Arizona 24-14

I’ve been sick since Monday with an aggravating, slow moving bug that saps my energy just enough to make me not want to do anything but not quite enough to justify laying in bed all day. The annoying thing is that this is the second time this month I’ve had the same thing. It takes about a week to fully get over and is driving me crazy. I was remembering this week that when I lived in Hawaii I would almost never get sick. Maybe a 2 day cold once a year at most. I’m sure a lot of that had to do with the fact that everything is open and outdoors so you don’t get stuck inside for several months breathing stale winter air.

Shortly after Christmas I hit up the sweet sales at Old Navy and got myself some $12 jeans. When I got home I put them on and lo and behold found some sort of weird rock in my pocket. I wondered the pants were made that a rock would end up in the pocket. Then I thought, “Maybe this is one of those million dollar giveaways where whoever buys pants with a rock in the pocket wins?!” After checking the O.N. site I found out that there was no such giveaway.

A few days later I was in Barnes and Noble with the family and every detector I walked through beeped as if I were loaded down with stolen self-help books. Which I wasn’t. Barnes and Noble has detectors all over the place; in the children’s section, music section, and of course by the doors. At each section I had to walk over to the counter and make a bad joke about the weight loss book I was trying to steal. Leaving the family at Barnes and Noble I sauntered across the parking lot to see if there were any sweet sales at Circuit City (which I just found out yesterday is going out of business, nationwide). Upon entering the store I heard the ear piercing theft detector go off and drew the stares of everyone at the store. I again walked over to the counter and cracked a bad joke about trying to return something I’d stolen earlier. On my way out, it beeped again and I just started running. At both stores the clerks said it was probably my cell phone. This was news to me because I’ve had it over a year and never had this problem.

Yesterday morning after taking a shower and putting my $12 Old Navy pants on, I noticed a weird tag on the inside of my pants I’d never seen before. The tag simply said, “Remove this tag before washing or wearing.” The tag was placed in a pretty inconspicuous spot below the pocket, about mid thigh, inside the pants, which is why I’d never noticed it. I cut the tag off, wondering if wearing the pants for the last month with the tag on had caused permanent damage to my leg. It looked like an ordinary tag to me, no chemical pouch or anything. Than I noticed it - a micro chip looking thingy embedded in the fabric of the tag and most likely the reason of my theft detection embarrassment.

As I pondered the marvel of technology I couldn’t help but go back to the rock and wonder what purpose it had. I may never know, but I will definitely check my pants from now on.

Great food, late nights, treacherous snow tubing, high energy, and great worship times were all a part of the winter camp we put on this last weekend.
Starting Thursday night and ending Sunday night it was an awesome time with the 200 or so people that were a part of the camp. We’re already planning on doing it again next year and I’m looking forward to going back to the camp this summer with a bunch of my students as well. Our speaker, Elijah Waters did an outstanding job of connecting with the students and challenging them to live full-on for God and all in all it was a great time.

Great food, late nights, treacherous snow tubing, high energy, and great worship times were all a part of the winter camp we put on this last weekend.
Starting Thursday night and ending Sunday night it was an awesome time with the 200 or so people that were a part of the camp. We’re already planning on doing it again next year and I’m looking forward to going back to the camp this summer with a bunch of my students as well. Our speaker, Elijah Waters did an outstanding job of connecting with the students and challenging them to live full-on for God and all in all it was a great time.

Day one of camp is nigh complete and it’s been a fantablulous time so far. It’s now 10:30 at night and I’m drinking coffee because I’ll be awake until the wee hours of Saturday morning. I survived my first ski day in over 3 years without a nasty fall and with a few timid jumps. Tomorrow is sure to bring muscle pain.

This is pretty cool.

This week is my first Winter Camp with our students. We’re taking a crew of them up this weekend for several days in the snow at a very cool camp called Riverview. I’ve partnered with several other youth ministries which makes this camp a lot less stressful from a staffing/programming stand point and so it should be a lot of fun.

I’m looking forward to skiing for the first time in a few years as well and considering all the snow we’ve had in the last month it should be epic.