Last night a member of YMX and friend sent me an email that just dropped my jaw. After exchanging a couple of emails to make sure we were really talking about the same thing and that he wasn’t kidding… the emotions of someone offering such a blessing to us started to sink in.
It’s amazing when God’s people do something that is a pure blessing. It is incredibly encouraging… which is what I told him. To which he replied, "Encouragment is what we do.
That and make fart noises with our armpits."
When things aren’t going great… it’s easy to turn into a pessimist. Even as "the leader" at Light Force it’s sometimes easy to join the "this isn’t going well" bandwagon. In fact, one conviction I had tonight is that I need to be more encouraging to the students who are there instead of worrying about ones who aren’t coming. I have a natural tendency to be sarcastic, cutting, and overly discouraging… I need to work on that. I’m really quite optimistic about how things are going… I am just failing to ooze that out of my mouth.
Last night Kristen and I got one of the new countertops cut and ready to mount. We’ve had the world’s longest kitchen remodel underway for the last year or more. It’s nice to see things coming together. I was looking at a
some old pictures. We have come a long way from that gross old brick and yellow kitchen with baskets hanging everywhere.
Basically, we need to finish the drywall, get it painted. Get the rest of the countertops in, install new lighting, and we’re done. I also want to tile in there but that may end up waiting for a while. It’s going to feel great to have this project completed!
Last night, Romeo Community Schools bid to bond $93 million for capital improvements failed when the people voted it down. The tally was 2095-3323. A couple of weeks ago I posted about why I thought it was a crazy bond.
Let me outline 3 reasons Romeo’s school bond failed:
Let me list three marketing ideas for the next time this bond comes to a vote: (Because it will)
In a lot of areas of my life I feel like a mountain climber. I feel as though I am reaching the crest of a mountain I’ve been climbing for a while. Big goals are getting accomplish, new "personal bests" are being reached, and things are overall getting accomplished.
Here’s the thing. When you get to the top of a mountain on this journey called life, you don’t know what’s to come. Maybe it’s a bigger mountain to climb next time? Maybe it’s a plateau? Maybe the summit is really just the foothill to a much larger mountain? And maybe that summit is a dead end?
With YMX, the launch of the ezine in March is a big deal. We’ve got all sorts of big interviews lined up with week with authors, world changes, and musicians. We’ve lined up articles to come from many of our talented readers. If it works as planned, this won’t be a plateau mountain. It’ll be a summit that gets us where we want to go!
With a lot of things in my work and personal life, March is a big month. Projects coming to completion. Programs and events go to the next level. Stuff around the house getting finished. Big steps with the kids as they grow up. On and on. It’s just a big month for me. The hope for all of those "big things" is that this summit will be a place to celebrate and look forward to more "big things" in the journey.
The thing with mountaintops is that its a time to rest, celebrate, look around, and decide what the "next step" will be. So I’m looking forward to what March will bring. I look forward to some rest after some busy months, some celebration of all the hard work, some looking around, and some making of new goals.
P.S. To my friends in Romeo. I know people like to read into things. I said "next step" and you automatically say "uh oh, Adam is leaving." I’m not going anywhere, get over it! Looking at next steps is a good thing, not a bad thing.
I slept until 9:00 AM this morning. That’s the first time for that in quite a long time. It definitely reflects the length of days last week. I’m hoping for a more relaxed pace this week.
Last night Kristen and I watched every minute of the 79th Oscars. You know it’s a bad TV night when you watch a 4 hour award show. I actually can’t remember actually sitting through an entire one before, so it was a first. All winners
Best moment: When Jaden Christopher Syre Smith and Abigail Breslin got to announce two awards for film shorts. They were quite funny. When Jaden messed up one of his lines he did a great job of recovering. Let’s hope they don’t end up like the typical child stars.
Worst moment: It doesn’t get any worse than when Hollywood makes political statements. The Academy definitely went out of their way to "bless" Al Gore‘s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. The former Vice President was practically knighted as the A-list tripped over opportunities to say how fantastic he was. Likewise, the very subpar song by Melissa Etheridge won the award for Achievement in Song Written for a Motion Picture. It was a very typical moment for the Academy Awards as the further try to convince the world that the Left is the only intelligent position.
Honorable Mention 1: I loved the loose atmosphere this year. There were many flubbed lines, zingers, and awkward moments. That made an otherwise boring award show worth watching.
Honorable Mention #2: George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, and Steven Spielberg presented best director to Martin Scorsesee. Four of the best directors of our day right there. Good times.
Honorable Mention #3: As much as don’t care for Ellen Degeneres’s "I’m gay routine" she pulled a few years ago. She was actually pretty good last night. My personal favorite moment was when she had her picture taken with Clint Eastwood and asked Steven Spielberg to take the photo for her myspace.
I was asked to come up something memorable and fun to get people thinking about baptism. Tonight Sean and I came up with this. I think it turned out pretty fun.
I’m here in town this morning, at Sempre Caffe, working on the message for tomorrow morning. (Yes, it’s atypical of me to not have this finalized, been one whale of a week! But since the passage is from Acts and I’ve been teaching Acts since August… I think I have a head start on it. Not to mention I’ve had months to think about it and have about 2/3rds of it written in my head. Blah!)
Here are the next 10 songs flowing to my brain:
Apparently Microsoft isn’t happy with sales of its new operating system, Vista. The company is saying that the slow sales are likely due to pirates. I think that this is far from reality. Unfortunately it’s proof that the largest manufacturer of software has painfully lost sight of their consumers. (Fortunately, they’ve got companies and end users in such a bind that it’s merely a matter of time before we all will have to upgrade.)
I think Vista sales are slow for a few other factors. Here’s my list of reasons I’ve not upgraded:
I’m not saying I won’t ever upgrade to Vista, they just haven’t yet given me a compelling reason to do so. And this has nothing to do with my supposed man-crush on the iMac. Though if someone wants to send me one… e-mail me and I’ll let you know the address to have it delivered to.