Swagger Wagon "Meet The Parents"

Okay, so had my brother-in-law and sister-in-law here this past week.  Whoops, supposed to give a shout out to Shauna, because apparently, I have failed to mention since the inception of this blog, that she is my favorite sister-in-law.  Maybe a little pushy, but I digress (and now, because of that last comment, just completely lost the coolest brother-in-law title).  Being a reader of the blog (one of 6), Shauna loved the Swagger Wagon vid from awhile ago, and while visiting us this past weekend, loaded up a new clip from the same series that is pretty sweet.
I am gonna link it, instead of embedding this puppy so you can watch the whole array of ad's if you want to be cool and be the best parents cause you feed your kids.  We do by the way which makes us awesome.

Out of the mouth of babes

We have Carla's sister (Shauna) and fam here for a visit.  They wanted to see the new digs.  While I was driving Megan and her cousin Taryn home from being out, Megan suddenly proclaimed, "Dad, dad, look back here.  We can both lick our armpits!"

There literally is nothing to say.

VHF - OK GO

OK GO is the band who sky rocketed to the youtube stratosphere with their now infamous treadmill video.  They have released a new vid, and they do not disappoint in the ability to "wow" you with their capacity be creative and have fun.  Happy Friday.

6 Things in my brain today

1.  Because I think this kind of stuff is interesting.  Like way more interesting than any season ever of the Bachelor.

2.  Whatever your opinion, whatever your understanding, whatever your personal life holds, you can't miss this event.

3.  Most likely all of us have done this at some point with no success.... until now.  Success lies at the edge of your lips.  Shout it out people.

4.  Read this article first so that you will undertand why I like this article second. 

5.  This is almost too difficult to post it is so lame.

6.  18,000,000 Hits

It's 2 am somewhere, well, right here

So, a couple nights ago, I was in that beautiful deep sleep point of the night (REM apparently, or at least that's what they told us health class in Grade 6 - you know, it's where your eyeballs are going schizo back and forth.  That being said, to this day I have no clue why eyeballs do that.  Like does your arm twitch uncontrollably at some point in the night too?) dreaming about walking in my mankini on the beach in Hawaii.   When I was awoken by an attrocious (how do you spell that anyway?) noise.  I am talking an airhorn built for hard of hearing giants who wear ear muffs kind of noise.   My youngest, Caedyn, is so freaked out, she decided it was critical to scream louder than the siren of doom.  She comes shreaking into our bedroom, dives on the bed, pancakes the dog, and buries herself under the covers in less than 4 seconds.  I had no clue what hit me.  My wife says something to the effect of "stop farting" and shoves Caedyn over to my side.  As quickly as the noise began, it stopped.  Well, the siren that is - Caedyn was still howling like the woman I saw at Costco the other day, who, and I kid you not, somehow completely missed seeing the large bump on the road painted bright yellow and built to easily maneouver as a human, and tripped over that puppy and had the shopping cart she was pushing land squarely on top of her, trapping her in it's wire mesh death trap.  It was not pretty yet beautiful in the same moment.  At his point I still had no clue where the noise came from.  I immediately struck out to find the source of this chaos.  Nothing.  No red lights indicating trouble on my fire alarm/carbon monixide detectors.  Checked all four.  No emergency vehicles.  No car alarms.  Zip.  I even checked the curb to see if Costco chicky pants happened to fall on my driveway.  Zip.  I decided it must have been a horrible dream and that I actually was wearing a mankini in Hawaii and forgot to shave my back.  I check on my other two kids.  Megan was still sleeping when I went in to her room, and when I bent over her, she opened her eyes and said "my leg is cramping."  I have no clue either.  My son Brady, was completely buried in his pillow with the sheets pulled over his skull.  I peeled back the covers only to have him shriek in terror and start crying.  He thought Ironman had gone evil and was jack hammering through the roof  into his room to kidnap him and force him into slave labour making Barbie Movies.  The poor kid.  I had to sit with him for 15 minutes just to get his breathing controlled.  I finally crawled back into bed only to receive a head butt from Caedyn the moment I put my skull on the pillow.  Lovely. 

Oh the memories. 

VHF - Sunday's Coming Mock Movie Trailer

Love to hear your comments.  Happy Friday!


"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

Today

I want to be a better listener.  Don't get me wrong, I can listen with the best of them.  I've got three kids chanting with regularity, "It's not fair" or "Do I have to?" or "Daddy help!  I can't feel my armpits."  Well, okay, if I were to be honest, I don't listen all the time.  There is the odd time, and I am talking like 1 in 2, where I pretend to be asleep when the kids wake up in the middle of the night with the squirts. 

It's the listening to God that gets a little more difficult.  Especially when it comes to figuring out what God wants me to do.  How do I know what I should plan on doing?  It's seems like that is the point I feel misdirection creeping in.   When I try and decipher the "will of God."  Yes, I believe in vision and goals and feel it is very appropriate to "count the cost before building the tower" but, the big BUT... too often I find myself leaning more heavily on those things than straining to hear God's voice today. So I strain to look into the future anticipating, hoping for, relying on God's provision of something or someone to help me with my decision today.  And more often than not, I wait, I fear, I do nothing.

As I have looked through scripture, I searched for how people were intent on "leaning in" to what God's will was for them.  What struck me, were the exceptions.   The exceptions were individuals knowing all the details.  The pattern was completely different.

Abraham being told to get up and go. No plans for where he was going to stop or what he was going to do. Moses being directed to leave Egypt with a couple million people.
The disciples told to go find a guy in a town, go hop on a boat, take only what you can carry with you.

The discipline each displayed was a listening to God's voice each day.  No matter the risk, no matter the consequence, no matter the foggy details.

As I looked over my life for the past 5 years I noted that there were many times when I let fear, opinion or a 5 year goal direct me more than listening to what God wanted me to do that day.   So sad.  I wonder what incredible mysteries I missed out on.  I wonder what God had in store for me that I never was able to capture.  I wonder. 

May we not only be great listeners but great models of what God is calling us to in this time.   I want to encourage you to be faithful to God today. I am not implying a disregard of future consequences to present decisions, nor to flippantly make a decision only looking at the next 24 hours.   I am encouraging a "leaning in" to what God is saying today.  What is he asking you to do today?

Stock Photography Gone Wild

A couple weeks ago a friend of mine forwarded an email to me.  It was from a "Canadian Pharmacy" offering incredible discounts on Viagra. To be fair, I cannot comment on whether they really are offered at a great discount or not, as I have yet to purchase said blue pill.  Regardless, it got me to thinking, do you really want to buy the discounted version of those puppies?  Like really?  (I kept going on this one and repeatedly deleted what I typed which made me realize that I need to stop right there.) 

Initially I was a little cheesed cause I don't need anymore spam email's than I get thankyou very much.  And it's not like you don't get these puppies all the time too.  Except this email was unique.  What was incredibly "special" about this spam email, was the picture of the couple featured as being "well healed" by the product.  My friend highlighted to me that it was the same couple featured as a lovely family on the South Campus Website of Willow Park Church (Lady with glasses and sweater guy).

No this couple does not attend our church and I have no clue who they are, but when you lean into the stock photography market, you sometimes get burned.  Well, at the very least, cheap placebo.

Gametime

I love the "self-checkout" counters that are popping up at so many stores lately.  Okay, that's not true - most of them.  Sorry Save-On Foods but I would rather have an ingrown toe nail removed than use those puppies.  And yes, I have had one removed.  Extricated might be a better term. And yes it was completely disgusting.  Puss and blood and fluids you have never witnessed exit your toe.  I kid you not, the needle is about the size of an ice pick, and it feels just a wee bit less painful than slamming each of your fingers in the car door.  You soon realize why it was necessary for the curtain to be put up to make it impossible for you to  witness the procedure when the physician hammers the needle into the base of your toe so far that it makes contact with the bone.  Awesome memory.   Anyway, I am certain Save On had their system designed by Podiatrists (that is the official name for toe torturer's).  If you even look at the scale wrong, it goes into lock down mode.  Never mind if your kid happens to sneeze on it (thank you Megan). On top of that, when lock down mode is engaged, and it will friends it will, you beget a visit from the attendant who has to scan their special card, enter four passwords, and then frisk you just in case you were trying to harbour some asparagus in your socks.   Unreal.

At the other very cool self-check outs I have been to, I play a little game.  Maybe it's because I laugh at silly things or get bad cramps when I have to spend money, or maybe it's just that I like little games.  I talk back to the machines.  The nice computer girl is always making comments, telling you about discounts, asking hoe many bags you want, all sorts of great questions.  So I politely carry on the conversation.  Like today when I was at Home Depot.  After completing the transaction, the nice computer girl said, "Thank you for shopping at Home Depot."  To which I replied, "You are very welcome.  And I hope you have a great day."

In case you were wondering, yes I do say a few different things to the Save-On Foods Self Check Out computer FBI.

VHF - Toyota Sienna "Swagger"

This video is a shout out to all your boyz who have somehow lost a little swagger with the invention of the "perfect" family vehicle called the mini-van.  Yes its economical... yes its roomy... and yes, it completely eliminates any sense of manhood from your repertoire.  Mind as well shave your legs.

This video brings it all back baby.

Hiatus

My apologies on the hiatus. 

We moved. 

Probably don't need to utter much more than that.  We sold our last house June 30, 2009.  So it has been almost a year that we have been out of a house.  I don't know how many times in the last couple days I have opened a box and said, "Oh there's my mankini!" 
On top of that we had no internet/phone until yesterday so connectivity was lacking. Alas, all is well.  Mind you not so much for my daughter Megan.  2 nights ago we are tucking the kidlets in for the night, and I finish my rounds by stepping into Megan's room.   Two of our kids went down very well - one not so much.  If you know anything about my life I am pretty sure you can guess who decided to re-enact the video "We're not going to take it" by Twisted Sister.  As I enter Megan's room, She is just finishing up a journal entry in her diary.  So I ask her if she would be willing to share.  She said of course dad, and here is what she wrote:

"Today was an awesome day.  Well, until the night came and the screaming began."