Author: Chris M. Day

I'm almost 59 years old. I've been online for 33 years - starting with my own dial-up bulletin board system in 1993 - and continuing with AOL, my own dot.com web site, Myspace, WordPress, Twitter / X, Flickr, and Facebook.

Categories
God People

Life Pointe Church Sunday Morning Tossed Salad

Misfortune Cookie

– This morning I attended the Shanghai campus of Life Pointe Church.
– We had Chinese Restaurant music playing in the background.
– I caught Nancy L. dancing to it, and Kelly D. and Ritz C. cheering her on.
– We served crunchy noodles and hot tea at our Shanghai Cafe.
– Meanwhile European techno music played just before Praise & Worship.
– I nearly got up and danced with fluorescent glow sticks.
– Kelly J. hosted during the first service.
– Be sure to check out her ‘Sunday CHICK-Kabob’ within the next few days.
– Pastor Jesse led this week’s message – substituting for the ailing Travis.
– Travis lived up to his reputation as the ‘Pastor Of Disaster’.
– This week’s message was titled – ‘Won Ton Words That Win Friends’.
– A friend is someone who knows your past and believes in your future.
– He or she accepts you just the way that you are and doesn’t try to change you.
– He or she understands your areas of weakness and helps you conquer them.
– He or she doesn’t give up on you when it becomes inconvenient.  
– The Bible: A gentle answer deflects anger, but harsh words make tempers flare.
– What you say to a friend is important, but how you say it is also critical.
– It’s not good enough to simply coast along with your friends.
– It is healthy to have conflict with your friends, but move beyond it.
– Be enriched by the conflict, and learn life’s lessons from it.
– Don’t tell me what I want to hear – tell me what I need to hear.
– Don’t be a mere acquaintance, as those are a dime a dozen.
– Be a friend and save a Life when your friend has a crisis.
– Show up and be there physically for your friend’s pain.
– Share your friend’s pain.
– Support your friend with prayer because the Holy Spirit can stop the pain.
– Help your friend with forgiveness.
– Love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dwelling on it separates close friends.
– Be brutally honest with your friend and accept reality – accept The Truth.
– Strengthen your friend with total faith in God.
– Speak hope with your friend, for anything is possible with Our Father God.

Proverbs 27 (NLT, 2ND Ed.)
2  Let someone else praise you, not your own mouth – a stranger, not your own lips.
6  Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy.
9  The heartfelt counsel of a friend is as sweet as perfume and incense.
10  Never abandon a friend – either yours or your father’s. When disaster strikes, you won’t have to ask your brother for assistance. It’s better to go to a neighbor than to a brother who lives far away.
17  As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.

Be sure to hang out with this blog during this upcoming week. I’ve got new posts every single day including the long-running ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’ and the spontaneous ‘Thursday Night Mini Thoughts’. Until we meet again – be a friend.

Categories
Career Driving History Life Movies Music Television Travel

Saturday Night Retro

On the last ‘Saturday Night Retro’ I looked back at the great decade that was the 1990s, and I featured one of the hard rockin’ songs of my extended Panama City Beach ‘Summer Of 1990’ – Faith No More‘s “Epic”.

This week I advance forward to 1991. Following a two-month stint over in Al Kharj Saudi Arabia during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm I began what would eventually (and unknowingly) become the final 17 months of my Active Duty Air Force career at the original Homestead Air Force Base (before Hurricane Andrew). After a tumultuous couple of years at work on the base things drastically improved for the better, and I enjoyed a long climb to the pinnacle of my career at that time.

During the Summer of 1991 I turned 24-years-old, and I began my 7TH year in the USAF. I also went on a 2½-week vacation at the end of August including my very first sea cruise ever on NCL (M/S Seaward) with my family as well as a fun tour of various Tampa and Orlando area amusement parks with my brother for a week after that.

Here’s a big-time TV and movie star dude who actually shares my birthday of June 05TH. I was born in 1967. He was born in 1971. He’s Mark Wahlberg, but back during the Summer of 1991 he was better known as Marky Mark. Here he is with his Funky Bunch. Here’s “Good Vibrations’ – the smash hit that made him a star.

Categories
History Life Music

The Major’s Friday Night Disco Party

During the Spring of 1979 I was in the 6TH grade at Magnolia Elementary School right in the middle of my Lanham Maryland neighbourhood.

Magnolia Elementary School, Lanham Maryland
Magnolia Elementary School, Lanham Maryland

The school day began at precisely 9:08 AM, and it ended at precisely 3:08 PM. Magnolia was my school for Kindergarten (1972-1973) and 3RD through 6TH grades (1975-1979). Those last 4 years at Magnolia were perhaps the happiest four years of all of my school years. It would just get miserable for me after that in Junior High and Senior High School (although I do remember occasional pockets of fun and good times during those advanced school years).

In 1979 I was a trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent Boy Scout:

On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country, and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.

It’s hard to believe that I’m 30 years removed from that part of my life. Some songs remind me of the bad times, but whenever I hear this song play it reminds me of some of those good times that I lived back then during my active preteen years.

Here’s Amii Stewart with her ‘pay all of the bills’ # 1 Platinum Disco SMASH !

Categories
Blogging Books Driving Food God Health Holidays Music Travel Weather

Thursday Night Mini Thoughts

– It’s time to continue a Thursday night tradition since January 2009.
– It’s time for some spontaneous ‘Mini Thoughts’.
– 3 out of 5 therapists recommend the ‘Mini Thoughts’ over any other thoughts.
– I came home from work today and I immediately weighed myself.
– I thought for sure that I’d hit 180 pounds for the first time since 1988.
– I actually lost a pound-and-a-half and fell below 175 pounds.
– That’s despite the fact of what I did for Lunch today.
– Me and my coworker buddies raised a ruckus at The Big Cheese Of Homestead.
– That joint was jumpin’ !
– Homestead and Florida City is big pimpin’ eatin’ cheese in the ‘hood !
– I selected the whole (foot long) meatball sub.
– That included a trio of ENORMOUS Italian meatballs smothered in mozzarella.
– It was perhaps the tastiest meatball sub that I have eaten in modern history !
– I can’t wait to try those meatballs out on a bed of tender spaghetti.
– I also enjoyed 3 garlic rolls, and the garlic was so heavy and yummy !
– I probably could have eaten a dozen of them – right then and there.
– Lipitor – CHECK !
– I can’t compare The Big Cheese with Mamma Mia Pizza.
– I hope that they both survive and prosper here in the city.
– Want some signs of Autumn here in Florida ?
– How does the upper-50s in the morning sound to you ?
– Well if you want that then travel to Tallahassee next week !
– The upper-60s could reach as far south as the Tampa area.
– I can forecast no better than the lower-70s for inland pockets of our area.
– Just wait a month and then we’ll get in on some of that cool relief as well.
– I’m trying hard to squeeze in a short holiday weekend excursion.
– I’d like to visit the Naples / Fort Myers area for Columbus Day Weekend.
– It would be my first visit over there since Presidents’ Day Weekend of 2008.
– I’d like to check out a rock concert that my friend Casey is putting on.
– It’s Jubilee, Horizons Fall, and Manic Drive.
– Manic Drive headlined that concert of January 20TH 2007 that started it all.
– The next morning I went to church for the first time in over 30 years.
– I hope that I can make it over there.
– Don’t forget that tomorrow night is Disco night here at Studio C.M.D.
– Grab your lava lamps and bring the fondue so that we can kick it like it’s 1979 !
– You won’t regret it pal !
– Until then – check this out !