Here's a sign at the college where I'm taking a couple of classes. It's in the men's restroom and I thought it was hilarious!

I watched all of them and these are my favorites of the ones Ryan left out.

I just read a story about how people who are executed by lethal injection may sometimes be awake while they die. So let's talk about the death penalty. As a kid it seemed natural that the state execute killers and I didn't have a problem with it. These days, I stand opposed to the practice. I know my position isn't so popular with many here in the South(or maybe America in general?). There are 3 reasons why I oppose it.

One reason is stories like this, where people have been exonerated after DNA testing proves they are innocent. Since DNA testing became legal in court somewhere in the mid 90's, it's been discovered that around 30 people have been executed that were in fact innocent. Just imagine how many innocent people were killed in the decades before that.

The second reason I'm opposed to it is because I believe it is arbitrarily administered. There's not a specific standard by which it is imposed. I kill a guy, I get life. You kill a guy, you fry. Perhaps my judge was having a good day, yours was not. My jury was unbiased, yours had a guy who's sister was killed. The death penalty is a little too final to be decided upon by imperfect people.

The third reason I'm opposed to it is this, I just have a hard time imagining Jesus supporting such a penalty.

Your thoughts?

I don't know if you can really call it a road trip since I won't have any time to relax and enjoy the sights, but there is a possibility that this June I may get to go to Kansas City, MO for a week. I need to take a class and it's offered at Midwestern Seminary and I really want to get this thing knocked out. I've looked everywhere and can't get it online so that may be my best bet. I like the idea of getting a whole class wrapped up in 5 days too. I emailed Micah and he told me I could crash with him which would be really cool. He told me it was about a 16 hour trip for them to get back home, which would be closer to 17-18 for me since I'm a bit further south than his family. I'll be by myself so I'll only stop when I need gas. Google puts it at 1058 miles from PSJ to Kansas City, I wonder how long that might take...

I started cutting my own hair back in college out of necessity since I couldn't really afford to pay for one. After moving to St. Joe I started having someone else do it but a while back I decided to hang on to that money and went back to doing myself again. I do a good job of it and have never botched my head like this poor kid, but it does make me a bit nervous each time.

So last week I decided to pamper myself and let someone else do it for me. I always enjoy getting a haircut because I love having someone mess with my hair, but this lady was the best! After doing a superb job of cutting my hair she washed it and oh man, that was fantastic! I nearly fell asleep in the chair as she massaged my head. Then she fixed it for me and I walked out the door without even having little hairs itching me all down the inside of my shirt. Can't wait till next time.

The guys were all at deer camp. They had to bunk two to a room.
No one wanted to room with Daryl because he snored so badly.
They decided it wasn't fair to make one of them stay with him the whole time,
so they voted to take turns.

The first guy slept with Daryl and comes to breakfast the next morning
with his hair a mess and his eyes all bloodshot.
They said, "Man, what happened to you?"
He said, "Daryl snored so loudly, I just sat up and watched him all night."

The next night it was a different guy's turn.
In the morning, same thing--hair all standing up, eyes all blood-shot.
They said, "Man, what happened to you? You look awful!"
He said, "Man, that Daryl shakes the roof. I just sat up and watched him all night."

The third night was Frank's turn.
Frank was a big burly ex-football player; a man's man.
The next morning he came to breakfast bright eyed and bushy tailed.
"Good morning!" he said.
They couldn't believe it! They said, "Man, what happened?"
He said, "Well, we got ready for bed.
I went and tucked Daryl into bed and kissed him good night.
He just sat up and watched me all night long."

Watch this video about this guy who lives with wolves. You really wouldn't believe me if I just told you, so just watch the video. He'll probably end up like that guy who worked with bears...and then was mauled to death by one.

I was wondering how in the world a guy can do this stuff and have a family. He can't. I click on his bio and the last paragraph says - "Ellis is determined to keep living with wolves. It has cost him his family and home—his partner and four children left him because of his total dedication to wolves. But he truly believes he can make a difference." Abandoned wolves or abandoned children? Hmmmm....

I finally got my well and pump rigged up and she's blasting out a healthy 15 gallons per minute from 2 hoses at a little over 35PSI. That's more than enough to run the 2 sprinklers I need per yard(front and back) but I think I've got enough pressure that if I put a T on the bib I could run 3 at the same time. I'm happy.

It's time to give the old chuck on the shoulder to my old buddy Chuck, I mean Charlie, as he is now called since he got all mature and stuff. Anyway, he's a daddy again, and I'm super proud of him. I tried to comment on your blog but it won't load properly for me so I can't. Congrats man.

Lowes v/s Home Depot. Which is your favorite? Do you have one? Do you care?

I'm a Lowes man all the way. I went to HD last week only because someone gave me a gift card and I needed some sprinklers. I had a hard time finding anything and stuff just seemed to be in the wrong place. And that sprinkler? It is the kind with the metal spike on the bottom so I can stick it in the ground. The spike broke the very first time I tried to use it and even aside from that it doesn't work properly. They didn't have the brand I wanted, but Lowes does. So today I'm returning that junk and heading right across the street to my store.

Audra and I are good friends with the children's minister at the Methodist church and through her we've gotten to know their new pastor a little bit. A few weeks ago he asked me to speak during Holy Week this year. I tried to get out of it by using the dumb Baptist excuses of not knowing what Holy Week really was and how I'd probably mess something up. He assured me it would be fine and that he would tell me what to speak about so I agreed. Today was the only day I was available, so today it is.

I decided I'd better do a little research about Holy Week because I really didn't want to mess up their tradition. Today is Maundy Thursday, a name I had heard before, but didn't know what it meant. Maundy comes from the Latin word for mandatum, from which we get our English word mandate. They usually focus on the Last Supper, and the command(mandate) that Jesus gave to love one another. I think that's something I can handle.

Our youth room is on the second floor of the church and some of my guys are always wanting to throw something out the window. Doesn't matter what, they just want to throw something out. We're doing a major remodeling right now and the first step was to rip out the drop ceiling. What did we do with it? The guys finally got their wish, we threw it out the window. Today they ventilation was re-done. What did they do with the old ductwork? You guessed it...

disregard the last post

Last night we had the middle schoolers over to our house. Only 8 showed up but half of them were boys. We were going to watch a movie, and we did for about 15 minutes, then the boys got up and ran outside. So we take the party outside and these guys were just crazy. They decide they want to play hide and seek and tear off around the house to let themselves in the gate and go in my back yard. It happened so fast I didn't have time to run after them but there they went, 4 loud boys running through the gate. Suddenly you hear this huge and deep sounding bark and 4 boys screaming like girls as Riley chased them back out! It was so stinking funny we were all dying laughing at them! He's just a puppy still but he's really big and very intimidating to look at(chocolate lab and red nose pit mix). One girl saw him and said "I thought there was a brown bear in your backyard!" I don't think he would have bitten them, but he was very alert to what was going on. After that I let him out to play with us and the boys were much calmer from there on.

We decided to take the kids for a walk to burn off some energy so I leashed Riley and took him with us. There's an old guy at the end of our neighborhood who has a dog that looks like a large Jack Russel Terrier. That dog came running across the yard at Riley, barking and growling the whole way. I really didn't know what Riley would do, and I also knew that since he's so strong I'd have a hard time controlling him. Well that dog ran at him full speed and Riley just grabbed him by the neck and held him there, tail wagging the whole time! It was great, I was so proud of him. He didn't bite or growl or show any aggression, he just held that dog until it calmed down and then he let it go and the dog walked away. When we were walking back I went over to that sidewalk again to see what would happen and it was the exact same thing the second time - dog ran at him, Riley held him by the neck until it calmed down and then let him go.

So now I'm rethinking the whole thing and we may end up keeping him, at least as long as we can anyway.