winter storm emergency 2005

i grew up in indiana. the last year i was there (1978) was especially cold and we had snow on the ground for weeks in a row. one of the cool things about living in atlanta is how big of a deal it is whenever we get some winter weather. with even a rumor of a light dusting of snow, every news channel blows it up to be a major winter storm emergency, people flock to the grocery stores, and pretty much everything shuts down. i'm not sure why this is. i've heard that there was an event back in the 80s called "snowjam" when a big snowstorm unexpectedly blew in during the middle of the day, creating one of the worst traffic jams in history as everyone tried to drive home in the snow. maybe this still lingers in the minds of atlantans.

anyway, here's my house this morning. that's not snow on the ground - it's sleet with a layer of ice underneath. looks like we'll be stuck at home for weeks. or at least until tomorrow when it's supposed to be in the mid 40s. hope we have enough bread, eggs and milk to survive...

wisdom

teeth that is. z got his taken out this morning, and he's not feeling too hot right now. prayers are appreciated. 1,390,000 google hits for wisdom teeth in case you were wondering.

words in red

i've been spending time reading only the red words in my bible. try it - after a while you start noticing some stuff that we (evangelical Christians) explain by saying "what he really meant by that was..." i wonder if Christianity would look like differently if we only had the red words...

the z-man returned from california sunday early morning. the good news is that the auditions went well and he'll most likely be accepted into the schools he auditioned for. the bad news is that we've got to wait to see what the scholarship situation will be.

ok adam - you're a grandblogger again. my buddy durand robinson with greater europe mission in germany started a blog after reading mine. you're now a blogger of many nations. that reminds me of something i've read before...

california dreamin

yesterday morning i dropped zak off at the airport where he caught a plane to LA for college music school auditions. he's auditioning at ucla, usc and pepperdine. with lauren gone to a school basketball game, cindy and i had the evening to ourselves. this is becoming more and more common - a taste of the way things will become too quickly.

other than missing him like CRAZY, i think it's cool that z is looking at schools on the left coast. i mean, there's lots of interesting people out there. here's a pic of a cool guy i met when we were out there last year. note the guy in the tan shirt on the right. what's he looking at?

call me shallow...

...but yes, even though i've been a follower of Jesus Christ for almost 25 years now, i still like my geeky gadgets. the audiovox smt5600 smartphone came in the mail yesterday. it runs windows mobile 2003 os. cut me some slack here. after all, i did spend many years of my life in app dev, and a few years with a microsoft partner company. and since most people no longer believe that bill gates is the antichrist (see previous post sometime way back), what harm is it in supporting them? heck, the phone was free (after rebates)! ok, ok. maybe my next post will be deep.

btw, REALLY digging on the new U2 release, and REALLY digging that band muse - kind of neo-prog emo.

back, books, geeks, beards and dog

after taking some time off after christmas eve, i've been back at work for a couple of weeks and am in the process of getting back into the routine. meanwhile, i'm reading two books, both recommended - blue like jazz by ?? and a generous orthodoxy by mclaren.

had a geeky day at home alone last friday. i resorted back to my geeky inclinations and ended up buying a windows smartphone. oops. the REALLY geeky thing about this phone is that i'll be able to download entire movies onto it. now i can watch napoleon dynamite wherever i happen to be. yow.

also managed to trace my geneology back to john beard who was born in virginia in 1733. he moved his family over the mountains into kentucky in about 1790. his son, josiah, helped start a new church in a remote part of kentucky. turns out it was the same church that my father attended as a child. cool.

in the totally random category, here's a picture of our dog, maisy.