I spend lots of time on the internet, too much in fact, so I've decided to fast from the net for a week. I'll be checking everyone's blog one last time, ordering a couple of things I need, then I'm done. I'll check my email each day since I get stuff on a regular basis that I need to respond to for work, and if something comes up for church that I've got to check out then I will, but I'm going to try to put it off until next week. So if you need me, call or email. Have a great week.

I'm curious to know, how fast do you drive? If I speed it's 6-7 over, but lately I've been on one of those kicks where I want to drive the limit. I get on these from time to time but this one's lasted a few weeks.

I did some "testing" one time in college. I worked at a church that was about 50 minutes away(one way) and I drove this 2-4 times a week. There were many stretches of highway that were long and straight, and one twisty curvy road that I took to get there. I tried for a month to set my cruise on exactly on the limit, then for one month I drove as fast as I felt like I could get away with. That meant I gunned it on the straight-aways when I could see that no cops were around and I passed everyone possible. In my 5.0 Mustang it was very easy to do. I was usually going between 65-75, sometimes upwards of 80+ on the highway. Remember this was all in the name of science and experimentation and I was young and stupid. In the end I found that the most I would ever save was maybe 10 minutes, but that was only sometimes, a couple of times it actually took longer. It wasn't worth the pounding heartbeat, the aggrevation, and the fear of being pulled over that I felt by driving so aggressively, and it certainly wasn't worth the gas I spent. I enjoyed myself and my car much better by doing the limit and saving gas, and so I did for nearly 2 years.

These days it isn't really about the gas when I'm in my car, my VW almost makes gas. And saving time isn't really a huge issue either. Right now I guess I'm feeling like Romans 13.1-7 applies to the speed limit as well.

Yes, someone really did see this week's church sign and sent it in to me. Charla caught this one, she's very adept to finding them. If I'm the king of the sport, then she certainly has become the queen. Not my queen, just a queen of another entirely separate domain. Laura Leigh is a close second. Back to the sign, I'm guessing it has something to do with being fishers of men, as if we should be doing the fishing rather than cutting the bait for someone else. That's my best guess anyway.

Just stop and think.

I wanted to see what kind of thoughts you guys had on the issue. Personally, it doesn't bother me. I think that the average American has nothing to worry about, it's not like Bush is listening in on our phone calls just to hear "Listen to what my baby learned how to do this week!" and "Oh honey could you pick up a gallon of milk on your way home?" I say if someone is suspected of plotting our demise, by all means spy on them!

It's really no big deal to me that the Broncos won, but when I read this article that spoke of Champ Bailey's game-changing interception in the endzone and then saw the pic at the right, I died laughing when I noticed Troy Brown's eyes. Maybe it was his fault that the ball was intercepted and maybe it wasn't, I have no idea, but the eyes just said it all, so I had to add the caption.

Sarah from DYL just posted the best blonde joke ever!

I use sitemeter and statcounter on my blog, although I haven't logged into my statcounter account for quite some time now. Interesting that my sitemeter has me at around 10,773 hits right now, but my statcounter shows 11,853 hits.

^That's Lake Tahoe at sunset, incredible. Audra and I pulled out our Tahoe sweatshirts last week and it got me thinking about it again. It has to be one of the most beautiful things on Earth.

About this week's poll -

I know people who are in each of these 3 camps. I'll let you know now that I'm in #1 and don't feel like I'm missing out on God's best for our life and family because of it. For those who aren't familiar with Natural Family Planning, click HERE to read about it.

I also know those in category 3 who say we shouldn't worry about it since God is in control of the womb, just leave it all up to Him. The main issue I have with that is how do you stop having kids, stop having sex? The risk for danger to both mother and child increase dramatically with age. Thanks but no, I'd rather avoid that all together.

I do believe that God is in control of the womb, which means He can work around birth control just like He did with both of my kids. Now, is the pill potentially abortive? I've heard a few people talk about that and it's something I'm going to start studying, which may cause me to change my position...

We were on track to have the house finished on the 15th, but we found out today that it's likely to be pushed back a week or maybe even 2. Such a let down, but it comes as no surprise really. My parents and sister came yesterday and stayed the night so we took them over there today, they are so excited for us. Being in the house is overwhelming. If you only knew what God has done to make this possible, but then again, you probably have had these kind of moments in your life as well. Can't wait to post pics of our home for you guys!

I got ordained last night, it was very special. Just a couple of days ago it wasn't really that big of a deal to me. No one really prepared me for what would happen, I didn't know what was going on at all. I felt pretty bad about the fact that I was really only excited about my family coming into town. I have known guys who make such a big deal about it and can't wait to be called reverend and put that on their business cards like it carries weight - kimchi(haha, I just love that word). I never asked to be ordained, I figured if someone thought it was time or that it was important, they would come to me. I've served in 3 churches, 2 of which were very special to me. The first licensed me, this one ordained me, and I will never ever forget it.

IN-VINCE-ABLE

Last night was the greatest performance by a QB I've ever watched, just incredible. If I had the Heisman in my back pocket I'd hand it over to him. And Matt Leinart, did you see the post game interview with Leinart? The defense didn't work hard enough and we're still a better team? Grow up.

Thought a few small changes might be good for the place. I still want to really overhaul my blog, but just don't have the time for it right now and I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I want. Yeah, I know I sold the Jeep, but I've been missing it and I'm not putting pics of my Jetta up until I get the work done next month.

On the way home from our middle school trip yesterday we started playing yes-no(yes I'd drive that car or no I wouldn't). I used to play it all the time, and still do sometimes just to pass the miles away, but we found it to be pretty boring to play with more than one person because we always picked the same thing. So we started something else where we numbered off, there were only 5 of us playing, and the car we passed that came up on your number was what you got(I was #5 so every 5th car was mine). Goofy as it sounds it was hilarious, I ended up with many big rigs and F-250s. But then I hit a streak where I got 3 Jeep Wrangler's in a row. They all said God was trying to tell me something. Funny, I've been thinking about my Jeep a lot lately.

I told Audra about it and she said, ok, let's wait till we get in our house and see how our finances settle out and get another Jeep. She's quite a woman, but I don't need to do any more car swapping right now.

Some of you are waiting to hear the story of our ski trip and the threats and everything, well here it is, you won't believe it. Long story, but worth the read...

We arrived at our hotel in West Virginia at 10.30PM, right when I told them we should be there. I went into the lobby to get us signed in and found a very flustered woman behind the desk. She begged me to read the rules and sign my name to them and told me that they had a group from South Carolina cause so much trouble that night that she had to call a sheriff's officer to calm them down but that it didn't help. Then the officer walked up and introduced himself and relayed the same thing in a very calm and polite manner and asked if he could step on our bus to ask the kids to behave. I was still getting our stuff straight but had all my adults on the bus and he seemed very nice so I told him that was fine with me.

He got on our bus and turned from Officer Friendly to Dudly Doolittle. He told them if he saw them in the halls once, he would tell them to go to their rooms. Twice, he would find their leader. Third time he would arrest them and take them to juvenile hall. Then their parents would have to drive up and get them out, then drive back up for their court date, then drive back up for them to serve community service hours, or they might just put them in jail for 30-60 days. And no snowballs, they might have rocks and glass in them. This was all before my kids even stepped foot off the bus.

So they unload their luggage and are waiting in the lobby for the elevator to go up to their rooms. After 16 hours on the road they were all ready for bed. They were carrying on normal conversation with each other, nothing loud or out of order, and they were in the lobby, not in the halls. The lady at the deks starts yelling at them to shut up and the officer comes in and gets loud saying that they obviously had a hard time listening to his instructions. By this time Audra had told me of what he did on our bus so I said in a very calm manner that there was no need to yell at my students and that he needed to direct further communication toward me and not the kids. Another adult said that we just wanted to get to our rooms and that he would not have any trouble out of our group, to which the cop snapped "I've already got a problem with you! You need to stop talking!" The man said that we wouldn't be loud or bother any other guests but that there was no way we were going to be silent, we intended to enjoy our visit. The cop then threatened to arrest me and the other guy on the spot and carry us to the municipal jail to think about it for a night.

I asked for his name and badge number and he told me he was Officer XXXXXXX and that he was the Microtel security guard, he said the hotel was his after hours part-time job. I asked how he could be a hotel security guard and still wear his uniform, badge, and gun. He threatened to arrest me again, got in his patrol vehicle that was illegally parked in a fire zone, and drove off. Thankfully I had many adults around me to hear all of this. We had parents whose kids were on the trip with me but they drove up separately and got a different hotel. They were there to see their kids so lots of people heard this harassment and we were all shocked.

I talked with the general manager in the morning but that did no good. His first comment was "Well I've worked night shift before and I know what it takes to keep kids quiet." Obviously not, you don't make threats to kids who haven't even gotten off their bus yet. His second comment was "Well he wouldn't really arrest them," to which I said that he had no business saying that he would. I said "Sir, if you're in management and someone makes a complaint, you've always got to assume that there is the possibility that something wrong really did happen to justify the complaint."

The next night the cop was back again, this time with a buddy cop, patrolling the hallways. They would walk down the hall to the stairs and go from floor to floor. It was such a joke. On our last night Audra asked the front desk worker if she could get a trash bag and the woman never even looked up from her book to tell her that she didn't have any, they were in housekeeping. Audra asked if she would go to housekeeping to get her one and she said she didn't have a key. Later that evening I saw the woman in housekeeping folding towels. A couple of my kids told us the next morning that they asked for bags and the woman sighed, put her book down and got them a bag. Guess Audra was just too late. That woman was also parked in the handicapped space outside all night, with no handicap tag or sticker. This really bothers me.

I've stayed in Microtels before and have enjoyed them, they have always been very neat and clean. This one smelled bad, was dirty, and the people were horrible. I learned quickly that speaking to the general manager did no good, so I'm taking it to the top. Were it one night with a rough spot I wouldn't care, but this was just too much.

After Christmas, ski trip, and middle school trip yesterday I'm finally back in the office. I carried my middle schoolers to go bowling and to see The Chronicles of Narnia yesterday, pretty cool how they seem satisfied to get to do that while the high schoolers go skiing. Maybe I'll scare everyone next winter and say that I'm taking the middle schoolers skiing and the high schoolers get to go bowling and to a movie. Can we say mutiny?

I thought the movie was excellent, I was thrilled the whole time. Of course I've read the books and felt like it stayed true, but I also was expecting the wild fantasy, talking beavers were no surprise to me. Took some of the others a little longer to get into it. As I watched it I kept in mind C.S. Lewis' Christian emphasis and nearly teared up at times. As we were leaving I had kids talking about how they could have easily thrown Bible verses in there and what characters in the movie were like people from the Bible. When we got in the van I asked them if they knew that Lewis was a Christian and that he was writing that story from a Christian perspective, and to my surprise, none of them knew that. They thought we were just going to see a cool movie, but the message was so obvious to them. It turned into a good conversation on the way home, got some of them thinking.