Nissan Calling

Warning, incoherent rant to follow.

I received a call, at work, today from a call center in Texas about my Nissan lease of a Quest. The caller wanted to know why I was behind in my payments and if I was going to pay them soon. At first I just figured this was a slightly impatient issue because I made the payment about a week late, but then the lady informed me that I was 700+ dollars behind. I know this is not the case and called up my online bank account to check that I was correct and I am. While informing her of this she said my monthly payment was 10 days late and my property tax was long overdue. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH NNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, this is not going to be pleasant. First, let me stop here to point out two things, one, we don't pay property tax on vehicles in Ohio, second, this person is apparently from India and her accent is extremely thick so I am having difficulty understanding her and she is struggling to understand a somewhat irritated me at this point. I now ask her to transfer me to a supervisor. I will attempt to relive the conversation from here and I shall name her my "squishy" from this point on.

"Squishy": May I inquire as to why you wish to speak with them?

Me : Yes ma'am, I have called Nissan 4 times already to discuss this problem. Ohio doesn't charge property tax on vehicles, this is an error. Every time I call they tell me it will be corrected. The last time I called was because I was preparing to buy a house and I didn't want something negative showing up on my credit rating, they assured me the problem was taken care of and it wouldn't be an issue. It obviously is still an issue, and besides, I don't mean to offend you but I am having great difficulty in understanding you.

"Squishy": you don't feel your behind on your payments?

Me: no, at least not that much.

"Squishy": Hold please and I will look into it for you.

Me: okay.

9 minutes later I am still on hold, at work, and am expecting a different voice to return to the phone, but oh no, back comes "Squishy"

"Squishy": Sir, are you still there?

Me: yes ma'am.

"Squishy": You are correct, Ohio doesn't charge property tax on vehicles, but we are not the ones charging you the tax.

(Thank you Miss-us Obvious, now scrub some stupid off and pay attention)

Me: fine, but I don't care who is charging me, I don't owe it and I am not paying it, it needs removed from my bill.

(now would be good)

"Squishy": We cant do that because we are not the ones charging you. The charge dates all the way back to November 2006.

(maybe she is starting to grasp it, nah)

Me: I realize that, I have called you 4 times concerning this and have been told it was an error and would be taken care of, its not my error, and I am not paying the bill.

"Squishy": I don't know when you moved, but when you moved from Dublin Connecticut to Ohio the bill came to Ohio.

(the only thing I even know about Connecticut is that they have Husky women)

Me: Connecticut? I have never lived in Connecticut, I have never even been to Connecticut. I lived on Dublin Court in Cincinnati Ohio, that's Court not Connecticut. Ct. not CT. This needs to be removed.

"Squishy": You must take care of this with them.

(And I will call you my squishy and you will be my squishy, zap, ouch, you must be kidding)

Me: OH no, not, nyet, uh-uh, ain't happenen, neeehw neeehw.

"Squishy": You must settle before the end of your lease.

(Abby something, Abby Normal)

Me: Okay, I am having great difficulty understanding you and your not understanding me at all, I need to speak wi.................

(she just interupted me, anybody got a spoon, I need to pluck out my eyes now)

"Squishy": You ............... Need.............to..............take................care................of ..............this...............before.................the .................end....................of .................your..................lease

(she's talking slow 'cause I cant hear fast.)

Me: I now have three reasons I need to speak to you supervisor, would you connect me please.

"Squishy" : (sigh) hold.

The fact that she started speaking slow to me has my blood boiling at this point. Sweetheart, talking slower wont help anything, speaking clear discernible English would help. I don't begrudge immigrants anything, she is here, she is working, God bless America, but why do we put English as a second language people in a call center to call people about bad debts etc who are barely intelligible by the general public at large? I am holding long enough to find grace and regain some sense of moral balance before someone else picks up the line.

Fernando: (not kidding this time) Hello, this is Fernando, how are you.

Me: Fine, how are you doing today.

(like I care at this point, oops, struggle for grace, struggle for grace)

Click, he is gone, hung up on me. Hmm, now its time to phone number scramble, but wait the phone rang, its Fernando.

Fernando: Sorry, we were disconnected, how may I help you.

(little accident I am sure)

Me: ( I run through the whole story again, including the fact that "Squishy" is telling me I need to fix it)

Fernando: I see your concern

(Oh happy day, he sees my concern, I wonder if he can see my ears are bright red and my pulse is higher than Pete Rose's gambling debt.)

Fernando: I will look into it and resolve this error for you.

(Just a minute home slice, aint fallin for that line again.)

Me: hold on a sec there boss. No offense, but I have heard that before, repetitively. I need something more from you this time. I want a letter stating that the charge has been removed and why it took a whole year to resolve the issue. I also want an email stating when this letter was mailed so I have some recourse if it magically doesn't show up

Fernando: I don't think a letter such as this is possible.

(Not possible, not possible, you want me to type it for you nit wit. Do I need to send you a box of crayola, big box with 16 new colors maybe and you can jot down a few small words that even "Squishy" can get her paws around. Something like, sorry we are lame and we fixed it now. Eliminating world hunger is not possible, finding a respectable lawyer is not possible, regaining your virginity is not possible, writing me a letter is within you grasp I would think)

Me: well I need something, like I said, your not the first guy to the party, I have heard this all before, but I never can get back to the same person so it always starts from scratch. I am always told it will be taken care of, its not. I believe you will try, but what happened to the other folks who tried? Something happens once I am off the phone, I don't know what and cant find out because there is no recourse.

Fernando : How about I give you my direct line to here in Irving Texas.

Me: now that's progress, give it to me Fernando.

Fernando: blah blah blah ext. blah Give me till Monday and I will fix this for you.

Me: Okay, if I don't hear from you, I will call you Monday, will Fernando answer the phone?

Fernando: yes

Me: wonderful, then I will speak with you Monday, and if need be Tuesday, and if need be Wednesday, and I will keep calling you until we have resolution of the issue, this way we both know we will git-er-done.

Fernando: (muffled giggle) yes we will.

Me: you have a good day Fernando

Fernando: you as well.

Upon conclusion of this waste of 45 minutes work time, my engineer smiles and says when I call Monday Fernando will have never existed and Jose Juan Lopez will answer the phone.

Let me state again, I love immigrants, I adopted one after all. Fernando spoke clearly and as of now I have no reason to doubt that he will git-er-done. "Squishy" on the other hand was not prepared for her job and not capable of doing it. Talking slow because I cant hear fast is not going to do anything but cause me to seize up like a nun in a Turkish bath house.

and now I wait till Monday, I will keep you all abreast of the situation of "Squishy", Fernando, and the Nissan Quest.

Mike Huckabee.

After watching the latest debate last night I am now, more than ever, a Huckabee fan. I have been disappointed and disillusioned with what the republicans have offered up for quite some time now. I can say that Mike will get my primary vote and I hope to vote for him on election day. Is he perfect, no, is he ideologically in line with me, not entirely, is he the best man for the job, probably not. He is however the best running for the job and I am going to comment now as to why. Mike is a man of faith and I believe if he wins its because God put him there to do something. If God puts him there, I believe he will listen to the still small voice and behave as a Godly man. I post this short entry today with a link to his blog.

http://www.mikehuckabee.com/


http://www.mikehuckabee.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=Blogs.Comment&Blog_id=443#SubmitAComment

The second link is about faith.

I pray, Gods will be done,

Amen

Politics

Okay, time to share my views. Time to save the world. Below you will find my political opinions, uncensored. As always I welcome any comments but I do ask that you keep them clean. I do not wish to offend but odds are I will. I am going to state my opinions about many different political topics and even make some suggestions on how it should be. We can call this the world according to me.

First off, as I sit her playing "play doh" with my adopted daughter, the thing most on top of my mind is abortion. So if you don't want to hear this then stick you fingers in your eyes and say la la la la la la la so you cant hear me. There are no circumstances in which abortion is acceptable. None. Plain and simple, none. For the ladies, yes its your body, but abortion is not a choice. You made a choice that caused the pregnancy, that was the choice, abortion is not an acceptable option. But, but , but what about rape, incest, life of the mother at stake. These rarer occurrences may be unfortunate, but not the problem of the life that has been created. Life is life, it begins at fertilization, end of story. I believe Rowe v Wade is a farce and should be overturned. I do not hold for a minute that it will ever happen, but it should. I also would like to point out that I am not a hater, I bear no malice towards those who differ with my opinion, I know the Lord will forgive those who ask Him and who I am to be angry with those whom He is not angry with. This is my opinion.

Next, Iraq. Did we need to go. Yes. Did we do something necessary, Yes. Are we done, Yes. We should have been done by now, but it is time to leave. They have a government, they have resources, its time for us to go. I believe we should begin a phased pull out of our troops with a phased input of Nato or UN troops in the Baghdad area. We should leave and only stay as long as it takes to teach the peace keepers in blue helmets to take over Baghdad security. We should then take about 40% of those troops right over into Afghanistan. We should station most of them on the Pakistan border to work on the Taliban and look for Osama. The rest can set up a series of training camps along the Iran border. Just a little something so they know we are keeping our eyes on them.

Next, Heath care. Its broken and getting more broken. We have the most talented people, the greatest technology and most applicable resources, but the system is broken. What is broken is the system of money interchange. Who pays for what and what does it cost. I hate to say this but this is one of only a handful of industries that needs regulated and the first regulation lands with the insurance companies. Plain and simple supply and demand economic theory. Insurance companies receive this mandate. Heath insurance companies may only sell three polices, good, better, best. The price for the policies are x,y,z. Companies cannot deny anyone the good policy. Prices are not attached to age, pre existing condition, or anything else. This will force the insurance companies to compete on a national level to insure as many people as possible because their only hope for profit at that point is in large quantities of people. The government plays no part in paying for anything and the price of the good policy would be set low enough that almost anyone can afford it. Does this net in everyone like a socialized medicine program, no it doesn't, but it doesn't come with the baggage of government run health care. Now, for the doctors, nurses, and hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies. Lets hit big Pharm first. Under no circumstances can you publicly advertise your product if a prescription is required. Your doctor decides what medicine is applicable to your aliment, not the advertising industry or the pharmaceutical companies. Second, alter the patent laws so they don't need to price gouge for the first few years before others are allowed to make the product. They way the system works now, the new drugs are protected for a few years to allow the company to recoup their research investment before competition is allowed. Alter this practice by allowing other companies to buy in as opposed to waiting for the protection to expire. Allow the inventor of the drug to keep the protection until competitors buy in and let the researchers recoup their fund like this instead. If a drug is deemed life saving or significantly life altering, then require the pharm company to donate some percentage of the drug to hospitals for use. A lot of them do this anyway, but it should be a requirement. Next, medical staff. There needs to be some controls on the price of malpractice insurance, as well as a cap on the rewards. $5 million bucks isnt going to bring Aunt Bunny back because the doctor was a dork. The dork in question should have to pay for expenses incurred due to his dorkiness and no more, but then he should be banned from practice if it was truly negligent. This will lower the cost of things, drugs, doctors, hospitals,etc.

Next we have the welfare system. I believe in extensive unemployment pay. I dont believe in welfare. I think the FMLA should apply to all people who had a job and unemployment should kick in after the 12 weeks leave, even if you can go back to the job eventually. I don't believe in the welfare system. Feeding the poor and taking care of the unfortunate is the job of the church and other private organizations, not the government.

Next we have immigration. The system is broken, pitch the whole stinkin thing out the door. If you commit a crime and your here illegally you should be airdropped over the capital city of your homeland by military plane. Parachute provided of course. Okay, that's a bit sarcastic, but you go and go now. If you have not committed a crime then we have a more difficult story. Let me take this one step at a time. First, build the wall. Build a militarized zone complete with a dead zone. Next, ask all people who are here illegally, or here legally on visa, or are here in the system trying to acquire citizenship to report to there nearest federal building. Have one big swearing in party and give them amnesty, a social security number, and start the taxation processes immediately. Lastly, fire everyone who worked for immigration and start the whole thing over with a more streamlined and efficient system that might work well enough to prevent this ever happening again. I hate to give the lawbreakers amnesty, but it will end the problem as long as you have already severed the flow of more.

We must have an energy policy. We must get over our foreign oil dependence. Drill in Anwar or anyplace else we need to. Incentivize the hybrid, hydrogen, and biofuel industries. Force big oil to co-operate, but bio fuels in their stations, put hydrogen stations along the highways. Prop up the industries that are trying to emerge long enough for them to get a foot hold. Help the solar power companies and wind power producers make their products viable. Build new nuclear reactors for energy. Explain to the green folks, not in my back yard folks, and others that we will have less pollution, longer global lifespans, and more cash if we get away from a petroleum based economy. We can turn the corner in less than a decade if we focus all of our resources to this end.

A few random thoughts. Increases in military spending are not always bad. Supply side economics is not voodoo. Lawyers should not be allowed to become elected officials and politics should not be a career. Campaigns should not cost money, advertising, airtime, and all other needed things to run a campaign should be donated by the corporations equally to all parties. Real people should run Washington and serving your country is a privilege, not a job. I want to see more CEO's in Washington and less lawyers. The president, and senate and house should all have degrees from state schools and tech schools, not Harvard Law.

Well, now I will just sit back and watch the sitemeter to see how many hits I get from Washington.

Thanksgiving weekend

This time of year is a love/hate season for me. I find the whole thing a little too trite and stress filled. This year has been a classic example of the roller coaster ride that is the holiday season. Some of this long weekend has been wonderful, some of it has been just stressful, a lot of it has just been plain funny.

So lets start with the beginning of the Holiday, Thanksgiving day. On this day we always travel to my in laws. They live in Frankfort which is about a 2 hour trip for us. Gracie is a great traveller so a couple hours is a piece of cake. My sister in law, Carol, does the whole thing up, turkey, ham, taters, dressing,veggies, salads, gravy, deviled eggs, macaroni n cheese, sweet tea, the whole deal including two home made desserts. It was a grand spread as it always is. I will of course try to one up her when she comes north to our house for Christmas. Carol is newly married so there were a few of the recent additions to the in law line up this year. I wont go into details but this is a source of stress. I just kept saying to myself, God forgave me of all that I have done and this is the place I need to show grace. I did, I will continue to do so, but its whats right, not whats natural.

On the way home is where the real fun part starts. We got to stop by and pick up Carly. Carly is the coolest 15 year olds on the planet. She is one of the PK's and I just love Carly. She is goofy as all get out, her energy level runs astronomically high until she crash lands, usually suddenly, she is moody as can be and often a very opinionated a loudly passionate teen with no sense of boundaries. I love her honesty. She respects you greatly if you respect her. The thing I love the most about Carly is the way she treats boogs. (Gracie). They play together at a frightening pace. Sometimes Carly is running loose acting 4 and the next thing I know Gracie is running loose acting like a teenager. They were upstairs playing makeup and they were both giggling constantly. After a few hours they are both to exhausted to function. Carly is the only person I know of who can were Gracie down all by herself.

Carly spent the night Thursday night so we could go do Black Friday shopping and hit the toy store without an ankle biter in tow. Black Friday at Kenwood Mall is no place for a kid, its not fit for man nor beast for that matter. Its the epitome of commercialism con wrong to be honest and we were willingly diving in the middle of it. We spent several hours chopping through the crowds with machetes and next time I think I will rent football pads from a sporting goods store before I attempt this again. You have to have the vision of Barry Sanders to make it in and out of this kind of crowd. We got 95% of all of our shopping done in one day, with spending only about 80% of what it would cost if done by safer means, so at least there was some payoff to the madness.

Angie and I had a blast to be honest about it. We never leave the house without Grace. This is the 6Th time ever and the 1st time it was an all day event, but we knew she was with Carly and wouldn't even notice how long we were gone. That night I got the pleasure of taking all three of them out to dinner at Red Robin. A unanimous favorite of the ladies. I just felt tremendously blessed to be taking out three such beautiful women. My wife, my daughter and my favorite "girl friend" (please don't misread anything inappropriate into that, Carly is my "girlfriend" by nickname because she is a young girl her and her entire family are my family by default. The other nickname used by Angie and myself for Carly is "sistafriend" because sometimes we take on the roll of big sister or big brother to her when she needs to talk) Anyway, I felt honored to be in their presents that night.

Next comes the most detested part of the season. We always decorate for Christmas on Black Friday weekend. I lug the stuff up and Angie decorates the house. I am charged with decorating the outside. I have become convinced of one thing over the last several years. The devil invented Christmas lights. After an hour or two of the neighbor trying to help me, the neighbor and my wife laughing at me, a few near death experiences, and a whole bunch of wasted money, I was done. Then we have the obligatory approval of the lights which of course means failure by husband and I get to redo at least half of what I had already done that I didn't want to do the first time. I don't like roofs, I cant stand ladders, but I detest lights. UHHGGGGGGGGG.

Then we have my parents over for a fried chicken dinner. They brought Gracie her very own little girl sized Christmas Tree for her room. Its pink with purple balls, little white snow flakes, and little white icicles. Let that sink in for a minute. The tree is pink. Yes pink. Brightly lit with white lights and pink. Even the cord that plugs the thing in is pink. Gracie feels so special because she has her very own special tree. Her very own pink tree. I don't know what else I can say other than its pink.

Why addendum.

It was brought to my attention that I forgot a reason I like to blog. (thanks Jen) I am competing with my wife, ***blink, blink***, Angie for hits. I have gained a much higher quantity of hits, but hers are much more diverse and widespread. She has many more countries and several more states than I do.

I also forgot that one of the other primary reasons for my blogging is to promote adoption. Many of my posts reference the adoption of my daughter from China. I want to take a moment to talk about adoption.

When we started the process of international adoption the first thing many people would ask us was, "why not a child from here?" From some people this question was not offensive. One of our best friends, Diana, was adopted. Another one of our fiends, Steve, was also adopted. From them and a few others this was an acceptable question, but from others it was delivered with an acidic tone that required struggling for grace in order to answer calmly. The answer, or should I say answers, vary wildly. First off is scripture, we are told to take care of the widows and orphans. No where in the scripture does it say to take care of orphans that look like you and live near you. Secondly, the domestic adoptions have garnered a bad reputation for taking a long time without giving good reasons, and not always being final when you thought they were final. My wifes cousin adopted and had her daughter for 10 months and then the courts came and took her away. This is not something we wanted to risk trying to survive. Thirdly, we just wanted to do something about the situation in China. Just a bit of background, due to cultural influences and government regulations, there is a huge need for people to adopt girls from China. China is a wonderful place and by and large the people there understood why we were there and although they were sad for the need of us to come, they were glad that we were doing this and appreciated our presence. As a general cultural norm, adoption is not overly common in the orient.

The second most common question we received was, "how much did she cost?" Yes, people really do ask this. There is a tactful way to do this and many not so tactful ways. We have gotten accustomed to Gracie being the center of attention in public and such not always so subtle questions. We have learned to take into account the person asking the question and we are usually more than willing to provide answers. If the person asking is interested in adopting we will usually give them the name of the agencies we used ( a link to Children's Hope is provided with links to my friends blogs) We tell them some of what they can expect and about how much it might cost. ($16 to $20 grand as an estimate if someone reading this needs to know)

Sometimes we run into the question, "Is she yours?" To this there is but one short answer.
YES. Sometimes we will clarify and say something like, "we went to China to get her when she was 15 months old, but she has always been ours."

Adoption is the most rewarding experience I can even imagine. Yes it was long and full of hurdles, yes it was expensive and risky, yes it was an exceptionally long gestation period, but the rewards are simply indescribable. I can not put into words the adventure that results from making the decision, taking the trip, and then living the new life that results from it. It only takes a moment to make the decision to do it, but the adventure that begins in that moment goes on for the rest of your life. As I write this blog it occurs to me that gotcha day is coming up in only six or so weeks. January tenth is gotcha day.

If I don't know you and you happen to land here because you googled something or linked in from somebody else. let me make you an offer. Leave me a comment with your email address in it and I will answer any questions you might have about adopting from China. If your already in the process and have questions about what happens next, I can handle that too. If you want to learn more but dont necessarily want to ask me, click on the Children's Hope link. If you email one of them, I guarantee you will here from them shortly. They are awesome at what they do.

Why?

Why do we blog, that is the question of the evening.

Well, I can only speak for myself, but there are many reasons that I enjoy the opportunity to blog. First off its an opportunity to express my thoughts and get things off my chest so to speak. It also provides me with a chance to minister to others which is something I have come to enjoy over the last few years. There is also the more carnal side of things, I find it somewhat competitive as well. I check my sitemeter regularly for quantity of hits as well as location and reason of hit. I particularly enjoy when I get hits from foreign countries. I check to see if people left comments often as well. I check the IP addresses of each hit to see if I know who it is so I can keep track of regular readers. I enjoy it when other bloggers link to mine because it always increases my hits.

The ministry opportunity is the most important one. My testimony is posted on this blog under the title, "the story of Grace". I have witnessed in several other of the titles as well. I speak on my blog about my Saviour Jesus Christ as well as my awesome God and the effects they have had on my life.

I use the opportunity to express myself here frequently as well. I talk about my emotions, my past, and other issues that make up me. My friends are not usually surprised by my candor, but people I dont really know all that well are often taken aback by what I share. I find this to be somewhat therapeutic.

As far as the competitive side of things, this is just fun for me. I have had readers from Saudi Arabia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Britain, Canada, and Spain. I am looking forward to getting a hit from China for obvious reasons. I have gotten many hits from at least 12 different states. The states most common to view this are Louisiana and California. I am linked to two blogs in California and one in Louisiana that all send me lots of traffic. Thank you to all of them. I really enjoy it when I notice people reading it that I wouldnt guess would bother to spend their time here.

It also provides me the chance to help with issues in some small way. You will find links to several other blogs on mine, but you will also find widgets that connect you to a "free Burma" link, a link to help Brian and maybe other hurting youth workers, and a link to Youth Ministry Exchange which is a wonderful online community of youth pastors, pastors, and volunteers.

I also just learned from a friend of mine that if you post enough political opinion posts you will begin to gets hits from Congress. I will most likely take a shot at this and try and save the world sometime soon.

Well that should conclude my drivel for this evening. I must be off to bed here soon. I have made it through and entire post without using the word urinal so maybe this will raise my reading level score a bit. ( another source of competition)

Last minute

Oh my, another busy week, but this time we got some good things done. First off, we sold the other house. We are now down to one mortgage. I waited all week for the other shoe to drop and something to go wrong. I felt like nothing would go bad but I kept expecting one more hurdle to appear. Closing was at 10 o’clock Friday and I needed to leave work at about 9 so I could drive up to the house and pick up Angie and drive back to the closing. At 8:55 I get a cell phone call that is a number I don’t recognize. I answer it and it’s the title agency telling me that I need to call and get a payoff amount on the second mortgage and have them fax it to their office. I tell her I need to leave in 5 minutes to come to closing, she says without that number she cant close so call her back and then she’ll meet us there. Nothing like waiting till the last minute. So I call, get the number for her (why she didn’t do her own job I still don’t get) and call her back. After pressing “1” for English, “2” for service, entered my social security number, account number, birthday, and blood type, pressed “3” to speak to a person who would ask me for all of the above information again with the addition of my first pets name and mothers maiden name, and pressed “4” to signify that I haven’t lost my mind and hung up yet, finally I get a near human voice. I obtain the number and call the title agency back to let her know I have done her job and will most likely be late. She said that’s okay, she’ll be late too, oh joy. I was expecting the “semi-flaccid fecal projectile to reach terminal velocity as its vector attenuated towards the rotational device of vapor displacement causing indeterminate translocation of said fecal material into a polar arrayed pattern of stench.” In other words, I was expecting the *^%$ to hit the fan, and it turned out to be incredibly stupid, but not that big a deal. We closed and walked away with a little money, very little considering, but its done.
We also had some out of town company this week. Adam and Todd stayed the night with us on their way to Atlanta for the National Youth Workers Convention. It was nice to see both of them again. Adam was fun to watch because he was as nervous as a school kid getting ready to do his first oral book report on a book he only read cliff note on. That’s not to say he wasn’t prepared, but he was nervous. I think God has just really moved him outside his comfort zone, way outside. I like to see that because it’s the same thing He did to me. As an aside, both of these guys are from Michigan and were at the house before “the game”. They didn’t stop by on the way home. That was a shame.
In the way of a Gracie update, we got the Christmas card pictures done the weekend as well. She is becoming such a camera ham. I can just see her glow with pride and hear the song, “I feel pretty, oh so pretty” when she is the center of attention in front of the camera. I will post a link right here once I figure out what the link is.
Other news, check the Raising Lazarus fund, its growing, slowly, but growing.

"THE GAME"

It appears that Lloyd Carr has had enough and is scheduled to announce his retirement on Monday. As a Buckeye fan I hate to see him go because in the Tressel era, we have had his number all along. As a sports fan I hate to see him go because he is what college sports is all about, so as a gentlemen I say this. Coach, you will be missed. It has been an honor to watch you work regardless of the outcome of "The Game"

Go Bucks...........................................................................................

Cash Advance Loans

Apparently my blog is written at a level that my former Sunday School students can all understand it. This seems odd to me because absolutely none of them will read it. I dont know what that means exactly, but it is true. I did talk Lizzy B. into reading one of the sections but I know she hasn't been back, so , oh well. If you click on the badge you can enter the address of your blog or myspace etc and it will review yours for you as well. I think I might need to add some longer words with more syllables and pontificates more precisely my intentions in order to acclimate myself to a higher standard of readership. So, if you find verbiage in the future that seems verbose and persnickety, rest assured I am belaboring the words for the purely selfish purpose of increasing my score. Or the other thought is since the word "urinal" appears with ridiculous frequency, it may be the middle school humor that has the index stuck at this level.

Who's to know?

For now I will just wonder aimlessly down the contiguous infrastructure of existence.

Brian.

I would like you to meet Brian. I don't want to sound like Sally Struthers here so I am not going to beg or guilt you into doing anything. I want to introduce you to Brian and let you know what is going on so that if you choose to help, you may.

Brian is a youth worker, and has been for a while. He recently moved from the Midwest to Washington State to work on a boat. The boat happened to be operated by someone else who ministers to youth. Brian is married and I believe has children. Life was going along just fine and then something happened. He became very ill and was rushed to Seattle from his boat. They informed him his kidneys were shot and he needed a transplant, dialysis began immediately. Well he had a job and insurance, but that doesn't cut all of it, and its gonna be a while, like years, before he can work again. In the mean time, the finances are, well, lets just say its not a pretty sounding picture. Right now he is fighting for his life as well as fighting to maintain his family.

I have never met Brian in person, he is a member of YMX like me and we have chatted and debated and argued online about many things. What computer to buy, why liberals are better looking, why conservatives are smarter, we have discussed theology, economy and urinal habits together. I know Brian by the name Jespeachy.

So, what can we do?

First off, Brian is a youth minister and a Christian (duh). So what we can and should do first is pray for him. Pray for him, his family, and all of those who are challenged by this trial. Pray for healing, mending, guidance, strength, wisdom and the presents of God's hand on his life. Pray Gods will and His mercy.

Second, we can help him in a worldly way as well. At the top of the blog on the right hand side you will see something called the Raising Lazarus fund. Any money that is given through this connection from this blog goes straight to helping hurting youth workers. No administration fees, nothing. A dollar in a dollar out, period. Its done through a non profit foundation set up to assist hurting youth workers. The fund has many purposes but I put the link on this blog to help Brian. If you want to learn more about Raising Lazarus, click on the Youth Ministry Exchange link above my picture.

Praying for you Brian, Gods speed, and Gods Peace.

Ghost stories

Well, this has been an eventful week, and next week looks just as busy. First off let us discuss the most expensive part of the week. Our laptop was infected with some malware or some such cootie that has us worried about it sending out stuff we would rather it didn't send out. Not to mention the fact that it said it was running something like232 processes and keeping the CPU maxed out intermittently. So, the lap top is dead. I have never bought a computer before, our first was a gift from Grandpa, and everything behind it was hand me downs from my boss at work, including the laptop. So, I set off to do my homework, as does Angie. Angie gets some other folks involved with the decision process. These people she seeks advise from are the computer wizards and such from the YMX boards. These folks are IT guys from churches, web head ladies run the YMX board and a host of other smarter than me people. So, I listen carefully and take their advise. One of the IT people I am talking about uses the screen name MAC. So, you might guess which laptop I went with. It was a free-for-all when it came to suggesting what we should buy. They were all very helpful and Angie loves her new Mac. During this process a new phrase was coined, the "macgasm" The supporters of the product are rather rabid so I can see the point. I wonder if the term "macgasm" could be sold to apple for a advertising campaign? It might be a bit off color for that, but then again, have you seen any Cadillac commercials lately?

Next we have a visitation from the past. This was a strangely difficult experience for me for some reason. It was like I walked back in time to a place I used to be, but didn't belong now, Back to something I once was, but wasn't now. I was someplace I use to look forward to going, but now I had a feeling of anxiety and discomfort around me that made me eager to leave now. I was someplace where I used to fit in and was just one of the crowd, but I was misplaced now. This is difficult because I look around and I see a bunch of people, just like me. They are not any different than they were years ago when I used to come here. The place is a little local drinking hole named Foley's Irish Pub. A long time staple in the diet of Reading Ohio. I spent many and evening there with friends in years past, it was even one of the first places I took my soon to be wife some 15 years ago. This night I was again there with my good friends and happy for any opportunity to spend time with them because that time is more rare and more precious these days. We even got a babysitter, which is odd, because this is only the 5Th time since returning from China that we have both left the house together without Gracie. I was very happy to see my friend, at we were at Foley's for a benefit, so it was doubly nice to be out, on a date, with my friends, and doing something good for somebody else at the same time. However, before I even walked into the place, while we were just driving though the city of Reading, I could feel this shadow come over me. I felt like this was someplace I had been, but had left behind. The feeling intensified 100 times when we walked in the door. I looked around and all the people there seemed troubled, not happy like I remembered. The place reeked of stale beer, not the fresh smell of newly made hot wings like I recalled. At one point I had to go to the bathroom and take a leak. Upon completion of this task (for my long time readers, yes this is the second urinal story of the blog, I promise it will be a while before I enter another one) I happened to look down and notice I was standing in a puddle of piss about 4 foot in diameter. Nice, I don't remember that being the norm either. It was a couple of hours into the evening by now and in spite of the fact I was actually having a good time, I couldn't get past the feeling that I just didn't feel right being here, this is someplace I am not welcome. Don't misunderstand me here, I was welcome and comfortable with my friends, but not at Foley's and not in Reading. Then in dawned on me what the problem was. Ghosts. I was walking amongst my ghosts from the past. They remembered me, but I had forgotten them. They could see me, but I could not see them. This changed at one point in the evening. When I was a young man I had a small group of friend I hung around with, a posse, a crew, whatever you want to call it. Dennis, Darin, and Mike were that crew. Darin and I are still great friends, we have grown from pre-teen to responsible parenthood together. We have supported each other and helped each other through the many trials that life has brought us. Dennis disappeared on both of us shortly after I got married. Mike disappeared for the most part after he started college in his twenties. I had not seen Mike for more than a minute or two in years. This night Mike, a living and breathing ghost from the past came to pay us a visit. He walked up and I stood on my chair to give him a hug. Two grown men hugging in public, in a bar, oh well I don't care, its Mike. He talked for a while, we showed him pictures of Gracie, we talked a while longer and then we left. Mike is a high school football coach now. He works with kids, and loves his kids. He is not married, has no stable family, etc. He is stuck in time. He was very drunk this night, but he was Mike. The thing that disturbed me most was that when he looked at the pictures of Gracie and he talked about his kids at school, you could see the love and the pain in his eyes. Tonight I pray for Mike. Lord place your hand over him and guide him into the path of light. Send him a full dose of your mercy and help him find happiness and purpose within you. You have lead Darin and myself into your purpose and granted us many blessings, please Lord guide Mike and Dennis into this blessed place with us. Amen.

It will be a long time before I willingly go to Foley's again, but I hope its not so long before I see Mike again.

Then we come to Sunday at church. This is just a bit of irony that I choose to notice. One of the first series of sermons pastor Mark did when I arrived at Hartzell UMC was on the full armor of God. The last sermon I did at Hartzell also used this scripture from Ephesians 6:10-18. Today, pastor Tim used this scripture as the basis for his sermon. I took that as God telling me that as of last week when we decided to move to Crosspoint, we had indeed done what He wished us to do.

Gracie had a bad day today. She didn't want to take a nap after we got home. This turned into a feud that lasted almost 45 minutes. She said no, we said yes, the battle lines were drawn. Now, we being the parents are going to win eventually, but I thought this was going to be a border skirmish and it turned out to be more of a Long March.

On the administrative side of things, a quick thanks to my readers and you might notice I added Ythdudette to my link list. I don't think I should use her name here, but I have met her and she is a wonderful person. Please visit her when you have the time. I also would like to make a shameless plug for two other things as well. For the non regulars, please comment so I know who was here. If you have your own blog, please feel free to link to mine and let me know if you would like me to link to yours. Thanks. Chris.

"Gift of Goodbye"

The gift of goodbye is a phrase coined by one of my favorite pastors. (https://www.tdjakes.org/bishop-td-jakes.php)It is a gift that has begun to having meaning for me in the past several years. The gift is in the understanding of something fundamental. Sometimes we try to hold on to things we should let go of and we are better off letting go. Sometimes we get upset by things that leave us and we shouldn't. Sometimes we need to leave and wont because we are concerned by what we are leaving behind. The gift of goodbye is in the understanding that we, most of the time, need to accept that God has a plan, and we need to get in line and follow the plan. Just because someone leaves doesn't mean they are a bad person, it doesn't mean that they, or you, have done anything wrong, it just means that their part in your story is done. The reference comes from the Book of Ruth. Orpah (sp?) didn't do anything wrong in leaving Ruth. Her part in Ruth's story was done. She left Ruth and Naomi, with Naomi's blessings. Its that simple, Ruth had more things to do in Naomi's life, Orpah did not. The sooner we can grasp this, the better of we will be. We should not beg others to stay in our lives when their roll is done, we are better off moving on. We should not allow others to convince us to stay in their lives, it wont work, we have other things we need to do, and so do they. This is a difficult and painful time for people. Nobody likes change. God has a habit of closing doors in front of us, but we need to learn that when a door is closed, we need not worry, fret, fight, or cry about it. We need not bang on the door or try to hold on to what is on the other side of it. What we need to do is turn about face, keep our heads up and eyes open because when God has closed a door to us, another one is standing wide open waiting for us. Blessings are waiting for us to venture down this new path. This is what the Story of Ruth is about. Doors were closed to both Ruth and Naomi, but because they persevered and walked into the open door, many blessings were bestowed on the both. Their blessings came to them from others who were in turn blessed by them as well. Times of change can be difficult, but if we stay in Gods will, greater things are ahead of us and as we walk into this blessings through our troubled time, we will become a blessing to others.

Okay, whats the deal with the mini sermon you might be asking yourself..

Angie and I have decided that Crosspoint Community Church is going to be our new home church. I knew God was closing the door at Hartzell, my part in their story would seem to be over. I am of the belief that for some reason, we are to move to CCC now. I don't know for sure what ministry opportunities, if any, lay waiting on us, but I feel drawn there now. This became clearer to me this past Sunday when the Pastor started talking about Goliath and killing giants, and Grace (the divine kind if Grace) These are things I have had on my heart here as of late and things I have even written about in these blogs. If you note the date of the blog called "Lazarus" you will notice that it was posted before this past Sunday. I don't believe in coincidence so I believe there is a message here for me to take. I only pray that I don't misinterpret the message. Angie and I are going to look into what this place is offering the youth. They seem to have several kids running around, there might be an opportunity to work with youth again at some level. It is also possible that God just wants us to rest under a new teacher for a while and our service is going to come later and require the tools we gain from this new opportunity. Either way, God is leading and as for me and my house, we shall choose to follow. Amen.

Lazarus

Real men don't Cry. I had to think a bit on what to call this latest blog entry. Part of this story is another detail about the story of Grace. Part is another insight into the normal chaos that is me. Part of this entry is about growing up and reminiscing. I think I have to settle for the sarcastic just because that's me. Part of me wanted to call this entry, "I kill things" but that wouldn't make much sense until the end of it so I skipped that one.
Lets start by going back to "The Story of Grace" , which means I am going to assume you've read the story already, otherwise you might miss some of the meaning but you will understand enough anyway.
Okay, God and me have already had our little chat and I am still getting my sign posts delivered regularly at this point. Brief synopsis, we have no children but God has said we will. God is in the process of telling me about children and teaching me things I need to know. If you have ever had God get on your case, so to speak, you know what I mean when I say he is relentless and it feels a bit harsh at the time, but its for your own good.
Let me paint the picture for you.
Real men don't cry, better yet, real mean don't feel emotional pain at all and real men don't even over react to physical pain. Real men are in total control of themselves at all times, particularly when loved ones are involved. We must be the strong ones and help with everyone else. We must be strong enough to deny any hurts so that we can take care of any others who might need it. We must not feel pain so we can be the rock for our wives, our parents, our family, our friends, whomever. Real men don't cry, we simply say things like, yes that's sad, yes that's unfortunate, everything will be okay, its better this way, or the ever popular, they are in a better place now. Real men don't cry because we have learned not to. We learned as boys that crying is weak and we cannot be weak. It is a conditioned response. I had become a very strong and very real man during my childhood. My conditioning was excellent and complete. I learned every trick there was to learn. I not only learned how to hide my emotions at a young age to project the image of strength, I learned deny them by my early teens. By the time I was an adult, I could keep them from happening all together. I will say this, when it comes to defense mechanisms, building barriers, and manipulating ones self conscious, I am a master craftsman. Let me present you with the latest visual metaphor. I have grown fond of metaphors as of late. When something presents itself to me as a threat of causing me pain, I kill it, bury it, roll the stone over the grave and forget it. Its dead, its buried, its gone. Got the picture? Oh, must not forget the best part, I can do this in a flat second and once its buried, it is really gone from my conscious memory, it never happened, neat huh? Well this leads back into the story I have to tell tonight from the man cave. The night when God sent me a message, I killed it, and my Pastor brought it back to life. Two little girls about 6 or so years old about made my world implode, the system failed, it never fails.
Okay, here is the story.
Angie and I were at a gathering at the Pastors house. There were 3 or 4 couples there that night which added up to something like 7 kids. Gracie was still an unknown entity at this point, this is the place when God is preparing me for the answer He already gave me. This story became the first sermon I would ever do without notes. I digress. I am sitting in the living room on a small chair with kids running amok all over the place, chasing each other, playing tag, hid and go seek, etc. The adults are all sitting around just chatting about whatever. And then it happened. One of the little girls was running away from one of the others. She ran towards me and jumped in my lap, mushed up tight and cuddled in close. The chaser followed her up into my lap. I know have two little girls on my lap snuggling in tight. Having no children and not yet to the point of understanding that I will be a father one day, I am of the mind that I will have no children. This circumstance of cuddling with this little girls is oddly suitable at this second, it feels natural. But then one of them, the chasee, squeezes a little harder and says, "protect me daddy". Now, if I wasn't a real man, that would have been emotionally crushing. If I had not been a real man, that would have brought tears to my eyes. If I had not been a real man, this could have been awkward and painful. Ah but at last, I was a real man, a very talented and Strong man who took that phrase, killed it, buried it, rolled the stone across the door and forgot it. I did this in a blink of an eye and therefore never felt any pain, never shed a tear, never flinched. Angie was sitting across from me and instantly felt remorse and awkward for me, but she made the observation that my facial expression never moved so therefore it must not have been as bad as she perceived it to be. All was well and all was forgotten, except one small detail. God knows me, and God wasn't going to let me kill His message. Conveniently he happened to have a servant nearby in the form of a Pastor. Pastor chimes in right about her with a bit of a sarcastic comment. "well, I guess Chris and you mom have some explaining to do" this resurrected that which was dead. He brought the memory back into my consciousness. I was calm enough to let let it eat me alive, but now in my conscious mind I would have to struggle with this until it made sense to me. God had two messages for me that night, the first was Him still telling me about Grace and that he had changed my name to daddy, the second was that He didn't like me killing things because by doing that I would not address them. By not addressing them I could not forgive. He forgave me and He was letting me know that I had some work to do. I needed to address everything that was dead and forgive. Forgive others, forgive myself, forgive it all. He was not going to allow me to keep this tomb closed.
Back to the metaphor. I am going to keep this in metaphorical terms so that you might apply it to your lives as well as to protect the reader from all the horrid details of what I was forgiving. I had a tomb with a big stone in front of it. Every time someone nearly caused me pain, I would kill the memory, toss it in the tomb and roll the stone back in front. This thing was dead to me now. God told me to forgive, as He had forgiven me. That meant the tomb had to be opened. The thing in there were not pretty and most had been there for quite some time. They stank alot when they were alive, they were even more rancid now. I stood before the tomb as the door was rolled open with the assistance of my Pastor. God stood with me as the dead things were resurrected one by one. One by one they came out, I forgave and another one followed. One by one until they all came out. All but one. The last one had a name, its name was Goliath. He was the reason the tomb was built in the first place. God pointed me towards a creek bed from which a retrieved a smooth stone with which Goliath might be slain. I dropped Goliath where he stood because he was not a dead memory come back, Goliath was the fear of the memories. I didn't have to forgive him, he needed killin'.
From that day forward I have struggled to keep the tomb from returning. These days I cry at movies, at the sound of my daughters voice, I cry pretty much whenever I dang well feel like it. Why the change? Don't you want to be a real man anymore?
The answer is this: Real men don't cry. I don't want to be a real man anymore. I want to be like my saviour and Redeemer because my Redeemer lives.



John 11:35 "Jesus Wept"