It's Time to Slim Down...

There was a post on Chip's blog back in February about his need to slim down a little because of his upcoming 10 year high school reunion. Seeing that Chip and I go back a long way (about 28 years now), I can't let him outdo me because I'll be at that same high school reunion this summer. So...I've decided to lose 10 pounds (a modest amount).

I started out really good last Friday. When I went to the gym I weighed in at 195.6. When I left the gym about 2 hours later I weighed 194.0 on the same set of scales. Now that's a weight loss program for you (not sure how that actually happened).

Here's my game plan for the month of April:
1. No cokes (easy). Where I grew up "coke" is the name of any product which falls under the category of soft drinks. If you wanted some drink other than an actual coke-a-cola the conversation would go something like this (What would you like to drink? I'll take a coke. What kind? A Mountain Dew please.) Sorry to get side tracked, but this was an important point :)

2. No desserts (really hard for me to do).

My goal is to be 185 at my seminary graduation on May 13. I wrote all this so you wonderful people can hold me accountable.

As a side note to all of this I was thinking about the times when I go running. I was imagining how much easier and faster I could run if I lost about 20 pounds. My legs would have 20 less pounds of me to carry around. Brilliant thought, huh. If you've actually read all of this random babbling...you've got a lot of free time.

Baby Bear-a-Cudas

We're taking Luke to his first swim class on Saturday.  We'll be in the pool hangin' out with him, so it'll be pretty fun.  The class is called "Baby Bear-a-Cudas."

Stay tuned for pics next week...

A Walk in the Park

Luke got to go and play in the park for the first time this past weekend. Click here for a few pics that we took. Actually we took about 125 pictures (and deleted the bad ones). I love our digital camera. It has a burst feature that will take 3 pictures per second, so you really go through pictures fast. We've got the Nikon D50 SLR with the 18-55mm lens. I want to get the next lens (55-200mm). Maybe I'll treat myself to it as a graduation present!!!

My Cool Blogger Widget...

I wrote in one of the comments earlier that I'd tell you the real selling point for blogger over the other blog sites (I did really like Typepad, but they have a monthly fee).  So, are you ready for the reason???

It's b/c of my blogger widget that was designed to integrate with blogger.

If you don't know what a widget is, that's b/c you're not using a Mac computer.  There's a link on the side bar to the Apple web page (a little mac evangelism for you there).  My humble opinion is that Macs rock. 

I'm actually using my widget to type and publish this post right now w/o ever having to start a web browser or anything.  I do it directly from the desktop.  Pretty cool.

3 Goals of Parenting...

I had lunch today with a friend who is 20 years and 3 kids ahead of me in life. I like to go to lunch with guys who have gone down the roads of life and fathering so I can pick their brains about stuff. We talked about being a parent and he summed up the goal of parenting in these three statements:

1. Teach your kids to become independent from you.
2. Teach your kids to be dependent on God.
3. Teach your kids they are responsible for their actions.

What do you think???

I'm Going Worldwide...

I've made the big time now. I had my first visitors from outside the U.S. The site meter told me that I got a visit from someone in Ontario, Canada and someone in the Dominican Republic.

NCAA Tourney Update

We totaled up the points in our brackets at the office today... with 40 points I'm tied for last!!!! It's not as bad as it sounds though b/c the guys who are tied for first place are only 1 point ahead of me. Everybody's either tied for first (at 41 pts.) or tied for last (at 40 pts.). Kinda strange. Usually there's somebody leading the pack or limping along at the back. Sweet 16 starts tomorrow...

Sermon Update

All went well with the sermon this morning. One of the guys in the class said it was the best student sermon he'd ever heard. Guess he hasn't heard many sermons (ha!!). This was my senior sermon, which means that the profs will evaluate it along with all the other senior sermons from other guys and choose the top 4 preachers to speak during senior preaching week. (I'm not holding my breath.) Here's a really basic outline.

Eternal Eyes
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (context falls back on preceeding verses, starting with 7)
I. Your focus determines your hope. (16)
II. Understand hardships from the eternal perspective. (17)
A. 3 comparisons - circumstance, time, weight
B. View life's hardships as opportunities.
III. You have a choice in the set of eyes you look through. (18)
A. Momentary eyes - look at your situation
B. Eternal eyes - look beyond your situation

Despite all the hardships Paul experienced in his life, he boldly said, "We do not lose heart." You can say the same, just keep an eternal perspective on everything that happens.

Luke is 6 months old...

I put up a couple of new pictures of Luke on the website. Click here to go to the picture page. Luke was 6 months old on Sunday...unbelievable. He was just born the other day. Now he's sitting up and doing all sorts of other cool tricks.

24

This is the greatest show on TV.  It's the one hour of TV that I watch every week (w/the exception of some basketball during the NCAA tourney).  It comes on Monday nights at 9pm EST on FOX.

My Sermon

I'm working on my sermon which I'll preach on Wednesday in my preaching class.  The passage is 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, 

"Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."  

Give me a few thoughts about these verses.  These are some of my favorite verses in Paul's writings.  I'll post my outline a little bit later.

NCAA 1st Round disaster picks...

Okay, I did fairly well in the first round except for two disaster picks
1.  I picked Iowa to go to the eliete 8.
2.  I picked Kansas to play in the championship game (this really hurts).

The Moment You've Been Waiting for...

I've finally given to the pressure. I've been reading blogs for about 3 or 4 months now and decided to go ahead and jump in with my own.

I'll probably write about a little bit of everything, but don't expect anything too profound.