Book – the dip

May 29, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Here’s a quickie. Tony Morgan is one of our amazing leaders at NewSpring. Occasionally he does brief book reviews of stuff he reads. I love when he does this because I like to read a lot of the same type material he does but a lot of the info overlaps, so when he bullet points a list of new learnings I basically get Cliffs notes (only it’s Tony’s notes) of the book and don’t have to read the whole thing unless I really really want to. Anyway, he recently finished a book called the dip and here are the Tony’s notes.

Filed Under: Reading

Prom Redefined

May 25, 2007 by Leave a Comment

If you live in upstate SC you know who I’m talking about when I say “Hawk & Tom”. They are the morning radio show on B93.7 and I personally think they are hilarious. I don’t get to listen to them very often but when I do I’m always humored. Anyway, several weeks ago they hosted their first ever Hawk & Tom Prom. Shawna and I went with several friends. It was a blast.

Once again I have been slack with the camera but I bummed a couple of pics of some friends.

Below is a picture of the whole bunch of us at dinner (except for Ken – he got cut off on the left side) I’ll try to name everybody but I’m afraid I might have forgotten one couples names. From the guy front and center. I think he is Chad and I think his wife’s name is Amanda (I hope I’m not getting that wrong). Then moving around the table there is Chase & Crystal, Chris & Elizabeth, Lenny & Tathie at the far end, Me & Shawna of course, then Orion and Kim, and part of Ken and Christy. 

Dinner was excellent – great food and a lot of fun. Forgot the name of that place in Greenville where we ate but it was probably the best steak I’ve had in a while. Our server was a good sport too cause we were having a lot of fun and including him in the fun. We were having so much fun at the restaurant I didn’t want to leave there.

Special thanks to Orion and his special hook-up for getting everyone in our group tickets. And special thanks to Kim for giving me these pics. I want the pics off Chris’s camera but after the post about his birthday he might be afraid to give them to me. Here’s the beautiful couple Orion and Kim:

And I couldn’t post about this without including a picture of me and my gorgeous wife Shawna. Unfortunately her shoes and purse didn’t make it in to any of the pictures but she was extremely proud of her dress and stuff. I was just glad she was happy. As for me – that’s my high school tux except with pants that fit cause I’m a little, ok a lot, bigger below the chest and above the knees now.


My wife is so HOT! Uhhh, yeahh. Let’s just say I was the ladies man that night. Those Hawk & Tom characters knew what they were talking about when they said this prom would be better than your high school proms. I think dancing is better after marriage. Being allowed to legally partake of a drink probably helped a bit too. But one of the greatest benefits of prom after marriage is getting to go home with your date and we’ll just leave it at that. I will say it sucks to be a high school punk hoping to get what he should wait for cause it just ain’t as good as when you’re married.
This is another unforgettable moment because prom has been redefined for me. It used to be a part misery part shame experience because I don’t remember anything good about it from high school. But now it is an unforgettable moment with my wonderful wife and all our wonderful friends. Prom Redefined.

Filed Under: Family, Misc, Relationships, Stories

Philadelphia Trip

May 23, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Sunday I drove all the way to Philly. Why? I’m crazy is one answer. But I also had a meeting up there with a new client for my job. This was my third trip to PA and it looks like it will finally pay off with new business. Another good reason for driving instead of flying is because flights were a bit high. I don’t mind driving so I hit the road. Went up Sunday. Came back Monday. That’s a lot of driving in two days. So what do I do when I’m driving for such a long time?

– I think a lot – about a whole bunch of stuff. Some of the kind of stuff that makes it on this blog. I need to get comfortable using a voice recorder so I can remember what I thought about when I get to where I can type. I’ve tried typing while I drive and while it is possible it is extremely dangerous.

– I watch people passing – either I’m passing them or they’re passing me. It used to be I passed everybody but I’ve had so many tickets I’ve learned cruise control was made for me. Speed limits are so slow compared to what feels like a natural speed for me.

– I play my trumpet mouthpiece to whatever is on the radio. This gets me a lot of strange looks from the people passing, but it keeps me awake and gives me a little practice – just in case I get a chance to play for a wedding or something.

– I eat and drink – snacks, fast food, anything with caffeine.

– I hold it til I have to pee in a cup. I know that’s gross but sometimes it’s inevitable. Got between Raleigh and Petersburg with no good place to stop. Had to go. Good thing is I only stopped one time the whole way to PA and that was cause I had to get gas.

– I watch the gas gauge – Cause I have to use premium and it averaged about $3.35/gallon at all the places I filled up.

– I watch the odometer – So I can calculate gas mileage. I averaged about 26 miles per gallon and it might have been better than that if I hadn’t hit terrible traffic in DC and Deleware.

– I watch the clock – So I know how good I’m doing on time. Anybody with my personality understands this. You’re always trying to make your best time. This is a direct conflict with my effort to reduce my number of tickets.

– I draft – If a big truck is going 5 miles over the speed limit I’ll draft him as long as he’ll let me. This helps on gas mileage. Doesn’t happen often but I got a good 50 miles of draft out of a truck on the way back. Sometimes I’ll follow cars too but you have to get sooo close to cars for it to be a true draft – most people won’t let you draft their car.

– I watch someone draft me – At times when I’m the fastest mover in traffic I’ve had people get on my bumper and draft off me. I don’t mind until they aren’t watching when I have to use the brakes. Almost got hit in the butt at about 80 miles an hour on the way back. Bad words came out.

– I listen to the radio. It is interesting to see what are the best radio stations as you pass through several states in a day. Some places along the way the best thing to listen to is country. Some places it’s R&B. The commonality of all places is my wondering “why in the crap am I listening to this” and “how did these people get a job at the radio station”?

– I watch my map – I use Microsoft Streets and Trips on the computer. It’s poor mans GPS I guess. I check it frequently to see where I’m at and how much farther I have to go, and of course where I have to turn next.

– I call people – especially other Verizon users because it is free in-network. Sunday this would have been perfect because I could call non-verizon users during free nights and weekends, but nobody answered. I ended up not calling anybody on Monday because I wasn’t tired enough. I usually get enough phone to ear contact doing my job so I don’t just make random phone calls for the fun of it very often.

Anyway. I never realized driving was such a busy thing until I started writing it down like this. I’m definitely going to start speaking notes in a recorder while I drive in hopes it will make my time more productive.

Filed Under: Business, Misc

More Porn History

May 22, 2007 by Leave a Comment

I’ve written and thought about My Porn History so much lately that I keep remembering more and more details about my childhood.

In the years after my kindergarten nap times and before the age of 12 when I was exposed to hardcore porn I remember being different from most boys on many occasions.

I remember some things that may or may not have been indicators that I had been exposed to inappropriate stuff or I was confused or otherwise whacked up. So here is a list of things I consider odd about my behavior between the age of 5 and 10, because looking back I was the only kid I remember doing some of this stuff on the level that I was doing it.

Girlfriends – I was “going with” (remember that term – “going with” somebody) many and much older girls. I had a lot of girlfriends. There was Brandi, Marsha, Samantha, Monique, and three others I can’t remember their names – between age 5 and 10. That’s a lot. When I was in 2nd grade my girlfriend was in 5th grade – that’s a wide spread at that age. You wonder how this was possible. Well, pimpin ain’t easy, but I have an older sister (Lisa) who was in 5th grade at the time – it was her friend. That was Monique. I wanted her friend Rebecca but I guess I thought she was out of my league. I remember this stuff.

So you’re probably thinking this isn’t a big deal. Kids have “boyfriend and girlfriend” when they’re little. Ok, keep reading.

Love letters – I remember writing some long mushy love letters when I was in 2nd grade. My mom was the teacher (private school in a small town) so she caught me a couple of times and showed the letters to my dad. I think they were concerned but they didn’t know what to do. These weren’t just “i love you” notes they were about kissing and stuff – and they were 2 pages long (started this writing thing early). Maybe I was starved for affection or something – I don’t know. I probably should have been put in counseling with a professional so they could figure out what was going on in my little head.

So you might think this isn’t a big deal either. Ok, read some more.

Kissing – “like a soap opera” – I saw how people kiss on soap operas. I liked the little tingly feeling I didn’t understand but kissing gave it to me. So I would kiss my little girlfriends “like a soap opera”. Where? How? When? Any time I could. At school, at church, whenever nobody was looking.

Ok, if a 2nd grader with a 5th grader ain’t odd and a 2 page graphically mushy love letter ain’t odd, then surely you’ll agree that a 2nd grader french kissing is a little off. Think about a 6-7 yr old locked up with a 10-11 yr old. Picture that in your mind. Really do it. You’re bound to know kids those ages – picture the kids you know locked up like that. Ok, now you’re probably messed up. I think you’ll agree – It ain’t right. Something was wrong. And I won’t even go in to more detail than kissing since I already did enough of that in this post.

Just noting what could be some warning signs for parents. It’s going to be very difficult for me to discern between what is or isn’t ok for my kids, but you better believe I’m going to talk to them about stuff – a lot.

Filed Under: Faith, Personal Growth, Relationships

Michael’s Stores

May 19, 2007 by Leave a Comment

My daughter impresses me from time to time with her memory of stores and shopping. She is only 3 yrs old so I don’t expect her to have a working knowledge of Wal-Mart or Super Target, but she does. We pass a store and she knows what it is. We say we’re going somewhere and she knows what to expect. It is usually common stores she remembers and recognizes, but she recently said “we’re going to Michael’s”. I couldn’t believe she knew what Michael’s is.

To test what she perceives about these stores I started asking her what they have at some of the ones I’ve heard her call by name. For the record I asked her about Target and she corrected me and said “it’s Super Target daddy” because we just got back from Orlando where they have one. Anderson is not good enough for Skyler now because we only have the regular Target.

So here’s the list of what they have at these stores according to Skyler:

Wal-Mart – food & toys

Super Target – Mickey Mouse stuff & buggies (that’s southern for shopping cart)

Bloom – medicine & ice cream

Bi-Lo – fruit snacks

NewSpring (threw this in there for my own curiosity of what she would say) – toys & playhouse

Chick Fil A – playground

McDonald’s – food & playground (scary she noted the food at McDonald’s but not at Chick Fil A)

Gas Station – gas & snacks

Ross – dresses (at least Shawna is showing Skyler how to shop smart)

Michael’s – stickers

Thought this was interesting. Corporations are marketing to kids I assure you. I wonder if my little survey would be worth anything to some of these companies so they can see what the kids are really capturing from their efforts. I bet Michael’s didn’t know stickers were so important. Shawna is on her way there at this very moment to get some crafts supplies and buy some stickers.

Filed Under: Business, Family

Friends – Sharpen Each Other

May 17, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Ok, so I’ve got this friend Joey Smith (not sure why he doesn’t blog) who sends me emails from time to time that are encouraging and challenging. Here’s one he sent recently…

Henry Blackaby this morning. What kinda’ friends do you have? Any encouraging examples?

The Christian life is a pilgrimage. At times the road is difficult, and we get lonely. Sometimes we may become discouraged and consider abandoning the journey. It is at such times that God will place a friend alongside us. One of God’s most precious gifts to us are friends who encourage us and lovingly challenge us to “”keep going.””

According to Scripture, a friend is one who challenges you to become all that God intends. Jonathan could have succeeded his father to become the next king of Israel. But he loved his friend David, and he encouraged him to follow God’s will, even though it meant Jonathan would forfeit his own claim to the throne (1 Sam. 19:1-7).

The mark of biblical friends is that their friendship draws you closer to Christ. They “”sharpen”” you and motivate you to do what is right. True friends tell you the truth and even risk hurting your feelings because they love you and have your best interests at heart (Prov. 27:6).

Be careful in your choice of friends! Jesus chose His closest friends wisely. He did not look for perfect friends, but friends whose hearts were set to follow God. It is equally important to examine the kind of friend you are to others. As a friend, it is your duty to put the needs of others first (Prov. 17:17). Strive to find godly friends who will challenge you to become the person God desires. When you have found them, be receptive to the way God uses them to help you become spiritually mature. Strive also to be the kind of friend that helps others become more like Christ.”

Joey, if you’re reading this, I consider you one of the friends this article describes. There are several others I could name too but since you sent the article I want you to know I appreciate your friendship.

Tom Haren, a home group pastor at NewSpring, responded to the email Joey sent with a story about his college buddy. I had a good buddy in college too, Joey Cochran (Ironic it’s another Joey). He stretched me to be a better person but I wasn’t a very receptive friend. I would justify my faults or failures by having selective interpretation of the Bible. One issue in particular was with porn. Joey knew about my porn problem and on occasion would remind me it is wrong and I shouldn’t do it. I would go to selective scriptures and interpret it how I felt like it to justify my problem (I was ignorant about a lot more things then). We disagreed at the time and remained friends. As far as I know he remained pure and he was always still my friend even though I continued sinning.

I can look back on that now and say he was a great friend. Now he lives in PA so I don’t see or hear from him much, but I’ll always consider him a great friend. I hope I can be a good friend like Joey to friends I have now so we can sharpen one another and continue growing in Christ together.

Filed Under: Faith, Relationships

Who’s Reading

May 16, 2007 by Leave a Comment

My friend Joe showed me how to do some tracking of my website. I’m trying to learn more tricks to make it fun and stuff. Now that I’ve been tracking some stats I see that I’ve had some readers from some states and even countries I wouldn’t have expected:

South Carolina & Georgia
– these two are obvious cause I know so many people in these states. I’m getting a lot of hits from these two states.

Tennessee
– not sure who would be reading, but I do know some people there

Florida
– maybe some family or friends from a long time ago when I lived there

Indiana & Missouri
– no clue who these could be. Maybe someone who knows Shawna or her dad

Oregon
– I’m guessing this is someone who moved north from CA and knows Shawna or her dad

New Zealand
– Must have accidentally clicked on something and ended up on my site. Thanks for visiting.

Japan
– I hope you understand when I write something southern like “ain’t”. Come back now – ya hear!

Anyway…Thanks everyone for visiting my site. I really enjoy sharing my thoughts and I appreciate you reading.

Filed Under: Misc

Disneyworld – 10 Takeaways.

May 15, 2007 by Leave a Comment

I want to share some pictures and memories from our recent vacation by doing a bit of a 10-list. So here it goes. In no particular order – The 10 things I took away from my week long vacation in Orlando, FL.

1. Kids can swim all day, really – all day. The house we rented, which was a great deal just before peak season, had a pool. This was great because we got plenty of relaxing and/or playing time at the convenience of our back door. And it was screened in so there weren’t any bugs – or gators…


2. Dreams do come true. It is a good thing I had on sunglasses while we were standing there watching this show because I was crying. It was an emotional moment. We had just entered the park, the kids were so excited, this dramatic show started up, they were singing about dreams come true, and I realized I was living a dream having this opportunity to take my kids to Disneyworld. Something my family could never afford to do when I was growing up (the first time I went to Disney was as about 14 and it was with our church youth group – not the same as going when you’re a child).
3. I am a good daddy no matter what that voice in my head keeps telling me. I held Skyler a lot of the time – and tolerated her 21 yr old attitude in a 3 yr old body (it’s mini-Shawna – and, huh, umm, huh, I love it sooo much. This is how I joke and provoke more attitude – lol). I also had to teach Devin multiple times that he is both an awesome crazy cool superhero no fear conquerer of the world and then turn around and teach him constraint and when it’s right or wrong to get mad and hit. Don’t mess with Skyler – that’s when Devin has my ok to open his little can on somebody, and he does. Bless Gauge’s little heart (our nephew and Devin’s best friend/cousin). For some reason the kids were spitting. After multiple scoldings, a spanking, and a very serious talk, Devin decided he was going to stop spitting and warn Gauge that if he spit on Skyler again he was going to unleash hell on him. Ok I used my own words there – he told him he would “have to hit him”. Anyway, this trip was all about family time so I enjoyed spending time with the kids – lots of stories I could write about for days…
4. Disney is the world’s best at marketing to kids and every church in America should require their childrens ministers to visit Disney once a year for creative learning, because call it what you want but lack of creativity and marketing sense is how churches have missed entire generations of people when they were young. I can’t even begin to describe the experience Disney has created. Pictures can’t even describe it. All this stuff is man-made. Amazing!
5. Peter Pan looks gay. Well, a lot of Disney characters look gay. Come to think of it there were quite a few really gay people at Disney – employees and guests. Maybe it’s all the make-up. Quite interesting but I’m not going there right now – I’m talking vacation. Let’s just think of gay for it’s happy meaning. These people are smiling and the kids love them cause they’re heroes. Look at these people. This was the highlight of the trip for Skyler – seeing the princesses.
6. I actually like Mickey & Minnie, Goofy and Donald.

7. Devin is going to be my Extreme Sports child – fearless climbing, crazy in water, can’t wait to get him on snow skis one day. Skyler doesn’t know what it means yet but she is a daddy’s girl.
8. Rainforest Cafe is a great experience, but don’t go unless you can handle eating in the jungle with a bunch of wild animals and rain storms. They have the largest mound of nachos I’ve ever tried to eat – couldn’t finish it.
9. These guys have crabs…I mean they ate crabs at Joe’s Crab Shack (This is Hal, David, and Kyle – most people would call them in-laws or out-laws – but not us – we’re all family). Why didn’t I get crab? I didn’t go on vacation to work so hard just to get a sliver of meat out of a bottom feeder – so I ate some of David’s…
This Elvis pic is in here because Shawna has a pathetic liking of how “pretty” he was in his younger days. How ironic that we saw him at Joe’s because among a lot of things he probably had crabs too… I’m just jealous cause I ain’t so purty. The caption says “Joe’s crab shack has got me all shook up!!” – yeah, in the pants crabby.
10. Here are some random pics of all of the family who went on the trip. Our family (Me, Shawna, Devin, Skyler), Shawna’s sister, Lenae, and her husband David and boys Gauge and Gavin, Shawna’s mom & dad (Hal & Grace) and her brother Kyle. Here’s some random pics:
This is David & Lenae – Shawna’s sister. David looks like a huge scary mafia hit-man, but really he’s a big teddy bear of a lovable guy – at least to the family. If I weren’t part of the family I would leave him alone.
This is baby Gavin – David and Lenae’s 8 month hoss. I didn’t get him in any of the other pictures with the kids so here he is pimpin. It ain’t easy.
This is just a good picture so I wanted to put it on here. Skyler loves her aunt Nae-Nae. Aren’t they beautiful. If you’re reading this Nae there’s your one compliment for the year. Don’t get too used to it.
Another big reason for this trip that I haven’t mentioned is that it was Hal & Grace’s 40th wedding anniversary. So we did a sand ceremony. The white sand represents Hal & Grace and all the other colors represent their children and their families. I guess a sand thingy like this is sentimental. Mine and Shawna’s family is represented by the purple sand.
Here is a picture of all of us together. Thanks to the nice lady who took our picture.
Here’s Shawna and I – we’re so in love… My wife is sooo beautiful!!!
This is the best vacation we’ve have had since our honeymoon (last year in San Diego is a close second but it was too short a trip), but now I’m looking forward to Shawna and I having a vacation for just the two of us. Heck, we’ll take a weekend getaway.
Filed Under: Family, Relationships

Mother’s Day

May 14, 2007 by Leave a Comment

I thought about trying to post something unique or special for Mother’s Day but after going to church yesterday afternoon (we go to the 4pm & volunteer at the 6pm service) I just have to mention what our church did for Mother’s Day.

Before I go there I will say our family had a special day. We showed appreciation for Shawna by letting her sleep in, taking her out to eat, getting ice cream, and being extra sweet to her all day (the kids said Happy Mother’s Day all day long). We should have done much more so I’ll make it up to Shawna hopefully real soon.

But I think everyone would agree the most powerful part of Mother’s Day yesterday was the blessing NewSpring gave to a single mom named Mika. They gave her a house. Someone donated the house and over 100 NewSpring volunteers donated materials and labor to make it amazing. You can watch the video on www.newspring.cc. The video might not be available til tomorrow but it is awesome. What a blessing.

Hope everyone else enjoyed their Mother’s Day. Now it’s time to start thinking about Father’s Day!!!

Filed Under: Faith

Disneyworld!

May 10, 2007 by Leave a Comment

We just got back from Disneyworld!!! It was a very exciting time. If you didn’t know that’s where we were I apologize. I deliberately didn’t say anything about it online for obvious security reasons – even though we had a house-sitter.

Devin and Skyler are 4 and 3 and their cousin Gauge is 5. Let me tell you they had a blast. Here is their picture at Animal Kingdom with Mickey (left to right is Gauge, Skyler, Devin, and of course Mickey in back).

We went to Magic Kingdom one day and Animal Kingdom another day. I think they all liked Magic Kingdom the best (especially Skyler because that is where the princesses were and she can never get enough of them), but Devin seemed to like the Animal Kingdom better than Skyler and Gauge. I think he’s going to be an adventurous wild at heart outdoorsman and extreme sports kinda dude.
I’ve got a ton of stories to tell from the trip that I will have to start putting into writing but for now I couldn’t wait to say we had a blast. We’re back. Glad to be home. Buried in email, regular mail, and other catching up. Can’t wait to share so much more. Stories and pics to come.

Filed Under: Family
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