I just finished watching the TV version of the movie “40 Year Old Virgin.” I love “adapted for TV” movies. If there was a way to watch all movies that way for the same cost as watching them the normal way, I totally would. I think it’s because when the shock value of the language is removed that element of comedy is lost…but then the movie has to depend its message. Has anyone ever seen “Good Will Hunting” on TV? It’s inspiring. I watched it on TV and was captivated. I then saw the unedited version of it sometime thereafter and couldn’t even watch it. Not because of the language…at least I don’t think that was it. I just felt like the redemptive message was being suffocated by a bunch of people finding creative ways to swear at each other. 

In case you’re wondering, I expect to be in the minority of the world on this opinion. And I see the other side…free speech, artistic representation and all that jazz. That’s great. For y’all. 

So back to the movie at hand. “40 Year Old Virgin.” Since I think I’m about the last person on earth that intends to see this movie and I finally did see it, I’m going to have a SPOILER ALERT:  the main character is a 40 year old virgin. His friends at work are trying to “help” him lose his virginity.  He falls in love with a woman…and long story short, he saves sex for marriage. The movie ends with him getting married. Of course, this was the TV version. I suppose the unedited version could have had a completely different ending…but I don’t think that was the case (though I’m pretty sure that there were a few scenes missing at the beginning and the dialogue was really hard to follow in some parts because it was edited so heavily to get onto TV) But I really wasn’t expecting him to actually save sex for marriage. I guess my expectations are lower for fictitious TV movie characters, since it seems like everybody on TV is having sex outside of marriage…but I really admired the main character for waiting.

I guess I felt like I could relate. Saving sex for marriage was a commitment I made to myself and to Lyndsay, even though I didn’t know her when I made it. And I played my cards a good bit differently than the character in the movie. I tried to surround myself with people who agreed with me and held the same beliefs I did on sex and marriage and would encourage me to be stick to my commitment. It wasn’t always easy, but I’m glad that I waited. I sometimes couldn’t really completely figure out the “why” behind waiting a lot of the time. I just knew that it was “the right thing to do.” But I think God knew my desire to answer the “why” question and He did. Ironically, He chose to do so while I was standing at the altar on my wedding day, through some crazy awesome wisdom from Steve, one of the pastors that was marrying us. But that’s another story for another day. Ask me if you care, I’ll tell you all about it.

The thing that I really liked about this movie was that as I let it sink in, it really made me thankful for my wife. In the movie, as the couple is dating they start talking about the future, about hopes and dreams, etc. Over the course of the movie, the guy goes from being on the bottom of the ladder at Best Buy to being successful at his job to selling his collection of sci-fi memorabilia to get the upfront capital to follow his dreams of owning his own business. But if he’d never met this woman, he just would have sat at home collecting junk until he died. She inspired him to get up and move his life forward.

In my desire to “be a leader” and “focus on the future” and fulfill my role as the leader in our marriage, it’s easy for me to get so focused on what I need to be doing for Lyndsay that I begin to take for granted what she’s doing for me. I’m not even talking about the fantastic things she does intentionally, like make good food when she has the chance. I’m talking about the things she does for me unintentionally. For example, I get a lesson from her in faith in God…of asking Him and expecting it…not because you want it, but because you depend on it. And depending on it not for self-centered personal needs, but because those personal needs and that dependance come out of a desire to see God’s will done here on earth. Also, I see the complete trust she has in me when we’re not together. Her trusting me makes me realize just how crucial trust is for a functional relationship (on any level of relationship). Those are just two examples, but they’re darn good ones–I definitely would not have any kind of grasp on possessing the qualities of faith in God and trust in others if it weren’t for Lyndsay’s presence in my life. And I need to possess those qualities. Bad. 

…alright, it’s getting late and that’s about as much vulnerability as I can display without getting sarcastic, so I better quit now while I’m still doing well. Goodnight!

About two months ago I sent off my application to the Tennessee state board of CPA Examination, requesting that I be able to take the CPA Exam. It said to allow 8 weeks. I figured they were just saying that, and that I’d hear back from them in 4 or 5 weeks tops.

So about 3 or 4 weeks ago I began checking my mailbox daily, eagerly waiting to see if I got my approval letter. After a couple weeks of this I began to lose heart. I began to wonder if perhaps I was missing some hours, or some requirement that I never knew existed. I didn’t have to worry if they’d not gotten the application though…no sir. They’d deposited my check for the absurdly large registration fee less than 7 days after I mailed it.

So this internal emotional rollercoaster has gone on for about a month now. Of course since I have no emotions, my internal emotional rollercoaster is a pretty laid back ride. But still. Not fun.

This morning all of that came to an end in the most anti-climatic way possible…at 4:07 this morning I received an email from the Tennessee Board of Accountancy telling me I’m qualified, approved, and ready to go take the test.

Yes. An Email.

Where is the satisfaction in that? I want to run in from the mailbox and excitedly open the envelope! I don’t want to spend the first 2 minutes wondering if what I’m looking at is actually a spam message telling me there’s a dead person in Europe who left me 10 million dollars.

Anyway…I’m in.

So now I have to schedule the tests. I’m going to try to take two of them before Christmas, though that’s a much bigger undertaking now then it was two months ago when I initially dreamed up doing it. 

Goodbye social life. Goodbye football on my TV. Goodbye Xbox. It was nice to spend time with all of you. I’ll see you again in about 8 months, I hope.

This is an interview with my Grandpa that was filmed years ago. It was originally on VHS but I converted it to DVD for my family. And I thought it was pretty awesome, so I trimmed it down a small bit for youtube. Here it is.

I got “people!”

Not really. But if you’ve been to www.scottcrews.com in the last week, you’ve probably noticed something new going on in the left side bar. That’s right…advertisements.

This is a pretty cool thing. It’s set up through Google, and they’ll run ads on a variety of things right there in my sidebar. The main page seems to mostly be ads for the Ford Flex…which I have learned is actually a pretty neat car. It even has a refrigerator for drinks built in. And when you click on the different individual blog titles, the ads are different, depending on what I blogged about. The political posts have political ads. The posts about Christianity have ads for all sorts of Christian themed sites.

Here’s the deal. When you click those ads, I slowly, but surely, get paid by Google. Right now I’ve gotten three clicks and made about 10 cents. Yippee. I obviously won’t get rich doing this any time soon. But It’s still an interesting idea.

So here is my shameless plug: If you have a minute when you’re visiting my site, click the ad. If it looks even remotely interesting, click it. Don’t just click one, hit back in your browser, click another one, and hit back in your browser rapidly. That could actually get me in trouble. But, if you happen to be here and see an ad or two that interests you, please click it.

Thanks for your help! And for reading my blog!

Two weekends ago, Lyndsay and I both had some bad phone experiences. In the same weekend, I did something to break the camera on my phone and she completely destroyed the LCD screen in her phone. I’m still not sure how she did it, but there was no hope for saving the phone.

So I thought about it, and decided that I would just get my old phone back out and start using it again. Since Lyndsay doesn’t even know that cell phones have cameras in them, I’d just give her mine with the bad camera and she’d be back on her feet in no time. She concurred that it was an excellent idea.

I forgot how much I loved my old phone. It’s a Kyocera KX2 phone. Since that probably doesn’t ring any bells, here’s a picture:

If you ever saw me talking on the phone in 2005 or 2006, this was the phone.

A day after I switched phones around and got my Kyocera back, I was watching an old episode of the TV Show “Arrested Development” and one of the characters, Maeby, whipped out a phone like mine and took a picture!

It was too funny. So I recreated the moment. The resemblance is chilling, no?

I love getting news on the election from Florida. Because nobody knows elections like Florida, the state that has somehow figured out how to create so much confusion and craziness around the election that the other 49 states don’t even really have a say in the outcome. 

Because I’ve now been quoted and linked to by a British news site’s political blogger, I immediately now consider myself an election 2008 expert. And because I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

Anyway, I saw this news article today (courtesy of my aunt and uncle in Orlando) and had to make a comment about it.

In upstate New York, 300 something absentee ballots were sent out for this election. The choice was clear. You could either vote for John McCain or Barack Osama. Yup. That’s right. Barack Osama. As if the fact that his middle name is Hussein isn’t enough to scare people around the country into thinking he’s a terrorist, I’m sure this certainly is.

You can read the story HERE.

The funny thing to me is that the event happened in New York, but that it was picked up by the Central Florida news. It’s like they’re trying to say…”No really! We’re not the only ones in the country who can do something completely ridiculous this election! Look at these boneheads in New York! We’d never do THAT! Are you seeing this, America?! We’re not as bad as New York!!”

Oh Florida.

This is from a Joe Biden tour stop in Florida. The guy introduced him as John McCain…

…this is a sure sign that folks in Florida STILL haven’t figured out what’s going on with the election, and that more election hijinks and hanging chads are sure to follow from the Sunshine State.

Today I got tired of the old look for my blog and I decided to lighten things up a bit. So this is what I came up with. It seems a bit more easy to read. Pretty cool, eh? I’d love to know what you think.

Scott

Over the weekend I found some old negatives from pictures I took in high school and college, before I got a digital camera. I scanned a couple of them in and was pretty pleased. Here was a funny one of me and Matt:

Here is the link to the rest of them: http://www.scottcrews.com/photos-2/pictures-from-back-in-the-days-of-film/

Today I went to visit my sister Laura. She just started the program at Clemson to get her Ph.D. in Economics.

We had dinner with her, her friend Christine, and my grandmother and her friend Richard. It was fun.

I’m sure at this point in my story you’re pretty bored and wondering where I’m headed with all this.

Well…I’ll cut to the chase. Laura made me a pumpkin pie for coming to visit her. Pumpkin pie is my favorite dessert. I could eat it every day, I think. But I don’t–I’d hate for it to lose its awesomeness.

But today, I DID eat it. And it was delicious. 

And now I’m in her room blogging about it. Because it was that awesome.

I think I’m going to come visit her every weekend now.