake up. Whatever it looks like when I get out of bed, is how it is going to look for the rest of the day. Sometimes its all spiked up and other times it lays down nicely. Sometimes I have a nice Fohawk and other times, its just plain bed head. I just really don't care and I like to be able to spike it up on occasion if I want to. So its sort of a compromise between me and my hair. So I am going to post from time to time on my Blog pictures of what my hair looks like that particular day. So this is my first posting of my magical changing hair style. Enjoy!

Pretty much stickin up everywhere today thanks to wearing a sock hat in the cold.

First Post in February

One month closer to Spring. Its also a great month for Birthdays. Hint hint...

So I downloaded some new podcasts last night. Most of them cannot keep my attention. I was excited that Flicker Records posted another one. I like to listen to that cuz you get to learn about new bands and hear some of their tunes. I also listend to one by Dave Ramsey. He is a cool financial guy who happens to be a Christian. He tells ya like it is and it has been very inspiring to me. I think that I am going to talk to my wife about some things we should try to do to better our financial situation. I also listened to a lot of my regular ones like the Simply Youth Ministry Podcast and MLB Baseball Today. The Baseball one isn't very exciting right now, but it will be as the season approaches.

Soon, I will be able to report here on the Fantasy Baseball season. Whoohooo!!!!