Multi-tasking?

I'm not great at multitasking... It's just (hang on, I have to answer the phone....) not one of my skills. Anyway, today I'm managing to correct order errors for AT&T (my job), listen to a streaming radio station called HAIR FLARE (it's all of the rock bands from the 80s), and I've also managed to find a short clip of an old cartoon that has been stuck in my head since one of the youth girls at LifePoint was singing it a few weeks ago...... I like to singa, about the moona and the june-a and the springa.......... kinda catchy! Thanks Haley K!



Here are some of the Hair Flare bands:

• Motley Crue
• Def Leppard
• Firehouse
• Skid Rowe
• Slaughter (This band name really bugs me!)
• Winger
• Whitesnake
• Bon Jovi (And all the girls' hearts go pitter patter.)
• White Lion (Vito is a smokin guitarist!)
• Warrant
• Tesla
• Lita Ford
• Night Ranger
• Ratt
• Poison (This might be clue........)
• Quiet Riot
• Scorpions
• Stryper (Ah yes, the Christian side of 80s rock...)
• Hannah Montana (Not Really)
• Dokken
• Europe (Man I HATE "The Final Countdown")
• Honeymoon Suite (Never heard of them... great sound.)

Until next time...

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action.

Tournament time

I finally get to see my girls play volleyball tonight!!!! WOOOHOOOO (I'm shaking nothing...) This is a city-wide tournament, so a good chunk of Kyle and Emily's youth group will be battling on the court! I'll start my trash talkin' now.... Grigsby is going down! Coolidge Braves Rock! (Disclaimer: In the unfortunate / unlikely event that Coolidge stinks it up, I'll be removing the trash talk statement.) Take the time and effort to attend your kids' events, or your family's events.....or maybe even your friends' stuff..... The payoff is huge!

Side note - another great t-shirt: 5 out of 4 people have trouble with fractions.

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action.

T-Shirts

Apparently, there are days that I don't have 96 things on my plate. When that happens, the blog is full of nonsense. Like today. I found some very funny t-shirts. Some of the appropriate ones are shown below:

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action.

Personal Challenge

Short blog today... We talked Sunday at LifePoint about slowing down, being still, and taking effort to connect with God. As I look through my PDA and see all of the "stuff" on my plate, I'm challenged to find, or better yet - make time for that connection. We had a great discussion in our Lifegroup Sunday night and identified several things that fill our schedules. Most of it was relating to our children... I put the kids up for sale on eBay last night. (Uhhhh, no not really...) Can we find the balance of time with God, time with family and friends, and time for our selves? I sure hope so. Good luck!

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action.

Crazy Friday

I got to work from home again today. Vange and I went to lunch with Kyle and Emily. That means that my boys were under the watchful eyes of my girls. We got back to the house and my normally blonde-headed boys now had very red hair. On top of that, they had their fingernails and toenails painted.... each a different color. We took some crazy pictures. Lots of fun!













Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action!

Workin' From Home

My chain of command is comprised of men who care about their people. So, with the ugly weather we are having in the St Louis area, they had our team work from home today. Having a VPN connection into AT&T's network is SWEET! So today, I sat in my PJs and worked a while. Then, Vange, Griffin, and I went to lunch (El Torrero).

Relationships are a HUGE deal to God, and they should be a huge deale to us. It was nice today to just spend time with my wife and "baby" boy. Every once in a while, I'd get up from my desk and chase Griffin around the house. I offered to chase Vnge around - she declined :-(

Side note: I'm pumped about this weekend.... it's a bit funny. We are going to be talking about slowing down and hearing God's voice this Sunday at LifePoint. When Bob and I were planning the journey for the day, we decided that the music for the day would remain HIGH ENERGY.

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / family / and friends with every word and every action.

I Know I'll Be In Trouble For This...

Some things are best not shared... others, well, I just can't pass this up. When I saw this I cracked up; especially since I work in a Tech Support environment.

Dear Tech Support: Last year I upgraded from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0. I soon noticed that the new program began unexpected child processing that took up a lot of space and valuable resources. In addition, Wife 1.0 installed itself into all other programs and now monitors all other system activities, such as Poker Night 10.3, Football 5.0, and Softball 3.6 I can't seem to keep Wife 1.0 in the background while attempting to run my other favorite applications. I'm thinking about going back to Girlfriend 7.0 , but the uninstall doesn't work on Wife 1.0. Please help! Thanks, Troubled User.....

REPLY: Dear Troubled User: This is a very common problem that men often complain about. Many people upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0, thinking that it is just a Utilities and Entertainment program. Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and is designed by its Creator to run EVERYTHING!!! It is also impossible to delete Wife 1.0 and to return to Girlfriend 7.0 . It is impossible to uninstall, or purge, the program files from the system once installed. You cannot go back to Girlfriend 7.0 because Wife 1.0 is designed to not allow this. Look in your Wife 1.0 manual under Warnings: Alimony-Child Support . I recommend that you keep Wife 1.0 and work on improving the situation. I suggest installing the background application Yes Dear 2.7 to alleviate your program problems. The best course of action is to enter the command C:\APOLOGIZE! because ultimately you will have to give the APOLOGIZE command before the system will return to normal anyway. Wife 1.0 is a great program, but it tends to be very high maintenance! Wife 1.0 does come with several support programs, such as Clean and Sweep 3.0, Cook It 1.5, and Do Bills 4.2 However, be very careful how you use these programs. Improper use will cause the system to launch the program Nag Nag 9.5 Once this happens, the only way to improve the performance of Wife 1.0 is to purchase additional software. I recommend Flowers 2.1 and Diamonds 5.0 WARNING!!! DO NOT, under any circumstances, install Cute Secretary 3.3 . This application is not supported by Wife 1.0 and will cause irreversible damage to the operating system! Best of luck, Tech Support

Moral of the story? UPGRADE WISELY!!!

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action.

Nothin'

Day too crazy... Can't post.... Be back tomorrow

Lifegroup Trash Talkin'

Last night was our first lifegroup hangout since we took a big group and sent it to 2 separate locations. It was a great night.... Lots of laughs, lots of encouragement, lots of honesty... We really are helping each other stay on the right path in our journey with God. (Quick ADD prayer: God, through US be the REMEDY.)

It was Mexican night last night.... Wow, Mexican candy is HOT! But at least we had 40 tacos (yes, 40) from Jack in the box to make everyone happy.... I'm having my cholesterol checked later.... Scary!

On with the trash talkin'..... We have determined (via very scientific means) that our Lifegroup is the absolute BEST! That's right baby.... We have an incredible mix of people who are learning how to best Love God and Love People. So, we are going to issue a Fear Factor challenge to the other Lifegroups at LifePoint Church. We'll be getting details out to the loser, I mean less great, Lifegroups.... All we have to say is BRING IT! What does that mean? It means that Dan, Jeff, John, Kyle, and Bob will need to prime their groups for some COMPETITION! (Our group will go a bit easy on Dan's group because they are our partner group..... but not TOO easy...)

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action.

Volleyball - Engage

I got to catch the last part of my girls' volleyball game yesterday. The girls' team was victorious, winning 2 of the 3 games. Then we all went to Fazoli's to eat. Our whole family went, along with some close friends. The game itself was very cool, some long volleys, some great skill. Fazoli's is always a winner too. But the thing that was so cool was that I learned some stuff:

• Dawson (my 5 year old son) is nearly uncontrollable when he has been eating sugar all day
• Haley has a great serve.... now that she steps forward on the correct foot
• Sam earned some bragging rights by scoring on his son, Ian, in indoor soccer
• Emily walked a tightrope.... several girls in her youth group play for Coolidge. She teaches at Alton... the game was Coolidge vs. Alton AT ALTON
• Kyle, myself, Dawson, and Griffin were burning up!! Alton is not afraid of the furnace!
• My wife, Vange, is as beautiful as ever!
• Ashli will be a GREAT mother some day.... like when she is 30!
• Nikki and Baylin want to be tied in to a Lifegroup at LifePoint.
• Cheri, my niece, heads back to Belgium today to reunite with her husband.
• Becky, my sister-in-law is directionally challenged (so am I).

What does all that mean? Take time and effort to engage the people in your life. It's OK to share stuff about yourself. It is also very beneficial to truly be interested in THEM. Talk about stuff, pray about stuff, don't be afraid to have a different opinion, take walks together, take your motorcycles out on the river road (Keith... I feel the wind now), scrapbook and go to the movies... or just go to the movies (you know who you are). Go to your kids' games, or go to your friends' games, invite people for dinner.

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action.

NASCAR Returns

I have plans Sunday. Haley and I are watching the Daytona 500. NASCAR's 2008 season opens this weekend.... I'm pumped! (I know.... that scares some of you....) We are big Jimmie Johnson fans... Go #48!! I happened to catch a commercial that cracked me up... especially because I'm not a big Tony Stewart (#20) fan.... Check this out:




Jeremy Mayfield (one of Stewart's competitors) is the guy controlling the truck. I love it!

Side note: no soda yet.... my Lent commitment is still in tact.

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action.

Lent - Who's idea was this?

I'm already getting crabby.... Coca-Cola is going to wonder why their sales are down! I'm giving up soda for Lent (a couple of guys I work with think it's wrong to disclose what you are giving up for Lent based on Matthew 6:16-18... but I'm just being real...). I was Challenged by a blog from Bob Robbins (LifePoint Lead Pastor) to create opportunities to be reminded of Christ's sacrifice for us. On a daily (almost hourly) basis, I will have the chance to focus on Jesus because of soda denial. Isn't that the goal? For me it is. We are singing a worship song this weekend at LifePoint called From The Inside Out (Hillsong United). Here are a few of the lyrics that hit home for me.... deeply:

Your will above all else, my purpose remains
The art of losing myself in brining You praise.....

In my heart in my soul I give You control
Consume me from the inside out, Lord....

.... And the cry of my heart is to bring You praise
From the inside out

What can you DO to intentionally tighten your relationship with Jesus?

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action.

Planning Ahead

This may scare you, but I'm looking 7 weeks ahead to Easter. Part of what I do at LifePoint is design and lead the worship sets. Easter is a huge deal. (I actually agree with my Dad who says "I celebrate Easter every day of my life...") I've been doing some digging for some songs that will be an excellent fit for Easter Sunday. Some of them we already do at LifePoint, and some of them would be new. I thought I'd share some of these songs with you. If you get a chance, pull some of these up on YouTube or iTunes and take a test drive.

• Arise - Paul Baloche
• Happy Day - Tim Hughes
• Jesus Paid It All - Passion / Kristian Stanfill
• Lord I Lift Your Name On High - Lincoln Brewster
• Mighty To Save - Hillsong United
• My Redeemer Lives - Hillsong
• Shout Your Fame - Hillsong
• Take It All - Hillsong United

Side note: I dug up some Christian Rock from "back in my day" and have been JAMMIN all morning! This stuff is from 1989 and 1992:

• WHITEHEART - Freedom
• ALLIES - Man With A Mission

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action.

Remedy

Great news! My God continues to wrap His arms around his kids....... I just got off the phone with a good friend of mine whose daughter has faced serious health issues her whole life. In the last few weeks, there has been positive movement in her body. Today, she is doing better than she has in the last 2 years, and her treatments have been cut in half! Yesterday at LifePoint we sang a new song from David Crowder called "Remedy." Check out these lyrics:

Here we are Here we are
Bandaged and bruised Awaiting a cure
Here we are
Here You are Here You are
Our beautiful King, Bringing relief
Here You are with us

Oh I can't comprehend, I can't take it all in
Never understand such perfect love come
For the broken and beat, the wounded and weak
Oh come fall at His feet He's the remedy He's the remedy

Yep, that brings tears to my eyes when I think about God's impact in our everyday life. I love hearing good stories.... and sharing them!

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and evey action.

Paperwork

Yuk! I've spent a good amount of time today trying to get my boys' soccer team registered for the 2008 season. This includes driving by the parents' houses to get documents and signatures.... and a ton of..... wait for it....... that's right....... PAPERWORK! Rosters, waivers, registrations, Oh My! This is what it looks like when I'm doing paperwork.....












It's all worth it though..... The boys have a blast!

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action.

Stealing a Blog

A fellow LifePointer had an incredible blog a few days ago..... So, I'm stealing Kim's blog and posting it here. Check this out.



I wonder what would happen if we treated our Bible like we treat our cellphone?
What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets?
What if we flipped through it several time a day?
What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it?
What if we used it to receive messages from the text?
What if we treated it like we couldn’t live without it?
What if we gave it to kids as gifts?
What if we used it when we traveled?
What if we used it in case of emergency?
This is something to make you go… hmm… where is my Bible?
Oh, and one more thing. …
Unlike our cell phone, we don’t have to worry about our Bible beingdisconnected because Jesus already paid the bill.
Makes you stop and think “where are my priorities?”
And no dropped calls!





























Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action!

Goin' Back

I was looking through my CD collection last night (at least it was not my TAPE collection, or even worse..... my RECORD collection....). I grabbed a few CDs I have not heard for a while and listened to them today. There is some really good stuff, and some stuff that I now remember why I haven't listened to it lately... here is the stuff:

• Eric Johnson - Alien Love Child-Live and Beyond
• Phil Keaggy - 220
• The Normals - Better Than This
• Clear - Clear
• Phil Keaggy - Time 1 (1970-1993)

What old stuff do you have that when you listen to it, it takes you to another time or chapter in your life? Dig that stuff out... and turn it UP!

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action.

Wakeboarding

It was 76 degrees here yesterday.... and the Boat Show is in town this weekend. We NEVER miss a boat show. I just got to thinking about being on the water again. We have a Mastercraft Maristar 200 VRS tow boat.... LOVE IT! With the kids, we mainly tube behind the boat.... but occasionally I like to try my skills on the wakeboard. Since both my knees have been rebuilt (ACL reconstructions) I'm a bit leary of going ALL IN on the stunts. I found this crash reel for some wakeboarding.... It looks a lot like me.... especially the actual crashing parts!




Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action.

Great Weekend

This weekend was super busy, but great anyway. Friday night we got to hang with some friends and eat at El Torrero..... one of our favorite places! The snow gave me a change to make a few extra $$.... I have a snow plow and snow blowers..... LifePoint had 170+ people for the 2nd week in a row. Sunday afternoon our house was filled with friends and family as we had a small group meeting after church. That was followed by a few other people coming to hang out for SuperBowl 42. The best part..... The Giants beat the Patriots!! Haley (my Daddy's Girl) and I have now become Giants fans!! Time to get back to work.... This Sunday we are wrapping up the ALL IN series at LifePoint, and I'm busy charting the newest worship song we are going to introduce this weekend (it goes great with Sunday's message): David Crowder's "Remedy."

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action.

Mother's love

There is stuff that a mom can get away with that noone else can... You know... when the kid's face is dirty and mom basically spits on her fingers and rubs the dirt off...... Well, in that spirit, Vange pulled a doozy today. The kids were going out to play in the snow.... Since their hands always get cold, she decided to take some socks and cut fingers out of them. So, the socks went all the way up their arms to keep the snow off their hands. Sweet!

Live loud, live intentionally, and love God / Family / and Friends with every word and every action.