Doing Nothing

I don't do well with doing nothing. It is my preference to always have a rather full schedule. Sometimes I get so busy that I think that it would be nice to have a week free of teaching. Those are moments of temporary insanity. I am on day five of the first week in probably over six months in which I am not teaching or leading any classes. I don't have material to write, handouts to make, games to plan, and quite frankly I'm bored. Last week I broke a personal best by teaching/leading five classes in six days, three elementary, one 5th and 6th and one adult class. I wasn't planning on breaking a personal record, I was just blessed to have all of the opportunities fall in one weeks time. It was a lot of work, a lot of planning, it took a lot of time, and I loved it. In all honesty I'm probably just writing this blog because I'm bored. Just sitting around at home by myself drives me nuts. Just four more days and I get to teach again. Easter weekend, it's going to be awesome.

Status Updates by Ben Lane

WARNING: This Blog is rated PG-13

So my friend Ben sits around all day thinking of dumb (and sometimes brilliant) things to write as his status updates on facebook. Most of them are far to dirty to be published on my blog (90%). Here are a few that weren't filthy:

Just finished my first book yesterday.709 pages.................... Dang that was a lot of coloring!

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Men with words are like women with makeup,we either make ourselves look good or end up looking like clowns

What do you do if you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?

I just want to say being in a fake mafia is fine with me, having a fake farm is okay with me, even a fake zoo and fish aquarium.......... But when I keep getting invites that say "Here is 200 slices of key lime pie" or "tony whipped up extra fried chicken and wants you to have some" or "have some banana pudding". it pisses me off because I am fat and really want to eat all of that.

Please don't call me insane i prefer the term hilariously unique it makes me sound smarter!

Did you ever wonder if aliens secretly film people having sex, then make them into boring nature shows to show their kids on the Human Planet channel?

Never get into a food fight with cannibals

Apparently global warming will eventually kill over 6 million ppl. On a more serious note my snowman has just melted

The only time I have a problem with alcohol is when I spill it.

Why do they put designs on toilet paper?? Honestly, while someone is taking a c**p are they gonna look at the toilet paper and say OMG its a butterfly!?

The Money Box

Believe it or not, before this last Saturday, I had never bought something from an antique mall. I've always found their prices to be inflated and most of their merchandise ordinary. When I saw this piece I just couldn't resist. It was neither expensive ($65) nor was it ordinary (I can't find any record of it's equal).

This is a church money box. It measures 12 inches tall, 8 inches wide and weighs a whopping 40lbs. It's built like a safe. Whoever built this thing was serious about the church not being robbed. The walls of the box are 1/4in of solid steel. The door is 1/2in thick and has two locks. Additionally this box was made to be screwed to the churches wall. That's some serious security.

What Are You Going to Pump With That

I buy and I sell, that's what I do. It's fun and I make decent money doing it. I've bought and sold just about everything. Dental equipment, pantyhose, blinking doll eyes, a Rolling Stones pinball machine, gold coins, an antique javlin and about 2000 other items. There is, however one item that I have never bought and sold. I see them listed on craigslist frequently but have never even ventured to check on their resale value. You see, whenever I buy something from someone they win undoubtedly ask me, "So, what are you going to do with that." I always try to beat around the bush to avoid telling them that I'm going to sell it for a lot more than I just paid them. But still, that is that one item. What would I say? Even if there is money to be maid, I'm just too embarrassed to buy and sell breast pumps.

The Crush

If your on facebook for a long enough period of time you will undoubtedly stumble upon people that you forgot existed. I currently know a lot of people, hundreds for sure, perhaps thousands. But, how many people did I used to know? How many people have I forgotten about. Facebook is a good place for rediscovering those people. I have one friend who enjoys having old acquaintances send her friend request so that she can hit deny. I'm not quite that mean. Although that is funny.

Ok, ok, short story shorter. I was browsing an old friends pictures when I saw a comment by another person. The name sounded familiar so I mumbled it a few times to myself. When that didn't work I went to her profile. After staring at her face for a good two minutes I remembered. I went to church with this girl 18 years ago (give or take). Not only did I got to church with her I had a serious crush on her little sister. I have vivid memories of this. This was probably my first crush. So, I looked on facebook and found said girls profile and then I remembered. I remembered what it was like to be a little kid with a crush. I had totally forgotten what that feels like. It was so wonderfully terrifying. Of course I never told anyone that I had a crush on her. In fact if you are reading this than you are among the first to hear my confession. It must be fun to be a kid.

Pulling a Car with My Hair (Again)

So I pulled a car with my hair again. This is probably the last time I will ever do this unless I get paid. This time my friend Paul recorded it and the video is 100 times better than the last one that I had shot 5 years ago.

Man Pulls Car with Hair from Dan Thoms on Vimeo.

The Scary Dream

Last night I had a dream and it was strange. Many of them are but this one was exceptionally strange and borderline horror movie. Unfortunately I do not remember all of the details but here is what I do remember. There were stone mouths on the sides of some walls. Imagine if you will a four foot tall vampire slash monster mouth, wide open and formed out of concrete. If you touched the mouths you were doomed to transform into a mouth. It took a few minutes but after you touched them you would disappeared and a mouth would appear. I remember seeing a wall with at least three of them, one above the other, and as I watched another mouth appeared. Now there was one cure, a solution. If you did in fact touch one of these gaping mouths you could go into this one particular house. The key to the cure was dirt. You needed to be in a place were there was at least six feet of dirt under you. And that is all I remember.

...and my number one favorite thing about this Valentines Day is

Valentines Day

My favorite thing about Valentines day is getting to buy those great Frisches kids meal coupons. I bought 24. That means I can take 24 kids out to eat, for free. Not all at once though. Even I can't handle that. My van isn't big enough. I also bought 96 bags of those little valentine candy hearts to give out in kids church. Other than those two things, I could care less.

You see, I'm single. If you ask me if I'm married, engaged or dating anyone I will say no. Most of my friends are married and most of them have kids. I want to be married and I want to have kids. The thing is though, I'm not all that worried about it. I rarely think about the fact that I'm single. My mind is occupied by too many other things, important things like ministry, spending time with friends and family, and of course finding ways to make more money. Sometimes I wonder if perhaps I should be more aggressive in my pursuit of the opposite sex. I have friends who are constantly looking for and constantly getting dates. To me that just sound expensive and time consuming. I'm not opposed to dating but I'm also not particularly interested in dating a different girl every month. That just sound stressful. Yea, I guess it could be fun but I have fun all the times. I don't need a date to do that. There's a fine line here. On the one hand, yes I guess I do need to be more aggressive and meet more single ladies. On the other hand I can't make that my number one priority. Will I ever be married, perhaps. Only time will tell. Until then though, happy valentines day to all of you in the blogger world.

There Was But now There Isn't

Every once in a while I will see someone that I haven't seen in years. Sometimes it's on facebook other times its at the grocery store or at some other random location. Today, however, it was in the news. If I had to guess I would say that it's probably been 12 years since I've seen Nicole. I probably wouldn't have recognized her if I saw her walking down the street. When we were all young, her and her brothers were in the same youth group as me. It's weird because in my mind she is still 13. People don't age unless you see them get older, right? But now, now she's dead. She died on I-74 in a traffic accident yesterday. It's always weird to realize that you will never see someone again. Sure, it's been 12 years but I ran into her brother just last year. There was always that chance. There was but now there isn't. This makes me sad, 27 us too young.

Big Gears, Tiny Gears

I'm fairly positive that our conversation started before I was consciously a part of it. But sure enough, he was talking to me. "A five dollar check" he said. "Only five dollars." Wait, what are we talking about, I thought to myself. He was a middle aged black man, overweight and balding. The hair that he had left looked like it hadn't seen a shower in quite a few days. He was sitting on an exercise bike in the furniture department of St. Vincent DePauls and he was apparently talking to me. "I cashed that five dollar check and the people at the bank laughed at me. They took two dollars for cashing it so that only left me with three. I had a seven dollar, no wait, eight dollar check last week. They called me and told me that they needed me at work but they told me to go home after 30 minutes. The guy wrote me that check right then, five dollars."

Since we were apparently having a conversation I politely agreed. Five dollars is a rather small check but money is money so you have to cash it. Our conversation continued from there, like a mountain trail full of sudden twist and turns. Wait, what were we talking about again? Gears, we are talking about gears now. "I used to make gears at a factory in Chicago. They were big gears, heavy, some this tall." he motioned with his hands. "Some as big as this room. But at my new job I'm going to be making tiny gears, only this big. So small, like a quarter." he laughed, "so small, little tiny gears. It will be so easy"

"I'm getting fat but I eat healthy. Every other night I eat a can of vegetables and a baloney sandwich. Every other night I skip dinner and just drink beer." Huh, that doesn't sound too healthy I thought to myself. "A friend once told me that America makes you fat. Maybe that's your problem." I quipped.

"Someday I'm going to find that special girl to marry. The Bible says it ain't right just to be sleeping with people. That's what people do now a days you know? They go on a date and then they sleep together. That ain't right." I nodded in agreement, "Nope, that isn't right." I guess we are talking about marriage now.

And the conversation went on, never knowing what surprises lie in the next sentance. Ah ha, my chance. He had cornered another stranger and was asking their advice on the exercise bike that he had been sitting on for the last 20 minutes. He was getting fat and since his diet was healthy he figured it must be his lack of exercise."Hey, what if I don't want to use my arms on this bike can I disengage thees things..." The stranger didn't know, and I had walked away, I had shopping to do.

God Bless America?

Every time I hear a story about Haiti my eyes tear up. I feel for them and I'm sad that any human would have to suffer like they are and like they have for so long. When I hear stories of American generosity I tear up. It makes me proud to know that our country is full of so many generous and caring people. It reminds me that being rich gives Americans the opportunity to help the rest of the world. But then it happens. I run into people that make me rue the day I became a Westsider. Facebook is good for that. I guess I was naive to think that everyone was for helping the helpless. I never though that I would read a statement like this one from a gentleman from Westwood:
"Haiti is the toilet of the earth. Mother nature was just trying to flush." or how about this one from a young man from Price Hill "help america first f**k everyone else!"

There was even a young lady from Western Hills who chimed in with "Yeah its sad that happened to them but its every man for himself or in this case country... Noone helped us on 9/11 or hurricane katrina we did it all ourselves..."

When I informed her that over 100 countries offered aid when Katrina hit she told me that she didn't care about statistics. Yea, statistics, who need them? People,who cares about people? The rest of the world can burn. God bless America?