Charlie Hall Thoughts ...

Posted by Chris

After a weekend of Charlie Hall (worship time on Saturday night, led worship at Bridgeway on Sunday morning), his songs have been running around in my head. One song in particular hit me on Saturday night. He intro-ed the song by saying that he winds up writing many songs that it takes him months/years to 'catch up to.' This one, "On the Road to Beautiful," the title track from his latest album, is one that he described this way. He said that he wasn't sure he had fully 'caught up' to it fully yet, but it was a song that was more real to him now than when he wrote it a couple of years ago. Meditate on these words today ...

Continue reading "Charlie Hall Thoughts ..." »

Posted by Chris on Aug 30, 2004 at 08:10 AM • Permalink

So Far, So Good

Posted by Chris

Two days of homeschooling behind us & things are going well. Josiah began homeschool last Thursday & we really couldn't have asked for it to go any better. He is extremely excited about doing it & is enjoying being able to work at his own pace. He spent much of Kindergarten waiting on everyone else to finish as by the time the teacher was done reading the instructions to the class he had already read them himself & finished the work! We began piano lessons & he is catching on quick. He wanted to keep playing "In the Jungle," the first song he learned, over & over again for anyone who would listen! Things should begin to hit a stride & we should begin to settle into our new school/life routine/schedule in a few weeks. Micah begins preschool on Wednesday.

Posted by Chris on Aug 30, 2004 at 07:57 AM • Permalink

It Had to End Sometime

Posted by Chris

Well, it's finally over. I think I've been in denial the past several days, not wanting to think about it. For the past 2 weeks we have spent most of our free time watching the Olympics, cheering on the American athletes & thoroughly enjoying it. This is definitely the best Olympics experience we have ever had - mainly because of TiVo. Last night during the closing ceremonies they kept showing highlights from the games - memorable moments from the past 16 two weeks. The cool thing is that we got to see every one of those when they happened!

Continue reading "It Had to End Sometime" »

Posted by Chris on Aug 30, 2004 at 07:54 AM • Permalink

Weekend Update

Posted by Chris

We had a great weekend. Andy Blagg, one of our former youth from Coffeyville came down for the weekend. Andy was a 7th grader when we arrived in Coffeyville ... now he is a sophomore in college! We had a great time. Spent Saturday morning watching TiVo-ed Olympics and then Saturday afternoon at the Martin Nature Center hiking the trails & playing in the stream.

Andy & I went to Bridgeway on Saturday night for a worship time with Charlie Hall. It was awesome! Charlie & the band are getting ready to head out on a 50+ stop fall tour & kicked it off with this worship time. There was probably 200 people there & the sound was simply incredible! Great time! Sunday morning was Bridgeway & then relaxing Sunday afternoon before Andy had to head home. It was nice to see him again & spend some time catching up/talking about what God is doing in our lives.

Posted by Chris on Aug 30, 2004 at 07:45 AM • Permalink

iPod Ordered!

Posted by Chris

The verification process was fast (an afternoon, I think) & I went through the steps of ordering my free 20gb iPod last night! Hooray! It's processing right now & should change to "in progress" by the beginning of next week. Then it's wait until they complete the order (probably another week or so after that) & look for it in the mail!

Once I get the iPod I'll take some last pics & then put a timeline here that shows when/what happened throughout the process. Much learned (especially what not to do) so I'll probably redo the "How to Get a Free iPod" steps to reflect some of these lessons learned.

Posted by Chris on Aug 27, 2004 at 09:52 AM • Permalink

Fun Night Last Night

Posted by Chris

We had a great time at the Zoo last night. I think there were five families in all with their kids who came. We met around 5:45p inside the zoo entrance as they don't let anyone in after 6:00p. They let you walk around the zoo & hang out until dusk, which gave us a couple of hours to enjoy it. One thing that we didn't realize that they also shut down at 6:00p, unfortunately, are the eating venues. They were supposed to be offering $.75 hotdogs & soft drinks as part of the "Way Back Wednesdays" festivities, but we missed out on these (I did get to take the boys on a highly-anticipated tram ride through the zoo for $.75/piece).

It was a nice night - not too hot. The crowds were non-existent which gave us plenty of wandering room to enjoy the animals & let the kids play on the various playgrounds interspersed throughout the zoo. All-in-all it was a great night & a good way to officially end the kids 'summer vacation' from school.

Tonight we are having our house church pastors, Ryan & Carmel Litz, over with their kids for dinner & to watch our TiVo-ed Olympics. Looking forward to hanging out with them.

Posted by Chris on Aug 26, 2004 at 02:42 PM • Permalink

One More Change ...

Posted by Chris

Well, it seems like we just can't get away from major decisions in our life. The stress of moving, career change, new surroundings & relationships, a new church, etc. was enough to make the past several months exciting (& difficult). Now we have one more. As some of you know we have decided to homeschool Josiah this year. We came to this decision a few weeks ago after months of prayer & research. It is a total God thing, in our view, as homeschooling wasn't really something that we had considered until late in July. But it is clear that this is going to be the best option for where/who Josiah is right now. It will enable us to allow him to advance at his own pace and do work at his own level (his reading alone is probably near a 3rd grade reading level). It will also allow us to give him some individual attention for his development that I think is what he needs right now.

Continue reading "One More Change ..." »

Posted by Chris on Aug 26, 2004 at 02:29 PM • Permalink

Fingers Crossed

Posted by Chris

Well, my 5th referral went through today (thanks, Rich!) which means I get to play the waiting game once again. They have to verify my account once again & make sure all of my referrals are legitimate (should be this time) and then I can place my order for my free 20gb iPod! Should take 3-5 days until everything is verified. If it doesn't work this time I'm giving up. Here's to hoping!

Posted by Chris on Aug 26, 2004 at 02:22 PM • Permalink

Emerie’s Eye/General Health

Posted by Chris

Emerie woke up yesterday morning with one of her eyes swollen almost completely shut. There wasn't anything else wrong with it (no redness, watering, etc.) so we weren't sure what was going on. Luckily Josiah already had an appointment to get a vision assessment done with my uncle Sam who is an optometrist in the city. His associate looked at the eye & told us to keep an eye on it & if it the swelling didn't go down by taking Benadryl or if she ran a fever to take her to a pediatrician. Well, the swelling actually got a little worse in the afternoon so Andrea went ahead & took her to a doctor. Seems she had a bug bite near her eye (from playing outside on Monday afternoon) and had a secondary allergic reaction to it, which was causing the swelling. After using the medicine he prescribed the swelling began to go down. This morning it is at about 90% and is looking much better.

Continue reading "Emerie’s Eye/General Health" »

Posted by Chris on Aug 25, 2004 at 07:35 AM • Permalink

Surprise Visitor

Posted by Chris

Received a call yesterday afternoon about 3 o'clock from Alec informing me that he was getting set to head our way! He had been looking for a car online, found one that he was interested in at a local dealership in Edmond & came into town last night to check it out. It didn't work out & he wound up heading back to Coffeyville without a car, but we had a chance to see him and an old friend of mine, Scott Gordon. We packed the kids up in the minivan, complete with all of them in their jammies, and met him at the dealership. After he finished looking at the last of the cars they came back to our house to grab a bite to eat before heading back out of town. It was good. I think Alec's planning on coming back for an extended stay in a few weeks.

Posted by Chris on Aug 25, 2004 at 07:22 AM • Permalink

Moving on ...

Posted by Chris

Well, they are not going to take my two referrals that were legit. Just a word to those of you out there interested in doing this offer: don't sign-up multiple people using the same computer. I signed up a couple of people (with their permission) via my own computer & even though they legitimately signed up for their AOL trial (using own credit card & address) freeipods.com won't credit them because the sign-up came from the same IP address. I really don't blame them as I didn't expect them to bend over backwards to give me a free $300 iPod. Anyhow, thanks to Amber I am only 1 referral away from getting my free iPod! Anyone interested just click the "freeiPods.com Update" graphic above, scroll to the bottom & follow the instructions. Be sure & pay attention to the notes in red (that I added later). Thanks again to those of you who have helped me out by signing up through me!

Posted by Chris on Aug 23, 2004 at 06:46 PM • Permalink

Waiting, Part III

Posted by Chris

I had to email freeipods.com once again because I had never received anything back from them. This time I got their obligatory automatic email response saying, "we're looking at your email - it could take 5 days to get back with you." At least it's something!

In the meantime I now have 4/5 referrals that are considered 'legit' by freeipods.com (thanks to Amber!). One more and all this correspondence will be a moot point.

Posted by Chris on Aug 23, 2004 at 12:50 PM • Permalink

More Watchman Nee

Posted by Chris

After a few weeks hiatus, here's some more Watchman Nee thoughts to contemplate today (from The Normal Christian Life). I actually read these words a few weeks ago, but they were good review this morning:

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh." Everything which comes not by new birth but by natural birth is flesh and will only bring glory to man, not God. That statement is not very palatable, but it is true.

We have spoken of soul-power or natural energy. What is this natural energy? It is simply what I can do, what I am of myself, what I have inherited of natural gifts and resources. We are none of us without the power of the soul, but our first need is to recognize it for what it is.

Take for example the human mind. I may have by nature a keen mind. Before my new birth I had it naturally, as something developed from my natural birth. But the trouble arises here. I become converted, I am born anew, a deep work is affected in my spirit, an essential union has been wrought with the Father of our spirits. Thereafter there are in me two things: I have now a union with God that has been set up in my spirit, but at the same time I carry over with me something which I derive from my natural birth. Now what am I going to do about it?

The natural tendency is this. Formerly I used to use my mind to pore over history, over business, over chemistry, over questions of the world, or literature, or poetry. I used my keen mind to get the best out of those studies. But now my desire has been changed, so henceforth I employ that same mind in just the same way in the things of God. I have therefore changed my subject of interest, but I have not changed my method of working. That is the whole point. My interests have been utterly changed (praise God for that!), but now I utilize the same power to study Corinthians and Ephesians that I used before to pursue history and geography. But that power is not of the new creation; and God will not be satisfied with this simple exchange of interests. The trouble with so many of us is that we have changed the channel into which our energies are directed, but we have not changed the source of those energies.

Posted by Chris on Aug 23, 2004 at 12:46 PM • Permalink

Help Wanted: Gardener

Posted by Chris

I hate mowing the lawn! Actually, hate is probably too strong of a word, but I feel like I'm taking my life into my own hands everytime I work outside for any length at all. I spent much of the day on Saturday trimming/mowing/edging/cleaning outdoors & paid for it yesterday. I began to feel bad Saturday night and woke up feeling miserable: aching head, sneezing every few minutes, blowing my nose constantly, etc. I stayed home from church with Emerie while Andrea & the boys went. Felt really strange. I realized after she had gone that this was the first time in our married life that I have stayed home from church & she has gone. It has always been the other way around - usually because one or more of the children have been sick. I didn't like it. I wanted to be at church. I debated with myself whether I had made the wisest decision in staying home. That was, until the next wave hit about 11:30a and I was thanking God that I wasn't sitting in church feeling miserable.

I want to be wealthy - not so that I can have homes, cars, gadgets (okay, I'll admit - I'd buy a few gadgets). No, I want to be wealthy so that I can pay someone else to come and take care of my lawn and make it look pretty. Until then I guess I'll just have to learn to not breathe while I work on the lawn.

Posted by Chris on Aug 23, 2004 at 12:36 PM • Permalink

Another “Gotta Have” Gadget

Posted by Chris

Watch cable/satellite/TiVo away from home - on any wireless Internet device

By the way - anyone wanting to buy a TiVo (they've got a limited time $100 rebate on new 40 hour units ... making them only $99.99) ... as if we haven't already told everyone we know that they need a TiVo ... be sure & remember our email address whenever you sign-up. TiVo has launched a new Rewards program aimed at rewarding current TiVo subscribers for referrals. Wish we would have had this a year ago! We've gotten at least three people hooked in that time period! Whenever you order/activate TiVo on their website or over the phone, give them "

" as the referral.

Posted by Chris on Aug 20, 2004 at 07:46 AM • Permalink

Important Sign-Up Info

Posted by Chris

Still waiting ...

A couple of important items if you are trying/want to try freeipods.com out ... First off, don't use a Hotmail (HM) account. HM treats emails from freeipods.com as junk email, so you won't be able to complete an offer or verify your account. Sign-up for a free Yahoo! email account instead & use this address. Also, you don't need a credit card to complete an offer. You can use a checking account to sign-up for the AOL offer, here's how: When you get to the "Secure Your Free Trial Now" screen, scroll through the list of payment options & you can choose "Checking." Enter in the routing number & account number from one of your checks & click "Continue." That should do it. They won't charge you anything unless you fail to cancel the free trial before the 45 days are up.

Remember to use our link when you sign-up so we will get credit - FULL SIGN-UP INSTRUCTIONS INCLUDING LINK.

Posted by Chris on Aug 18, 2004 at 08:45 AM • Permalink

Olympics Junkies

Posted by Chris

I'm exhausted today. Stayed up way too late last night watching the US Women's Gymnastics team win the silver medal in Athens. What can I say? Andrea & I are definitely Olympics junkies! We set up our living room TiVo last week to pretty much record Olympics 24 hours a day for the next couple of weeks. The boys have been catching a little coverage here and there (instead of watching cartoons for their TV time) and we have been trying to keep up with things at night after they go to bed. The problem is that there is a lot to keep up with!

Continue reading "Olympics Junkies" »

Posted by Chris on Aug 18, 2004 at 08:32 AM • Permalink

Congratulations!

Posted by Chris

We found out yesterday that some good friends of ours, Jeff & Kristen Gammon (friends from college), are expecting their second child next Spring! Congratulations! We love you guys!

Posted by Chris on Aug 18, 2004 at 08:25 AM • Permalink

Problems Again

Posted by Chris

Ran into problems again last week. After finally getting my account taken off of hold, & one of my referrals fixed, they then proceeded to take away other referrals for some strange reason. I think it was probably just a matter of someone else reviewing my account & tagging it like the other person did. Back to square one - waiting on a return email to see what is going to happen next.

Posted by Chris on Aug 16, 2004 at 12:33 PM • Permalink

Weekend Update

Posted by Chris

We had a great weekend with Amber. She came into town early on Friday afternoon & stayed with us until yesterday afternoon. It was good to see her. She had come down for a one night stay in June, but we still had boxes everywhere, hand't decorated, etc. It was nice to be able to spend some time with her without coupling it with house work (she was one of our moving 'buddies' as well).

We watched the Olympics opening ceremonies on Friday night, took her to the OKC Bombing Memorial & to Bricktown (& Spaghetti Warehouse!) on Saturday night, and then with us to Bridgeway on Sunday morning. It was a great weekend.

Posted by Chris on Aug 16, 2004 at 12:32 PM • Permalink

My Camera Is Old

Posted by Chris

How do you know when your digital camera is completely out-of-date? How about when they release a cell phone with a camera built-in that is just as powerful!

Verizon Offers New Megapixel Camera Phone

Posted by Chris on Aug 16, 2004 at 12:09 PM • Permalink

Big Storms

Posted by Chris

We woke up in the middle of the night to some huge thunderstorms that were rolling through. Josiah woke up scared and it sounded bad enough outside that we flipped the TV on. The weatherman said that many places in the Metro were reporting hail, so we pulled the van into the garage (good thing we had cleaned it out earlier in the week). Woke up with it still pouring down rain this morning. Lots of flooding in the area according to the news this morning. It seems to have stopped or slowed down for now. Haven't ventured out to check out the Mazda & see if we got any hail damage. Not that it would really matter on that car as it was already beaten up during a hail storm a couple of years ago in Coffeyville. Supposed to rain all day today & not get past mid-70s, which will be nice.

Posted by Chris on Aug 11, 2004 at 08:27 AM • Permalink

Must Have Browser

Posted by Chris

Okay, Alec got me hooked on this one last year. I've always been up for trying little-known software, especially open source (free software that a large group of people all over the world is developing - Linux is probably the best known open source software). I don't think I realized how hooked I was until today. I'm working from home again this morning. Dell people are supposed to be out to the office sometime this afternoon to put a new motherboard in my laptop. Until then, I'm working from the computer upstairs in our house. One problem is that I'm so used to using Mozilla Firefox as my internet browser that I had to go through a short setup period this morning to get it installed with all of the extensions I normally use. Tried Internet Explorer - too inferior anymore for me. If you want to try it out for yourself (it's free!) you can download it at www.mozilla.org. Here's the extensions that I have installed & how dependent I am on them. If you get Firefox, you'll want to get some of these extensions for yourself to really make the browser great. Click here for more information about each of these ...

Continue reading "Must Have Browser" »

Posted by Chris on Aug 11, 2004 at 08:23 AM • Permalink

Happy! Happy!

Posted by Chris

Yippee! The same day I post that freeipods will probably not get back to my emails anytime soon, they get back to my emails! Customer service emailed me back today & told me they had taken my account off hold! That fixed half the problem, as they still haven't given me credit for one of my referrals (they fixed one of them today). This means I only have 4/5 good referrals. I emailed them back to try & resolve why the other one is still not going through. Here's hoping it gets fixed so I can order my free iPod!

Posted by Chris on Aug 10, 2004 at 07:26 PM • Permalink

Still Waiting

Posted by Chris

Still waiting to hear back from freeipods.com people about why they wouldn't accept a couple of my referrals. I'm not sure I'll hear back from them anytime soon, however, as they are swamped with traffic to the site. If anyone still hasn't signed up & wants to (a few extra referrals won't hurt anything) - just click the title graphics above "FreeiPods Status," then scroll down the page until you find the link with instructions on what to do.

Posted by Chris on Aug 10, 2004 at 09:40 AM • Permalink

1st Ballgame/Life in General

Posted by Chris

Last night we went to an Oklahoma Redhawks baseball game (AAA affiliate of the Texas Rangers). The boys had gotten free tickets for reading library books this summer. It was a lot of fun. As dad is not much of a baseball fan I had to spend most of the time educating the boys about what was happening. We enjoyed it, though. We stayed for 5 innings & all the kids were beginning to get tired (especially Emerie), so we headed home.

Continue reading "1st Ballgame/Life in General" »

Posted by Chris on Aug 10, 2004 at 09:38 AM • Permalink

Account on Hold

Posted by Chris

After getting all excited yesterday when my 5th & final referral went through (free iPod coming!), I woke up to find that my account had been placed on "Hold" due to some discrepancy on a couple of the referrals. They were two people that I had signed up on my computer (talking with them over the phone to get their details) rather than them doing it themselves. Guess they thought that it was just me signing up three times or something. Anyway, emailed them this morning explaning & waiting to hear back from them again.

Posted by Chris on Aug 06, 2004 at 03:26 PM • Permalink

Pheww….

Posted by Chris

I just sent out my last writing assignment for LifeWay and I am feeling a major sense of relief right now. I have been writing for the past 5 weeks, it seems, almost every free moment I have had. Felt a lot like when I was in school (not good thoughts). Staying up late writing, getting to work early to write a little in the quiet before the work day hit, catching up during lunch, and so on and so forth. My time has been severly limited, to say the least.

Continue reading "Pheww…." »

Posted by Chris on Aug 06, 2004 at 02:12 PM • Permalink

Why did the Chicken Cross the Road?

Posted by Chris

Looks like the chicken never made it across after all ...

Cops Free Chicken From Windshield Wiper

Posted by Chris on Aug 06, 2004 at 06:52 AM • Permalink

New Tech Gadgets

Posted by Chris

I have a start-up page that I use every day when I open my web browser. It is a domain I got for free when I switched our hosting provider for this site. TiVoAddict.com contains news, prices & links for TiVo-related info. I check it every morning for the latest tech headlines & came across an array of new tech gadgets that are so cool I thought I'd pass along the info here ...

Posted by Chris on Aug 05, 2004 at 08:20 AM • Permalink

No Live Miss America Talent?

Posted by Chris

I'm posting this for my wife, as Miss America is her Super Bowl. Looks like they are cutting the live talent portion of the Miss America pageant this year.

Official Press Release

Posted by Chris on Aug 03, 2004 at 12:02 PM • Permalink

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