Sunday, July 31, 2005

I'm now a member

For the first time in my life, I placed membership at a congregation. I grew up at the church where my parents were members. In college I was a member at Hamby. We went there regularly for several years, I led singing, the whole bit, but I don't recall ever formally placing membership. Since then I've worked at three churches, and nobody expects the ministers to place membership. (side note: Are the ministers members or not?)

We placed our lot with the Southern Hills congregation here in town after visiting five weeks. During the "invitation" (which is not the usual "y'all come on down") we snagged an elder in the aisle. He invited us to the front where we were introduced immediately as new members. No questions. But what if I were a secret Baptist? No questions. What if...um...what if... No questions. Nice.

I haven't decided yet in what areas to serve. I don't know what opportunities there are for teaching, although I know both youth ministers from when I lived here before. I don't know how closed of a group the praise team is, but they're pretty durn good without me.

I've got a few more benign topics to post, but I think I'll do them in stages, simply as a ploy to get y'all coming back and checking for updates. I'm almost past 3000 on my counter. Wonder how many of those people are in France?
Jason

Monday, July 25, 2005

Finally caught a fish

Since the boys have been waking up pretty regularly about 6 a.m. since we've started working on them sleeping in their own beds, I decided that I might as well go fishing this morning since I was already up. I bought a swim noodle the other day and made a few jugs, plus I had a couple that I found at the lake in Texarkana. I went up the creek bass fishing, but put the jugs out at the mouth. Ended up catching a 12 incher and one about 3 pounds. Three spots later I caught another that was about 15" or so. Didn't get a single bass bite, although I did almost catch a bull frog. Back in Canadian I got on a pattern catching big green bullfrogs on plastic worms. I saw one this morning, so I flipped my brush hog over there and he jumped on it. I let him have it a bit so he could get the hook in his mouth, but I apparently didn't give him long enough.

I have my first paper of the new educational experience due in a couple weeks, so I figure to spend some time at the library tomorrow. I'm also helping Travis move in to their new apartment tomorrow afternoon, then I have to work from 6-10.

Shana's talking about going to Lovington this weekend since I have to work all day Saturday and half a day on Monday and Tuesday. Thought maybe I'd put out some trotlines or something. That way maybe I could at least put some fish in the freezer.

Guess that's about it.
Jason

Saturday, July 23, 2005

Got one!

I've gotten a few calls for interviews after all of the applying I did on Monday. On Wednesday I got called to interview at the airport this coming Tuesday for a station agent job. Wednesday morning we went and had the boys' pictures taken at Sears and they had a job opening in thier asset protection department. That's the snoop squad, or the guys whose main job is to catch shoplifters. Sounded kind of interesting, so I applied and did an interview on Friday. Pays 7/hr for 20-25 hours per week. Yesterday after the Sears interview I got a call from Academy. They wanted to talk to me at 10 this morning. I interviewed for a "temporary" job in the camping department. Apparently it's a management strategy to hire people as temps so that if they're not good workers they can just tell them that they're finished with the work they were needed for. The manager said that they hardly ever don't keep a temp though. He called me back a bit ago and offered me the job. It also pays 7/hr, but should be 30-40 hours per week. Not a big pile of money, but I figured I better take it. I have orientation tomorrow at 11, but they claim that I shouldn't have any problem not working Sundays. Academy's always been one of my favorite stores. I think they started in Austin, and I used to go to several of their stores there. Bought my first fishing pole there, and also Shana's shotgun. Maybe after I get all oriented tomorrow I'll post some more details.

In other news, we got our bed today. We've always just used a frame with no headboard, but in our new house the only place to put the bed was against the windows. The end result was that you constantly find your pillow on the windowsill with the miniblinds. Since we made a bit on our house, we decided it was time for a "real" bed. We ordered it about three weeks ago and picked it up today.

I guess that's about it. The fishing still stinks, and it's blazing hot.
Jason

Monday, July 18, 2005

Have Gun, Will Travel

Wasn't that the name of an old TV western? That's kind of what I feel like today. I went job hunting. I put in applications at the airport, Academy, a car dealership, and a pawn shop. I also put in my first hour's worth of work at the new web design job. Once I get a bit further into it, I'll direct you all over to the site to have a peek.
For a report about how church hunting is going, and about all of the recent parental visits, check out Shana's blog.
I apologize for my blog being so stagnant lately. I promise that I'll update more frequently when school starts. Right now there's just so little going on that I feel like talking about.
I guess that's about it. Have a good day!
Jason

Monday, July 11, 2005

It's Official

I guess I'm officially a grad student again. I started class today. The course is called Advanced Introduction to the Old Testament. Not exactly my number one choice of summer entertainment, but it is interesting enough I suppose. The professor is Dr. Shipp from Austin Theological Seminary. He goes to Brentwood, and his daughter graduated this year with my cousin Karissa. He also apparently just did a series of lessons at my home church in Leander. For the rest of the week I'll have class from 8-5 with an hour lunch break. We'll take five quizzes and two tests, and then have to write a seven page exegesis paper. Truthfully, that's really pretty easy for a graduate class. It's a quick way to get 3 hours without having to go to class all semester long.

In other good news, we made ice cream tonight...
and we should get the check for the house via FedEx in the morning...
and we actually got a refund from St. Michaels for Jared because we overpaid(tomorrow: a blanket drive for Satan, 'cause he's shivering)...
and Travis and Cara came over and ate burgers and ice cream with us...
and Elaine's visiting for the week to take an online course and help with the boys while I'm in class...
and that's about it.

Four Walnut kids are here in Abilene at camp this week. I plan on trying to find them tomorrow or Wednesday.

Yesterday was tough.

Jason

Friday, July 08, 2005

150 Ways Not to Catch a Fish

I've been fishing twice now from the boat on the lake here, Ft. Phantom. Let's just say it's not Wright-Patman. There's a Thursday night tournament every week, and so I put in with them and hung around for the weigh in just to learn their game. Seems as if there's usually 8-12 guys in an every man for himself format, three fish, 16" limit. Turns out that for the past two weeks, no one has even caught a single keeper. When that happens, they roll the week's money over to the next week. This week one guy caught two fish and took home almost 400$, three weeks worth of money. Here's the bad part: the math. If you figure about 50 fisherman (about 13 per night for three tourneys) fishing a three hour tournament, that means that for 150 man-hours of fishing, there were only TWO keepers. That's pretty crappy. No wonder I didn't get a bite. On the other hand, if a guy could just catch a fish or two, he stands a chance of winning.

Here's a pic of some fish I caught in the summer of 2003 fishing with David Jackson and Jason Dempsey, just so I'll remember what a fish is supposed to look like.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Not much to say, not much to do

So little is going on that it's hard to find stuff to blog about. I took a 10 hour per week web design job today. Not much, but better than what I had yesterday. I also found out about a worship ministry job here in town. That could be interesting. Other than that, I've been mostly staying around the house helping with kids, dishes, and unpacking.

Churches are supposed to be off limits, but I'll mention what Shana and I have been doing. We went to church at Highland the first Sunday that we were here. There's a report about that on Shana's blog, so no need to rehash. Last Sunday we went to Southern Hills. We saw several people we knew from college. They were having an ice cream supper that evening, and since I'm a home made ice cream fanatic, we went back. We met several young couples, and were invited over for dinner and fireworks on Monday night. As a minister, I've always been the guy on the lookout for visitors, not the visitor. It was nice to be the pursued instead of the pursuer. We had a good time with them on Monday night. A pleasant evening, but spent with new acquaintances who were little more than strangers. There will probably never be a suitable replacement for the wonderful friends we left behind. We went back to SH tonight. We saw Bob and Jo Wilburn, one of my elders in Canadian. He snuck out the door quickly and I got snagged by an older gentleman, so we didn't get to talk.

I saw on the news last night that the United Church of Christ has come out in support of gay marriage. Here's a link to a NY Times article on the subject.
UCC Comes Out

In jest, as a joke, for fun, consider the possibility... To deal with potential confusion over the difference between the UCC and the Church of Christ of which I am a member... imagine the headline in our brotherhood papers. Could it be...
"We are the churches of Christ, and we are NOT united!" Grin.
Jason

Saturday, July 02, 2005

The many meanings of "DAT!"

My poor, neglected blog...

We've been busy unpacking boxes, building furniture, and travelling. The unpacking boxes part should be obvious. As I think I mentioned, our house has no closets. I've installed a couple of closet rods in the bedroom, built three end tables, and a 6'x6' and 2'x4' book cases and a desk for the office. I've got to put the finish on the end tables and the small book case and then I'll probably post some pics.

When Barry and Elaine were here last weekend, they took Jonathan home with them. He was doing fine, but Shana only made it until Wednesday. We got back last night at about 10:30. Shot some more p-dogs, but it was WINDY, so no good shots to report. I did manage to kill a crow with a pistol. (I love ambiguous sentences... did the crow have the pistol or did I? I'll just let you guess.)

Now, about DAT! Jonathan has adopted one word for just about everything. DAT can be hot, light, eight, that, or just what you say when you don't have anything else to say. It can be quiet, loud, or a question. Dat is a very useful word to a 15 month old.

Gotta go, Shana's trying to make dinner and the boys are both crying.
Jason