Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 1970, 70's, Moustache, Nasty, Nasty Stash, Trucker
Here it is ladies and gentlemen… The Nasty Stash.
Saying anything else would only take away from the stash.
(Disclaimer: Don’t try this at home.)
Filed under: Uncategorized
Here at Epic Tales of Hyperbole, I pride myself on my complete inconsistency. So keeping with that trend, here is another brand new installment of yet another type of post that may or may not ever be used again.
I’ve seen plenty of good reviews of this card, but I had no idea how awesome it was until I bought one myself. The Eye-Fi Card has revolutionized my picture taking.
If you own a digital camera that accepts SD cards, buy this now. It wirelessly transfers photos that you take immediately to your computer. Now you will also need to be on a wireless network, but if you have the required items, buy this card. (Costco is the cheapest, for the penny pinchers.) Most impressive is the incredible attention to detail with the innovative and entertaining box it comes in.
In the past I would leave photos on my card for months until I had such a mess that it would take days just to download and organize them. No more insanity and no more wires, I have taken my laziness to a new level… Now if I could just figure out an effortless way to actually take the photos.
Since I regularly quiz my small groupies on my blog, I should probably dedicate one to them… Seems only appropriate to title it nasty. Why nasty? Balut, that’s why nasty.
So a few of our small group peeps are from the Philippines (well only one now). The discussion of this food came up the other day around the dinner table… I liked the sound of the name, so I kept repeating it out loud, over and over. That was, at least, until I found out what it was:
Balut (a.k.a. Baloot, Baalut, Baluge, or Balute) is a fifteen- or sixteen-day fertilized chicken (or duck) egg, complete with partially formed feathers, feet, eyeballs, and blood vessels showing through the translucent skin of the chick. And this is something thats supposed to be delightfully popped into your mouth.
Pardon me a moment while I try not to throw-up. (I will NOT be posting a picture, follow the link if you want to see.)
So I know we should respect other cultures and all, but I’m officially putting this in the nasty pile (along with the nasty stash).
I’ve officially banned the discussion from small group, but it has yet to take affect as they continually bring it up.
Thanks guys.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Elevation took a contingent of 150 people to the unleashed conference down at Newspring last week. It was a great opportunity to see how others are doing church creatively. One of the breakout sessions I attended was Communications/Blogging. I was hoping for my own knowledge that it was going to lean heavier toward the communication. Instead it leaned heavily toward blogging (not that I am complaining, I certainly need the help).
The leader spoke about writing to your audience, keeping it short, and blogging at least 3-5 times per week. Now up until this point I had been blogging regularly at least twice a week, but I was excited and felt inspired to really step up my blogging…
But I have completely pooped on that. I haven’t written a blog in over a week and I have NO idea who my audience is. So much for inspiration.
Well, I guess at least it was short.
(Stay tuned for the nasty stash)
Filed under: Uncategorized
I’ve noticed the lovely use of Alliteration in the blogs of some friends lately Thankful Thursday, Two Minute Tuesday, etc.
Well, that’s not my style. Alliteration after all is just a crutch, right?
Besides, Monday is the day I need to be the most thankful. Monday is affectionately known as my hangover day. No, not because I get slammed, snookered or sloshed on Sunday nights. I haven’t been slurping Granddaddy’s cough syrup. I don’t run home after church and do keg stands or shotgun beer cans.
It’s because Sunday is a very special day. It’s the day I wake up at 4am, the only day I wake up at 4am. Its a day full of hard work, massive amounts of effort and complete exhaustion. But Sunday is also the day I get to be a part of what God is doing in Charlotte. I get to see people’s lives changed as their lives are overcome with total life in Christ.
For everyone volunteering/working at Elevation, Sunday is very large, fast roller coaster. It’s exciting, amazing, draining, scary, exhilarating, it may make you throw up, and as soon as its over (despite your hoarse voice and sore muscles) you can’t wait to go again. Monday is the aftermath. This is when I process the incredibly fulfilling day of total fatigation (uh, tiredness). Usually that looks like sullen silence as I sorely slump into my shay (chair).
So other than Sunday, what am I thankful for today?
That I got to spend a couple of hours using an oversize angle grinder:
Yay for precariously prolific power tools.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: baboons, High School, monkeys, musical, Primates, Zoo
Judy and I went to see Sweet Charity at Butler High School last night. Never-mind the strangeness of teenagers playing very adult roles… The experience was interesting. We saw many strange and interesting things, few of which had anything to do with the play. I’m not saying the play was uninteresting, its just that the surrounding landscape was much more so.
That was the first High School musical I’d ever attended. I actually quite enjoy the theater, I find plays and musicals very interesting. And this one was pretty good, the lead wasn’t the best out of the singers , but was a pretty good actress. But like I said, that wasn’t the most interesting part.
The most interesting thing was watching the hordes of teenagers interact. I do have quite a bit of interaction with teenagers, quite a few of our volunteers are and even a few volunteer leaders. But this was different. On Sundays we are in an adult environment (sorta) we take our work serious and the teenage volunteers take it just as serious. We have fun, we joke around, but if its ever at the cost of excellence adaptations are made. But this wasn’t a Sunday, and these weren’t kick butt Elevation Church volunteers; this was a mass of high schoolers on their own turf. I mean, to compare, this was like going on an African safari and standing in a den of lions. Well, maybe a group of monkeys would be a better description.
Individually I see every teenager as a bundle of potential that can be molded into greatness. In a horde of peers, without adults, guidance, or voice of reason, its hard to believe that they can even survive.
This interaction of unsupervised teenagers is both humorous and somewhat disgusting. To follow the earlier comparison, its was like when you go to the zoo and check out the monkey cages… The interaction is hilarious, the monkeys are picking bugs off each-other, grabbing each-other, groping each-other, sniffing their butts and passing out (I’ll let you decide which is about monkeys and which is about teenagers) and then they start flinging poo at the glass and it starts out funny but starts to get pretty gross.
I find myself like an old man, look at them with the same contempt I once (as a teenager) used to people my age. The couples were the most interesting. The funny part was watching the social awkwardness of a boy not entirely sure what to do with the girl sitting next to him. The disgusting part was watching the social awkwardness of a boy who thought he knew everything he should be doing with the girl next to him (none of which would keep him alive if he were with MY daughter). There were the quiet gorillas, the funny monkeys, the occasional goofy orangutan, and of course the chest beating baboons that have life all figured out (I may have been one of those a long long time ago).
Just when I thought one more roll would do irreversible damage to my eyes, I would see I nice boy unassumingly holding a girls hand and I thought maybe, just maybe there’s a chance for them after all.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Computer, creative destruction, digital photo frame, excuse, explanation
To me this always sounded like an explanation I would have used as a kid to excuse my actions… “But Mom, I made them into lace curtains for you, its much more feng shui.” Or maybe… “Dad, this isn’t a broken window, its a representation of the chasm in our souls and how everything around it is fragile and ready crumble when we don’t fill it.” He’s a pastor, he might have gone for it. Probably not.
But I now embrace this term much more. Like a doctor re-braking the bone to set it straight (did I ever tell you about having to set my broken nose myself?), God has been working in my life to set me straight. And let me tell you he’s had to break a lot of bones… Many more than once. I don’t always do the best in rough situations, but I have developed this nature of almost getting excited when something catastrophic or nearly so happens (as long as I wasn’t the one who created it). Why? Because I know God is going to do something that totally trumps anything that might have gone wrong… Eventually. He’s going to make me and make the situation so much the better.
So, as a man created in the image of God, I should do the same right? I’m trying to explain the innate nature of creative destruction and why I, as a man of God, just creatively destroyed her old laptop. So what better way to do it than in a blog she doesn’t read? Of course my final product won’t look anything like what God’s would, but again I’m just explaining WHY I did it.
Three reasons,
1: To make my wife a better person… The sooner I destroy all of the old PC’s in this house, the sooner she can convert to Mac.
2: To make a useful digital photo frame out a piece of junk PC laptop that I bought over a year ago for $30.
3: To satisfy my curiosity of what it would look like when I started tearing it apart.
I will post photos of the finished product whenever I finish it…
Note: there is a strong likelihood that this product will lean heavily toward the destructive side and not so much toward the createive side. A.K.A. I will likely never finish this.
Wade Joye recently told me that whenever I’m feeling dry and lacking in creativity I should just blog about him… That’s not bad, but I thought I would take it to a hole nutha’ level. (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself, I heard that a lot at C3 last week.)
Instead of simply writing about Wade, I’ve decided to completely integrate him into the post by creating a story around him. A couple of weeks ago I was at the hardware store getting copies of trailer keys and I happened to notice a lovely little pink princess key. Because of who God made me to be, I didn’t just see an annoying pink key, I saw an opportunity. I proceeded to have the clerk make a copy of our office key. It took me about three seconds to decide who I would bestow this gift upon. Wade Joye.
That next Sunday, I borrowed his keys to “open a trailer lock” never mind that I had twenty of these keys in my truck. I made the switch and attempted to remove myself from the situation by passing the keys to Larry Hubatka. Wade quickly came for his keys, Larry handed them off and Wade simply stated “these aren’t my keys.” Oh but they were my friend Wade… Plus one princess key. I even thought ahead, I made sure to educate anyone who might be able to give him another key.
But he quickly replaced it with a standard key… I don’t know who the traitor is, but I will flush you out. Oh yes, I will. He refuses to reveal his source.
I would not, however, be deterred. That was entirely too short lived; I would have to take it to the next level. There I was in the office, I couldn’t find anyone I needed to speak to and just out of the corner of my eye, I saw them. Wade’s keys. All of them. Oh yes, I didn’t even think about it I grabbed them jumped in the truck and headed to Walmart. Nothing not a single pink key. On to Ace Hardware where I found lots of pretty pretty keys. I found pink ones and purple ones, fuchsia keys with flowers and lavender with butterflies. I replaced everything I could possibly replace, I even contemplated replacing his car key, but it had an embedded microchip. Without that he would not be able to start his car. (Still very tempting.)
I replaced the keys and waited for the delightful sounds of surprise, shock and frustration that was to come. Later that day he tried to talk me into giving back his keys by pleading to my sympathetic side (as if) stating that he was driving Pastor Furtick to the airport later. That only sweetened the pot.
I tried to assure Wade that I only torture the people I truly care about, but that seemed little comfort to him as he accepted the fate of his keys. But lets not forget that it was Wade that declared me his Arch Enemy (a story for another time).
Thanks Wade, you’re right, I think I will write about you every time I’m feeling dry… It’s helped a lot.
