Category: Stuff (Page 33 of 65)

Bush won. Is anyone really surprised? I think a lot of people are. I stayed up late Tuesday night trying to see what the heck would happen with Ohio. It’s amazing when the entire election seems to come down on one state. But Pennsylvania was called for Kerry much earlier and had less of a margin than Ohio. The networks seem a little screwy sometimes. But it’s all to be expected I guess.

But I was glad that Kerry didn’t drag things out for ever and ever. That would have been horrible. But I guess Michael Moore has enough fodder for a new movie or two. Someone said he was doing a movie on the pharmacutical industry or something. Someone’s also made a movie called FarenHYPE/911. I might actually check that one out.

I’m still amazed by my short, short lines to vote. There were probably 8-14 booths where I was voting. I bet they had people walk up and vote w/ no wait all day. Then I hear about the college campus in Ohio where there were 2 booths for over 3000 students. That’s plain nuts.

What will the country do now? To be honest, sometimes I don’t think it really matters who we elect. From watching tv shows and doing some reading and other stuff. Sometimes you wonder if it’s actually the president who pulls the strings on the country, of if he’s got some folks who are pulling his strings…..

Today was my 4th time to vote for president. Same thing every time. Walk in, say your name, sign your name, get your sheet and go stand in the booth. Mark your marks then slip it in the box.

There were no people outside harrassing me. No one to influence my voting. No one taking my picture or offering me a ride or popping my tires.

Oh well.

I’m up late right now. But after I go to sleep, wake up, eat, shower, and take care of morning business….I shall vote.

For who? Dunno yet. But I hope to have a normal experience. And why wouldn’t I?

We shall see!

I went down for the church’s Fall Retreat. Friday night was just the college students and seniors in high school. They were to be the leaders for the week. There were only about 18 or so of us there the first night. It was good to get to meet them and get to know them a little better. I was pretty surprised with the maturity of a lot of them. Suprised and encouraged. We stayed up a while getting some things ready and set up for the weekend. Also made out the schedule for the Tower of Power. The Tower was a deer stand in a tree with a mic and speakers. Scripture was read 24/7 from up there starting in Genesis. It was to be a blessing on the whole weekend to have God’s word read over them.

I started getting a headache at some point in the night. I had no Tylonol or Advil, so I tried to guzzle Coke to caffinate my headache. Didn’t work. So later I go to bed with a headache. That’s usually the best headache medicine….sleep. But it won’t let me go to sleep. I get up at 3:30 going to the camp office and cafferteria looking for pain killer. I think about driving to a store, but I don’t really know where I am and not sure where the nearest store is, much less one that’s open at 3:45 am.

I get some Orbit gum, sit on the front porch of my cabin for a bit and decide to go lay back down. Yatzee!!! I go to sleep. I get miniscule sleep and feel great! God is good.

The kids get there the next day and there are a few that I recognize and remember. But I’m meeting kids left and right and not remembering names. The speaker and worship leader do their thing and I’m still meeting people left and right. Lunch, afternoon game, my hour to read in the Tower of Power, games, session, supper, then I have to leave.

But it was a good weekend. I think it was a great opportunity to break some ice. That way I don’t show up in December and no one knows me and I know no one. Sure, there are still tons of people to meet and get to know.

Now we gotta find a house! Wait, I mean we gotta sell a house!

Oh, and the Dogs one 2 in a row!

Seems the guy is on vacation or something.

But since there’s no aimless stuff to post today, I’ll pimp a few friends’ blogs today. I’ll start trying to do that a little more here and there. If you read this and don’t see your blog listed, have patience. I don’t want to put them all up here at once.

Russ & Anna’s Wedding Blog I’ve known Russ for a long while thanks to Camp Lake Stephens. There was a time when I was “old” and he was “young”. Now we’re both in the “older” bracket. Anyhow, he’s getting married to Anna. She’s a cool girl too. Russ told me that he and Anna would read my blog pretty often, and I tried to encourage them to make a blog for their wedding preperations. He kept dodging it saying it was probably too complicated. I wouldn’t give up and finally walked him through it. Now he’s been a blog-evangelist of sorts. Russ is a UTenn fan who went to UMiss. But he’s a UMem fan in basketball. Anna is a UMiss fan who went to UMiss. They’re interesting.

I Wish I Was At The Beach is another friend from Camp Lake Stephens. Lyle is one of the more unique people I know. He’s so freaking passionate about Rebel sports, but one of the most pragmatic Rebel fans I know. He won’t blow any smoke up someone’s butt with red/blue glasses on. He’ll call it as he sees it. Lyle is someone who I don’t see very often, but after I’ve been around him I always realize I should try to hang out with him a little more. One of the funniest people I know.

We’ve gotten a few nibbles on our house, but not good bites. We thought we might have had one last week, but it fell off the hook or something. Maybe they’ll come back. But in the meantime, we’re praying for a buyer.

We’re also praying for a house to buy. We may end up renting for a bit down there. Dunno yet. But we’ll keep looking and keeping our eyes/ears open. I’m going down for a weekend retreat with the new youth group tomorrow. Get to know a bunch of the kids ahead of time hopefully. There’s always going to be that initial “Do they think I’m a dork or do they at least think I’m semi-cool?” feeling. Hopefully be meeting a few of them before my work actually begins will help the transition.

I’ve also got to film part of a video to be used in a larger video for a Christmas Break trip I’m going on with the church down there. It was suppposed to be something cool with lots of pre-planning. But I’m a last minute addition, so the idea is to ramp up the “dork-factor” for laughs and to show that I’m not affraid to make fun of myself…or something to that effect.

Oh, and my house stinks. BAD! My wife made brownies for me. Took them out of the oven and set them on the stove. She also prepared supper. All I had to do was cook it. So after she went to work I put the dish in the oven, fired it up, and put some water on to boil (to steam some brocolli). I go to the living room. Next thing I know the kitchen is filled with thick, billowing smoke. Ends up I turned on the wrong stove eye. So the brownies are resting on a red hot eye and mini-Mt. St. Helens has errupted in my kitchen.

Now the whole house smells like burnt/scorched/fried/toasted brownies…it’s baaaad.

I had no less than 11 tickets offered to me over the week last week. But I decided not to go. I’m going to a retreat for my new church this coming weekend, so I figured I should stick around the house last weekend. Especially since I figured we’d get blown out. I guess I wasn’ the only one. The student sections acted opposite than what they used to.

In the past the student sections were full at kickoff and empty by the end of the 3rd quarter. They were about half full at kickoff and packed at the end of the game. I guess people were waking up on campus and around Starkville and thinking, “Heck, I gotta get there!”

This is just one win, I know. But we got a huge morale boost and hopefully a recruiting boost. We’ll need it. But it appears that our players are seeing that Croom’s methods will actually work. State fans shouldn’t get cocky or overconfident just yet. But two more wins is possible. One more is probable.

But am I excited? Heck yeah!

My daughter has come to really like the Veggie Tales. But all I had to show her were the older ones. I looked on Amazon.com at some newer ones and read in one of the reviews that Veggie Tales is under new ownership/management and to expect the quality of the content to begin to decline. So I went to Phil Vischer’s website (the creator and mastermind behind Big Idea (the producton company)) and read this:

Q: What’s going on at Big Idea?

A: If you haven’t heard, there have been big changes at Big Idea over the last year. Technically speaking, Big Idea Productions, Inc., the company I started in 1993, no longer exists. It was dissolved in bankruptcy court in November of 2003. Yes, you read that right. Due to a whole host of unfortunate events (which I will detail more thoroughly on this site in the future), Big Idea fell into bankruptcy in mid-2003. All the assets (characters, films, songs, file cabinets, Sharpies… everything) had to be sold through a public auction process governed by the court to try to repay as many of Big Idea’s creditors as possible. While a whole host of interested parties showed up to place bids, the winning bid came from Classic Media, a NYC-based media company that owns a trove of classic characters like Lassie, the Lone Ranger, Casper, Rocky & Bullwinkle, and Underdog. Classic formed a new corporation called “Big Idea, Inc.” to hold these assets, and hired about 30 former Big Idea Productions employees to continue producing more VeggieTales videos and manage the business on their behalf. Some key folk like Mike Nawrocki, Kurt Heinecke and Tim Hodge have joined Classic and will remain involved with VeggieTales.

That pains me a bit. Because as goofy as Veggie Tales are, I like them a good bit myself. Click the extended entry for a few more Q&A’s from Phil about Big Idea, Veggie Tales, Phil, and the futures of all things concerned.

Q: What about YOU, Phil? Did you sign up with Classic, too?

A: Well, that part was a bit tricky. The Classic guys are decent enough fellows, and I really didn’t want to abandon the characters I’d created or the fans who’d grown to love them, but there was a catch. First, they had no interest in letting me run Big Idea (which, given the state of the company when they found it shouldn’t really surprise anyone). Second, if I had taken a staff position with Classic, not only would they have owned VeggieTales, but they also would own by default any new ideas I would create while under their employ. So Lisa and I would have lost ownership and control of everything we created in the past, and everything we would create going forward. Since we consider our work a ministry first and a business second, we really feel called by God to maintain as much control as possible, so our ideas can always stay true to God’s call and any profits they make can be reinvested into more ministry work. A staff position with Classic Media, unfortunately, would have made that impossible.

Q: So are you gone from VeggieTales forever?

A: No. I worked out a deal with Classic Media where I will write one VeggieTales episode for them each year, and give notes on up to two more that are written by the in-house creative folk or other writers. In addition, I’ve agreed to continue performing voices for my little troupe of veggies (rather vital, since I voice about half the characters). I’m doing this work in exchange for creative fees, plus an ongoing participation in the profits from VeggieTales videos, which Lisa and I can reinvest in new ministry work.

So God has really done something interesting. He has taken a situation that started out as a complete disaster (literally the loss of everything I have done in my adult life), and brought out of it an opportunity for me to return my focus to new stories as he directs, while allowing VeggieTales to provide the funding. To be honest, trying to run a ‘big company’ didn’t fit my personality or gifting in any way. I was pretty darn miserable as Big Idea’s “Top Tomato.” And the bigger the company grew, the less time I had to use the creative gifts God had given me. I was so convinced that God wanted me to be “Walt Disney” that I kept banging my head against that door, even as the company was unraveling around me. And amazingly, God used the disaster of Big Idea collapsing to gently whisper, “I don’t want you to be Walt Disney. I want you to be Phil.” To which, of course, I replied, “But I’m not sure I know who ‘Phil’ is!” And then he responded, “Just slow down, take a deep breath, and I’ll show you.” Pretty cool, huh?

Q: What’s Phil working on now?

A: I’m working on my VeggieTales script for the year (which you can learn more about on this site), and waiting to see what else God has in store for me. (Which you will also learn about on this site!

Feast Twenty-two

Appetizer
Name 3 things that you are wearing today.
Baseball cap, old Disciple Now shirt, gym shorts

Soup
Who was the last person you hugged?
My daughter

Salad
What do you like to order from your favorite fast food place?
Steak

Main Course
What time of day do you usually feel most energized?
Friday or Saturday

Dessert
Using the letters in your first name, write a sentence. (Example: Sweet unusual spaniels are nice.)
Bees like angry khaki elephants!

A cool pic from our time at the beach. She had such a good time.

This was in the water at Pick Wick two summers ago. She was trying to smile but kicking her legs like mad underwater at the same time.

We set up her tent a few weeks ago in her room. She thought it was the coolest thing in the world. She wanted me to sleep in her tent while she slept in her bed at night. I wasn’t up for that.