Heading to Reno, Nevada in the morning, be gone till next Saturday. Doing missions work for a church plant out there. It's not a "youth" trip but my students make up the majority of our group. Our pastor is the one who planned the whole thing so I'm really excited about taking a trip with my students but not being the main man in charge. And the kids we're taking are the best of the best so there will be no worries. I'm looking forward to just being a member of the trip. If the heat doesn't kill me then I'll talk to you on Sunday the 31st, unless by chance we've got internet in our casino/hotel, which is a good chance. If that's the case then I'll post up a play by play "live from the field." Micah has told me quite a bit to get out of the South and see what it's like so I'm excited about this opportunity.

Later.

Saw it on the news this morning - the first week of August is National Breasfeeding Week.

There it is, my new to me truck. I'll have to take the pic again on a bright day because that one doesn't show off it's paint enough. It's a 97 F-150 4x4 with auto tranny and 4.6 v8. I hated to sell my Jeep but as you can see it was a good trade off, and A/C sure has been nice these past few weeks! I saved some money and with what I made from my Jeep I was able to pay cash for it, and that my friends is the most exciting part of the whole deal.

I don't know why it's showing that I don't have any comments lately, makes me feel lonely. I haven't changed anything recently. Hope I don't have to go back to using the Blogger commenting.

Audra called most of the churches in our area for a project she was doing for work, this came to about 30 calls made. Of all of those calls, only 3 times did someone actually answer the phone during business hours at the church. A few didn't have answering machines but most did. You know the typical message you get on machines, they all say to leave name/number/message and I will return your call as soon as possible. In each message she left she asked for them to call her back. Of 22 messages left on machines, not a single pastor has called her back, and that was 3 weeks ago. Par for the course.

Day 2 of VBS is over, 3 more to go. I can't believe the snacks these kids are getting! When I was a kid we got a stale Oreo and a Dixie cup full of punch. These kids got pizza today, yesterday was real chocolate chip cookies and Blue Bell ice cream cones, and they even got to pick from vanilla or chocolate. After dragging myself in from doing recreation for all the kids I was so grateful that they gave me ice cream and a huge cup of whatever I wanted to drink(they get to choose from KoolAid or pretty much any soda ever made). The ladies who gave it to me were so thankful that I was so happy, they said the children were dissapointed that they didn't get chocolate syrup and sprinkles for their ice cream. Maybe my church was just cheap back in the day.

It's VBS this week, I'm the youth guy, so by default I get to do recreation. It's a rule isn't it?

IF YOU READ THIS, even if we DO SPEAK OR DON'T SPEAK OFTEN, comment with one memory of me and you. It can be anything you want. GOOD OR BAD. Just as long as it HAPPENED.
THEN, post this on your blog. See what other people remember about YOU.

This weeks bad church sign that RICK sent to me is sure to be one of my alltime favorites. I'm heading out of town this Saturday, going to Nevada on a mission trip. I've got a list of signs I've got to put up but I rushed this one to the top, it's worthy of being up for the next 2 weeks.

I've read that your sense of smell is attatched to memory more so than any other sense we have. I'm sure that explains why I don't mind the smell of skunk. As we were coming home last night we drove thru one of those dark purple clouds of skunk(if scents had colors, skunk would probably be dark purple).

Took me back to growing up in Georgia, one of the roads you had to take to get out to my house was often littered with dead skunk. The smell just stays and stays. You could always tell when it was fresh and how bad the animal had been hit. If the smell was new but not too strong then it wasn't a bad hit or perhaps the car just scared the critter, but if it burnt your nose hairs and brought tears to your eyes - direct hit. I knew of people who had to buy a new car because they couldn't get rid of the smell.

As Audra was gagging I confessed to her that sometimes I liked the smell of skunk, that it brought back good memories, but it didn't seem to help.

We took a small trip this weekend, first to Dothan and then on to Crestview. I always use cruise control when I drive. I can't stand it when you're going down the interstate and some vehicle is constantly speeding up and slowing down, even if it's just 1 or 2 MPH differences. Sometimes you're passing them, then they pass you, then they ride beside you not letting anyone around, then they do it all again. I know some vehicles don't have cruise, but a new Jag? Grrrrr.

Jolenn Michae

Jolenn is from Audra's dad's name. Jo coming from Joseph, lenn coming from Leonard. Most will think that Audra came up with this name and pushed it on me but it was actually the other way around.

Michae is obviously from my name. The ch is pronounced like a k, the ae pronounced like ay(mi-kay). I suggested other spellings so that people will get it right but Audra wanted to keep it looking like mine. Maybe we can stick one of those cool looking slash marks on top of the a or something. Most will think I came up with this name and pushed it on Audra but it was actually the other way around.

So she now has a name, which is very helpful now when I talk to her since I've pretty much worn "sugar bear" and "sweetie girl" out.

On my sitemeter I can usually see how people entered my blog. A surprising number of them are doing a Google search for 3 pictures I posted once upon a time. I wish that when Google picked up on a search it would take you to that particular post because I feel bad for the people who spend lots of time searching for these pics and probably never find them. So here they are again, just for you, whoever you are.

Did you know you can get free credit reports now? Something like 3 a year I think, I don't remember it all. Charlie wrote about it on his blog one time, maybe he'll chime in. Since we're working on our financing for this house we had a snag that had to be worked out. There was a mistake on our credit report that was dragging us down. We called the people who made the mistake and they got very hostile very quickly. They knew they messed up but kept saying "What do you want me to do about it?" Duh, fix it. We had to bulldog them and threaten to turn them in to The Department of Consumer Affairs - that got them settled down in a hurry. Our loan officer called this afternoon to let us know that she checked it again and it was clean, no trace of the discrepancy, we have fantastic credit, and no bank would ever turn us down. Sooooo, we get to go tomorrow and turn in our deposit along with our letter of pre-approval...and start picking out colors.

Strike a pose like Kip and let's all together say YESSSSSSSSS!

MIAMI (Reuters) - "Mother Nature tidied up a man-made mess off the coast of the Florida Keys when the force of Hurricane Dennis flipped a sunken U.S. Navy ship into the perfect position to help form an artificial reef."

A Navy ship was sunk off the coast of Key Largo to form an artificial reef but it flipped upside down during the process. The 20 foot waves that Dennis made got the currents kicking and flipped it upright as it should have been. Read the full story HERE.

I've been considering the possibility of starting some kind of business on the side, just to make a very small amount of money. Extra money, play money, investment money, nothing that I depend on to eat kind of money. Big money would be great, but that takes big time/money investment and I don't want to get involved in that, I just want some stuffing.

There are pretty much 2 routes I can take, manual labor or some sort of internet based business. I've considered taking my day off on Friday and working with a friend who does AC/Heating, but I really enjoy having that day with JonMichael since Audra works on Fridays, and we don't want to send him to a babysitter 2 days a week. I've thought a lot about getting a small clientele and detailing a few cars a week. It wouldn't take much time to do one car in the evenings a few days per week and I enjoy doing that.

It's the internet stuff that intrigues me, baffles me, scares me, then intrugues me again. If I could have something going on that I worked on for an hour or so each morning before the rest of the family got up that would make a measly $100 a week, that might interest me.

Do a Google for home based business however, and you will be hit with a barrage of mulit-level-marketing and get rich quick schemes. There must be something legit out there, but I'm afraid the internet ins't the best place to learn about it since many of these people try to make money by advertising some MLM online. "Buy my e-book and I'll show you how to make loads of cash by being an independant distributor of companyX." They bash another scheme but say "But there is one and only one company I've found that is trustworthy..." Usually they want you to sell health care products, household items, or worthless trinkets and assorted junk. Eh, no thanks.

Thankfully I'm not hungry, these are just thoughts floating around.

Actually I am hungry, and I'm going to lunch.

I usually strip down to my white undershirt when I get home in the afternoons. Last night we went for our walk, I mowed the yard, then I had to work on my truck(which I guess I still have to post pictures of sometime). I had to remove the driveshaft to install new u-joints. I get the thing off and start trying to press the old joints out, with no luck. I then try to beat them out with a big hammer and a socket, with no luck. In frustration I put the whole thing back in the truck and notice that I have ruined yet another perfectly good undershirt. It is no good for me.

So Micah and I have a hard time spelling the word "defenetiley" without checking it on dictionary.com, big deal, I know we're not the only ones. Hopefully we will never have such a public display of our ineptitude - unlike the church I saw in Callaway a couple weeks ago. --->

It was Audra's first hurricane so she was worried before it got here but she did really well thru it. It got pretty windy and rainy but mostly in the morning, the rest of the day was just windy. I had boarded up the windows so we just sat there watching Andy Griffith and Finding Nemo on DVD. We lost power for the afternoon so while they took their nap I took a book out on the back porch to read until the rain started blowing again and I had to go in. Then a friend down the street called and said they never did lost electricity so we went down there so Audra could sit inside and I could play water-volleyball with the guys. That was pretty fun. Even though by that time it wasn't too bad we would still get heavy winds and rain at times, made it hard to see. Everything was great until I realized I had lost my wedding ring.

When I was a kid I used to play with walking sticks like it was no big deal...until someone told me they could spit in your eyes and make you go blind! Whether this is true or not, I still don't know, but you can bet I squinted my eyes as soon as I jumped in my truck a few minutes ago and one was walking on my steering wheel. I think it was taking aim but I was able to get to the side and flick it out of the open door just before I was rendered forever sightless. Woow, thatt wsa a csolwe noe@@@

I remember when America was attacked and I saw pics around the world where people put flowers up against the fence of the American Embassy to honor us and those killed/injured. I have no flowers and no fence, but my heart goes out to England and those who have been hurt in the London bombings.

Audra and I were leaving from the fireworks Monday night when we got hung up on an unseen hazard that mangled my tailpipe and muffler. I had to cut the pipe off but I left the muffler on for the time being, thinking I would get a new exhaust system put on next week. After getting quotes ranging from $200-300 to get the sound I wanted, I thought I'd try to go on the cheap and cut my muffler off just to see how it sounded, since I was going to have the work done next week anyway and could fix it if I didn't like it. For those who aren't into engines, this is called a straight pipe and sometimes it sounds great, other times it is pretty bad. So far, I'm loving how it sounds on my truck. When I started the engine last night, Audra came outside to see who had pulled up, not knowing it was my truck making that deep growling sound. So now I'll just run a pipe from where the muffler was and let it exit in front of the right rear tire like it was. If I don't like it later I can always add a muffler inline.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonaid!

New York would have been nice but man am I glad it wasn't Paris. THE ARTICLE I read said, "London's victory handed Paris its third stinging Olympic defeat in 20 years, following failed bids for the 1992 and 2008 Olympics."

Lance Armstrong has the lead in The Tour right now. Lance and I have a love/hate relationship. I want him to win because it's, well, just because, but I don't really like Lance much as a person. I really wanted to see something from Tyler Hamilton this year, but haven't seen any headlines yet. Guess I'll have to search some and see what he's up to.

Does anyone out there have dial-up? Does my page take too long to load up? I'm thinking of slimming down by taking out some of these image links, but I want to know if it's an issue.

me and america

We had a pretty good birthday this year. Our family(Audra's parents and brother, my parents and sister) came this weekend for a Michael's birthday/Fourth of July get-together. Her parents brought their boat and we got to do some good skiing. It was so great to see my dad out there again, it's been years since they've skied. I was wondering if he would be rusty at all, but when he started backwards on his trick skis for his first pull of the day, I knew he hadn't lost his touch. By the end of the day he was talking about going home and restoring their ski boat for next summer. I was hoping this would get him interested in it again, and it appears to have done just that.

My brother wanted to come but couldn't get leave, but this is a good time to brag about him and let everyone know that he got promoted to captain on my birthday, that was a pretty good present.

We went downtown last night for the fireworks and stuff. I got a funnelcake, Audra got fresh squeezed lemonaid. We watched old couples dancing as The Drifters sang their hits such as My Girl and Under The Boardwalk. Someone gave me their deep fried Oreos, the fireworks were nice, and for the moment things were grand.

Then I had an incident take place that changed the tone of things, but thankfully didn't ruin it. Let it suffice to say I'll be getting FlowMasters much sooner than anticipated, the crossmember did it's job, and the slogan "Built Ford Tough" isn't just a slogan...thank God.