A-"Muse"-ing Thoughts

Mac Addict!!!

AND PROUD OF IT!!!!!

97%How Addicted to Apple Are You?

A Favorite Holiday

Today is a favorite Holiday in the Nielsen household.  And it has been since I can remember as a child.  In fact, April Fools day is something we look forward to and often times scheme for weeks in advance what to do and how to get one another.  It has reached the point where most of our close friends, and our family, are so prepared for the day that you can't get one another.  For example, I tried to get my best friend Andrew today - and as soon as I started he said to me, "I have a calendar sitting in front of me Ryan and I know what day it is."  He also told me that on his calendar in his iphone he has "April Fools Day - don't believe anything Ryan tells you."  HeHeHe.  That's because he has been gotten in the past by me. 

Well, I tried to get a few people today.  Most of them failed because they have been well prepared.  But, I did get two people:  1) the financial secretary at work (yes, that can be dangerous because she controls my paycheck), and 2) my MOM!!!!  This one was a shocker, especially because she was expecting it all day long.  She told my dad and her co-workers that she was ready for whatever I would try and pull.  But, I was so convincing and believable and had the perfect set-up that I even got my mom.  She emailed me later and said, "you're good.  You win!!!"   

Anyway, as I was thinking about today another friend, Adam, reminded me of another GREAT nationwide April fools joke.

 

One of the biggest April Fool’s jokes of all time was brought to you by Taco Bell. In 1996, they ran the ad below in 6 major newspapers across the country announcing that they had purchased the Liberty Bell.

Taco Bell Buys The Liberty Bell
In an effort to help the national debt, Taco Bell is pleased to announce that we have agreed to purchase the Liberty Bell, one of our country’s most historic treasures.

It will now be called the ”Taco Liberty Bell” and will still be accessible to the American public for viewing. While some may find this controversial, we hope our move will prompt other corporations to take similar action to do their part to reduce the country’s debt.

What was so great about this prank is that it was almost believable. News of the sale spread all over, thousands of people were calling to complain, and no one put the whole thing together. By about noon, Taco Bell let the cat out of the bag… it was a prank. With that the media went nuts… they loved it, everyone loved it, and Taco Bell goes down as the king of the corporate prank. 

Top 100 American Movies

The American Film Institute's 2007 list of the top-100 American movies:
(in Bold are the ones I have seen already - I would love to complete this list personally)

1. Citizen Kane, 1941
2. The Godfather, 1972
3. Casablanca, 1942
4. Raging Bull, 1980
5. Singin' in the Rain, 1952
6. Gone With the Wind, 1939
7. Lawrence of Arabia, 1962
8. Schindler's List, 1993
9. Vertigo, 1958
10. The Wizard of Oz, 1939
11. City Lights, 1931
12. The Searchers, 1956
13. Star Wars, 1977
14. Psycho, 1960
15. 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968
16. Sunset Blvd., 1950
17. The Graduate, 1967
18. The General, 1927
19. On the Waterfront, 1954
20. It's a Wonderful Life, 1946
21. Chinatown, 1974
22. Some Like It Hot, 1959
23. The Grapes of Wrath, 1940
24. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1982
25. To Kill a Mockingbird, 1962
26. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, 1939
27. High Noon, 1952
28. All About Eve, 1950
29. Double Indemnity, 1944
30. Apocalypse Now, 1979
31. The Maltese Falcon, 1941
32. The Godfather Part II, 1974
33. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1975
34. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1937
35. Annie Hall, 1977
36. The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1957
37. The Best Years of Our Lives, 1946
38. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 1948
39. Dr. Strangelove, 1964
40. The Sound of Music, 1965
41. King Kong, 1933
42. Bonnie and Clyde, 1967
43. Midnight Cowboy, 1969
44. The Philadelphia Story, 1940
45. Shane, 1953
46. It Happened One Night, 1934
47. A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951
48. Rear Window, 1954
49. Intolerance, 1916
50. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001
51. West Side Story, 1961
52. Taxi Driver, 1976
53. The Deer Hunter, 1978
54. M-A-S-H, 1970
55. North by Northwest, 1959
56. Jaws, 1975
57. Rocky, 1976
58. The Gold Rush, 1925'
59. Nashville, 1975
60. Duck Soup, 1933
61. Sullivan's Travels, 1941
62. American Graffiti, 1973
63. Cabaret, 1972
64. Network, 1976
65. The African Queen, 1951
66. Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981
67. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, 1966
68. Unforgiven, 1992
69. Tootsie, 1982
70. A Clockwork Orange, 1971
71. Saving Private Ryan, 1998
72. The Shawshank Redemption, 1994
73. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969
74. The Silence of the Lambs, 1991
75. In the Heat of the Night, 1967
76. Forrest Gump, 1994
77. All the President's Men, 1976
78. Modern Times, 1936
79. The Wild Bunch, 1969
80. The Apartment, 1960
81. Spartacus, 1960
82. Sunrise, 1927
83. Titanic, 1997
84. Easy Rider, 1969
85. A Night at the Opera, 1935
86. Platoon, 1986
87. 12 Angry Men, 1957
88. Bringing Up Baby, 1938
89. The Sixth Sense, 1999
90. Swing Time, 1936
91. Sophie's Choice, 1982
92. Goodfellas, 1990
93. The French Connection, 1971
94. Pulp Fiction, 1994
95. The Last Picture Show, 1971
96. Do the Right Thing, 1989
97. Blade Runner, 1982
98. Yankee Doodle Dandy, 1942
99. Toy Story, 1995
100. Ben-Hur, 1959

Youth Ministry Interviews

I am the Featured Interview this month at the "Youth Ministry Interviews" blog that Len Evans started and Runs. 

Thanks Len!!!

Stop over there to learn even more about me, including some random fun trivia like the strangest thing I ever bought on ebay.  :)

What Book Am I?

Well, I don't know that I fully agree with the results of this quiz, but fun to take anyway....

You're A Theory of Justice!
by John Rawls
In the beginning, you lived in a town. The town had many problems! Rather than moving, you decided to come up with the idea for the best town ever. Going all the way back to the original position, you created the idea for the best town ever! Lo and behold, the best town ever looked almost identical to the town you lived in. You decided to stay in the town. Now you resent people mistaking your refined thought experiments for "the wall of stupidity" in high school debate rounds.
Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

I Feel Robbed

    Wow – lots of mixed emotions today.

    It has been an awesome weekend.  I finished up my speaking engagement with a final message entitled “There’s No Place Like Home.”  It was fun of the last two day to be fought over at mealtimes as to which table I would sit at.  It is very encouraging and flattering.  In addition, I had a lot of the students wanting my email and wanting to give me theirs as well. 

    I gave all of the youth leaders here this week a DVD full of all of my funny videos that I have been collecting.  They were very appreciative of this too. 

    Just before leaving I was told by the director of this weekend’s retreat that they had looked at the evaluations for the weekend and the responses about me were all very positive.  I have LOVED speaking this weekend and would love to do more of this.  I am hoping to not only be invited back by this group to speak at something in the future, but I am hoping other people would consider bringing me in to speak to their group, camp, retreat, parents, leaders, etc.  I love to teach, I love to speak, and I would love to do more of this.

    While this has been a great weekend, I am very anxious and excited to get home too.  I am excited to be back with her and her family – to see them and spend time with them.  I feel like I have missed out on so much already being away.  But, I think it has been good all the way around.

    Finally, I feel robbed today.  Basically every day of my life I feel like I am continually complaining that I do not have enough hours in the day.  I feel like I never have enough time to get everything done that I need to get done.  And, that there is not enough time to sleep as much as I want.  Well, now today it is even worse – because I am losing THREE hours today.  I only get to live a 21- hour day today.  It’s really not fair.  How could this be, you might ask?  Well, of course this morning was daylight savings time, and it is “spring forward” – so I lost one hour this morning already.  Also, I am boarding the plane to return home to Boerne, TX in just a few minutes – and in the flight from San Jose to Boerne, I lose another 2 hours due to the time change.  Thus, I lose 3 hours today.  It’s just not fair.

    Well, I am about to board my first flight to return home – so I will wrap this up.  It’s been a GREAT weekend.  I had a wonderful time.  I am excited to return home.  So, all around this has been wonderful.

Amazing Day

    Today has been an absolutely incredible day.  It is hard for me to even remember much of what has happened today because it feels like a whirlwind.  Started out with breakfast this morning and then led into the morning session.  I spoke this morning on “Love the Lord your God with all your heart.”  It went really well, and I had a great response this morning.  In fact, after I was done speaking there was a Jr. High boy who came up to me and said, “thanks for your sermon, I really liked it.”  This was SO incredibly encouraging to me… partly because unsolicited feedback from Jr. High students is very rare, and especially from Jr. High boys.  There was then a break for cabin time and some short free time before lunch. 

After lunch, we were scheduled to have “free time.”  Well, I had shared with a couple of the counselors that I had a HUGE collection on my hard drive of funny videos.  So, they thought it would be fun to be able to stop by and see some of these during free time.  Then a number of students said that they would like to see some too.  Well, the truth is, I LOVE to show funny videos to people.  It seems like I could watch them endlessly.  My poor wife has to see these videos more times than she should have to in 10 lifetimes, so she often groans whenever I pull out my computer to show people funny videos.  Since Christi wasn’t able to join me here at this Winter Retreat I decided this would be a great time to fulfill multiple desires.  I announced that I would set up my computer in the main meeting room and project funny videos on the giant screen during free time if anyone wanted to see them.  So, during free time there were consistently about 4-6 individuals in the room watching funny videos.  I showed them for about 2 ½ hours – and probably showed somewhere around 200 videos (some more than once because students would walk out talking about them and others students would come in wanting to see those).  This was actually a LOT of fun for me, and was a fun time to connect with the students here.

    After free time there was about an hour to just relax before our evening leaders meeting.  I played some ping-pong with some students and a leader.  I then made a couple of phone calls.  Finally, I just went in to sit for a while and do a bit more praying and prep for tonight’s talk.  We had the leaders meeting and then went on to dinner.

    Tonight’s talk was the altar call talk.  I have spent a LOT of time over the past couple of years thinking and praying about the methodology of doing altar calls with students.  I have had the great advantage over the last 20 years to observe many altar calls – but as a student and as a youth pastor.  I could spend a LOT of time explaining in depth my thoughts on this subject, but for now I will just highlight my main conclusions.
•    Many speakers use emotional manipulation for their altar call.
•    Jr. High students can be fairly easily manipulated emotionally.
•    If a speaker’s primary focus is on number of decisions, then emotional manipulation is a tool that speakers use.
•    I believe that while any salvation contains an emotional element to it, that a decision based SOLELY on emotions is not likely to stick once the emotions have worn off.
•    I feel that the “scare them out of hell” tactics of speakers are quite contrary to the message of Christ.
•    I think too often leaders focus on the “savior” part of Christ and completely ignore the “lordship” part of Christ.
•    I purposely designed my altar call time to be as unemotional as possible, and to focus on making a decision to love God with all your heart AND all your mind – Lord and Savior.
•    Every time Christ talked about the Kingdom of God – his focus was on love, not fear.  I want the students to know that the reason they should make a decision for Christ is not because there is something they need to be afraid of, but because Christ has an amazing, gigantic level of love that he bestows upon us and wants us to know PERSONALLY.

Ok, those are the basic points.  I could continue on and on – this is something I am very fired up about because I have seen it abused in so many ways, so many times. 

    Anyway, tonight was on Loving the Lord your God with all your mind.  This was a great follow-up from this morning’s talk, and I used it to tie the two ideas together – and to address the issue of making a decision to make Christ “Lord and Savior.”  I then, of course, led the students into a time of prayer where they could make a first time decision to follow Christ, or they could make a decision to “get back on the road” of the Christian journey that they might have stepped off (often called re-commitment, but I prefer not to use this term for a number of reasons – that can be for another time).  I am always in awe of when God moves.  I often sit there thinking, “who am I Lord that you would use me in this way?”  and “Who am I Lord that I get the honor and privilege of witnessing this miracle of salvation?”  Tonight there was an incredible response of students to both of these decisions.  There were about 8-10 students who raised their hands about making a first time decision to follow Christ and about 20 or so students who raised their hand for getting back on that road walking with Christ.  All of these students then came forward and prayed with their camp counselors/youth pastors.  What an incredible time. 

    The students then went off to have cabin time together and talk more about their relationship with Jesus Christ.

    The evening ended with the students gathering back in the main room to watch the movie “Ratatouille”.  Then off to bed.  I am EXHAUSTED and pumped at the same time.  What a great day!!!

Tired and Psyched

    It has been a LONG day, but a good day.

    So, I didn’t actually get to bed until about 3 am.  I was EXHAUSTED by the time I went to sleep last night.  I had the alarm set for 6:15 am this morning so I could get up and get ready in time to leave for the airport at 7 am.  Well, the alarm went off and I hit the “off” button instead of “snooze”.  Next thing I knew, I woke up at 6:55 am – in a panic (wow, at least I woke up… it could have been MUCH worse).  Christi drove me to the airport and I boarded my flight at 9:30 am.  After a layover in Houston, I arrived in San Jose, CA at 4 pm (LONG travel day).  The worst part was on the 2nd flight – 4 hours from Houston to San Jose.  I was sitting next to a little girl (about 3 years old) and her mother was sitting next to the window in the plane.  The girl laid her head down on her mom’s lap and went to sleep.  I was SO tired and couldn’t wait to sleep on this flight (I normally can sleep easily on airplanes).  Well, every time I started to doze off, this little girl would have a reflex reaction and kick me in the side.  The mother would apologize every time – but never actually MOVED her daughter.  I kept thinking it would be nice if the mother and daughter switched seats – then the daughter could just kick the plane.  But, the mom never did that – just kept apologizing.  Needless to say, I did NOT get to sleep on the flight.  And, to add to it – with the wonderful airline benefits these days – I enjoyed a huge breakfast and lunch of 1 bag of peanuts and 1 bag of pretzels, and 2 cups of ginger ale.  Thus, in addition to being very sleepy, I was VERY hungry too.

    Moving on…

    I did arrive in San Jose and was picked up by Deneice Fujii who was in charge of organizing this winter retreat at Mount Hermon Christian Camps.  We drove through and picked up some food for me for lunch and also some food for later for dinner (cause the students arrived after dinner time tonight).  We then arrived at the camp and I got settled in to my room, gathered more information for this weekend, met a couple people, and had some time to rest before the students arrived.

    I cannot even begin to tell you (I know I am repeating myself) how EXCITED I am for this weekend.  I have been looking forward to this for over 6 months now.  I LOVE to speak and teach.  I also love Jr. Highers.  Combine the two, and I am ready for a fun, exciting, energizing weekend. 

    The students arrived tonight starting at 6:30 pm.  We had the opening leader’s meeting at 8 pm and began the festivities at 8:30 pm with games, worship, and then my talk.  I have to admit, I was a bit nervous tonight.  I am hoping it didn’t show.  There were some minor “technical difficulties” which threw me off a little bit too, but I really don’t think the students noticed or cared (if they did notice).  I gave my introductory talk and set up the rest of the weekend.  I think it will be great. 

    Tomorrow morning will come early, so I am off to bed.  I’ll update more as the weekend continues.

Crazy Day

    Today is a CRAZY day.  I started this morning with a 7 am Jr. High Bible study.  I then came home and took care of a couple chores at home.  Then I went off to work.  I decided to start a new Birthday tradition with my new youth group – I am going to buy a helium balloon, a birthday card, and a personally-made coupon for a free lunch with me, and then drive to each student’s home on their birthday and hand deliver it.  Because I am going to be gone this weekend, and because there are 3 birthdays happening this weekend in my youth group, I wanted to deliver these early, rather than late.  So, I designed the coupon, went shopping for the cards and balloons, and then drove around delivering these.  It was a GREAT success. 

    I now have a very short break before I head off to a committee meeting.  Then after the committee meeting I will be going to the airport to pick up Christi’s mom, sister, niece and nephew.  Their plane is scheduled to arrive just around 11 pm.  After that I will need to come back here, spend some time welcoming them to our new home and visiting for a few, but then I have to pack because I am leaving tomorrow at 7 am to go to California where I am speaking at a Jr. High Winter Retreat.  YIKES.  I don’t think I am going to get much sleep tonight – but I am very excited.  I am excited that Christi’s family is coming to visit (but bummed I’ll be gone the first 3 days of their visit) and I am very excited to speak at this winter retreat.  I may not have online access, but will continue to journal about the weekend and will post them when I return.

Speaking Leave

I am really excited about this upcoming weekend...

Last summer (2007) I was hired to be the speaker for a Jr. High summer camp in the Yosemite area in California.  I spent a lot of time working on a creative series for that week and ended up developing an series that I titled, "Lessons from Oz".  Every night of the week had a theme saying and I would show a clip from the movie, The Wizard of Oz, followed by a funny photoshopped picture of myself as one of the characters, and then my talk for the evening.  I not only loved doing it, but I had a great response from students and youth workers alike.  I had a ton of fun with it. 

Last July I blogged about the entire series as I gave my talks and also posted all of the individual photoshopped pictures.  Shortly after this I was contacted by Deneice asking me if I would come and do a shortened version of this series for the San Jose Presbytery Jr. High Winter Camp on March 7-9, 2008.  I was SO excited to be asked to do this, and readily accepted the invitation.  At that time, March 2008 seemed to be so far away... and now here we are!!! 

I cannot wait to go and do this series again.  I can't wait to hear the laughs.  I cannot wait to share about the Love of Jesus Christ. I cannot wait to share and speak and teach - something I love to do.

So on Friday morning I will be flying to California and will spend the weekend doing my "Lessons from Oz" series.  I don't know if I will have any internet access during the weekend, so I don't know if I will be able to blog while I am there.  If I can, I definitely will.

In the meantime, for anyone who missed it, here is the Poster that I created with each of the individual pictures I used from my summer series.  The students only got to see one of these pictures at a time - one each night. And this weekend the students will only get to see 4 of the 6.  For those who never saw this - enjoy.  For those who did - enjoy laughing all over again.

   

 

Yikes... has it been that long?

Oh my goodness.  I can hardly believe it has been OVER a month since I have been on here and blogged.  This completely goes counter to what my intentions and desires are for blogging.

So, a couple quick bits of what is going on with me:

* I am working hard getting into my new job in Boerne, Texas

* I have been LOVING living here - but I am very afraid of the summer heat.  I don't do hot well, and yet God called me to Texas.  Maybe this will be the "thorn in my side" that God has in store for me.  Or, hey... maybe the natural sauna will result in my losing weight simply by sweating off 20 lbs per day. 

* I am heading back to California this weekend to speak at a Jr. High Winter Retreat.  I am VERY excited about this.

* Last week my family came to visit for a week.  This thursday, 4 members of Christi's family come to visit for 10 days, and then 5 days after that another 5 members of Christi's family come to visit for a week.  Lots of guests in our new home.

* I am INTENT on getting this blog updated more often.  I have a LOT I want to share, such as the NEW new pictures of my house - since we have upgraded many features inside, such as paint, flooring, light fixtures, door knobs and more.

So... more to come soon!!!

Good Quotes

stephen wright:

“Black holes are where God divided by zero.”

emo phillips:

“i wanted a bike, and asked god to give me one.  but then i realized god doesn’t work that way.
so i decided to steal a bike and ask god for forgiveness.  it worked.”

(HT to Marko)

Crazy Test

If you are my friend, the good news is that you have MORE than a 50/50 chance of living.  EWWWW

44%

Home Improvements

Wow... Christi and I have been CRAZY BUSY with home improvement projects.  I state it that way because they are not really home "repairs" as there really is nothing wrong with this house.  But, Christi and I want to really make this house OUR home and make it fit our personality and desires.  Certainly we cannot do (at least not yet) all of the things that we want to do because we can't afford it all, so we decided to prioritize the projects and start from there.

Pictures will be coming soon.... but here is what we have been working on.
- Changing all of the doorknobs in the house from gold to silver color
- Changing all of the light fixtures in our house from gold to silver
- Installing ceiling fans in our master bedroom and living room.
- Painting the kitchen yellow
- Painting the downstairs bedroom burgundy.
- Painting our living room dark brown
- Painting our master bedroom light blue
- Installing Hard Wood flooring in our living room

That's what we are working on right now.  It is a LOT to do, but when it is done it will look GREAT!!!

I am excited to take pictures when the individual projects are finished and post them on here for all to see.  So stay tuned for more details and pictures of it all. 

I've Been Flocked

So, while I don't start work at my new church until February 1st, Christi and I wanted to worship today at our new church.  So we went to a Sunday School class and then the traditional worship service this morning at St. Mark Presbyterian Church.

After church we went out to lunch with some friends of ours, the Senior pastor and his wife, and another couple we just met this morning. 

Then after lunch we came home... to a surprise!!!

As you can see, we were flocked while we were at church this morning.

It appears that this is a tradition of the youth ministry here.  And what an incredible welcome this was for us.  Christi and I drove up to our house and found the following view:

What a wonderful and hilarious surprise this was for us.  We were laughing so hard.  I also felt like this was an incredible welcome from the youth group here.  And what a creative alternative to "TPing" or other things of that sort. 

So much fun ... and lots of laughs!!!