I stayed up to the wee hours last night to get the San Antonio mission trip video finished. The short version (for display on websites and as promotion in the church) is done and up on YouTube, as well as MySpace. The pictures are online here, in case you forgot.

I plan to do a longer version with some of the “interviews” and a lot more silliness. So far that’s not going so well. Roxio seems to get grumpy when the video gets to be more than about five minutes. It bogs down and eventually crashes. Maybe someone out on the inkernets knows some tricks that can help me nurse my Roxio through a good ten or twenty minute, DVD quality video.

Anyway. I hope you like the video and maybe you can join us for our next trip!! I’m pretty sure we’ll make another trip to New Orleans next spring.

Strange title, you might say. “MSMT07” is the name of the directory where I am storing all the pictures and videos I took last week during “Middle School Mission Tour 2007”. It was an amazing trip and one in which I grew more than any previous mission trip.

This year was different in many ways. Bill Bray is the high school minister at our church. He’s also the missions coordinator and since our middle school minister quit, he’s also covering that role. The problem was that Bill and our previous middle school minister had planned this year’s mission trips back to back. It made lots of sense as long as we had two youth ministers to handle the task. By the time the trips got here, we did not have two youth ministers. Tammy and I took the lead roles in getting the middle school trip off the ground. Bill, who spent the previous week in Mexico with the high schoolers, only drove as far as San Antonio on the way back and met up with us there. Thus Tammy and I were the defacto youth leaders for the week before the trip and for the drive down to San Antonio.

On top of that, the rest of the high school group pulled into the church parking lot during this year’s dinner theater. We were obviously too busy to perform in the theater this time, but we did serve as wait staff for the event. Tammy had to sneak out during the play and intercept the high schoolers, collecting the supplies that we needed for the middle school trip, which departed the next morning. Busy busy busy.

We focused more on evangelism this year, teaching our youth the key Bible verses to use and how to explain the path to salvation. When Monday night came and we did our usual night on the Riverwalk, we equipped the kids with tracts and instructed them not to “throw them around” and shout “Jesus loves you!” Instead they were to talk to people. Find out their stories. See what they believed. The kids did great, but, naturally, they were nervous and unsure of what to say. So, they asked me to “go first”. I witnessed to our waiter at dinner and later “backed up” the kids as they talked to venders in the mall. I honestly surprised myself with how easily I was able to convey the message of salvation to perfect strangers, answering their questions and leading them with questions of my own. I’ve witnessed to friends before, but these were my first “cold calls” and they went very well.

Tuesday, Bill told us we were going to feed some homeless, so I had been telling the kids all week that we’d be at a soup kitchen. Boy was I wrong. We worked with an inner city church and actually set up folding tables under a bridge in the midst of our society’s forgotten souls. There were drug deals going on all around us. In any other situation, I would be scared to death to have 50 14-year-olds in that kind of environment. But when you’re serving God, peace reigns. I was never scared. Even my germophobia disappeared as I loved on people who were crusted with disease and smelled like… well… like hobos.

As the week went on it became more and more painful to me to realize that all the good work we were doing in San Antonio could just have easily been done in our own back yard. As a friend of mine put it, it’s just like people who go to church on Christmas and Easter (a.k.a. C&E Christians). For them church is an “experience” that is part of their holiday. For us, witnessing and doing God’s work is part of the “experience” of the mission trip and that’s just as wrong as the C&E’s. We should be living God’s work every day, feeding the homeless who live under bridges meer miles from our own church, witnessing to the lost all around us. I have not been doing that and I am strongly convicted to change.

After every mission trip or church camp, I warn our kids that Satan will attack you and try to break down the convictions you gained, the joy you felt, and the lessons you learned. It’s such a regular occurrence that we have a name for it. You come home with “camp high” and within two weeks it’s gone because “real life” has beat you down and stolen your motivation. My “camp high” was under attack even before the week was half over. While I was still on the trip I got some bad news from work. Dave, my good friend and mentor; the “go to guy” for everything I work on, had given his two week notice. When I got back to work, I’d have only a week and a half to try and absorb five years worth of knowledge before I became that “go to guy”. Talk about stress. I managed to finish the week without thinking about it too much, but now that I’m back behind my desk, “real life” is hitting pretty hard.

If you know Christ, please pray that my current “camp high” will not fade, that my convictions to live a mission trip lifestyle will have permanent effects.

I’ve got my pictures from there trip uploaded and will have the video edited soon. While you’re at it, you can also check out pictures from MSMT05 and MSMT06.
God bless you all.

On a much happier note, I went to Weinberger’s for lunch today. At first it was sad, but then it got tons better. Let me explain.

Today was the second time in the last month that I’ve gone to the deli to find the door locked and a hand written note taped up saying that the power was out. I peered through the window and saw the employees sitting around, filling ketchup bottles, etc., killing time during the outage. I knocked on the window and asked, “But, were do I go for lunch now?”

The owner, Dan, opened the door and made a couple of suggestions, but I was really hankerin’ for a deli sandwich. As I pouted, he took pity and said, “Well, I could make you a cold sandwich.” I lit up and slipped inside. I said, “But your register won’t work.” Dan smiled from behind the counter, “I know your good for it.”

It is so cool be a regular!

All my favorite sandwiches involve something grilled or melted: Rubens, hot pastrami, melted swiss, etc. As I went over the menu with, “What about this one?” and “What about that one?” Each was answered with bad news. Then Dan said, “Wait. If I do cold salami instead of hot pastrami…” The sandwich master’s wheels were turning and I stood back and watched the magic.

While he was making me up a new creation, the rest of the lunch crowd hit. At least 20 people dugged on the door and walked away downtrodden. Dan handed me my lunch and I thanked him and looked out at the sad non-deli-lunch-having public. I thought, “I can’t walk out there now! There’ll be a riot!” I waited for a break in the crowd and rushed out the door like a secret agent evading the Russians.

Now I’m enjoying a brand new sandwich and it’s awesome! Man, I love that place. I’m going to recommend this one makes it on the menu: “Trint’s Lights Out Special”

Cold genoa salami, pepperoni, provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions, italian dressing, oregano, and mayonnaise on an untoasted hoagie.

Weinberger’s web site is now online. They have a menu and online ordering! Woohoo!

CAUTION: The following post contains images of fat, pasty, computer geeks wearing less clothes than usual. It was so bad, even the sun had to look away. Viewer discretion is advised.

Last weekend was our annual company boat party. I’m not sure how much longer this tradition will hold out, since the company continues to grow. This year we had to take out the biggest boat you can rent on Lake Grapevine in order to accommodate our near 50 employees.

In case you were wondering, it takes exactly six ounces of frozen margarita to make Tammy feel nauseous.

But the most of the Alt-N crew drink like fish… literally!

Greg’s working on a wicked margarita tan line.

Even Arvel, our fearless leader, was in on the floating alcohol action.

Despite the skipper’s orders, we couldn’t resist jumping off the upper deck of the party boat.

Of course, when I tried it, I slipped and nearly broke my neck. And I didn’t even have any alcohol!

Unfortunately, we didn’t get any pictures of Jerry trying to kill Tammy and me on the tube behind his boat. This year he even orchestrated a thunderstorm to try and rattle us. (Man, has he got connections or what?!) Nonetheless, we survived. Nyaah nyaah!

I want to extend my gratitude yet again to Arvel and Jerry for creating a place where guys like me can love to work.

If any of you Alt-N guys want to scrape my pictures for your own use, you can get the originals here.

No, I’m not going to sing, so put away the ear plugs. What I am going to do is shower praises on my white board. I don’t mean to sound sacrilegious or idolatrous, but I really do love my white board. I am very blessed to work for a company that pampers its employees and one of my peak perks is my giant, erasable friend.

I’ve always been fond of white boards. It’s like being allowed to color on the walls without getting in trouble. I can write funny little quips, draw silly faces, or even write out long lists of tasks I am putting of whilst I doodle and joke on my white board.

In the last twelve months in particular, I have kept a ridiculously large “to-do” list on my white board. It grows and shrinks as new bugs are found and squashed. But as yet, I’ve not been anywhere near an empty white board. I’m not bragging. Far from it. I would love to have some sense of closure on this web site project, despite the job security I often joke about.

At the end of last year, in the midst of several months of 80-hour weeks, Tammy stopped by the office for dinner and snapped these pictures of me and my white board. This is when the web site was about half way finished and, as you can see just below the WBQotW, the release date was about to be pushed back yet again.

Isn’t it beautiful? Boy am I blessed! (And fat. *sigh* 80-hour weeks don’t leave much time for exercise. Lucky for me those days are over and I’ve lost… umm… well… about 3 pounds.)

I have determined that there’s not any sensitive information on my board in these pictures, so I uploaded a full sized image for your entertainment. This is what an e-commerce web site looks like on the inside. Pretty messy, huh? Good thing guys like me can stretch a pretty user interface over the top of the chaos.

Just wanted to let you all know I’m still alive. I have not read any news blogs in almost two weeks and have barely been able to keep up with two or three of my daily reads (including web comics). But I can say that my bug list at work has received some much needed attention this week.

I know. I know. That’s not much consolation. I’m trying to get used to blogging at night and it’s just not happening… yet. Hang in there folks. We should be back to regularly scheduled programming soon.

I love my wife. Tammy has been growing a lot over the last year. I don’t mean she’s turned into the fifty foot woman. Well, in a spiritual sense, she’s getting close to that. Tammy is growing in God and it humbles me, amazes me, and thrills me all at the same time. Here’s her latest MySpace blog post. (I’m reproducing it here so you don’t have to log into MySpace to see it.)

Current mood: determined
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Time to share. The Lord has shown me a lot that I feel needs to be shared with those I know.

If you have been going to church lately, Pastor Dennis has been speaking about the 3 chairs. The first chair represents committed Christians whose whole live is devoted to God. The second chair represents compromising Christians who live for God on Sunday, but live for themselves the rest of the week. The third chair represents the lost, people who either don’t know anything about God or who have heard about Christianity, but don’t accept it for whatever reason.

I don’t know about anyone else but these messages have been a kick in the rear for me. I’ve been going in between 1st and 2nd chair for way to long. I have tried to keep running my life on my own instead of letting Jesus take the full reign over my life.

I have been digging into God’s Word more and more since these messages have been planted into my life. The more I have been reading the Word the more the Lord has convicted me of one of the most popular phrases I hear from Christians including myself: “What is God’s will for my life?” In the Word the answer is as clear as it gets. God’s will for every Christian is to reach out to others and spread his love to those who don’t know him. Why is that so hard for Christians? Well the word FEAR is something that I and a lot of other Christians face. We fear rejection and failure more than anything. But you know what? The only thing to fear is God. I read the entire book of Revelation on Saturday and my brain hasn’t stopped thinking about the world, my family, our church, friends who are sitting in the 2nd chair and those who do not know Jesus as their personal savior. I have been dreaming about the war that will take place as the tribulation begins and how many people I know that will be in that war if I don’t do something about it. Our nation is “one nation under God,” but where is God? Our nation is in desperate need of Christians who will stand up and make a difference.

On Friday night I had the opportunity to go to Christ for the Nations in Dallas . They hold a open worship night once a month and it was such an awesome and eye opening experience. As hundreds gathered that night to worship the Lord, the speaker made a very good point. Worship that night was corporate worship but our true worship is outside the walls of the church. As I prayed and worshiped that night I cried out to the Lord about Christians, myself included, that need to stop thinking about themselves and start spreading the love of Jesus.

Over the past week my heart has been turned upside with my 5 siblings who have nothing to do with Jesus. My brother Rich was going to be a pastor and now has nothing to do with Jesus. My sister Kathy was in a tragic accident and the Lord saved her life and she still hasn’t had anything to do with God. My sisters Gloria and Misty, I’m not sure where they are or even if they ever had a time in their lives when they were saved. My closest sister Amy has strayed so far away from the Lord that she is deliberating sinning and has admitted to it. My heart is crying out so bad for my siblings and their families who haven’t heard about the Lord. It’s time that I stop thinking about it and start doing something about it. Approaching them could cause our relationships to end but if I don’t do it who will?

We need to lay down our pride and start getting our lives right with the Lord. The end is coming and it’s time to take a stand. Dig into the Word, memorize the Word. Be prepared with the Word for the events that lie ahead. Be bold!! Be Strong!!

Tammy

I’m not ignoring you. I’m trying something different. Something that, so far, looks a lot like I’m ignoring you.

My readers know well the struggles I have with productivity and self-discipline. Coming back from vacation, I was worried that I would have a hard time working at work. So, this week, I exported my “daily reads” bookmarks and emailed them to my home PC. The idea was that I could still do all my daily surfing and blogging, but do it at home after Tammy goes to bed. I think you can see how that turned out.

Other than some video links that were emailed to me at work, and PvPOnline, I haven’t surfed this week. While I was a little more productive during the week, I’m not sure if it was enough to justify the suffering. Plus, this morning, when I dragged myself out of bed, my brain was nearing the oatmeal state. I was babbling to myself all morning as I got ready, and most of the babble (that was coherent) had to do with going back to bed.

I can’t even blame my mood on “spring fever” because it’s been so hot and humid, I’ve had no desire to be outside. Pretty much just the desire to be on the my couch, drooling and staring slack-jawed at the TV.

I’m going to call this experiment, at least in the short term, a failure.

I must apologize for not announcing this before the fact. Tammy and I have just returned from a fantastic vacation, our first real vacation in five years.

We spent the week back in our old haunt, Colorado Springs, and the surrounding areas. We rode our mountain bikes down the ski runs at Snow Mass (near Aspen), we climbed Pikes Peak, we took over 300 pictures!! We … are … tired.

I need to dole out thanks to Raju for the use of his Canon Rebel XT digital SLR and mad props to Shane and Jen Weeks for their hospitality and very comfortable basement.

I hope to get some pictures and maybe even a little video up sometime this week.

Now back to your regularly schedule programming.

[Edit: Pictures from the trip are here.]

…and she thinks she’s my wife!!

What do you know! She is my wife!!

A few recent events that have gone thus far unblogged made me realize I don’t talk enough about Tammy. She is, after all, the most important human in my life and, probably, the most influential. So let me tell you a little bit about my wife.

Tammy grew up in Amarillo, Texas (as did I). Her formative years were not kind. She was never considered attractive by her peers and having a lazy eye didn’t help. She was tormented and rejected all the way through elementary and high school. In college, even after having her eye fixed, the effects of her poor treatment kept her from making many friends, although she did make a few. I was not one of them.

Unbeknownst to me, I had befriended a guy from her high school and church who she associated with her torment. So, she also associated me with her torment and every time she saw me at the Amarillo College Baptist Student Union, she’d hit me in the stomach… hard. Still, through a long and unbelievable series of events, she decided I was an OK guy. Later, when I moved to Colorado to finish school, she followed me. We were married soon after.

While we where dating, we both fell in love with rock climbing. The move to Colorado fed this and by the time we got married we were both climbing indoors at least once a week and performing well in amateur climbing competitions. Four months after our wedding, we were climbing in the Garden of the Gods, when Tammy took a fluke fall and hit her head. She was in a coma for about a week and (as is usual with head injuries) she came out of the coma with a major attitude change. She went from being the Tammy the meek doormat, to Tammy the don’t-tell-me-what-I-can’t-do tiger. The good part of this attitude change was that she was driven prove the doctors wrong. The bad part was that we fought… a lot.

Through the years, she’s gotten much better at controlling her emotions but she’s kept the drive. Tammy is a tough girl by any standard. She grew up yelling at the TV when the Cowboys were playing. Now she yells at the TV when Jeff Gordon is losing. She’s no red-neck (She’s still into figure skating and gymnastics), but it sure is cool to have a wife who knows sports as well or better than I do. It’s cool to have a wife that loves camping, four-wheeling, and is working on her confidence and skill at mountain biking. We still climb, though not as much, and it’s cool to have a wife who is a lot stronger than she looks.

That brings me to one of the stories I should have blogged but didn’t. (Now being rectified.)

Our pastor was teaching on the cord of three strands. To illustrate this, he had some small branches, maybe a half inch in diameter. It was supposed to go like this:

“Here is a single branch, see how easily it breaks.” *snap* “But when we but three branches together, they’re very hard to break.” He hands three branches to someone in the front row. They try and try but can’t break the three branches together. “The three branches support each other and are much stronger when they work together.”

Unfortunately, he picked Tammy as the audience volunteer. So it went more like this:

“They’re very hard to break.” He hands the three branches to Tammy. *Snap Crackle Pop* Tammy hands back three broken branches. Everyone laughs. He toss them over his shoulder and says, “So much for that illustration.”

True story.

Oh, by the way, in case you hadn’t figured it out, Tammy is no longer the unattractive outcast. She’s a total hottie!