A fan of word pictures...

I was attending an absolutely heart wrenching/warming funeral this weekend for a dear friend of the family. She was a saint that graced us with her presence for only 48 very short years. My home church's sanctuary of over 2,200 seats was nearly filled to capacity. However the main reason I choose to write this post is in regards to what one of my favorite people said at the funeral. Our executive Pastor Doug Holck delivered an absolutely devastating word picture (his term not mine) for the eulogy. It is perfect for casting God-sized vision in a message and wonderfully bittersweet and capable of creating perspective at such a tough funeral as my wife and I found ourselves. I shall spare you the suspense and allow to read what I begged him to post after hearing it. Here it is in it's entirety:

At the "Celebration of Life" Service for Rose MacAlpine, I shared the following account of a flying experiencing while traveling with our Pastor, GL Johnson, some friends and associates:

One of the memories of my time here at PC is a trip with Pastor Johnson, Ed Baloian, and a couple of others on our staff. We were flying in Ed’s plane, returning home via Arizona. In the distance I could see Mt. Whitney, the highest mountain in the continental US. The more I looked at it through the window of the plane, the more certain I was that we were going to crash into the mountain—it would be the end. Finally, trying to sound brave, but wanting to alert the pilot to the looming mountain, I said something to Ed, who was facing me. Without looking over his shoulder, he stated, “If you can see the horizon beyond the mountain, you’ve nothing to worry about. You’ll fly right over it. You’re in trouble, when all you can see is the mountain.”

Some would see death as a mountain, spelling an end. Rose saw it as a fly over point as she moved into the forever horizon of God’s eternal heaven.

If all you can see is the mountain, you’re in trouble.

I told you it was good; in case you are interested in more goodies I have him linked in the side bar just over to the right.

What you don't know...

can kill you, or at least your new dog. We surprised our son this Christmas with a new puppy that we had picked out from the pound. But little did we know what lurked in the intestines of what would become a very temporary member of our family. After many disasterous bodily expulsions we decided it was time to go to the vet. There the vet informed us as to what was ailing our little puppy. It is called Parvo and it is basically a death sentence for puppies unless you can fork over about $2,000 or more for a hospital stay. Needless to say we couldn't and so "Pico" now lives in the proverbial big farm where he can be happy and run and play as much as he wants.


Side Note- Telling your kid that the dog died is about the hardest thing my wife and I have had to do in a long time.

Merry Christmas...

Here is a snapshot from our latest Christmas adventures!

Another LA excursion...

I had two life moments on my last trip to LA. The first was the privilege of lying on the greatest mattress in the world. We were in Culver City which tends to be pretty uppity and we saw this store called Hastens. It was an unexplainable experience until we heard the price...$62,000. Well I will sleep just fine on my Sealy thank you very much.

The next was a trip with my Sis and Bro in law to a Ron Paul tea party reenactment at the Santa Monica Pier on Saturday. It was awesome to see so many people excited about the constitution and abolishing the IRS. There are some photos on my flickr but there is plenty more stuff on youtube. VIVA LA REVOLUCION!

I made the front page of Digg.com

A user generated news site that welcome chronic addiction. I submitted the article last night and this morning I saw it on the front page. Watch out internet stardom here I come. Here is the story I dugg.

Like Sonny and Cher...

I enlisted the talents of my wife for a Christmas video we were shooting. I think she did a great job and this might be her big break, who knows? Here is her stunning debut!

Attack of the Sequel...

Well we had moderate success with the first mock news cast we produced so we did what any self respecting hollywood producer would do...we made the sequel! Hopefully it will fare at least as well as its older brother and help pay for my impending vacation. Feel free to check it out here.