Soakin' Up Life . . . at a 100 MPH!

Well, it's Thursday and I've got soooo much stuff to do and what am I doing? Sitting here watching American Hot Rod and paying bills. Got to clean up the backyard since Jack the dog has found a new home - FINALLY . I've also got to clean up the dog's room, do some Christmas shopping, and start scheduling some visits for my Christmas vacation. Sooo. . . better get up and get busy. C ya! Mike

I'm lying in bed, surfing the web, checking out some blogs and it hits me - " What in the stink am I doing still awake? " It's 12:30 in the morning!! I couldn't give you a reasonable answer if I had one - of which I don't. Normally I don't like to be up this late. I'm old and I like to get up early. . .sort of. I don't like to get up before 6:00 am. I do get up at 6:00 am so I can take care of my kennel, have some quality time with God, and get ready for the day ahead of me. But I don't make it very often if I'm still up at this hour. Oh well. . .got to get some sleep. So I guess I'll call it a night. So what keeps you up at night? Later 'Gator, Mike

Sorry guys. Due to copywright infringement, or even the possibility of infringement I cannot post the video. I should have paid more attention before talking about the video I shot. The each of the videos is between 7-14 seconds, the video I shot is not totally mine - the songs, the guys in the band, etc. Would love to show it to you - it's all pretty cool. But I want to honor their rights as well. Mike

Ok, here are some pictures from the recent Third Day . . . David Crowder . . . Hyperstatic Union concert. Here's Stephanie - Steph had my ticket and was waiting in the cold for me outside the Mitchell Center . Thanks Steph - she's a trooper. Once we were inside caught this shot of some our group - Dave, Rachel, & Jill. Can you tell they were having a good time. We were sitting on the top row directly in front of the stage - just entirely across the venue. It didn't matter. It was still a great concert. I zoomed in as much as possible to get some shots. Please bear with me. This is one of Hyperstatic Union . They kicked off the evening with some great sounds. Next up was David Crowder . It was my first time seeing them in person and I was not disappointed. Love their sound and their energy and interaction with the crowd was unbelievable. OK! Now for the grand finale - Third Day . They've been one of my favorite bands for a long time. Again, this was my fi...

Well, I'm finally getting around to uploading some pictures from my trip to Santa Fe, NM. Here they are. My ticket stub which shows my original departure time from Gulfport, MS. The first leg of my trip - 12:21pm Here's my watch showing what time it was when I took the picture - 4:15 pm We eventually took off around 5:45 pm. Got to my hotel room around 1:00 am on Thursday. Here's the lobby of the Inn of the Governors . It's where we hung out during our time in Santa Fe. Thumbs up for these guys for comfort and service. Tomasita's - one of the restaurants where we at lunch one day. It was some kinda good! Here is the sun rising over the mountains just east of Albuquerque . Caught this picture as we were taking off. Cool, huh? Great food + great fun + great friends = Great Time!!

I have to admit something. . .lately I've been considering getting a Mac. I know, I know, some of you are saying, "What are you thinking?" Other are proclaiming, "Come. . .Come to the light!" Didn't think much about it, but a couple of our pastors are Mac freaks - most Mac users are. I have experience in both. When I was in the corporate world my first taste of word processing was on a Mac Plus (see pic to the right). It's where I learned Microsoft Word and Excel. Later on, I moved to PCs and haven't turned back, especially since it cost less to buy a new Mac than to have it repaired. And I could fix and upgrade PCs. But now, Mac's operating system is Unix based so it appears to be more stable. And I like it's ease of use. I don't like that they don't have a backspace key and there's not as many software packages created for the Mac as there is for the PC - Like Microsoft's Frontpage for editing web pages. I know ...

Just wanted to give you a re-cap of my trip and the weekend. Had a great trip. Love the weather and the food in Santa Fe . Hate the architecture. Probably would like it if everything, and I mean EVERYTHING , wasn't brown adobe. I'm not just talking about houses, I'm talking Outback restaurant, Target , churches, you name it it was a shade of tan/brown adobe. There's no uniqueness. Maybe that is Santa Fe's uniqueness - shades of brown adobe? Really enjoyed getting to see some old friends and meeting a couple of new ones. Every year this trip encourages, challenges, and refreshes me. Thanks guys for making it worth my while. Did get up at 3:45 (New Mexico Time) to catch a 6:30 fight to Houston. Got to Houston with no problems. Boarded connecting flight and arrived safe and sound in Gulfport, Mississippi . Drove back to Mobile without a hitch. Stopped by the Harley place to pick up some more pedals for my Harley. I'm changing them out to a different...

I love to fly. I started flying when I was 3-months old. Been flying ever since. I've been on jumbo-jets, props, express jets. . .you name it, I've probably flown on it. Here's a few things I don't like about flying: Food - I don't like airplane food. I don't care how they disguise it or what they call it. It's just as bad, if not worse, than hospital food. On one trip we were having to prepare for a crash landing into D/FW airport and the one thing that kept going through my mind was, "God, don't let this be my last meal. NOT airplane food!" We landed safely and I've eaten pretty well since. Cramped Seating - I just can't get comfortable on a plane. Even when I sit on a single seat on express jets it doesn't seem like I can get comfortable. I have to be pretty tired to get comfortable. Weather - While I love flying, it's pretty dependent on the weather. I'm sitting in the Gulf Port Airport now writing this becau...

Well. . .it's done, over, kaput! My first 10k - 6.2 miles for those who struggle with metrics. It's over and I'm pumped ! The weather was perfect - sunshine, slight breeze, about 50 degrees at the start. The course was a dream - flat!! The time? 50:00!!! That's an 8:02/mile pace - the fastest average I can remember. I didn't realize I was on this kind of pace until about the 2-mile mark when I saw that I had run 8:16 for 2 miles - 8:08/mile. Miles 3 & 4 were just keeping pace, not going out too fast or pushing it, just relaxing and listening to the tunes streaming through my iPod. When I hit mile 5 I switched to 12 Stones and picked up the pace. Mile 6, let's just say a smile came across my face as I opened up the pace and began to pick off runners in front of me. My two desires were to finish under an hour and to leave everything on the course. I literally wanted to collapse when I finished. I experienced both - 50-minutes for a 10k and leanin...

Alrighty then! Here's the link to my new blog. It's in WordPress 2.0. I'm still learning, updating, and modifying. Eventually it will be part of a new website/ministry called ManHeart Ministries. For now, though, check out the blog. Its called " Man Words " Oh! I'm using a theme I downloaded and some of it is in German. So if you run across something in German or something isn't quite right ignore it - I'm in the process of tracking down all the changes that need to be made - or email me and I will get to it as soon as I can. Thanks for your support. Mike

This is one of those weeks that straps you physically, mentally, relationally, and spiritually. Here's my schedule so far: Sunday - 6:00 am to pray with Pastor and Pastor's Prayer Partners, then off to worship, Bible Study, lunch, home - change, back for evening worship Monday - hospitals, Monday afternoon meeting with pastors to go over guest list and make assignments, getting ready for Starting Point (new members' dinner), outreach that night, Wal-Mart, home, eat, crash Tuesday - morning - staff meeting, pick up trailer and hay with student & senior adult pastors for Fall FUNtastic, lunch with pastors, work on re-formatting Starting Point document for afternoon meeting to re-structure content, meeting to re-arrange content for Starting Point, work on document some more, home to get in a quick 3 mile run, back to church for Fall FUNtastic, head home about 9:30-ish, crash Here's what the rest of the week looks like: Wednesday - finalize Starting Point document...