After spending the afternoon at a meeting in Dalton, GA today at my brother Ryan's church I have come to two conclusions. The youth absolutely love him and he is also not right in the head.
Today was cool because I set up a meeting between First Presbyterian Church of Dalton and the Not For Sale organization which strives to end modern day slavery. It was fun to get to professionally cross paths with my brother. I then spent a few minutes hanging out in his office with some of his youth group kids. They are pretty funny and its all fueled by their fearless leader.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=508827879270&ref=mf
The link above will take you Redneck Golf. That's all you need to know.
In other happenings Stacey and I celebrated 6 years of marriage on Sunday. We don't qualify for any newly married Sunday School classes anymore. I think we're supposed to be able to give advice away to other couples now. At least one of us is respectable now. I'll let you decide on who.
We went to the Six Flags Water Park on Saturday. We have passes that come with our regular Six Flags passes that allow us to go for ten bucks. So we picked a nice hot day and made it happen. We had a great time. The lazy river is the single greatest man made amusement park creation ever. I could sit in that thing all day. On a slightly different note, I'm not sure what happens to some people when they decide on a bathing suit for the water park, but it isn't good. They're were some folks who tried to cram a whole lot of body into a little bit of material. That rarely turns out well.
Stacey started at the farther away hospital today. Its near Emory and about 40 minutes from the house. She worked 13 hours today. Pretty tiring. But she is really enjoying the work and is on normal ward duty now which is pretty close to what she ultimately wants to do.
Work for me has continued to go well. I continue to spend much of my time getting to know homeless guys that come to a weekly Bible Study. The more time I spend with the guys the more I conclude that they need encouragement, affirmation, and structure to get back on their feet. The structure part is really hard because they don't welcome that because its hard for them, yet its the only thing that will help them get back to being a contributing member of society. They will fight you every step of the way, but if you stick with them, they'll keep coming back because very few have had anyone really care for them in a long time.
If that video link above doesn't work, go to facebook and hit up Ryan's page. That is where the link is to. Its worth watching. My mom is going to be so proud of the son she raised. Classy.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Beach Stories
Oh how great it was to be at the beach once again. A whole week to play with family and old friends. We had many great things happen. We had an engagement occur, we had several great meals (my low country boil was a success), we had fun playing on the beach and we had a great time catching up as a family.
If you remember from my previous post I had stated that one of my goals was to demoralize my wife in putt-putt. Well, I defeated her both times we played but I certainly did not demoralize her. In fact in the second match it was clear that her time with me practicing putting at our local golf course driving range is beginning to pay dividends. I won by one stroke...and I shot even par. Who does that in putt-putt? That's the greatest round of putt-putt I've ever had and it took that to defeat her. She had three hole in ones in a row at one point. The moral of the story is that I still won.
I would be remiss if I didnt' recount the other part of the putt-putt happenings. Both times that we went were with my sister and brother in law Lindsey and Michael. The first night it was men vs. women and the men won. Our reward? Our spouses had to give us 20 minute back massages.
The second night night it was couple vs. couple. Cobbs vs. Houbres. The Cobbs destroyed the Houbres. No mercy. You can imagine the score when I shot even par and Stacey was 1 over. We won by 13 strokes. Our reward? The losing couple had to carry our stuff to the beach the next day. I let Lindsey off the hook and didn't ask her to carry my stuff. Stacey was not so generous and Michael had to lug it all to the beach. Sweet victory.
One of the craziest happenings of the week for me occurred the moment that I pulled up to the condo on Monday afternoon. When I had been at Asbury College I spent a significant amount of time with a guy named Mark Troyer. At the time he was in charge of Student Leadership Development. I would consider him one of my mentors. I even took a course credit class from him. Great guy. He's now the Dean of Students at Asbury. As I pulled into the parking spot, Dr. Mark Troyer walks by on the way to his condo! His family was staying the week as well. It was nuts. We had a great time catching up and talking about the college and life in general. It was such a funny occurrence.
I finished the week out by driving home and getting email notices of facebook birthday wishes all day long. It was fun to get well wishes from a gambit of people throughout the day.
Stacey is thankfully working day shifts all this week and so will be able to have our evenings together all week. I have come back from vacation totally refreshed and ready to rock. Atlantic Beach does it everytime!
If you remember from my previous post I had stated that one of my goals was to demoralize my wife in putt-putt. Well, I defeated her both times we played but I certainly did not demoralize her. In fact in the second match it was clear that her time with me practicing putting at our local golf course driving range is beginning to pay dividends. I won by one stroke...and I shot even par. Who does that in putt-putt? That's the greatest round of putt-putt I've ever had and it took that to defeat her. She had three hole in ones in a row at one point. The moral of the story is that I still won.
I would be remiss if I didnt' recount the other part of the putt-putt happenings. Both times that we went were with my sister and brother in law Lindsey and Michael. The first night it was men vs. women and the men won. Our reward? Our spouses had to give us 20 minute back massages.
The second night night it was couple vs. couple. Cobbs vs. Houbres. The Cobbs destroyed the Houbres. No mercy. You can imagine the score when I shot even par and Stacey was 1 over. We won by 13 strokes. Our reward? The losing couple had to carry our stuff to the beach the next day. I let Lindsey off the hook and didn't ask her to carry my stuff. Stacey was not so generous and Michael had to lug it all to the beach. Sweet victory.
One of the craziest happenings of the week for me occurred the moment that I pulled up to the condo on Monday afternoon. When I had been at Asbury College I spent a significant amount of time with a guy named Mark Troyer. At the time he was in charge of Student Leadership Development. I would consider him one of my mentors. I even took a course credit class from him. Great guy. He's now the Dean of Students at Asbury. As I pulled into the parking spot, Dr. Mark Troyer walks by on the way to his condo! His family was staying the week as well. It was nuts. We had a great time catching up and talking about the college and life in general. It was such a funny occurrence.
I finished the week out by driving home and getting email notices of facebook birthday wishes all day long. It was fun to get well wishes from a gambit of people throughout the day.
Stacey is thankfully working day shifts all this week and so will be able to have our evenings together all week. I have come back from vacation totally refreshed and ready to rock. Atlantic Beach does it everytime!
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Surf's Up
Its time to go to the beach! My brother Ryan drove down this afternoon from Dalton so that we could leave Monday morning around 6 am. 9 hour drive ahead of us. Plenty of time to catch up and solve a few of the worlds problems. Stacey is flying into New Bern on Tuesday night. Can you believe that to fly from Atlanta to New Bern, NC it was 150 bucks! I fell out of my chair when I saw that price. That saved us having two cars and her making a long drive by herself. Bet you didn't know that God works through U.S. Airways.
The beach to do list includes relax, read, catch up with family, and destroy Stacey in putt-putt. Recently Stacey has been going with me to the driving range and honing her skills with a 9 iron and then putting with me on the practice green. She is starting to get the hang of it. She already totally understands golf. She watches it on TV when I'm not even at home. I'm so blessed.
Another to do item at the beach is to do a low country boil for everyone. I've had the trial run at the house with my equipment. After some initial technical difficulties, we've worked out the kinks and we're fired up and ready to cook some food. We had some friends over to test the product. We got two thumbs up. I am fully aware that if I screw this up I will never hear the end of it. However, if I pull it off, it will become a family tradition. True leaders live for moments like these.
My birthday is next Sunday. I will driving 9 hours back to my house. Awesome present to myself. My birthday present is getting a week of vacation with Stacey at the North Carolina coast. I couldn't ask for a better gift. I'll be 28, which really doesn't feel much older than 27. However, its one step closer to 29 which is almost 30 and then holy crap you're 30. I can't handle that right now. Next topic.
All the hubbub about Michael Jackson is more than I can handle. Does anybody remember the last 15 years of this guys life? They were as jacked up as anybody we know of. Man do people have short memories.
That's enough for now, vacation has officially begun.
The beach to do list includes relax, read, catch up with family, and destroy Stacey in putt-putt. Recently Stacey has been going with me to the driving range and honing her skills with a 9 iron and then putting with me on the practice green. She is starting to get the hang of it. She already totally understands golf. She watches it on TV when I'm not even at home. I'm so blessed.
Another to do item at the beach is to do a low country boil for everyone. I've had the trial run at the house with my equipment. After some initial technical difficulties, we've worked out the kinks and we're fired up and ready to cook some food. We had some friends over to test the product. We got two thumbs up. I am fully aware that if I screw this up I will never hear the end of it. However, if I pull it off, it will become a family tradition. True leaders live for moments like these.
My birthday is next Sunday. I will driving 9 hours back to my house. Awesome present to myself. My birthday present is getting a week of vacation with Stacey at the North Carolina coast. I couldn't ask for a better gift. I'll be 28, which really doesn't feel much older than 27. However, its one step closer to 29 which is almost 30 and then holy crap you're 30. I can't handle that right now. Next topic.
All the hubbub about Michael Jackson is more than I can handle. Does anybody remember the last 15 years of this guys life? They were as jacked up as anybody we know of. Man do people have short memories.
That's enough for now, vacation has officially begun.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
The rockets red glare
Stacey has started officially at the hospital. So far so good. We're starting to not see each other very much too. No good stories yet, but oh its just a matter of time.
I spent my fourth of july at two different parties. The first was a family barbeque that didn't involve any of my family. The staff chef at the church is a southern Georgia African American gentleman who has become one of my good friends. He invited me to his annual fourth celebration to partake in the chowing down of 60 pounds of ribs, another 20 pounds of burgers, dogs, and chicken. Yes, that's 80 pounds of meet. I also ate some macaroni and cheese. It was awesome.
So that was the afternoon. That night I went to one of local malls to visit some members of the church who own a production company that was in charge of the event. They let me come backstage to take in the live entertainment and watch the fireworks. The fireworks were about 15 minutes long to a fantastic patriotic soundtrack. It was awesome. 250,000 people descended on this particular party. That requires a lot of porta potties. I used one backstage. It was nice and clean. Its nice to know connected people. When I asked them what their highest profile gig was they responded with this: in the 90s we produced an event with Michael Jackson. Yeah, that'll work.
The beach countdown is on. Low country boil night has been set for Wednesday evening. The only thing I'm worried about is this growing trend of breaking elbows in preparation for the beach. I just don't get it. One would think that a broken elbow would not be ideal for the beach. But after two cousins have done it weeks apart, I'm wondering if I'm missing out on something. Even if I am, I'm going to just say no.
I spent my fourth of july at two different parties. The first was a family barbeque that didn't involve any of my family. The staff chef at the church is a southern Georgia African American gentleman who has become one of my good friends. He invited me to his annual fourth celebration to partake in the chowing down of 60 pounds of ribs, another 20 pounds of burgers, dogs, and chicken. Yes, that's 80 pounds of meet. I also ate some macaroni and cheese. It was awesome.
So that was the afternoon. That night I went to one of local malls to visit some members of the church who own a production company that was in charge of the event. They let me come backstage to take in the live entertainment and watch the fireworks. The fireworks were about 15 minutes long to a fantastic patriotic soundtrack. It was awesome. 250,000 people descended on this particular party. That requires a lot of porta potties. I used one backstage. It was nice and clean. Its nice to know connected people. When I asked them what their highest profile gig was they responded with this: in the 90s we produced an event with Michael Jackson. Yeah, that'll work.
The beach countdown is on. Low country boil night has been set for Wednesday evening. The only thing I'm worried about is this growing trend of breaking elbows in preparation for the beach. I just don't get it. One would think that a broken elbow would not be ideal for the beach. But after two cousins have done it weeks apart, I'm wondering if I'm missing out on something. Even if I am, I'm going to just say no.
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