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  • Be Angry

    Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “ ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’ ” Matthew 21:12-13 NIV

    A few weeks ago Pastor Whit (@whitneygeorge) preached a message titled Be Angry (above) that really got Mandy and I thinking about what it is that makes us angry. One thing that I have noticed in the last few years is that my fuse has gotten shorter. This is not a good thing especially because the things that I am getting frustrated about are things where I feel offended because things are not going my way or are (perceived) offenses against me or my pride. Examples are:

    • I want a quiet & peaceful house after a long day at work but my 6, 3, & 1 year old want to express themselves at the top of their lungs.
    • I finally have a day with no meetings so I should be able to get some good traction on a task that needs to get done, but then everyone and their brother decides to stop by because they are stuck and they think I can help them.

    If I look at the examples above in the right light, I would realize:

    • I have been at work all day and my kids have missed me and just want to tell daddy all about their day and are just excited to see me.
    • The people who are asking me for help believe that by coming to me they are going to get their problem solved and I should be honored that they respect me enough to come to me.

    The challenge issued by Pastor Whit (coming straight from scripture) is to be angry about what makes God angry and that anger should drive us to action. What are the things within your sphere of influence that anger God that you can do something about? Is it:

    • Helping the woman on your street who is raising her kids by herself because dad checked out and left them high and dry by playing catch with her boys or offering to fix things around her house?
    • Supporting (or becoming) one of the people who goes into those dark places and rescues kids caught in the trap of human trafficking?
    • Supporting the AIDS orphans in Africa who are caught in that vicious cycle because the prevailing belief is that men can get rid if AIDS by having sex with a virgin?
    • Buying a meal for the homeless guy on the street who can’t provide for himself for one reason or other?

    The challenge for us is to forget about our pride and open our eyes to see what is going on around us that angers God because it is hurting his children and do something about it. Imagine what the world would look like and how people would be affected if all Christians actually got angry about what made God angry and did something about it instead of only getting angry when our pride or our expectations are not met.

  • Movie Review – Iron Man 3

    First things first, I love comic book movies. So before you read my review, realize that. The other thing to realize about my movie reviews is that I am a pretty easy critic, if you can make me forget what is going on and keep me entertained for a few hours and tell a cohesive story I am probably going to like your movie. I usually know enough about a movie before I go see it that I typically don’t go to a movie unless I am pretty sure I am going to like it (especially comic book movies).

    Iron Man 3 follows Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) shortly after the events of The Avengers. We find Tony haunted by what he has experienced, unable to sleep, and nervously creating Iron Man mark after mark. When we last saw him in The Avengers the suit was at Mark 8, by the time we catch up with Tony here he is already on Mark 42. Tony’s relationship has also become strained with Pepper Potter (Gweneth Paltrow) who is struggling to understand what is going on with Tony. Add to the mix 2 figures from Tony’s past and you have a recipe for conflict.

    This Iron Man features more of Tony than previous movies, which I think was a smart move because the Iron Man movies set the tone for the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe so if Iron Man sets the tone of going bigger by blowing more stuff up then the rest of the movies get pigeonholed into that mold. In this movie they do a really good job focusing on what drives people to do what they do. Is it fear? Is it love? Is it loyalty to a friend? Is it the desire for power? One interesting thing that drew my attention was how someone can make a ridiculously bad decision, a terrible decision, because they love someone so much and want a better life for them.

    Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of action for all the action fans out there. One of my favorite action scenes (I’m not spoiling anything because this is in the trailers) is the final battle where all the suits are involved in fighting the Extremis soldiers.

    I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the twist, don’t worry, I’m not going to spoil it. A lot of the fanboys were really disappointed with the twist and with the information that they were given I can understand that. However, after seeing the movie and the motivation behind the different characters, the twist really does make sense. Because the key method of operation for one particular character was to operate in anonymity and that is why things were set up the way they were.

    One review that I read said that Iron Man 3 was better than The Avengers, but I would have to disagree. I was one of the many people who said that The Avengers was a 5 star out of 5. I think Iron Man 3 is a great movie, just not a 5 star movie. Overall, I would give Iron Man 3 3.5 stars out of 5.

  • Book Review: Salvaged – Stefne Miller

    salvagedI was given Salvaged as a gift from a family member because they knew I would read it and provide a review. I devoured the book, but because of how crazy things were at that point I did not post a review right after I read it. I’m remedying that situation right now. This book deserves better than that.. In an age where young minds are learning what true love is from books like the Twilight Saga, it is nice to see a wholesome love story like Salvaged.

    In Salvaged, Miller deals with a lot of weighty issues like loss, fear, romance, and what faith looks like when you are truly at the bottom. At the beginning of the book we meet Attie after she has lost her best friend and her mom in a car crash and goes to live with the family of the best friend she lost. The story details her journey back to wholeness and the bumps and bruises along the way. I love Miller’s writing style, she writes in a way that is very easy to read and lends itself to you getting through the book rather quickly. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who would be drawn to the Twilight Saga. It is also a good read for guys like me who are fathers of little girls because it gives you a window into their world in a way that you may not get in other places.

    I currently have Miller’s two other books Rise (the sequel to Salvaged) and Collision in my stack to read/review so look for them in the future.

  • Book Review: Behemoth by Jonathan C. Leicht

    behemothI wouldn’t say that I am necessarily a believer in young earth theory, there are certain aspects that make sense to me. As you obviously know, I am a believer and definitely a creationist so when I saw this book available I thought it might be a really good read. Before I get into the rest of the review, I want to point out that the author makes it very clear in what he is writing what his beliefs are and he definitely attacks the scientific community and their narrow minded views in this book so be warned if you are prone to get offended by this, this is not the book for you. That being said, I thought this was an extremely well written book

    and would recommend it to any fiction fan. The author has definitely done his research and presents a very compelling story about the search for the lost Behemoth. The story follows two characters and their search

    for what they believe are real live dinosaurs that are living in Africa and have remained hidden for centuries, one is Jim Thompson who runs the Masai Mara Game preserve in Kenya who starts his investigation when several of his elephants are gored to death. The second is Professor Stephen Gregory who after making known that he believes dinosaurs could still exist is relieved of his research position and given the opportunity to prove his theories are true.

    As I said, I thought the book was a good read, even if it was a bit preachy at times. If you are looking for a little brain fodder on the creation/evolution debate you should definitely pick up Behemoth.

  • Book Review: The Coming Revolution – Dr. Richard G. Lee

    Given the current political climate in our country, especially at the begining of an election year, I thought it would be prudent to start sharpening my political focus, so I picked up The Coming Revolution: Signs from America’s Past that Signal Our Nation’s Future as my next book to review and make my readers aware of.

    Lee has a very Republican/Conservative/anti-Obama viewpoint, so to many of my liberal friends he will be very hard to swallow. However, my conservative/Tea Party friends will find a lot of common ground with him.

    One of the things I greatly appreciated about this book was how much historical perspective on our country was given. As we move

    into the election season, I think this is a must read for conservatives who are not happy with the way our country is heading because I think he gives a lot of advice from history as to how to get where we need to be. One thing he makes extremely clear is that the founding fathers assumed the country woukd be run by men and women of faith, they knew that a republic/democracy would not survive if there were not men and women of faith to run it…human nature is just too selfish. Overall, I would definitely recommend The Coming Revolution to anyone who is not

    happy with the current political environment or anyone who wants to read about how the faith of the nation’s founders affected how they structured our country.

  • Book Review: Heart of Ice – A Triple Threat Novel by Liz Wiehl & April Henry

    _225_350_Book.555.coverIn this book the Triple Threat club of Allison, Nic, & Cassidy are on the case of a very cunning killer with absolutely no moral conviction whatsoever.

    Crime dramas like Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, NCIS, & CSI are some of my favorite types of TV shows so when it came time to pick another book to review Heart of Ice

    was very appealing. I liked the idea of three friends who were in 3 different fields related to crime solving all working together to help solve a crime, Allison is a Federal Prosecutor, Nic is an FBI agent, & Cassidy is a crime reporter for a local TV station. I thought the authors did an excellent job laying out who the characters were and what their motivations were. The story wove together really nicely as well. I hope I can go back and read the two previous novels by these two authors because they were a great pair on this novel.

    I also took a new approach for this book in that it is the first book I have ever read completely digitally. I read the book entirely on my phone using the Amazon Kindle app. I am happy to say that I really liked it, for my ongoing book reviews for Thomas Nelson, I will continue to download them to my phone (or if I get a tablet in the future, my tablet).

  • Book Review: The Christian Zombie Killers Handbook – Slaying the Living Dead Within – Jeff Kinley

    christian zombie killers handbookWhen I decided to read The Christian Zombie Killers Handbook by Jeff Kinley I didn’t know what I was getting into. The author takes an interesting path on how he wrote the book. This book is both fiction and non-fiction.

    The author first writes a chapter that tells a story of the life after the zombie apocalypse has begun, then follows it up with a chapter explaining how the chapter before relates to our Christian walk. While reading the book, I felt like it was too disjointed but after reflecting on the experience I realize that the author has a great talent tying together a story that he has made up with the ultimate story into a cohesive unit.  I actually finished this book quite a while ago, but have spent a lot of time trying to figure out what review to write. After considering, I have to say that the author has written a pretty good book. Like I said, it seemed disjointed at the time, but after reflecting, I realized how good of a book it really was. If you are into zombie fiction at all or how it can relate to your Christian walk, you should definitely pick up this book.

  • Extreme Makeover Caleb’s Room Edition

    When we first moved into our house, we thought we hit the jackpot because in the room that became Carrie’s room the walls were yellow and there were beautiful murals of flowers and butterflies so she was set. Caleb’s room however was a chocolate brown color and we knew he didn’t like it, but we didn’t realize how bad he didn’t like it until he was showing someone around our house and told them about how he REALLY wanted a race car room. Now it was on…we decided that when his grandparents came up for Christmas that we would send Caleb and his sister to their Uncle Michael’s house where

     

    Mama would watch them while we completely redid his room. So yesterday, at 8:30 we took the kids over to Michael’s house and then we got to work. We had pre-ordered all of the product we needed so we were ready to go. Uncle Michael came over and helped move furniture and paint and we got everything done except putting the room back together by 11:00 that night (we had to allow some time for paint to dry), then we got up and touched up the border and put the room back together in time for us to take a shower and pick Caleb and his sister up by 9:15 so that we could bring him back to unveil everything. Check out the video below for progress photos and the unveiling…

    http://youtu.be/LSBEIkwYWOU

  • P90X Results – Round 1 – Started July 27, 2011

    I finished a round of P90X…

    For those of you who don’t know me well, let me explain why that is such a profound statement. It isn’t that I don’t like working out, it isn’t that I don’t like P90X, I love working out and I love P90X. What it means is that Mandy and I have been able to make enough changes in our lives that have allowed me to take the time to complete P90X.  I recently (June, 2011) started working at ConocoPhillips in their Bartlesville shared services location. Previously, I had owned my own company Two Miles Solutions, LLC and we lived in Madison, WI. While I still own my own company (I still do custom WordPress plugin and theme development, we have our first commercial theme releasing soon) I am no longer working 12 – 16 hour days like I was before. Previously when I had tried to start a round of P90X (I made 3 attempts prior to this) I would get about 30 days into it and then work deadlines would loom and I would have to stop because when it came to a decision of workout or sleep after/before working 12-16 hour days, sleep always won (as it probably should).  Anyway, that is all behind us and I have been able to focus on my health which is something that I have set out to do for this entire year.

    First the numbers:

    Note, that I had to take Day 93 measurements and pictures because we were travelling and the original pictures

    didn’t turn out (too dark, taken in a basement)

    Weight Weight from Fat Waist Bicep Thigh
    Day 1 334.4 136.4 50.0 15.75 25.75
    Day 93 317.6 110.5 46.0 16.00 26.5
    Difference – 16.8 – 25.9 – 4.0 + 0.25 + 0.75

    Now for where the money is, here are my pictures…

    P90X - Back Pictures Day 0 - Day 93

    P90X - Back Flexed Pictures - Day 0 - Day 93

    P90X - Front Pictures - Day 0 - Day 93

    P90X - Front Flexed Pictures - Day 0 - Day 93

    P90X - Side Pictures - Day 0 - Day 93

    And here is one that combines all angles from Day 0 and Day 93…

    P90X - Composite - Day 0 - Day 93

    Overall, it was a great round. I was still finishing up some work for previous customers so there were days where I had to skip workouts, but I really enjoyed the workouts and the transformation  I am starting to see in my body. I took a week off and just did Cardio X for 3 of the days, then I started a new round on November 1, 2011 and am continuing the journey. I’ll keep you up to date with my progress.

  • Book Review – Christian Encounters – J.R.R. Tolkien by Mark Horne

    jrrtolkienBeing a lover of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, when given the opportunity to read a biography of J.R.R. Tolkien, I was excited. The man gave direction to the entire genre of fantasy fiction, I wanted to know what made him tick.

    In this book, Mark Horne does a

    great job of explaining how the events of his life affected how and what he wrote about. It has always amazed me how men and women could have the creativity to come up with the worlds that they create through fiction. In his thorough and well researched book, Mark Horne does a great job opening up the world of J.R.R. Tolkien to the reader. One of my favorite parts of the Tolkien story was his relationship with fellow author C.S. Lewis who says that J.R.R. Tolkien was instrumental in his coming to faith. If you are a lover of Tolkien’s work or the fantasy genre in general, you should definitely read this book.