New family member...

I figured that since I live in Texas, I might as well get a pet that will fit in down here...Say hello to "Big Jake." As you can see from saddle on him, I like to take him for walks in the neighborhood.

Piper...

I have been reading the book "Don't Waste Your Life" by John Piper. I read this excerpt from the book and thought I would share it with you.

"God created me-and you-to live with a single, all-embracing, all-transforming passion-namely, a passion to glorify God by enjoying and displaying his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. Enjoying and displaying are both crucial. If we try to display the excellence of God without joy in it, we will display a shell of hyprocrisy and create scorn or legalism. But if we claim to enjoy his excellence and do not display it for
others to see and admire, we decieve ourselves, because the mark of God-entralled joy is to overflow and expand by extending itself into the hearts of others.

The wasted life is the life without a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples."

Cold War Kids

Here is a group that has recently caught my attention. Click on their name under my "Music I Listen To" section and take a listen.

The songs "Hang Me Up To Dry" and "We Used to Vacation" are my favorites.

FedEx...

I think these commericals from FedEx are just classic. Are there folks like this where you work?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hKWM5Z1zds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U-dYleBVFo&mode=related&search=

Open your eyes and see...

I came across this excerpt from Max Lucudo recently. I am not a huge fan of Lucado, but I do think that he does a good job of taking certain truths and putting them in a very common language that you can relate to. Pay attention to the very last sentence...I love what it says.

Here is the excerpt...

"It is the normality not the uniqueness of God's miracles that causes them to be so staggering. Rather than shocking the globe with an occasional demonstration of deity, God has opted to display his power daily. Proverbially. Pounding waves. Prism-cast colors. Birth, Death, life. We are surrounded by miracles. God is throwing testimonies at us like fireworks, each one exploding, "God is, God is!"

The psalmist marveled at such handiwork. "Where can I go from your Spirit?" he questioned with delight. "Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there" (Pslams 139:7-8).

We wonder, with so many miraculous testimonies around us, how we could escape God. But somehow we do. We live in an art gallery of divine creativity and yet are content to gaze only at the carpet."

Airports...

I travel quite a bit for my job with The Salvation Army, so I get to spend time in airports and do one of my favorite things...people-watch.

I was sitting in the Houston-Hobby airport on Thursday, waiting for my flight back to Dallas and around the corner came a sight that literally caused me to give a laugh out loud before I could stop myself. Let me describe to you this person to you.

This 40-something year old man was wearing the following: He had a plaid, button up shirt, safari-like shorts that were as short as the shorts that Reisetter used to wear back in the day (for those of you that don't know what that means, lets just say they were short). The man was wearing a fanny pack, along with 2 phones attached to his belt. And the topper being, black shoes and black socks pulled up to mid-calf.

Classic and hilarious...

I love this show...

This is the most brilliant TV show since Seinfeld.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auEceiMGGk4

My amazing wife...

For those of you that have never met her...this is my beautiful wife Valerie!

Florida trip

Here are a couple of pictures of Valerie and I in Florida. We went and visited my parents there over Easter. The first picture is of the sweet bikes we rode around on at my parents resort and the other one is me tauting the alligators in the river.

The Man

I really don't need to elaborate on this. If you watch 24, you know what I mean. If you don't, you need to.

Clemens and the Yankees

This is part of an article by ESPN.com's Bill Simmons about Clemens signing with the Yankees...know that Simmons is a die-hard Red Sox fan. I find this quite funny.

"As for Clemens signing with the Yankees, I was surprised by my lack of emotion as I watched him pull a Jimmy Chitwood and address his forgiving lapdogs at Yankee Stadium (who seemed perfectly willing to forget that Clemens screwed them over a few years ago by fleeing to Houston). I didn't really care. I swear, I didn't care.

In fact, here are 10 reasons why I'm happy that the Rocket signed with the Yankees.
1. There's finally a villain on the 2007 Yankees. Just like the good old days. I was tired of talking myself into despising A-Rod and Posada.

2. Since he didn't sign with Boston, I wasn't put in the position of (A) having to boycott his starts, and (B) feeling constantly sick because so many Red Sox fans would have been perfectly willing to forgive him if he came back. This would have been awful. I would not have handled it well. Now I get to look forward to the possibility of Clemens pitching in Fenway in three weeks while the entire crowd chants, "H-G-H! H-G-H! H-G-H! H-G-H!" Much better.

3. He burned his bridges with yet another city (Houston). Love when that happens.

4. Watching the inevitable "Brokeback Mountain" parody trailer on YouTube with Clemens and Andy Pettitte. It hasn't happened yet, but you know it's coming.

5. If he'd signed with Boston, between Dice-K Mania, Beckett's quest for 30 wins and the return of the greatest Red Sox pitcher ever, Curt Schilling might have snapped from a lack of attention -- we could have seen him break a baseball bat over a Japanese photographer's head just to grab the spotlight again. Glad we avoided this.

6. Honestly? I don't think Clemens will be that good for the Yanks. He turns 45 in August and he's been pitching in an inferior hitting league for the past few years. Physically, it just doesn't add up. He's defying the career paths of every other pitcher in the the history of baseball … I mean, even a freak of nature like Nolan Ryan started to break down in his mid-40s. How is Clemens still chugging along? How? I just feel like the odds of Clemens either breaking down or becoming involved in a massive scandal seem to be much greater than the odds of him continuing to be an elite pitcher. And if he stinks … it's going to be glorious. Just glorious.

7. The Yankees' clubhouse is already fragile enough … now they're adding a guy who abides by his own sets of rules, flies back home after every start, drags his kids around with him like Michael Jackson and comes and goes when he pleases? Sounds like a recipe for disaster, doesn't it? If he struggles out of the gate, the Yankees' fans will turn on him faster than the WWE fans turning on John Cena during a pay-per-view.

8. We're coming closer and closer to my dream of Clemens' Hall of Fame plaque featuring a cap with a dollar sign on it. I feel like it's a genuine possibility at this point.

9. The Red Sox spitefully giving No. 21 to someone else this season, preferably the worst pitcher on the team. In fact, I vote that they bring Rich Garces back, feed him burritos until he passes the 400-pound mark, then squash him into a No. 21 jersey and hire him as the bullpen coach.

10. Looking forward to an entire season of e-mails like these …

RC in Guatemala City: "So let me get this straight … we're supposed to be scared of the Yankees hiring a 45-year-old fat dude with groin problems? Really?"

Gary in Somerville, Mass.: "I thought you were nuts last year when you were openly hoping that Roger didn't come back to Boston. But after he dangled himself in front of the Yanks, Sox and Astros AGAIN this year I snapped out of it and realized that some things just aren't worth another championship. That grotesque display today IN THE MIDDLE OF A GAME told me I made the right choice. Am I the only one that finds this Clemens/Pettitte thing more than a little odd? I can imagine that when Roger told his wife that he was going back to the Yankees she had the same look on her face that Michelle Williams did when Heath Ledger told her he was going 'fishing' with Jake Gyllenhaal."

"Love one another..."

Today in church we talked about love, specifically John 13 and the verse, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, you also are to love another." This is a verse that I have read and heard many times, but for some reason it hit me today, especially one phrase of those verses.

"...just as I have loved you."

Christ calls us to love one another as HE loves each of us. Not how I love, my wife loves, my friends love, etc, but how Christ loves us. Do we really know what this means? The obvious way he showed his love for us was when he went to the cross, but today I started thinking about this in other ways. I started to think about all the other ways throughout the Bible that he showed his love to others. He loved the lepers, prostitutes, the disciples that would deny and betray him, those that crucified him; to name a few.

I got to thinking about the people that cross my path each day...do I love them as Christ loves me? Do I take the time to love the "lepers" or "betrayers" that I come into contact with. Do I love the "outcasts" or do I ignore them and go on my way.

Unfortunately, for the number of times I do make the right choice and love them, I also choose to look the other way or avoid them just as many. It's time for all of us to love "...just as I have loved you." I've got some work to do, do you?

And so it begins...

Well, after putting this off for too long, I have finally put together a blog. I have grown tired of sending out mass emails to keep folks up to date on what Valerie and I are up to here in Texas, so I decided to put the burden on you. Hopefully ya'll will take time every so often to check out this blog.

The plan is to keep you updated about things going on in our lives, but also to share my thoughts on everything from sports, faith, politics, music, 24, etc. I will do my best to update this often and hopefully this will help ya'll feel like you know whats happening in our lives here in Texas.

Let the games begin...heeeeeeey-ooooh!