writing again

Since I seem to have developed a small but fairly loyal following (as evidenced from the small but steady numbers on my traffic reports) I suppose I should attempt yet again to return to posting on this site. The end of this past semester left little time for things like blogging. Following almost immediately on the heels of Dee Dee's miscarriage I found myself rapidly coming to the end of the semester with all the book reviews, research papers, projects, and final exams which that entails. I managed to get everything done, with a little grace on the due date of a theological position paper from one professor since that paper was due the day after the misscarriage. It wasn't my best semester but I did pretty well, managing to squeak out an A-, 2 B+'s and a B-. Following finals I spent about three weeks reading nothing but fiction (I finished the Harry Potter series and started a new series about the legend of Robin Hood). Throw in traveling to Atlanta, Nashville, Greenville SC, and Hendersonville NC and my mom visiting with us for 3 weeks in the last month and things have been pretty hectic. Now I have two weeks to prepare for a one week class that I'm taking in January. Things are busy, but I still can't wait until January 1 when I can say "I am graduating THIS year."

Well, that's a brief update on the last couple of months. I would say that I am going to make a New Year's resolution to post more regularly here, but come on, everybody knows that New Year's resolutions only last about 2 weeks anyway. I will however say that I will do my best to post more so keep checking back.

P.S.: Thanks to whoever it was that used the links here on my site to purchase books through Christianbook.com. I get a small percentage back on all sales and that check got here in time to pay for my wife's Christmas present.

joy and sorrow

Several weeks ago we found out that Dee Dee was pregnant with our fourth child. We told the kids, called all the family and friends, and began preparations for the addition to our family. On Monday of this week, Dee Dee and the kids went out to the campground where her parents were staying in their motorhome. When she called me to tell me they were on their way home that evening she said that she had been bleeding slightly during the day and had experienced a little bit of abdominal pain. We called the doctor on Tuesday morning and went to have her checked out. After blood tests and an ultrasound it was determined that the baby was measuring at about 6 weeks development instead of 8 1/2 weeks where it should be. The doctor prescribed some hormones and sent Dee Dee home to rest. At about 4:15 this morning (31 Oct 2007) our baby went home to heaven. We are sad that this has happened but we "know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28 ESV)

We may never know, this side of heaven, why God chose to end this pregnancy the way He did. But we know that He is in control and that His plan is perfect, no matter how hard it may seem to us at the time we are going through things such as this. God loves us and we are leaning on that love right now.

The BCS must go

This article from Dan Wetzel pretty much sums up my feelings on the BCS and what it is doing to college football. This thing just needs to die so we can move on to a playoff system like every other normal sport. For the people who are crying and moaning that it will destroy the old traditional bowl system I have a solution. The winner of each conference makes it to the playoffs. That's 11 teams. If you have a 16 team field then you would have 5 wild card teams that would have a shot (there's the chance for the stupid AP, USA Today, and Harris polls to still mean something). Then the remaining teams that are not in the playoffs can still play in the traditional bowl games. There you go, everybody's happy. The fans, players, coaches (and especially the SEC which tends to get messed over most years by the current setup) get an actual national champion crowned with fewer arguments (I would say no arguments, but come on, it is college football after all). The big corporations and the smaller conferences are happy because they get to keep the bowl system which brings in so much money. Of course, maintaining the bowl system and adding a playoff just generates even more money, so everybody is even happier. There, problem solved. Whose desk do I need to jump up and down on top of to get this thing done?

semester 5 halfway point

Well I just got out of a midterm exam in my Intro to Old Testament class. Could have gone worse, could have definitely gone better. But regardless of that, we have reached the halfway point of the semester. We get a week to sit back and relax and take it easy next week................... Yeah right! We'll all be scrambling to catch up on the reading that we've fallen behind on over the last seven weeks and hopefully get a little jump on the reading and papers that will be coming in the six weeks following the break. But even with all this work ahead of me and even with a little more than a year remaining until graduation I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. When I started seminary it seemed like I would never be done with school. I figured out a while back that since I started Kindergarten I have been in school for 26 out of the last 31 years. But now I can actually see the end in sight. I'm ready to get done with school and get to work actually doing ministry. My chaplain candidate tour this summer was just a small taste of what I will be doing as an Air Force Chaplain but it was a wonderful taste. My current job, though with a church, has me sitting in front of a computer the vast majority of the time. I'm ready to get away from the machines and start dealing with people. And I can see the day coming!

Incredible song and video

I got a link to this video from a friend of mine and just had to post it here. The love of Christ for us is amazing.

The song, "New Again" is by Brad Paisley and Sarah Evans.

preaching

I got a call on Wednesday of this week from a little church out west of Louisville asking me to come preach for them on Sunday morning. The church is English Baptist Church in Stephensport, KY. Their interim pastor, or actually their former interim pastor now, was one of my graders at seminary my first semester. He was also an Air Force Reserve Chaplain. I ran in to him this summer and he told me that he was switching over to the Army so he could go on active duty and asked me to send him my resume to forward to the church. I got a call from the head of the pulpit committee this week. I would covet any prayers that might be lifted up for me as I prepare the share the gospel with them on Sunday.

I'm still amazed that God has called me to do this since I never wanted to be a preacher and honestly liked dealing with computers more than I did people. But He has placed this call on me, and I have seen His transforming hand on my life over the past couple of years as He prepares me for it. I am now anxious to get away from the computers (at least as a profession) and to deal more with people. I long to develop relationships that will give me the opportunity to share the gospel with lost people and see them brought to Christ by the working of the Holy Spirit in their lives. I have seen the evidence of what I've heard all my life. God will not call you to do something without equipping you with the tools and gifts you need to do it.

Money for nothing? Well, almost...

With as much time as I spend on the computer in general and on the internet in particular I have for a long time wondered if it is possible to make money online without spending a ton of it up front. I have tried many different programs and most of them end up dying a quick death just about the time they are supposed to actually send you money. I have found a couple that actually pay however. One of them is sendmoreinfo.com. This program works by sending you emails based on the interests you select in your profile. When you get the email you click on a link to go to the advertiser's site. You can then just close the site and move on to the next email. For each email you click on you get a "share". You also get shares for each email that anyone you refer clicks on. These shares are converted to cash at the end of each month. The amount varies based on how much revenue the company has generated and how many shares were earned. I was skeptical about this at first but I have actually received 4 checks from them. You're not going to get rich clicking emails (unless you refer a heck of a lot of people) but I know in my family, any extra money is a good thing.

back to the books

Well another semester has officially begun. I am again taking 4 classes this semester. They are:
1. Introduction to Old Testament I
2. Systematic Theology III
3. Introduction to Christian Philosophy
4. Team Ministry Relations

So far it seems like this is going to be an interesting semester. The only drawback so far is that 3 of my 4 classes are 3 hour blocks one day a week. In one sense that's good because I only have to have assignments done for those classes once a week. However, I have the feeling that sitting through two 3 hour block classes on the same day is going to get really old. But, oh well, it's only for a season.

AF Chaplain Candidate Tour - update 4

Well today was a new experience for me. I had the opportunity to preach my first sermon. I've led Bible studies and youth group meetings before but never had the opportunity to preach an actual sermon. It was a great experience. I'm sure it was nowhere near the greatest sermon ever preached. It probably wasn't even very good, but I got lot's of encouragement from the congregation following the service and that helped to build my confidence and let me know that, yes, I can do this job that God has called me to do.

AF Chaplain Candidate Tour - update 3

I'm back. Blogger decided for a while that my blog was spam so I couldn't post anything new until they reviewed it and realized that there is in fact an actual person behind this thing.

The past two weeks have been full of hospital visitation, invocations at various base functions, and meetings in preparation for two 5K runs that the chapel is sponsoring in the next few weeks. We spent the last two days going around to every building and every office we could get into passing out info about the runs and making sure everyone knows about them. The first run is tomorrow morning so I've got to get this done pretty soon and get in the bed. We've got to be at the chapel at 0530 to get everything loaded and set up at the run site.

I've been scheduled to preach in the Evangelical service at the chapel on 5 August. I have the scripture that I am going to preach on and have some illustrations that I know I want to include, now I just need to sit down and figure out how to put everything together. This will be my first experience in preaching a sermon instead of leading a Bible study so pray that I would accurately convey the Word to those listening and that I would not be too nervous.

AF Chaplain Candidate Tour - update 2

Our candidate team is complete. Two more chaplain candidates arrived today and both of them are guys that I went through COT with last summer. So now there are four of us, two Baptist seminary students and two Jewish rabbinical students.

I got the briefing and tour from the hospital chaplain today so I guess the ministry begins in earnest tomorrow. The biggest challenge I anticipate right now is not getting lost in the maze that they call a hospital here. The next two weeks should be very interesting and intensely busy. The chapel staff is large but will be stretched pretty thin over the next two weeks so we candidates will get lots of experience in a hurry.

AF Chaplain Candidate Tour

I started my first AF Chaplain Candidate tour today. I drove up to Wright-Patterson AFB yesterday and got my car registered, got checked into billeting, and ran to the Base Exchange (the on base equivalent of WalMart or Target for those of you not in the military) to pick up a few things I needed. The chapel staff here is all very friendly (as you would expect a chapel staff to be). I actually ran into a couple of people I know. One of the other candidates went through training with me last summer. The other person is a reserve chaplain who was actually the grader for one of my classes at Southern while he was working on his PhD there.

The day went pretty well. I got to Chapel 1 about 0715 and chatted with the NCOIC until my sponsor arrived a little later. After going out to breakfast with my sponsor all four candidates who are here right now went with one of the chaplains to a Commander's Call (an awards ceremony and a time of information briefing) for one of the squadrons. We then all went to the club for lunch and spent the afternoon moving some equipment out of a few rooms that the chapel doesn't use anymore so they can be turned over and then doing some maintenance in one of the chapels. I was done for the day and back in my room by 1600 (4 PM). I'm looking forward to finding out what the remainder of the summer holds.

too long away from all things LSU

OK, we have officially been in Kentucky for too long as of tonight. I was just glancing through the headlines on my "My Yahoo!" page and saw one that read "UK officials widen hunt in terror attack." My first thought was "What happened at University of Kentucky?" Sorry, I've got to cut this short and go listen to LSU pregrame about 50 times in a row to purge myself of this Kentucky-itis.

social networking - connections and reconnections

I've been on the net for years now. That's a pretty simple thing to figure out considering that I've been involved in some way or another with computer networking as my job for almost 20 years. In all that time I've avoided many of the popular sites that have sprung up, especially those dedicated to social networking. I hated AOL and it's instant messaging from the outset. I've used it sparingly but never really liked it. I avoided Plaxo for years due to the privacy concerns that many industry leaders raised when they broke onto the scene. I've rarely even browsed on Myspace much less set up a profile. My sole foray into the popular culture of the net was in starting this blog just over 2 years ago. But even in this I've not been very active, as you can see by my post count. However, over that past year or so I've begun to break down a few of these barriers I've built up. I signed up with Plaxo after reading a review in PC Magazine about how many of the privacy concerns have been answered. I've loved it so far. It has allowed me to get updated information from many of my contacts and even more importantly has allowed me to keep the data easily synced between my office, home and laptop computers.

More recently I read some comments from a good friend of mine about how he had found many old friends on Facebook and Myspace. I thought "You know I think I signed up for a Facebook account a while back but never did anything with it." I went back and set up my profile and in a very short while have connected with friends ranging from my high school days to some that I am in school or work with currently. There was one person in particular that I went to high school with whom I had been looking for off and on for the last 10 years or so. Within 2 days of getting active on facebook we had reconnected. We also reconnected with some of the students from our youth group in Georgia that we haven't talked to in almost 5 years.

Now that I'm reconnecting with all these folks I guess I'll have to do a much better job of using this blog for what it was originally set up for - a way to keep our friends and loved ones updated on what's going on with our family as we follow the path that God has laid before us.

and the silence is broken...

I've noticed from my site statistics that there are at least a few people out there who still check this blog on a regular basis. So, after far too long a time spent away from writing, I have returned to break the silence that has held sway here for more than 4 months. Some may ask, "Why were you gone? Where were you?" Well, this past semester at school was an incredibly stressful one for our family. It wasn't so much the workload as it was all the external things that occurred. There was a lot of traveling and many external crises that had to be dealt with. All of this on top of the stack of books that I had to read and the papers that I had to write left little time, and even less desire for blogging.

The first weekend after school started we made the 13+ hour trip to Baton Rouge for a surprise party for my Mom's 80th birthday. It was a wonderful occasion but far too quick of a trip. We left Louisville on Wednesday and came back on Sunday. About a month later was Dee Dee's sister's wedding on a small island off the coast of Belize. The kids and I didn't go to the wedding but a week without Dee Dee here and with my mom and cousin in town to help out with the kids so I could go to school and work added to the stress level a bit.

A little later on in the semester we took our van in to the shop because the air conditioner was making noise whenever we turned it on. The estimate to fix all that was wrong was around $1800. Being poor seminary students we don't have $1800 lying around to fix the air conditioner. We do however have some pretty wonderful friends in Baton Rouge several of whom happen to be mechanics who offered to help and who refuse to take payment. So during Spring Break off to Baton Rouge we went once again. Toward the end of the semester we took the van in to the shop again (I honestly don't remember exactly what was going on that time) and the estimate to fix the shocks, struts, rear wheel cylinders, etc, etc, etc, was around $1500. Again, poor seminary students here. We did get the things fixed that were major safety issues and then my father-in-law helped me replace the shocks. OK, he replaced the shocks while I handed him tools and parts.

Somehow, through all the traveling, visitors, automotive and financial crises I actually managed to pull my best set of grades since starting seminary. I got an A and three A-'s for the semester. I was planning to take at least one and possibly two classes this summer but decided I needed a break for a while. So for now I'm reading some fiction I picked up from the library and just taking a much needed break from academics. I leave 3 weeks from today for my ADT at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH. I'm really looking forward to getting there and actually being able to engage in ministry with Airmen. A huge bonus is that one of my flight mates from last summer at OTS and the Chaplain Candidate Course will be arriving just a few days after I do.

Well, that's about it for now. I will try my best to make sure that it's not another 4 months before my next post.

In service for freedom

I have been searching for a while to find out what awards my Dad got during his time in the Navy. This image shows what I believe his rack to be. The records I got from the archives in St. Louis left a lot to be desired. When I got out of the Army the clerk that was processing me made sure that every single award I had earned was listed on my records. I guess they didn't take that much care with folks getting out 50 years ago. My dad's records showed only the National Defense Service Medal and the Navy Occupation Service Medal. The other ones wer in his old stuff that my Mom still has though they were extremely worn and faded. His rack may not be the biggest or most impressive of the era but for a WWII era sailor it's not too shabby. I'm proud to come from a line of military service and I'm proud to be continuing that tradition of defending the rights we hold dear in this nation. I count it an honor to be one of the many who have voluntarily answered the call to serve. Remember that all the men and women serving in our armed forces today do so of their own free will. We are not compelled to serve, we are not sent to war; we choose to serve the interests of this nation. And if it means that we must lay our lives down on foreign soil, like so many of our predecessors, we will do so, in order that our loved ones, and those that we may not agree with or even like very much, may enjoy the freedoms that make this nation great. My father did not lose his life in service to our country, but he did answer the call to serve, and did so honorably. I pray that none of our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, or Marines would ever again have to lay down their lives for the cause of freedom but I know that that prayer will probably not be answered in the way that I would wish. However, even though they lose their lives, it shall not be in vain if their sacrifice brings continued freedom to our nation and carries the cause of freedom to other peoples.

If you are reading this, whether you agree with the current war in which we are fighting or not, please take a moment to say a prayer for the safety of the men and women in uniform who are fighting to keep this country free and to bring that same freedom to other peoples around the world.

fitness training - a new idea for setting goals

Since I got done with my Air Force training last summer I must admit that I have been pretty lazy. With work, school, church and finding time for family I just didn't eke out the time that I needed to in order to keep up with my physical conditioning. I finally realized something in December about the way I set goals for myself. In the past I have tended to set goals such as "Do 100 pushups and 100 situps everyday" or "Read 5 chapters in the Bible everyday." The problem with these type of goals is that when I miss one or two days I say "What's the point? I can't do it" and I give up the whole enterprise. So I decided to set my goals a little differently this time. Instead of setting a daily number for my fitness goals I decided to set a larger goal to shoot for. I set an average number of pushups and situps that I want to do for the month of January and figured out what the total number for the whole month would be. That way if I miss a day or two I can make it up by doing extra on other days and still reach my goal. For subsequent months I will add to the average number per day. Setting my goals this way I came up with a total number that I want to do for the entire year (38,420). Actually I set an ultimate goal of 40,000. I know that sounds like alot, but when you break it down over a year's time it's only about 110 per day.

I've also set a goal for the total number of miles of cardio exercise I want to do for the year. I didn't want to limit this to running alone in order to plug in some variety. I'll keep track of running, biking, elliptical, etc. My goal for the year is 1500 miles. I might have to adjust that goal some as I go along, but we'll see how things progress.

Ultimately of course, it's not about the numbers. The numbers are just a way to keep me focused. The real goal is to make physical fitness a lifestyle and not a means to pass my annual Physical Fitness Assessment for the Air Force.

In order to keep track of my progress (and just because I wanted to try out the Wordpress blogging tool) I started a new blog. I'm also using this blog to keep track of money that I find laying around. I started doing this on paper sometime last year after finding several blogs in which people were doing so. I haven't really been trying to find money the way some of the other folks do, but so far I've found a total of $59.82. Not great, but not too shabby either. I might find other things to track on there also. You never know. As the tag line on the blog says it is going to be "A place to track random things that no one else cares about."

1 picture, way more than 1000 words

I saw this story today on Baptist press. It's about a memorial for victims of abortion. The picture is what really grabbed me. So many in our culture today think of babies while still in the womb about the same way that they think about pennies. Many see pennies as worthless and just toss them away. Long ago many saw babies as worthless and wanted to be able toss them away in the same manner. In 1973 they were told they had the right to do this and this picture is a representation of the results of that decision by the Supreme Court. In 33+ years almost 5 million choices have been made to toss away what was seen as a worthless life. The picture shows a penny for each life that has been aborted. It adds up to almost $500,000. I guess pennies aren't so worthless after all and each life is worth far more than this. Life is a priceless comodity. Psa 139:13 tells us "For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb." We were formed by an act of God so each human life has infinite worth. We should not so blithely toss it away

political games, when do we get to have an offseason?

Hillary Clinton officially threw her hat into the ring for the Presidential race in 2008 today (as if anyone in the country had any doubts whatsoever that she would). We just got done with the mid-term elections, which were oh so much fun (yes that was definitely sarcasm you noticed in that statement), and now we get to start the whole process over again and listen to these people trash each other for the next 2 years. For once I'd like to see a politician run a campaign in which they actually talk about what they believe, and what they plan to do instead of spending all their time trying to discredit their oponent. I don't care what party a candidate is from, if they would take an ethical stance to build their campaign on their own merits instead of focusing on the bad points of thier oponent they would definitely have an advantage in getting my vote. I stop short of saying that I would definitely vote for them because what they consider to be their merits might not match up with my own worldview. Am I alone in this, or are there others who are tired of seeing these negative campaigns drag on and on for years on end.

to blog or not to blog...? to blog!

It's been a while since I blogged anything significant. I want to blog because I want to exercise those writing muscles, to keep the creative juices flowing as it were. I know that's a tired old cliche, but it's true. I want to write and I know that the best way to improve writing is simply to do it over and over again. I've simply been in a blogging funk for the past several months. This past semester at seminary wasn't as difficult or time-consuming as previous semesters but for some reason I just had more trouble keeping up with the reading and finding time to do the things that I really wanted to do. The spring semester starts in a week and a half and I'm taking more classes this time. Maybe with more time constraints on me I'll actually do a better job of managing my time and finding the time to blog.

One of my biggest concerns as this semester starts is finances. Our credit card balances are creeping ever higher and our income is not reciprocating. Even with a small scholarship this semester's tuition and books will come to around $1600. I received a small raise at the church to start the new year but I'm still only working part time. Plus, due to the busyness of the holidays Dee Dee has not had any Pampered Chef shows for approximately 2 months. Things will start getting a little better pretty soon as she has 6 kitchen shows and 1 catalog show scheduled over the next 4-5 weeks. I placed advertising from Yahoo! on the blog a while back in the hopes of creating a little bit of income from that, but the fact that I haven't blogged much has not helped the effort. That's one incentive to keep blogging. The more I blog, and the more people I get coming to the blog regularly, the more chance I will have that someone will actually click on an ad now and then.

I'm officially done with my language study now. I took Introductory Biblical Hebrew this past semester and by the grace of God managed to pull an A- in the class. So, no more foreign alphabets, no more vocabulary, no more grammar. At least not until I get onto active duty with the Air Force and they see my background in languages and decide to send me back to DLI to pick up yet another language. Actually, I'm not sure if they would bother sending a Chaplain to DLI for language school, but I wouldn't mind spending another year out there in the Monterey Bay area.

This spring I'll be taking four classes - Systematic Theology II, Biblical Counseling in Human Crises, The Ministry of Teaching, and Lifespan Developments. I'm really looking forward to this semester. I've got some great professors and the classes sound really interesting. I was planning on taking The Ministry of Proclamation (a preaching class) but after looking at the syllabus I decided that I needed to put that class off another semester or two. The class is basically designed to be a culmination of your seminary training so I'll wait and take it in the final semester or two before graduation.

Well, that about does it for tonight. I'm going to go surf the web for a while and try to find something interesting to blog about for tomorrow. Hope to see you then.

My Exciting Life

It's been a while since she did it but a friend from Baton Rouge posted this list on her blog. I finally decided to go through it and post it here. The idea is to highlight the things on the list that you have done.

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game (and survived the crush afterwards)
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne (let's say tipsy)
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends (see the previous post for proof of this one)
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced (might as well take this one off the list, not gonna happen)
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children (still working on this one)
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over (not sure if this counts, but I've moved twice for school, to Baton Rouge, and to Louisville)
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol (yes, yes, and yes)
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper (I had a bag over my head, but it was me)
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life