very proud

Other than the fact that the laptop network card went kaplooiey and I was without internet, the week was great. The assembly in Knoxville is over until next year. I was asked to lead in worship for the missions convention on Wednesday and it went well. The real highlight of the week for me was getting to be there for my dad's ordination as an elder into the Church of the Nazarene. Although Dad has been ministering for several years now, he just recently finished the course work to become an ordained elder. It was a great service. Dr. Talmadge Johnson, one of the General superintendents of the church led in the ordination service and rite. Ironically, My pawpaw Brown Served under Dr. Johnson's father in the Duncan, Oklahoma church many many years ago. It was a pretty special occasion for my family. My Grandmother and great aunt came in from Oklahoma, as well as two of my dads brothers from Louisiana for all of the festivities. It was an extra treat to get to sing in the service. Dad wanted me to sing "In Christ Alone", so I did. It's His favorite song.

Afterward we all went to O'Charleys for a celebration. Our waiter, who had been in the choir at Lee University, sang to dad after a little prodding. It was real fun.

here's a link to all of the pictures

on the road...again

This week, like last week, I'm on the road. Last week was vacation. This week it's the East Tennessee Nazarene District Assembly in Knoxville. Lot's of meetings, voting, reports, and preachers. Large crowds of preachers kinda make me nervous. Strong cologne, Loud ties, and big bibles are the norm. It seems that almost every conversation includes the words, "how many are you running in worship?" It's a great scene.

I'll try to be faithful to post this week. I know so many of you miss it when I don't.(said with sad smile)

peace

visitors

For several weeks now we have been trying to find a time to get together with our great friends Ben & Bekah. They have been longtime friends and I even took Music History with them at EKU(o the stories they could tell). They got in late Friday night and left this evening. It was short, but a splendid time was had by all! It was so relaxing just to take it easy, drink ale 8, play cards, and catch up on old times. We had the inaugural game of settlers that I just bought, and I think they may have liked it. We hardly left the house at all.

Thankfully, I had no outbursts of random object throwing during all of the games. That has happened before; not pretty. Apparently, taboo brings out the worst in me. By the way, if your reading this julie, I'm sorry about that. I hope you've learned your lesson and won't interrupt or distract me anyone else when they're trying to concentrate. I hope your scars have started to healed up. :)

In all seriousness, Ben and Bekah have been there for me and seen me through some of the "valley-of-the-shadow" times in my life, and I count myself lucky just to be able to call them "friend".

back and better than before

Today it's random musings that have been going through my head over the past few days.

The new Harry Potter was very good, very eventful. no spoilers here

It's funny how some people have become a little paranoid since I have begun blogging(you know who you are). I think they believe that I will use this to slam them. I might buy one of these to give folks fair warning

I survived Gatlinburg, and didn't even buy an airbrush tshirt. Got some great pics that I will post over at flikr soon. I really missed being able to blog while on vacation.

One of the best things about vacation was playing "settlers of catan" almost every night with Everett my brother-in-law who introduced us to it. It's new to me(I know I've been living in a hole), but so fun that I had to pick it up on the way home.

We've got houseguests coming this weekend. Ben & Bekah are two of our greatest friends and we love nothing more than hanging out and playing games. However, if I've had too much garlic, it becomes pure agony.

bear with me

Vacation starts tomorrow, and I need it. I will try to post a few times this next week, but don't expect much. I picked up Harry last night. You'd think the geniuses at Walmart would open more than four lanes at the release of largest printing of any book in history. I guess you can take the consumer global superpower out of arkansas, but you can't take the arkansas out of the consumer global superpower.

tonights the night

Well unless you've been living in the armpit of a giant, you should know that the new Harry Potter book comes out tonight. This is the largest first printing of any book in history.

10.8 MILLION COPIES.

I haven't been snared in by those midnight book party's at places like Barnes & Noble. But I'll do what I've done ever other release. I'll be purchasing from what some call the real dark lord, "Wal-Mart". Cheaper than anywhere else.

We leave Sunday for vacation with Lydia’s family. We’re going to the “Redneck Riviera”; otherwise known as Gatlinburg, TN. I imagine Harry and I will be spending a lot of time together.

humpday haiku

TiVo on the way
bedroom will also rewind
UPS brings joy



Yeah, I'm amped! We took advantage of a special deal that TiVo had going. If you buy a year of service, you get a free TiVo box. I ordered it monday night, and it will be delivered today. Now we have "His" and "Hers" TiVo's.

what "His" will record
Star Trek, Mythbusters, Family Guy, Big Brother 6, Good Eats(food network), American Chopper, Iron Chef, and of course Seinfeld

what "Hers" will record
Smurfs and Lifetime Movies with titles like: "She Said No", "My Husband Beats Me" , "My Daughter: The Tramp", and "He Said He'd Stop: My Husband Beats Me 2"

I don't get it. She loves these movies. They all begin with a beautiful woman with a promising career or a member of her family being victimized. And they all end the same way. "We the jury, find the defendant guilty on all charges" cue the emotional celebration

it's all getting blurry

ok as most of you know, Pastor Jerry and I have been working on remodeling some offices here at church. It's going well, but I think I tweaked my eye up. I guess some dirt from putting up drywall got up in my eye. Or maybe it was some of that gritty gunk that rests on top of ceiling tiles until some ususpecting do-it-yourselfer innocently lifts then up. I'm not sure what it is, could be fiberglass insulation. All I know is everything is blurry out of my left eye. I think this was complicated by the whole contact lens thing. I'm kinda complaining a lot about it, because it really hurts and I'm a weenie.

if there are any good eye doctors out there give me you diagnosis.
















wanna know what it looks like when you use a flash, look over there >>

dumb sheep

This story about the 1500 sheep that followed one another over a cliff to their death reminds me of the story in scripture where Jesus cast the demons out of the dude, and allowed them to go into some pigs, who then ran of a cliff.

There's a lesson about following the crowd in here somewhere.

this might explain a lot

I offer the following picture as evidence in the support of the following two statements

#1 My mother always wanted a baby girl. sure she loved me and is a great mom, but sometimes the truth slipped out. By the way thanks dad for letting her do this to me

#2 Contrary to popular opinion, I wasn't always rotund

tired and sleepy

jerry & geron
Originally uploaded by gdaphunkiest.

I'm dragging booty today. This week Jerry(my pastor) and I are remodeling the church secretary and the pastors office's at church. They are in serious need of renovation, and Becky(secretary) has a horrid color in her office. Jerry is an old hand and knows how to do just about anything. The project includes replacing all of the ceiling tile. This is not my favorite part because of all of the insulation, grit, dirt, dust, itching, coughing, sneezing, and hours spend on a latter working with my hands over my head. But that part is over. The other part of the remodel includes running all new phone and network lines, which I'm happy to say is completed. Now we move onto the drywall, painting, and construction part of the project. One week down and one more to go till we're done!

big brother

I've always been a fan of reality TV. I watch Survivor, Amazing Race, and anything else pretty much. I even still watch the grandpappy of reality TV, The Real World. One of My Favorite shows for a long time now has been Big Brother. This show is like Real World on crack. I think we are the only two people in america that are excited about this show still. I admit the show probably has the worst host ever. Julie Chen has just barely enough brain function to keep all her systems working. (by the way did i mention she is the girlfriend of CBS president Les "Geezer" Moonves) She askes some of the dumbest questions. This year will be a little different, because the housguests are moving to a new house, and there's always a twist. Last year two people in the house found out they were siblings who never knew the other one exixted. It was kinda sad. He was a cowboy from texas, and she was a goth chick from houston. This year there a sure to be some real surprises. Check it out tonight!

humpday haiku

inspired by actual events


office smell improves
odor now dissipating
life back to normal

true freedom

Romans 6:15-18
from "The Message"

15So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? 16Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. 17But thank God you've started listening to a new master, 18one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!

Happy 4th of July Everyone

the latest dumb thing i've done

PU! UGH! I’M GAGGING AS I WRITE THIS


Thursday morning, like many other mornings, I stopped the wonderful golden arches to pick up a healthy and nutritious breakfast on my way to work. I get the same thing all the time.

“I’ll have a sausage egg and cheese biscuit and two milks.”

“That will be $4.12, please pull around to the first window.

Morning after morning… Now I can hear you asking “two milks?” Yes, two milks. Most of the time the biscuit is quite dry and it takes at least one milk to get it all down. And then it takes another to fully clear my throat and mouth of all the Mickey Debris that has collected during my morning commute.

Thursday however was a banner day! Somehow the fates smiled upon me and I got an actual moist biscuit. Consequently, I had an extra milk on my hands. As I pulled into the parking lot at work, I was trying to think what I would do with the extra milk. I didn’t want to leave it in the car. I’ve made that mistake before. So I kind of held onto it till I can to the first horizontal surface where I could set it down. In this case it happened to be the second from the top bookcase shelf just inside the door to my office. I casually sat the container of milk on the shelf thinking, “I’ll dispose of this later”.

As I entered the office area at work this afternoon, a horrible smell began to fill my nostrils. When I opened the door to my office it almost overtook me. It smelled like a van load of spring breakers had all decided to puke in my office or possibly the inside of a donkey. The milk container had exploded!!! What resembled homemade cottage cheese clung to everything that lived on the second from the top shelf (mostly books), and dotted the landscape of my office floor. The smell is horrendous, and I’ll probably be forced to have the carpet cleaned to rid myself of the stench.

T.G.I.F.

I was talking to my friend jack the other day about acrostics. We both agreed that we weren't particularly fond of them, and that the church uses them, way too much.

I remember way back in college when I was a part of the Baptist Student Union(great site!) leadership team on campus. Each spring before we went home for the summer we would have a brainstorming and planning session in preparation for the upcoming year. One of the many things we would discuss was the theme for the year. Every time they always wanted to make it an acrostic. Suggesting that it not be an acrostic was viewed to be a crime in the same category as beating up on the handicapped or something.

I guess this trend goes back a long way. Many times in Old Testament scripture they would use them as teaching aids for memorization. In Psalm 119 each verse starts with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. So I imagine this acrostic thing will be with us for quite a while.

I think we should get rid of all of them and only keep "ROY G BIV".