Archive for January, 2010

Snowed In Announcements

Because we cancelled church today due to snow, Cody made this great video to show.

I guess I’ve got sweet blood.

I’ve known I was an easy target for stinging creatures for a long time now. I still haven’t quite figured out why they like me. Yet because I am well aware that flying insects are truly WMDs (Wasps of Mighty Destruction), I am pretty sensitive to their presence.

That hypersensitivity is probably the reason that when I am caught unaware by one buzzing by my ear or face, I tend to lose all composure and simply run away yelling. My neighbor in Monticello witnessed this headlong flight from what looked like nothing from his side of the street one day. That red wasp chased me from the front yard to the back driveway before I lost him.

Why me?

On two different occasions in the past couple of years, they dive-bombed me from wasp nests tucked under the eaves of our carport. My neck was the target one day. My scalp received their ire on another.

I was doing absolutely nothing to them. Tossing kitchen trashbags into a green can shouldn’t provoke a wasp’s wrath. Neither should power blowing a dirty driveway. However, on both occasions, I earned a welt from wasps. Red wasps, in particular, graciously leave you with a throbbing reminder of their attack.

I had hoped our move to Virginia made peace with the pests. I assumed that whatever contract was out on me in Arkansas was nullified across state lines. Surely their sting had no jurisdiction so far from home.

Yet blood is thicker than wings, and Wednesday night at 2:00 a.m., I was stealth stung.

It’s the middle of January here. Cold. Wasps, bees, etc. – supposed to be out of commission; people should be none of their buzzness during this time of year.

Yet, the agony struck suddenly. Because of my familiarity with sting pain over the years, I grasped the reality of what happened in a nanosecond. My wife was more skeptical… and mad. You see, my revelation happened like this:

Zzzzzz… (from both sides of the bed)

Sting.

A liquidly fluid moment of me leaping from the bed, screaming, throwing back covers and landing on my feet. Yes, it was all in one smooth motion. I was quite proud of my dexterity – in spite of the pain. A dash across the room to the light switch flooded the bedroom with illumination.

Carolyn was unimpressed. Even wrathful.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!!!!”

“I JUST GOT STUNG!”

“No, you didn’t. The cat probably clawed you through the bedspread.”

Sure enough, there sat the dazed kitten – having been flung over the end of the bed in my liquid fluid motion referred to above.

Enter a moment of self-doubt.

Yet, the throb on my leg – and after inspection, the wound, ushered in a surge of confidence.

“NO, I WAS STUNG!”

My powers of deduction and observation now fully functional – in spite of the hour – I began to separate the bed coverings like the layers of an onion. And what did Sherlock Noble find? Between the bedspread and the electric blanket – both above the sheet – a crafty critter with a little walkie talkie whispering, “My position has been compromised. I repeat; my position has been compro… SMACK.”

Yes. Without regard to our present culture of sustainability, I slaughtered the wasp with my houseshoe. Unceremoniously, I then flushed him.

My next liquid smooth fluid motion was slipping back into bed, dragging the covers back over me, and casting a smug look of supreme stinging insect knowledge at my now-incredulous spouse.

Unfortunately, she fell asleep rather quickly – oblivous to the fact that she was supposed to lay awake in self-recriminating guilt for hours for having doubted me. It was I who lay there checking Twitter, Facebook and playing Paper Toss until my leg quit throbbing.

POSTLUDE

I was relating this tale to VT BCM Director Darrell Cook at Panera this morning when a revelation struck me about my wasp curse.

Years ago, I remember vividly one beautiful day in Little Rock watching bees buzz among the clover in our yard when a wonderfully siblingish idea came to mind. After coaxing my sister Amy outside, I then began to demonstrate my liquid fluid reflexes by showing her that “I was so fast” that I could catch a bee and throw it without harm.

I demonstrated this throw a few times so quickly that I knew she was unable to determine that it was an air bee I was throwing. Then came the challenge.

“Let’s see if you’re that fast.”

I do remember having to encourage her and with brotherly love assure her that she was, indeed, a very fast girl for her age.

After a few moments of watching them – I’m assuming getting the timing in her mind right – she bent, scooped and threw. But intermingled with her smooth motion was also a loud scream. And a look of furious awareness.

I don’t even remember her saying anything to me. She ran past me into the house, crying loudly.

I stood there uncomfortably. In doubt. I had not thought past the fun of the moment. Sounds like a great sermon, doesn’t it?

I was still standing there among the clovers when the front door opened again. Amy came out. Behind my dad.

The rest is thankfully fuzzy. I do remember him saying something like, “Did you tell your sister she could throw a bee?”

That incident, I realized this morning at Panera with painful clarity, may be the source of my wasp curse.

So… neighbors and friends… if you see me running with panic about my yard this summer from what appears to be nothing, you know now. Wasps have jurisdiction from state to state, and they know where I am.

I saw this entry over at Michael Kelly’s blog and wanted to ask you what your experiences with famous people are as well.

• Who’s the most famous person you’ve almost met?

Or…

• Who’s the most famous person you’ve met that you didn’t know was famous?

I have a famous person fetish. I don’t know why. Carolyn thinks I’m insane, but in my heart of hearts, I fear that there’s a paparazzi just dying to break out. My iPhone camera hasn’t helped things. I take shots of people who look like famous people secretly. Just last week, in Lefty’s in Blacksburg, there was a dead ringer for Mac Powell of Third Day.

I wrote a letter to Mel Gibson a few years ago asking him for an opportunity for a visit. I just wanted to pick his brain and find out what makes him tick. I just felt like I would really connect with him for some reason – in spite of the fact I’ve never produced a movie about Jesus, gotten a DWI or shown my butt in a film. It’s weird, I know. Maybe through the Twitterverse – which seems to connect random folks with each other – I’ll get that opportunity.

Just last year, I had Ryan Seacrest mention me in a tweet. Oh yes. And last week, Kurt Warner (who I hope wins the Superbowl this year if Brett Favre doesn’t) responded to one of my friends.

In a weird “six degrees of separation” experiment, Carolyn sat next to a man on the plane yesterday who noticed she was reading Mike Huckabee’s book A Simple Christmas. He told Carolyn he knew him, was friends with him, and promptly texted him that he was sitting next to a lady on a plane who was reading his book. His name for my former governor in his cell phone? President. Last night, a friend who had seen her tweet about the experience tweeted us that he and his wife had seen Janet Huckabee at the trade show they were attending in Dallas.

Other than that, Carolyn and I both went to school with the gals from Point of Grace. I bumped into Bill Clinton (literally) on the streets in NYC when I was in college with a group from the journalism department. And Sam and I failed to get Dominic Rhodes and Tony Dungy’s autograph when we saw them at Disney World two years ago. But our DR football card has pen impressions from where our pen failed to write on the card.

I did get my picture taken with Donald Duck.

Soooo…. leave a comment her with your experiences. And if you know Mel Gibson…

Thank you, Google, first of all, for providing free airport WIFI in Baltimore. I despise airport WIFI charges, and Boingo is one of the worst offenders, but when we arrived for a layover enroute to New Mexico, we were delighted to find the message that Google has partnered with Boingo to provide free WIFI in the airport for the holidays through January 15. That’s today. We snuck onto the worldwide web at the 9th hour on Google’s good grace and dime. Thanks, Google!

Last Christmas

This is the first time in 17 years of marriage that we’ve not been in New Mexico for New Year’s. Due to our move to Virginia, our annual holiday schedules/traditions have had to be adjusted. We’ll get there later today and spend a few days in Hobbs with Carolyn’s family for our last Christmas of 2009 (or is it our first one of 2010?).

We are super grateful to Carolyn’s folks for their generosity and grace which consistently make trips like this possible. I guess we should also thank Southwest Airlines for partnering with the credit card company that her folks use that results in free tickets. Either way, we’re very, deeply thankful.

Laughing all the way

If you’ve been following our journey so far on Twitter (mine or Carolyn’s), you’ll notice that our kids have been assaulting our funny bones with one-liners. Just in the last 30 minutes, Adelyn has observed that the reason airline tickets are expensive is because of the moving walkways in the airport. She also noticed a very youthful army guy decked out in fatigues. Whether it was his boyish appearance or his height (not much taller than she), we don’t know, but she busted out with, “What? Is he like the drummer boy or something?”

Sam’s humor has been more slapstick. And annoying. But he manages quite well to keep me smiling through my grimaces. With effortless ease, he consistently manages to stick his elbows in my side, include my bald spot in every conversation, and roll his eyes at my humor (thus suggesting that it isn’t funny which we all know is not true). I just don’t know how Carolyn’s family managed with her all those years, because it’s so obvious that Sam is just like her…

Over the river and through the woods

We’ve got quite a journey to get to grandma’s house today. I’ll keep you updated as I’m able through layovers and Google’s goodness. After driving to Raleigh-Durham last night, we’ll stop in Baltimore – Little Rock – Dallas – Midland. We don’t get off the plane in Little Rock, but if you’re there today and reading my blog (which amounts to my mom), wave and we’ll wave back.

On a curious note, it was one year ago today that Captain Sullenberger safely landed  his U.S. Airways flight in the Hudson River after it was crippled by a flock of birds hitting one of the jet engines. I would rather keep it “over the river and through the woods” rather than vice versa.

Be careful of pretensions of autonomy. Jesus reminds us, “I chose you.”

In the conclusion of this powerful message called “It Is the Spirit Who Gives Life” by John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church on December 27, 2009r 27, 2009
English: World English Bible - WEB
Izbrano poglavje ne obstaja!

WP-Bible plugin, Piper points out from John 6 that “whenever resistance to Jesus starts to mount – and we feel like in our culture that we’re losing our grip… Oh, what will poor God do without America? – whenever it looks like resistance to Jesus is winning, we Christians need a clear, robust vision of the sovereignty of God.”

Jesus’ hard words in John 6 did not pander to the crowds. Indeed, in John 6, Jesus’ ministry appears to be going downhill as many left Him. I listened to Piper’s message on the way home from our Christmas traveling today, and it struck me as a much-needed corrective to Christian-centered churches and ministries. It’s not about us; it’s about Him.

One of the most profound thoughts voiced in this message was about those who rejected (and are rejecting) Jesus. “Their unbelief is not a proof of their sovereignty,” he said.

I’ve included a clip of this part of the message for you to listen to, but I encourage you to listen to the whole message here.

I’ve always been enthralled by the ability of the iPhone to allow you to use location-based apps. I wrote an early entry about Loopt vs Whrll. Since then, there’ve been a series of great apps out using the phone’s capabilities from the start, among them:

• Loopt
• Whrll
• Brightkite
• Gowalla

I wrote reviews of the above apps while I was writing for AppAdvice.com. You can see those articles about Whrrl, Loopt and Brightkite here.

New to the location-based apps (and there are dozens out there now) are My Town and Foursquare. They both offer a twist beyond the mere “check-in” of others. Each app is a game or competition. I tried Foursquare for a while, but grew really tired of having to manually enter the locations – with complete street addresses required. I’ve been playing with My Town for a few days now, and I like how convenient it is in already having most locations entered for you. (Brightkite is also very strong in this area).

My Town is more of a Monopoly-style game – allowing you to buy properties and charge rent for them, while Foursquare allows you to become “mayor” of certain sites based on how often you frequent them.

Rather than giving you a detailed review of each, you can pick between the excellent reviews comparing these two apps below:

• App Showdown: Foursquare vs. My Town (via everythingicafe.com)
• Why My Town is bigger than Foursquare or Gowalla (via gigaom.com)
• Booyah’s mobile app MyTown turns the real world into Monopoly (via venturebeat.com)
• Foursquare + Monopoly Makes MyTown GPS Driven App (via crenk.com)

Should you decide to use one of the apps, let me know. If you’ve got another perspective on some of these, I’d love to hear that too. Here are some features that could sway users toward one or the other app if it was implemented:

For Foursquare

• Improve your check-in system. That one feature alone would gain you users.
• Make it impossible to “check-in” to a place if you’re not physically present there. In a game of competition, this makes cheating prevalent.

For My Town

• Add social connections. Like yesterday. The inability to have a friendship base on the app like Gowalla or Foursquare makes your app very lonely. (By the way, forcing folks to use the My Town app on Facebook is NOT social. It’s a pain.)
• Prevent multiple ownership of sites. This makes the whole game a little pointless.
• Add the ability to sell sites to specific people. Allow us to name our price – that would add heightened strategy and competition.
• In addition, you should only be able to collect rent once a day from each site you own.

As you start off this new year, if you’re looking for some fun apps for your iPhone, look no further. Both app creators have promised upgrades right around the corner, so many of these requested features may be present soon.

Courtesy of Tweetstats.com.