almost a redneck......

I was this close (I am holding my fingers really close together, but you can't see that) to buying an old, peice of crap pickup yesterday to just "putter around in". For a majority of my driving carrer I have owned a pickup in which I could do work around town in. Yet since I have gotten the ol' 4-Runner, I have missed the truck bed. So, I don't want to get rid of the 4-runner because it is such a good car. So, I saw an old, '74 Ford pickup at a junk car lot here in town for $500 bucks. Not bad, eh? I test drove the truck around town a few days ago. Now, mind you, I know NOTHING about cars or how to work on them or if they are lemons. As I test drove this truck it died three or four times as I decelerated. Yet I maintained my optimism. "I am sure it wouldn't be too much to fix that!" I thought. So I took it back to my mechanic to check it out. Thankfully he is a gentle man and didn't tell me what a moron I was for even looking at this truck. He pretty much told me it would take more that I paid for it just to pass inspection. He also pointed out the huge hole in the exaust. That is when I realized that I tasted fumes in my mouth from driving it there. I guess that is why God made mechanics. Too keep Chris from wasting $500!

It would have been cool to have an old pickup to just do stuff around town in. I don't know if that would make me an official red neck, but I am sure it would "fast-track" me. Hey, when in Rome...........whatever that means......


Chris

I have a great job

Tonight our youth group began a new series for our Wednesday nights. Our series is called "Mythbusters". Baisically we are busting myths about God and Christianity. While I know this can't be the only religiously slanted Mythbusters knockoff, it seems like it is going to be a lot of fun. I love the show on Discovery channel because I am a bit of a nerd at heart (okay, a lot of a nerd at heart). I love to see people who know what they are doing use their brains to solve problems, then blow stuff up. A recent episode featured the now famous "Mentos and Diet Coke" experiment. If you don't know already, what you do is take a 2 liter bottle of diet coke and stick a bunch of mentos down into it. What will you get? A tall fountain of aspertame filled goodness coming out of the bottle!

But there is a funny thing about Vernon, Texas. Sometimes you can't find things that you would normally find anywhere else.......like MENTOS! I looked everywhere I could in Vernon (thats like four places total) and I couldn't find mentos. So I had to improvise. I had to use this experiement in my lesson tonight! So I bought various candies that I thought would work. You know what worked the best? Crushed up mint lifesavers! They seem to work just as well as the Mentos.

So I bought 25 bottles of 2 liter diet coke. I crushed my lifesavers. Time for the show. I had our kids walk over to my house (I live across the parking lot from the church) and get set up. I had our volunteers wear plastic panchos and eye-goggles. They really didn't have to do that but I thought I thought it looked funny. We had different contests to see how high we could squirt the foam. I think we got to about 15 feet! It was really fun.

We tied the lesson to the myth that we are alone in this world and that by realizing the value of being together with God and his people would make some amazing things happen (hence the fountain of diet coke). You (mentos) and God (diet coke) make something really cool.

It's a weak analogy, but hey, I am a youth minister and I have the best job in the world.

Chris

By the way.........check out this video..........it takes the mentos and diet coke thing to a new level!