Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Heart surgery., marathon, running, Toronto Marathon
A month ago I decided to enter the Toronto Marathon which will happen on October 19, 2008 and I thought to myself no problem.
Well, now a month has passed and I have yet to begin to walk yet alone run. We have a treadmill in the basement that is gathering dust even as I think about it. I know I need to start to move and I am hoping that I will blog about the experience.
This is not some whim or dare…there is nothing prompting or having something to prove this is the really just one of the many things on my list of things to do. I am not overtly overweight as I currently weigh 178 and my goal weight is 155-165 and I recognize that training will achieve that. Losing weight is just an added incentive to achieving my goal.
A year ago, I weighed my heaviest at 195 and I have attached a photo to start to track my progress.
This is me about 10 years ago, I am first on the left. Oh and so you know I am not hoping to look like that again I don’t think it’s possible…:)
Some needed background…
When I was eighteen, I found out that I had a heart problem and had to have heart surgery. It was for a birth defect, called Coarctation of the Aorta (narrowing in the aorta) it was pretty bad as the normal procedure was not done and I had a dacron graft placed in my aorta after the narrowing had been removed. As you can tell it went well or your reading a really strange kinda blog.
Since then, although I love to play games and sports, I played Lacrosse in HS, and Xcountry running in jr high. I have spent many more energies in the pursuit of music and on the path towards becoming a Pastor. A job that I absolutely love.
I am challenging myself to run this race to get myself fit and to accomplish a goal. I have become a finisher in my latter years, as I was growing up I was constantly told that I could not and as such I did not. I don’t like being in a state of being unfinished, but I can finish other stuff as I go.
That’s all for now I begin my training tomorrow I will post after my first session. This blog will be an accountability to the race that I am running.
Cheers,
Andrew
Filed under: New Years Eve
As I sit down to reenter the blogging world, I find myself perplexed at the adage of a new year. Is it really a new year in the existence of a new chapter in your life. I guess it is to those who measure your life in the boundaries of time. On Friday I turn 32 and I guess it is significant as I will have completed another year. I personally like to think of a new chapter as something different or something significant has been accomplished, for example a new job. For those who are in the process of having a baby, the new year may be the year that the baby is born in but that journey started with a romance of some sort to the point on the road at which you are today.
Too often we make the new year’s eve a celebration as woohoo we made it, and then when the new day dawns we are in the same mess or situation we were yesterday. Life goes on whether we like or not. However we can find strength in the respites that the pauses give us and to me that is what new years is about a moment to catch a breathe to face a new day no matter how daunting it is.
Did you make a resolution this year? if you did great? if you didn’t than I don’t feel so bad. My hope for you is that you take time to look at your life, look for the things you would like to accomplish and begin your climb. Maybe next new year’s eve you will be at the top of a mountain instead of dreaming of one.
Cheers and Happy New Year
Andrew
Well… it has been a wee while since my last post and the main reason is that I have been just a wee bit busy. I have been working like crazy on the house and at work. Ministry keeps me busy as well. Also toss in a few weekend courses and a wedding and what do you
get= no new blogs not that I think anybody actually reads this. I guess it’s for my own posterity. It has been a fun few months, with all the things going on, but I still squeezed time to watch some movies and the spring tv sweeps.
I thought I would play catch up with various items…including summer blockbuster season.
Let me start off by letting you know that I have to say that Disturbia is probably close to my favorite movie so far this summer…yes even beating Spider-man 3 (I am not that much of a fan that it overrules my sense of respect for story.) Pirates of the Carribean: At Worlds End is great and although it has been panned by critics I do believe that it deserves to be rewatched as a trilogy as they have paid a great honor to Walt Disney in taking a theme park attraction and making it into one of the most compelling stories of the decade. Reviews of Shrek 3 and POTC: At Worlds End will be posted soon.
Grey’s Anatomy
I think that Grey’s Anatomy ended exactly where it needed to… so that it can keep things fresh and new. (The Meredith drowning was a close call for jumping the Shark.)
Lost
Why is that on Lost they are so busy trying to redeem the bad guys (the others) that they can’t make one of their own (the losties) a traitor or that they knew all along…that would have been a much better change than adding flash forwards, although it can be intriguing to see where although it may end up getting them stuck in a corner. It did kind of echo the end of Alias season 2 with the whole Sydney disappearing act for 2 years.
24
It appeared as if the latest worst day for Jack Bauer became a cake walk. What started out as a bang ended with a whimper. After the first 4 hours when they set off the nuke in LA I thought for sure the writers amped it up and had great plans, but they ended up wasting characters…Curtis Manning and the guy Alexander Siddig played. They kept on having characters change motivations on a dime. I wondered if they were making it up as they went along and after an amazing day 5, day 4 just fell flat.
Jericho
I have to mention Jericho for a moment because, when the show started I gave it a shot and at first I was not very interested but I continued to give it time. The end result…when the second half odd the season started I was enthralled the story lines were compelling and excited when the last scene was a pending standoff between two competing towns struggling to survive in the new new west. The show is a glorified western and now I am ticked as the CBS has decided to pull it from the network for next fall. So we may never see the outcome of the battle and the solution to the puzzling event that led them there. I say maybe because if you don’t know the viewers have staged one of the biggest protests ever made to public broadcasting and CBS is now trying to come up with ways to bring this top notch show the conclusion it deserves.
Filed under: gumby
just check it out tell me what you think!!!
Filed under: Uncategorized
I just reread the post I wrote last night after two overnight shifts with no sleep what was I thinking. Some funny grammar and not totally coherent thoughts, the gist of what I was thinking is there so I’ll leave it as is.
Filed under: Uncategorized
It seems that as you get older the harder it is to keep track of old friends. I find that it is easier sometimes to have the excuse, I have been so busy. I apologize if you are one of those that are close that I have neglected. Now do not get me wrong I have actually been insanely busy this past year, going to school and working full time yes 75+hrs weeks were common until late fall. However there have been times where it was easier to be busy.
The strange thing is now that I have a full time job I still am having trouble not working too much. Between church responsibilities the once a week Dominos Driving that I do. at the end of which I have others demanding my time and I am incapable to give that to them.
I used to think that I was a good friend, but even the best of friends have their differences. There is investments to be made in those around us, the people that are chosen for us and for the people that we choose to get to know. My credit is low and I need to reconnect and enjoy fellowship and community.
It is my mission over the next few weeks to reconnect with as many friends as possible. The challenge is daunting I will update in a few days as I process this cool venture.
Filed under: Uncategorized
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility!!!
One of the biggest moral conundrums comes from the reality that many people in this world see the atrocities and horrors of the world and do nothing. I have always struggled to see how we fool ourselves into believing that someone else is better to handle the situation at hand. Often we will say as we drive by a stranded motorist “somebody else will stop”, that is such a cop out. The truth is that we cant be bothered to get involved in the lives of others.
Even the way we give money is offkilter as we send money away from ourselves to aid some agency who is working on behalf of us. Now before the stones come out, let me say that we should continue to give to those agency. However let us realize that when we donate in that fashion we are removing the responsibilty from ourselves and the hassles that getting involved entail.
Peter Parker chooses to be Spiderman not because he has abilities that are extraordinary, he chooses that life because he is extraordinary. The archetype that is presented in him is that we need to live our lives in response to the world and not to be living our life according to our need.
On the flip side there are those who live the life of hero, because they need to, so that they feel whole…that is very unhealthy. Everyone has a unique attribute or gift that seperated them from the pack. It is with that gift we are able to give aid to those who live around us.
What is your power and what responsibility comes from it?
Paul L. Maier is a renowned professor for History related to the Bible and this is his posted response to The Tomb of Jesus! Check it out.
Paul L. Maier, Ph.D., Litt.D
Department of History
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo, MI 49008February 25, 2007
Dear Friends and Readers,
Thanks for the profusion of e-mails I’ve received over the last two days regarding the Talpiot tombs discovery in Jerusalem, a.k.a., “the Jesus Family Tomb” story. Some of you also suggested that “life seemed to be following art” so far as my A Skeleton in God’s Closet was concerned. Believe me, this is not the way I wanted my novel to hit the visual media!
Alas, this whole affair is just the latest in the long-running media attack on the historical Jesus, which – we thought – had culminated in that book of lies, The Da Vinci Code. But no: the caricatures of Christ continue.
Please, lose no sleep over the Talpiot “discoveries” for the following reasons, and here are the facts:.
1) Nothing is new here: scholars have known about the ossuaries ever since March of 1980. The general public learned when the BBC filmed a documentary on them in 1996. James Tabor’s book, The Jesus Dynasty, also made a big fuss over the Talpiot tombs more recently, and now James Cameron (The Titanic) and Simcha Jacobovici have climbed aboard the sensationalist bandwagon as well. He
2) All the names – Yeshua, Joseph, Maria, Mariamene, Matia, Judah, and Jose – are extremely frequent Jewish names for that time and place, and thus most schol-ars consider this merely coincidental, as they did from the start. One-quarter of Jewish women at that time, for example, were named Maria.
3) There is no reason whatever to equate “Mary Magdalene” with “Mariamene,”
as Jacobovici claims.4) So what if her DNA is different from that of “Yeshua” ? That particular :Mariamme” (as it is usually spelled today) could indeed have been the wife of that particular “Yeshua.”
5) What in the world is the “Jesus Family” doing, having a burial plot in Jerusalem, of all places, the very city that crucified Jesus? Galilee was their home. In Galilee they could have had such a family plot, not Judea. Besides all of which, church tradition – and Eusebius – are unanimous in reporting that Mary died in Ephesus, where the apostle John, faithful to his commission from Jesus on the cross, had accompanied Mary.
6) If this were Jesus’ family burial, what is Matthew doing there – if indeed “Ma-tia” is thus to be translated?
7) How come there is no tradition whatever – Christian, Jewish, or secular — that any part of the Holy Family was buried at Jerusalem?
Please note the extreme bias of the director and narrator, Simcha Jacobovici. The man is an Indiana-Jones-wannabe, who oversensationalizes anything he touches. You may have caught him on his TV special regarding The Exodus, in which the man “explained” just everything that still needed proving or explaining in the Exodus account in the Old Testament! It finally became ludicrous, and now he’s doing it again. – As for James Cameron, how do you follow The Titanic? Well, with an even more “titanic” story. He should have known better.
There are more arguments, to be sure, but I want to get this off pronto.
With warm regards,
Paul L. Maier
Filed under: Uncategorized
This brings back so many memories, How many do you know? I know them all maybe thats not good!
Filed under: Uncategorized
A few years ago a bunch of friends and I were in a band…a pretty good one…and we had been asked to come to a youth group event and the youth pastor wanted a name so he could promote us properly…we had never had a name before and struggled with coming up with one.
One night I stumbled upon this word…o.k. the truth is I was looking at a thesaurus looking for cool names…but the word struck a chord internally with me. The main definition for evenfall is The time of day immediately following sunset. For me that is an awesome time of the day, the world seems to stop sometimes as it shifts and adjusts its focus from day to night and the first thing that we do whether we realize it or not look for reference points so that we do not lose our way.
I would like to think that this blog could serve as a reference point in the darkness. I am always open to questions about my faith and challenges are welcomed. Evenfall…the world enters into night.
The band name by the way…which was used only a few times as it was our last year in college and we all went on to bigger and better things…was evenfall3. The three being significant of our faith and belief in the trinity makeup of God…a whole other discussion for another post.
