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Friday's Feast #110

09/08/2006 / Blake

Appetizer: Name 3 things that you are wearing today.
Shoes, Watch, Cross

Soup:Who was the last person you hugged?
My oldest daughter

Salad :What do you like to order from your favorite fast food place?
A Blizzard w/ Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Strawberries and a touch of Malt.

Main Course :What time of day do you usually feel most energized?
About evening time.

Dessert :Using the letters in your first name, write a sentence. (Example: Sweet unusual spaniels are nice.)
Beagles like all kids everywhere!

Somehow this year I got nudged into being the League Director for the U6 girls here in Clinton. Well, now it’s the U5/U6 combined. But I was figuring it would only be a few hours of work on the front end. Plug in a few volunteers w/ the teams and everything would be a smooth operation.

Only that there were not near enough coaches. I was sending emails and calling folks and kept hitting a dead end each time. This past Wednesday we had a league wide parents meeting and finally had some step up and say “YES!” and they’re put together. But getting uniforms to everyone and being the first gateway of questions and complaints….well, the pay just isn’t that good (for free).

But I looked back through some pictures from last year and my oldest playing soccer and I think it might all be worth it in the long run. She’s no soccer star by any means, but she enjoys going out there. Hopefully everything else continues to fall in place and games start as planned next weekend.

That’s mine in the pigtails.

She was screaming and having a blast.

So once everything settles in and shakes out, it should be a good season. I’ll get some photos up when taken.

Kickoff Time.

08/31/2006 / Blake

Yep, football to bring me back to the blog. But tonight is when MSU fans are always the most optimistic. If you go read much on the MSU message boards then it seems that almost all know it won’t be an easy game vs. the Gamecocks, but definitely a winnable one. But I’m listening to the Southern Sports Tonight and I only heard ONE SINGLE GUY predict a Bulldog victory.

But tonight is the first game of the season…for us or anyone. And optimism is always at its height. But I think we’ve got a chance at a good season. I’ll admit that I always think that at the outset. But we’ve got a defense that was top 30 in the country and returns 8 or 9 starters. And an OL that is much improved and a WR corps that is much improved.

So as I leave to go find a tv (still no cable here at the house), I’m hoping that the Bulldogs send Steve home 0-3 on his visits to Starkville.

Is Backpack the way to go?

08/20/2006 / Blake

My life in general is needing some organizing. I’ve been hearing a little about Backpack. First heard about it from Brian Bailey. He said he loves it and I’ve found a lot of other people who love it as well. It’s basically a way to keep lists, pages, info, reminders, calendars, memos, files, pictures and just about anything else together in once place so you can get at it from any internet connection.

I’m thinking of creating a page for Work (Church), Side Projects (MST), and then Home. I’ll try that and see how it smooths things out. The company that makes Backpack, 37Signals, also has Basecamp that might be worth checking in on. It’s more of a project management application, but looks like it could be useful as well.

DC Reto

08/17/2006 / Blake

While we were in Costa Rica we had church service about four times. Seems they like to have church about every other day. But at the end of the first night we were at church they played about six different styles of music. But they closed out the night w/ some rap song that was in Spanish. But all the Costa Rican kids went nuts. Heck, the whole church danced to it. It was like their “closing song”. Everyone knew the words and all.

The song was “Vida” by a group called DC Reto. It stands for some long name in Spanish, but anyhow, they’re quite amazing. There were a few songs that they played over and over (Pa Los Ninos, and Yo Te Quiero were the others). But DC Reto is a group from Honduras that also has an American in it. The music is quite infectious.

Someone from our group got the DC Reto cd and put it on iTunes so everyone could put it on their iPod. So we had all these white American kids walking around singing the five or six words of the song they knew, although none of it was in English and they didn’t really know what it meant.

But go check out DC Reto if you can. Their official site was down, dcreto.net,when I first started trying it, but it’s up these days.

[tags]dc reto, vida, pa los ninos[/tags]

Fantasy Football is here

08/17/2006 / Blake

I’m in a draft right now. Usually they’re really fun. But sometimes they can be like watching paint dry if you have some guys who pick really, really slowly.

Fantasy football is best when you play w/ people you know. But right now I’m drafting in a league, 5th year I’ve been in it, and I don’t actually KNOW anyone in it (meaning ever met them or even talked on the phone w/ them). I have chatted over AIM or something with a few. But it’s a really competitive league. I always seem to have a sub par team that does just well enough to have a sorry draft position each year. Lucky me.

But last year in this league (it’s a Keeper League) I won my division, and I made it all the way to the title game. Lost royally. So I have 2nd to last pick w/ keepers that would be 2nd at their position. Brees, Wayne, and R. Johnson.

[tags]fantasy football[/tags]

Is Moleskine worth it?

08/15/2006 / Blake

I like to have a neat journal. The paper and pen kind. The only problem is that I don’t use them consistently enough. I tried keeping an actual journal a few times and I still have those little spiral bound notebooks here and there. But I have plenty of notebooks scattered around drawers and closets with random stuff in them. Whether notes from college, notes from speakers at camps/conventions, to do lists, scores from a few games of Hearts.

A few months ago I found a new journal someone left in the youth room at church. It was brand spanking new. Not a mark in it. Something called a Mole Skin or something. Actually took it to a Bible study and showed it to a friend. He said, “I’ve been looking for that!” So I had to give it up. I figured them to be pretty expensive.

But today I won myself a Moleskine journal on eBay. Good for me. Now I will have my own little doodle, sketch, note, list, journal for whenever I need it. It was less than $10 (including shipping!). Not that it would ever take the place of blogging, but maybe it could be an idea emporium for future blogging posts!

Has anyone else used Moleskine and had a good experience w/ it?

[tags]moleskine[/tags]

Sunday night reflections

08/15/2006 / Blake

Well, I have to admit that our Sunday nights here at the church have been pretty low as far as attendance. Seems we like to ebb and flow with numbers, and we’ve definitely been on an ebb lately. The summer is a time for people to be in and out of town a lot, and it has shown. But with Sunday night being the first weekend since schools started, we had a hamburger supper before hand. People showed up. And kept showing up.

We ended up having over 100 kids here (not including adults and the band). And the band was rocking quite well too. Josh Brister and his merry band led us in 4 or 5 songs and did a great job. I could tell Josh fed off the crowd’s energy too. Then I spoke on “Whatever” for a bit. Basically taking Phil 4:8-9 and Col 3:17 and saying that God doesn’t always care what you do, but how you do what you do and why you do it and who you do it for.

I have to admit that I was a little surprised w/ the crowd. And very pleased. VERY pleased. But we had a nice crowed when school started last year too, and I learned w/o proper “investment” into them, that it can dwindle easily.

So my prayer is to pour into them. POUR into them and see them grow in Him.

One year olds and sleep

08/13/2006 / Blake

It really is a great day for me when my one year old lets me lay her down without any fuss. There have been nights when I start walking her to her room and I can tell already that she’s going to make quite a night of it. But sometimes she fools me. Either she acts tired and docile only to test her abilities to peel paint from the walls with her scream. Or she’ll be restless and cranky as we go to her room only to lay motionless as soon as she touches her mattress.

Tonight was the best of both worlds. I asked her, “Are you ready for night-night?” She puts her left palm on the left side of her head for the ASL sign for bed. And then as I walk her to her room, she nuzzles into my shoulder all sweet like. And never makes a fuss! I can’t tell you how much that helps me relax when she relaxes.

Even when Big Sis came to bed a little later, she stirred, looked up at me and laid back down when I came over to rub her back again. I hope for more nights like these…

The weekend is here!

08/11/2006 / Blake

Crap! I typed all this stuff out and then Firefox blanked out on me! So I’ll hope to be able to retype it all as good as before.

So now everyone is back from Costa Rica and the kids are back in school. It feels weird to think that just earlier this week we were down in Central America working, sweating, painting, mixing concrete, and dancing to a rap group from Honduras.

I think about a third of our group got sick down there. Most of those even got shots. I’d have to be pretty bad off to get a shot down there I think. But I thought some were maybe over reacting. But after not feeling bad while down there, I come home and start feeling puny. I ran a fever one night (had chills and everything) and a cough that didn’t want me to talk. Now I’m good except for a runny nose.

It was awesome to have The Wife down there w/ me. She’d heard a lot about C.Rica from me, but wanted to be able to experience it herself. She misses it now. Wants to go back…and I mean before next summer. Sure, it’s a cool place. And it’s beautiful and breathtaking some of the things you get to see. But it’s the people themselves you really fall in love with. To be able to go to church w/ them, eat w/ them, work and sweat along side of them, and see the genuine care and love in their eyes when they talk with you (whether you understand them or not). You really want to take some of them home with you…or go live with them!

Bomitada Fest happened again. When I get all the pictures from it I’ll give a more detailed description. But it was Utah, Becca, and me again this year and we more than doubled our fund raising from last year! And there was some more drama and excitement w/ the contest as well. More to come later (I promise!)

Blake Thompson daht Net