Twitter

Oh yeah, this just in - I'm twittering.
If you have any idea what twitter is, I'd love for you to follow.
My profile page is www.twitter.com/theboy1der.

Goin back to Cali

My pastor was invited to a by-invitation-only conference at Saddleback Church, here in Lake Forest, California (outside of L.A.). He could invite one person, and whaddya know, he invited me. So here I am in the sanctuary of Saddlback church listening to a Panel discussion on Worship. Panel discussions have been the highlight of this conference so far. Yesterday there were 3 of them covering Evangelism, Fellowship and Preaching. The Preaching one featured a couple of guys, including Tim Keller, Erwin McManus, and Kerry Shook, which made for a very interesting discussion. I had never heard of Tim Keller before, but he was really great during the discussion. Other than him, I just wanted the other guys to shut up and let Erwin McManus speak. He was amazing. My feedback form from yesterday read, simply, "More Erwin please."

Anyway - not much else I'm really looking forward to at this conference, except the panel on Discipleship at 3pm that has a bunch of guys and Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill in Seattle. The other Mars Hill. Beyond that, I'm looking forward to dinner tonight at Pei Wei, and maybe getting back to the hotel in time for the American Idol finale (go Chikezie!).

The temperature here in the Saddleback valley is between 66 and 69 degrees. It's sunny, breezy, and the mountains look amazing. It's absolutely beautiful here. How could you not love it here*coughAbbyLeeThomascough* ?? No wonder people in L.A. are so thin and beautiful and happy. There's never any reason to go indoors and do things that make you fat and ugly and sad. Kind of like I'm doing now...

We're leaving the conference early tomorrow - before lunch - to catch our 2:30pm flight back to H-town. I'll have my camera out again as we go through the airport - on celebrity watch. No luck on the way in. Maybe on the way out I'll snap a shot of the back of Kevin Eubanks' head. If not, you'll just have to settle for Rick Warren, yo.

Camping Mocks The Homeless

Abby and I are going camping at Brazos Bend with our Young Adult small group tonight. I haven't been camping in a couple of years, but I'm pretty sure I have never been on a weekend when it was 90+ degrees outside. This is going to be the moistest, most soaking wet weekend ever.

Nevertheless, we are packing up our new tent, our citronella tiki torches, our hot dogs and buns, our pancake griddle, our bocce balls, our cards and dominoes, our sleeping bags and air mattresses, and our hiking shoes - and heading for the hills. Please pray against the spirit of mosquitos.

If we're not back on Sunday... send out a search party.

Frustratingly simple

This is a great little mind-bender of a game. Each board has the same objective - find the star. How you do that changes each time with no directions, you just have to figure it out.

Over the course of the last 2 days - I was able to get them all. Give it a try! You'll hate yourself until you figure it out - then you'll think you are the smartest person you know. Which, in my case, is actually true.

(HT to ysmarko for the link)

Ordered!

(Click to go there!)

A Long Way Down

A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby: Pretty interesting read, but not as interesting as How To Be Good. Less.... what's the word.... altruistic? - to be sure, and with a fair amount more profanity, which I'm not sure I'm quite used to in my books just yet. Which is weird because I hardly even notice it in movies or real life anymore.

It's the story of four very different individuals who encounter each other in the midst of a suicide attempt. Several of them have good reasons... several of them don't. What happens in the aftermath of their meeting, and subsequent non-death, is told from each of their perspectives and voices, which is what makes the story most interesting. No chapters in this book, just alternating voices, which was kind of cool. Overall, I'd give this book a C. It's entertaining, but not the kind of thing I didn't want to put down, or couldn't wait to pick back up. It actually suffered because of my recent Bible-readings, if you can believe it. If you like Nick Hornby, or have nothing else to read, then pick it up. If there's something else you can get excited about, walk on by this one.

For Billy...

... who will one day grow tired of me thinking about him whenever I see something Zombie-related.

(ripped cleanly from indexed.blogspot.com, which is a really funny site you should totally check out.)