Ichthusiasm

Ok, you can expect to hear a lot about Ichthus from now until the end of June. My brain pretty much lives there for the time being.

Last night we had our first Ichthus kickoff meeting for the Youth Group. We had several people there and it was pretty cool. My DVD went over well. It officially made everyone sick of pickles. The Rad & Tad skit did not go over the way that I wanted it to, but we will continue to work on those characters and work them into some other things. Faith's intro was a lot of fun though I must say.

Now I have a lot to do to prepare and organize the trip, so I should be pretty busy with that for a while. And then once we get people signed up I have to coordinate all of the traveling and tent assignments as well. It will be here before you know it.

Countdown

I found an easy countdown to add to my page. Currently we are counting the days to Ichthus. There is so much to do in so little time. If you like the countdown you can click on it and go to where I got it. They have several variations. You can add it to MySpace too.

Almost Friday

Well another week is almost through. I wanted to post because I am tired of seeing the picture of Dale Gribble when I go to it. So whats new? We got our new dishwasher today. The old one just wasn't hackin it anymore. Stuff was coming out kinda crusty and the plastic stuff was filmy. Faith has been doing a lot of hand washing this week, so she is way happy to have the new one here. We are going to the Newport Aquarium this weekend. It should be a good time. Well thats all for now. Maybe more tomorrow.

Chris

Tax Fugitive = Real Life Dale Gribble

Fox News reports a Tax Fugitive Edwared Brown is holed up with armed supporters in his fortress-like house after being convicted of tax evasion. I read this and I could hardly believe the striking resemblence and personality to Dale Gribble of the King of the Hill show on Fox. Dale is always paranoid about the governtment. Quote from Gribble, "Guns don't kill people. The Government does." I just thought this was really funny. Enjoy.

Netflix to offer movies to download.

This week Netflix will start to offer an option called 'Watch Now' that will allow customers to view movies on their computer instantly. Right now it is only limited to personal computers excluding Macs, so you will not be able to view it on a regular TV. This is also supposed to prevent people from pirating the movies. You can read the whole article here

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/internet/01/16/instant.netflix.ap/index.html

Jack Bauer is back.

You may or may not have realized that '24' Season 6 had its 4 hour premier last night and tonight on Fox. It is one of my favorite shows to watch and it is already living up to its 5 predecessors. Now I know that some people think that it is a hokey show and if you check it with reality, you have every right to laugh. How does Jack's regular phone that I can buy from Cingular do everything that it does? In Season one he pressed a thumb print that he had cut off of a dead man against the screen on his phone. He scanned it and sent it to CTU to ID the dead man. Where can I get those kinds of cell services? Or when does Jack use the restroom? I like to make fun of it too, but I don't like it because its unrealistic, I like it because its a good intense story with cliff hanger after cliff hanger. It is really quite remarkable everything that happens and how it all fits into one 24 hour day.
So anyways, no spoilers here if you haven't seen it. Just know that Jack is the man.

Chris

Crossover to Blogger.

I want to apologize if my import of Blog entries did something crazy to your multiply site.  I don't even really see mine.  Supposedly I was able to import my blogger entries and update from there to here.  I am testing it to see what happens.  If it all still stays crazy, I will clean it all up.

Chris

Testing Multiply

I am testing a new community site called Multiply and supposedly I can update my BLOG here and it will automatically import into the Multiply community.

I guess we will see.

My New Addiction - Warning NERDS only!!!

There is a new online game happening right now at www.vanishingpointgame.com.

Evidently there is a countdown until the launch of Windows Vista and there are all of these puzzels and hidden secrets you can solve while earning points to win some really cool prizes. The grand prize is a trip into Orbit, and you can also win the new OS when it releases and free Zunes. I am always into free stuff so I have been spending way too much time working these puzzles. I think I enjoy the puzzles more, it doesn't matter if I win anything.

So if you feel like registering to win and try some puzzles, use my email hersch23@hotmail.com as a referring person so that I will earn more points.

If you play, say hi to Loki for me.

c-dub

Finding the Groove

Ok, so we are back to a normal work schedule and a normal baby sitting schedule and hopefully a normal and regular sleeping schedule. Yes, K.C. is starting to regulate her schedule now and I am trying to figure it out. Faith says that she is trying to follow Ephriam's schedule. That would be wonderful. I am just glad that I am finding more sleep now. I had to get up in the middle of the night to feed her the other day, but that was better than being up all night trying to get her to go to sleep.

So now I am back to trying to keep all of my responsibilities in order. I have my regular things that I gotta do at home. My favorite thing is playing with my kids and sometimes I let a lot of other things slide because of that. I have my actual job doing computer support and I have a lot of things to do for Youth Group. I am finding much more time now that K.C. is sleeping more. I am able to keep up with a lot of other things now that I was letting slide to gain a little more sleep.

So we'll see how things go as I try to keep everything working.

Chris

New Years Resolutions

You always here about people making new years resolutions to quit smoking or lose weight. The advertisements switch from Christmas to self improvement the week between Christmas and New Years. I used to try to come up with resolutions, but I always found that ideal changes were way too lofty and broke most of them. So in recent years, I make myself some goals that should eventually lead to bigger changes.

I am on board with the people who want to lose weight. For me it has been a struggle in my changing lifestyle from college to career. I used to walk around the campus all of the time between classes and to different events. I was poor and didn't eat out that much either. So I got a lot of exercise and didn't eat as much. Now I get little exercise sitting at my desk all day and I tend to eat out more because of convenience. My starting goal for this year is to change some of my habits. I am starting with my eating habits because those will be easier to change while it is Winter time. The exercise thing will be a little easier when the weather is warmer.

One of my other goals revolves around Youth Ministry. I know that I talk a lot about YM on this blog when things are going on and my wife makes fun of me. Recently I have been a bit down about YM I think because I need little breaks. Its very hard to go full speed for 4 or 5 months on top of other life changes like having babies and changing jobs. Sometimes I feel like I carry most of the weight and it gets heavy after some time. The Christmas break is perfect for me because we had about 3 weeks off from YM and now that I am starting to let the YM juices flow again, I get excited. I just have one worry and that is stupid numbers. I admit that I hate numbers, but they are required to have a ministry of any kind. We have been slowly slipping lately and I think it is because our kids are growing up and finding other things to do. They can drive and get jobs so they can choose between making money or coming to Youth Group. I went through the same choices when I was in highschool. But it gets discouraging when only 2 people show up to your Christmas party even if they are cool people and we had fun watchin Frosty. I have side tracked from my goal idea a little, but this gives you an idea of where my heart is at. Back to the goal. My goal is to focus on keeping up with my YM responsibilities and taking time to renew my heart before reaching the burnout point. My team is helpful when I need a break, but I am still looking for something to keep me driven in the hard times. Please pray for me on that. My second YM goal is to do more reaching out. Because of my worry on numbers, I want to find ways to attract other kids to come. Don't get me wrong, it is not about having a large number of kids, but I want to have enough kids to have an effective group ministry. We will continue with individual discipleship if that is what we get.

So for those of you out there who are making resolutions. Good Luck with that and pray for me and my 2K7 goals.

c-dub

Happy New Year 1 Day Late.

This Blog sucks so bad that I cannot even wish a happy new year on time.

Anyways, I am back at the office today. It was nice working from home for the Holidays, but it got frustrating sometimes because I wanted to get so much more done at home than I did. I definitely have to say that I do better at my job when I am in the office just because there are much fewer distractions. Now I am just trying to busy myself at work because we still are not that busy with tickets yet. We have gotten a lot of password reset calls though. That is pretty typical following a long holiday.

So here are the quick updates of my life.
- Ephriam turned '2' on Dec. 29th. He is becoming quite the little boy.
- K.C. has now been Ferberized. AKA she sleeps in her bed all night now.
- The Ichthus Website has launched. I am getting excited already.
- Christmas is over so I am looking forward to Springtime and warm weather already.
- I am still lame and need to put more pictures up on this Blog.

There is your 1st update of 2007.

chris

We Survived Christmas!!!

Ok, so this is a picture of our living room before the chaos. You can see the 2 completed toy chests that are bigger than the kids themselves, but really cool. We got Ephriam up at 7 AM and he stumbled down the hall and ran straight for the presents. He then about fell into them because he was still groggy, but finally settled on playing with the Lightning McQueen car until we had to take it away so that he would open other gifts. We finished up presents with the kids and a little breakfast before we headed for Toledo. The chaos continued there all day. The kids were pretty pooped. We returned home very late that night and slept most of the day after Christmas. We are still in the cleanup stages and I am going to be opening boxes for Ephriam and K.C. for the next several months as they discover their new toys. It was a blast, but now I am ready for some rest. I will post more pictures later.

Chris

Another Sucky Post

Lately I have been very bad about posting to my BLOG. I guess that is part of what makes it suck so much. I do actually have a sort of excuse though for last week. I have been getting ripped apart by a cold for a week now. It has gotten a lot better than when I started. Fortunately I was up for the Walker Christmas gathering this weekend. Nobody likes to be sick at Christmas.

So I have to apologize for my BLOG being more sucky than normal. Its not fun if there is not new stuff posted to it all of the time. But I won't promise that this is anything more than my blog that sucks.

So I survived round 1 of Christmas events. Everyone made it and it was very different because it was 65 degrees outside. We actually hung out in the garage some which worked out because we could use the room with the size of the family. Ephriam got a lot of cool toys. He finally figured out that we open the wrapped gifts, so he started helping others with opening their gifts. He will be a seasoned pro by the time everything is over and done with. I am very excited about Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It will be nice for Faith and I to share our Christmas together and then watch our kids and the Santa Claus Experience.

Now I just need to survive a few more days at the office and then the fun can begin. Well, hopefully I will have more to post about this week.

Chris

2 Weeks Until Christmas

Do you have all of your shopping done? I completed the major stuff on Saturday. I still have a few odds and ends to get. I need some good stocking stuffers. Now I just have to find time to wrap everything and I have a couple of toyboxes to finish. Saturday will probably be the big finishing touches day. It will be here before you know it.

Survived the Party Weekend.

I did it!!!! I made it through the weekend of parties. Friday was a nice dinner at the Pastor's house. Saturday was a nice dinner and some dancing. Sunday was chillin with our Youth Kids and watching the coolest Frosty video in the world.

Some highlights
- Watching all of the kids play together by the Christmas tree.
- Ham!!!!
- Roast Beef!!!!!
- A date with my wife and no children.
- Winning $40 in gift certificates.
- Slow dancing with my wife and flirting.
- I transformed into one of the Village People for the Y.M.C.A.
- Again, the coolest Frosty video in the world. Sorry I will not post it on You Tube.

50 Posts and nobody cares!!!!!!!

I did not realize today that my last post was my 50th post on my BLOG that I am still convinced is only read by a very few people. I have even thought about anonymously commenting to my own BLOG just so that it looks like people read it.

Actually I have gone one step further to prove that nobody reads this BLOG. I am currently tracking how often this page is accessed with Google Analytics. So far after 1 weekend it has been accessed from my home and my work and 1 other person on a Fuse account. I am assuming that was my brother Mark. He only checks because he wants to know what his prize is. I am still trying to come up with an appropriate prize.

So I don't really have anything special to share to mark the crossing of the 50 posts mark. But I think that I will change the name of my BLOG again. Its not like anyone will notice anyways.

Ginormous Toyboxes

Here is a picture of my Secret Santa Project. Its not really a secret, but Ephriam and K.C. are too young to know the difference. These toyboxes are huge. I hope that they like them.

The Holiday Marathon Continues....

You have to be special to get on my calendar between Thanksgiving and Christmas I tell ya. There is no such thing as a down-time weekend this time of year for me. Let me give ya the recap.

Friday was about as relaxed as it gets right now. We had pizza and watched Mickey's Christmas Carol with the kids at dinner. We then spent the rest of the evening making room for our Christmas Tree. We discovered that we were so not using our hall closet. It now contains the wagon and the double stroller among many other items that were stacked up in our living room. The biggest challenge was getting all of the toys put back in Ephriam's room. We now have limited number of toys in our living room and most of the space is dedicated to K.C. Ephriam got over it on Saturday when the Christmas stuff came out.
Saturday I had to do some work from home so I completed that in the morning. At noon we dropped the kids at Grandma's and headed out to the wilderness to find our Christmas tree. It didn't take us long to find the perfect douglas fir to cram into our living room. We brought it home and set it up and gave it some good water to drink. We got the lights on the tree and the star while Ephriam wasn't around to get into things. Then we went an picked up the kids and brought them home to decorate the tree. Ephriam was a tad bit excited about the tree to say the least. We spent the rest of the evening decorating around the house for Christmas and we still haven't finished.

Sunday we had church in the morning where we as a family read a devotion and lit the first candle of the Advent wreath. That was pretty neat and Ephriam was well behaved. We had lunch after church and then picked up the Youth Kids to go wrap Christmas Presents at the mall as an outreach. That was a lot of fun. We came home and had some dinner and I spent the rest of the evening working on the toy boxes for the kids. For the most part they are built. I just need to get the hardware to attach the lids and we need to put their names on them. They are going to be really cool when they are done. Definitely very huge.

So now I go back to work for the week and next weekend we have Christmas parties to go to on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Fun fun. Ok, well I gotta get back to work.

Chris

Sanctus Real - Live

Here are clips of a Sanctus Live Show the other night that the drummer Mark posted tonight. Hope you enjoy the show.

Sanctus Rocks!!!!