Whew… I’m back and I have just about caught up.

Sunday, July 10th, after church, the middle school kids from our church loaded up in three buses an SUV and a pick-up. If I remember right we had 42 seventh and eighth graders and 22 sponsors (many of whom where high schoolers). We headed out for San Antonio, Texas. Six hours later we were settling in to our digs for the week, a church gymnasium with some temporary classrooms on one side (divided by those slidy wall/curtain things). The smart few (including myself) brought air mattresses as we spent the week sleeping on the hardwood floors.

We split up into three VBS groups and one work crew. All but a couple of the seventh graders were on the work crew and spent the week cleaning, scraping and painting a small church building. The VBS groups did small Vacation Bible Schools at various inner-city housing projects. We were working with kids from three to twelve years old teaching them songs (from “Herman the Worm” to “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands”), doing crafts, teaching Bible lessons, and (most importantly) playing with and loving on the kids in the hood.

Click to see my pictures from the mission trip.

It was a great experience. Yes, it was brutally hot. Yes, we were all pretty far from our comfort zones. Yes, we spent several days washing out hair with dog shampoo (after learning that some of the children had head lice). But ultimately I will carry the lessons I learned with me for life. God is so big. Watching God use broken vessels like us to pour out his love on kids who don’t get much love anywhere else was an honestly life-changing experience. Do me a favor and pray for the summer missionaries who spend months down in the trenches, sharing the love of Christ all over the country with kids in need.

On Friday, Tammy came down and picked me up to go to a family reunion at my folk’s ranch in La Grange. We were there a day and a half and had a blast getting to know distant family members we’d never met before and catching up with those that we don’t get to see often.

Click to see my pictures from the reunion. (The directory called “Big” is just for Uncle Robert. It’s the high-res versions.)

We left La Grange Saturday around noon and made it back to Arlington in time to catch the “One Voice” concert at Six Flags. Super Chick, Thousand Foot Krutch, and Third Day were all phenomenal! The Third Day set alone was worth the cost of the tickets. I am just now getting my voice back.

So (*pant pant*) there you have it. My week of vacation in 500 words or less.

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m going to be out of town all next week. I am going on the “Mission Tour” with our church’s middle school youth. (Don’t ask me the difference between a mission tour and a mission trip, because I haven’t figured it out myself yet.) Yes, I’m going to spend all next week in Munchkin Land. It should be a great time to build some relationships with the younger kids in the youth group. I’m looking forward to it, even though it will be hard work.

We are going to San Antonio and our middle schoolers will be leading Vacation Bible School in several inner city churches and doing some community out reach. All I really know so far is that it’s going to be really really hot and we’re going to be sleeping on the floor. So, yeah, it’s pretty much what you’d expect while serving in God’s army.

Please pray for the kids and me next week and please pray for London. If you are not a Christian, wish me luck (or what ever it is you place your faith in) and pray for London anyway.

For the first time in the history of SYNS, I have ten incomplete articles queued up. That means I have ten great tid-bits of wit and wisdom to share with you, but I have not had the time to polish them, finish them, or in some cases, even type them up. I have a couple of articles that, so far, are nothing more than a link to a news story. So what gives?!

The answer is simple. After several months of frustrating road blocks in my day job (long story, don’t ask) the flood gates have opened. Productivity… Yaaay! Finally, my cohorts and I are busy almost all day with projects. We are getting things done. But the successes which put food on my table have come at the expense of the projects for which my only compensation has been personal satisfaction. In short, my hobby projects have been put on the back burner.

Not only is my poor old blog languishing, my Ultima Online world building project has been pushed back a couple of months, at least, and my gaming time has slowed to a trickle.

But fear not, faithful readers. I shall endeavor to forge ahead. I pledge upon my Geekness to deliver fresh silliness and crisp wit once again on a more regular basis.

Thank you for your time. Now I must make up the five minutes I spent on this post by simultaneously debugging a .NET application and designing a drop-dead-gorgeous web interface… AT THE SAME TIME!! Yeah, I’m cool like that. Ph34r my l33t r0xx0r $kilz, noob. (That’s “leet speak” for, “I am better than you.”)

As you may know, I am the drama leader at Glenview Baptist Church. Having been in contact with my uncle, a Viet Nam vet, and my nephew, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, I wanted to do something special for Memorial Day.

Not to be confused with Veteran’s Day (which honors all veterans, living and dead), Memorial Day is a day to pay tribute to those killed in military service. It began as a day on which the widows of Confederate soldiers would go out and lay flowers on the graves of fallen soldiers.

I contacted Uncle Robert, who is a Legionnaire, about some material for my tribute. He sent me a script called “What Is a Vet?” I took this and adapted it for Memorial Day. The tribute was read this past Sunday, May 29th, by Brigadier General Bill Guy. Click the links below to hear the audio from the service. (These files are pretty big, so you may want to right click on the link and choose “Save Target As”.)

MemorialDayTribute.mp3
MemorialDayTribute.wma (Windows Media)

And the script can be found here: WhatIsAVeteran.doc

I’m a bit back-logged on things to blog about. It was quite a busy weekend.

Tammy and I both got off work a little early on Friday and planned to take advantage of the cool, over-cast weather to get in a bike ride. We didn’t even make it out of the parking lot before I heard the familiar hiss of a tire going flat. I had a patch on one of mine (a “trail repair” from last year) and the patch let go. I tried several things to get it fixed, but to no avail. The tube was a loss, so biking would have to wait.

Saturday, after sleeping in, we head out to Bicycles Inc. (only the best bike store in the world) to get a new tube and lust over the latest gadgets. Then it was off to the Movie Tavern. (If you’ve never been, I highly recommend it. It’s your basic movie theater except that every other row of seats has been replaced with a long table and the theater sports a full restaurant and bar. You order your food when you take your seat and food shows up about the time the previews are over. Best of all… FREE REFILLS!) We went to see Revenge of the Sith (review forth coming).

Saturday evening was spent at the home of our good friends Galyn and Kristen Black. As usual, they provided great food and great conversation. We provided the great root beer.

Sunday, my script for Memorial Day was read by Bill Guy, Brigadier General USAF Retired. It was a very moving piece and once I have the pictures and audio clips cleaned up, I’ll be posting about it.

Sunday afternoon we finally got around to riding our bikes. We rode to Six Flags (about four miles one way) and spent the afternoon riding rides. Right about the time we were ready to head home, I realized I didn’t have my keys. We back tracked and figured out which ride stole them from my pocket. The operator said she had just turned over some keys to a passing security guard. We made our way to the security office and waited for them to show up. After forty-five minutes, we began asking questions. After some detective work, it became clear that the keys they turned in where not mine. *sigh* We gave the situation into God’s capable hands and walked to dinner. Just as we finished dinner and were contemplating how to break into our third floor apartment, we got a call from Angela, my hero, the Six Flags security dispatcher. They had keys matching the description we had left. Thus the lock on our bikes and the screen door on our balcony lived to see another day. We made it to the apartment just before dark, about 8PM.

Monday, Memorial Day, we decided we had not had enough torture the previous night and decided to head out to Trinity Trails, a “green way” type bike/jogging trail that follows the Trinity River out of down town Fort Worth. It was still over-cast and we rode through occasional light rain. If you ask me, that’s the perfect conditions for a trail ride. Coming home (back to downtown and the truck) was pretty strenuous with a stiff head wind, but we made it. I’ve still got a lot of conditioning to do before August and Grand Teton, but I have come a long way.

Contrary to popular belief, I am alive. It wasn’t until I posted today’s WBQotW that I realized my last three posts have been weekly quips. See! I knew that posting my quips would keep me loyal to this blog. Well… to that part at least.

So, what’s been going on the last three weeks? Well, I saw HHGttG and haven’t posted my review. I may have to go see it again so I can remember all the goodies. (Just kidding, Tammy.) Star Wars III was released and to voice my resentment at the suckage of the first two “prequels” I have not seen it yet. (Take that George Lucas!) Tammy and I celebrated our 6th year of wedded bliss. And my office temperature has gone from frost bite to heat stroke.

The review of the Hitchhikers will be posted in the next day or so, honest. I’ll also be posting a review of “13 Going On 30”. Tammy and I have developed a bit of a tradition. For our anniversary the last two years, we’ve stayed at St Botolph’s Inn in Weatherford. They have a couple of cottage rooms each with full sized a hot tub in the room and wall mounted TV/VCR so you can watch a movie from the tub or the bed. Schah-weeet! Last year we watched “Something’s Gotta Give” which is now one of Tammy’s favorites. We also stayed at Botolph for New Years, and watched “Along Came Polly”. Do you see a theme here?

We wrapped up our youth drama season with a really great mime performance. Those kids have a ton of talent and I’m glad God has given me such a rewarding ministry. (Yeah, they get on my nerves and disappoint me once in a while, but hey, they are teenagers, right? The good really does out weigh the bad.) Now I just have to update the drama troupe’s web site, which has been neglected much more than this blog. Time for another digi-cam dump.

Spring has sprung here in DFW. Okay, spring sprung two months ago. Now it’s just hot. Nasty, drippy, melt stuff in your car hot. Yesterday was 100*, today is supposed to be refreshingly cooler… 98.

For the last couple of months, our office has been stupid cold. You know it’s bad when people bring sweaters to work in May… In Dallas! While it was a beautiful 75 outside, my cubicle was hovering around 67 and that’s with my mini-heater running under my desk all day.

After weeks and weeks of complaining, “they” finally did something about it. Turns out the folks in the next office have been broiling. We run on the same AC unit and the vent baffles (thingies that tell the cold air where to go) were broken, so we were getting all their cold air. So, the guys in the heavy work boots got up on the roof and fixed everything… riiiiight. Now the AC unit is on strike. Right now, the thermostat across from my desk reads 85. *sigh* Well, at least our neighbors office is the same temp as ours now. Oh, and all you folks out there who have experienced manual labor in the summer… Shut up. I know I’m a wuss. Leave me alone.

I am helping out with the spring children’s musical at the church. I managed to keep my involvement to a minimum this time around. I have two lines, both or off stage, and I am running the lights, which involves one light cue. Piece of pie! My hat is off to Bill Meers for running the children’s musical every year. It serves as a reminder to me why I do not work with kids younger than fifteen (high school freshmen). Sure there’s a lot more drama (the personal/social kind) working with high schoolers, but at least you don’t have to tell them fifteen times per hour to stop playing with the microphones.

* All temperatures are given in Fahrenheit. Yeah, I know Fahrenheit is the worst temperature scale, totally unscientific. But it’s what most of my readers understand, so you’ll have to convert it to Celsius on your own. C = ((F – 32) * 5 / 9) Duh, people.

My nephew, Dustin Ladd, and his sweetie, Ashlee are new parents! Brycen was born yesterday and the official report from his grandma is that, “He is just beautiful.” I’ll be sure to remind him how beautiful he is in about 14 years when he’ll really appreciate it.

So, since he was born the same day that the new pope was elected, is his nickname going to be Benedicto Ex Vee Eye? Cuz you know the kids in middle school would really dig that.

What I’m really wondering is when Dustin started painting his fingernails. (See photo evidence to the left.) I know they didn’t teach you that in the Army, Soldier!!

I’ve been delinquent in my posting again, so I figure it’s time for another personal update. It’s funny how owning a digital camera changes the way you record your life. The other night, I dumped the digi-cam onto my computer, all 200 or so pictures. It was then that I realized how far behind I am in telling the story of my life to those who are interested. (For the rest of you… Sorry. Deal with it.)

Back on March 5th, our youth drama group, The Bottom Line, had a landmark performance. They did an opening sketch for this year’s Disciple Now. The theme for DNow this year was the awesomeness of God. Youth Minister Bill asked me to put something together for that theme and the end result was a moving “reader’s theater” style piece that contrasted the real meaning of the word awesome with the way it’s been trivialized in the lingo of today’s youth. The performance was aw… um… it was really good.

On March 12th, Tammy and I experienced a real land mark. In preparation for my big trip to the Tetons in August, we met up with the rest of they guys from the expedition at Mineral Wells. It was the first time since Tammy’s rock climbing accident in 1999 that we successfully climbed live rock (that means climbing outside). We’ve been gym climbing since a few months after her accident, but phobias (mostly on my part) kept us from being comfortable on live rock, away from the safety of man made walls. It was a fun day and we both climbed really well. The other members of the expedition learned more about rope work and belaying. It was an all around success.

For the entire month of March, I’ve been making the drive to church (during rush out it takes about 45 minutes) twice a week to practice for our Easter musical, “Believe”. Due to casting issues, I handed over the director’s chair to Ron Buck (who did a fantastic job) and I took on the role of Pilate. Tammy managed all the back stage stuff, from costumes and props, to extras and make up. As usual, she was the glue that held the show together. (Thanks punkin!)

The week before a production is always pretty crazy, but with Ron directing, I didn’t have to be there every night. I got Monday off. *wink* We managed to get home before 11 PM all week, better than the Christmas show. Performances were on April 2nd and 3rd (yes, the week after Easter) and except for some minor tech issues, the shows were all perfect!

Spring has sprung, and Tammy and I are both eager to get outside. I managed to ride my bike to work once this week, but another cold snap has kept me from any more than that. My plan is to ride my bike to work everyday this summer. With gas prices retarded high and my trip coming up, I’ve got no excuse not to put the bike to good use.

This weekend is Tammy’s birthday. Not just any birthday, but the dreaded 30th! She has tried so hard to give me a hard time about being over 30 (to no avail). Now it’s time. *wink* Sadly, we’ve been unable to coordinate anything with our friends. Between folks hauling there kids to this or that and a others suffering through morning sickness, it’s just been impossible to put together the party Tammy deserves. (No! Tammy is NOT pregnant. Bite your tongue.) We are going to Six Flags with the Preeces on Sunday afternoon, but I’m pretty bummed that I couldn’t put together something better.

I think that covers the high points. Sorry for getting behind again. I shall strive to improve.

Any self-respecting geek should take a stroll down memory lane in this article: The 50 Most Important Games Ever Made. It lists all the greats from 1972 consoles, Atari 2600, Commador 64, and more. Several of my personal favorites are listed.

• Pong
• Space Invaders
• Adventure
• Battle Zone
• Pitfall
• Donkey Kong
• Zork (the original text version)
• Dragon’s Lair
• Gauntlet
• Tetris
• And, of course, Ulitma Online

Wow… I am numb with nostalgia. It would take all day to read all the articles linked here and to consider how different our world would be if it were not for these cultural gems.

Does anyone know where I can find an emulator for pitfall?! I need some time on the vines!!

Via Apropos.

I’ve received some pretty scathing comments on a post I made a few weeks back regarding homosexual men and the risk they pose. I think I’ve been very fair in that I approved all the posts, didn’t delete any of them, and allowed folks to have a voice of decent.

Today, I ran across this little news gem that seems to back up my “intolerant” point of view. The fellow making the news lately with a seemingly stronger form of HIV falls squarely into the demographic I discussed in my previous post. It seems that, before he was hospitalized, he had “drug-fueled, unprotected sex with more than 100 men…”

There’s the full story.

I’m not taking a stance on this “new” HIV, as doctors can’t yet agree if it’s a new strain or if this guy’s life style left his immune system weaker than normal. All I’m saying is that, as I stated before, there are those in the homosexual community who, by their very lifestyle, endanger other people. Thus, my argument that homosexuality is not harmless even though mass media would have us believe that the gay lifestyle is totally normal and harmless, just … more colorful.

Call me intolerant. That’s fine. I’m a follower of Christ, and He was anything but tolerant. Christ tolerated people but he did not tolerate their sinful lifestyles.

He would have dinner with the tax collectors, but rest assured the dinner conversation centered around their need to come clean of their dishonest lifestyles. He forgave the prostitute, but with that He told her, “Go and sin no more,” not, “Go and remember to use a condom.” And most notably, He had no tolerance for hypocritical religious leaders who where, in his words, “white-washed tombs”, putting forth righteous facades, but living self-centered, prideful, and greedy lives. I don’t pretend to be perfect or righteous. I make no secret of the fact that I am a sinner and I struggle with my inborn desires. But that does not mean that I am blind to the sins of others. That does not make me any less capable of holding others accountable for dangerous lifestyles.

I would not ostracize people because of their sexual choices any more than I would ostracize someone for being an alcoholic or a Jehovah’s Witness (Yeah, I know. I’m just asking for flaming comments now.) God loves everyone, and so I must follow that example. But God is clear that, despite His love, He can not tolerate sin. He has given us an option, through grace, to escape our sin and follow Him, but it is up to us individually to accept that grace. If you are homosexual, I love you as a human being, created in God’s image, but I must disapprove of your sinful choices, just as you, if you are a Christian, would have to disapprove of my pride or lust or whatever weakness I may have.

What I’m getting at here is simply this: Sin is sin and the first step to living a Christ centered life is to recognize sin for what it is, then turn away from it. I’m not a gay-basher. People who go out looking for gay men to beat to death are guilty of murder and hate and will be judged for that. People who say every homosexual is going to hell have no understanding of grace and forgiveness, and their pride will be judged. The sin of the Pharisees was no better and no worse than the sin of the prostitute. I acknowledge the fact that my occasional lie or pride or lust is no better and no worse than the man in the story above. The difference is that I have given my life to Christ and He has forgiven my sin, so that I can strive to live a life free from sin. (Notice I said “strive.” No one is perfect.) That man has the same option. He can turn his life around, come clean and be welcomed into God’s arms when the dies. Or, he can continue to live in rebellion and pay a very dire, eternal consequence.

You don’t have to agree with me. That’s God’s other unique gift to mankind; free will. The comments are open. Be gentle.