Maybe it was two days in a row. But whatever the case. We are off Taco Bell for life. 
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: disgust at the american media, fired up young person for mccain, media, palin, sarah palin
Tons of integrity from the Dems today.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,431204,00.html
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi paid her husband’s real estate and investment firm nearly $100,000 from her political action committee over the past decade, a practice that she voted to ban last year and that her party condemned as part of the “culture of corruption” when Republicans did it.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=76645
The moderator of tomorrow’s vice-presidential debate is writing a book to come out on the day the next president takes the oath of office that aims to “shed new light” on Democratic candidate Barack Obama and other “emerging young African American politicians” who are “forging a bold new path to political power.”
Sounds like she will be fair and balanced, straightforward and honest. Really it does.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: college football, Husker Football, huskers, saturday
USC lost on Thursday. Florida blew it today. Wisconsin let the Wolverines come back. The Sooners are playing right now. Later, Georgia and Alabama, both ranked in the top ten. By the end of the day, 4 of the top 10 teams in the nation will have lost, potentially 5. But all of that aside, I am just pleased that Colorado got their rears handed to them by Florida State. That pleases me.
Let’s see how my boys do this evening against the Hokies . . .
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: creativity, Design, fun crap, graphic design, youth ministry
I haven’t been a part of Creative Chaos for a while. Nonetheless, I have been a busy little bumblebee. I am learning so much. I think that I want to start a freelance business pretty soon doing this, but I want to learn how to start my own business.
Here is the Catalyst Web site. The design work is mine, the theme is from Smashingmagazine, a ton of custom code work was done by Mark. I really like it. I think it works well as for a youth ministry site. I fully believe in WordPress as THE engine that youth ministries should use. So straightforward.
Here is a whole schlew of logos/looks that I created for our Outreach Groups. I am really only happy with about 1 or 2 of them (I am not telling you which ones,) but overall I like all of them. I am trying to learn different things. I still don’t know any Illustrator, but I am learning. I am working hard to get away from the basic skills that get me by and get into some more intermediate skills. Also, I am trying very very hard to use fewer and fewer brushes in my stuff. Anyway, I hope you like some of it.
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Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Baseball, colorado rockies, fanatic, summer
Thank you to Bad Altitude for putting my synopsis of the Rockies season (and my relationship with them) into great words. I was going to write up my year end post, but he already did a better job.
As another ignominious Rockies season screeches to a halt, it’s hard not for me to feel miserable — more so than usual. Not only did Colorado completely waste 2008, including a career year from Aaron Cook and another tick towards the free agency clock on Matt Holliday, I wasted it too. I barely made it to any games and I mostly only caught the last few innings of games on TV when I had enough energy to do so. Rockies management put little to no effort into this season, so I didn’t give much back.
Colorado never even sniffed contention in a division that’s even worse than it was last year. That’s pretty embarrassing. I was embarrassed to be a Rockies fan this spring, as they rolled out of spring training with a rotation mostly unfit to be pitching in the big leagues and made no effort to correct this oversight at the trade deadline. The attitude around Coors Field’s office block seemed to be, “We have their money already,” with regard to the fans, and the product on the field reflected it. How depressing.
Anyway, in a week or so I can put aside being a Rockies fan until the end of the playoffs and just enjoy being a baseball fan again.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: colorado, fired up young person for mccain, Politics, sarah palin
Here are some pics. Response to come. .
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Filed under: Morning, Politics | Tags: fired up young person for mccain, Morning, palin, sarah palin
I am fired up for McCain and the GOP this year! We need to win this election. Period. It is historically critical. When John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, I went from wanting to vote for him to wanting to fight for him. We have 8 weeks to go in this extremely close election.
This morning, I woke up at 5am and I am off to see Gov. Palin speak at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds. There will be a line. I will need some coffee. Updates will come after. But I wanted to put this up here as an example of my energy and hope in this party and the candidates that it has chosen. Good morning!
I am a very, very happy man right now. Go flaming horses!
Filed under: Friends | Tags: Friends, guys night, world changing extraordinaries
What a freaking awesome night! We had a great time hosting re:Zound, with Catalyst Band opening. They rocked! It is such a unique thing that we have going on EVERY week at Catalyst, it blows my mind!
Then we hosted a guys’ night at my place. Judifree[dotcom] was hosting a girls’ night. Her’s was probably a touch different than ours’. However, we partied pretty hard. It had all the makings of a great guys’ night: N64, a no pants rule, a trip to the ER, spilled soda, chips, lots of pizza with lots of jalepenos, Soul Caliber on GameCube, more pizza, plenty of Red Bull, a poker tourney (which I won thank you very much!) JMick was on a roll, Marvin Gaye ‘Let’s Get It On’ on the record player, I mean come on, what else do you want!
I stumbled to my bed exhausted at about 4:15, after watching Mark, Zach and Bryan dominate some Soul Caliber. When I came back down this morning about 9, Zach and Mark had not moved. At all. Bryan had fallen asleep. What a great night! We will for certain be having another one very very soon!
Catalyst has a fantastic group of up and coming young men who fully intend to change the world. I am priviledged to be associated with them, even leading them! Skinney, ZachAttack, Tyler, Jovanana, NateDogg, Justynia, Marlinia, Barge, JMick, Evan, Los, and the always revolutionary Mark Thomas.
“These who have turned the world upside down have come here also.”
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: change, conviction, financial maturity, responsibility
This week, I faced about 3 situations that blaringly sounded the alarm in my life that I need to get some stuff straightened out. I am administrativly irresponsible. So tonight, I am organizing the chaos that is my filing/desk system at my house. Not only am I organizing, I am preparing myself for a different week. A different week financially. A different week emotionally. A different week.
I hope that things will change. God help me. I have grown weary of hurting people because of my lack of responsibility. I have grown weary of the same financial cycle. I need to grow up. Quickly.
Hey, pray for me, please!
Filed under: Rockstar, Whatever | Tags: Funny, nicknames, odd names, twitchy
Tonight, I received the news from a friend that I am “TWITCHY.” I have been called a lot of things over the years, but never described as twitchy. This struck me as funny and probably fairly descriptive.
What are some funny things you have been called recently?
Filed under: Whatever | Tags: chicago, fired up young person for mccain, obama, sarah palin
I call for an immediate timeline for the withdrawal of Police Officers in Chicago…
An estimated 123 people were shot and killed over the summer. That’s nearly double the number of soldiers killed in Iraq over the same time period.
In May, cbs2chicago.com began tracking city shootings and posting them on Google maps. Information compiled from our reporters, wire service reports and the Chicago Police Major Incidents log indicated that 123 people were shot and killed throughout the city between the start of Memorial Day weekend on May 26, and the end of Labor Day on Sept. 1.
According to the Defense Department, 65 soldiers were killed in combat in Iraq. About the same number were killed in Afghanistan over that same period.
In the same time period, an estimated 245 people were shot and wounded in the city.
(link: CBS2Chicago ht: Instapundit)
This is a problem and something needs to be done about it. Call in Rudy or something to figure it out. But it sure does offer some perspective doesn’t it? We are handling a major strategic conflict, not simply for the peace of our country, but for the peace of the world and the minuscule number of causalities is completely unacceptable. However, on our own turf, in one of our major cities we are content with allowing 123 people to be shot and killed. This is unacceptable. Casualties are extremely unpleasant – one is too many – however sometimes there is a greater cause that our men and women fight for.
Oh and wait just a minute, isn’t there someone in leadership from Illinois who thinks he can lead our troops and solve our problems in Iraq.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fired up young person for mccain, john mccain, obama, Politics, sarah palin
From Ankle Biting Pundits
(Also heard this morning on Laura Ingraham)
“My understanding is that Gov. Palin’s town, Wassilla, has I think 50 employees. We’ve got 2500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe 12 million dollars a year – we have a budget of about three times that just for the month,” Obama responded.
Our ability to manage large systems and to execute I think has been made clear over the past couple of years and certainly in terms of the legislation I’ve passed in the past couple of years, post-Katrina.”
“Apparently simply running for president is comporable to actually being president.”
- Laura (paraphrased)
“First of all you dope, she has been a Governor for almost 2 years, and there are tens of thousands of state workers and about a ten billion dollar budget.” – Bull Dog Pundit
Also, I think it is becoming far more obvious day after day that McCain is a genius, she was the right pick. It is amazing that Obama is now in the game of comparing his experience to the person we have selected as our vice presidential candidate’s experience.
Obama you are clearly not ready for this position. You are at best a number two guy, who talks large, but has completely no ability.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: fired up young person for mccain, hey I was homeschooled, homeschool, mccain, sarah palin
It is not often that I talk about homeschooling on here. I do not know why, I probably need to change that. I was homeschooled and I am far better off because of it. This article from Pajamas Media’s Tony Woodlief lays out some pretty decent reasons why he and his wife homeschool their families. I wanted to share this today to showcase an article that I think displays the beliefs of many, many homeschool families. This is extremely relevant in helping us all better understand what “Middle America” thinks, feels and believes. Their vote is what will win this political election for John McCain/Sarah Palin this fall. Plus, it will just help you understand homeschoolers in a little bit better way! Here are a couple of my favorite paragraphs.
We believe everything you need to know about parenting can be gleaned from Little House on the Prairie. Growing up in wildly dysfunctional households, we both learned that you can do much worse than the Ingalls family. We decided when we got married that our home would be better than what we knew as children. The foundation is love, order, and relentless application of rules like: Eat all your vegetables, and Mind your manners, and Don’t push your brother’s head into the toilet.
So we frown on radicalism. Yet we have embarked on one of the most radical endeavors families can undertake: home-schooling. Given preconceptions about this practice, I should note that we are not anti-government wingnuts living on a compound. We like literature, and nice wines, and Celeste would stab me in the heart with a spoon if I gave her one of those head bonnets the Amish women wear….
The secret of home-schooling, however, is that you don’t have to be a master teacher to do it well. Energy, dedication, and good materials are what you need. Your competition, meanwhile, is a system that by design and necessity seeks the median. Public (and many private) school students have to move along in all subjects at a similar pace, and in the same order. Outliers — the talkative, the energetic, the gifted, the struggling — are labeled and interventions (counseling, special classrooms, tutoring, medication) prescribed. The goal is not a full realization of the child’s potential, but rather the system’s smooth functioning.
While it’s nice to imagine ourselves living a counter-cultural lifestyle, the reality is that in Wichita, Kansas, home-schooling is widespread. Home-schoolers have baseball teams and soccer leagues. Teaching support groups. There’s even a Boy-Scout troop. Local private schools, meanwhile, offer science and other equipment-intensive courses. Churches provide facilities for home-school association meetings, and even study halls so home-school parents can join Bible studies. If a home-schooling mother falls ill or dies, there is often another home-schooling family who takes on responsibility for teaching her children.
