Flipside Costume Party

Here is a little qik video from our costume contest last night. It is not great quality because it was taken from my phone, but you get the idea. And you can stream it live from qik.com/erikwithak how cool is that?!

Turn-Style Pain...Steve's birthday

This weekend we celebrated my friend Steve's birthday. He loves the outdoors and wanted to do something outside instead of going to dinner and a movie. So we played tennis, horseshoes and bocce ball. (yes, I know we sound old....haha) All fun to play with these guys. Brian, Steve, Boyd and I indulged in the wonderful day that hit 75 degrees!!! It's almost November people. I love Oregon! Anyhow, at the tennis courts is one of those turn-style things you can come in but can't go out of.

I told Steve he should try and lay on one of the bars and we could turn him and squeeze him through. He told me I should do it. So I did. Weird, usually I am the one who convinces others to do stuff like that. Well, then my "friend" Brian decided he would be the one to turn me, except when he got to the point where my butt didn't quite fit he pulled and pushed and pulled and pushed some more. Back and forth a bunch of times. It hurt, but I was laughing so hard because I wish it was me doing that. I would think it was really funny if I was on the other end of the pain.

Here is a little video of that fun moment. There are also some pics from the rest of the day too.

Are You a Big Fan of 30 Rock? Free vid

You can watch the full episode of 30 rock that is airing this Thursday now at hulu.com Just cuz I like you. Enjoy.
PS. I do not endorse anything from this show.

Sarah Palin and Tina Fey

This was hilarious.

Stressful Night!

Wow, tonight I watched the Red Sox Ray's game with my family. I started being very frustrated. 2 runs in the first inning by the Rays. In the 7th inning the Red Sox were losing 7-0. I was in a bad mood, but still believing. It's what we Sox fans have done for sooo many years. Well, that's where it all came apart. The Sox got 4 runs and then another 2. Thanx to Big Papi getting a 3 run homer and JD Drew getting a 2 run homer. They tied it up in the 8th.

2 outs, bottom of the 9th. 7-7. They intentionally walk Jason Bay (who was part of the trade for Manny Ramirez and has been AWEsome!) and then JD Drew hits it deep into right field. With 2 guys on, it was over. My body is so wound up. I need a massage. Haha. The series is now 3-2 Rays. We came back from a 3-0 deficit in 04 and a 3-1 deficit last year. We can totally do this. The next game is on Saturday during our middle school retreat. Thank you slingbox!

I have a New Hero

I just read about this dude who is just about 20 pounds heavier and an inch shorter than I am who ate a 15 pound burger under 4 hours! Wow! I had a 5 patty burger once. They made a pretty big deal of it at Johnny Rockets, but it didn't make national headlines. Check out the story here.

Days before...

It's 2 nights before our big fall retreat for our district middle schoolers. I am so pumped. The last few days has been filled with all the little detail stuff: buying snacks; getting game stuff; finishing up program ideas; shooting and editing video; getting costume stuff; watching my Red Sox get spanked (they have a history of coming back in the playoffs with a deficit like this, so it's not over). I actually got 8 hours of sleep last night. Went to bed at 10!!! That is a rarity.

Now I have just a few things left to do. Pick up the truck. Get a few things at SAC. Get a mustache that did not make it in my costume purchase for some reason. Pack the truck. Edit a little more video. Finish a powerpoint game. Love on my family. And go!

Looks like we will have good weather this weekend too. If you think of it, pray for us. Pray for Dave Underwood who is speaking and for the students who are coming. Oh yeah, I need to finish refining my purity talk for "Girls only" and "guys only." You can pray for that too!

Twitter Church? WHAT?!

I can not believe what I just read. A church used twitter live during their church service. If you don't know what twitter is, click here. People walked into church with their phones and laptops fired up and interacted with the service. They kept the twitter updates live on the screen the whole time. Nuts!

I can not imagine our church doing this. Too many would complain it would be too distracting. I might even think it, but I would love the try of it. You know? It blows my mind to think about it. You gotta read this blog about how it went. Imagine if...

The pic is a screenshot of what they twittered about during the service.

Palin or Fey?

Have you seen any of the SNL sketches where Tina Fey does Sarah Palin? She nails her. I mean she is sooo good! Probably the best I have seen in a long time there. I just read that when Fey plays Palin, Palin's ratings go down. Weird. They say they don't think that the final vote will be affected in any major way, but it is crazy to think that most young people get their political news from shows like SNL, The Colbert Report and The Daily Show. Hmmm. It is more fun to watch it all there, but not really that informative.

So I found a website that lets you take a quiz as to if the picture is of Sara Palin or Tina Fey. I got 3 wrong out of the ten pics! Can you do better? Click here.

Baseball Season...October is here.

You may know that I love the Red Sox. If you have been reading for a while you know that this is the time of year that I like to blog about what's happening. Tomorrow night Dice-K itches for the first game in the second round of playoffs. I can't even tell you how excited I am about it. The downside is that I will be at our high school retreat. The upside is that I have a slingbox and can watch it on my phone. The downside is I don't know if I get reception there. Hmmm...dilemma. The upside is that it is our high school fall rerteat and that rocks! Oh, did I mention that "Manny & the Dodgers" lost their first game to the Phillies?

School is done...Camps, here I come!

October is camp month for me. High school fall retreat and our 2 middle school camps. That means I lean heavier on the work side of things. That can be a bit stressful, but November is much more chill. I love these camps. I love camp. I was raised going to camp and it became part of my life and blood. I have seen so many amazing things happen as a result of people stepping out of their regular routine and being open to what God has for them. So cool.

So if I am quiet this month, you know why. Of course, I could be even more "talkative" because I get in a frenzy when I start working on this stuff. I am like a caged king cobra. Unpredictable!!! haha. Don't get too close, or I may bite. Of course, I love hugs (I know, I know) so don't stay too fa away either. :P

Almost Done...and I got Canker Sores

As you may be aware, I have started my Master's through Crown. My first class is Leadership & Culture. I am absolutely loving it. I am also almost done. I have to watch 4 video clips from Remember the Titans and then respond to some questions about it. The last two weeks I have been working feverishly on my final project. I had to do an ethnographic study on a people group of my choice. I decided to do my study on youth pastors in churches of 1,000 people or more. We had to do a survey, do a bunch of interviews and over 10 hours of observation.

This was a tough group to do all this with, as they don't all work together. I got 37 to respond to my survey. That was HUGE! Thank you for all who were part of this. I then had to write a 5,000+ word paper on my findings. Then, part way through the class we were given a new option that has never been offered for this class. We could do the paper with only 2,500 words and then do a PowerPoint presentation and an audio file to go along with it. I was in!

I ran into a problem. My hard drive fried. I had to get it replaced and lost files, etc. It was gone for a week. I fell behind on getting it all done. I was up till all sorts of hours of the night. I fell wayyyy behind in my TV viewing. haha. I got 3 canker sores. I haven't had one in quite some time. I usually get them when I am stressed. Of course, lack of sleep is a kind of stress on the body. So lack of sleep and really wanting to get this in on time and done well I was stressed. I got it done. I GOT IT DONE! I actually did over 4,000 words! The only problem was the audio file wouldn't upload. Still won't. Working on it.

I am tired, but this has been really good. I have learned a ton and am looking forward to keep going.