Spending the weekend with family in Tempe, Arizona and decided to visit a place that Guy Fiere recommended. He’s the host of a show on the Food Network called Diners, Dives and Drive Ins. It’s a place in Glendale called La Piazza Al Forno.
The pizza was really good and the service was even better. We got the Itallion Stallion with a load of spicy meats, the Piazza Blanco with basil and white sauce and the Mediteranian with pesto and feta.
The place has a really comfortable and relaxed family feel. I’m sure that Guy’s feature on this simple brick oven pizza joint has helped business quite a bit. They’ve capitalized on it with a banner our front and literally putting Guy’s name on the place with his signature on the wall right by the front door. Have you ever gone to a place just because you saw it on TV?
This is a challenge I got from a designer friend of mine Tim McMahan posted on his blog a few months back. I’ve been feeling lately like I need a jolt of creativity, so I thought I’d try it out. It was a good, fun challenge. Let me know if you try it, too.
_______________________________________
To Do This
1 – Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 – Go to Quotations Page and select “random quotations”
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.
3 – Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 – Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.
5 – Post it to FB with this text in the “caption” or “comment” and TAG the friends you want to join in.
(If you spend more than 5 minutes, you’re doing it wrong.)
((why couldn’t all of our school project’s have been cool like this?))
_______________________________________
Here’s my randomly generated, creatively branded Band Name and Album Cover:
So after years of determined resistance and occasional mocking, I finally decided to joined the cult last night. The cult of Apple. I’ve had just a basic phone for so long, waiting for the technology to really catch up with what I want and make it worth the investment. My contract just happened to expire this month, right around the release of the Palm Pre and the iPhone 3Gs.
After a few weeks of hemming and hawing and researching and polling, I found the iPhone just made the most sense and there really is a reason for why it’s so popular. So, I took the plunge and bought one. Just picked it up last night.
It’s got so many features built in and countless others that you can add on. Can’t wait to trick mine out with apps and music and photos and videos. What do you think are the most essential, most fun, most productive apps to add? And, maybe now that I have a phone that I can use to blog, I’ll do it a little more often…
Filed under: Extraordinary Life | Tags: faith, friends, Israel, life, travel, worship
The trip to Israel was full of so many inspirational and life-changing moments. It’s been nearly two months since I returned from Israel and I feel like the the transformational experiences are still shaping who I am becoming. As promised, I’m recapping some highlights from the trip here on my blog (better late than never). As I try to recall everything, I’m realizing that many of the best memories I have were not so much of all the landmarks and monuments and ancient sites we saw, but of the moments we experienced together as a group.
There was beautifully simple worship sitting next to an ancient olive tree in the Garden of Gethsemane as tears flowed from everyone in the group. There was the indescribable echo you could hear sitting on a bench in the Church of St Anne , where we had an unplanned worship service alongside a group from South Africa. There was the time spent along the edge of the Jordan River where my friend and unofficial rabbi Matt Davis baptized me. There was the other-worldly feeling of floating in the Dead Sea. There was the adventure of climbing down Mt Arbel overlooking the Sea of Galilee and avoiding the horns of a charging, wild mountain cow. There was the Israeli bunker assault lesson from our tour guide Ariel on a hillside just across a valley from the border of Syria. There was the journal of page after page filled with notes as the scripture we studied came to life in a fresh, new way.
I could seriously go on for hours about all of the experiences we had in the two weeks we spent there. Rather than bore you though, I’ve put up a gallery of a few of my favorite photos from the trip. I hope they give you a small glimpse into what Israel is like…
I’m still alive. Of course, you wouldn’t know it from my blog. A lot of life has happened in the last couple months. I think I’ll start playing catch up over the next couple weeks and blog retroactively. Stay tuned…
I’m leaving on a jet plane tomorrow for the Holy Land – direct flight from LA to Tel Aviv. I’m totally packed, but still not feeling that ready to go. It’s hard to disconnect from the pattern and the pace of life. More than that, it’s a little scary as there are so many unknowns involved. I honestly don’t know what to expect from this trip. I’m just trying to remain open to whatever adventures comes our way.
I know that I should be excited and feel blessed to have this opportunity. I do feel that in spurts. But I also know that I’m feeling a little sad as I’m going to miss my beautiful wife and also the birth of our niece. On top of that, I have to admit that I also feel disoriented, nervous, and a little stressed. I know that I will be challenged. I trust that I will be inspired. I pray that we will all be safe. I hope that I will grow closer to God and my fellow travelers as we walk the land where the Bible happened.
If you’d like to follow our journey through Israel – check out the Calvary Israel Blog
Just over 5 years ago, I met the most wonderful woman in the world. We actually met on a blind date and I am now lucky enough to have Leslie as my wife. She’s my Red and my Beautiful and I love her now more than ever. So, I thought with Valentine’s day coming up it was a good time to look back and reflect on a few moments in our journey.
I believe Valentine’s day 2004 was our 3rd date. There were so many things about that date that didn’t quite work. We went to Macaroni Grill in Huntington Beach where a friend of mine was one of the roaming opera singers. I thought that would be pretty cool, not knowing that she hated attention in public. My other idea was to go hang out near the pier and grab dessert, but it turned out that night was freezing cold so I had to scrap my plans. We wound up going back to my little apartment I had at the time in Huntington. I figured I’d go with something safe and picked Shrek. That was the best move of the whole date. Even though she decided to sit in the chair rather than with me on the couch, she loved the movie. Ever since, Shrek and its sequels have had a special place in our hearts.
Over the next few months we went on sporadic dates, with plenty of ups and downs. Finally, on Mother’s Day it clicked. I called her up and told her I was going shopping for some furniture at Ikea, and would she like to go with me? To my surprise, she said yes. This was the first time we were just getting together to “hang out” rather than go on a “date.” We walked through Ikea, found some furniture, grabbed some Del Taco and went back to my place to put the furniture together. I remember feeling comfortable and laughing together. I think that was the moment I began to really fall in love.
Months went by, and I knew she was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. That Thanksgiving, we decided to invite both of our families to dinner at the house I was then living in on the lake in Lake Forest. We made the turkey together and our families had a great time getting to know each other. After that weekend, I started shopping for rings. I surprised her on Christmas morning in that same living room in Lake Forest with a diamond ring and a promise to always love her.
It’s been five years since we first met and there are so many memories we’ve shared together. My prayer is that my Beautiful and I have a lifetime of memories to come.
I’ve been thinking over the past couple weeks about resolutions for 2009 and one of the things that keeps coming back to me is to have an adventurous spirit. Sure, there are the usual things like lose weight, learn to play the guitar, etc. But a reoccurring desire that seems to be at the front of my mind is the idea of being truly adventurous. Be willing to take risks. Do things that I’ve never done before. Step out of my comfort zone.
Last weekend, we went to a wedding reception at a Chinese seafood restaurant. It was really incredible with a full 10 course meal. About 8 of the courses scared me. Several of the dishes still had eyes on them. Yet, I tried them all including the shark fin soup with crab.
Today, I’m leaving for Las Vegas to a WordPress conference. No, it’s not for my little corner of the blog world, it’s for work and what we’re hoping to do with Calvary’s website this year. While there, I hope that I can have the courage to meet new people and learn new things.
I may have the opportunity to go to Israel this spring. I hope that if I can find the money to go (I’ll gladly except gifts or donations of any sort…) I want to have the guts while there to do once-in-a-lifetime kinds of things.
I’ve been doing a lot more reading lately than normal. Both the Bible and some amazing books on topics of prayer, the Holy Spirit and more. These books have been challenging my faith and stretching my ideas. I think reading thought provoking books fits well with my resolutions for the new year.
I feel like there will be many chances in the coming months to have an adventurous spirit and find the extra in the ordinary. I hope I have the courage to step into those moments and opportunities boldly.
I can’t believe it’s almost Christmas. Wasn’t it just thanksgiving? Do you feel like this? I feel like I’ve been so busy keeping up with life that Christmas has blind-sided me. It actually reminds me a lot of the story of Jesus’ birth in the book of Luke.
There was so much going on in the world and people were dealing with a lot of things – oppression from the government, the hassle of a census, finding available hotel rooms, keeping track of family and friends, spending time at religious activities, following a celestial phenomenon in the night sky, or just keeping watch over their flocks. Meanwhile, God decides the timing is perfect to interrupt the already full storyline and throws the plot into a totally different direction. Some people were able to keep track of all the foreshadowing and saw it coming (Anna, Simeon, Magi). Others were caught completely off guard and were pretty freaked out by it (Shepherds, Joseph and Mary).
How has God invaded your story? Did you see it coming? I feel like my life has a lot of plot-related tension in it right now. I pray that in the week ahead, I can take a step back and refocus on the bigger picture and avoid getting so caught up in the details and distractions. I hope God has some plot twists in store for me, I could use a little change in the narrative.
I went this afternoon to put something in the shared fridge at Calvary we have in the video studio. It’s just a little black mini fridge. The odor that emanated from it was anything but mini.
I foolishly decided to figure out what in the fridge was giving off the stench. I pulled out the first, and most obvious, cause – a thing of hummus dip. It was about a month past its expiration and had a slight odor. I then went to the gorgonzola, walnut salad – a slightly stronger smell and equally past its prime sell-by date. The string cheese on the middle shelf expired back in October, but it didn’t smell due to the air tight packaging.
The real culprit I could now tell was on the bottom, on a shelf long ignored and forgotten. I picked up the small bottle of Naked Apple Juice,which expired in September, and even through its packaging could smell a funk slowly seeping through. The last item left in the fridge was an innocuous looking plastic bag. It was wrapped up around a block of some sort. I unwrapped the bag, opened it and almost died. There were slices of muenster cheese that had gone completely rancid. It was now a fuzzy black and white cheese that made my eyes instantly water and the entire room quickly filled with it’s essence. It was the kind of monstrous smell that knocks you backwards, collapses your lungs and gives you hallucinogenic visions. Seriously, it was that bad.
So, lessons learned…. First of all, the people I work with like some already stinky food. When it’s allowed to go months past its expiration date, it just becomes even stinkier. The other thing this made me think of is sin. It seems enticing at first. We let it into our fridge/hearts because we think we’ll like it. But, we let it fester and rot unchecked. Days, weeks, even months go by and we finally examine our lives only to find that it’s odor has escaped into every bit of our lives. It’s contaminated everything. The only thing we can do at that point is clean it all out and start fresh. I love David’s words in Psalm 57.
Purify me from my sins,and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Oh, give me back my joy again;
you have broken me—
now let me rejoice.
Don’t keep looking at my sins.
Remove the stain of my guilt.
Create in me a clean heart, O God.
Renew a loyal spirit within me.
Do not banish me from your presence,
and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and make me willing to obey you.
