My brother is an officer in the Army and was able to take some leave in order to come to Florida to visit with all of us. He was supposed to head this way on Monday, but last week some friends offered to let him have a spot on their trip to some convention. The location? New Orleans.

He thought sure, a few days in New Orleans would be a great way to start my vacation. They got there on Thursday and started to realize the situation they were in with the storm around Saturday. They called to bump their flight from Monday to Sunday afternoon. Upon waking up Sunday morning they found out that all flights after noon were cancelled, so he spent the day running thru N.O. on foot to different rental car agencies, all to no avail. Busses, rentals, everything was taken. They knew they would be stuck in N.O.

So then the question comes up, where do we ride this thing out at? They were staying in the nice new Hilton. All his buddies wanted to go to the Superdome with everyone else but Matthew insisted that he would not. His hotel was right on the Mississippi River, which is right at sea level. He knew that the Dome was in the middle of town, some 20 feet below, and they would have a better chance of getting out after it was over if they weren't flooded as badly. He persuaded them to stay.

Their room was on the 4th floor so they asked to be moved higher up. Ask and you shall recieve I guess, they put him on the 24th floor, and that's where they rode it out at. He said the building was swaying so badly that if you laid down you got sea sick, if you sat in a chair you fell out, if you sat on the floor you rolled, so he spent the storm standing with his back to a wall. That took most of the day on Monday.

He knew that just because things weren't flooded right away didn't mean anything, the flooding would most likely come later. So how would they ever get out? There was a family who evacuated to that hotel because they knew their house would be destroyed, and they just happened to have room in their vehicle for 4 Army guys and their bags. They rode to Baton Rouge together where the guys were able to find a rental.

Oh wait, we're not done yet. They hit the road on I-20 and about halfway thru Mississippi they start needing gas. Crazy thing is, that hurricane didn't stop at the coast, it plowed right on thru the state and knocked power out everywhere. Just as they were nearing empty they were finally able to find a big city at the Miss/Alabama line that had gas. They waited in the long line, got filled up at 6:55PM, and hit the road just before the 7:00 curfew. The people behind them were kicked off the pumps by police.

I just talked to him a few minutes ago, none of us even knew he was in New Orleans. He is just chalking this one up as another crazy adventure that he's been able to experience. No surprise at all.

I ordered my pictures last Thursday and got them in the mail today. They are fantastic quality, and again, that was 30 pics mailed to my door for $6.

Whoever thought of THIS, well, thank you. This is going into my links.

Thanks also to Ash over at DYL for posting this.

I told you I would keep you updated on my new fav. Division II team, and with good reason.

NO BANANAS IN GORILLA-LAND AS STATESMEN UPEND PITT STATE, 44-31

"PITTSBURG, Kan. – The No. 15 ranked Delta State University Statesmen (1-0, 0-0) shocked the No. 2 ranked and heavily favored Pittsburg State University Gorillas (0-1, 0-0), 44-31"

Go read.

We had our first yardsale this Saturday and it was quite an interesting experience. I love watching people and it didn't take too long to figure out the different categories of yardsale people.

the professionals - Our signs said we started at 8AM, and these people were there at 7:30. They probably had maps in their cars and were running the circle of sales. Better get there early or all the good stuff will be gone!

the addicts - I didn't expect this one, but there are people who are actually addicted to yardsales. One lady had a handful of pocket change and was trying to talk Audra down from the $1 price listed for a pair of really nice shoes. She said, "This is all I have left. I tried to sleep in this morning so I wouldn't go to the sales but I just couldn't sleep, I had to get up. I'm addicted." She wasn't trying to put on a show, she was for real.

the browsers - They don't need anything at all, they're just checking it out. Usually a retired couple spending their Saturday morning together. One old man had a D.A.R.E. ballcap in one hand and a quarter in another and said "Well, this was about all I could find today."

the flea marketers - Many people were looking for stuff that they could turn around and sell again. Usually they wanted tools...like I would part from any of my tools...

the thrifty nickels - Maybe you have the Thrifty Nickel Classifieds in your area? Well thrifty nickel just seemed to be an appropriate and catchy title for these people. There are 2 subcategories of thrifty nickels, there are those who are because they have to be and those who are because they want to be. Those that have to be are out there because they can't afford much. Many of them drove Kias. Those that want to be have money and many of them drove pretty nice trucks and suvs, but the reason they drive such is because they are a thrifty nickel. I applaud both of these for getting the most for their money.

Once again, we're in the projected path. Wouldn't you know it that I've been stokked all week about spending the day in Graceville on Monday. I knew a Katrina in high school, she was a skank.

I love my digital camera and now it's simple to get the prints I want without leaving my comfy chair. Go to Walmart.com, then go to their photo center and get started. I just uploaded my pics, edited a few, submitted my order and it's done. Cost? I just ordered 30 4x6 prints and they will be sent to me for $6. That includes shipping.

Wow, I just deleted over 200 messages from my "inbox" and around 150 from my "sent messages" box. Ok, for real this time, I'm not going to let it get piled up like that again...

Different region of the world this time. The Lance Armstrong thing, can't anyone be a champ anymore? The thing I don't get is, how are you going to ban something if you don't have a test to detect it? He gave the sample, didn't trip any tests, he rode on. I say they test everyone else's 6 year old pee to see who else was using. Who keeps pee for 6 years anyway?

People, they knew back then that he was using a product that contained an illegal substance, why bring it up now as if for the first time? Here's a clip from an article I found concerning the '99 Tour.

"This year, Armstrong was subjected to innuendo, particularly in the French media, implying he couldn't have accomplished his feat without the help of drugs.

Some noticed the sniping headlines came as France was being shut out of stage wins for the first time since 1926. In any case, the International Cycling Union finally announced that Armstrong had used a cream for saddle sores that contained a banned drug, but that he had a proper prescription."

I've been reading a little about the Israeli evacuations and my question is, why fight with the remaining settlers who want to stay? Why not leave them and let the Palestineans handle them when they move in?

I always wanted an ant farm as a kid and now I finally have one, although I must confess it's not exactly what I had hoped for. This morning when I came into my office I discovered ants all over my desk, rummaging thru my papers and dancing in the keys of my lappy. Have you ever seen an ant dance? Me either, but it's pretty interesting. Cool as this may be that I now have an ant farm, they really are quite the nuisance without the plastic tank to hold them in. I have no food or water in here so I don't know why they're here, but I'm sure Jim will be breezing in here any minute now and I know he's got a chemical fix to my problem.

We were very tired last night, to the point that Audra was ready for bed at 7:30, yet we ended up staying awake till 1:30 in the AM. Why? About a month ago we watched Gone With The Wind together. I've always loved this movie but have never seen the sequel, Scarlette. We ordered it and it finally came in this week. Tired as we were we decided to watch about 30 minutes and then go to bed. At first I didn't like it. Different actors, different feel, just too different. The only person who is the same is Mammy, and she only appears 2 times while she's dying. Finally it started growing on me and the next thing I know we've been sitting there for 4 hours, just glued to the story! We made ourselves turn it off and go to bed, looks like it'll be another late night. If you're into Gone With The Wind but haven't seen Scarlette, I very much recommend it. Just be warned, there is a huge difference between 1939 and 1994.

I've used Google's satellite maps before, but I just downloaded their free version of Google Earth, it's amazing! I highly recommend you get it.

We finally went scalloping this weekend and it was one of coolest things I've ever done. I wasn't sure it sounded extremely fun, but it was a blast. It takes no skill, basically you just snorkel around thru the grass looking for these things and you grab them when you find them. It was so exciting, like a treasure hunt or something. Seeing all the fish was cool, some of them looked ugly and like they would bite your fingers off so you had to be careful. I almost grabbed a crab a couple of times. If you ever get the chance or you ever come visit me, we'll have to get out there. Even Audra is addicted.

I started interning in a church when I was 18 and worked there till after Audra and I got married. The pastor and I were super close, he's a great guy. He pastors a church outside of Atlanta now that has services for english speakers as well as Hispanics, Hatians, and Philipinos. The Marietta Daily Jounal wrote a pretty cool article about this diverse church, check it out HERE.

JonMichael learned how to turn the locks on door knobs a few months back and has ended up locking himself in his room 3 times. We have old door knobs that don't have an access hole in them so it's not a simple matter of inserting a pen or small screwdriver to unlock them. The first time I climbed thru his window and the second time was during the hurricane when all the lights were out and I had the windows boarded up. Thankfully the screws were on my side of the door so I was able to take the door knob off to get him out and decided to outsmart him and put the lock on the outside of the door. Brilliant, simply brilliant, until yesterday when Audra called me from home. He had locked the door and pushed it shut with them in it, but thankfully she had her cell phone and was able to call me to rescue them. I thought I could beat him at this one but it now appears he can still get me. Guess it's time to buy those safety things that you can put over the door handles!

I'm feeling the need for a motorcycle or a small and fast car, maybe both. It's pretty bad right now.

I've been using a different ski for the past few months that puts my back foot further back, thus allowing me cut harder. I really like the feel of the ski but it wears my back leg out badly. We went skiing this weekend and I really hit it hard on my last run of the day. My leg was killing me but I just dug in harder and kept going.

Because of that my leg has been hurting all week and I'm walking with a limp. That left leg limp has aggrevated a right heel injury that I've been trying to get over, which has in turn given me a sore groin muscle.

I know I should slow down and get better, but the in-laws are bringing their boat over tomorrow so I know I'll be back at it on Friday. Maybe I should do some yoga stretches or go herbal and try green tea, at this point I'd even try fish tacos.

I've been driving my truck for a couple of months now, here are my observations.

Air conditioning is of God. I never want to be without it again.

It is always thirsty and drinks lots of gas. Most of my driving is here in town and the stop and go kills it, but one good thing about short trips is that even though I'm only getting 11-13 mpg a tank will still last a couple of weeks.

I did however just get 17 mpg on a trip back from Crestview, which is pretty good. On the way there I got 15. How did I gain 2 miles per on the way back? Simple, I usually set the cruise at about 5 over the limit but on the way back I set it right at the limit. It appears that the speed limit is our friend. If I were only on the highway rather than the interstate, I would expect to get closer to 19 mpg, which is really good for a full size 4x4.

I didn't realize just how much I missed having a truck to haul stuff in. I didn't enjoy cramming a cooler and other assorted junk in the back of the Jeep.

I haven't done much playing yet. I've put it in 4wd only 2 times and both of those could have been avoided. So do I need 4wd? Not now, but I actually plan to own this vehicle for a while and it will come into good use, especially when hunting.

After running my straight pipe for a month I still like it. Everyone who has talked to me thinks I spent big bucks on a Flowmaster system because it sounds so nice and deep. Someday I may want to run duals which will tone it down just a bit, but still with no muffler.

I still smile when I think about how I saved my money and paid cash for this truck.

My students know how I make fun of bad church signs and some of them have caught the addiction of grading each one they see. They are even telling me about the bad ones they see now, it's great! Charla text messaged me last week with 2, here is one of them.

Just look at this thing! Before you even read this post you know this is about something great!

One of my students, Kenny, is playing football at Delta State University. Their official mascot is the Statesmen, but their nickname is The Fighting Okra! I'm loving this one, seems it started back in 1988. The baseball players were a loud crowd at the basketball games and they wanted something a bit more aggresive to cheer for. Their uniforms are usually green so they searched for "something green, Southern, and ugly." The Fighting Okra was suggested and the rest is history.

I might have to keep this pic in my sidebar somewhere and don't worry, I'll keep everyone posted as to how the football team, ranked #2 in the polls for their division, fares this season.

Thought I should start this off by saying I'm sitting here eating a bag of giant marshmallows, aren't ya jealous? I always thought it was spelled marshmellow, but it's spelled with an a on the bag. Anyway...

It all started at camp this year. One of my roommates was Kenny. Kenny just graduated and is one of my closest friends. He's off at Delta State University in Mississippi right now where he got a football scholarship. I forgot to bring my hair gel to camp and Kenny let me use his. Little did I know that I was about to use the best hair gel in the world, Scruples. It's actually called "sculpting glaze" and it has protective barrier complex, which I'm sure is vital to the health of my follicles. When we went to Nevada I begged him to bring it again, which he did, and I enjoyed another week of bliss.

Last night his mother talked to me for awhile, wanted to see how I thougt her baby was doing since she knew that he called me 2-3 times each day. Today, in appreciation for thus and such, she brought me a nice bag from the Merle Norman store(and now you know why I didn't just go buy it for myself) with a bottle of Scruples in it.

So here it sits, on my desk, right beside me. I haven't even opened it yet and I can smell it. I may have to wash my hair at lunch.

Ok, too many marshmallows.

Our custodian is a strange bird. He used to work during the day, then started coming in at midnight because he didn't like to be around one of our secretaries, but now that she's gone he's back during daylight hours. He likes to come to my office each morning and talk about the carpet. Yep, that's right, the carpet. Every morning.

He reminds me of the guy who "cleaned" our church in Georgia. His name was Vernon, he was old, and he had no teeth. There was a classroom in the basement that had a closet in it and if you went to the back of the closet(and were small) you could go behind the wall thru a crawl space. That space led to the room where the ice machine was kept. True, that room had a door that everyone else used, but where's the fun in that? Anyway, once you're in the room with the ice machine you could climb on the old chairs and Easter musical props to get to a rather large hole in the wall, climb thru that hole, and you could look down on Vernon while he took his naps. The best part was tossing ice cubes at him one at a time to wake him up. Great adventures for a kid growing up.

Vernon retired and another guy named Vernon took the job and for some reason we no longer had dust on our shoes I didn't sneeze in church anymore. Interesting.

I'm not the "fun-and-games" type of youth minister. Mine wasn't when I was growing up, perhaps it rubbed off on me and I'm glad. Most guys out there go way overboard trying to come up with the greatest games to play every week, it's ridiculous. I love to have a good time just like anyone else, but basing a student ministry on fun is a fool's work. Last year on the first Wednesday night that I let the new 7th graders move up, one hyperactive boy could barely contain his excitement..."I want to play games! What games are we going to play tonight?" I leaned in close, shook my head slowly and said, "I don't do games." It took him the whole hour to figure out I wasn't joking. It doesn't surprise me that churches lose so many students when they graduate because it's hard to build a strong foundation on a wet sponge and shaving cream.

But there is one time each year when I do go for all out fun, and it's tonight. It gets it out of all of our systems and is a good thing. Kids talked for 6 months about how great it was last year, and for the past 6 months they've been asking when we were going to do it again. Tonight's the night - 20 gallons of noodles, 20 gallons of jello, a whole kiddie pool of oatmeal(last year it was grits), marshmellows, sugar, flour, and of course there's our 40 yard slip-n-slide. There's lots of other things too, but that's the big stuff. We call it Water Night, but that's hardly appropriate since the only thing water is used for is to wash off.

I'm a pretty regular guy and when nature calls, I answer. Some people are funny and can only do the deed in the comfort and security of their own home. Well I'm no cat, I don't need special conditions to do my business, I can poop pretty much anywhere. But sometimes when the conditions are right, I can understand why it is sometimes called the restroom.

Remember me telling you that we took a dinner cruise on Lake Tahoe? Yep, dropped a bomb in the bathroom on the boat. That was pretty exciting, I had a window right there at sitting level, but unfortunately it wouldn't open(that would have been a special moment).

I go quite often here at church, after all, I am here all morning. When we say "I'm going down the hall", that's code for going potty. Our custodian is no prize, but the man does clean toilets with a vengence. I love it when I go in to find that the lid is down and the water is blue. That means it's just been cleaned, which in turn means you don't have to worry about little boys and old men with poor aim.

My office is upstairs while everyone else is downstairs. As such, I feel privledged to have my own personal private throne room. Unless it's Sunday or VBS week, I can be relatively sure that I am the only person using my pot. But as a preventive measure, I always leave the seat up, just in case some stray kid or old guy finds his way into my bathroom during the week.

Sometimes you've just gotta find joy in the simple things.

He asked me to ask you, so go check out Jared's site if you've got some time to kill. We met way back in 5th grade when he moved to our school and impressed us with how he talked like John Wayne. He, Charlie, and I were all pretty good friends in highschool. Jared thought he would go one up on us and instead of writing on a blog, he made a whole little website. Check out his gadget page, it's got stuff about his car that Charlie talked him into buying. Then you've got to go to a forum if you want to comment on anything. He rarely updates or responds to other comments which have turned into conversations behind his back, so leave a comment saying "Hey you, update!" Perhaps this will help him post up more often. Jared's site takes dedication to interact with, but if you're committed....well, this sentence isn't really going anywhere so I'll just stop. Congrats Jared, you got yourself a link on the Drivetrain.

All of our new graduates who are leaving for college will be gone by this weekend. Kenny is playing football at Delta State University in Mississippi and left the Monday after we got back from our trip. Haley already left to go to Tallahassee at the beginning of summer. Gavin left for BCF yesterday afternoon and Laura Leigh, Charla, and Brian will be right behind him. Zach and Justin head to Chipola this week and Phil got a full ride to play baseball at Alabama Southern so he leaves Saturday. This is hard, but it's all part of it I suppose.

I took this huge trip and did lots of things, surely I took something home with me, right? Aside from some fridge magnets, I took home a valuable lesson, but not a new one. It was more of a stern reminder to me that I must be sharp, very sharp in what I believe.

Thankfully this is something God was already pressing on me for the past several months so I had been studying thru some books. "Who Made God?", co-edited by Ravi Zacharias and Norman Geisler, "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis, The Bible-primarily the New Testament, and then some resources about Mormons. Nice how God prepares you for things in advance sometimes. I knew I wasn't going to convert an athiest or a Mormon, but I could have a good discussion with them.

Here in the South you can bluff you way thru many difficult questions that people have about God, mainly because so many people claim to have some sort of belief in him, regardless of the results in their personal lives. Not out there, it's very different. You can't exhort them to just have faith when they don't have faith in anything to begin with. Why did my dad have to die? Why did 9/11 happen? Why are people starving in Africa?

Tumbleweeds are the coolest thing ever, right up there with blowfish. And they really do just tumble along like in the westerns. I didn't get to see any of those big tall cactus plants, we were told they were further south. Didn't see any snakes either, but were told that huge rattlesnakes were prevalent.

The dry air was great. The girls loved it because they said their hair did better. People said the dry heat would be worse but for what we were doing I must disagree. It was nearly 100 degrees and we were outside in the sun almost all day but I didn't sweat much at all. Around here all I have to do is walk to the truck and I'm pouring with sweat. On a side note I realized that I sweat a bit more under my left armpit than my right and I don't know why.

I didn't take this pic of course, it's scanned from a bookmark I bought. But this isn't doctored, this is actually the color of the water in the bright sun. I told you it was beautiful.

On the flight home during the day a nice couple switched seats with me so I could have the window. I was very tired but stayed awake because I realized that I was actually going to get to see most of our country from the air. I've never been west of Texas, but that was only to Houstin and I was young. I really only have good memory as far west as Louisiana. I stared at the ground for 2 hours straight until we ran into clouds.

The mountains were huge, then they were just gone. It went from snow covered mountains to flat desert with no transition in between. At one point I was wondering if I was seeing the Grand Canyon(I wasn't) because there were huge canyons with layers of rock that were visible even from over 30,000 feet. There were huge plateaus that looked like mountains with a completely flat top, some of the strangest and most interesting things I've ever seen. Then I watched as the desert turned into green farm land just as quickly as the mountains gave way to the flat desert. I know on the ground you would be able to see a transition, but it happened very suddenly in a jet. I watched the farms until the clouds took them away and I finally got some sleep.

In college, Rick and I had an addiction to outdoor type magazines. In one horrible 3 hour class that met on Monays, Rick would take our notes and I would read magazines to plan our trips. They always had articles about "The 10 Best Summer Trips" or "The 10 Best Trails" or "The 11 Best Getaways" and stuff like that. They always mentioned the West, and now I know why.

One word that will forever captivate me - Tahoe. Lake Tahoe was always in the magazines, and for good reason. I will be adding a few pics in the next couple of days, it is just incredible.

We took a dinner cruise that was worth more than the $50 I paid. We had to leave from the city of South Lake Tahoe for the cruise. After eating in the Hard Rock Cafe I walked outside to find several of our girls standing on the sidewalk with their feet spread far apart. They were very excited that they were "in 2 places at one time", and I was delighted to look up to see the California State line. So I had to buy a Nevada and a California state magnet, the kind that have the state, the bird, and the flower on them.

The magazines were right. I've seen many beautiful things in nature, but few have brought tears to my eyes.

You've got to say it right, it's not Nevada(like nev-odd-a), it's Nevada(like nev-add-a). They don't like it if you mess it up.

It was our skater kids that corrected us and we told them that adda sounded Yankee to us, to which one kid asked, "What's a Yankee?" Another replied "I know, it's a baseball player!"

a breath of fresh air

Micah was right, getting out of the South was great. I love the South and always will, but doing ministry in the West was a completely new thing and was something I will probably crave from this point on. Down here, everyone will claim the name of Jesus whether they live it or not. Out there, people have no problem telling you they don't know if there is a god and they really don't care. This was refreshing to me, you always knew where you stood with people.

We did 3 main things - Door to door evangelism, backyard Bible club, and skate park ministry. Our pastor put this trip together so I pretty much just did what I was asked to do. I was put in charge of the team working at the skate park. We went to the park in the morning, armed with cold water bottles, and began our attempts at building relationships. This was hard and at first we could barely give the water away. It took a long time that first day to get things started but things really took off after lunch. A girl was hanging out with us a little and I offered to take her to lunch with our group, that really proved beneficial for us after the other kids saw that this girl was ok with us. When we got back from lunch we learned that we had missed a gang fight. Profanity was part of pretty much every sentence spoken, it was just everyday life. Kids were constantly smoking cigarettes, but several times a group of them passed a small bong. On Wednesday a couple was caught in the act of oral sex, right out there in the open. Crazy stuff, completely different world.

On Wednesday our team was informed that we had to spend the day going door to door and during our free time in the afternoon we could return to the park. We felt like we had been pooped on, like what we were doing wasn't important enough. Free time? We had been staying out there till 7 each evening and didn't even know we had any free time. But we worked hard going door to door till about 4 and returned to the park to spend time with our new friends. Each day the other teams went shopping and sight seeing, our team worked at the park.

Somehow we were able to break thru to several kids. They started coming to our hotel at night to hang out with us. They called us. They waited for us to show up at the park each day. At the end of the week one guy told us that we would never know how much that meant to those kids, that most of them didn't have any positive role models. He said that most Christians they knew just looked down on them for being who they were, but we just wanted to hang out with them.