DJ Says...

home stretch with the wedding and all. There has been so much to do (and pay for) that I've been really stressed out.

The failure of the first landscape company to finish the job and remove all of the tree debris was a huge cloud hanging over me. The ditch in front of the house was completely full the entire width of the lot and about 10' high. The city finally threatened me with a citation and fine of $200 a day if I didn't do something soon. Can't say as I blame them but it didn't help with the stress. I finally found someone to remove it all (an expensive proposition) and they started Friday, removing about 70% of it. What a relief! And they came back this morning to finish the job! Yeehaa! That feels good.

The yard is coming together as well, if only the rain will hold off another day or two. Maas did a great job with the front beds, they are awesome! What a variety of plants spread out over four different beds. That might be all I can afford before the big day but they are gorgeous, especially when combined with the beds they put around the house. And we did manage to get most of the sod down in the front, not all but the majority, so we hope that it will be green by the big day.

Joe of Frasure Home Improvements has been wonderful. He's finishing up the wood floors today, there will be no more carpet downstairs! They look great, even if they feel kinda strange on bare feet. He only has a couple of small things left after that and the house will really be in good shape. It's only 14 years old but that is about the time a lot of stuff needs done and we were very fortunate to find him.

Our class has been great the past couple of weeks. The guys that I currently have are genuine Godly men striving to make this world a better place. I'm fortunate to know them.

Last Saturday, Terri and I went with Hero and Kaia down to Helen's Garden in League City, a beautiful place to take photos. The light wasn't perfect (remember all the rain?) but we decided to go for it anyway. I think I was able to capture their spirit in several photos, this one will be running in the newspaper for the announcement:



More and more, I've been thinking about my little girl leaving and establishing her own family. It is both sad and happy, sad that she'll no longer need Daddy but grateful that she has found a man that is seeking God's will for their lives. And happy to see her smiling again.

Yes, it does and never seems to stop! I had a decent, if not great, week.

Probably the most interesting thing was the candidate forum for those of us running for city council in Shoreacres. It was my first time to do anything like that and I must say that it is a lot harder than it looks. The forum was sponsored by the LaPorte-Bayshore Chamber of Commerce and was sort of a round-table affair held in the LaPorte City Council chamber.

Of the six candidates running, four of us participated. One person was not there but sent a letter that the moderator read (she is an incumbent, being appointed after one guy retired because of storm damage to his home). The other two incumbents were there, plus me and one candidate, Sarah, that is running against the incumbents. She seems really bitter about them which is very odd to me.

We started with an opening statement. Everyone else had a prepared script, I just winged it as usual. I praised the current council and told everyone in the audience (50 or so) that I thought they had done a great job after the storm and that I wasn't running against anyone. My entire platform is simple: the city is going to face very difficult financial times in the future and I think that I can help.

All in all, it was an interesting evening and I had a bit of fun. The meeting demonstrated how much of an outsider I am even though I have been living in the city far longer than the other candidates. I used the meeting as a barometer of my interest: if I didn't have fun, I wasn't going to go any further. Well, I had fun, and after listening to the other candidates, I know that I can contribute. So, I'm going to continue the campaign even though I fully expect to lose. Thing is, you can't win if you don't try, so, that's that!

Joe Frasure of Frasure Home Improvements continues to do a superb remodeling job. If only everyone in business focused on the customer like he does! We now have wood floors in the new study and the dining room. He'll install the floors in the rest of the house near the end of the week or the first part of next week. They look great!

After I fired the first landscaper, we went through the process and picked another one. He got started right away and made some progress before the heavy rains on Friday and Saturday. Hopefully it will be dry enough by the end of the week that he can finish.

Terri is starting to get panicked about the wedding. It is now only four weeks away! It does seem like it snuck up on us. We've have a few more things to finish, plus wrap up commitments, etc. We'll get it done.

Class was pretty good yesterday. The group of guys that we have coming aren't afraid to state their opinions or to offer up suggestions, so that makes it flow. I think that our experiment going to the early service is going to end. I just get nothing out of it. The girl that leads it can sing really well but it is more like going and listening to someone sing three songs than it is worship. She doesn't interact with the congregation and frankly, the songs she picks are meant to glorify her. No one sings because it isn't designed for that, it is designed for her to sing. Which might work for her but in looking around the congregation, no one is worshipping, they are just standing there looking confused as to why they are standing there! So we'll probably go back to the late service, at least we get to sing in that one.

I haven't stuck to the diet as well as I should have but I still lost a bit these past two weeks. Not more than a grain of sand on the beach but still, I didn't gain!

Two of Houston's public servants, James Harlow and Damion Hobbs, gave their lives in the line of duty Sunday.

From the Houston Chronicle on Sunday:

Two Houston firefighters died early Easter morning trying to save an elderly couple from their blazing home.

Capt. James Harlow, 50, and rookie firefighter Damion Hobbs, 30, didn’t know the homeowners had already escaped. The couple, both in their 80s, were safely down the street by the time firefighters arrived.

The fallen firefighters never made it out of the sprawling one-story, 4,170-square-foot home on Oak Vista.

And from a follow-up article this morning:

Harlow’s crew member and fellow firefighter David Watson mourned the loss of his captain on Sunday.

“It’s just feels like a bad dream and he’ll be there when we come back to work,” said Watson, 40, who has worked on Harlow’s crew at Fire Station 26 for about five years.

Indeed it does feel like a bad dream. I grew up with James: same schools, same church, crushes on the same girls. As teens we took different paths as most do and time pushes memories out of sight to make room for new ones. Those memories flowed from deep corners of the mind this weekend through many tears. Throwing spitballs across the room, passing notes in class, making enough of a ruckus to be called out from the pulpit, summer camp, riding our bicycles to the store on a lazy summer day. Kid stuff.

No matter what the situation, Harlow was an optimist. In his East-Texas accent, he would spout his reassuring motto, “Everything is going to be all right.”

That brought a smile because that is the kid I remember. Even in the darkest moment, James knew that his hope came from a higher power. That he and his fellow firefighter gave their lives on Easter Sunday in service to others should serve to remind all of us what the true meaning of Easter is.

Godspeed, James. I'll see you in due time.

great weekend! The biggest highlight of course was the dozer showing up to spread sand and level the yard. That was awesome because I was getting very frustrated with the pace of the project.

But that wasn't the only good thing. We finally watched Slumdog Millionaire on Friday night and it was really good. The one universal truth about human beings was on display in that movie and that is that we are sinful by nature. It is incredible what one human being will do to another for gain.

We watched another good movie last night, The Color of Freedom. That is interesting, I didn't realize that the original name was Goodbye Bafana. Anyways, it too was a good movie, a movie that makes me think. Seems I don't do enough of that these days.

Class was awesome once again. We had standing room only and Jmac was back. I'm not sure why so many attended but it was nice to see. Our discussion was very interesting, focused upon Isaiah 52:12 - 53:12, which is the passage that foretells the coming of Christ. I also brought up the most recent American Religious Identification Survey 2008 and the responses were rather interesting. I think I'll do a post on that but as a teaser, one of the guys claimed that over 50% of the respondents in a survey he saw said that they were atheists! LOL, where do people get this stuff?

Still working on the diet, the scale said that I went in the right direction this week. We are walking at least two miles a day still. I need to add 10 minutes or so of cardio but I hate the whole going to the gym thing. Know any good cardio exercises?