if only i had $400.00...

I miss Conan. I've gone to bed so early for the last 3 years, I never watch him anymore.

you should rent this...

Anyone have Blockbuster online? It's fantastic. For about $16.00 a month, we get 2 online rentals out at a time. Then, when done with those, we turn them in at the store and exchange them for new releases. The store mails the online dvd's back to the warehouse. Once it's back at the warehouse, they send out the next one on my list. We end up receiving roughly 10 movies a month...and that's just because we don't have enough time to watch any more than that. Mainly because we're both entrenched in adult/parenthood and go to bed by about 10:00 every night. But, since we don't have cable tv (yes, there are people who exist without cable), this is actually a decent alternative at 1/3 the price.

Anyway, my online queue is currently loaded with stand up comedy dvd's, which you simply can't find in the stores. You should check out this Jim Gaffagin dvd if you can. I've linked it to the Blockbuster online page if you're a member. It's an hour long, really really funny, clean, and part of his routine at the end is about Jesus and could be cut and used in a church service.

This is way off subject, but does anyone else seem to go through MASSIVE amounts of toilet paper at home and not understand how or why? It seems like we buy a mega 24 roll pack every 4 weeks...and it always seems like it should last about 3-4 months. Am I really that wasteful?

Random Thoughts & Questions

I think about things way too much. I'm very analyitcal, and usually too critical. I find it difficult to just be "in the moment" at any time or any situation. When I'm in public, I feel like I'm some CIA operative, always looking around, checking out the surroundings, casing the other people, looking for things out of place, stuff like that. I ask lots of questions (in my mind, not too often aloud) about how things work, why things are the way they are, how something came to be over time. There are ways in which this trait helps me in life, ways in which it hinders. Because of that, I'll probably post the occasional blog that just gets some weird thoughts off my mind. Here's a few things brewing in there recently:

In the last few weeks at a theme park in Louisville, a 13 year old girl's feet were sliced off by a loose cord on one of those "free fall" rides. Within a few days of that incident, a rollercoaster in Dollywood just stopped with people stuck on a hill in the middle of the ride for about 3 hours. Last year (or maybe 2 years ago) on a ride in Pigeon Forge, someone died when they fell from the ride. These kinds of things happen pretty much every year at theme parks across America, yet it seems to phase no one. People still flood the parks, wait in long lines, and ride the rides again and again. Yet, if 3 people get sick somewhere because of something in a jar of peanut butter, every jar is pulled from the shelves nationwide and no one will buy that brand again.

Lexus just introduced a car that parallel parks for you. Is this for real? If the car makes a mistake and runs into another car, who's at fault? Will Lexus pick up the insurance bill? I actually have a good idea for them. Why not put a button inside the car that causes all four tires to turn 90 degrees in one direction. Another button would indicate the direction of travel. It would only function if the car was first placed in park. Upon switching the gear to drive, you could then drive your car sideways in one direction. Then you just line up to the open space, turn the wheels sideways, and ease in. Pretty soon there'll be cars that sense you're coming and swing the door open for you automatically. Personally, I'd like to own one with robotic cleaning arms that drop from the ceiling every time Eli decides to spill his food or drink all over the seat.

How much longer until hard currency (pennies, nickels, dollar bills, checks) are no longer in existence? Cards have been in use for years. Thumbprint payment is right around the corner. Not far down the road is retina recognition, so you'll just walk in a store, get what you need, walk out, and the computers do the calculating for you. The disappearance of currency will be sad. I'll no longer have change weighing my pockets down and driving me crazy. My wallet (normally full of nothing but ones and lots of grocery discount cards) may actually fit in my back pocket without stretching it.

But then I won't have anything to hide in my fingers and "magically" pull out of my son's ear. No worries though. By that time, he'll be riding virtual reality roller coasters that are even better then real ones, and driving hover-cars powered by outlawed peanut butter.

The old "quarter in the ear" trick probably won't be as impressive.

Sicko - An Angry Review

Last Friday night my wife and I saw the movie Sicko, by filmmaker Michael Moore. I really did not know what to expect from this movie. I only know that I really enjoyed Bowling for Columbine and Farenheit 9/11, and was willing to see whatever new movie he released. In fact, from the billboards and the title, I really thought this movie would be another "Bush Bashing" or "Administration Bashing" type of movie.

I was surprised to see it really focuses on an incredibly important issue...healthcare. The movie is not about Republicans or Democrats, nor does it delve deeply into who's to blame for our nation's healthcare debacle. It simply makes a very strong point...many other countries in our world provide FREE, universal healthcare to ALL of it's citizens. Why can't we?

I don't care if you personally don't like Michael Moore. This is one documentary you need to see. It's gotten consistently strong reviews as a movie. You can check out this one from Rolling Stone magazine, or this one from EOnline, or this one from the Boston Globe. What you'll find in most reviews are people saying this is probably Moore's best overall movie to date. He tones down the political rhetoric and really focuses on the issue at hand. Sure, he over-emotionalizes a little, and stretches a point or two a little to far. But the movie is funny, maddening, serious, emotional, and somtimes truly unbelievable.

Here's the hard part. The movie really, really has got me ticked off. I don't want to give up too much subject matter, because you need to see it for yourself. But here's the kicker: Canada - FREE healthcare for everyone. Great Britain - FREE healthcare for everyone. France - FREE healthcare for everyone. Cuba - FREE healthcare for everyone. Moore shatters some preconceived notions that Americans have about the universal systems. "Doctor's make little money in universal healthcare" (wrong). "The quality of care is just not as good" (wrong). "You have to wait forever to get anything taken care of" (wrong).

In probably the most talked about part of the movie, Moore actually takes a group of sick Americans - some of whom are suffering because of their involvement in the 9/11 clean up and rescue missions - to Cuba. While there, these people receive totally free healthcare services and free prescription medications. One women breaks down crying when she receives several boxes of a respiratory medicine for free....the same medicine she has to pay $100's of dollars for in America.

So why am I ticked off? (I hope no one from some secret government search engine reads this) I'm ticked off because this movie has really added to my dislike of the country in which I live. I've begun to wonder (and not only because of Sicko) whether America is really the nation in which we are expected to believe it is. It's the "land of the free", but there are many free industrialized nations in our world now. Is America really that much better of a place to live than Canada, England, France, Italy, or Australia? Would it not be a stetch to say that in many industrialized nations, people probably actually have MORE freedoms than we do?

Capitalism used to be a term that would invoke pride in Americans. We all have the opportunity to do well in life because of the opportunities capitalism provides. But isn't capitalism now polarizing and in some ways destroying our nation? Every year, the majority of Americans who declare bankruptcy do so because they cannot pay their medical bills.

In Sicko, Moore goes to a pharmacy in Great Britain. In Great Britain, at every pharmacy, no matter what medicine you purchase, it costs 6 pounds, or roughly $10.00. ANY medicine. Doesn't matter if it's 30 pills or 90 pills, ibuprofen, viagra, or amoxicillin, the prescription costs $10.00. A heart medicine that would cost a senior citizen $200.00 to buy here....$10.00 there. How's that for capitalism? Here's a country we consider to be an ally, possibly even a contemporary. And if you live there, you pay NO medicals costs (ever), and any prescription you need costs $10.00. Here, hundreds of thousands of people go bankrupt each year because of these same needs.

As you can see, I'm mad. I often joke with my wife about moving to Canada. I'm always half-joking and half-serious. Of course, it would be difficult to do, since ALL of our family are in the Kentucky/Tennessee area, and we would have no jobs lined up. But there are so many times when I wish we had the courage to just do it. It seems to me that America has devolved into a place controlled by egotistical power, political polarization, greed, money, fear, endless laws, and even manipulative suppression. It's where I live. I'm pretty confident it's where I'll always live. But it's become almost impossible for me to take pride in that fact, and Sicko is just a small part of it.

Freedom Weekend

My weekend...

Friday night: Went out to eat with Erin at Chili's. She ordered me some type of Jamaican drink that was okay. I got a little buzz from one drink, and I was done. Went to see the Michael Moore movie Sicko. Sometime this week I'll probably expand more on this movie. For now, let me just say that I believe you should all go see it. It's incredibly eye-opening. Got home around 1:00am.

Saturday: Erin had to work. Took Eli to Big Ridge State Park and played in the sand, on the playground, and drove around looking at the camping areas. Next we went to Norris Dam state park and walked in a creek and did some sightseeing. After returning home and napping, we met mom and went to Chuck E Cheese for dinner...what a crazy, hectic place! Then, before it was dark, we went to Victor Ashe park and had some more playground fun.

Sunday: Church in the morning at Crossings. While loading up the trailers after the service, some type of block of wood fell off of a cart and popped me on the top of my head. The wound BLED LIKE CRAZY. My face looked like some guy at the end of an Ultimate Fighting Championship match. The whole left side of my face was covered in blood, my hands were completely red, there are droplets all over the sidewalk outside of the theater where we meet. It was unbelievable. Thanks to Dustin, Stephanie, Betsy, and anyone else I didn't get to see who immediately rushed to help me. I'm okay now, although there's a pretty good "boo boo" on my head. My son has been so concerned with my boo boo, it almost makes me cry. Anyways...later that afternoon I took him to another park/playground close to where we live. Watched the movie Shooter. Decent movie.

Watch later this week for my Sicko review.

My Chains Are Gone

Just over 7 years ago I committed a criminal offense. I did it. It was horrible, wrong, shameful, terrible, hideous, etc. I've never denied my guilt. Just under 7 years ago I was placed under arrest at about 11:30pm after having driven from Detroit, Michigan all the way to Knoxville to meet with police personnel. I spent the night in jail. My good friend bailed me out around 9:00am the next morning.

Exactly 6 years ago, I was sentenced to 6 years of enhanced probation with the state of TN. Today, that sentence has expired. The words that keep popping in my head are the refrain of Chris Tomlin's new version of Amazing Grace..."my chains are gone, I've been set free, my God my Savior, has ransomed me."

Ultimately, sin is sin. Lying...sin. Stealing...sin. Envy...sin. Pornography...sin. Mistreatment of others...sin. Lust...sin. All sin has a cost. Some more than others. Some may cost more here on earth, all will cost us in eternity. We will account for our sin. We will be rewarded because of our righteousness.

This is going to be pretty "rough", because I don't have much time....but I'd like to give a brief overview of what my criminal act of sin has cost me in the last 7 years. Here it goes:

• Approximately $16,000 in fines, misc fees, and legal fees.
• Approximately $30,000 in lost wages.
• Completed 576 hours of fairly grueling community service work.
• Attended about 175 group counseling sessions, totalling about 250-300 hours.
• Submitted to 9 polygraph tests over 5 years.
• For the first 19 months of my son's life, I was not allowed to care for him by myself.
• For the next 12 months of his life, I was only allowed to care for him by myself while my wife was at work.
• Almost all of my immediate family live in Kentucky, about 3 hours away. In the last 5 years, because of travel restrictions, I've been to Kentucky a grand total of 1 time.
• Because of the above restriction, my parents (and brother/sisters) have probably driven to Knoxville at least 12-15 times in the last 3 years to visit, often spending the night on our living room floor and spending who knows how much in gas and food money.
• Summer of 2004 - was forced to move residences within 1 weeks time.
• Numerous lost friendships and relationships.
• Until today, I have not worn shorts in public in almost 2 years. This because I've had to wear a "box" on my belt and a bracelet on my ankle since September 2005.
• Went through a significant period of time when I wondered if I would ever attend a church again.

I'm sure there's more I could add to this list. But you get the point. You do bad things, you suffer bad consequences. Thank God for watching over me all this time. Thank God for my wife who's loved me throughout. Thank God for my family (including in-laws) that have supported me and done whatever needed when we were in a pickle. Thank God for some of you reading this who've remained loyal friends. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I hope this helps shed some light on the name of my blog...Life Recaptured.

4 Days To Freedom

Hell Week is almost half way over. Yesterday, I arrived at Crossings at 7:00am to help set up for the service. We were set up by about 9:30am. Stayed for about half the service - which was great. I really love hearing how loud and joyous the people there worship. It's such a rush. Left halfway through to go to Sea Ray. Was there with 4 other co-workers setting up our merchandise room until 7:00pm. LONG day.

Good news is I'm only 4 days away from freedom...in more ways than one. I'll explain more in a few days.

Until then, I'm off to begin another 12 hour work day.

Be Good (Rich Mullins once signed a hat for me with those words...I miss him).

Hell Week

I'm in the middle of Hell Week at work. Barely time to think or breathe. Major headache when I went home yesterday. From yesterday (Wednesday) through next Friday, I'll probably be working about 90 hours. Hard to explain....our company does tons of merchandising for Sea Ray boats. I run a retail website for Sea Ray merchandise. You can check it out at www.searaywearables.com. In the next week, there are 3 major events at Sea Ray's corporate location - including 2 days in which every Sea Ray dealership owner/president in the entire world will converge in Knoxville. We're running full-blown merchandise displays and selling stuff at all 3 events.

So, I'll be (already am) spending a tremendous amount of time prepping product, doing price tags, creating orders, loading a giant truck with tons of display equipment and product. We'll set up a display Friday night, run it Saturday, tear it down. Re set up an even larger product display on Sunday, run it Monday and Tuesday, then tear it down. Then set up yet another one on Wednesday, run it on Thurdsday, then tear it down. Then everything comes back to our main location on Friday, at which point we have to unload the entire truck, put everything back in trailers, count every single merchandise item back into inventory, etc, etc, etc.

Anywho. Let's just say I'm stressed out, and the week is just beginning. In the words of one of most classic and cherished Michael W. Smith songs...so incredible that it made his 1st decade best of album..."Pray For Me".

Surprised By Bob Dylan

My friend Greg has been a Bob Dylan fan for a long time. I'm pretty sure he has every single album Dylan ever made. I remember about 8 years ago borrowing a CD from him, cuz I don't think I'd ever listened to Dylan before in my life.

I took the CD home. Listened to about 4 songs. Hated it....brought it back. Boring music. Annoying voice. Harsh harmonica sounds. Hated it.

For the last several months, I've been listening almost exclusively to either worship music or talk radio when driving. That's pretty much it. There's really been no music otherwise that has really pulled me in or interested me in any way. I find that sad, so I've been considering trying listening to some "classic" type stuff....Lynard Skynard, Beatles, Steely Dan, Eric Clapton, The Who, Pink Floyd, Eagles, Paula Abdul, you get the point....just to see what I maybe have been missing out on my whole life.

Well, yesterday my family and I were at McKay's - the greatest used book/dvd/cd store probably in existence - and I decided for some reason to buy a scratched Bob Dylan greatest hits CD for about $5.00. Listened to the whole thing yesterday in my car.....and absolutely loved it. I can't explain it. Makes no sense. I can hardly understand a lot of what he's singing. The harmonica sounds out of tune. Some songs are nothing more than guitar and a tamborine. But it's raw, real, emotional, and the lyrics I can decipher have deep meaning and texture to them. I loved it. Listened to it almost all the way through again on my way to work today.

So, if anyone's actually reading my blog (all 3 of you?), maybe you can suggest to me some music that I should try. I can usually find things at McKay's pretty cheap, even if not on the first try. I'm definitely not looking for weird, enigmatic, new age type of stuff. It can be from the 60', 70's, 80's, 90's, this year....whatever. My cd's at home have been collecting dust, and I simply need a new outlook on music. It's either that, or I stick with talk radio.

Planet Earth

The only time I've ever had cable tv in my life was in college...and that's because my roomate's mom paid for it. Never had it before, never since. We currently enjoy "10 channel cable" at our home, which costs about $11.00 a month. As such, I miss out on some great stuff like the History Channel, FX, ESPN, and The Discovery Channel. Lucky for us, Erin's mom was enthralled with the recent "Planet Earth" series on Discovery Channel, and bought the entire DVD set.

Last night, we watched the first two episodes, entitled "Pole to Pole" and "Mountains."

Freaking Amazing.

Seriously - somebody should use these DVD's as an evangelistic outreach tool. The Earth is truly unbelievable. The hand of God created it. The Bible even says that if you have seen creation, you have seen God and have full evidence to believe in Him.

We still have roughly 9 hours of watching left to do, and I cannot begin to describe how awestruck I was at what we saw. The perfection of the Earth's location in relation to the Sun. Mating habits of rare tropical birds. African hunting dogs that show incredible tactical abilities in hunting their prey. The northern lights. More than 1 million caribou migrating in a single herd across northern Canada.

If you can, you must see this series. Your faith will be strengthened. If you have doubts about God and His power, your eyes may be opened.

Vacations and Sparklers

I just found out this week that I'll be going on my first actual vacation in over 7 years. Truly exciting! This is not to say I haven't had "vacation days" to enjoy in that time, just that I've not actually taken a full week of vacation and gone somewhere special since 2000. Crazy, huh?

My wife and I have both taken off the week of Labor Day in September. We're going to Folly Island (about 20 minutes from Charleston, SC) for about 5 days and using her dad's Holiday Inn reward points to stay for FREE. Her parents will be keeping Eli for us. This will actually be Erin and mine's first actual trip together of any kind (other than Gatlinburg ... which doesn't count) since we were married....call it our belated honeymoon if you will. I'm pretty pumped up. The rest of our days off that week will be spent doing stuff with Eli - we'll probably go to Dollywood, IMAX in Chattanooga, the Zoo, stuff like that.

Eli held a lighted sparkler last night for the first time and totally loved it. You know, when you're 3 years old and about 38" tall, a flaming sparkler can be pretty darn scary, ya know? I'm not even crazy about holding them at 31 yrs and 70" tall. Those stupid sparks always land on my arm and freak me out. That's a reasonable price for celebrating freedom, I guess.

Is There Anybody Out There?

Does anyone still listen to the band Burlap to Cashmere? To my knowledge, they released one full length album about 8 years ago, and that's it. The album was great! I actually got to see them live in Nashville at a convention....incredible live performance!!

Then, they were gone. I haven't heard about them since. One of their hit songs off this lone album was entitled "Is There Anybody Out There?". It's pretty self explanatory. They ask is anyone out there? Can anybody see? Is there really someone looking over someone like me?

Well, this is my first blog entry ever. The first time I even began reading other people's blogs was about 1 month ago. I'm definitely a newbie. But man is it addictive! Everyone is connected to everyone else. You keep going from blog to blog to blog and an hour has gone by before you know it. I'm actually wondering right now whether anyone out there will even read this entry. The idea of blogging seems pretty cool, and possibly quite therapeutic, but I fully realize the possiblity that this could end up being more of a diary than a real blog. We'll see. I'll try to be faithful nonetheless.

In regards to my blogspot title....I've been through a time in my life where all seemed lost. Down the road, I may expand more on this. But for now, let me just say that a few short years ago I experienced a time in my life that felt much like "hell on earth." I wondered what life could possibly have to offer in the future. I never once considered taking my life, but I did consider the possiblity of packing my suitcase and taking off to who knows where and trying to disappear. Thankfully, God has seen me through. I am now beginning to experience "Life Recaptured", and it's great. I'm actually excited again to see where the road ahead may lead. If I'm lucky, maybe a few of you out there will be able to experience it with me.