Filed under: Ordinary Life | Tags: blog, entertainment, Football, travel
Finally found a few moments to catch up after a very busy week. The trip to Vegas was interesting. The GodBlogCon conference was underwhelming in terms of production, creativity, content and insight. Ironically, the overall geekiness and self-absorbed tendencies along with the ever present delusions of grandeur of personal blogging that were on display almost made me want to quit blogging forever. A couple real standouts that were really good were the sessions with Andrew Jones of Tall Skinny Kiwi and John Mark Reynolds at The Scriptorium Daily. Mark Joseph was interesting as well. You can listen to their podcasts here.
Of course, the best part of the whole weekend was hanging out with old friends and meeting some new people. I really liked Tim’s advice, “What’s really important about each session isn’t so much what’s being said up front – it’s who I sit down next to and meet.” While that’s great advice, it’s also one of the harder things for me to do. I’m a total closet introvert. I often try and pretend like I’m friendly and sociable and even gregarious. Really, I’d just assume stick to the familiarity and comfortableness and safety of people I already know and trust. I’m glad though that I met some truly engaging and even fascinating people like Dave Bruno at guynameddave.com and Brett McCracken at stillsearching.wordpress.com just to point out a couple.
Some highlights of things outside of the conference included Football Central at the Hilton with eight games at once on a GIANT screen, the $5 pizza deal at the Silverton, the fountains and garden at the Bellagio and best of all – Red Rocks. On the way out on Monday, got to drive out with Michael to Red Rocks National Conservation Area and also got to walk through the Red Rocks Resort. If you’re ever out in Vegas, take the time to get away from the glitz and trash of the strip and visit an area like this that is truly extraordinary. I’m always looking for cool things to do in Vegas that won’t get me into trouble and won’t make me spend a lot of money. Let me know if you have anything that fits that bill…
While the weekend started pretty well with the Counting Crows concert, it ended up being a bit of a bummer. UCLA lost huge. Last week against Tennessee they showed some sign of being legit. This week against BYU they showed signs of being a joke. One of my fellow Calvary pastors, Matt Doan, wrote a great post about UCLA football here. Then, I watched the Chargers melt down and lose in the closing seconds (due in large part to 2 terrible calls by the refs).
Sandwiched in between those two horrible games was a pretty good Sunday morning. We heard from a special guest speaker, Bob Vernon. He was the assistant chief of police for the LAPD and now runs the Pointman Leadership Institute. Overall, he just had great stories and mixed into them some good insights on leadership. Also, lunch with friends after church and dinner with the fam later that night were both really good.
Later that night, Calvary hosted it’s first (and I’m predicting last) Comedy Show. The format is best described as a live skit show with video roll-ins and a live band. I went home that night and watched the season premiere of Saturday Night Live on TiVo. I guess the two shows really do have a lot in common – both are almost 2 hours long and only manage to produce about 20 minutes of decent material. I’ve always thought I have a good sense of humor, but maybe I’m turning into a grumpy old man. Apparently Eric thought it was alright. I’m looking forward to what others on staff have to say about it. Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for good, clean humor after two of my favorite teams lost…
I got up early today to watch the UCLA/Tennessee game on TiVo. It was such a great game with lead changes throughout, a last minute drive by each team that pushed the game into overtime, all ending with a Bruins win! They were outmatched across the board in regards to talent on the field against the no. 18 ranked Vols. The big difference between this year and last is obvious. It’s their newly formed coaching squad of Neuheisel, Chow and Walker that seems to have this team playing above expectations.
Then again, I’m not sure they are nearly good enough to match the hype created by the ad featuring Rick Neuheisel that was run in both the Register and the Times last week.
I’m sure there were some very enthusiastic marketing people at UCLA who knew this would create a lot of buzz in a town that has been dominated by the Trojans for years. Is an ad like this, that captures so much attention, a good thing regardless of how their season goes? Is it okay to hype something without any real substance behind it?
Filed under: Extraordinary Life | Tags: entertainment, Family, food, Football, fun, life, travel, vacation
After wrapping up VBS last week at Calvary, I got to follow it up with a great weekend away. Leslie and I headed out first thing Saturday morning for San Diego.
We met up in Old Town with my brother Ty and his wife Shelley and our favorite nephew Connor, who had already been down in SD for a few days on vacation. From there we headed over to the harbor to go on a SEAL Tour. It’s one of these huge open-air bus/trucks that drive you through the city and then drives right into the water and becomes a boat to take you around the harbor. Our tour guide was really funny. The whole experience was like one big smile. (even though in the photo below, they’re both too busy looking cool bother with smiling)
After that we grabbed some good grub at Buster’s Beach House and Long Board Bar. The rest of the fam headed back to the OC and we spent the afternoon shopping and chillaxing (that’s a word our tour guide used, and Leslie immediately knew I wouldn’t forget it.)
At about 5 pm we got on the Green Line train from Old Town to …. Qualcomm Stadium! It was the very first game of the preseason with the Chargers playing the Cowboys. It was my first time going to an NFL game. We got there almost 2 hours before game time to take in all the pregame warm ups and see all the sites we could. Leslie had gotten us tickets as a gift for our anniversary back in July.
Sunday was perhaps the most relaxing day I’ve had all year. I felt a little twinge of loss for missing out on the big One Service we had at Calvary on Sunday to close out VBS. But, that feeling drifted away as I listened to the breeze blowing through the giant pine trees around the pool I was floating in.
We were able to extend the weekend into Monday as we celebrated Leslie’s grandma TooToo’s 90th birthday. Her family all got together in Laguna at Las Brisas for brunch. We just hung out all day with her and wrapped it up with dinner at Mike’s in Whittier. It was like a perfect Toot day and great way to end the weekend.
First off – GO BOLTS!!! I’m so charged up that San Diego won. That’s two playoff wins in a row. They pulled off a crucial drive to go back up by four points with their starting running back and starting quarterback sidelined with injuries. The picture to the right (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson) is of backup QB Volek handing the ball to backup RB Turner. It was one of the plays in the 78 yard drive that but the Chargers up for good. Absolutely amazing.
They came into today’s game with almost everyone writing them off as a speed bump for the Colts on Indy’s way to take on the Pats next weekend. The game was a lot of fun with a bunch of lead changes, and despite some shady officiating by the zebras, the Chargers pulled off the upset and are having their best year since 95 when they last made it to the Super Bowl.
Now for the lessons learned… (beyond the obvious – you never know when you’re number might get called, so always be prepared)
What’s really fascinating to me is to look at the coaches. Norv Turner was brought in this year to replace Marty Schottenheimer who went 14-2 last year but lost in the first round of the playoffs. It’s tough to do so well, but be up against such high expectations. It must have been even tougher for the Charger’s management to make the tough call to replace Marty with Norv. How do you get rid of someone who has arguably done a pretty good job and replace them with someone mostly unproven in hopes they’ll do an even better job? It was gutsy, but paid off in the end to not settle for pretty good, but instead pursue the extraordinary.
On the other side of the field today was the Colts head coach, Tony Dungy. A guy with an incredible testimony who lives out his faith on and off the field. There have been rumors that he may retire to pursue full time ministry to men in prison. He has said that the last couple years, but many think this time is for real. To lay aside such extraordinary fame and success in something as big as the NFL makes many people scratch their heads in wonder. For those of us who understand what Christ has done for us, it’s a wonder we don’t lay aside more in this life for Him.
One team had the guts to fire a coach for falling just short of perfection, because they realized that pretty good wasn’t good enough. In contrast, the other team’s coach may choose to retire and walk away from not only fame and respect, but also a lot of money. Are you willing to make the tough calls in life?
Oh, one more thing… GO BOLTS!!!
