Blake Thompson daht NetI'm just saying….

The other night I was talking with some friends about dreams. Not dreams of the future, but the kind you have at night while you sleep. We started talking about recurring dreams, and there was one that I thought of immediately. I’ve not had this one in a while (that I remember), but it’s fairly common for me to have it.

Here’s the dream:

I’m usually at either High School or Middle School. It’s been at college before, but rarely. But at school ready to go to class. But for some reason (I don’t know why) I’ve not been in a while, a few weeks or something, and I’ve forgotten stuff. I’m not sure where my locker is. When I find it, I’ve no clue how to get into it because I’ve forgotten the combination. I can remember scattered details of my schedule like a few classes I’m taking, but not sure what class is what period. When I do make it to class, I stand in the doorway not sure where to sit. Do I sit in my old seat (where is it?) or is it now someone else’s? How has the social structure of the class changed w/o me here? Do we have homework today? Will I get to make up the work or will I get zeros for the time missed? If so, am I going to flunk? What will my teacher’s attitude be now? Was I missed?

Anybody ever had a dream like that? What sort of recurring dreams have you had?

Woo hoo! Here it is again. (Is it really worth doing these each week>)

1. How are you planning to spend the summer?
Uh, working. Of course work is a little different in the summer. Other than it being hotter I end up going on more trips because the kids are out of school.

2. What was your first summer job?
Working for a lawncare service. It was blazing hot most of the summer, but I enjoyed it except for when we didn’t really have anything to do for a few hours. If that was ever the case I was just dropped off at a clients house to pull weeds in their flower beds. But I made enough $$$ that summer to buy my first big camera. That was my goal for the summer. I made money, then spent nearly every penny of it in August. Good investment, though.

3. If you could go anywhere this summer, where would you go?
Seattle, Oregon, England, Australia, Seaside.

4. What was your worst vacation ever?
Never really had one that left a bad taste in my mouth.

5. What was your best vacation ever?
I’ve enjoyed all my trips to Panama City Beach. Not because of the area but just the trip. We were at BigStuf camps. But those weren’t vacations, really. My honeymoon to Seaside was incredible. I’d have to put it #1 right now.

For the very few of you who actually check in to see if I’ve rambled on about something…sorry about the distance between updates. I was in and out of town this weekend, then out of town Tuesday, and then just trying to catch my breath otherwise. Sleep has been another issue. I started reading some fiction books and they make me numb to sleepiness until well into the morning. But it will hit me like a rock when the alarm goes off. But it’s a Mississippi writer, Greg Iles.

Heard some great things about his books, so I dove into one. Good, quick reading. The one I read, Sleep No More, dealt with some far out principles. Thinking of starting another. But it’s really cool to see places not only mentioned but focal points in the story that I’m familiar with. I went to the library and the lady there said there was another Mississippi writer by the name of Burke that I might like too. I’ll check him out some day.

Fiction can grip me and carry me along. I’ll go through a few weeks where I’ll chew up a few books. Then I’ll not read one for a few months. I love to read. Used to read all the time. But now I don’t make the time for it like I should.

Again, to not bog down the front page…click below to continue

After finally getting my bed made after midnight I slept on a thin sheet covering a plastic mattress. I thought it would be a horrible nights sleep, but suprisingly it wasn’t so bad. The dorm room only had a sink so I had to walk down the hall for a shower. But the bathroom was empty and I was out of there pretty quickly. After a nice breakfast and a quick devotion the work gang for Voice of Calvary gathered downstairs in the parking lot. After a quick count we had all that were supposed to be there. There were 3 that wouldn’t be with us that day.

We got to the church and saw that its grouds were grown up pretty badly. Bushes had no shape except for looking like a big lump of mashed potatoes. The weeds were covered with sidewalk..but we had to make it look the other way around, then get rid of the weeds. And there was a homeless man sleeping on the front steps.

But after a short prep talk from the VoC head honchos, we break up into groups. Mowers, weed eaters, weed pullers, hedge clippers, and bust-stuff-uppers. The Bust-Stuff-Uppers were elated when they saw the sledge hammer and axe, but there was nothing for them to do, so they would hang out with the other group, the Stand-Around-With-A-Tool-And-Talkers. Eventually some of them formed a sub group that had no tools, just talked. But it was too early on the first day to do that.

It was kinda funny seeing guys who’d never mowed before have a sudden passion for it. But it was short lived. And they didn’t realize that if you go either in a back and forth motion along parrell lines or in a square that it’s much easier than running trying to make designs in the tall grass. The first guy admitted that the only mower he’d ever used was the popcorn mower toy he had when he was 3.

We also found an open door to one of the buildings. We went in and explored. But we had our selves on guard in case there was anyone in there. We did find a few makeshift beds here and there, but no people. After going up and down 3 floors, we were told that it was best not to be in there so we went back to work.

We break for lunch back at Galloway, then return for the afternoon. Mostly the same stuff. Except that another work group comes. That means more people to add to the two Talker groups. But there’s a new group that’s formed. It’s now a combo of the Bust-Stuff-Uppers (BSU) and new guys we’ll call Let’s-See-What-Kind-Of-Stuff-We-Can-Get-Into. They find open doors or windows in differnet buildings and go exploring. But they didn’t need to be in there…esp. with out an adult.

So the afternoon went pretty much like the first except for the running around inside by some people. We head back to campus for showers, rest, and then go eat supper at Galloway. Then it’s small groups, worship, then a marathon youth leaders meeting about the first day at the sites. It lasted way longer than I had attention span for, but it was needed none-the-less.

Sleep came pretty easily after doing a little reading. I read up on MediaShout because we were going to try and use it at the church the next Sunday for our new early morning worship service. Trying to go “contemporary”…we’ll see.

I must admit, I’m already getting excited about the prospects of fantasy football. My friend Sam talked about it for a few years, then he got me in a league he was in. I joined it and began my own as well. After doing pretty well in both of those leagues that first year…I’m hooked!

So it’s only a matter of time now.

Once again, the Friday Five (on time).

1. Is your hair naturally curly, wavy, or straight? Long or short?
Straight when short, but can get bushy if it gets longer.

2. How has your hair changed over your lifetime?
Seems to have gotten coarser. I probably wear it shorter than I ever have right now.

3. How do your normally wear your hair?
Short. Not buzzed (though I did shave it back in March). But I don’t have to worry with a brush or dryer or anything.

4. If you could change your hair this minute, what would it look like?
Good question. I sometimes see some cool things guys do with their hair. Doing some gel action and getting some of it to stand up and all that. But I don’t invest the time in my hair that others do. Just towel dry it and get it going the right direction with my fingers…and there you go.

5. Ever had a hair disaster? What happened?
I let my wife cut my hair once. Took her over an hour. And it wasn’t pretty.

Travis Outlaw, a high school grad from Starkville, MS, signed a letter of intent with Mississippi State back in the fall. All us State fans were more than excited about that. But he’s been flirting with the NBA for quite a while as well. The first words I heard about it from him were something like “If I’m not a top 10 pick, then I’m going to college.” Now it seems his tune has changed. It’s more like “If I’m a first rounder, then I’m going to the NBA.” He has until tomorrow, the 19th, to pull out.

I wish him the best, but I don’t think he’s ready for the NBA. Heck, I don’t think he’d start next year for MSU. But it’s hard to tell a kid to not think about the $$$’s that could be waiting. And you can’t really blame him. I wish he’d come to MSU for partly selfish reasons, I admit. But I think he’d dramatically improve his draft position if he were to come to MSU. To be honest, I think he’s a little shaky on his grades situation.

In other MSU basketball news, MSU coaches confirmed that they signed a Polish guy to come in to play bball and follow in the footsteps of Michel Ignerski. But the coaches say they don’t think he’ll get the paperwork done in time to be elligible.

So, after signing two McDonald’s All Americans from Mississippi, a top prep school PG, a combo guard from Wayne County, and a Polish rifle…it looks like the two guards are the only ones who’ll be suiting up for us next fall. Add to that the fact that Mario Austin left for the NBA one year too early and I’m not so confident in MSU basketball next year.

Oh, and our football team’s still being investigated.

Sheesh…

Am I the only guy I know that’s not seen Finding Nemo now? Even my daughter has seen it…or at least most of it. She went with her grandmother, but they didn’t stay to finish the end. She got restless and couldn’t stay in her seat.

But how does Nemo compare to Monster’s Inc or Toy Story? Both were made by Pixar (just like Nemo) and I wonder if it is better or not.

Yesterday our church carried some preschoolers to the Tupelo Buffalo Park. We carried our daughter, but I wasn’t really sure if the trip was going to be fun or not. But it turned out to be much better than I expected.

Yes, they have the biggest buffalo heard east of the Mississippi. But the have a lot of other animals as well: 2 giraffes, tiger, lion, bear, some monkeys (angry monkeys, I might add), some zebras, ostriches, emus, goads, horses, ponies, a beefalo, a zebra/donkey mix, turtle, duck, some snakes and big fat lizards. Quite an assortment.

She really enjoyed feeding the goats out of the palm of her hand. They had those little machines where you put in a quarter and get out about 4 cents worth of goat chow. But the Daily Journal was there taking pictures, so they were giving free goat chow to the kids to feed the animals hoping to get a good picture. So there may be pictures of our day in the newspaper in a week or so. We’ll see.

I took some pics too, but they’re still on the camera. I’ll try to get them posted in the next day or so.

These could be short or long, not sure yet. But I’ll give a brief rundown of what we did at Mission Fest last week. But to save space on the main page, I’ll put most of what I type in the extended entry section…so click below to keep on reading.

But we attended Mission Fest at Galloway UMC in Jackson. Our youth group has gone the past 4 summers now and this one was probably the best so far.

I wasn’t too pumped about going at first. Our youth group wasn’t going to go because we’d planned a different mission trip to Jackson, but turned out that a few of our kids couldn’t go that week because of other things and really wanted to go on a mission trip, so we planned to go back to MFest. It was a small group and I was going to be away from my wife/kid for a week and put a slight crunch on my wife with her work schedule and all. But I knew that MFest had always been a rewarding time as well, so I was looking at it with an open mind.

I was hoping to be able to work at Habitat again, but found out just before leaving that there wasn’t going to be a Habitat worksite. They had no foundations ready for us to build on. I’d worked with them last year and had a most excellent time. To be honest, it was one of them most fulfilling work experiences I’ve ever had.

But after getting down there on Sunday afternoon with our half a van load of people I find out that I’m one of the site leaders at the Voice of Calvary worksite (here’s their official site). Also found out that the other adult at my site an co-leader was a good friend from Tupelo. After getting all checked in, moved my stuff in my nice, empty dorm room at Millsaps, orientated, we met with our work group.

We found out that group of 28 of us would be working to start the renovation process of Capitol Street UMC in downtown Jackson. It used to be a very fine church in the area, but “white flight” a few decades ago left the church slowly degrading. It’s now been abandoned for a few years, they tell us. But there’s now hope. Voice of Calvary will take it over and be a beacon for Christ in a dark part of the city. But there’s lots of mowing, weeding, hedge clipping, tree pruning, and kudzu yanking to be done. So we’ll be sweating and burning up in the Mississippi sun for the Glory of Christ.

After a bland hamburger supper and some inflatable games in the bowl, we go to Galloway for small groups and worship. After a nice time there with Eddie Willis leading worship, we head back to campus for a long youth leaders meeting and then bedtime. I’d been up way late the night before and still hadn’t made my bed, so I crawl into bed and read some of Jackson’s free news/opinion weeklies before I turn the light out….lots of stuff ahead of me.