Blake Thompson daht NetI'm just saying….

I’ve not really been running that much, hadn’t run since the late night run last Tuesday. But felt pretty good going into the run last night.

But before the 5k, there was the One Mile Fun Run. Addie registered and ran it. The Wife ran it with her. I sat out. I wanted to save my energy for the 5k. In hindsight, it might not have been a bad idea to use that as a warmup. But she ran this one in 10:45. Over 30 improvement. Not bad for a 4 year old.
But when our race started, I was running w/ friends Cory and Alex. I thought it was probably about a 10 minute pace. My boss and pastor, Bob, was a bit behind us running with Mike Grove. Pretty soon they caught up to us and we were all running together. It became clear Bob was wanting to go on ahead, so Mike, Alex, Cory and I ran together having decent conversation along the way as Bob sped on ahead. The course was basically an out and back w/ a few loops through some neighborhoods. But there were no mile markers or people calling out times. I’m glad I had my watch w/ me. But even though I knew the time, I couldn’t tell how far.

But after a semi-dramatic finish I realized my time was somewhere around 27:40. So I took off about 5 whole minutes from two weeks ago. That’s not too bad of an improvement. But it was a fun night. We had a handful of people from the youth ministry and the church as a whole running. Even had around 10 or so people place I believe.

Running can be fun….sometimes.

Today, going through the mail, I seperated the keepers from the look at before throwing away from the rip up and throw away.

One in the rip up and throw away pile was a credit card application. One of those “you’ve already been approved” and telling me all these benefits on the envelope of why I’d want to be a part. But I have no need for it. So I ripped it up and asked my daughter to throw it away.

She did so, then came back saying, “I know you love Jesus. Why did you throw that away?” Turns out that this credit card was connected to Family Christian Bookstores. You can earn some credit or something by spending tons of money elsewhere. “That mail you ripped up had crosses on it. And I know you love Jesus. So why did you want to throw something about Jesus and crosses away?”

Sheesh…kids these days.

Late last night I signed up w/ my VPS. Then I went to bed. I was welcomed this morning by an email detailing all the stuff that was over my head. So I dove in. I think I’m getting the hang of it, but only because I am skimming the surface.

But I think I successfully transfered MissSportsTalk.com over to the new server and now I get to hurry up and wait. I am waiting on the DNS to propogate to the new servers. Hopefully all will be right in the world when I wake up in the morning (hopefully I get to sleep late too!). And hopefully there’s be no more annoying error messages that have plagued the site lately.

I’m trying to upload a picture of a new site I just found. It’s called MapMyRun.com. It uses Google Maps where you plot the course of a run, then it will tell you the exact distance. Pretty cool.

I was through with food and tv for the night and realized I’d been putting off the run I meant to do yesterday. So I decided to go for a night run. Running at night is my favorite time to go running anyhow. But tonight was the best in a loooooong while. I actually had fun on this run instead of just trying to finish. Almost took  me back to some summer night runs when working at Lake Stephens or Ozark. I was probably in the best shape of my life back then.

So there is my route. 2.54 miles. In just under 25 minutes. Not good, but not bad.

I’ve been lagging on a lot of things. General and specific things. But life things. I began to listen to Erwin McManus‘s last series from his church on his podcast. It is called Chasing Daylight, but is a re-release of a previous book of his I read entitled Seizing Your Divine Moment. Lots of truth in that book I need to digest.

But a couple of days ago Tony Morgan had this post where he was talking about DRIVE THE CAR. He likened our lives to a car and someone who loves his car and tinkers with it and puts time into trying to get it just right, but never taking it out of the garage. Never getting it on the open road. Sometimes I think that’s me.

So now that I’ve been slapped around in the face with it a little lately…what am I going to do with it?

Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes baby thing. They named their little girl Suri because they apparently opened up a baby name book and it just leapt off the page at them. In their official release, Tom and Katie say the name means “red rose” in Persian and “princess” in Hebrew… Ummm… Er….. You guys were a little off the mark there. A Hebrew expert says Suri actually means “go away” when you use it toward a female, so it’s pretty fair to say that the new parents made a mistake here…By the way, Suri also means “pointy nose” in some Indian dialects and “pickpocket” in Japanese. So ultimately, Tom and Katie have named their kid “Go away, you little pointy-nosed pickpocket” Cruise. HI-larious.

I’m really thinking of going back to Costa Rica this summer. Today is another meeting. But here is the cool part, I think The Wife is going to come along too! We’ve not worked out the details of where the girls will be yet, but looking to go late July/early August to Liberia, Costa Rica again on a mission trip.

Looking forward to the hot days, hard work, hot nights, great fellowship, interesting church services, and feeling exhausted knowing you did some work for God.

This is me and Pastor Carlos of the church where we work, eat, and sleep pretty much all day. Outstanding man of God.

For more pictures of our trip last year to Costa Rica you can check out this Flickr Set.

I’m nervous about it. It’s a big step. But a step that I’ll have to make on two fronts.

MissSportsTalk.com is starting to get too busy to be hosted on it’s current server. I love the hosting company and their prices and their features. But I think I need more than they can offer. So I’m going to have to bump up to a Virtual Private Server. That costs more money.

Plus, I need more money. Seems expenses are starting to get close or exceed income. I know some of it is need of us tweaking our budget, but I need to take advantage of the potential that this site has for bringing in a little extra cash. So I’m going to attempt to put ads on MST.

This week I will switch to a new host, try to get the board upgraded to the latest software, and get ads placed on it. Then I’ll try to get it reskinned to look pretty much like it does right now.

Then we’ll see if I can find advertisers….

Why does it always seem to be that when you find out you’re getting some uncommon ammount of money that there is always an expense that comes up?

Monday I finalized my taxes (nothing like the last minute, huh?) and was happy that I was getting some money back. I’m not about to go buy a new car or anything, but there have been a few things that The Wife and I have been talking about getting. Those things fall along various points in the Want — Need scale, but you know how that goes.

Then we take the Tahoe today to get some freon put in it. But turns out there is a leak in the line and a leak in the compressor. So that sets us back quite a bit. So now we have a much cooler air conditioner, but our tax refund took a major hit…and we’ve not even gotten the refund yet!

Today it came in the mail. I really wasn’t expecting it. But as I unwrapped the package I saw on the desk when I got home, I could tell it was a tshirt. But the little card said, “CONGRATULATIONS! Please accept the enclosed t-shirt as our recognition of your outstand performance in this year’s Fantasy Football PLUS competition.”

Seems that hard work and waiver wire luck paid off last fall! Now I’ll be the envy of all my friends. Won’t my wife be proud!