Excellent movie! I took some me time last night and watched a movie by myself (because Shawna can’t handle war movies). 300 Spartans proved some points and made me think of a couple of things:

• Spartans have a plan and they’re sticking to it. Don’t mess with any of them – men, women, and children alike. They will mess you up if you mess with them and their plans.
• Don’t ever retreat. The 300 Spartans stood against unbelievable odds for days. This also makes me think about our troops overseas right now. They might not be facing unbelievable odds, but the opposition might see it as though they are facing terrible odds and they refuse to give up. I’ve been in support of the war for a long time but it seems like more suicide bombing idiots come out of the rockwork every day(that’s like woodwork here in southern US except they only have rocks over there).
• Beware of traders. I won’t elaborate on that so I don’t ruin the movie in case you watch it. But if you do watch it beware of a couple of scenes that should be skipped through due to unnecessary exposure.
• Politicians just might be hopeless. Again I won’t elaborate and ruin the movie. But it doesn’t matter how well the elite are raised (the Spartans were a very elite culture) there are still going to be leaders who make bad decisions.
• Where did they find the guy that played the huge Persian God-King, or how did they make him look so huge? He looked 8 feet tall with hands bigger than Shaq.
• Who would I be honored to live and fight beside? Who would I be honored to die beside in battle? I love the comraderie among soldiers and often wonder why I didn’t enlist.
• I want to be tough like a Spartan. Those guys were laughing as arrows rained down on their shields, and still scrapping and talking smack with arrows in their chest. I had to go to the doctor yesterday with my wasp stung hand because I couldn’t get the swelling to go down. Some steroids and an antibiotic are making it better now. A Spartan probably would have just cut the stung finger off and burnt the wound shut. Now that’s tough.
• I also want to be built like a Spartan. Every one of them are ripped – then again they were strategically bred and chosen at birth to be mighty warriors. Gotta double my efforts at the gym evidently…

Ok, back to reality. Time to get to work. I’ll just pretend I’ve got a spear, shield, and a sword on my side – even though they look a lot like a phone and a laptop and a wireless mouse…

Ok, the title is misleading. I never even saw those movies because they came out when I was still young enough to live under my parents roof where there was at least a perception that we were being sheltered from all evil. But I’ve heard other folks tell of how their lives weren’t nearly as peachy as mine growing up, so I guess I’m fortunate to have parents who cared.

Now that I’m older and more mature I find myself watching crap that I would have never been allowed to watch as a youngster. I just have to be careful that none of it causes me to cross the boundaries I like to keep control of regarding sexual impurity and taking the Lord’s name in vain (I can’t stand it when movies use GD – totally unnecessary).

I love movies though. Never knew it was such a passion until a few years ago when I started spending time with other guys who like movies (my friend Lenny and his son Christian, and my brothers-in-law David and Kyle).

Anyway…. this is really random. I’m in the mood for a freaky scary movie on this infamous date. Any suggestions??

This past weekend has been so busy. We seem to like it that way…

Friday night our kids went to play with friends (the Baughman family) while Shawna and I enjoyed dinner together and grocery shopping. Wasn’t what we would like to call a date night but it did remind us of what it must have been like to grocery shop together before we had kids.

Saturday morning we went out with some of our newest friends – Eric & Kim Lee. They took us out on their boat with our kids and theirs (Olivia and Haley). It was a great time – the most enjoyable moments I’ve ever had on Hartwell Lake and we’ve lived here almost 7 years. We can’t wait to do it again.

Saturday evening we had our first gathering with our new home group. We’ve been trying to start a new group for months and the challenge is that we’re trying to gather on weekends. The challenge being it is difficult to organize a group of more than about 3 couples at a time on the weekend because of everyone’s other plans. That’s ok though. We got together at our house. It was fun. Can’t wait til the next time we get together and see who else can show up.

Sunday we went to the lake again. This time it was for a picnic with some people Shawna works with. That was nice but short lived because we had to be back for church. We go to NewSpring which has a 4pm and 6pm service. We attend the 4pm service and volunteer at the 6pm. We wish we would have gone to an early service so we could have stayed at the lake longer, but part of me is glad we didn’t wear out the fun all in one weekend.

At church mine and Shawna’s volunteer role is usually to take care of all the volunteers who work in all the children’s rooms (basically we serve them drinks and snacks and help them in any other way we see fit). This time I filled in for the regular sound man (Lenny), which I’ve done before so it wasn’t a big deal. But it turns out the acting team for the children’s production needed someone to play Elisha. You guessed it – I was Elisha.

Being Elisha was particularly funny to me because I often joke with Shawna about being a prophet. I can’t help it I have God given prophetic gifts. I’m only joking but what’s funny is when I’m right. Sometimes I’ll say “I’m a prophet” when I know what somebody is going to say or do or react. But the majority of the time my prophetic gift is only good for predicting things like “Devin is going to spill that” or “Skyler is going to get hurt if she doesn’t quit”. Sometimes when the phone rings and I know it is Lenae (Shawna’s sister) without looking at caller ID.

Anyway, it was a great weekend so I just wanted to share a bit of the events. Now I’m predicting a very good week ahead – I’m a prophet.

When I think about the fact that I’m almost 30 years old I sometimes wonder where the time has gone. What have I done with my life? What am I doing with my life? Why am I where I am? Why is it taking me so long to get where I want to be? What am I supposed to be learning along the journey? Bla Bla Bla. So I will sometimes think back on the things in my life that had significant influence in my life and defined who I have become. Here’s a list I came up with just really quick off the top of my head (partially in order of events but not really).

Playing Soccer.

Playing T-ball and baseball.

Playing football.

Girlfriends.

Playing trumpet.

Being the best trumpeter in the state at one time.

Being region champs in soccer in high-school.

Being known as “Do-It-All Asbell” in the newspaper and local TV for football.

That football team being a losing team for 3 out of 4 of my high school years.

Setting the field goal record that still stands at that high school (49 yds).

Graduating High School.

Graduating College.

Being a “Who’s Who” student all through school (whatever that means – mom was proud).

Getting married.

Devin being born.

Skyler being born – 13 months after Devin.

Paying for 2 kids in that amount of time.

Going broke along the way.

Learning how to get un-broke.

Owning a mobile auto detail business.

Four year learning process in BWW (no detail necessary – I’m so much wiser now).

Working for Delta Airlines – best part was flight benefits – I was still in colllege at the time.

Working for Milliken & Co – tough company to work for.

Working for SGP – another tough company to work for.

I could probably add a lot more to this list but I’m starting to get bored of this. Live and learn. I guess that’s the best thing I’ve done with my life. Anyway, I’m going to go have a life for the rest of the day rather than think about the past…