The Bookstore Story

So this past weekend Kelly and I took our friend Jordan, who's visiting with us from Fresno, to Memphis for a day of (yawn) shopping. while at the the mall, I had already had my fill of looking at T-shirts and shorts and such, so I took off for the bookstore in the mall, and began reading a book about drawing (thanks Dan Pink), even though I have almost no ability to draw as it is now. The only place to sit I could find was a stool in the children's section, so I went over there and sat down. At some point, Kelly and Jordan came in, and we chatted (she said she had tried to call, but I didn't hear it) and they decided they still had another store they wanted to check out. I opted on hanging out in the bookstore some more, so we arranged to meet up later, and they left.

After a few minutes, I got up to look for a different book, and while up I realized I didn't have my phone in my pocket, so I began to walk back over to the kids section, assuming I left it near the stool. While on the way back there, I passed a young girl (about age 13) and her little brother, and as I passed, her backpack began emitting the sound of the Alabama fight song. we turned to look at each other, and my first thought was something like "Hey, she has something in her backpack that plays the fight song". that was substituted for "she has my cell phone in her backpack" as I realized that the coincidence was a little much that she had something that happened to sound just like my ring tone. (we weren't in Tuscaloosa, after all!) I at first asked her if she had seen my cell phone, then changed that to "did you pick up my cell phone?" She asked if it was silver, and I was like, "yes, and it's ringing". she had the most busted look on her face ever, and reached into her backpack and pulled out my phone. Pretty fortunate that Shannon had chosen that random time to try to call!

ug.

Uggggggg. Here are two things. first of all, my throat hurts really bad. At first, I thought my voice was just shot from crowd control at the Uplift buttfights, but now I think I really have some sort of cold. (the additional symptom of my loss of taste leads me to believe this is valid, and sucks.)

Second, I spent all day today in girl land, as Kelly and I took Jordan shopping in Memphis. Yeah, that's right, the all day shopping trip. good grief!

We actually did have a lot of fun, even though we were pretty dead tired when we got back to the Rock tonight.

Tomorrow I'm going to try to blog a funny story of something that happened to me in the mall. (ha, I laugh just thinking about it!)

Pollicious

A friend of mine designed this site, Pollicious. Check it our, it's a fun idea to bookmark and check in on. They just take random polls.

Uplift 2007

I just returned from a great week with our kids at harding's summer camp, "Uplift". we had more kids than ever go with us, and I think it might have been one of the best years ever for our group dynamic. Our kids really did do a great job of being inclusive, of spanning barriers between cliques and age groups, and had a blast together. They also went out of their way to take care of each other, and I love getting to watch that.

I finished reading Dan Pink's book A Whole New Mind this past week as well. I think I'll have some more thoughts about that in a little while.

new shot

here's a second try

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new posting method

it's called actually doing it.

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Back in Business

So, I was at Uplift (basically a huge church camp in a university setting) just over a month ago, and on the day before we left, my nice laptop got stolen out of my room. Obviously, this sucked. As of yesterday I am back up and running on a 13 inch Macbook, which so far I am loving, though of course I am still shaking my fist at all the things that I lost and hadn't backed up. (in a word, everything.) GRRRRRR.

The other good news is that now my most recent excuse for not posting has been eliminated.

We're rolling towards the end of our summer programming, which wraps up with mission trips. I'm headed to Birmingham this coming Sunday with some junior high kids to work with Habitat, and after that down to Juarez, Mexico with some high schoolers. So that pretty much dominates the radar for the next couple of weeks.

Two other things.
1. I've been running my face off. (Really, that should probably read, "I've been running my belly off.") I'm working on reclaiming my athletic self. I really want to be able to compete at a higher level when my adult soccer league cranks back up in the fall. We'll see.

2. Renewed interest in comic books, particularly of the X-Men variety. Last christmas my brother gave me a subscription to Uncanny Xmen, a brilliant gift. (He's easily the best gift-giver in our family.) I really look forward each month to the day I find one in my mailbox, and I've dropped by the local comics store to pick up some of the previous issues, too. I've set a goal to try and collect all the Issues between 400-475 (which is current), but we'll see. It is fun to go into the store witha list and try to find out if they have the ones I'm looking for. More on this later.

Okay, that's my posting fix for today.
Ciao!

By the way

I have the best wife ever!!!!