End of the Month Activities

The end of the month has come and tomorrow begins a new one!

I like February 'cause I love my sweety! I'll be married to her 13 years this may and February is the time of year we celebrate our first date, her birthday and Valentines. Plus, February marks the one year anniversary of the ministry role I currently serve in. So, lots of good stuff coming up. I'm also looking forward to getting my taxes done (weird I know) but I usually get an OK return and well to be honest, I need to pay some off on the new washer and dryer set that replaced the old one after 12 years. I'm so glad I'm replacing this unit and not the wife unit! No replacing her! OK! OK! I'll stop it with the love stuff.

Hey, I'm going 33-31 Steelers over the Seahawks this weekend. Should be a good game!

What's your prediction?

Captain Kirk Donates Kidney Stone...
William Shatner handed over his calcium specimen in January, 2006, after he accepted an offer from the CEO of GOLDEN PALACE casino, a Canadian-based online betting site, to buy his kidney stone.

Initially, Shatner was offered $15,000, but after a little negotiation a deal to sell the stone was made for $25,000. Taking things into perspective, Shatner had earlier received over $100,000 for his STAR TREK-related garment, so the price seemed to be in order for his celebrityhood.

The auction price included the surgical stint and string used to permit passage of the stone. The bizarre deal was brokered by Darren Julien, president of Los Angeles-based Julien's Auctions.

However, there were two conditions to the sale. First, all the proceeds (100 percent) were to benefit HABITAT FOR HUMANITY to build a house. And the second condition? Shatner retained visitation rights to his now famous body part.

After the purchase, Golden Palace, CEO Richard Rowe jokingly eluded to the opening lines of the STAR TREK series by saying "This is a 'bold' new addition to our fleet."

What a terrific example of homeland philanthropy! We've gone where no man has gone before and we get visitation rights to calcium deposits! I wonder how many times Shatner will visit his $25,000 stone?

In other "news" our company computer server went out for about four hours today! It was a freaky thing to think about how dependent we are on computers and how my buds in the art department were probably playing cards or shooting paper hoops! Joke, joke! They would never play cards at work or wear grass skirts or anything like that at work!

Anyhow, it was an interesting day of submission to technological blips on the radar screen of life. The IS guys did a bang up job getting us back online. Kuddos guys!!!

Well, the wife has been out shopping and dining with my mom tonight (yikes) so I need to tuck the kids in bed! I like it though when she gets some time away, even if it is for just one evening. She deserves it! Finally, I'm reading After Virtue by Alastair Macyntre. I'll keep you posted.

Until the next piece of breaking Treky news...

Kids Club

Headed out to see End of the Spear tonight. Should be good. Taking my wife and some friends and a boat load of Kleenex! Go to www.endofthespear.com for more info. on this solid movie.

Hey another pitch here. My buddy Dave the carpet cleaner does a bang up job. Check out www.newbeginningscarpetcleaning.com for more information. Good rates and he does both residence and commercial cleaning. Dave's a stand up guy and he'll do any office, church or home on a very professional level. If you use him tell him Matt sent ya!

Had a great time at our weekly kids Bible club meeting. We're learning the names of the disciples right now and how to pray and we're singing some good songs too. We had four new kids last night so that's a God thing. I love kids club as much as my kids do. It's probably because it's not at a church building and yet it's the essence of Matthew 28:19. Well, that's all folks.

catch ya later

Good Reads

I'm towards the end of The Story We Find Ourselves In by Brian McLAren. I've got about two more chapters. I won't pull any punches. I like this book. I like the 'otherness' of Neo, the questioning of Kerry, the theological sunrise in Carol and the sense of discovery in Dan. I had lunch today with a guy today who's name is Dan. He pastors a pretty wonderful church in Lees Summit, Missouri. Dan is the kind of guy you feel like you've known all your life. His life is one marked by choices in "the world" and now choices as a pastor. I'm so glad he is a follower of Jesus and for HOW he points other to Jesus.

Another good read is Pat Lencioni's The Four Obsessions of An Extraordinary Executive. I really liked that one too.

I like to hear my daughter read from the Gospel of Matthew in these days during our family devotions. yeah, you heard it - family devotions. She's been reading through Matthew 8,9,10 these last couple of nights. I'm so glad she likes the Bible.

Well gotta split. By the way Pat Robertson is dead wrong on his Sharon remarks!!!

The Latest

My friend Greg preached last night (yes we still have evening worship) at our church on the Holy Trinity. Greg did a great job exegeting the icons of the faith and how they play into our biblical understanding of Christian teaching of the Trinity. Greg had the interseting assignment of exegeting images in a "word" laden and "word" centered crowd. So he did a bang up job presenting a practical, sacramental and historical theological perspective of a very hard subject.

Props to Greg! In other news my daughter just turned nine and my son is turning six. This has caused me to turn over a new "get in shape" leaf. I'm not huge or anything, just terribly out of shape. So, last week I go to the church to play pick up ball with what I think is the 35 and over crowd and I get there only to find that it's a bee hive of college kids! So, I say to myself "I'm just here to lower my cholesterol, BP, and a little of the Michelon tire! Nothing more or less. Well, I play a full game and I'm gone! Not to mention someone yells out that "we're skins!" So, I gaspng for air, drudging down the court with more hair on my body than I care to reveal all the while these college kids are spinning, slicing and dicing there way through my D!

I felt better about it Sunday when I asked some former studs from my youth group days if they still play and ball, and they were like, NO! So, I felt better about atleast trying to play ball. I may go back tonight or I may just stay with playing ping pong with my buds at work over lunch break!

Well, that's my new year post so far. None of my NFL teams went anywhere! Texas wins it all so that stinks and so not too much hype for me in the sports world. Oh yeah big time kuddos to my co-worker Jeff Edmondson for his blog. I'm so glad he calls it straight.