I can see clearly now...

Joe is the latest in the family to get contacts. Here's his new look...

Sermonizing

Sermon went great last week. I absolutely love preaching! I love the research, I love the writing - once I'm done proscrastinating, I love everything about it - no matter how much I may complain about doing it...

It should actually be up on the podcast sometime in the next week or so. I'll send a link once it's posted.

diagnosis

O.K. I saw the Dr. tonight. I have something called "sick sinus syndrome". My heart rate is pumping around 30 to 50 beats per minute. So after my family reunion in Branson Mo.the week of 8/8 to 8/15 I will be having a pacemaker put in. Then I can re-schedule the surgery on my left shoulder. After it heals I may need surgery on my right shoulder as it has a 2 cm. x 2 cm. tear in it as well.
Good night and Good luck.

4th of July

Since everyone is posting their 4th of July recaps, I guess I'll post mine! Donny and I traveled to Washington D.C. for the day to celebrate. We did have a good time overall but really, a little planning would have gone a long way. We figured we could go to different museums, get something to eat and then watch the fireworks. What we didn't think about was that the museums close at 5:00 and the fireworks don't start until 9:15.

That is a LONG time with nothing to do. No shops were open. No restaurants were open. There were plenty of vendors on the street so we weren't going to starve but eating a hot dog takes about 2 minutes so...that still leaves about 4 hours. A couple of books and a deck of cards would have been made the afternoon much less stressful, that's for sure. By about 7:00 we were looking at each other and saying "Should we just go?" but after you've put in all that time, how could we go? Ugh...

Very nice fireworks though. After only seeing local town fireworks for all these years it's quite an event to see a real "big city" spectacle. Very impressive.

Happy 4th

Happy 4th all.

Didn't get too far from home today - I am preaching tomorrow morning and spent bursts of the day editing my sermon once again and once again and once again.

The plague of the amateur!

I figure between the church mission trip, the holiday and the fact that the pastor is away, there should be 5 people in attendance...

Happy Fourth of July!

Like most people, we more fully appreciate something when we don't have it, or when it becomes more difficult to get it. Obviously, the 4th is not a universally celebrated holiday. You might think celebrating in Britain might be a tad politically incorrect, but celebrate it we do - on the 27th of June. The odd date is intended to minimize the disruption of the 4th of July protests held outside the base each year, attracting (I'm told - haven't actually seen them) several hundred protesters. Realistically, this probably means less than 100, and it's a scheduled, peaceful event, they just get in the way of the folks going in and out of the base.

Which would have been a bigger problem than usual this year as we had over 2500 guests (Brits) in attendance at our celebration. As it turns out, everyone loves a party. There were rides, games, hot dogs and hamburgers, a soap box derby, musical entertainment and, of course, fireworks. It was fairly warm for change too - no winter coat needed this year.

For added fun, we took a trip down south today to one of our sister bases where they hold their 4th of July on the 4th of July (how odd!). We got another dose of funnel cake and hot dogs before heading back home.

Now we're sitting here listening as fireworks are going off somewhere out there - maybe it's our British neighbors celebrating "Thanksgiving".