Lyndsay wanted to go to the mall for Black Friday. I reluctantly agreed. We got to the mall and stood in Dillard’s for about 30 seconds and Lyndsay realized a universal truth that I could have said directly to her a thousand times and she never would have believed:

Self-respecting men don’t go to the mall on Black Friday.

We don’t do it. Best Buy/Circuit City, maybe. But definitely not the mall. The ratio of women to men was about 300:1, and the ratio of men lacking self respect to those who had it was 300:0.

So now I’m at home, trying to answer the real black friday questions: Where I can I watch some football? And what’s for lunch?

Normally about this time of year I release a Christmas list for my family. In my typical over achieving style, this is usually a list with pictures, links, model numbers, and often stores with the best price and dates to find things on sale. Since I’ve determined that my family is probably about 90% of people who read this blog, I figured I’d post my list here. That way it’d be in an easy place for all of my family to find…

In recent years while having the “so what’d you get for Christmas?” conversation with friends, I’ve heard a couple of them mention that they gave their Christmas away. Usually this means that they took all the money they were going to spend on each other or have spent on them, and they used it to provide Christmas for an underprivileged family, either local or abroad.

I usually leave these conversations feeling a bit awkward. Obviously I know that what this friend did by giving their Christmas away is awesome…but…how could I do that? How could I give away the money/iPod/digital camera that I just got for Christmas?

But this year, I’ve decided to go for it. I’m SO blessed, and I want to take this Christmas as an opportunity to live out some of the stuff Jesus talked about…and be a little less like a discontent materialistic American.

So here’s what I’ve decided. There are programs online where you can donate money to buy animals for families in impoverished countries. I think this is really neat. 

You can see the whole catalog here

And here are a few of my favorites:

A Goat - $70

A Brood of Chicks - $25

There are lots of other options. Here are some other favorites:

Vocational Training - $120

Give an Orphan a Month of Loving Care - $35

When you check out, they’ll send you an “Honor Card” that even gives you something to wrap up and give the day of Christmas, letting the me (or whoever else you decide to give for) know about the gift!

DISCLAIMER: I did some checking around before jumping into this. I learned that just because you click “Buy a Goat” and check out, that doesn’t mean that someone, somewhere will necessarily get a goat…and I’m okay with that. I’ve worked for a ministry and I know that there are marketing and administrative costs involved in anything like this.

So why Samaritan’s Purse? After all, Heifer.org, Oxfam, and World Vision are doing the same thing. First, because they’re a Christian Organization (I know that World Vision is too). I like that Samaritan’s Purse comes right out and says that their mission is to “meet needs of people…with the purpose of sharing God’s love through His Son, Jesus Christ.” That is what it’s all about here, folks.

Also, when I checked into their stats, I noticed that Heifer only spends 75%, Oxfam only spends 80%, and World Vision spends 87% on the actual projects, respectively. The rest goes to marketing and administration. Samaritan’s Purse puts 89% towards ministry. I like that. If up to 14 extra cents of every dollar are going directly to the cause, then that’s good enough for me.

Lyndsay has given me a couple of eyerolls over this idea, but I’m totally serious about this. If you’ve already gotten me something for Christmas, I appreciate the thought but please–return it if you can. Or give me a gift receipt with it.

I’m really excited about this Christmas. I hope you are too. Merry Christmas!

A few days ago I found the promo video of me shooting my friend/coworker Brock Gill in the face.

This morning I actually found the full version. If you’ve got 10 minutes, it’s totally worth it.

This is from the DVD Standing Room Only. I’m pretty proud of it, because I wrote and co-directed it. It was a documentary of what we did at “Freedom Experience,” the city-wide outreach that I directed back in 2006. It’s a 3 night outreach that combines music, bmx, skateboarding and illusion. It’s pretty awesome.

As you probably all know, I am and always have been a diehard fan of the band Switchfoot. I discovered them back in 2000 when I was a senior in High School and they released the album “Learning to Breathe.”

 More than any other album I’ve ever owned, this CD influenced (and still continues to influence) my life like no CD ever had (or has since). It is, front to back, an absolutely amazing album. 

My freshman year of college I attempted to convince my friends that Switchfoot, this little band they’d never heard of, was in fact the best music that they weren’t yet listening to. I did so by burning mix cd’s and passing them out to my new Samford friends at Christmas time. (I would feel bad about copyright law violation, but I over the years I’ve sold so many Switchfoot CD’s to people and bought so many as gifts for people that I really should be in some sort of affiliate program)

In the spirit of Christmas ‘01, I actually found a website that is giving away a download of a classic (and one of my all time favorite) Switchfoot songs. It’s called “Learning to Breathe” and (as you might guess) is the title track of my favorite CD. So click here to download it. (UPDATE: The free download has been taken down. Sorry Folks)

This free track giveaway is actually in connection with the fact that the band just put out a “Greatest Hits So Far” CD. Of course, I already own all of these songs several times over from almost a decade of ridiculous fanatiscism, but here’s the link so you can check it out. (UPDATE: The free download has been taken down. Sorry Folks)

Also check out this 3 CD for the price of 1 set, which features their first three CDs…two of which are my favorite two they’ve ever released. If you want more songs like this download…this would be the one to check out.

A while ago I blogged about Lyndsay’s dislike for feet and how little sense it made to me. Kaye, my friend from Samford pulled out some disgusting story from childhood about how she doesn’t like feet and wondered if it might be a traumatic childhood experience. Sara, my friend from high school pointed out that she personally doesn’t like toes and wondered if that might be the case with Lyndsay as well. When I asked Lyndsay about the issue shortly after getting all this feedback, she actually listed both of those reasons as the two reasons that she did not like feet.

In this, I learned two things. First, that I’m incapable of understanding and/or sympathizing with my wife on some issues. Second, that the internet/blog/facebook is actually a wonderful way to gain insight and perspective from friends when I need a little dose of it.

So. Here’s the new one. Today Lyndsay was putting out Christmas decorations (yes, I know it’s only November 16…but this is not even part of the question), which included 3 holiday soap dispensers, one in each of our bathrooms. She set each empty Christmas dispenser next to the usual soap dispenser on the sink. I asked her if she wanted me to dump the regular soap in, or if she had her own soap for these Christmas dispensers.

She replied, “No, I wouldn’t want to ruin them (the Christmas soap dispensers) by putting soap in them.”

This sentence makes no sense to me. What would the purpose be, if not to hold soap? One of us is crazy. Please advise.

I was surprised and a little excited to find out that Samford was playing Belmont right here in Nashville for their season opener this year. I don’t really keep up with Samford basketball since as long as I’ve been watching, they’ve been terrible. I had to go what seemed like a bazillion games while I was in Pep Band. They were occasionally entertaining, but mostly depressing. Especially the women. But the women seem to have turned it around, as they went something like 23-9 last year and made it to the conference semi-finals. They had their opener tonight too–except they won.

So back to tonight. We were excited to get to go cheer for our Bulldogs. We even saw Cortland Finnegan, the cornerback for the Titans who played at Samford while we were there.

I remembered that Belmont had been a perennial attendee of the NCAA Tournament the last few years. I did forget that they almost beat Duke last year. But I figured hey–we’ve had all off-season to practice, and maybe they had some seniors graduate…you know, all the things you tell yourself to try and avoid the fact that you’re about to get killed at a game of basketball.

One interesting side note…Belmont fans look just like Samford fans. They even wear the same colors. Without “Belmont” lettered across their shirt, I would think they were just Samford fans who cheered at the wrong times. But Lyndsay and I were able to find a small crowd of Samford fans, and we tried to sit near them.

Well Samford fans, I have bad news. You can expect another year of the same old mediocre Samford basketball. It’s a bunch of tall guys running around the three point line and staying out from being anywhere near the goal. They do have this one little short guy whose neck is about the size of everybody else’s foreams. He can make just about anything. Other than that, it’s all tall guys avoiding the key.

I really don’t know anything about basketball, but I’m 6′5″ so I feel qualified to talk about it. I watched Samford Basketball a lot in the 2001-2004 days…and I just watched it again tonight…and it hasn’t changed a bit. It’s kind of irritating. Knowing that the team used to be awesome back around ‘99-’00 and win a lot just before I got there makes it even more frustrating to see 8 years of not going anywhere.

It’s terribly boring to watch. Tall guys passing the ball around the three point line and nobody playing down low. I realize that as a fan and an ex-student, when it comes to basketball, it’s not really about me. But then again…I kinda feel like it is. I’m not going to pretend to know anything about the Samford Athletics department budget, but I can tell you this. If Samford basketball was more fun to watch, more people would go watch. If they would win, more people would go to that too. And if people will go, that program will make more money, athletics will make more, Samford will make more…everybody will win. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not expecting the Celtics vs. the Lakers or anything. But Belmont was enjoyable to watch. It wouldn’t take much more than a couple of physical guys down low to make Samford more enjoyable to watch.

In the end, we got beat by 18 points. We were down by 9 points immediately and held it around that through halftime. With about 12 minutes left it got painful and embarrassing. We left at about 5 minutes left when we were down by 20. At that point, I just couldn’t stomach it any longer. Belmont is a good team.

But even with my limited knowledge of basketball, I don’t think that was the only factor involved.

Unless I hear that something crazy has happened and the entire coaching/playing strategy of Samford has changed…or unless they actually start winning, I don’t think I’ll be back to a Samford Bulldogs Men’s Basketball Game any time soon. I don’t know if that would be considered “fair-weather” or “burned out,” but it is certain.

 
Some days you just feel like a bad friend. Maybe it was because you weren’t honest. Or you weren’t there to lend a hand. Or you couldn’t meet expectations. Or maybe because you shot your friend. Hey, it happened to Dick Cheney. It happened to me. And it could happen to you too. Check out the video.

Luckily, just like VP Cheney, my friend was fine. And our friendship continued.

(Sorry for the sensationalist blog title. I found this video while I was working today and I thought I’d share it)

On Monday nights Lyndsay has a Bible study with her friends. I used to have classes on this night, but since they have ended, I have been enjoying the monday nights as “me” time.

Tonight I was checking my mail and looking at various blogs on the internet when I noticed this:

A recipe to make my own chocolate cake out of hot coccoa mix, a mug, and common household cooking items.

Though I am certainly not much of a cook myself, I’m always up for a good science experiment…especially if I can eat it.

So I went through the instructions and voila! Less than 10 minutes later I am munching on cake while I type this. It’s not awesome, but it’s pretty good for what it is.

On the 1 to 10 scale of deserts, I give it about a 3.

On the 1 to 10 scale of food, I give it about a 6.

(Competition is tougher on the desserts scale because on the “food” scale, things like collard greens, cooked carrots, and cabbage go on the bottom end of the scale and being able to actually even swallow the food gets you at least a 4.

On the 1 to 10 scale of edible 10 minute or less science experiments. I give it a 9.5.

Go give it a shot and report back.

This past weekend Lyndsay and I trekked down to Wetumpka, AL to visit with some of Lyndsay’s extended family. We had a great time….lots of food (great bbq!) and good times catching up with (and for me, getting to know) family. I took a lot of pictures…and in fact, I even brought my old film camera that still had a few shots in it left over from this past summer.

I took a bunch of pictures and they all turned out pretty good. I determined that my problem with the old camera was indeed Wal-mart’s fault. They still don’t know how to develop film. This time I took it to Wolf Camera and they did a much better job. Strangely, though…I could still tell a big difference between the film shots and the digital shots. Maybe because I have this HUGE flash on my film camera that I haven’t figured out how to rein in yet. Check this out:

Film Camera:

Digital Camera

Kinda interesting, huh?

Anyway, it was a great day and a lot of fun. I put up a whole gallery of pictures here. You can play “Is it film or is it digital”?

BTW…in the event that anyone who knows anything about iphoto or photoshop elements happens along this set of pictures and see some obvious tweak that I need to make this all look good (white balance, maybe?)…please feel free to tell me what it is…