Chubby kid on Skates

He was a chubby kid. His chipmunk cheeks were red and his face glistened from sweat. He had a death grip on the metal bar that surround the skating rink. One wobbly step at a time he skated the perimeter. His grip was not quite strong enough and his legs were continuously flying out from under him. One step, two steps, three steps, flat on his butt. His chubby little friend was equally bad which often caused slow speed accidents.

But no matter how bad this kid was, no matter how many times he fell flat on his butt, no matter how many times the other kids snickered as they skated by, he got up and kept trying. And strangely, I found his plite inspiring. There he was, by most peoples standards, a skating failure yet he kept at it. He didn't even seem to be showing improvement yet he kept trying. Something was motivating him to push past the snickering pre-teens that surrounded him. I want to, like him, to get up when I fall down and to keep trying. Fall down, try again, fall down, try again, fall down, try again...... I want to live my life like the chubby kid on skates.

A Witches Bible

WARNING: I absolutely do not encourage anyone to read the book refereed to in this blog. The book talked about in this blog was disposed of after having owned it for only a few hours. This book does encourage acts that are contradictory to the true Bible, the word of God. The Bible does talk strongly against the practice of witchcraft.

I buy and sell 100s of books, and sometimes 1000s. Most of them are of no real interest and those that I haven't seen before blend into the stack with the rest. I did today happen upon a book that I had never seen before, "A Witches Bible." Now,I may get some slack for this but I did read a bit of it. It is over 600 pages long so I mostly just skimmed the chapter titles. The one chapter that I did read was called "Many Mansions." This chapter was about Paganism's relation to Christianity. This is the part that caught my eye.


"In trying to reach understanding with Christians who criticize the kind of work we set out to do, it is worth pointing out that Jesus told his followers to go forth and do just that: 'Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils' (Matthew x:8). Raising the dead may be beyond the capacity of most of us, but at least witches work hard at the other three, while with a few honorable exceptions Christians seem to have abandoned psychic healing altogether and have confined 'casting out devils' to a handful of licensed exorcists."

Although I think they are a bit off kilter in their statement, what they say does have an element of truth to it. "At least witches work hard at the other three." That's a statement worth considering. Why is that? If that is a true statement, why do witches pursue, although though false means, what all Christians should be seeking? Even though they are serving a false god (goddess), why are witches more motivated to desire the power to heal heal the sick, cleanse the lepers and cast out devils? If Christ said that those are the works that will follow his believers than shouldn't we desire to do them? If not than doesn't that mean that something is wrong? What's wrong?

Curvy Vs. Voluptuous

Ok, so I'm a member of a free dating site. Yea, yea, shutup. So anyhow, under the advanced search you can choose "body type." These are the choices.

Prefer Not To Say	Slender	Athletic
Average	A Few Extra Pounds	Big & Tall/BBW
Muscular	Voluptuous	Petite
Well Proportioned	Thick	Big Guy
Curvy/Curvaceous	Full Figured

Ok, so some of these I understand. I know what Muscular, Athletic, Slender, Petite, Average and Athletic are. Here's where the confusion comes in. I feel like the rest of these options are purposely vague. What is the difference between Voluptuous and Thick? And what is the difference between Thick and Full Figured. And what in the world is Well Proportioned? Are Average women not Well Proportioned? If so that's terrible news for the average women. Big Guy? I'm looking for women. If she describes herself as a Big Guy than that's going to be a no go by me. And what is the tipping point between a Few Extra Pounds and Thick? I think this dating site needs to show some silhouettes that describe these check boxes. That would be very helpful.

I Talk a Lot

I did it. This is the last post in my 30 day challenge. I took Ryan Detzel's challenge to blog for 30 days in a row and, amazingly, I made it. I was in a bit of a blogging slump. I felt that I had nothing to say. Anyone who knows me knows what a ridiculous statement that is. I always have something to say. I talk and talk and talk. Take tonight for example. My friend Jeremy fell asleep during Survivor so when it was over I walked to the door to leave, but then I ended up talking to his kids, and then after that to his wife, so an hour after I walked towards the door, I actually left. So, thanks Detzel. Enjoy this video of him accepting birthday ice cream at TGI Fridays even though it wasn't his birthday.

My Favorite Kids Book

From the Heinemann First Library Bug Books series comes this classic.....

Does your head itch now?

Blocked

So I decided to visit my blog today. The problem is, for some unknown reason, my web filter has decided to block my website. When I tried to go to it it gave me the message that the website that I am trying to view is categorized as porn. I must admit, for about 3 seconds I got worried. Was there porn on my blog? If there was I most certainly didn't post it. What if my blog was hijacked by evil off shore web surfing porn pirates who were using my sites immense popularity for porn peddling. So, I pulled out my handy dandy super duper smart phone and went to thedan.us and I have good news. My blog is still 100% porn free. It has not been taken over by evil off shore web surfing porn peddling pirates. I may need to contact my web filtering service to have them unblock my site.

I use a service called k9 web protection (http://www1.k9webprotection.com/) which I highly recommend to anyone who has kids. You can set your filters to eliminate anything from porn to witchcraft. You can even set timers to limit web access between certain hours to keep your kids from sneaking on at night. Its biggest flaw is of curse that fact that it is blocking thedan.us, a perfectly wholesome site.

Talking

After church today I ran into one of the boys from kids church walking around in one of the hallways. I hadn't seen him in a little while so I stopped to say hi. He looked pretty down and when I asked how he was doing. He said, "alright." The funny thing about alright is that it does not mean all right. I guess that's why they are spelled differently. "So what's terrible?" I asked and he hit me with this.

"My Dad died."

"Wow, that is terrible, when did that happen." I replied, a bit shocked.

He shrugged and said, "During Spring break."

I can't even begin to imagine how painful it would be for your dad to die. My Dad's father died when he was around that same age. I wasn't sure how to reply to that so we just talked. His sister came by and she talked to. We didn't talk about death though, we talked about how jelly fish are 95% water and humans are 65% water. That's why it's so easy to get dehydrated. That's why after you brush your teeth you want a drink of water. It's because you loose moisture spitting. We talked about how they have photo ids for the Newport Aquarium. And I told them that I've never been there because my friend who I was going to go with had moved back to Brazil. We talked about a lot of fun stuff. I like talking.

That's Me!

For the opening activity in kids church the kids were making a "love banner." The instructions were to draw someone that you love. I gave the examples of your mom or dad, or maybe your brother or sister. One of the little girls said that she was going to draw me. How fantastic is that? She drew the portrait, another little girl added the heart and a third wrote the title. Look at my beautiful blond hair. It's nice to be loved.

Mitch Hedberg

This is one of my all time favorite stand up comedy routines.

100 Omelet Fillings

Looking for a few new things to put in or on your next omelet? Well your in the right place. Here are 100 things to put in or on your next omelet. Know an item that I missed, have a favorite item from the list, leave a comment and let me know. If you like this list you may also want to check out my other list, 100 Hot Dog Toppings

1.Bell Peppers

2.Onions

3.Sausage

4.Bacon

5.Bacon Bits

6.Cinnamon

7.Salt & Pepper

8.Pepper

9.Turkey

10.Asparagus

11.Green Chili’s

12.Zucchini

13.Mushrooms

14.Tomatoes

15.Hot Sauce

16.Garlic

17.Shallot (Green Onions)

18.Poached Shrimp

19.Lobster

20.Truffle Oil

21.Cheddar Cheese

22.Steak

23.Hot Dogs

24.Syrup

25.Oregano

26.Seasoning Salt

27.Ketchup

28.Ham

29.Refried Beans

30.Fried Rice

31.Salsa

32.Potatoes

33.Kidney Beans

34.Worcestershire Sauce

35.Chili Powder

36.Mozzarella Cheese

37.Crab Meat

38.Beef Tips

39.Spinach

40.Nutmeg

41.Feta Cheese

42.Tuna

43.Black Olives

44.Dried Dill Weed

45.Sour Cream

46.Parmesan Cheese

47.Hash Browns

48.Flour Tortilla (chopped)

49.Monterey Jack Cheese

50.Avocado

51.Gorgonzola Cheese

52.Chives

53.Goat Cheese

54.Tarragon

55.Chervil

56.Scallions

57.Thyme

58.Jalapeno Peppers

59.Piquillo Peppers

60.Manchego Cheese

61.Creme Fraiche

62.Caviar

63.Eggplant

64.Currant Jelly

65.Powdered Sugar

66.Proscuitto

67.Smoked Salmon

68.Trout

69.Cream Cheese

70.Sliced Apples

71.Sliced Pears

72.Sliced Strawberry

73.Corn

74.Italian Sausage

75.Cucumbers

76.Dill

77.Brie

78 .Chorizo

79. Goetta

80.Corn Beef Hash

81.Shredded Pork

82.Pizza (chopped)

83.Beef Stew

84.Artichoke

85.Brioche

86.Hollandaise

87.Salami Bits

88.Sun Dried Tomatoes

89.Serrano Chile

90. Placate Sauce

91.Blueberries

92.Roasted Red Peppers

93.Pepper Jack Cheese

94.French Fries

95.Grilled Chicken

96.Curry Sauce

97.Leftover Takeout (Chinese, Japanese, Indian…)

98.Croutons

99. Huitlacoche

100. Butternut squash

Vote Today.... and tommorow...and the day after that

My little sister Faith is auditioning to be one of the radio hosts on the Kiss 107 morning show. She needs lots of votes to get a chance to audition so please vote everyday. This is the perfect chance for her to talk and talk and talk and get paid to do it. We Thoms like the attention. CLICK HERE TO VOTE

20 Bacon Products that You've Never Heard Of

20 Bacon Products that You've Never heard of

Because EVERYTHING is better with BACON

20. Bacon Caramel Filled Chocolate Eggs

19. Bacon Ice Cream

18. Bacon Donuts

17. Bacon Soda

16. Bacon Cologne

15. Bacon Vodka

14. Bacon Toothpaste

13. Gummy Bacon

12. Bacon Air Freshener

11. Bacon Flavored Envelopes

10. Bacon Lip Balm

9. Bacon Rolling Papers

8. Bacon SPAM

7. Bacon Baby Formula

6. Bacon Jam

5. Bacon Mints

4. Bacon Drink Tabs

3. Bacon Coffee

1. Bacon Soap

Cincinnati Bell - 5 Star Customer Service

Cincinnati Bell customer support is a phrase that should only be used tongue in cheek. Their so called support is second only to that of eBay.

I give them 5 stars (out of a 100). A brilliant comedy of errors. - Robert Ebert

If you want a call back it may be quicker to just to pay their customer support center a quick visit, in India. If you prefer to stay on hold the estimated wait time is very estimated as it takes at least twice that long to talk to someone. Cincinnati Bell is operated somewhat like a sleazy televangelist in that they take donations. For instance, if like me you decided to cancel your home phone line, they would be happy to take a one time donation of $24. And for that one time donation you get to listen to the same music played on a loop while waiting on hold. In addition you get to talk to a new friend in an exotic land half way around the world. For a company with Cincinnati in it's name you would expect to talk to someone in, say, Cincinnati maybe. Not so much. If this blog entry were written by Cincinnati Bell I would force you to read it 12 times and then transfer you to a better blog.

Rule #32 - No Remote Control Trucks

Remote control trucks are fun but apparently using them to chase kids through the church's lobby is frowned upon. Who knew? It sure is fun though. And the great part is, being an adult, until you are actually seen with the remote in your hand laughing the kids will be the ones to get blamed. Ok, note to self, no remote control trucks in the church lobby. I wander what the policy on helicopters is?

I was a 12 Year Old Hacker

According the the modern 12 year old hacking is posting something dumb on you friends facebook status when they forget to log out. When I was 12 facebook didn't exist, you had to pay per hour to use the internet and hacking was something altogether different. When I was 12 I was a hacker. And what did I hack? I hacked the Windows 3.1 version of Minesweeper. I know, menacing.

If you were to log into my home computer or any of the 4 computers at my local community center you would find that, despite the fact that I was terrible at the game, I had all of the high scores. And my scores were impossibly high. Not only did I have the high scores, if you clicked on the Help button, you would also that I was listed as the creator. Not only was I the creator, according to the copyright date, I created Minesweeper in the future. Wow, the future, impressive I know.

And how did I do it? I'm sure your dying to know. I discovered that if you opened the executable file in notepad you could do a search for key words and then replace them. After that all you needed to do was resave the file as an executable. And even though I now lead a quiet life, you now know, when I was 12 I was a hacker.

At the Car Wash (PG-13)

Now here's a phrase I never expected to hear from a guy that I see every week at auctions: "Bikini car washes, that's where the money's at. If I had a bigger place I would still be doing them."

"I'm glad your not." I quickly replied. "I'm not sure that I would like to see you in a bikini."

He slowly rolled his eyes. "They were girls, I ran the car wash. Although I did used to do them myself too. I used to be an exotic dancer."

As surprised as I was to hear about this mans former life of running bikini car washes I was way more surprised to find out that he used to be a professional exotic dancer. The images flashed through my head, a 6'4, 40 something year old black man in a speedo. I quickly blinked in an attempt remove that image from my head. Shiver.

"Yea, I did that until my kids were in high school. There's good money in pretty much anything that has the word exotic in it."

I wasn't sure how to respond so I just nodded. I can honestly say that that was the last conversation I had expected to have.

Triggers

It's weird the things that can trigger memories. For me a quiet ride in the car, before the sun has completely risen, always triggers memories of family vacations. And by family vacations I of course mean going to see Grandma. We would always leave at a very early hour, the first few hours of travel being designated as sleeping time. No noise. Another memory trigger is seeing tiny boxes of cereal. As a child the only place I was ever privy to eat such an extravagant breakfast food was at my Grammy Ann's house (my Dad's step mom). I remember the excitement of picking my very own tiny box. Which one would I choose? They were all so wonderful. An entire box of cereal just for me. And for lunch, microwave meals. Those were the days when microwave meals came in reusable containers. Amazing, if only I could eat those everyday. Little did I know that someday I would be living the dream.

Circus Punks

I keep a running list in my mind of things I would like to have. You see, I am an avid collector of stuff. Its hard to explain my collection in one sentence or even a paragraph. You could say that my collection accurately reflects my personality in that it is highly unique. Whenever I hear someone try to sell me on something by saying that it is "a great conversation piece" I laugh on the inside. My entire house is one conversation piece after another. Art, antiques, and oddities adorn every room.

My latest acquisition (saying the word acquisition makes me feel smart) was something that I had been keeping an eye out for a few years now. I wasn't actively seeking them but I was hoping to stumble upon them and alas I did. Last week I bought a box of antique Circus Punks. For those of you not familiar with the term, Circus or Carnival Punks are the straw stuffed dolls that you try to knock down with a ball at carnivals in order to win some chintzy prize. The punks that I got date from somewhere during the first half of the 20th century.

Circus punks are fantastic. They are hand assembled and many are hand painted. They embody two of my favorite things, art and the circus. So, check Circus Punks off my list. Now I just need to find a.....

Used Toilet Paper

Contrary to popular belief there are people out there who are cheaper than me. Take for instance this story that my friend told me today about her father.

As a practical joke, his softball buddies got together and toilet papered his house. Upon seeing this he went outside, bagged up the toilet paper, stuck it in his bathroom, and over the course of the next few weeks, used it.

See, I'm not even that cheap. In other toilet paper news check out this wedding dress made entirely of toilet paper. http://manolobrides.com/2009/07/03/toilet-paper-has-never-looked-this-good/

What Comes to Mind - Bacon

We did a "prayer experience" at church tonight. In the first exercise we were told to be silent and then write what came to our mind. I didn't think that was very specific because I think about a lot of stuff that isn't worth writing down. After about 5 minutes of nothing I started writing and this is what I wrote:

God you are my mighty warrior, my protector, my strong fortress. You give rest to the weary and strength to the downtrodden. When no one else is, you are. You come to my defense and rescue me in my time of need. You believe in me even more than I believe in you. When I doubt, you stand by my side. You pick me up when I fall down and carry me when I am weak. I am weak, pick me up.

Ps. Ok for those of you who did the prayer experience what did you put for breakfast food and zoo animal? Everyone in my group put either bacon or eggs and either giraffe or zebra. I of course put bacon and zebra.

Sometimes My Eyes get Misty

People who know me really well know that tv commercials sometimes bring a tear to my eye. It doesn't take much. I guess when I watch tv by myself I'm a bit more emotional. I try my best to man up in public. When I watch tv with friends I just bite my lower lip and blink a lot.

Just so you don't have to read between the lines, what I'm saying here is I sometimes cry when I watch tv. (I hid my man card so it can't be taken from me.) Now, I don't wail so that the neighbors can hear me and there is no gnashing of teeth but a few tears do occasionally escape the strongholds of my face. Tonight was one of those nights and it happened while watching, of all shows, The Celebrity Apprentice.

I'm a big fan of reality tv. Considering the fact that I've tried out for Survivor 4 separate times I guess that's a given. What sets Celebrity Apprentice apart from most reality shows is the fact that all of the money earned goes to charity. It touches me deeply to see people putting their money where their mouth is and giving in a big way. And by a big way I mean 1.6 million dollars in one show. That's 1.6 million dollars that won't go towards buying a bigger house, a faster car or a bigger diamond ring. That's 1.6 million dollars that will help people. 1.6 million dollars given away in just a few quick hours. I say that's money well spent.

The 86

Last night I attended a very exciting event. It was the grand opening of the brand new 86 Club on short Vine in Clifton. The 86 is a new, positive, alcohol free music club for ages high school and up. And the best thing about this new club is it is 100% run by my friends. Chris and Monica Human are risk takers with a vision. I became friends with them around 10 years ago when they took over at the original Underground.



This month in kids church we are talking about Humility. This weeks story was about Jesus and how he led his disciples by example in the washing of their dirty, stinky feet. Feet are gross. While I was sitting around a table of 4th and 5th graders I had a flashback. I'll never forget sitting in an Underground staff meeting when Chris asked all of the volunteers to turn their seats around facing outwards and remove one sock and shoe. The Underground was no small operation and there were dozens upon dozens of volunteers. And then, as we all sat there, Chris and Monica walked around the circle kneeled down, and one by one washed our feet.

I know the volunteers who are working at the 86, they are my friends. I see their passion for reaching young people for Christ and it inspires me. If you like good music, at a great venue, run by an incredible staff, visit the 86.

www.86ministries.com

Friday Friday Friday

It's Friday, Friday, Friday, so of course I'm jamming to Rebecca Black's hit song Friday. Her video is being hailed as the worst music video in history. In just two weeks her video has had nearly 73 million views. She's done interviews with Good Morning America and Jay Leno and made it to number 28 on the itunes download chart. And with almost 1.5 million dislikes, her video now officially holds the youtube record.

And yes, I agree, this video is bad. Lyrically it is the equivelant of an SNL pop parody. But give the girl a break, she's just 13. No one should ever leave a comment on an 8th graders youtube video that says they need to become anorexic. Go kill yourself, really? If Saddam Hussein rose from the dead and made a music video I still wouldn't think it appropriate to leave some of the comments that Rebecca Black's video has gotten. Her video reveals how truly hateful people are when they have a computer screen to protect them. And what do you think she is doing with all the money she is making off of her video? Well, she is donating it to the relief effort in Japan.

Here's the Video in Case You've Never Seen It