Implants

During my trip to Texas, I found myself talking about implants with someone. I don't know how we got onto the subject, but one thing led to another and I started making up this totally absurd story. It went like this:

Me: You know how some women go get breast implants? Well some guys get calf implants.
Her: No they don't!!
Me: They do!!! In fact, I have calf implants right now.
Her: Shut up!!
Me: Honest to goodness. Look at these suckers!! Tell me that they don't look natural.
Her: Well... But why'd you get them?
Me: Actually, I got them a while ago. When I was younger, I was really, really vane. One year near my birthday, my grandpa asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and I told him that I wanted calf implants. And since my grandpa loved us 3 boys so much, he did whatever he could to spoil us, so he paid for my implants.
Her: He did?
Me: Yup. You can actually see one of the scars that was left from the incision made by the surgeon. It's right here on my left calf. (Fortunately for me, I actually have a scar in the perfect place from a little accident I had in Mexico where I got cut by a piece of rope while trying to step over it.)
Her: That's crazy!! Did it hurt?
Me: Not really.

At first, I thought that the person I was talking to would eventually realize that I was talking out my ass the entire time. But it wasn't until lunch the next day that I found out how believable my story was to her. Or perhaps it wasn't the story, but her gullibility.

Either way, my friend whom I duped, Connie, sent me an email today with a link to this website saying 'Just for future reference, in case you change your mind.'

Self Portrait?

I got this from my friend Harmon's blog. Sucks to be him.

Poor Baby

And people say basketball isn't a contact sport.

Indoctrination

While in Texas, I went to the newest Apple store with a few friends. One of them had a newborn a little bit ago, and for fun, this is what they did to baby Gabby.



All I can say is this: Start 'em young, friends.

Smart

After seeing this, I stand corrected. There IS a benefit to driving a Smart car.

Guess Who?

Saw these two studs at Tyndale today. If you don't know who they are, Nathan is on the left, and Darryl is on the right. I also saw Shauna Lee, but didn't get her in the picture because I a doofus. After our brief encounter, I was left with one question:


How is it that I'm such a blessed human being to interact with such heavenly creatures?


I guess only God knows why.

Switch

I'm considering switching from blogger to vox. A while ago, my friend Gid evited me to join vox. Since I was relatively happy with blogger, I joined vox, but haven't done any posting...until now. I must say that since my handle on HTML is as good as my ability to slam dunk, vox more than makes up for it, especially in the areas of photos, videos, and other digital media.

I plan on giving vox a whirl before I make my decision, but so far vox is wooing me the right way.

In the mean time, check out my vox.

Video Slideshow

Here are a couple video slideshows. The first one is the slideshow for Melissa's surprise party. It was a bummer that I missed the celebration, but glad that I could help out. The second video is the slideshow Enoch put together with pictures from the New Orleans trip. Good on ya, baby.

New Orleans, Revisited

In July, I got to spend a week in New Orleans gutting houses and trying to play a part in the rebuilding process in the wake of Katrina. It was an amazing experience, albeit very physically and emotionally challenging.

Fast forward 8 months into the future, where I find myself back in New Orleans, but this time doing different things with different people. The first time around, we worked with the organization called Acorn and spent the entire week gutting homes. This time, I got to experience a different side of what it means to rebuild the city.

I went along with my friends at Vox Veniae in Austin, Texas, where not only did we get to clean and gut a house, we got to do all sorts of other things like pick up trash, clean up a neighborhood park, clean up a city park, sort and label books for a school library that's planning on re-opening in the fall.

At first, I though this trip was going to be quite similar to my first trip in July. I had psyched myself out for another week of intense physical labor full of swinging hammers and crowbars. But as the first few days unfolded, I realized that it wouldn't be the same, which led me to feel a bit disappointed. Of course, after a bit of reflection and a big dose of humility, I realized that my disappointment was rooted in the desire to do what I wanted, instead of what needed to be done for the good of the city.

For some reason, I thought that the epitome of what it meant to help rebuild New Orleans was to gut someone's house. Granted, being able to gut a house gives the gutter some sense of accomplishment because we see the fruits of our labor. But what if we simply walked around a neighborhood and picked up garbage, and at the end of the day, things still looked trashed. Would it feel like the week was well spent? Initially, my heart was telling me 'no'. But getting the chance to walk the neighborhood, as well as help clean a city park by trimming away overgrown brush, collecting fallen trees and twigs, and being human weed whackers to uncover hiking paths, I realized that rebuilding the city is more than gutting houses. This trip has taught me that:

* The city is bigger than the place where people lay their heads.

* The city includes the streets these houses are on.

* The city includes the little community park in the heart of the neighborhood.

* The city includes the park that residents used to frequent, but have abandoned because it was flooded over.

* The city includes the schools that have more people on the waiting list than spots in classrooms.

Although cleaning and gutting was a small portion of this trip, I'm glad that we got to experience the bigger picture of loving this city. It's helped me see that the rebuilding efforts in New Orleans requires more than just a one trick pony with tools and wheelbarrows.

Thanks Vox for letting me join y'all on this New Orleans experience, and mad props and much love to the Big Easy for staying strong.

New Orleans...Take 2

I'd love to post all the lavish details on what we've been doing here, but I cannot for two reason:

First, I'm really tired. It is nearly 1am Central time, 2am Eastern/Hamilton/Michigan/etc... time, and we're waking up in a few hours to begin round two of house gutting.

The second reason is before I catch some shut eye, I must got take a dump. I'm sure you didn't need to know that, but I though I'd be totally transparent and let you know what's on my mind.

In the mean time, here's a blog post one of the guys from the trip put together that recaps what we've been doing these last few days.

Needless to say, this time round has been just as amazing as the first time around. I'm not going to compare the trips and do the boneheaded thing of trying to say which one is better, because it'd be like asking a parent of several children 'which one do you love more?' Not only would you be putting the parent in a difficult and awkward position, it is simply a stupid question to ask.

Anyways, here's the link. Enjoy it, and I'll be sure to post my thoughts on the trip very soon.

l8r, babies.

Hello Warmth!!

****NOTE:****
This post was written a few days ago, but because Blogger, in their infinite wisdom, thought that this blog was a spam blog, and thus kept me from uploading new posts. Anyways, here it is, and as we speak, I'm in the process of writing a new one.

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I'm sick.

Again.

I don't know what it is, whether the illness within my body is mutating, or if I'm getting new sickness at the heels of recovering from the previous crap. Either way, I'm hacking up a lung and blowing my nose constantly. Let me tell you, it's not a pretty sight. To top that off, I woke up to -30 degree weather yesterday. Can I tell you how much that sucked?

But all that changed for the better when I boarded the plane for my final destination of Austin Texas where the weather is a painful 24 degrees C (75 degrees F). Compared to my last flight out of Buffalo, this trip was phenomenal. Not only were there no delays, but the flights actually arrived early!! I flew from Buffalo to Chicago, had a 2 hour layover, then flew from Chicago to Austin. I slept, drank water, listened to music, and read the in flight magazines. The only crappy thing that happened was having some intense pressure on my head from my cold. It felt like Jabba the Hut was applying some insane vise grip on my head with his tail.

Upon stepping off the plane, I gathered my luggage and walked outside to wait for whoever was gonna pick me up. As I was standing there, basking in the atmosphere of Austin, I literally felt my cold symptoms melt away. I could smell the fresh air and taste the crispness of car exhaust. To some, that would be kinda gross, but I welcomed it with open arms.

After waiting for a few moment, I saw my good friend Gideon pull up in his car. I wasn't expecting him, so I was very pleasantly surprised. I put my stuff into his VW, and we went to his church office, where I was greeted by some great and familiar faces. I chilled at a desk while Gid, Enoch, Matt, Harmon and Wey had their staff meeting.

At around 6pm, Jim and Gretchen, who are getting married this weekend in Houston, accompanied by Yeeland, came by the office to pick me up for dinner. We chatted, ate, laughed, and had an amazing time. I can't wait to see them tie the knot this Saturday. I really hope my limited Cantonese skills don't get in the way of this beautiful ceremony.

All in all, this trip has been fabulous so far. I have begun the journey of filling my gullet with comfort food like beef ribs, country fried steak, and organic hamburgers, and plan on adding a wider array of tasty southern treats into my system.

Then come Sunday, I leave from Houston to New Orleans for a week of helping out in whatever way I can. Vox is sending a crew out that way to help in the rebuilding of the city and those lives affected by Katrina. I'm really looking forward to going back and see how things have changed, or not changed, since my last trip with Nathan, Pernell, Kristyn and Melissa.