– As I begin these ‘Mini Thoughts’ it’s 1:38 PM CDT on a Friday afternoon.
– That makes this a delayed edition of the ‘Thursday Night Mini Thoughts’.
– I’m at my brother’s and sister’s-in-law home in dark and stormy North Texas.
– Showers and thunderstorms are slowly moving their way through the region.
– I’m just hoping that the power stays on as these heavy storms move through.
– Winds are occasionally gusting up to 40 MPH.
– It’s a good day to stay cool and dry inside.
– It’s a good day to play a competitive game of Scrabble and maybe some Uno.
– Uno is a longtime tradition with me and my brother dating back some 25 years.
– We may be playing a lot of Scrabble and Uno during this rainy weekend.
– The inclement weather is expected to continue for the duration of my visit.
– If I remember correctly it was like this last May when I visited here.
– May seems like the mini rainy season for North Texas.
– That’s fine, for when I return in July I’ll be able to experience sweltering heat.
– Speaking of sweltering heat – and a nice segue way …
– My flight out of Miami yesterday afternoon was more than 2 hours late.
– It actually arrived in Miami more than an hour late.
– We finally lifted up into the air at 5:25 PM EDT.
– That’s 2 hours and 20 minutes past the scheduled departure time.
– It was a smooth flight towards the northwest at 40,000 feet.
– It was in a Boeing 777.
– It was perhaps the nicest and most modern plane that I’ve ever flown in.
– I even sat in business class – no extra charge.
– I’ve never enjoyed as much arm room and leg room in any previous flight.
– It was a special and unexpected treat.
– The original 757 that was supposed to fly was replaced by this 777.
– I’m all for sudden replacements in aircraft when they are upgrades.
– We touched down at Dallas-Fort Worth at 6:53 PM CDT – nearly 2 hours late.
– It took a full hour – YES – 60 minutes – to eventually get to our gate.
– So my 5 PM arrival turned out to be an 8 PM arrival.
– That’s when I finally met my 23-day-old niece Taylor Lesley Day.
– She is as gorgeous in person as she is in pictures.
– Have you seen the latest pictures over on my Twitter account ?
– I hope that she loves me as her lovable uncle forever.
– We picked up a large Domino’s Pizza and ate it at home.
– I was so exhausted after about 11 hours of travel time.
– I actually slept pretty good last night on a foreign bed.
– This morning I woke up nice and refreshed.
– For Lunch today we picked up burgers and fries at Whataburger.
– There’s about three dozen Whataburgers in Florida – all in the panhandle.
– I don’t know what’s for Dinner yet, but I’m hoping that it’s MASSIVE.
– I came to Texas to spend quality time with my family – and of course EAT !
– My brother said that they give extensive tours of Dallas Cowboys Stadium.
– We may try to do that on Monday before they take me back to the airport.
– I’ll be back at home late on Monday night.
– Tomorrow night I’ve got another edition of my ‘Saturday Night Retro’.
– I’ll be remembering one of the greatest years of my previous life – 1987.
– On Sunday I hope you’ll join me for ‘My Fantastic Journey’.
– I’ll be featuring a local homegrown (Dallas Texas) Christian Rock band.
– Those are my ‘Thursday Night Mini Thoughts’ for now – one day late.
– Better late than not at all.
– Be sure to follow me on Twitter, and stay tuned as the blogging continues.
– You won’t regret it pal.
Category: Music
This week on the ‘Retro’ I’m taking us back 38 years ago to 1972. Many of you reading this weren’t even alive back then, but I was an active 5-year-old kid roaming around my new Bowie Maryland house and yard off Peach Walker Drive. I can actually see our old family house and neighbourhood today on Google Street View. It looks like a 40-year-old neighbourhood. I could fly to Washington D.C., drive to my old ‘hood in Bowie, walk up to my old house, knock on my old front door, and introduce myself as the guy that lived in that house as a little boy 35 to 38 years ago – and it would be the eeriest thing that I’ve ever done. You always hear of older people doing that – returning back to a home that they grew up in some 40 or 50 or 60 years ago – but a 43-year-old ? 38 years ago seems like such an eternity for me. I can’t believe that I’m now two generations old. I don’t feel old, but numbers don’t lie.
All we’ve got is the uncertainties of the future and the memories of the past. No matter how far we’ve come. No matter how much time has passed. We should never forget where we came from. We should never forget what we once were.
In 1972 I liked to play with my German Shepherd ‘Brandy’ out in the backyard. He loved to run. I loved to chase him. I just wished that he would stop digging holes underneath the fence and escaping into the outside world around him !
On WWDC AM-1260 (before FM radio hit it big) Raspberries were near the top of the pop charts with back-to-back hits. You may not remember the name of the band, but how about its lead singer – the legendary Eric Carmen – who enjoyed a late-1980s comeback courtesy of the “Dirty Dancing Soundtrack”. Here he is leading his band back then with two rockin’ hits – “Go All The Way” and “I Wanna Be With You”. Let’s Rock the ‘Retro’ !
This morning at Life Pointe Church we kicked-off a 16-week message series on the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians.
We worship a Triune God – that is – a ‘3-in-1’ God, for He is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We serve the will of God the Father. We are redeemed by the sacrifice of God the Son. We are empowered by God the Holy Spirit. THAT is who God is. The all-powerful God. The unlimited God !
He is the God that pulled me out of the darkness during the Summer of 2006. He led me into the daylight. He told me to follow Him – and trust Him. I did that. When the world used me, rejected me, and then threw me aside God picked me up and rescued me. He ended my previous sad and miserable life as I knew it. He led me to this new Life – this ‘Fantastic Journey’. He can do the same for you. If you follow. If you trust.
Don’t ask my love. Where is it that your peace comes from ? I found it in a disappearing world. I found it in the beauty of the world. I found it in a disappearing world. It’s in the lyrics:
This week on the ‘Retro’ I’m remembering the Summer of 2005. It’s a Summer in which I was generally not a happy person. I was miserable at my workplace at the time, and I dreaded each new work day. I didn’t like my job, and I didn’t like the people that I worked with. I was full of hatred. Life away from work wasn’t much happier either. I had very few friends, and little to no social life. I had a cat that was showing significant signs of dying. My life was dying. It was a forgettable summer. I wondered why I even existed at the time.
I can think of two reasons why I managed to stay stable enough to not do anything dreadful – my cat Boots at home and my brother Danny over a thousand miles away. Boots totally depended on me. He carried my personality in a feline body. If I had gone away forever he would have died as well. My brother Danny is my best friend in the entire world. He’s known me longer than anyone else (aside from other family members), and he knows more about me than anyone else. He is the funniest person that I know, and he knows what makes us laugh out loud. If I had done something regrettable during that lost summer then he would have been devastated for the rest of his life. Luckily that summer was not the end for me. The following summer (of 2006) was the end for me – and the start of something brand new and miraculous – a rebirthing.
Back during that Summer of 2005 this song captured my mood, my feelings, and my life at the time. It’s in the lyrics – but it was not a ‘Fantastic Journey’.
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