The evolution of DG hair........

But first......

I know this is not the new of news, but I don't think I ever pointed it out and wow this just amazes me.

It is said that the new Extended Edition DVD of he Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King (LOR:ROTK) is 50 minutes longer than the original film (which was 3 something hours long to start with) and added something like over 3000 more effects shots to the movie. That is amazing, and now if you want to have a DVD marathon (which I would love to do) it looks like I could have everyone over to eat breakfast @ 8:00 am and then what the first one(Fellowship of the Ring (little more than 3 1/2 hrs.), then have lunch, watch the second one (The Two Towers almost 4 hrs.), and then eat dinner and watch the third one (Return of the King over 4 hrs.) and I think everyone could be home around 11:00 pm. How is that for a movie marathon?!!!! Start it @ 8:00 am and end it around 11:00 pm. Oh yeah, that will rock, but I better make sure to tell everyone to bring over pillows, heh. I might need to put some chairs on my kitchen table for room, heh. Oh and this will have to be for there most dedicated of Tolkien fans....(in other words....no talking Tiffany!!!...even if it is questions) heh heh.

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Also you have all got to see what I saw today while eating lunch @ The Bobcat Bite here in Santa Fe......



That is a 1928 Jag!!!! I should have taken a better shot of the front emblem, but I did not want to be rude. When the guy came out of his truck, I told him that everyone sure was in awe of his car. His response? "So am I." ha ha ha ha. That is just amazing! Apparently after talking to one of the ladies @ the Bite she told me he used to own a shoe store in Santa Fe and eats there 2 times a week, and kept telling her that he would bring his car by to show her, and today he finally did. heh. Wow that is just cool...and I am not into cars.

Also, I have to say the best Green Chili Cheese Burger in the world is @ the Bobcat bite. They cut their own meat for the steaks and what is left over becomes the hamburger meat. Oh and they cook it perfectly, and use Hatch Green Chili. The only Chili to use. Oh and you must remember if your ever in New Mexico and ask for Chili then you will be asked green or red, because there is no meat and sauce with this, because they are talking about chili peppers not the meal. But oh man I have been taken over and am now addicted to the stuff, and it will be very hard for me to not have it. (I wonder if there is an influx of cocaine to Hatch, New Mexico and they just put it in the fertilizer when growing the chilis, because I just have to have my fix every now and then. Hoooo Doggie! (heh, love making up words)

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Well, I have told you about it and it is finally is here it is your turn to vote on my hair styles and facial hair. I have three different pictures of me for you to vote on. (It is not all about me, I just thought this would be fun...and maybe some of you would actually post a comment instead of just read the blog, ha ha. Anyway.....

The three pictures are: #1 me bald with goatee, #2 Me with more hair (but you can't see it) and a soul Patch, and the last is taken from Christmas '02 (only one I could find, heh) so...on to the pictures:



Bald goatee



little more hair (on head, but you can't see it) and soul patch (thing on my chin) heh



DG with hair Xmas '02 (and a little skinnier, heh) (now the cute Nanaw must not influence your decision)

Ok now to vote some of you might not know this but you can make comments to me and others at the end of each post. You can click on the blue text that says "comments" just below the text of this post. once you have done that then you can type a message anonymously or you can sing up/in and let everyone know who you are with your words...if you choose not to sign up, then just sign the end of you comment with your initials etc...

Ok, so lets start the voting... Let me know which one you like best and we will have a winner. Now if you think I need to take another photo of any of them just let me know and I will do the best I can, but for now these are the ones you get to choose from. So, how to you like your D.G. prepared? heh. Have fun and I will post again maybe on Monday (my Parents are coming up so I might be with them and might not have time to post, but I will try. I look forward to all your comments and thoughts on the evolution of D.G. and his hair, heh. Have a great night!

Jay Update: same, waiting on Friday to go get the next Chemo treatment. KUTP!

short one today.

Well, Tiffany and I decided that we need to have a date night tonight, so dang it we are going to go have one. Between her schedule and mine we have not even had time to sit down and enjoy each other, so tonight we decided that we would make the time for each other. man, this whole both being Pastors in different churches can really kill you. We are still learning how to juggle ministry and marriage, but don't worry, we still love each other more than we ever have!!!!! Man, she is such a hottie!! Woo hoo! I say all this to say:

If you have a wife/husband or girl/boy friend, or family member that you have not spent enough time with then dang it you set a date night them right now (call them on the cell phone, what ever it takes, and you set up a date night that requires showers and nice clothes, and just love the other person!

Jay Update:

just talked to Jay about 6 mins. ago and he was very tired. This is really taking a toll on him now being the second time all of this happening and so I just ask (as always) KUTP! His Spirits are fine as always, but I just know it has to be hard the second time around and knowing there is another one just around the corner and then a Stem Cell Transplant after that it just sucks right now...but he, I , and the rest of you know (if you don't please email me) that He is in VERY good hands with God. Thank you for your prayers and love, and keep them coming! Thanks again!

Oh and the Easter Egg is for all those Halo2 Fans out there! And believe me you will want to find this egg!!!!

Houston, we have lift.....I mean rain...

Man, have we been blessed with this rain!!! woohoo this rain is wonderful and not they are saying that it will be leaving us for about a week, but man for how dry Santa Fe has been the past few years it is nice to see the moisture!!! Thank you God.

(Did anyone ever tell you that the reason it was raining was because you did something to hurt God's feelings and you made him cry? Oh man, that is cruel, heh. Glad no one ever told me that one, heh heh (sorry God)

Well, I was on TheDigitalBits.com (like I am everyday reading the latest DVD news, and I thought I would show you the only thing I have ever won. If you go to this page (scroll down to "November '99 - Weekly Contests") on TheDigitalBits.com that shows all of their winners then you will see my name and the city I lived in (it was Wilmore, KY back then). Yep I will go down in the history records and my name is in bright lights....well.....how about gold......Ok it is yellow, but at least it sticks out more with the black background.

Also, I was going to share with everyone that I had a wonder event take place today!!!!!! Someone actually heard my sermon and talked to me about a problem they noticed about me when I am in front of the church!!! Yes (I know), some would see this as bad, but this means that they heard/listened to the sermon enough to actually follow Jesus' words and came to see me individually, and in love!!!! Woo Hoo!!!!!!! Man, it was a good talk, and I still have some learning on how to talk when I get passionate about something (I come across as being bad, when in reality I am just excited) and of course it is hard when your not used to people telling you something bad about yourself (your natural defenses pop up and you have to pray and put yourself in check), but wooo dang that was so awesome!!!

As a Preacher you spend your entire life hoping that your sermon does not fall on deaf ears, and you hope that people not only hear it, but put it into action and I am a witness of that very thing, and it was awesome (and totally a God thing).

So, thank you to the couple who came to me...(if you ever read this) and please know you will always be remembered for your honestly, and intregrity of living out your faith in the way that Christ desires for us to live (not just speak)!!! Thank you for being the 95%, and making me a better pastor/preacher!

The topic we talked about was a good one to discuss and if any of you would like you can share your thought/s on the matter in the comments (below this post) or on theblessing.org Forum. (it is under general Biblical questions) But the topic is this:

Does the dress of the pastor or anyone in worship matter when worshiping. For example, should a preacher wear a tie and suit every Sunday? What does this have to do with worship? What does the Bible say about this, and what context is it shared in? Where is tradition and where is scripture in this debate? Ok, now go have some fun in the comments or @ the blessing Forum dress topic.

The only other thing I wanted to share with yall is a few pictures of the kinds of hummingbirds I have seen drinking from our humming bird feeders!!! I have never taken any photos of them myself, but man they are so cool. By far the coolest bird in the air (to me). And before the birds, here is a cheesy joke:

Why do humming birds hum? Because they don't know the words to the song. Ha Ha Ha.

Now I am not an expert, so I am guessing on these, but you can click the pictures to learn more about them.



This is a female (apropriatly named for my back yard) Lucifer Humming bird (ha ha)



This is a Female (I think) Rufous. And these love to have their feeder as their feeder and anyone else who comes near will be dive bombed, or fought off. Really cool to know that a humming bird your mixture so much they fight for it, but you tend to not see many other kinds because they are "shoowed" away very quickly, heh. The mean biker humming birds.



I saw one White Eared Humming bird just a week ago.



And I think I have seen two or three of these Broad-tailed humming birds.

Well, there you go just a few of the ones that I have seen so far, and man I love them. I have even gone so far as to make sure I plant Hummingbird mint in my front and back yards to attack them to the feeders. I have seen some of them skip the feeder and go for the natural flowers too. Man, I love them. I think I got hook on them back when we would go camping in our motorhome in NM and CO and I would stick my finger out the window next to the feeder and they would land on my finger to feed. Man, feeling those little feet wrap around your finger is something you will never forget!

Someday if it is God's desire maybe I will feel little hands wrapping around my finger again, but these will be from my baby, heh. I'll keep working on that one....(I really like "working" on having a baby, ha ha ha)

Jay Update:

Well Jay is home now and is tired from his second round of the super 5 day intensive chemo. He still gets to go back every other day for the Rituxan (I think) Chemo, so please keep him in your prayers! I know that he is really worried about the cancer sores again, because they hurt so bad and are just all around frustrating. I know I had only one (sympathy pain for my brother) and it made me sooo mad!! But I just prayed for Jay ever time it hurt and it worked out to be a good thing. That might be why it stayed around for so long, heh. KUTP!

Love you all, oh and for your computer geeks....Microsoft is in development of it's new operating system code named Longhorn. And MS has said that LongHorn will come in different ways, but that one of the ways it will be coming is via HD-DVD (one of the competing High Definition DVD options from Toshiba and others...Competing with Blue-Ray from Sony and others) Very big play for the HD-DVD group if you ask me, but MS did not deny that the new OS could be coming out on Blue-Ray as well. You can find the story here and here. (and the digitalbits commented on it here).

God bless you all and good night....pictures of the hairless bald pastor back to hairy pastor are coming soon, be ready for a fun ride. (HEH the last one sounds bad, I wonder if hair Pastard is a bad word, heh heh) (and I digress...time for bed. love yall!)

Sorry about no posts lately....

Well, Namiqa our Sr. Pastor is out of the office on a much needed break for refueling so the Sermon preparation was a little new and took up a bunch of my time, because it was an important sermon to get out there, and I knew that it had to be surrounded in prayer, so I took the time to do that and to write it. I will be getting it up and online for anyone who desires to read the stinking long thing. The Sermon is titled, "Conflicted Minds, Holy hearts" and is all about how to deal with conflict as a Christian, and is based on Matthew 18:15-20.

The link to my sermon is here: Conflicted Minds, Holy Hearts I thought it would be fun and make the Word file an Adobe File so if you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader yet, then you need to go here: to Download it (FREE) to view the sermon. This is a great program that almost all of you should have on your computer anyway, so just download it (if you do not have it already). Lots of company's use this program to create forms and other things that they do not want you to mess with in a format you can see, but not change. I really hope that this sermon (even though it is long) can be a blessing to all of you!

Also the website JustPeaceumc.org has a great brochure talking about how to deal with conflict as a Christian. I had copies of their brochure in the Narthex for people to pick up just in case they ever get into conflict and need some help. BTW: the brochure is in a Adobe Reader format too (.pdf file extension) so for you to read that one then you need Adobe reader...see told you that it is a program you should just have on your computer!

Also, I thought a few of you might like to know that they finally named the next StarWars film:



A fitting title if you ask me, since at the end of this one all hope is lost until a little man by the name of Luke Skywalker shows up on the scene. Oh man I can not wait for this movie!

Oh yeah, and if none of you have ever done one of these it can really suck you into them, but a new thing going around now days is internet enigmas. At least that is what I call them...other people call them Alternate Reality Gaming. It is basically a form of a game that involves really had clues and text hidden in the html of web pages, and even hidden text inside photos and jpegs. So it is a real computer nerds example of fun, but they can started one for the soon to be released Halo2 game for the Xbox. And if any of you want to be sucked into ARG, then be my guest this one is not too hard, but man it blows me away to see the ways that people hide things in the riddles and clues. It all started with the Halo2 movie trailer showing in theaters across the country in Lowes movie theaters. At the end of the movie trailer is has a website titled ilovebees.com. This website will send you to a web site that looks like it has been hacked, but the messages are found all over the place, and then you can go to a blog titled ilovebees, and then to other blogs. These games are always meant to be played as a ground of people so you can go to places like this website to read about the history of the ARG and help with deciphering the clues and such. Just a really cool way of getting you to spend a little more time waiting for the game to come out and then the ARG will tie into the actually game so it really is lots of fun. A warning to any of you who want to play.....these things pride themselves into blurring the lines between reality and fiction, so if you call the phone number listed on a website then you get a message that you would expect to hear. Some of these games have gone so far as to call you and leave messages to make the game more immersive. Yeah, it is cool...if you like that sort of thing and you never know what is part of the game and what is not and someone just playing around with the gamers.

Well, seen some other cool stuff that I will save for later. God bless you all! oh yeah...

Jay Update:

Well, he is doing fine in his second round of intensive chemo, and they have now knocked off his last (one of two...can't remember) rounds of chemo and will be doing a Stem Cell Transplant after they do one more intensive round of chemo, so please KUTP!!!! Jay loves and thanks each of you for all the prayers and support! I even feel it and it is wonderful! Thanks again!

Sheila's Jay Update...

Jay Update from Sheila that I got today (7/22/04):

Jay is back in West Penn Hospital for the 3rd Chemo cycle of the CALGB 10002 protocol he started this month.
The good news is that he may only need one more cycle after this one but they will then most likely do a stem cell transplant. The should help ward off reoccurrence.
He is doing well, with the exception of extreme fatigue. His neurological symptoms continue to improve. He is in room 720 and the phone number is 412-578-1156. He will hopefully be release on Tuesday.

I am writing the sermon for Sunday right now, so this will be a short blog post and Friday you will probably not see one because Tiffany and I will be in Taos visiting her parents who are there for a meeting. So have a wonderful weekend, and God bless you all! KUTP!

Oh you Honor me!!!!

I know that most of you probably could care less, but I read this article and it appears that Dolby Labs has decided to name a Dolby Digital Trailer after me. And to top it off it is a DD 5.1 Trailer for video games named "Argon" (After the kind of gas used in a laser beam I am sure, but I like to think that is is after me, heh). You can't get better than that, heh.

translation for those of you who don't know what I just said:



Dolby Labs: This is a company who came up with the idea to have surround sound in movies. They have just created a new Dolby Digital sound track for video games.

Dolby Digital: The way to reproducing sound for movies (and now video games) that is is surround sound. the sound comes out of 5 speakers and one subwoofer (thus you see the term 5.1 surround sound on DVDs that yo buy and such) The speakers are a center speaker, a right front speaker, a back right speaker, a back left speaker, a front left speaker, and a dedicated (.1) subwoofer for all the lower sounds in movies.

Trailer: A Trailer is the term for all the movie previews before movies and I am sure most of you have seen THX or DTS trailers before a movie, and that is what the article above is talking about.....except this time it is a Dolby Digital trailer for video games.

Now another thing you have to know is Argon (yes, the noble gas) is the name I had for my D&D character while growing up, so if you ever go to a place on the internet or what ever that has nick names it is probably me if the person has the name Argon.

(Yes, i played D&D while growing up and no I was and am not a Devil worshiper, or anything like it, heh...to me it is a game, and nothing more! It was clean fun with my brother and lots of friends. (and yes, I am a pastor, heh) (If you want to know more about D&D then just email me)

Also I thought this thing was cool so you can check that out too.

OH, man yall got to see this!!! It is square watermelons, and even a pyramid shaped watermelon!!! That is just amazing! I wonder how they do that?

Jay Update:
No update...see previous post, heh. Sorry, but Jay still has not heard anything back from the blood test so I think they are still planning to go to the hospital Thursday and see if they can get checked in and start the chemo treatment again.

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Well, Tiffany's parents are still here, but leaving tomorrow :-( But, the WRUMC youth are gone and now maybe we can have a little more peace around here, heh (love you guys!)

Oh I must tell you all a story about what happened yesterday....

I called Tiffany yesterday, and she was home with all the youth and her parents. Well, she told me that the bottom bathroom toilet was clogged and literally poop floating all over the place in it (I could hear the plunger swooshing in the back ground) She told me that one of the youth did it (but no one was owning up to it, heh) We were talking about some other subject, and it was just cracking me up and here is the copy of the conversation:

Me: Hi Girl
Tiffany: Hi Boy
(swoosh, swoosh)
Me: What are you doing?
Tiffany: One of the
(swoosh swoosh)
Tiffany: guys probably use a little too much toilet paper and
(swoosh swoosh)
Tiffany: clogged up the bathroom toilet
(swoosh swoosh)

the youth in the background: Dang Tiffany that is gross!! Yuck!!! oh Man, Why did you do that?

(swoosh swoosh)
Me: I am sorry girl, is the plunger working?
Tiffany: Well, it sure is breaking up the poop, but the water is going no where
(swoosh swoosh)
Tiffany: I think I will try to flush it again
(swoosh swoosh)
Me: NOOOOO Tiffany don't do...
(cla-plush)
Tiffany: Well, it looks like it might be....
Tiffany: AAAAGGGGG Guys come here, come here, help me AAAGGGGG It is going all over the place
Me: Tiffany? Tiffany?
Tiffany: Oh Man, there is poop all over the floor, and poop water everywhere......
Me: Tiffany? Tiffany? Hey!
(ooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnn) <--Dead phone line Ha Ha Ha Ha. Well, I immediatly called Kokopelli Properties who we are renting from and they had a plumer over to the house in less than 5 mins!!! That is good service. He fixed and and said when he walked into the bathroom, Oh Sh@&, litterally Sh@$ Ha Ha. And this is a guy who does this for a living, so needless to say it must have been horrible. Well, I got home and the major pieces of poop where off the floor and out of the toilet and the plummer had fixed it and left, but Tiffany was wearing latix gloves as high as they would go, and disinfecting every part of the bathroom, including the ceiling (well, maybe not that bad, but close). I found out later that she even had to disinfect the bottom of her shoes, ha ha ha....oh man that craks me up, so times Tiffany is so silly! (but the greatest woman in the world for me, heh.)

Well, I will leave you all with a picture of me and MY Nanaw when I was very young. And yes, I am darn cute, so be prepared to be wowed, heh. j/k.

A Plethora of pinatas....

As I sit here in front of my compute tonight. Tiffany's youth group is watching !Three Amigos!. This is one of the classics if you ask me, and man I love this movie. If you need a good clean funny stupid movie, then this will fit the bill, to a "T"! If you have not seen this movie then do yourself a favor and go rent it or better yet buy it. It is an old movie and I am sure you can find it cheap somewhere. And for those of you who are not inclined to watch stupid funny movies, then you just need to watch it around 2:00 am and then it will be funny for you!! ha ha ha.!

Jay Update:

Well, I did not get to talk to Jay today (but my parents did)...I must have called while he was taking a nap (I am very glad he did not wake up do to my phone call) Well, we were wanting to get the results of the blood test to find out if he gets to start his Chemo (coarse III) again on Thursday or Friday, and they did not have any results yet. This is very frustrating for Jay (and everybody else too) because it seems like the medical industry in PA is on Santa Fe time (i.e. I will do it....just when I get around to doing it, heh) Dang they are slow!!!! Oh well, I will let you all know as soon as I can about the results.

On a second note of prayer needs, please pray for my cousin Bobby who had heart surgery today (I think that is right) and is healing now. Bobby is a truck driver in his line of work, and now he is worried that he will not be able to continue in driving. Please pray for his heart, and job when he heals up, and his spirits to make it through all of this.

KUTP!!!!!

Oh, I found a little fun site for the "hidden"(I hope it works) Easter Egg today, so I hope you have some cheesy fun there, heh.

I am scarred about Tiffany having a child. (nothing is wrong so don't worry about it, but here is why:) <-- ha ha that looks like a smile face, and I was just doing what I thought would go there, heh-- Just to gross some of you out here you go:

Well, I know that Jay is having tons of canker sores in his mouth, tongue, etc...and I think I am having sympathy pains, heh. I have a canker sore right on the back right side of my tongue! It is at the perfect place that every time I talk or eat the sore rubs against my teeth, and man o man does it hurt. Eating a meal is frustrating and painful, and I can not even imagine how bad it is for Jay!! Well, I decided that it was just God wanting me to pray for Jay everytime it hurt, so it has made me pray for Jay even more, but here is the deal.....If I am having sympathy pains for my brother, then I will be bed ridden when Tiffay is pregnant, ha ha ha. Oh well, it will be worth it! I just hope that I am not sick so much that I can not help Tiffany around the house, ha ha ha j/k (j/k=just kidding). Hey that is something you all can pray for us about too. We hope to try artificial insemination again next month, but this time we will try it with low dose fertility drugs (twins, aaaarrrrgggggg, ha ha (no offense Pepper, heh)) If that does not work then we will check for Endometriosis. So you can keep praying for us too. (I love "trying" for the baby, ha ha ha) (Man, I am glad God created sex, wooo hoooo!!! heh (only in a marital relationship, of course))

Well, it is getting to be bed time for me...well really for the youth, and since the computer is downstairs, I have to stop, heh) So God bless every single one of you, and please take care!

Dios te vendiga!

Soon I will put up pictures of myself during the "watch my hair grow back on my head phases" and then you all can leave comments of the best look, and I will tally up the votes and possibly keep the look you all choose, heh. Be on the look out for it. Good night all!

My spilling and grammmmer

Well, as most of you know, I caint speel, and my grammmmmer is not the best of all )in the world(. So, I just thought I would wright one blog posting that I dant speel ckec and danit care about me grammmmer?! @

Seriously, most of my "misstakes" is cause I am typing so fast, and I never re-read these things before I publish them. I was talking to Deb yesterday about this and she said that my blog drove her crazy when it came to my spelling and grammar. I laughed, and nodded my head in agreement. For as long as I could remember I have never been good about my spelling or grammar. I only received one perfect grade on a paper in any English class Jr. High, High School and College. And that paper was typed using a manual typewriter and I checked every single word in a dictionary (before the internet) for it's spelling and correct usage. I was only allowed three write-out mistakes on each page and the paper was 7-10 pages long. Everything had to be perfect, and apparently it was. This was in 7th grade and the teacher ran down to my mother's class room (yep I had my mother for 7th grade life science) after school and wanted to congratulate me in person! Well, for me that really was an honor, and I don't think she or I knew how much of an accomplishment that really was for me (not just for my 13th year of age, but for my entire life) Ha Ha Ha!

Well, getting back to my spelling and grammar, I must say that I think that God has given me a unique gift with several bonuses. The first one is friends that can see past the spelling and grammar to the heart of the author. The second is the gift to help others to know that the world does not fall apart with a word is misspelled or the grammar of the English language is brutally beat to a pulp. And the Third is, teaching others how to forgive.

So for all of you people who read this post day after day, screeching in horror of my spelling and grammar, I hope that you are able to grow towards maturity in Christ through the gifts that God has given me, and help you to become more forgiving and able to see past the outside and look into heart of writer instead of the ink.

I am very thankful that I preach audibly, and not in writing. Yes, I write a newsletter article here and there, but by the time you read it a wonderful person by the name of Juaniece has made all the corrections and protected me from the flames of perfectionistic, legal-minded, English rule abiders. And I thank God every day for my wife who helped me actually get through Seminary. I remember one Salesmanship class in undergraduate school that made us take our test in blue books (the very thought of them makes me cringe, aaaaaahhhhhhhhh). I answered every question on the test perfectly, but I made a 70 on the test. And the 70 was taken off due to ONLY misspellings. The dean of the business school even came into the class and threatened to our class that he might start making all students take a spelling test to graduate from the school. (terror again filled my mind, even though I knew he was just joking) It turns out he was the father of a very good friend of mine in school, and one of my best friends in High School and College married that friend (you need to remind your dad of this Kristi, heh)

Well, I can tell several other stories, like Seminary professors giving me personal notes on my papers with the words of encouragement, "Did you even proofread this?", or "I think you could write this paper better in Hebrew than using the English language". Yep, there were some cool, seminary professors, and a few that were...uh....Desiring excellence out of me. heh heh.

Well enough of me let get to the......(drum roll please.......)

Jay Update:

I talked to Jay yesterday and he said that he has a blood work result tomorrow (Tuesday) and if the blood work is good, then they will start the section III chemo on Thursday or Friday. If the test is not good, then they will postpone the chemo until his body is back up enough to receive the chemo. Jay wants his body to be good, because he doe snot want any delays in the chemo schedule and just get this thing over and done with. So thank you and know your prayers are effective, and working! He and we appreciate them all and love every single one of you! KUTP!

Oh yeah, I saw i, ROBOT Saturday, and it was VERY good. It was the typical, "Man, makes robot, man makes robot too good, robot starts to think for its self, robot rebels against man, man kills central brain of all robots". This time at least the robots do what they do, because "man can not be allowed to take care of themselves, because they war and kill themselves. The first time I saw this kind of theme was in The Fifth Element. It is true, that mankind is not a good steward of his fellow man, or the world we live in, but I believe this is the result of choosing not to be in right relationship with God. So...all the more reason to share your relationship with God with others so they too may know and experience "too blave, true love, true love he said...you can not ask for a better reason than that" (go watch The Princes Bride for that loose quote) But, if you like Sci-Fi flicks with lots of action and a splattering of humor from Will Smith then you will love this movie. Oh Happy Days....oh happy days, Oh Happy Days... oh happy days. heh.

God bless yall, and take care! Good night!

Happy Decemberween!

For those of you who even know me slightly (and have not figured it out yet by the strange title of my blog) I am just a little different. heh.

When I was in High School people would ask me who my heroes were and my response was (and still is, but I have added a few)

Jesus Christ
Weird Al Yankovic
Albert Einstein

and now I have added:

All of my family (especially Tiffany)
Alton Brown
A few Pastors I have had along the way

So it should not be too much of a suprise that HomestarRunner.com is right up my alley way. Their humor is very....uh...different, but clean! It is similar to The Far Side (oh look they have videos now!), it is very weird, but very funny if you actually know what they are talking about. Kind of like a lot of jokes on the products (like their tee-shirts) sold @ thinkgeek.com.

Well, go to Homestarrunner.com and you can see Decemberween. It is a lot of shorts that they have created that are very funny. There is also a great HomeStarRunner/The Might Be Giants video on right now too. But hurry because right now you can access these from
the home page (look at the changing ellipse in the top right corner)......and they update it every Monday so it (the stuff of the changing ellispse) might change Sunday night or Monday. It will still be there after Monday, but you might have to go searching for it on the site.

Oh BTW, I was looking around foodtv.com and a great Southern Cook named Paula Deen loves to cook good old fatten'n southern-fried, sugar-filled, comfort food. Well, I was looking at her
product area on FoodTV.com and you should read some of the tee-shirts and aprons they are selling there. You can see them here. My favorite one is, "elbow lickin' good!" Ha Ha Ha! Now you know that is good food then, heh. a few others are: "worth the weight", and "Put some south in your mouth". Oh man those are funny!

OK, I am making myself very hungry! I think I will go try the only BBQ place in Santa Fe today (Cow Girl Hall Of Fame), I hope it just tries to come close to anything in TX. Man, I miss those places that you can just walk up to the pit, point out the brisket, chicken, sausage, etc... that you want then walk inside for them to throw on the tater salad, coleslaw, a few raw onion rings, cherry peppers, and then give you a glass of sweet tea that is really a jelly jar with a glass handle that is the size of a pitcher in most restaurants. Then you take two trips to your table.

One to carry your food and then another one to carry your drink. Once you sit down you see that there is a roll of paper towels for your napkin, and an entire loaf of bread that has been opened by someone just cutting the plastic on the top from end to end............then................you eat!

OK, I am starving now, so I will leave you all knowing that I love ya, and have spent my entire morning this morning praying for you (all those who read this blog). How many blogs out there can tell you that?! Oh yeah, your blessed, ha ha. bye bye.

(No Jay Update....yet, because I have not called him, so just KUTP! Thanks!

I will leave you all with a few closings that you can use when saying good bye to people when you are chatting online:

->bye
->buh bye
->lata
->lata playa
->gtg (got to go)
->brb (be right back)
->peace
->one love, one God, one way (quote of a Christian rap artist)
->fkjsakdfjaISJFDAKSJF (my personal favorite, heh)
->(enter your name) out! (for example, "D.G. Out!")
->10-4
->Ok Im back (heh this one always gets them)
->Or my favorite one of late told to me from my good friend soon to be Dr. John Choi who said this to me as the last thing before he quite the convo, "D.G. Harums will you marry me?". I bet I talked to him for about 7 or 8 more lines of how it just would not work out, and he never IMed me back....that's mean just mean!!!*



*this last good bye message is true, but John and I joke around all the time, so please understand it is all a joke. Thanks for understanding. heh.

Oh and lastly, blogger.com has changed the way I input my posts here on the blog and for some reason the spell check is not working properly and it locks up on me when I try to post. The post gets up for everyone, but I never know that unless I check the main blog site, so if the spelling is way off, it is because...yep I am that bad of a speller and I need help...from programs, heh. Sorry, and I hope they get it fixed soon. (It might be FireFox too, but I will look into that)

Tiffany is home!!!!

MY WIFE IS HOME!!!!!!!!!!!



WOO HOO!!!!



(and since she is home....that means no long blog post today! love yall have a wonderful night and God bless you!



Jay Update:



When I called tonight he was vomiting, and then I just decided to just
pray for him and not call him back if he was that sick. So please keep
KUTP!



(love you Jay...and Sheila, heh)



God bless you all, and know God loves ya! (and don't you forget it!)



(p.s. The Easter Egg is not to be offensive, but funny. Thanks!)

India was not as good as Japan...in my house.

Well, I cooked Indian food tonight Lamb Tikka Masala (not sure about the spelling), and lets just say that the Sushi was better in my book. heh. I got the recipe from Foodtv.com and I loved the Saffron Rice (I added green peas to it), but the recipe from the Chicken Tikka Masala was just not what I have had in the restaurant. So, I will try that one again some other time.

The lamb was great! and the rice was good, but the sauce for the tikka masala was just not what I would call wonderful. So I will save that one for another day! The lamb though, was very good. I grilled in and it was marinated in rosemary and mint. Oh yeah really good stuff!

Well, not much happened today. I was planning on working on my sermons all day today, but I had an interruption, but just as Dr. Kalas

(one of my fav professor's in Seminary) used to say, "Some of my best moments of ministry were in the interruptions." Amen Dr. Kalas!

Well, I got some GREAT news today! Al Gwinn (Tiffany and I's Sr. Pastor in Lexington, KY @ 1st Church Lexington) was elected Bishop today, so that is great news. I will spare you all on what that means in the Methodist church, but it is a huge honor and you don't go up the ladder as a pastor any higher than Bishop. For example, there is one Bishop over the entire panhandle of Texas and the State of New Mexico. Our conferences are a little different, but still they are the big wigs, and I can not think of a better man to receive this honor and responsibility. May God bless the conferences he serves!

Oh, yeah I almost forgot our cat Sushi (yes yes, my dog loves to eat Sushi...not the food, but our cat, ha ha ha) can not eat anything after 9:00 pm tonight. You know why?......... Well, lets just say there are two parts of his anatomy that he will be missing after tomorrow...OUCH!

You know when we took our dog Halo in the Vet for that procedure I thought they would tie them up just like they do to us humans, but no no no, they take them right out...no mistakes are going to happen here, heh. Well, I just stayed home with him and loved on him the entire day that day, I felt so bad. Well, Tiffany is not going to be back until around 7:00 pm tomorrow so it looks like it is going to just be us boys again and this time Halo and Sushi will be with me. I wonderful Halo will be nice to Sushi after the surgery? Lord please be with them both.

Jay Update:

I talked to Jay today and he was feeling very good and talking lots, just still hurting from the mouth sores all in his mouth, tongue, and throat. So....please KUTP! He had a Dr.'s visit today and nothing new, except this time he had to wait 7 HOURS to get in to see the Dr.....7 HOURS! And this is a Dr.'s visit in a Dr.'s office, not the hospital, but the office. Man that is a long wait time. But he was home and watching Deep Space 9 with Sheila and doing good. Thank you for your love and prayers!

Tiffany will be home tomorrow!!!!!!!! Woo hoo I can not wait!!!!!!! Man, I miss her!!! It seems like the more we are apart the harder it is to have her leave...shouldn't be the other way, where you get used to it? Oh well, we are not the typical couple, heh. I love her soo much...more than I could ever express in words, so that leaves me actions and I do the best I can there too....even though it can never be enough. SHMILY!!!!!!!!

I also talked to Tyson Edwards...best friend of High School and college, and He and his wife live in Las Vegas, and are doing well. It was great talking to you both! Love yall!

Please continue to be in prayer for Jay and Sheila, of course, but for someone in KY also who is really in need of your prayers! Please lift this person up to God and allow this person to really get back on track with God during this time of trial in their life. Thanks!

Hey the blog now has cool format options, so be looking for those in the

future

.

Love you all take care and God bless!!! (P.S. did you spend time in your hiding place yet?)

Isaiah 28:14-18 and Psalm 32

Did you ever have a hiding place?



I am blessed to be able to say that I really don't remember a good Hiding place in my own home. I guess the closes thing I could think of was my closet. The attic was too hard and scary to get to, and the opening under the carpet in my parents closet was just dirty (and I just knew there was a snake under there) so those would NEVER make good hiding places. Because hiding places are supposed to be safe places, not scary or hard to get to. It is a place that you know exactly where to go to, in ANY event, tornado, mad brother, or a friend trying to find you, you knew almost by instinct where to go and exactly how to get there the fastest way. I know that I think of hiding places as place I go to for safety and comfort! And I think that Isaiah and David were saying the same thing in these two verses:

Isaiah 28:14-18
14 Therefore hear the word of the LORD, you scoffers who rule this people in Jerusalem. 15 Because you have said, "We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have an agreement; when the overwhelming scourge passes through it will not come to us; for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter"; 16 therefore thus says the Lord GOD, See, I am laying in Zion a foundation stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation: "One who trusts will not panic." 17 And I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plummet; hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter. 18 Then your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand; when the overwhelming scourge passes through you will be beaten down by it.

See sadly we make our shelter and refuge in this world one that is full of falsehood (yep even that little tinne winnie white lie) These are the places we turn to when we are in trouble or have done wrong against someone. We make up a simple excuse: no one would ever need to know the truth. We tend to make decisions based on how other people will think about us, instead of how God will think about us. Where do you find your hiding place with the rubber meets the road? You better look out though...because God will pelt your refuge with hail, and you shelter with hail. Then you will no longer be subject to hades, because he will remind you of where your shelter and refuge...your hiding place should be in Him and only in Him. (and there aint no hail or high water that is going to take out that shelter, heh)

Now, what does David the author of this Psalm say?

Psalm 32:1-11
1 Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Happy are those to whom the LORD imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. 3 While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah 5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD," and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah 6 Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them. 7 You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. Selah 8 I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. 9 Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you. 10 Many are the torments of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the LORD. 11 Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.

David knew exactly what he was talking about. David knew what a hiding place looked like and David knew that he and all of us must find out place of comfort and safety (our hiding place).....in God. God is who we turn to in the midst of strife, and hardships. God is who we lean upon when the world around us seems like it is closing in on us and searching us out with temptations, pain, and discord! It is God that is our refuge, not anything or anyone else can fill us with true peace, comfort, safety, and love. Nothing else..only God. I pray today that you all can come to know this hiding place, and go deeper into this hiding place! I promise you will find that it is a place that you can not live your life until you spend more and more of your time there with God...in relationship with God.

You know the funny thing about his hiding place is that God is telling you to bring a friend in there with you, heh. Do you need to spend more time with God? Do you need to share about your hiding place with others and invite them to join you in your "hiding"? Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Jay update:

I called Jay today and the mucus problem has hit with full force. He has sores all over his mouth and throat. It was hurting him so bad that he had to get off the phone to rest his mouth. So, the chemo side-effects are starting to hit. He said he felt OK, but the mucus thing was really hurting. So now is the time to really get the prayers up and going. Thank you for all of your prayers and know I and Jay and Sheila love you! KUTP!!!

Have a good night yall!

I actually did it!!!

Well, tonight I made my own sushi!!! And guess what........It was darn good! heh. Let me show you what I ate:



This one was the first one I made...well actually the first California roll I made was WAY over stuffed, and I just had to eat that one in one big roll while I was making it. (oh darn, heh) Well this plate was the first one I made and that is a Cali roll with a few Tuna pieces.



This is the second one I made and this one is all spicy Tuna roll. There was a second spicy tuna roll, but I decided to actually eat the sushi I made instead of taking pictures of it.



This is the place setting of everything except the last plate of the second spicy tuna roll. Man this was a lot on food, and I just barely got it down, heh.

Well from what I have learned in this wonderful experience is:

1. I can actually make my own Sushi, and it is MUCH cheaper!
2. It took me a total of 2 1/2 hours to make it all, and it was just barely still cold when I ate it all...in other words, next time I will make it with other people.
3. Real crab meat in a Cali roll is much better than the imitation you get in the restaurants.
4. I love rice cookers
5. I will probably only do this for special acceding due to the amount of time it takes and the number of dishes I had to clean, hew
6. Sushi is still a love of mine!!!!

throaty is Indian food, so I will let you all know how that goes and hopefully that is be a little less time consuming, hew.

Oh BTW: I am not sure if you noticed the drink on the table, but it is my favorite soft drink made here in Santa Fe!!! The company is Blue Sky Soda and the Drink is
Cherry Vanilla cream!!!! Oh man it is good, but I found in Whole Foods three new flavors that I have fallen for and one of them is on par with Cherry Vanilla Cream! They are, Orange Cream (wow this Orange Cream is not listed on their website...And I do know you can only get this Orange Cream @ whole foods here in Santa Fe, so it makes me think this is a special one, heh), Prime Lime Cream, and the one that is on par with Cherry vanilla is Very Berry Cream!!!!!

Well, I found Cherry Vanilla Cream one time in West Texas, and then I found it one time in KY, but that was a rare thing, but now I know they have this organic stuff, if you have a Whole Foods anywhere near, then you might have a good chance to get these!

Jay Update:

I talked to Jay this afternoon and he was doing VERY good! He said that yesterday was the last Rituxan treatment for that course (course II), so that means he has 4 more (21 days long each) treatments to go. KUTP!!!!!!

Thank you again. I wrote a devotional that I will put up soon, but I wrote it a while ago and I wonder if it will post it on today's date or if it will post it on the date I saved it as a draft..well, just be looking for it in the future.

Yall take care and God bless you all!

Blinker School

When I was driving home from Whole Foods Market I saw 7 different cars not using their blinkers when turning. This amazed me! During the course of 2 miles I saw 7 of them. I could not believe it! Two of those cars almost had someone run into them from behind because they did not know the car in front was turning because there was no blinker usage! Man, that is just sad. There are too many people in this world who need to take some blinker lessons, or go back to blinker summer school. (This is all coming from a man (me) who lets cars in front of him that are stopped at a green light for over 2 mins with not a horn honk to be heard.)

Well, I typed up a long blog post again tonight only to have my Internet Explorer lock up on me while I was trying to put a link in the post..so I decided that I would try out another internet browser! And this is the first time I have used it and man I like it! I am slowly becoming a internet geek day by day. I know a lot of it, but have never had the time to actually try it out, and man I love this browser (and I have only used it for 20 mins now, heh) If any of you are brave enough to check it out here is the download page to download this great browser. FireFox made by Mozilla. I love the fact that I no longer have to open another internet explorer to view two web pages, because it opens up another tab for each website you go to! I really love that ability, because I am constantly typing the blog and then needing to find a website to make a link to, and these tabs are a VERY nice addition. And FireFox was smart enough to transfer all my bookmarks/favorites, passwords, etc... (I think it is even faster, and besides it is much safer from attacks that Microsoft Internet Explorer)

Well you all go and check it out and see if you like it the same or better, but just like anything computer...you must play with it long enough to figure it out.

I also went to Amazon.com to update my wish list (notice I always put this up for the hint to my family members, ha ha ha ha) and I found a link to another blog that I really like it is gizmodo.com. All you gadget people will love this blog. Basically, this blog covers reviews and news on all gadgets. Oh man, Tiffany is sorry that I found this one, heh.

I also forgot to tell you all that I went to see King Authur last Saturday in Albq. and I felt that it was a very good film. There were lots of sermons scattered in it. It did a good job of showing the persecution of Christians of the time, and also how God and specifically the name of Jesus was used as an excuse to do horrible things to other people. It should be a discussion starter for any Christian. Granted you must also realize you have to see past the violence and the sex, to find the sermon, but I still consider it to be a good movie, and I will add it to my DVD to buy list (that list is probably too long too, heh heh. Well, speaking of buying a DVD so I can find out just how good it is by watching it on my Home Theater I thought you might like to see my HT (Home Theater) so....you can see my HT here:
The Hollums Home Theater and if you ever wonder about my DVD collection then you can check it out here: My DVD Collection. I just thought hose would be cool for you to look at if you are bored.

Jay Update:

Well, I talked to Jay this evening and he was doing good. He got back home from his Chemo and he was very tired, and He said that this time they put a lot of Rituxan in him and they pumped it into him very fast, so he had a bad headache, but still doing good so KUTP!

Well, I love you all, and I must go to bed. When Tiffany is not here (she is gone to elementary church camp) then I don't have anyone to remind me to go to bed on time, heh. Thank you God for my wonderful never deserved wife! God bless you all!

I'm late to work today

Well, as I type this I am late to work and; yes, some of you might think that it is bad of me to be writing this blog right now, but I just spent a long morning helping Tiffany pack for camp this morning and then my devotional time took a little longer than what I thought (this is a very good thing by the way, heh), but I thought that I should share something with you all.

Yesterday I taught a class on John Wesley (founder of United Methodism) and as I was searching through my Wesley Theology (great link to all of his sermons, notes on the NT, etc...) notebook from my seminary class I found some notes from my preaching class. (this happened often when I forgot my other classes notebook I would just use the notebook I had in my backpack, heh) Well, it was from my preaching for special occasions class (By the way Dr. Kalas taught this class and he is such an amazing man, I wish you could hear his sermons..or second best read his books, and it was the notes for preaching at weddings. Now, wedding sermons need to be short (at least they should be) ("Your welcome" to all those that I have married, heh) and one of our assignments was to preach a wedding sermon for someone that we knew well. So I decided to preach my wedding sermon as if I was preaching my mother and father's wedding. So, I thought you all might like to read the short sermon that I would have preached at my parent's wedding. (please throw disbelief out the window here, yes it is impossible to go back in time and preach my parent wedding before I was born, but just pretend this is like a Disney film and just enjoy it, not for the reality, but for the enjoyment) So here is the sermon for Randy and Teresa Hollums way back in the Dark Ages, heh just kidding Daddy and Momma! (Oh, Momma and Daddy, I think I sent this to you before, but it would not hurt for you to read it again, ha ha) (I am sure you people at the courthouse will enjoy this one, ha ha)

1 John 4:11-16

Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.
No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the Day of Judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.


I remember when Teresa and Randy told me stories about their courtship. There was one story that pretty much summed up their relationship at the first and summed up their personalities. The first date Randy took Teresa on he told her as they were eating dinner that if she could not have children that he would not marry her. Now, that part of the story sums up Randy, logical! I Think Randy and Spock would have been good friends! That is why being in law is a perfect profession for him. Now you can imagine what Teresa thought about this statement and the entire date from then on. She basically knew this was NOT the one that God had for her and besides, this guy really needs a lesson in romance. Well, at the end of that date Teresa told Randy that she really just did not hear any “bells ringing” and so that she would probably not like to go out with him again.
Well, time passed and Randy really liked Teresa and decided that he would pester her enough where she would go out on another date with him. Well the story goes, Teresa decided that she was going to teach him a lesson and show up to the door with curlers in her hair even after he told her to dress up nice for their date. Well, Randy met Teresa at the door and either did not see the curlers or ignored them, because he knew they would probably embarrass her more than him, but either way he took her to the passenger seat of the car and drove off.
Teresa noticed that they were going down one of the bumpiest roads to get to the restaurant. What she did not know was Randy had tied string from the hangers beside each of the backseat doors with a bell in the middle that would ring with each bump the car ran over. Randy turned to Teresa and said,
“Do you hear any bells ringing now?”
Teresa says that she pretty much new from then on that that Randy was going to be the one that she would probably marry.
Isn’t it amazing what things we are willing to do and changes we are willing to make when someone special comes into our lives?
Randy, Teresa, you are here to receive a blessing from God for your holy matrimony. And you have allowed this special someone called Jesus into your personal lives. And God is not only going to bless you and your marriage, but He is going to enter into your marriage as well. Since you love one another, God will abide in you, and He will perfect his love in and through you and your marriage. Who knows he may continue to perfect your love through your children. (ha ha) Please realize that God is abiding in your marriage and living through you.
And the same goes for you, friends and family (those who read this blog) who have come to this marriage as witnesses. Abide in God and allow Him to Abide in you, and then realize that through your prayer and your loving this couple (and everyone you come in contact with) that you too will be helping them grow and perfect their love for each other and perfect their love to Christ. Now may you both experience love and grace flowing from the arms that Jesus has wrapped around you. Amen!

One thing must be said, this sermon illistartion was not asked about immediatially before writing the sermon, so all truthfullness to the story part is subject to change...or you can just go ask my father or mother for the "real" story.... I am sure they might tell you different "sides" story, but the basic gist is the same. Besides my Mom and Dad always need more people giving them a hard time.

Note to everyone....if you are a freind of a Pastor or family member of a pastor...your life is an open book just like his/her life, heh...this means that you will be mentioned in sermons, and stories, even to the entire world over the World Wide Web. So, just get used to it, ha ha.

Note to pastors.... Please ak permission of all friends, family, or church members before you write or speak about them, ha ha.

Jay update:

Well, Jay has a new toy (actually it is really Sheila's) but he can now surf the web anywhere he can get a cell phone connection, so it was funny this morning because I was typing on my blog and he just IMed (Instant messaged, AIM, Messenger, trillian,etc...)me telling me that he was driving to the hospital, and then he IMed me telling me he was there and waiting (which he does a lot of in the hospital, ha ha) So, he is going back for another Rituxan treatment today, and then back home (probably) tonight to rest up tonight and tomorrow, only to go back the next day. He seemed well, and as always he thanks you all for your prayers and support! I think he sadly is having to get into the chemo mode. Just still learning what the limits of his strength and mobility are while his is on the chemo drugs. It is still in the learning stages and I hope to get you all the chemo schedual for courses III and V. (as soon as the Dr.'s give it to him)

I need to make a acronym for my "Jay and Sheila statement" something like KUTP! (K=Keep, U=Up, T=The, P=Prayers) Ha Ha. Well, until any of you come up with a better one in the comments then I will just use KUTP!

Love you all and please know I apprecite you readig this blog, and I hope that you get something out of it each post. May your day today be better than all the others you have had! Love ya all!

This-um-make-a-me-a-bad-um...

Well, I worked long and hard on a post on Friday and then I did not save the post and came back to it later on in the day and spent even more time on it, and then tried to post it only to find out that my session timed out and I lost the entire post.... Needless to say I was not a happy camper. Well, it took me this long to calm down enough to come back and post, heh.

What I was going to talk about was the program called Weather Bug This program puts the temperature in your systems tray (lower right hand corner for those non-geek people, ha ha) Well, this program will make a cricket type noise as soon as the National weather service has issued any form or weather watch or warning for your county. (A huge benefit for those of you who live in West Texas) Well, it works much better when you have a DSL, Cable modem, or wireless internet, (it will also work if you have dial-up, but it will only show the temp, ect, when you are online/conected to the internet. It even has your forecast, radar, etc... Highly suggested for all you weather lovers like me.

Well, I was also going to tell you the channels other than local channels that I love to watch on the telli:

HD Net
HD Net movies (same link)
Discovery HD
G4 Tech TV
Food Network (this site even lets you pick your fav recipes and then store them for free on their website...never use a cookbook again...well only to a certain extent)
PBS HD
And of course the regulars but I really do love the HD over the air that these provide...except NBC out of Albq...man this station better get the HD in gear....especially for this years Olympics! They really have disappointed me. But here are those, CBS, ABC, NBC.

So ther eyou have it, if you walk in on my watching TV then you can now guess what I will be watching. (I am sure you all care so much, heh)

Well now its time for (drum roll please).........The famous Jay Update!!!!

I talked to Jay Yesterday and he was feeling better but the day before he was feeling the effects of the chemo, and said that he would never wish chemo upon anyone, but today he went back the hospital for the Rituxan IV chemo and tonight he was talking quite a bit even though he said he was tired, so that is very good news. He seems to be doing very well considering how much chemo they are shoving into his body, so we all thank you all for your prayers and hope that you are blessed by giving to Jay as much as he and our family have been blessed by your prayers and support! Thank you!

Oh I forgot to tell you all that I went to Albq. today and I went to a grocery store that I fell in love with!!! (I am my father's son I guess) The market was called Talin World Market. This place has every kind of world food that you can think of. I got the real Japanese Kewpie Mayo, and all the fixn's for sushi and Chicken/lamb Tikka Masala!!! Oh man I can wait to make my own food, and save a ton of money on my car insurance....uuuuhhhhh I meant save a ton of money on eating out. Ha Ha.

So now none of you have any excuse you now all have to come to my house and eat Indian or Japanese food, heh!

Ok, well all of you have a wonderful night and wonderful Sunday!!! God bless you all...and remember...prayers, prayers, prayers...please :)

Ok I will do this now...

After a short talk last night in bed with my wife, I have decided (by her wonderful almost Jedi-like persuasiveness) to write the blog in the morning or afternoon. It seems I have gotten hooked by the power of the blog and have not been spending quality time each night with Tiffany....(please understand I take full responsibility, and I do spend too much time on the computer anyway.) So, I will try to do my updates in the morning or afternoon much more often so I can spend wife time and not as much computer time in the evenings.....

(note to all husbands: You would do well to follow my lead here, you might end up helpless, because she does almost everything for you anyway, and sine people to live together start to look like each other, you would go back to being ugly....like this poor husband who did not listen to my advice)

Well, I was looking on the net as usual at home and I came across something interesting. If you have never shopped thinkgeek.com then you need to spend some time there especially if you have a geek family member that loves that stuff. There is even some stuff on there that I have to ask Jay or Thor about to catch the joke, so have some fun...and check out those light sabers (Darth's looks cool)! You can find stuff like this: (that is a led programable name badge!) and this and this and even THIS and of course you need this and this and this to go along with it.

Well, every now and then I have the urge to desire to spend money. And for some reason I (and you know you do this too, every now and then) decided that I need to revert back to a small child holding the Sears catalog and circling everything I want for Christmas and dog-earing the page for my parents to see exactly what I wanted. My mother says that I had the uncanny ability to desire the most popular toy/game/clothes in the US at the time period, and just knew that I should be on some council to help marketers decide what would and would not sell. ha ha. I wonder if I still do that (Tiffany?)

Well, I found that when I have these urges I open up my Amazon Wish List and start sifting through Amazon on what I would love to buy, and for some reason I feel like I am shopping and actually buying the products (but in reality I am just putting it in my wish list) It is funny, sometimes how I can fool myself into thinking that I am buying it, but not really buying it. Well, everytime I feel this compulsiveness to purchase, I think of

1 Corinthians 13

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; 5 it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; 10 but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. 13 So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Have I fully put away childish things? I know being a good Wesleyan, that this perfection of heart, mind, and spirit (i.e. right relation with God) I know the answer to the question is "no". Now there are some things that being child-like is a wonderful thing (i.e. Faith) but I know I am still continuing down this road of life learning each day how to walk closer and closer to God each and every step I take. And so, the lord has put Tiffany, Parents, Jay, Sheila, family, the church, friends, etc... in my life to help with this process to right relationship with God.

So, have you grown up? Are you even desiring to grow up? To be mature in Christ, in all things, in all places, in all relationships? I pray that you can listen to the leading whispers of God in your life to help you mature in Christ. Listen to them in the words of family, friends, non-Christians, movies, circumstances, holidays, pets, sickness, health, and even The Bible! Lets grow together in this thing called life, and grow closer to God each day so that we can bring each other mature in Christ!

Love you all, take care and god bless you all. Keep up the prayers for Jay and Sheila and know you are prayed for as well.

Well I am back home in the office.

Well, I finally got my email/internet/network up and working on my church computer and man, I had a lot of email. I think the grand total was 390 emails over the course of one week!!! Granted only 76 of them were actually email I cared about and the rest were Spam, I was still amazed! I can't wait for the church to start using the new email address for all the staff members, heh. Maybe then the Spam will not be as bad...well for a little time at least.

(and Thank you God for a free internet Spam filter!!!)

Jay Update:
Well, I talked to Jay today and he seemed tired, but he said he is feeling good. He said it was wonderful to be home, and that when he is home he tends to get out of bed and move around a lot more instead of just laying in a bed all day for 6-? days straight! Man, I can't even imagine, heh. Well, he said that his mucus was starting to dry up (side effect of the chemo), but it was not too bad and he was drinking lots of water to keep his mouth working properly. Jay also told me that he felt similar to the way he did when he was receive the CHOP Chemo a while back. It was difficult for him to explain, but something like have short bursts or energy every now and then, but feeling like he has strength, but to weak to use the strength. heh Well, it sounds wired enough to be impossible to describe, so lets just say he still needs your prayers, ha ha. (Good enough for me, and Jay and Sheila I am sure, heh)

Well, when I was traveling I read a LOT of magazines, and I found on Magazine named WIRED. and I found a awesome section filled with limit facts...so I thought I would share a few with you all:

Maximum time Earth has left: 5 Billion Years. Why? That is when the sun goes red Giant and expands beyond the Earth's orbit.

Shortest possible time: 5.4x10 to the -44th degree. Why? Any shorter and quantum mechanics can't tell whether events are simultaneous. (I wonder if this is the time God deals with, heh)

Maximum distance we can see: 15 billion light-years. Why? (it is longer than you thought huh?) The universe is about 15 billion years old - this is light's travel time.

Shortest possible distance: 6.4x10 to the -34th degree. Why? Planck length. Any shorter and quantum mechanics can't tell between here and there. (now that is short) (probably similar to the length of hair Jay has, and I once had, heh)

Ok well, there are several more so now you can all go show off how smart you are and make other think you are a genius with your random science genius, heh. I am glad I could help!

Well, yall have a great night tonight and God bless you all. Keep up the prayers and thank you all!

Oh yeah almost forgot...the Easter Egg (it is a sneaky one this post) is for you Halo2 fans out there. but just be sure that you DL (download) the latest Quicktime before you click on it. Man it is awesome, and I promise you, if your a Halo2 fan you will want to see it.

Here is a link to the latest Quicktime 6.5

Yall take care and God bless you... OK I will throw in one my hero's website right here. Have a great night...or for most of you a good day, heh.

Airplanes, Sheila letter for Jay update, and love

I wrote these words while on the airplane traveling from Jay and Sheila's to Santa Fe and thought you might like to read them:

Today I saw the clouds from above them. It reminded me of when I was a little boy and rode airplanes for the 1st Time. I just wanted (& still do BTW) to go walk around on them.

I thank that airplanes are one of "those places" for me. We all have "those places" don't we? A place or circumstance that we just are compelled to strike up a conversation w/ God. I realize that airplane window seats might be a place for some of you that you feel compelled to talk w/ God w/o the peacefulness I am describing, (ha ha more like, "LORD HELP CALM MY NERVES" but where are "those places" for you?

A few of those places for me are fly fishing in the cool mountains, Airplane window seats, holding my wife at night and the morning in bed, outside the front doors of dances, watching humming birds, sitting in mall benches, reading the Bible and other Theological books, and lastly (as if you might not guess it...this blog, heh heh)

So think about "those places" for you and then make some time to get to those places, and do some talking, Lord knows you always need to spend more time there with your creator, redeemer, and sustainer. I will pray that you can carve out time more and more as you live your life for Christ each day!

Jay Update:

Well, today Sheila sent out an update via email and I thought I would let Sheila do some blog posting tonight (BTW: Sheila I never got this email I had to have my Dad forward it to me...you mean mean woman, ha ha)

"Jay was released today at 5:30pm Eastern Time. He has a day free from Doctors tomorrow and then he is back to Rituxin on Thursday (West Penn Hospital Short Stay). They have to do blood draws everyday (hopefully, we can get a home nurse to do this) and Rituxin every other day. He has a lumber puncture (spinal tap) where they insert with 2 different chemo drugs once a week and every 21 days he will have to be hospitalized for 5 days for his chemo cycles. His counts aren't bad yet but will get bad next week. The Doctors said this chemo regimen he is on now is one of the strongest regimens. They had to take a more aggressive apporach since the CHOP regimen failed. It's a 12 day chemo/immunotherapy cycle followed by 9 days of recovery and includes more than 12 different chemo drugs. This is done for 6 cycles. They gave him Methotrexate for 24 hours straight (most chemos are infused over an hour or two) while he was in the hospital and then had to give him a drug to remove it from his system over the course of three days along.

The next several months are going to be tough but considering everything he has already gone through and what he is facing, he is doing great.

Feel free to call him at home 724-853-0204

Thanks,
Sheila"

Want to know where Sheila works? Here is Direct Advantage Marketing

Oh, and I thought that I would let you see what Jay did for their christmas card/website last year for Christmas, and that is Hollums.com

Well, my father and I also got Jay some gifts for surviving the 1st round of chemo and Jay you should be getting those in the mail soon (I order them tonight) so we all hope you (and probably Sheila, heh) enjoy them. We are all still praying for you and love you so much.

Well, as always I want you all (those who are reading this blog) to know that I love you! I can not express my thanks and gratitude for the ways you support me, Tiffany, my parents, and especially Jay and Sheila! your prayers are amazing, and we are all giving God the credit for Jay's wonderful outlook on the whole thing, and the good ways he has reacted to the chemo...they were telling us that it was supposed to be a lot worse this it has been, so keep praying that it continues to be handeled so well by Jay and his body...and that the cancer gets it's butt kicked! Thanks again and I do love you all!

Happy 5th!

Well, it seems like since the 4th was on a Sunday that everyone else just decided to take Monday off today too! The church office was closed today, but as usual I did not realize that and I put several meeting on my calendar, heh. Oh well, they were lots of fun and very good.

I am also meeting some people tomorrow morning, so this update will be short and simple.


GO SEE Spider-Man 2. WOW, there are so many sermons in that movie, heh. Plus it is a good movie. There were even some scenes in the movie that reminded me of old B Movies, lots of screaming, and camera angles that reminded me of them...just done very well this time around.

Well, That is it for today...OH I also bought a rice cooker today so not I can make my own Sushi and Indian food now, heh. So...your all welcome to stay is good old...(sometimes wired) Santa Fe and we can take good care of you all! Love you all tank you!

Jay Update:

Well, we talked to Jay this morning before my mother and father left (BTW: I love yall! Yall are the coolest parents on the planet..that you put up with your computer geek sons, thank you for learning it all to keep in touch with us both.) This morning Jay sounded VERY good, and my parents told me that they talked to him tonight, and even though he felt a little sick, they might let him go home from this round of chemo and let him rest up for the Rituxan IV's. I know he is probably VERY ready to go home!

Oh...while I was there in PA Sheila told Jay and me that she had worked up a deal with her mother. Sheila's wonderful momma (you are unbelievably sweet..you, your husband, your son, of course your daughter....."and your little dog too") is going to soon be taking care of Jay (if he needs it) 2 days a week so Sheila can go to work two days a week and then work the rest of the time @ home.

So....all that to say, please be praying for Sheila's mother, ha ha ha. (I know you know Jay that she needs it if she is going to take care of you, ha ha ha)

Well, I love you all (Jay and Sheila included) and please keep the prayers-a-flowing! God bless ya all, and take care!

Oh yeah...just for you people that are like my mother (who is still learning all this internet/blog/email stuff) If you see a word in blue you can click on it and get more information about it. Also, there are Easter eggs all over the site (in the blog posts) that are clickable too, and will send you to random sites for you to enjoy and waste your time on, heh. So have fun clicking on those links to leartn more and see if you can find the Easter Eggs scattered around here to have some fun. (I try to make this blog fun, informative, and a little bit of me, so I hope you all can get something from it all) God bless yall!

Happy 4th!

Well, I was blessed to have my parents along with Tiffany to pick me up at the airport Saturday night, and after a quick run to Burger King we headed home to Santa Fe! It was very nice to get back home and I called Jay and Tiffany at every airport I was at, heh. It is so wired how some airlines make you go all over the place to eventually get where you wanted to go. I went from Pittsburgh to Detroit, to Cincinnati, to Albuquerque! That is wired, but I got home with my bags, heh.

Well, today was tiring for all of us since we got home and went to bed around 2:00 am Saturday night, but we all ate breakfast and got to church on time. Tiffany sang a song in church (and literally sight read the whole song (playing the piano and singing at the same time) for a solo! She cracks me up, but amazes me, and I really wish I could have been at her church to hear her, but I have my responsibilities @ St. John's too.

It cracked me up today! We took communion today @ church and it was by intinction (big word, and not sure if I spelled it correctly, heh) That is just a big word for receive a piece of bread (the body of Christ) and dipping it into the cup of juice (the blood of Christ) Well, I Always give the piece of bread to the church members and then they take the piece of bread to the cup when receive communion..... Well, I had several church members take the piece of bread then rub my bald head and then dip the bread into the juice and eat it.... For a second there I thought the saw me as something similar to the Blarney Stone except rubbing my instead of kissing it...or maybe it is more like the Buddha figures that you rub his stomach for good luck except in my case it is my head, but what ever it is it cracked me up that all these people wanted to rub my head! I even had the sweet old ladies of the church walking up to me and rubbing my head, ha ha. It is good to know that they felt comfortable enough with me to desire to do it, and I was honored...

(Now I know what you go through all the time Jay, heh)

Well, after the service we came back home and let the dog out, then ate @ Sonic and drove to go show my parent's Tiffany's church in White Rock. They enjoyed the views that come with that drive and then we helped Tiffany's youth group sell some food for a mission trip fund raiser! Their church is about one block away from the best look-out point I have seen around these parts and so the Los Alamos Country has a Fireworks show every year right off the lookout point. After they finished selling and raising money we all got in the cars and went back to Santa Fe to grill some BRATS and hot dogs. Oh man, it was not until Tiffany and I moved to KY that we had brats, and I will never eat another hot dog if I have a choice between the two ever again, man I love brats!!! If you have not ever tried one, dang go get one now! Grill it and eat the tasty treat! Or even better.... boil the brats in the cheapest beer you can find, then grill them on your fancy grill, and while they are grilling saute some onions with a little garlic salt to taste and then pour just a little of that bear on the onions and then go find some Hebrew National Sauerkraut, and maybe a little mustard, and mmm mmm good eaten!!!

My Dad and I also went to Whole Foods Market Place to try to find some Hebrew National Sauerkraut, but no luck because it was "probably not organic enough" (the stock boy told me) so we bought Bubbies Kraut instead, and dang if that was not some very good kraut! The reason I love Hebrew National is that is the only kind you will find @ the Chicago Cubs Stadium Brats! So, it brings back memories as well as good flavor! I am also trying to find some real Japanese Mayo for me to make my own Sushi, heh...but no luck there either...but if you like food stores or just want the best of the best that a grocery store can offer, then Whole Foods is the place for you...but you might want to save up some money before you go, heh.

Jay Update:

I called Jay several time (due to my cell phone cutting out a bunch) But this morning he was still feeling sick to his stomach. We just all thought this was going to be the bad part of the chemo because it is getting to be about that time for the blood count levels to start dropping and such, w=so we went to church after talking to him this morning thinking that the bad stuff was about to hit....then I called him this afternoon while we were in a grocery store (my Dads favorite places in the world are grocery stores, heh) and Sheila answered the phone. I asked how Jay was doing and she said, "Really well! He is being very much like a pest and giving me a very hard time". I never knew one sentence could make my so happy, heh. I then proceeded to talk to him and he was feeling very good! So please keep the prayers-a-coming! It was so good to hear him laughing and joking with me on the phone! Thank you, thank you, thank you, for your prayers! They are each and everyone meaning so much and showing God's effectiveness!

Well, we did not get to call him again tonight, but hearing him sounded so good to me, and I still miss him VERY much!

Oh BTW....some of you have seen this picture, but others of you have not, so I just thought I would blog it. This picture is the view I see every Sunday in church! It is not a bad view, but "someone" seems to constantly get in the way, when I am trying to hear the sermon. So here you go for my attempt to make a joke of the associate pastors Sunday morning view!



Thank you for Namiqa's humoring her Associate Pastor, heh.

Well, yall have a good night, and hopefully I will get around to telling you about my airplane ride. Oh for those of you who are interested here is the chemo course load that Jay is taking/has taken/will take:

Jay's Chemo:

VERY Approximate Dates (Assuming there is no course III or V...Jay and Sheila seem to think there is a course III and V, so I have no idea if those are the same or different.):
Course II: July 1-5
Course IV: July 22-27
Course VI: Aug 11-16

Course II, IV, VI (Approx 21 Day's Each)

Days 1,2,3,4,& 5:
Ifosfamide
Mesna
Vincristine
Methotrexate (this is the large dose one....given at a high rate via IV over the course of 24 hours!
Dexamethasone

Central Nervous System & LP (lumbar Puncture) (yes this LP is on top of the Chemo and roids given via IV):

Vincristine
Methotrexate (again), cytarabine, hydrocortisone

Day 2 only:
Leucovorin

Day 4 & 5:
cytarabine, Etoposide


Day 7 until ANC > 5000 microliters
Filgrastim

Day 8, 10, 12:
Rituxan

Course II:
Rituxan on Days 8, 10, & 12

Course IV, & VI:
Rituxan on Day 8 Only

Now As soon as I get more information on courses "III" and "V", I will put that up for you to read and find out more on too. As you can see above with the drug links, some of these things are Chemo, and others are Steriods (i.e. see hydrocortisone), and others are meant to stop the chemo so it only destroys the cancer and if left in any longer it would kill all the good guys too. So, they pump Jay full of Chemo (i.e. see Methrotrexate) and then some of the drugs stop it from just killing the entire body (i.e. see Leucovorin)

Ok, well it is now 12:30 am and I have to go to sleep. I am crazy doing this blog sometimes, but It is nice just for me to have all this medical research done so I can use this blog as reference too. Hope your day (today) is a good one, and God bless you all... please keep the prayers rolling off the mind and tongue...they are truly bringing God's presence into the lives of our family and Jay, and Sheila's family, and Tiffany's family, and..., and....and....

Love you all take care and God bless ya!