Tag: san diego

  • Our Garden on KPBS website

    Our little backyard garden got some love from the KPBS website today. You know… we are garden celebrities now.

    25% of our food in 2010 will come from our own garden or organically produced sources. That’s the goal. Anyone know where I can buy a Snickers tree?

  • Our first earthquake

    We were just finishing up a glorious Easter supper when we all said, “Do you feel that?”

    I looked to my right to see the chandelier rocking back and forth. It was about that time when Kristen and I both realized we were having an earthquake.

    It wasn’t violent. Our house swayed back and forth. It literally felt like we were on a ship, rocking back and forth in the waves. And it lasted a while.

    This was our first real earthquake experience since living in San Diego. For our kids, it was the first one they felt.

    Paul– having finished supper and roaming the house in boredom, rode out the earthquake laying on our bed. He thought it was a blast. Megan, slightly more logical, grabbed her stuffed bunny and went outside. Paul giggled and Megan was freaked out.

    Twitter lit on fire. Within 2 minutes of the quake, 35,000 tweets were posted with people saying they had felt it. People up in the Los Angeles area, people in Palm Springs, people in rural California and Arizona, and people as far away as Phoenix felt it. (5 hour drive)

    Scientists later confirmed that the quake was centered south of Mexicali, about 100 miles from our house, and measured 7.2.

    No damage at our house. Within about 10 minutes we went back to Easter as usual.

    Aftershock city! Just like when you get off of a long boat ride, it felt like the earth kept moving. Some were real aftershocks and some were our imagination.

    Our friends south of the border faired much worse, I’m afraid. CNN is reporting that 2 people were killed and lots more were injured. Additionally, tons of homes were seriously damaged.

    It was an Easter to remember. And an Easter to be thankful for building codes.

  • 5 Things I Love about my Church

    This Easter marks roughly two years since I turned in my Pastor Adam card and went from church staff to church attendee. (I was officially done June 1st, but it was during Easter week  that the offer to come to YS came, which completely changed everything.)

    In so many ways I’ve re-learned what it means to be a member of a church. God has shown me hundreds of ways in which my assumptions and desires for people in the pews were flat out wrong.

    But, more importantly, the last two years has solidified a deep love and respect for the church universal as well as the church I’m a part of– Harbor Mid-City.

    Here are 5 things I love about my church:

    1. They model their bridge building strategy with their staff. When I look at the make-up of their staff– I giggle. A PCA church plant with staff from a huge spectrum of Protestantism. Liberals. Progressives. Conservatives. I jokingly remind them, “In most communities this group wouldn’t even get together to pray… and you guys are on staff together!” I love that they chose to unite around Christ and major in the majors. Let me tell you, this is rare.
    2. They meet at Hoover High School. I’m a huge fan of our location and all the challenges it brings along. I love that we pay to rent part of a high school. I love that we bring 200 adults to a high school campus they would rather ignore. I love that there is a constant tension in the space we use for kids is also a teachers space. I love that part of our being Good News to the community is showing up and worshipping at a place, Hoover, that is so common.
    3. The production value of the service is awesome. Seriously, one of the things I love about Harbor is just how rough the tech side of things are. You would think that I, Mr. Super Church Tech Dude, would be annoyed that every week the microphones are jacked up, the projector is crooked, and they lovingly rock PowerPoint when Media Shout, Easy Worship, or ProPresenter are so readily available. Nope. Every time something goes array in the service I just lean over to Kristen and go, “That’s awesome. I love it.” Because I know the flip side of those blemished moments is not a persons hours of hard work. I know that no one is going to get an ugly stare back at the booth. And I know it’s not going to be an hours discussion at staff meeting. Ultimately… it’s no big deal and it’s treated as such.
    4. They love kids and show it. Most churches get this right. But I have to say that there are two places where Harbor gets this right-er than anywhere else I’ve been. Here are two things I can point to which illustrate this thought. First, early in the worship service they invite all of the kids to come to the front to join the worship band. So about 20 kids come to the front and bang on percussion instruments and dance for two worship songs before heading to kids church. Some people might think this completely ruins those songs. But I love the lesson we are teaching… these kids are a part of the congregation and we need to allow them to participate in the worship. It’s a visual way to say “children are valuable to God.” Second, I love how they handle infant baptism. (This is a theological issue I have NO IDEA where I stand on.) So, they baptize the baby and the congregation affirms their responsibility. [All very normative.] But Stephen has started this little thing which I hope he continues. He leads the parents to the center of the auditorium and invites the congregation to quietly sing “Jesus Loves Me” as a lullaby to the baby. I doubt it leaves an imprint on the baby but it certainly leaves an effect on the parents and the congregation!
    5. They value all people. I wish this were the case in all congregations but sadly it is not. Two quick ways this plays out on Sunday. First, we are an ethnically mixed congregation. We have a Spanish-speaking pastor and an English speaking pastor. Each language group is given equal value. (Not time) The only thing we separate for is the message. (Because translating that would be exhausting!) But for the majority of the service we have both groups together and it makes for a fun cornucopia. Second, we work hard to put everyone on an equal playing field socio-economically. El Cajon Blvd, where the church meets, is really a dividing line between the have-nots to the south and the have-alots to the north. There is a conscious effort to blur those lines on Sunday morning. I don’t have any idea how they pull it off… but it’s something I love about my church.

    Those are some things I love about my congregation. What are things you love about yours?

  • Tide pool fun

    This is why Cabrillo National Monument is one of our favorite places to go in San Diego County.

    We made 3 videos as well. 1 2 3

  • Little Italy Mercato: $10 Challenge

    HT to Beyond the Zoo

  • 61 Minutes: The Sunrise

  • Our Christmas Video

  • Little Italy Farmers Market

    mercato1

    Yesterday, the family spent some time down in Little Italy at their Mercato. It was super fun for mom and dad– the kids just kind of put up with it and were placatted by free samples. (Paul’s love language is food.)

    Here’s an exceprt from Kristen’s review over at Beyond the Zoo:

    Not just a food market, the Mercato offers something for everyone. I was initially side-tracked by a display of locally made jewelry. With a little help from my family I refocused and let my nose guide me to the heart of the market, the food. Never able to turn a blind eye to food, our kids loosened up when offered samples of juicy softball-sized peaches. It should be noted that the Little Italy Mercato is a great location for selecting locally caught seafood, as well. One unusual sample my husband could not resist was live sea urchin. He’s still alive after trying this spiny wonder! He said it was tasty with the texture of an overripe peach with a hint of brine flavor.

    read the rest

  • The Shamu Show

  • The return to golf

    I’m excited about getting back to golf.

    Earlier this week I snatched up the opportunity to play 18 holes with a new friend. Wow, did it feel good! I should correct that, it felt good to my soul to play… but my body thought I was nuts.

    Ditching out of work early I met Kevin over at Cottonwood. It’s a nice little muni on the south side of El Cajon. As I drove to the clubhouse I got a chance to see a number of holes and felt pretty good about the simple layouts. Not a shooting gallery and not a resort. Perfect for where my game is after 3 years off!

    I had meant to go to the driving range on Sunday… but the Chargers game stole my daylight and it didn’t happen.

    So there I was on the first hole feeling like a complete nimrod. Literally, the ball could go anywhere. I assured Kevin that anything could happen… this wasn’t going to be pretty.

    Long ago I learned that golf is a mental game merely executed with muscles and bone. If you let pride or ambivelence get in the way you’ll always play terribly and have a miserable time. Instead, I try to play the game at least semi-intelligently. For me that meant embracing the obvious. Forget the driver. (The hardest club to play in the bag.) It also meant that I needed to find 2-3 clubs that I was comfortable with and just take my medicine with them.

    That strategy worked for the most part. Predictably, when I tried to hit the 3 wood off the tee it sprayed violently. This forced me to hit crazy shots from awkward distances, around trees, over other tee boxes, etc. After a few holes I just resolved to teeing off with an iron and things improved from there.

    Kevin was a lot of fun to play with. We have very different games. He has a low ball trajectory that is mostly straight. Thankfully he was infinitely patient and had a good attitude that my shots have a high trajectory and tended to spray all over. It was pretty funny because we’d go over to his ball in the fairway… then go try to find mine off in another fairway or the rough.

    All-in-all it was a good day. With a couple mulligans I can somehow say that I broke 100. It wasn’t pretty unless you count hitting some crazy recovery shots and snaking in a few putts in the 15-20 foot range.