Jan 7, 2009

I don't care who you are...this is funny

VAIL, Colo. — The guy who ended up dangling upside down from a ski lift with his bare bottom whistling in the wind probably doesn't want to hear any "ski bum" jokes. Vail Resorts said the 48-year-old man wasn't injured and was rescued after about seven minutes. His name hasn't been released.

Resort officials have said only that the man was trying to get on the Blue Ski Basin lift on New Year's Day. They haven't said what went wrong.

Resort workers stopped the lift, backed it up about 10 or 12 feet and rescued the man.

Bystanders snapped photos and posted them the Internet, showing a man who looks to be hanging by one ski boot, his ski pants and underwear apparently snagged in the chair and reaching no farther than his knees.

Vail spokeswoman Liz Biebl confirmed the photos on one site were in fact the victim.

Jan 6, 2009

Happy Birthday Alison!

Today is my beautiful bride's birthday! She has been the treasure of my heart for 12 years now. She believes in me much more than I deserve and has seen me at my worst and still sticks around. Join me in wishing her a wonderful birthday.

(Don't you love the Minnie Mouse hat?)

Hearing God Through the Noise

As 2009 starts, my prayer is that it will be a year in which God is richly and powerfully manifested in my life and in my family. As my kids get older, I am more acutely aware of the gravity of being a parent who believes in Jesus Christ. It's far too easy to teach my kids sports and too difficult to teach them to pray. After the hustle and bustle of the day, I would rather leave them to Disney Channel for an hour to escape than to turn off the TV and train them in God's Word. I find myself looking for a quick-fix or plug and play family devotional that I can fit into the course of the week rather than allowing God to speak to my children out of the overflow of my own walk with God. I also find myself more enamored as a leader with books and blogs on religious methodologies than with Paul's words to the Corinthians or Ephesians. One problem with our day and age is not the lack of Christian ideals or words, but the abundance of them. I am a Christian book freak with more books than I have bookshelves. As I walked yesterday through the local Lifeway store, I was struck by how we have so much religious teaching, theory, and training, but little of the true Christ-like life. I read this quote yesterday from A.W. Tozer:
"Every age has its own characteristics. Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. It its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all." A. W. Tozer
"God, grant that I would become totally and completely satisfied in you. Help me to trust in you and your mysterious ways more than I do my gifts and talents. Help me to embrace simplicity and look through the fog of methods and words that currently exist to see and hear from you. Help me to be a lens by which my wife and children see you. Help me understand that my life in you is not measured by how fast or how far I can run, but by how much of you that others see in me. Be my satisfaction, now and always."