Month: November 2008

Categories
God

Life Pointe Church Sunday Morning Tossed Salad

It’s the middle Sunday of November of 2008, and we are the church that meets at the movie theatre here in Homestead Florida U.S.A.

Pastor Travis officially announced at each of the three services that Pastor Paul, Ms. Annie, and the kids would soon be leaving us and moving on to Tennessee to continue their ministries there. Paul will lead one final teaching at each of the three services two Sundays from today on the 30TH of November.

This week’s teaching was based on Chapter 2 of the Book of Jonah:

Jonah’s Prayer
1  Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from inside the fish.
2  He said, “I cried out to the LORD in my great trouble, and he answered me. I called to you from the land of the dead, and LORD, you heard me !
3  You threw me into the ocean depths, and I sank down to the heart of the sea. The mighty waters engulfed me; I was buried beneath your wild and stormy waves.
4  Then I said, ‘O LORD, you have driven me from your presence. Yet I will look once more toward your holy Temple.’
5  “I sank beneath the waves, and the waters closed over me. Seaweed wrapped itself around my head.
6  I sank down to the very roots of the mountains. I was imprisoned in the earth, whose gates lock shut forever. But you, O LORD my God, snatched me from the jaws of death !
7  As my life was slipping away, I remembered the LORD. And my earnest prayer went out to you in your holy Temple.
8  Those who worship false gods turn their backs on all God’s mercies.
9  But I will offer sacrifices to you with songs of praise, and I will fulfill all my vows.
  For my salvation comes from the LORD alone.”
10  Then the LORD ordered the fish to spit Jonah out onto the beach.

I won’t be present next Sunday morning at the LPC, so be sure to catch the next edition of the ‘Tossed Salad’ on the final Sunday of November.

Categories
History Life Music Travel

Saturday Night Retro

The month of November is chock-full of anniversaries for me. 28 years ago in 1980 me and my family moved from one side of Washington D.C. (Maryland) to the other side (Virginia). Our lives changed for the better on the opposite side of the Potomac River. 23 years ago in 1985 I moved out of the country for the first time ever courtesy of the USAF. That anniversary was actually last weekend. I flew from D.C. to London England, and then I took British Rail westward from London to Swindon. I took a taxi from Swindon to my new home at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire. I did all of that just 5 months removed from my 18TH birthday.

I lived in the U.K. for some 105 fun-filled weeks. In fact this weekend is the 21ST anniversary of my departure from the U.K. – and U.S. homecoming. I would eventually arrive at – Homestead Florida !

I haven’t been back to the U.K. ever since I left, but you can bet that I will return some day for a visit. I enjoyed the time of my young life for two years over there, and I surely did ‘Live It Up’.

Here’s Australian super group Mental As Anything. They’ve been together for the past 32 years, and in 1985, 1986, and 1987 they scored the biggest worldwide pop smash of their entire career with this uplifting track that you may just remember from the ‘Crocodile Dundee’ movie. Check it out:  

Categories
Holidays Travel

Saturday Morning Shenanigans

Pinch-hitting this morning for ‘The Major’s Walk-A-Thon’ – which has been postponed until a later date (possibly during Thanksgiving Week in Allen Texas) – it’s the return of the ‘Saturday Morning Shenanigans’.

Recently (during the week leading up to the 4TH Of July) me and my brother went to San Antonio Texas for 4 days and 3 nights. He actually went there on business, and I tagged along for fun. While he was working for his company at an expo at the Convention Center I was hanging out on the River Walk. Back on the 2ND of July I posted a special on-location edition of ‘The Major’s Walk-A-Thon’ from the River Walk. It was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to returning there soon.

We had an interesting southward view from our off-the-River-Walk hotel room. Straight out in the background was the 750-foot Tower Of The Americas. It was actually dwarfed by a much shorter hotel that was obviously closer to our hotel than the tower. Oh yeah – there was one other major object within our view from our hotel room – the mother of all Denny’s signs that was so MASSIVE and so bright (at night) that we could have used its light by itself to read a book from inside our room. It instantly became the running gag of our entire vacation there. My brother recalled a classic 1996 episode of ‘Seinfeld’ entitled ‘The Chicken Roaster’ in which Kramer is bothered by a MASSIVE red neon Kenny Rogers Roasters sign that beams directly into his apartment (and of course hijinks ensue).

San Antonio Texas - Hotel Room View - Looking South
San Antonio Texas - Hotel Room View - Looking South
Denny's - Zoomed-In Sign
Zoomed-In Sign
Categories
Weather

Homestead Cold Weather Alert

I actually wasn’t planning to issue a ‘Cold Weather Alert’ for this upcoming chill because previous models indicated that it wouldn’t be cold enough to do so. Now it appears that it will actually be colder than originally thought; therefore, I issue you this alert.

Get ready for a bunch of frigid mornings here in Homestead on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and possibly even into next weekend. I’m talking about early-morning (before 8 AM) temperatures down into the lower-50s with wind-chills down into the mid-40s !  The afternoons will actually be on the warm side – but definitely cooler than they have been recently.

As a general rule (since there appears to be interest in this) I will issue these ‘Cold Weather Alerts’ here on the big green blog whenever I expect upcoming wind-chill temperatures to fall into the 40s and beyond. We must all keep in mind that during these wintertime cold snaps there can be a wide disparity of early-morning temperatures. At the same exact time that it can be in the upper-40s here in Homestead it can also be in the mid-60s up along the beaches from South Beach northward. The weather forecasts on our local television and radio stations generally average these temperatures out for the entire viewing region.