Melissa in Bosnia

I have a friend and former Staff from Fresno spending the summer in Bosnia with her students. If you want to follow along you can find her here!

Update!!! For those of you scoring at home, the inbox is--gloriously--down to 50. Now I've got to keep it there...

How I'm Surviving

Greetings from Madison, Wisconsin, where I'm in an 8 day long class on how to plant an InterVarsity Chapter (more on that in some other post). After much consideration and careful debate, here are my top 5 tips for surviving such a situation:

1. Work out at the gym everyday (thankfully, we are given passes to a nearby facility)
2. Make it your goal, no, your relentless quest, to take your email inbox from 200 at arrival to 50 when you leave (I'm at 89 tonight)
3. Never take the elevator to anything
4. If you make it to breakfast, fine, but try to skip as many dinners as possible (you need a break from people and, really, how many ways can you cook chicken anyhow?!?)
5. Call home as much as possible

I'll be home on the 4th at 7pm!!!

My psycho son

So I don't like turbulence. Check that. I loathe it. Disregard my tongue-in-cheek comments from March. Turbulence universally sucks.

And tubulence loathers like me consistently have to suffer on the flight into Denver. Over the Rockies, the plane bucks and shakes like some whacked out bull in the ring. I'm looking around for the rodeo clown and a barrel. This past Tuesday, we were in full bounce mode. The girls are screaming. Amy has her eyes closed. I'm about to soil myself, when after one particularly nasty bump, next to me Josh yells out:

"Oh yeah, baby. Wahoo! Ka-chow!"

Guess the apple not only falls far from the tree, it's in another orchard...

A Father's Day Tradition at Fly in the Soup

We all know that Father's Day is all about sports on TV, so here's your Father's Day TV schedule. It looks a bit different than last year. No global soccer tournament and a weak NBA finals this time around...

10am U.S. Open Golf until mid afternoon (NBC)
11am NASCAR from Michigan (TNT)
5pm Yankess/Mets (ESPN)

And if none of that appeals, there is always American Flyers at 5:30 on ESPN Classic. Great movie! Beware Barry "the Cannibal" Muzzin!

Yeah, but it's such a drag to not have one on my block!

I got up this morning thinking about Starbucks. As in, "man, after that night, a black and white hot chocolate would be good." (I know, I'm a wimp...)

And so the difficult, gut-wrenching question we always face when we're craving Starbucks is..."which one?" Because there are tons of stores in the Fresno/Clovis area. But just how many you ask? I went to the Starbucks website and entered my address, and they kindly tell me that:

There are 6 stores within 2 miles of my house.
There are 16 stores within 5 miles of my house.
There are 42 stores within 10 miles of my house (that's about the Fresno metro area).
There are 49 stores within 20 miles of my house.
And there are 70 stores with 50 miles of my house (now we're bringing in Madera and Visalia).

And those numbers are just for today. In fact, for my money, that new building they are putting up at Shaw and Clovis by the Big 5?!? Another Starbucks...which means, more choices!

"Have a nice trip, Mr. Dixon"

The travel season cranks up for June and July. Here's a preview:

Catalina's Campus by the Sea today through next Tuesday (whole fam!)
Denver, CO June 19-24
Madison, WI June 26-July 4
Sacramento/Tahoe July 8-14
San Diego July 26-31

For those interested, here's the latest update on CBS. I'm excited to see it all for myself.

Can I get a discount, you think?

So we went to Joshua's pre-school graduation today (really, a graduation...with diplomas, caps and Martinelli's! Don't I have a couple of years before this stuff gets started?!?). But as a part of the festivities, each kid came up and received his/her diploma and the teacher said for each one what they said they wanted to be when they grew up.

And it was really sweet. "Austin would like to be race car driver, like his Dad." "Isabella wants to be a dancer." "PJ wants to grow up to fly airplanes or be a firefighter." Things like that.
So I was eager to hear what Josh had said. Would it be "a soccer player," "a policeman," or even "a pizza man?" And while I figured that "middle manager for a faith-based non-profit like my Daddy" wouldn't make the list, I sure wasn't prepared for what came out...

"When he grows up, Joshua wants to...work at Costco!" What?!? Anyway, here's a shot of your future Costco employee after graduation:

Cracking myself up...

...with this.

Score another one for Pastor Steve

Last week at church our Pastor Steve took on the book and DVD called The Secret. Here is a wiki article on it, but to sum it up this big "secret" is expressed in the law of attraction; in other words, like attracts like, so when you think a thought, you are also attracting similar thoughts to you. I don't buy it, but just imagine if it was true...heck, I've got thoughts of a pool in my backyard, kids sleeping through the night, time travel and the Lakers winning again. But I digress...

So I expected Pastor Steve to, pardon the expression, "rip The Secret a new one." And while he did indeed critique the book's premise and expose some obvious faults, he also took it a step further, and I totally respected him for it. I'll paraphrase him here:

If millions of Americans are picking up and experiencing The Secret, that ought to tell us something about our societal thirst for something greater. Indeed, the whole phenomenon of The Secret is tapping into a "heart hunger," the same heart hunger, in fact, that Jesus himself tapped (and taps) into. And so we as followers of Jesus, as the church, need to rephrase the question. It's not "what is it about The Secret that is so compelling?" It's "what is it about our version of Christianity that is lacking, and therefore is unappealing or unconvincing for our culture?"

I think that is a fantastic question, because it implies that if we in the church were, in the words of Pastor Steve, "living well enough that they might want what we have," The Secret would arrive and find no audience. We're clearly not there yet, and it's been an indicting thought for me all week long...

Junkmail

I/we get so much bulk or junk mail every morning. At least it seems like a lot to me, like 15-20 messages, sometimes more. I thought this morning that I would share the joy! Here are the sender and subject lines of most of the bulkmail messages in my inbox, with a wee bit o' commentary thrown in for fun...

1. Someone named Josephine Harvey tells me that "no doctor appointment is necessary." I say, thanks for caring. Josephine, you could be a good friend...IF YOU WERE A REAL PERSON!!!

2. Sanand Fong is letting me know that he can get me "ADOBE SOFT ware for less." Umm, Sanand, "software" is one word...

3. Jack Isenberg dropped me a note with the helpful information that a "Canadian pharmacy will satisfy all you pharmaceutical needs." Yeah, if you can get there through the snow...and is their no "your" in Canadian?!?

4. "Exquisite Replica" has some "replica pens" and "Handbags" will sell me some "replica watches." Ironic coming from a "replica" email...

5. Friedrich Shaw wants to--wait for it--help me have a "turbo orgasm." Thanks for that, Fred.

6. Lastly, Ticketmaster warns: "don't miss Crowded House." Crowded House?!? Really? Are we still in the '80s? Are they playing with A-Ha? The Talking Heads? Wham? Flock of Seagulls? The Buggles?

Really, the only missing bulkmails this morning would seem to be my cheap Viagra offers, ebay items that I didn't bid on and the invitation to singles in my area. Something to look forward to tomorrow I guess...

I'm all for "transparent" government...

...but this seems a bit much...

Also, HAPPY 300th POST!!! Whoot!