I found this video on youtube.com. It's from the Star Wars Weekends that takes place earlier in the summer at Disney World. This particular clip is a pre-show routine put on by a couple of Stormtroopers. I got a kick out of it...
Monday, July 31, 2006
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
My Take...
Book: a.k.a. "Lost"Author: Jim Henderson
Summary: This was a great book that will hopefully help church people rethink the way they have been taught to do evangelism. I found this book to be very 'freeing' and very practical. Henderson encourages the church to shift their vocabulary as it concerns the unbelievers. Traditionally, we have called non-Christians 'lost.' Henderson suggests that we start calling them 'The Missing.' Even this subtle vocabulary shift can be powerful. Other practical tips and stories are included. I strongly recommend this book... it has opened my eyes to many mistakes the church has made as it relates to evangelism... and has given me hope that I can be an effective witness for Jesus Christ even by doing very small things.
Grade: A
Movie: Fun With Dick and JaneSummary: I actually liked this movie... as far as a humorous story is concerned. I laughed out loud several times during the various attempted robberies. I know that Jim Carray is a love him or hate him type actor... but I've always liked his stuff... and he was pretty good in this movie. However, the movie wasn't strong enough that I would run out and buy it...
Grade: B-
Book: Deep FathomAuthor: James Rollins
Summary: Good book about an ancient secret at the bottom of the ocean. Good suspense. Good characters. Enjoyable book. James Rollins is becoming one of my favorite authors. His stuff reminds me of Indiana Jones... in that they are usually supernatural thrillers in an archeological type setting. I've still got about five of his books left to read and from what I understand, they just keep getting better.
Grade: B
Book: Agassi and EcstasyAuthor: Paul Bauman
Summary: Entertaining at very least. This book takes a look at the first ten years of Andre Agassi's career... and also takes a closer look into his childhood. Bauman tended to ramble on about the people that helped shape Andre's career. If I wanted to read a book about Brad Gilbert or Nick Bollettieri or Mike Agassi... I would've gone out and bought their books... but Bauman spends too much time on these people. I also found it interesting that Bauman wrote in the last chapter of the book (written in 1997) that Agassi wouldn't win any more Grand Slams and would probably retire soon. Hmmmm. Ten years and five Grand Slams later makes this guy look like a moron. Here's hoping that somebody in the Agassi family, or Agassi himself will put out an authoritized biography or autobiography sometime soon.
Grade: C
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Something Old, Something New
The following is a quote from Len Sweet in the latest Relevant Magazine... it really resonated with me and I wanted to share it:
"And that brings me to a related issue: confusion between relevancy and recency. Some of the most relevant things are not the most recent, but the most ancient. Without a historical sense, or the spiritual discipline of historical context, there's confusion between keeping relevant and just keeping up. We have to be in touch with the culture but in tune with the Spirit."
To me, it's a reminder that there are certain things about Christianity that will always be relevant, regardless of how old they become. But also, there are many 'recent' things about the current Church that may seem hip and cool ... but in the end are not really all that relevant. There is tremendous wisdom in this statement from Len Sweet about how to balance the two.
"And that brings me to a related issue: confusion between relevancy and recency. Some of the most relevant things are not the most recent, but the most ancient. Without a historical sense, or the spiritual discipline of historical context, there's confusion between keeping relevant and just keeping up. We have to be in touch with the culture but in tune with the Spirit."
To me, it's a reminder that there are certain things about Christianity that will always be relevant, regardless of how old they become. But also, there are many 'recent' things about the current Church that may seem hip and cool ... but in the end are not really all that relevant. There is tremendous wisdom in this statement from Len Sweet about how to balance the two.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Aaron's Story
Melissa and I went into the hospital at about 5:00AM on Monday morning… they quickly got her into a pre-operation room where they gave her the epidural and got her ready to go.
We were wheeled to the operation room… where they performed the operation. It wasn’t a long operation. When they were just getting ready to pull Aaron out of Melissa’s belly… they said that I could stand and look over the curtain… so I was able to see his head and eventually his whole gooey light blue body. That was at 7:55AM.
They took him over to the table where they cleaned him off and tried to get him to cry. It took about 45 seconds for him to cry… so there was some concern already about how ready his lungs were for the real world. Eventually he let out this wail… which made everybody a little more at ease.
At that point, as they were stapling Melissa back together… they took Aaron and me down to the scale… where he weighed in at 8 pounds 4 ounces. He measured in at 20 and a quarter inches. The very first observations that I made about my little boy: He had tons of dark hair; He looked very similar to how Emily looked when she was a newborn; He was not as ‘fat’ as I imagined he would be… he had nice chubby cheeks… but I imagined him coming out looking like the ‘Stay Puft’ Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters… but he didn’t at all.
All the family members were able to come into the post-op room where they saw Aaron for the first time. Emily was in my arms and Aaron was in Melissa’s arms the very first time that they met. I think Emily was a little shell-shocked that first meeting… she acted very shy. Emily had been pretending the whole pregnancy that she’s been carrying a baby too. So, Melissa bought her a baby and carriage that we gave to her during the first meeting with Aaron… saying that her baby came out too. That seemed to warm her up a little bit.
Shortly after this, they took the baby to work with him some more. Probably about a half an hour later, we found out that he had been taken up to the special care nursery because he was having a hard time breathing on his own. The next time I saw Aaron, his head was in an oxygen hood… which looked like a huge plastic square box on his head. By Tuesday, he was off the hood, but still had to wear little nasal oxygen thingies. By Wednesday, he was completely off of all oxygen. By Thursday, he was finally allowed to stay with us. We were discharged on Friday.
From early Monday morning to Tuesday evening, Melissa was not able to see Aaron. Which was a terrible thing. Here she was feeling lousy, and she couldn’t see or hold the reward for all this pain she was going through. Really, up through Thursday night… Melissa was only able to see Aaron for a total of about 3 hours throughout each the day.
As far as Melissa’s health is concerned… there was a scare on Tuesday about her blood pressure… but the doctor’s figured that it was pain related and once they got her pain regulated, her blood pressure steadily went down and stayed down.
Emily has taken very well to the new baby. She talks to him… she likes to stroke his face and hair. She calls him ‘beautiful’ and ‘cute.’ I know there have been several funny stories since coming home… but I just can’t think of them right now. She has shown no signs of aggression yet. I think she is struggling with the fact that mommy can hold Aaron, but Emily is still too big to hold until the incision heals a little bit more. All in all though, she has done better with the whole thing than I would have thought. I have been proud of her. We’ll see if it keeps up.
We are still tired… but Aaron’s night’s have started to normalize somewhat. Last night he feed once around 1:00PM, I think… and again at 5:30AM. Not terrible… and I remember Emily being a lot harder on us during the nights. Continue to pray for Melissa as her incision heals. She is still at minor risk for blood clots for another five weeks or so.
In a very small nut-shell, that’s what happened last week. I’m sure I’ll have tons more to write and share as we get to know our little boy more and more…
Melissa wanted me to share this link:
Aaron's Hospital Page
We were wheeled to the operation room… where they performed the operation. It wasn’t a long operation. When they were just getting ready to pull Aaron out of Melissa’s belly… they said that I could stand and look over the curtain… so I was able to see his head and eventually his whole gooey light blue body. That was at 7:55AM.
They took him over to the table where they cleaned him off and tried to get him to cry. It took about 45 seconds for him to cry… so there was some concern already about how ready his lungs were for the real world. Eventually he let out this wail… which made everybody a little more at ease.
At that point, as they were stapling Melissa back together… they took Aaron and me down to the scale… where he weighed in at 8 pounds 4 ounces. He measured in at 20 and a quarter inches. The very first observations that I made about my little boy: He had tons of dark hair; He looked very similar to how Emily looked when she was a newborn; He was not as ‘fat’ as I imagined he would be… he had nice chubby cheeks… but I imagined him coming out looking like the ‘Stay Puft’ Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters… but he didn’t at all.
All the family members were able to come into the post-op room where they saw Aaron for the first time. Emily was in my arms and Aaron was in Melissa’s arms the very first time that they met. I think Emily was a little shell-shocked that first meeting… she acted very shy. Emily had been pretending the whole pregnancy that she’s been carrying a baby too. So, Melissa bought her a baby and carriage that we gave to her during the first meeting with Aaron… saying that her baby came out too. That seemed to warm her up a little bit.
Shortly after this, they took the baby to work with him some more. Probably about a half an hour later, we found out that he had been taken up to the special care nursery because he was having a hard time breathing on his own. The next time I saw Aaron, his head was in an oxygen hood… which looked like a huge plastic square box on his head. By Tuesday, he was off the hood, but still had to wear little nasal oxygen thingies. By Wednesday, he was completely off of all oxygen. By Thursday, he was finally allowed to stay with us. We were discharged on Friday.
From early Monday morning to Tuesday evening, Melissa was not able to see Aaron. Which was a terrible thing. Here she was feeling lousy, and she couldn’t see or hold the reward for all this pain she was going through. Really, up through Thursday night… Melissa was only able to see Aaron for a total of about 3 hours throughout each the day.
As far as Melissa’s health is concerned… there was a scare on Tuesday about her blood pressure… but the doctor’s figured that it was pain related and once they got her pain regulated, her blood pressure steadily went down and stayed down.
Emily has taken very well to the new baby. She talks to him… she likes to stroke his face and hair. She calls him ‘beautiful’ and ‘cute.’ I know there have been several funny stories since coming home… but I just can’t think of them right now. She has shown no signs of aggression yet. I think she is struggling with the fact that mommy can hold Aaron, but Emily is still too big to hold until the incision heals a little bit more. All in all though, she has done better with the whole thing than I would have thought. I have been proud of her. We’ll see if it keeps up.
We are still tired… but Aaron’s night’s have started to normalize somewhat. Last night he feed once around 1:00PM, I think… and again at 5:30AM. Not terrible… and I remember Emily being a lot harder on us during the nights. Continue to pray for Melissa as her incision heals. She is still at minor risk for blood clots for another five weeks or so.
In a very small nut-shell, that’s what happened last week. I’m sure I’ll have tons more to write and share as we get to know our little boy more and more…
Melissa wanted me to share this link:
Aaron's Hospital Page
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Aaron James Howard
After a brief sabbatical from the internet and pretty much everything else: Finally, here are some pictures from this past week: I'll write a description of everything that went down soon... as it was a pretty eventful week.
Here's one of the first pictures taken on him... while he's getting cleaned and stuff.
Daddy and the little guy taking a nap together.
He had some trouble breathing after he came out... the hospital staff called it a wet lung... so he needed to be on some form of oxygen until Wednesday afternoon.
In his car seat the first time... after he had peed all over his 'going home' outfit... we had to make due with a few various pieces of clothes that we had laying around... hehe. (In total, he has peed into the wind four times while getting his diaper changed...)
Official weight: 8 pounds, 4 ounces. Length: 20 and a fourth inches. Time and Date of Birth: 7:55AM, June 26, 2006.
We absolutely adore him!
Here's one of the first pictures taken on him... while he's getting cleaned and stuff.
Daddy and the little guy taking a nap together.
He had some trouble breathing after he came out... the hospital staff called it a wet lung... so he needed to be on some form of oxygen until Wednesday afternoon.
In his car seat the first time... after he had peed all over his 'going home' outfit... we had to make due with a few various pieces of clothes that we had laying around... hehe. (In total, he has peed into the wind four times while getting his diaper changed...)
Official weight: 8 pounds, 4 ounces. Length: 20 and a fourth inches. Time and Date of Birth: 7:55AM, June 26, 2006.
We absolutely adore him!
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