The Best of What's Around

Hey everybody. I hope this finds you well. I had an incredibly awesome weekend and at the same time a very tiring weekend. In the next few paragraphs you will find joy, laughter, heartache (well not really heartache) and maybe a little bit of seriousness. Will you come and journey with me through my thoughts?

So Friday morning I arrived at the hospital early. My sister was induced at 7 am and the family was up there waiting for something to happen. I spent time studying for Disciple Now, eating cafeteria food and even catching a 10 minute nap here and there. Cassi was a real trooper waiting for ol' Max to come to the surface. About 10 hours later, we got the news that they were going to cut her open and perform a Cesarean (that word might mean something else, I used spell-check) Section. The nurse came in to check her stats and Cassi had a fan blowing on her. The nurse, also named Cassandra, asked Cassi if she was hot, and she said she was burning up. The nurse then went on to say that when she was in labor here crotch was on fire. TMI? Maybe, but at least she spoke on it son. At around 8:45 we got news from Brant, Cassi's husband, that Max had been born. So now I'm a proud uncle of a 7lb. 5oz, 20 1/2" long baby boy. WOO WOO.

I immediately left the hospital to truck it down to Temple, TX to lead a group of 6 guys at Disciple Now First Baptist Temple. I got there at 11:30 and went through a session with the dudes. We hung out for a bit then decided to go to bed and do session 2 in the morning. I woke them up bright and early at 6:30 and we went through 3 sessions that morning. We then headed off to the church to participate in a food fight(canned food drive). Here's where some of the laughter is needed if you have been saving it up. It was me driving the 6 boys around in my truck, so that's 7 people...breaking the law. I dropped them off in a neighborhood and let them go up to the door. I did get griped out by a lady: One of the kids went up to her door and opened a gate in the process to get to her door. He knocked and waited maybe 4 seconds before he ran to the next house. They really didn't give people much chance to answer the door. She then came out of the house yelling, "IS SOMEONE GOING TO SHUT MY GATE?!!!" I then walked up to her door and she slammed it in my face. So I could have just walked away, but I decided to knock on her door and make it awkward for her to have to acknowledge the guy that she just slammed the door on. I apologized for the kids not closing the gate and left.

We got to another house and there were 3 of my boys waiting on the porch for some cans. A lady emerged with a sack full of cans and such. 2 of the boys came back to the truck screaming, "WOO WOO, we got some cans sucka!" Ok, so that was paraphrased a bit but you get the point. One of the boys stayed up on the porch and said that the lady would be out in a sec with more cans. Sure enough she came out, but not with cans. She had a business card. I yelled for him to come back to the truck, but he just stayed up there. He turned to me and said that her husband was a magician. I thought, well that's kinda neat..but then I said, "Come back to the truck." He of course didn't listen. Then something happened that will change my life forever: The door opened, and a big bellied, hairy chested man emerged from hiding. I know he was hairy, because he wasn't wearing a shirt. He asked if we could stay for a demonstration. I kindly told them that we needed to get back to the church. Then he whipped out a hanky from somewhere and started doing magic. He was twirling it around and putting Michael in a trance. He then tucked it into his hand and the hanky disappeared. I can't believe that this guy was actually doing magic right there. It scared the hell out of me so I said, "MICHAEL, RUNNNNN!!! RUN MICHAEL!!!!" And he finally ran back to the truck, all the while this guy was still doing magic on his porch.

That's all I have for today, but I will blog about the rest of the weekend at a future time. Until then, keep chuggin'.