Shout Outs!!

Just wanted to post some shout-outs to some great friends and loyal readers of our blog.

One goes out to Kari and Danita - great house ladies! We had an awesome time at your open house and it was great to see some old friends.

Second one goes out to our ninja friend Laura L. - you know who you are. Mom keeps me posted on you, thanks for reading our blog and for your prayers!

Third one goes out Am. Just b/c you rock and I miss you. Post another entry girl, we want to know how you're doing!

Man Laws

These are laws of life that most men inherently know. If these laws are broken, awkwardness always follows.

- When two or more men go to a movie there must be a buffer seat in between them. The only exception is when the theater is packed or at least one woman is present. (The woman then needs to sit between the men.)
- When watching football on TV, a man must cheer for the team for which his friend is cheering. (This is especially important when the friend is hosting the game. You do not want to run the risk of never being invited back because you cheered against his team when they were losing badly.) The exception is when his team is playing your team or if his team is a division rival to your team.
- If a man enters an empty restroom and there are three urinals, it is never okay to use the middle one. One of the two side urinals must be used, but not the short one. If a man is already at the middle one, the man entering the bathroom must use the stall. If the stall is in use, the man must pretend to use the mirror until the urinal is free. Only when the bathroom is busy is it okay to use a urinal that is next to an occupied one.
- It is perfectly normal for two men to play an hour long round of disc golf and talk only about that round of disc golf the entire time.

Feel free to leave comments on these Man Laws or let me know if I have missed any.

Movie Review: Flags of Our Fathers

I (Tim) love movies about World War II. The men who fought in that war were ordinary men who knew that if the United States did not defeat Japan and Germany, it would be the next to fall to the Axis powers. War movies can be great (The Great Escape, Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers) when they take an interesting story and make you care about the characters. They can be mediocre (Windtalkers, Pearl Harbor) when they take an interesting story, but tell it poorly with characters that are too shallow or just unrealistic. Finally, they can be awful (The Thin Red Line) when there is an incoherent story with characters that have no meaning to the viewer.

Flags of our Fathers, a new movie directed by Clint Eastwood, seemed like a can’t-miss to me. The American invasion of Iwo Jima and the famous picture of six marines raising a flag after taking the mountain is a fascinating story. (I have that picture on my wall.) The main problems I have with this movie are that the characters were not totally fleshed out, the story felt incomplete, and the directing seemed choppy. I had a hard time truly feeling for the characters, which is odd since Eastwood’s Mystic River did such a good job of fleshing out those characters. Aside from the main three Marines, the other characters were not developed at all, which is essential for this type of film. When a soldier was killed in battle, I had made no connection with that character and thus the emotional impact was lessened. Next, the scenes depicting the fight for the island (especially the scenes with the ship and aircraft bombardments) were great, but we never understood the full picture of what was happening. We saw the start of the battle and a few glimpses as the battle continued, but we never found out what happened later. Finally, the directing was hit and miss. The constant flashbacks were distracting and made it hard to follow the story. Also, there were scenes where the son of one of the Marines was interviewing survivors, but we never knew who they were and if we had seen them earlier. In all, the whole film felt like an unfinished story.

To be fair, I must say that the acting was solid and the film looked great. Also, Eastwood is making a follow up film to this movie called Letters from Iwo Jima, which is from the Japanese perspective. Perhaps that film will fill in some of the holes that Flags of our Fathers left. Overall, this is not a bad film, but I expected it to be much better. I guess I have a high standard for WWII films.

What Tim is thinking about today

-My Sweet Baboo is feeling better today. It tears me up inside to see Heidi in pain. Thanks for praying for her.

-Last night’s episode of Lost was interesting. Poor Locke is not a good judge of people. I did like the way that he was taking charge of his mistakes and making things right.

-The much loved Denver Broncos need to find their Offense soon. The Defense cannot win every game for them. Sunday’s game against the Cleveland Browns should provide an opportunity to get on track. It would be fun to see Plummer connect on some throws this time. (I won’t get to see it, so he’ll probably have the game of his life.)

-That awful stench is not just the Oakland Raiders, but also my fantasy football teams. I am either dead last or next to last in 3 leagues. The only league I am doing well in is the one nobody cares about. I guess you cannot always get by on your looks.

Update

I have a praise report and a prayer request.

For about two weeks, I was almost completely pain free!! No major headaches!!! Praise the Lord, it was a tremendous experience to have no pain for so long.

Prayer request: As of Monday, these headaches have returned with a vengeance. I am a little discouraged, but doing ok overall. Just in a lot of pain. Please pray for me! I have faith for healing and I know this victory is the Lord's.

White and Nerdy

One of the funniest things I (Tim) have seen in a long time is Weird Al’s new video, “White and Nerdy”. Paste in this link and enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xEzGIuY7kw I have to admit that it gives me flashbacks to my years at Aurora Central High School.

The Broncos pulled out a win last night in a closely contested defensive battle on Monday Night Football. The offense needs work, but the defense is amazing. Plummer should get back on track next Sunday against the hapless Raider defense. Few things bring joy to my heart like seeing the Broncos give a beat down to the Raiders. Sunday should be fun.

The prayer time for Patrick on Sunday night was good. I feel like something amazing is on the verge of happening. God likes to blow our minds.

Tomorrow marks the three year anniversary of the blind date where Heidi and I met. Best three years of my life. Chris, I owe you big time.

Tim's thoughts on a sunny October day

- Heidi and I finished Season 2 of Lost on Sunday night. Wow. What an entertaining show. We watched the premier of Season 3 on Wednesday night and were treated to another mind boggling revelation about the island. Might as well face it, we’re addicted to Lost.
- Our fundraising process is off to a good start. We have a couple more meetings this weekend. It is a good excuse to get together with friends.
- Patrick Showers is my hero. Sunday will be one year since his accident. He has shown tremendous grace and strength in this process. Few people would handle something like this as well as he has.
- I pulled out my old Guardian “Fire and Love” CD the other day. What a great disc. Old school heavy metal rules.
- We got to hang out some more Mission: Moving Mountain missionaries this week. The Ketchums were at our house on Monday night and we met Andy Emmert (spell?) for Chipotle last night. Both of us always comment on how cool everyone from MMM is every time we meet someone new. All the missionaries to Senegal that we have met are amazing people.

More pictures

ok, these pictures are a little out of order, but that's ok. the day before our conference/training began, we did some sightseeing in Colorado Springs. Here's the kissing camels at Garden of the Gods. That place is SO beautiful!

Later that night I got to visit with my dear friend Brenda (Bunny!!!) who I know from my time in West Africa with YWAM. I only got to see her for 45 minutes but it was wonderful to give her a hug. She was in CO Springs for one night and we were able to connect!

The day before we headed to the Springs we hung out with more friends from Tim's youth. This is Jess and Kristi's darling little boy Bohden with his mini recliner and mini dvd player. everything mini - I love it!!

this is us right outside Garden of the God's. The kissing camels and Pike's Peak are behind us and the Navigators campus is a little ways off to the right...I think.

Tim is the gardens

Pictures from Colorado

Our first night in Colorado we had the priviledge of hanging out with our good friends Kyle and Mandy on lookout mountain, it overlooks Golden, CO

The four of us

mandy and me

mandy and kyle
after hiking around a bit we had a great dinner in Golden. It was really great to see them.
thanks for making the drive you guys!!

the next night we met some of Tim's friends from youth group for dinner at Chili's. here's a picture of the guys.

Belated pictures

Quite some time ago we took a little trip to Red Wing, MN but we never posted the pictures. So here they are. It was a really fun weekend and we stayed at a GREAT state park. Red Wing is full of all these enormous shoes. Kinda weird.

Oops....didn't see the sign

Me enjoying my fave coffee in my fave French press. Good times. I love coffee. Especially around the camp fire.

Oh, this is also the trip where I scored this sweet ring at an antique mall.

A return to MN and a marathon

Heidi and I returned to MN on Saturday from our Colorado adventure. It was a time of great encouragement and fun. Every time I am in the Rocky Mountains, I am amazed by God’s creation. My parents were generous with us and hospitable and we appreciate it.

We are now in the process of inviting people to partner with us financially in our quest to get to Africa. The Navigators fundraising training was helpful and we have our first supporting church and a handful of individuals. We are excited and feel blessed already.

On Sunday I ran the Twin Cities Marathon. It was my fifth marathon and by far the hardest. The weather was unseasonably warm and I had dry heaves at mile 15 and cramped up around mile 19. The last 7 miles were awful. In all my years of running I have never had a side cramp like that. My time was around 4 hours and 4 minutes. I was disappointed, but still glad I did it. Heidi and The Candace cruised around and cheered for Eric Unger (who finished around 3 hours 38 minutes) and me. Heidi’s parents also came for the finish, which was great. I was very, very glad when it was over. It will be a while before I do another one.