Becoming addicted to podcasts

From Wikipedia:

A podcast is a series of digital-media files which are distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and computers.

The first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem. I might have a problem. I am addicted to podcasts. It started a few years ago with the Colin Cowherd radio show on ESPN radio. I started downloading the show and listening to it on my ipod. The downloaded show does not have commercials, so a 4 hour live show is only 2.5 hours downloaded. Awesome. Fast forward to this year. I read a blog post by Dwight Silverman who writes for Houston Chronicle that mentioned that he was a guest on This Week in Technology, TWIT for short. I like Dwight's blog, so I went to the itunes store and clicked on podcasts. I have not been the same since.

I am currently subscribed to 23 podcasts through itunes. The good folks at TWIT produce a bunch of quality podcasts that relate to technology. I am interested in photography as well and This Week in Photography, TWIP, is excellent.

Due to my work schedule, I choose to attend Sunday school and not service at UBC. Therefore, I do not hear the sermons. I miss the sermons. Through itunes, I subscribe to the weekly sermon series of three churches; Fellowship Church, Denton Bible Church, and Lakewood Church. Ed Young, Tom Nelson, and Joel Osteen preach in very different styles but I enjoy them all.

The real gem that I found through itunes is The Daily Audio Bible. Every day Brian reads a passage from the Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms, and a Proverb. Over the course of a year, he reads the entire Bible. Every week he reads from a different translation. For me, it is a great way to make sure that I hear or read the word of God every day. I absolutely love it. Hearing the Old Testament stories read aloud helps them to come alive in my mind.

I find myself looking for an excuse to put on the headphones and listen to some podcast through my iphone. Driving, vacuuming, or just sitting at the computer, whatever I might be doing goes great with a podcast.

Just another weekend

Let's start with Friday, I got home at 4 PM after working the previous 16 hours. I took a shower and would love to be able to say that I helped my wife get the kids ready, but that would be a lie. We went over to our Sunday school teacher's house. The men went to the garage and played Halo 3 while the women and kids went inside the house and socialized. There were only three families from our class at the event. The host family thought there was a chance that their youngest child might be coming down with a cold. The child's symptoms sounded like "teething" to me, so we braved the elements. There were another 5 men there to play Halo 3. The men had a great time shooting each other. I was definitely a target in this group of men. You would never know they had jobs and families by how well they played Halo 3. As one of my buddies (also a target) asked them "how many of you played Dungeons and Dragons as kids"? That summed up the game play perfectly. Back inside the house, the kids actually played well together so the wives had a nice time as well. Fortunately, I did not have to work Friday night.

My parents came over to our house Saturday morning at 8:15 AM. We all loaded into the Suburban and took off to pick up my in-laws. After picking them up, we headed to Reliant Center for the Reliant Park World Series of Dog Shows (http://www.reliantdogshows.com/). My daughter loves animals and we thought that she would enjoy the puppers (her word for dogs). We were correct. She had a great time as I think that we all did. One event in particular stuck with me, Canine Musical Freestyle. This is where people go out in front of hundreds of other people and dance with their dogs. This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NutzSiRpYBc&feature=related) video shows what it can look like. What I watched, was not quite there yet.

Saturday evening we had a block party in the small green area that is in front of our house. About 10 families from our circle and the nearby neighbors were in attendance. We had a large jumper for the big kids and a small one for the not so big kids. Food was grilled and a margarita machine was working. I did not work Saturday night either. We called it a night at midnight and the party was still going at 3 AM.

Neither the teacher nor the director of our Sunday school class were there Sunday morning. The teacher and director are married and the director and her kids were sick, so the teacher had to take care of them. This put my wife and I back in charge. Jen fell right back into her role and did a superb job with the announcements. Then it was up to me to "teach" the lesson. Well, we were supposed to talk about "speaking in tongues". A subject that I know very little about, so I called an audible. I asked the class to tell us the story of how you and your spouse met and became a couple. I really enjoyed hearing the stories. A few of them I had heard before, but some I had not. I thought it would be a good way to facilitate some community in our group, and I hope that it worked.

Immediately after class, Austin and I drove into Houston for his 1st degree purple belt Karate tournament. Needless to say, he won (whooohoo). It was his fourth straight victory at the tournaments. He did his best and had fun and that is what matters.

Sunday evening we met at Chuy's Comida Deluxe for Mike's birthday dinner. The food was excellent as usual. The hatch green chile sauce is worth the 25 mile drive. After dinner, we went to Mike and Courtney's house for desert and a little Rock Band. My parents and in-laws were in attendance. They kept requesting songs that they might know, so we played "Margaritaville" by Jimmy Buffett. It is a tougher song to play, especially on the drums, than you might expect. We finally called it a night, drove home and got the kids into bed.

We need a weekend to recover from our weekend!

Another child?

I have two wonderful children, a 7 year old boy and a 2 year old girl. They are both true gifts from God. I grew up as an only child and my wife, Jen, has a sister. I always thought that I would be happy having a single child. I was very happy as an only child growing up. I thought that way you only go through everything once, the middle of the night feedings, the diaper changes, college tuition etc... My wife has always had a vision of what her family would be, and that included 2 children. I have always said that I did not want to have more children than parents in my family. That would naturally limit the amount of children to 2.

With that being said, I am starting to think that I would like another child. At this time I think that my desire is caused by my realization that my 2 year old is growing up and this could be the last time that I will experience the toddler stage as a father. My daughter is so much fun at this age. She is learning constantly and always smiling and laughing. My son adores her and they play very well together. She thinks that her brother is the funniest thing she has ever seen, and he might be.

Jen and I have talked about the possibility of another child. She brings up some excellent points as she always does. It took her 30 months to get pregnant with each child. Another child would exceed the 1 parent to 1 child ratio that we like. Twins run in her family. It would be interesting to say the least to have twin babies at 40. I have prayed asking for God to show me his will in this area of our lives. So far, I get the feeling that we are done having children. I have recently taken out the video camera to capture some of the toddler behavior that I so enjoy. I should have been doing this all along, with my son as well. Oh well, at least we have a ton of pictures. The great thing about the video is that you can hear them laughing. There is something amazing about a child's laugh, especially when it is your child. I could listen to them laugh all day long.

I have faith that God is in control and He knows what is best for me and my family. I am confident that whether we have another child or not, as long as we keep God as the center of our lives, He will take care of us.

Finding our place

My beautiful wife (Jennifer) and I have been members of our Baptist church for over 12 years. We have served as the directors of our weekend Bible study class (Sunday school) for 8 years. During that time God used us to bring organization and stability to our class. We both really enjoyed serving in that role. Jen did the majority of the work and I took care of some of the behind the scenes logistics, which is to say I did not do very much. Jen did the heavy lifting. At times we became frustrated with a perceived lack of commitment on the part of other members of our class. We thought that everyone should be as committed as we were. At times we lost sight of the goals of our class, church, and Christians in general.

During the last three years, Jen or I at different times had decided to step down as directors. The spouse that was not discouraged at the time always lifted the other one up. We would pray together and God encouraged us to carry on. Finally, we were both discouraged at the same time in the summer of 2007. Again we prayed, and this time we felt God was calling us in another as yet unknown direction. We decided to step down and began to look for a replacement. We finally found a replacement in the Spring of 2008. As only God can do, as He lifted up a new director for our class, He showed Jen and I our new role in the class. About half of our class either takes care of or teaches children during the Bible study hour. Our class was in desperate need of someone to take care of in-reach. That is to keep in touch with our members and visitors and to not let anyone fall through the cracks.

Jen and I took over in-reach in the beginning of June and it has been a blessing. The excitement is back. We like the challenge of keeping up with everyone and making sure that everyone feels like a part of the group. People are what matter and this role provides us the opportunity to minister to our class. We both feel very strongly that this is exactly the role for us in God's kingdom at this time.

Celebrating the 4th of July

A few random thoughts about the holiday.

They do not celebrate the 4th of July in South America, which sounds logical. However, the company that I work an extra job for has a group of employees from South America. Therefore, I had to work the extra job today.

People and relationships are what matter in life.

I spent the afternoon with my wife and two kids, my parents, my in-laws, and an uncle at my cousin's house who is married to my wife's sister. Yes, the family tree does branch. It was great. My sister-in-law makes the best queso. My cousin is getting very good with the grill. "I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry" has some great one-liners.

The kids played in a small inflatable pool in the backyard. My son, 7, ran and dove in like a superhero while my daughter,2, stood in the water and laughed. It is a joy to watch your children having fun. The smiles and laughter are gifts from God. Water guns were introduced and this got the adults involved. I threw a ball to Cagney, my sister-in-law's Boston Terrier. She loves that ball, the Terrier, not my sister-in-law. I discovered that Cagney will jump into the pool and stick her head completely underwater in order to retrieve that ball. Over and over and over again. She has very high "ball drive".

Who did the eye make-up for Sara Evans? She performed in Chevy's Freedom over Texas celebration in Houston. It was "a little" overdone.

I took 288 north into work. The large fireworks show was going on downtown. Fireworks cause some people to act irrationally. Vehicle were lining both shoulders of the freeway. Families were out of their vehicles, some with lawn chairs, watching the fireworks. What happens when the intoxicated driver watching the same fireworks while driving veers off the road and hits the family watching the fireworks on the shoulder of the freeway? There has to be a better place from which to watch the fireworks. Some vehicles went so far as to stop in the left lane of the freeway to watch the fireworks. Unbelieveable.