Tuesday was technically the longest day of the year. Also known as the summer solstice. Ironically though the day with the most amount of daylight is also the day that the Earth is furthest away from the sun. In the same way the shortest day of the year, the one with least daylight is when the Earth is closest to the Sun. I think we humans are much the same way. When things are going great, we feel pretty good about ourselves and have a tendency to get away from the one who is The Light. But when the days are dark and cold and we feel all alone is when we get close to the Son .

Smile!

Today I read that my beautiful niece Jasmine is leaving middle school and all it's crazy awkwardness behind. I'm so happy for her and blessed to have such a role model for daughter to look up to. Anybody who has seen Jaz knows that she has one of the best smiles in the world. If seeing her smile, doesn't make you smile than there is something seriously wrong with you.

Ever since I was born I have had crazy chubby cheeks. When I smile, they about triple in size. For some weird reason I have always been self conscious about my smile because of my chubby cheeks. Today though I saw my smile differently than I usually do. A friend of mine told me I should smile more and for some reason it clicked (for tonight at least) that this is the smile that God gave to me to share with the world. So I'm going to try and smile more often and not think about my chubby cheeks.

friends

Once in a while in this wonderful life, you'll make a friend, and that friendship will grow. When that friend says "Hi" it turns a bad day into a great day.

On a grey summer day ... take pictures

Today was supposed to be sunny (according to the weather report on Friday that is). Something strange is happening here in Germany. It seems that spring and summer have done a flip-flop! Today turned out to be a grey drizzly day, but I have lived in the NW long enough to learn to love these grey drizzly days because they make the sunny days that much better. So I went ahead with my plans and went downtown to take some pictures. A couple are from Friday.

https://picasaweb.google.com/314twin/OneGreySummerDayInGermany

music is wonderful

So last night I was coming home from some friends house and I was listening to a CD with a live version of "where the streets have no name" one of my first favorite u2 songs . I've always thought that the intro to the song was exceptional. lately I've kinda been into "mashing songs" thats where you take two songs that have similar arrangements and weave them together, (here's what urban dictionary says : http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mash%20up ) anyway I heard the intro and something reminded me of a song we sang at church that morning called "I am free" . So anyway if you do "streets" for the first 50 seconds to a minute you could then seamlessly go into " free" , it would be an awesome start to a service!

strange timing

I have been a tag leader for six years now. When I started out there were five sixth graders in the group, it was a challenge for me to meet them on their level. They seemed so concrete and unable to just sit still for 45 minutes so that I could try and teach them something. Fast forward to last night, three less guys in the group. We went through the first half off Hebrews chapter by chapter discussing what we just read, why the author said what he did and what that means to us. It was great! But I kinda feel like the parent that's sending their child out into the world. It took so long to get to the point where we could sit down and have an awesome bible study and now that, that time is here, my time with them is coming to an end because they are going away to college.

The game of Golf is frustrating and torturous. I go and pay someone so I can carry a heavy bag of clubs for a couple miles usually in the hot sun or in the NW, then in the annoying drizzle. I get all psyched thinking this is going to be awesome. Then I get out there and get nervous, and play like crap except for a few good shots. As I walk up the the steep hill to the eighteenth (last) green I can feel the course laughing at me "you'll be back" and I say ya right I suck at this! About a week will go by and I'll start getting the itch to go out and hit a few good shots again. And hope that this time I'll hit a few more good shots than last time.

When I started as a tag leader I had high hopes for what God would do and how He would work through me. But there were many times when I felt like I plated like crap with a few good shots. What I didn't see was that as time went on, there were more and more good shots. It was a great challenge being a tag leader, and I'm glad it gave me friends and lessons I'll have for the rest of my life.

clear thinking

This afternoon as i was standing in the shower I started thinking about a video that i recently watched on youtube for the first time it's called The Lonesome kicker. It's a funny song by Adam Sandler about the least respected person on a football team, the kicker. It got me to thinking about how the whole function of the kicker is so foreign to every other part of the game. The rest of the game is about strategy and battle, but if you get close enough without succeeding you bring out the runt of the team to try and kick the ball through the goal posts. There's no battle there, there's no team strategy, it's just one guy showing a skill that is completely useless in 99% of the game. Thats when I got my idea to get rid of or at least scale way down the use of the kicker. Most of the time the kicker comes out after the team with the ball has failed to convert a third down into a first down, and instead of going the first down on fourth down and risking giving up possesion they will bring in the kicker to try and get the consolidation prize of a field goal. Here's the thought I had, if a team goes for it on fourth down and three or less, and converts it into a first down. Give them a point. if they convert on fourth and four or longer give them three points, the same amount as a field goal. Also if they attempt a fourth down conversion and score a touchdown, they recieve eight points with no point after try needed. I also think that field goals should not be worth three automatically. I think 17-30 yards should be worth 2 points, 31-45 yards be worth three points and anything beyond 46 yards should be five points. I think these changes would add a lot more imagination and excitement to football, something the pro game could definetly use.