One sign Spring is here...

Fired up the grill for the first time in a while tonight. Great weather, great steak, and Joy made a great salad to go with it...who could ask for more?

Question: How Much Does a House Weigh?

Answer: More than a rural two lane bridge.

Question: Now what do we do?
Answer: House for Sale Beautiful view overlooking stream. Good roads to house.

Why do cars hit motorcycles?

I didn't see it the first time. Did you?

via: boortz

Tornado Photo

An absolutely amazing photo of the tornado that hit downtown Atlanta last Friday night. You can see the funnel cloud just to the right of the Bank of America Building on the left hand side of the photo. The area in the middle of the photo is the debris cloud in the area of the Georgia Dome and World Congress Center.

Who All Seen The Leprachaun, Say YEAH!

This is a couple of years old, but absolutely for real...

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

SSCC Grand Opening

The other thing Joy and I did this weekend while we were in south Georgia was to drive down to St. Simons for the first services at St. Simons Community Church, my recently completed project. I was amazed at how much work the church has done since we finished our work in December, creating themed environments for the children and youth.

From what I heard from the folks we worked with down there, the crowds on this first Sunday exceeded expectations to the point that there was serious concern between services as to where people were going to park and go. I'm sure that there were a lot of 1-timers visiting just to see the place, but the church was ALIVE! It was great to see the excitement on the faces of people in their new home and to have had just a small part in building it.

But I was especially pleased to hear a repeated theme that these are just buildings, and that the church's focus and purpose is centered not on the buildings but on Jesus Christ. Without Him, the rest is meaningless. This isn't a wealthy church that built a really cool building...it is a church family focused on Jesus Christ and reaching their community with His Gospel. It truly was a privilege to work with such a group of genuinely authentic people.

These are just a few photos that don't do the church justice (click on any of the pictures for the full sized picture)...

From the outside. The ginormous oak trees on this property are incredible, and the building fit into the local architecture beautifully.

This is the Sanctuary, clearing out after the 11:00 AM service that was packed full. In fact, both services were standing room only.

Just one side of the "Wherehouse," which is the room for middle and high school students. The theme in this room is of a city rooftop.

Tiny Town...the preschool area. Around this central gathering room are smaller classrooms, and each classroom had a different theme on the outside like "Noah's Pets," "Samson's Barber Shop," and "Paul's Outdoors." Amazing. Much of this themed work was done by church member volunteers.

This was one of my favorite things...a piggy bank for children to put money into (through the pig's snout). All of the money given to the pig goes to missions.

Fred McKinnon is the worship leader at St. Simons Community Church. His blog post about the first Sunday is here, and he's promised to put up some photos soon. Another SSCC staffer, Chris Moncus, was photographing the activities Sunday, as well, so check these blogs for more (better) photos. And if you find yourself on St. Simons Island one weekend, be sure to visit.

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!

Today is a special day. Yes...it is Joy's birthday.

Twenty-six years ago, God brought Joy into this world. Three-and-half-years ago, He brought her into mine. I wouldn't trade a day of that time for anything.

Happy Birthday, babe. I love you!

Cultural Experience - Claxton-style

In the fall of '06, on a weekend trip to the mountains with our friends the Droddy's, the Platt's and the Houseworth's we came across a true southern cultural experience. We went and saw some North Georgia Wrestling at a local high school, and it was AWESOME. I wasn't sure it could ever get much better than that until this weekend...

So we're sitting around Joy's parents' house in Claxton Saturday evening, having just celebrated our birthdays with the family, when the phone rings. It's a family friend from the church who simply says, "I'm on the way over to pick you up. We're going to the tractor pull." Well...who can say "no" to that?

Fifteen minutes later we (me, Blair and Joy's dad) were literally right across the highway from where they live in the midst of Claxton's Saturday night tractor pull! There were trucks backed up to the track like a Saturday afternoon tailgate, and there must have been at least 500 people there watching the pull.

Apparently there are several "classes" for pulling competitions based on the weight of the vehicle and its street-legality. Most of what we saw were actually trucks of various sizes pulling the sled, but we did get to see a couple of big tractors pull, as well, as the following video will testify...

It may sound like I'm making fun of the tractor pull, but it was actually a lot of fun. It wasn't nearly as redneck as that North Georgia wrestling was. And if we were going to be back down there next Saturday night I'm pretty sure we'd go see the mud bogging that's on the schedule!

Oh yeah...like I said, we celebrated our birthdays this weekend, too. Joy got a simple yellow cake, and I got banana pudding. Mmmmm.....

So...who can top our weekend?

Someone's got a birthday coming up...

I'm not sayin'.

I'm just sayin'...

Not that you asked, or anything...

Friday Afternoon Humor

Joy will get mad at me for posting this, much like she did when I posted the wedding dance, but it is too funny not to share on a rainy Friday afternoon. A Bud Light commercial slated to air during the Super Bowl, but determined to be too "controversial." Don't worry...its nothing racy...just a little potty humor!

Adventures in Quilting

No, she didn't make it herself, but as a gift for me she had it made. It is a quilt/blanket that is made up of some of my old Georgia Tech and Fraternity t-shirts that were otherwise just taking up space in a box in the attic. We were going to do it with my Peachtree Road Race t-shirts, but I don't quite have enough, yet.

I think it is pretty darn cool...how about you?

Sick Week

I have been at home sick this week. I haven't been sick like this in a very long time, so it has really been an unusual week. I had some version of the flu, but I am feeling much better today. Georgie & I have spent a lot of quality time together, but I think he is really ready for me to go back to work. I keep finding him in his crate! He needs his naps.

It sure got crowded in here all of a sudden!

There is a phenomenon in the blogosphere known as an "Instalanche." The term originated as a reference to a tremendous spike (an avalanche) in traffic on a person's blog after having a post linked by the popular news/current events blog Instapundit. Today, I'm creating a new term...the Ragalanche. Here's the chart of our simple little blog's traffic over the last 30 days, including yesterday, when my bud Carlos linked to my post about babysitting his kid last week from his blog, Ragamuffin Soul...

See what I mean? Thanks for the traffic, Los...and if any of you 350+ visitors are still around, thank you, too! Hope you enjoyed that post and any others you might have read. Come on back anytime!

The Great Outdoors

Scott & I enjoyed some time away this weekend. I was out of school on Friday, so he surprised me and took the day off. We went down to Callaway Gardens and enjoyed the outdoors. We rode our bikes, ate some good food, and rested.



The weather was beautiful!




Scott built a fire in our cabin, which we really enjoyed.

Adventures in Babysitting

So while Carlos and Heather are over in Uganda, my sister Stacy is keeping Losiah. She's got some help with Emily and Erin, but this past Monday night when Stacy and Joy went to their Bible Study, guess who got to watch after Losiah? Yeah...it's been awhile since I've done this on my own, and needless to say it didn't start out too promising...

Luckily, despite being a Whittaker, Losiah is about as even-keeled a kid as you could ask for. Those tears up there lasted a total of about five seconds, and then we were best buds for life...

By the end of my two hours, Losiah was even rocking out to some Guitar Hero on the Wii! Kids got some mad skills, just like his dad.

All in all, it was a fun night...and I get to do it again this Monday night. Maybe we'll see how he does with some Super Mario Galaxy this week...

By the way...if you haven't been reading Carlos and Heather's reports from Uganda, you're missing out. Click on their links above or in the blogroll to the right and get caught up...immediately.