Happy Birthday Chris Wilson

Today is my friend, Chris Wilson's birthday. I treated him and Andy Scott to lunch at Ruchi's Indian Cuisine. Andy drove us in his car so I picked up the tab. It was a great lunch although it was not exactly on my diet.

Lots of Preaching

I spent my evening listening to a lot of preaching and singing from different churches I had recorded this past Sunday using my WM Recorder. The Internet has opened up a huge word of fresh Gospel preaching and singing for me. I am trying hard to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I also spent time reading and meditating on the book of 2 Peter.

Nice To Be In Church This Morning

It was nice to be in church this morning and help do the video broadcast. After church I drove back to Kansas City.

A Hot Day To Mow The Grass

The sweat was really pouring off of me this morning while I mowed the grass. Seems like the grass would stop growing so fast with all this heat.

This afternoon I went to church and worked a couple hours with AT&T on the phone to fix our DSL high speed internet access. Somehow they had messed it up since last Sunday.

A Hot Three Miles Today

The temperature was well over 90 degrees for my 3 mile walk around the Sprint Campus at noon today. I got so hot that I thought about cutting the walk short. I went ahead and endured the heat and completed my walk.

How To Know The Will Of God

This subject had haunted me for a long time. I want to retire but I can not afford to retire. I know in my heart if it is God's will that I retire and go to Arkansas and be with my family that God will provide. I am just not sure that it is God's will. I came across this message by CLA lawyer, David Gibbs yesterday. It is titled "How To Know The Will Of God". When I saw the title I thought, "Oh, that's just what I need". I listened to it during my lunch hour yesterday. Last night when I got home I listened to it again. Tonight, using Audacity, I listened to it again and dissected every thought and made a lot of notes. It took me about 3 hours to get though it tonight because I keep rewinding and replaying each thought, but I feel that I really understand the message now. NOW, comes the hard part. The doing of it. Please pray with me that I will know the Will of God for my life. Thank you for your prayers.

Video Broadcast Problems

Lee called me last nigth in a panic from Crystal Hill Baptist Churc with a broadcast problem. He could not get Windows Media Encoder to connect to our Media Hosting company. We think it turned out to be a problem that his laptop did not have internet access. We were not able to figure it out in time for church to start so we did not have a live broadcast tonight. We have still got to solve this problem.

Retirement Application

I have a Retirement Application laying on my desk. It is filled out and waiting for my signature. My thought today is to wait a week and pray about it. My problem is that I don't have the money to retire. I guess I'm just tired of being away from home and family. This year plus of driving back and forth to Little Rock is beginning to wear on me.

Spiritual Battle

It seems like the devil has really been after me lately. I spent a lot of time talking to the Lord on my return journey to Kansas City this afternoon. It seemed that the Lord told me to "Just trust Me". This brought great peace to my soul as I continued my journey to Kansas City.

Director For Video Production

It was good to be back in the saddle this morning running camera #1 and producing the video broadcast at Crystal Hill Baptist Church.

New Sound System for New Building

I spent a big part of my day today working with Lee at the new church building for Crystal Hill Baptist Church. Lee and I are undertaking the project of installing the new sound system along with wiring it for all our video equipment. The project seems somewhat overwhelming at the moment. It is going to be doubly hard with my working in Kansas City.

Arkansas Here I Come, Again

It has been three weeks since I made the trip to Little Rock. We first had Robby and Rachael's wedding and then the following weekend we went to Treynor, Iowa for their wedding reception. The trip sure does not get any shorter.

Video Editing Without Rendering

Every time I have found a program to allow me to edit a video WMV file it required a very long rendering process (hours) to complete the edit. Usually all I want to do is cut out some stuff or take a few scenes and piece them together for the finished video. Replay Media Splitter has solved my problems. It is easy to use. It is fast and I accomplish what I want to do with a video in just a few minutes. I love it.

Robby and Rachael at Disney in Paris

Robby called today and said all was well with them in Paris, France. They reported that they had a wonderful time at Disney in Paris. Sounded like they were having the time of their lives on their honeymoon.

Carrot Juice Catastrophe

The following is from my post on the Hallelujah Acres Forum:

I thought I would do better today. Last night I washed, brushed, and trimmed my carrots.

I got up this morning and juiced my carrots. The carrot juice was beautiful. I put it in the freezer to cool down while I finished dressing. Today I remembered to get it out of the freezer and carried it to the car.

While driving to work it slid off the seat into the floor board of the car. I thought, no problem, I'll just get it when I get to work.

When I got to work I picked up the Wal-Mart sack with my juice in it and I was horrified. My precious juice was all out of the Rubber Maid container into the Wal-Mart sack. The sack was leaking juice every where. My first thought was to try to pour the juice back into the container, but the sack was leaking so badly that I just ended up pouring it out on the ground.

Now I have no juice for breaks and no fruit salad for lunch. How in the world is a body to stay on this diet when it seems that nothing is going to go right for me. I am sure the Lord is testing me for some reason. Maybe the Lord is trying to tell me something. I hope I understand what He wants soon.

Praise the Lord anyhow! I guess I'll fast and pray today.

Robby and Rachael Off To Paris

Mary dropped off Robby and Rachael at the Kansas City Airport this morning at 10:00 a.m. for their flight to Paris, France for their honeymoon. That makes Robby the first in the family to get to travel overseas. I don't guess Mary and I will ever get to do that. I'm glad they have that opportunity. After dropping them off Mary took off for Little Rock. It's been a lonely evening around here this evening.

Breakfast with the Vierck's

This morning we tuned into the early service from Crystal Hill Baptist Church from our hotel room at the Heartland Inn in Council Bluffs, Iowa. We then when over the Rick and JulieAnn Vierck's home for breakfast. It was really nice to spend some time at Rachael's mom and dad's home. They are very friendly people with great hopitality.

Wedding Reception in Treynor, Iowa

Tonight we enjoyed a fantastic wedding reception for Robby and Rachael in the Community Center in Treynor, Iowa. All of Rachael's friends and family were at the reception. This is Rachael's hometown. We enjoyed a lot of friendly people. The food was great also.

Breakfast with the Yonke's

This morning we had breakfast with the Yonke's and a whole bunch of geocachers at First Watch in North Kansas City. It was a wonderful reunion with a lot of old friends from our geocaching days. It's hard to believe that it's been almost a year since we have been geocaching. I get the urge once in a while but there is never any time to go caching.

Friday The 13th

Mary and I went out to eat tonight. We have had a wonderful Friday the 13th. It's good to have Mary in town. She's up here in Kansas City so we can go to a wedding reception for Robby and Rachael tomorrow night.

Mary Drove Up From Little Rock

Mary made the long trip to Kansas City today. We plan to go to a wedding reception for Robby and Rachael this weekend in Treynor, Iowa. Rachael's folks are holding the wedding reception for all their family and friends who could not come to the wedding in Parkville last weekend. It's good to have Mary with me. She doesn't make it up to Kansas City much anymore.

RSS Bandit

Today I learned about RSS Bandit. RSS (Rich Simple Syndication) Bandit is a free program from Sourceforge.net to allow people to keep up with Blogs, Forums, News, and etc. It was easy to setup and now I get an alert in the bottom right of my screen when someone updates their Blog or there are new posts to a forum. I think I am going to enjoy this new free program.

Lonely Day At Work

Chris and Andy both worked from home today. It was lonely and very quite around here all day. I did the three mile walk around the Sprint Campus all by myself today.

Back to Work and Kansas City

Mary caught a ride with Scott and Lacy back to Little Rock and I headed to Kansas City. It's been a fun week with the family.

Silver Dollar City

We didn't make it home to Little Rock as we had intended yesterday, so here we are now at Silver Dollar City. We had a great time. I even rode the Big Barn Swing, once. The rest of the crew rode it many times. One time cured me.

Now We're Off To Branson and Another Wedding

Wow! What a week. Little Rock, Kansas City, St. Louis, Kansas City, now Branson. We stopped off at a little park in Branson and had a quick wedding ceremony for Scott and Lacy. Now we have two new daughter-in-laws in the same weekend.

Robby and Rachael's Wedding

Finally the big day we've all been waiting for. We arrived at the Hawthorn House about noon and were busy until the wedding. It started with Mary getting her hair done. Lee conducted the wedding and did an outstanding job. It was his first wedding. I think we got away from the reception about 10:30 p.m. We enjoyed a very nice dinner.

Wedding Rehearsal

Today we had to drive back to Kansas City from St. Louis. Robby and Rachael's wedding rehearsal went well and we were out of there within an hour. Then came the hard part. Mary and I had to pay for the rehearsal dinner. The bill was over $1,100. I'm glad that's over. It's hard to enjoy the meal when you know you have to pay for everybody there.

St. Louis Here We Come

We all packed up and headed to St. Louis today. We went through the museum and up in the Arch. The grandkids really enjoyed that. I thought the movie about how the Arch was built was the best part. We stayed at the Arch for the Fireworks display after dark. It was a fabulous fireworks show. Then came the bad part. We had to wait in our parking place from well over an hour before we could even move our vehicle to get into line. It was not much fun trying to get out of downtown.

Worlds of Fun

We all headed to Worlds of Fun today. I think the grandkids had the most fun. Mary and I did a lot of sitting on the rock walls while we waited on them to ride the rides.

Three Vehicles to Kansas City

We formed a caravan to Kansas City today. Lee and his family and Scott and Lacy all drove back to Kansas City with me this evening. We are getting ready for Robby and Rachael's wedding this coming Friday.

Selected to Install New Sound System

Looks like Lee, Scott and I get to do the sound system on the new church building at Crystal Hill. I spent a couple hours with the pastor this afternoon and he said we could start anytime. Now I am wondering how I am going to do that.