Xbox Live Vision

I absolutely love the xbox 360. As I have said before I think it is a superior machine mostly because of what it CAN do. I have made it a mission to explore more options of the 360 as I have been able to get the money and afford it. Granted the usefulness of the 360 depends more on who actually has a 360.

My latest venture was xbox live vision. Essentially it is an accessory for the xbox (and can be used on the computer) that allows you to see others while video chatting and while you are playing some games. Its not a feature that a lot of games use, yet, but it seems to be a growing fad. Of course I only use it with people I know and not for others, I am a pretty private person.

I bought mine new but opened on ebay and it came with two games one being Uno. I like Uno, don't love it but like it. Its a fun game and one that I really enjoy through the 360. I tested the vision for the first time throughout that game. It was kind of neat to see people as they play. I can really see this being more useful for Poker games. I happened to tell a youth pastor friend of mine that I had gotten it, he asked me for my opinion on it. He happened to have some buddies who were thinking of purchasing the same product so he eventually bought it as well.

One day we were on together and played Uno to "test" out xbox vision again. This session had us two and two other boys who had to be in the Middle/High School range. My camera was unplugged so I was having trouble getting the camera plugged in as I was trying to play the game but that didn't stop the conversation happening on the screen. One particular boy was chatting to another and talking to us on occasion. Then out of the blue, seriously, I did not expect this at all, he asked the other boy if he wanted to see his girlfriends [explicit]. That is when I turned on my mic and said "NO" very aggressively (I was still trying to battle getting the camera plugged, I am sure I looked like a real idiot). His response was why not and still asked the question again to the other boy, the other boys response was sure and that is when I and my buddy left the table. We started our own game in which my first response was, "well that is the negative side of xbox vision".

This situation got me thinking about how life has changed so much. I would never dream of saying anything of this sort, and definitely not act it out. I am sure xbox vision was more for connecting people and not to be used in perverse ways. In some ways its a tragedy that these kinds of things happen. That this type of door has opened up in the world of teenagers. As a youth worker I find my mind surrounded by, "how do we approach this with the youth and with the parents of youth?"

My question is how do we approach technology? How do we teach students/parents the dangers and temptations of the advancing world through the internet? Is this an issue we (the Church) should even address? I am interested in your thoughts!!!

MY WIFE AND SON ARE COMING HOME!!!

I haven't blogged about this, I have been meaning to but have not really felt like blogging to much this past week. A week and 1 day ago I put my wife and son on a plane to visit her parents in Florida. I have only been at this current job for 1 year and haven't "earned" a week of vacation yet, (The concept of "earned" time off seems so backwards to me) so I was not able to go.

This week I have been batchin it pretty good. Because of current conditions my wife, son and I live with my parents. We have one wing of the house, they have the other. We share a kitchen, dining room, and living room. This week I have pretty much stayed on my side of the house. A typical day looked like this:

Get up go to work
Work all day
Come home
go straight to room
get dinner and head back to room
play xbox 360 and surf the internet

YES I KNOW...its pathetic but in reality my family is a big part of my life and I was a little lost without them this week. I did get to relax a little and caught up on some major sleep but I still missed them.

Sometimes I take for granted what I have and when its gone I feel the full effect of whats missing. So I have been a little depressed this weekend and a lot lonely. I am really excited about today though. I will be seeing them around 6:30, we are going to visit someone at a nursing home really quickly and spend time with my old coworker for dinner. It will be nice to catch up with EVERYONE.

To see a picture of what they did go here.

My Weekend

This weekend consisted of several things. I had to keep myself busy or I would have gone crazy. Friday I spent most of the night playing on the Xbox 360. It was a lot of fun, I took out some old games that I were collecting dust and tried them again. Games I played this weekend were:

Halo 3 (DUH!!)
Poker Smash (Trial Version)
Robotech (this games really sucks)
Uno w/ xbox live vision, which I will post more on later
Texas Hold Em' (Trial Version)
Gears of War

I like Gears of War but it is a lot different playing style than Halo. After playing several rounds I was getting beat like crazy. I started playing with some guys who were really good (or at least better than I) who finally saw that I was really bad at this game. They did something that brought back feelings I haven't felt since Middle School. They made fun of me and were real critical of how I was playing the game. They definitely did not try to help me. The feelings brought back times when I would get picked last or not picked at all to play a game. When I got picked it became a big joke.

I guess I have a hard time understanding that type of philosophy. If someone is not as good, lets call them names and make fun of them. I almost always try to help others understand the game, I am never easy on them but I try to help them understand the rules and controls as we play. It makes it much more fun because you are helping someone become competitive and thus creating a much more fun and balanced game. But what happened was I left the game and put in Halo again. I didn't like feeling that way and probably won't play Gears for a little while.

OK I am off my soap box...

On Saturday morning I went with the youth for an outing called DU or Destination Unknown. The "Unknown" places we went to was the new Champs, not to skate but to play Laser Tag. It was fun but not as fun as I use to remember, the real dissappointing feature was NO RUNNING, but we were not allowed to run at Laser Quest either.

The 2nd "Unknown" thing was Putt Putt golf at the Lexington Ice Center, where we found out that they are in Guinness as being the only Putt Putt golf place with all holes biblically themed. I really suck at that game but it was fun to hang out with the youth. After that we went home.

I also did some community service by playing some games with senior citizens this weekend. OK it was my parents and the Sutton's but they taught me this fun game called Chicken Foot. It's a domino game that is not to difficult to learn but takes a long time to play. We had good time with friends and it was nice to get myself away from the TV for a little while.

I also made a cornhole set of my friend Sarah. That has been a task (I have only made a small set previously). I am still not done but it is close to completion. I am not a 100% happy with it but for my first try I think it turned out pretty nice, hopefully Sarah thinks it did as well.

Without a wife and son I had to fend for myself for food and instead of going grocery shopping I decided that going out to eat was the best option. Here are the places I went:
Friday - New China (Elizabeth doesn't like Chinese food, my parents always eat at a different Chinese place)
Saturday - Qdoba - Chicken Burrito YUM.....
Sunday - Bella Pizza - Always a treat

Sunday morning we had special guests for the service called the Covenant Players. They were a drama team that travels around the country doing skits for different places. It was quite interesting and was nice to see what people were doing for ministry. This particular team was made up a family of three and have been traveling for 30+ years.

It was a good weekend but I am ready for Malachi and Elizabeth to be home. Even though they are probably not missing me, I miss them immensely.

Facing my own mortality

Its funny, in school I remember learning about invincibility that kids face. They do things without really thinking about the consequences because in their mind they can not get hurt or killed. Its something you are suppose to grow out of.



Some kids are absolutely fearless, they can do things and not give a second thought about what might happen. I was a little different growing up, I thought to much about consequences which has held me back on a couple of adventures.



Death is something we all think about. I have thought about it a lot lately. Not really that I was afraid I would die but more just thinking about what happens after you die. I know I will die but for some reason most of the time I have this invincibility complex that allows me to think that I will be fine. This complex keeps me from the Doctors for the most part.



Two years ago I had a physical so I could drive a school bus. In that physical they were checking for drugs in the system, but the strip they used also detected other things. The thing it detected was a little bit of blood in the urine. I was concerned but really didn't think to much of the situation and allowed my life to go on as planned.



Last Monday I had a problem with my throat and scheduled to see a Doctor but decided to make it a physical instead of an appointment. I told him about what went on 2 years ago, so he decided to check it out again along with some blood test. That Thursday the results came back with the same message, there was still blood in the urine. It suggested I go to a urologist for further testing. This was a scary situation, I really started to think about life. I thought something was really wrong for this "suggestion" to be in place.



My wife and I talked for the first time about death together. We talked about what we will do, what she should do. (I know that I had not had test and I was over thinking the situation but again the post is called Facing my own Mortality) We talked about my life and my calling!!! It was a scary conversation, I didn't sleep well. It was premature thought but since it was to late to contact any Doctors office there was no real easing of emotion.



The next day I scheduled an appointment with the urologist. (They said are you available for Tuesday, my response um...how about today) The urologist told me that in most cases, because of my age, there was nothing wrong, BUT there have been people tested positive for cancer in my age group, even though that result was small. He told me he wanted to do a procedure and a CT Scan. He told me I could do them next week, I decided to do the procedure that day.



I tried calling my wife and then my mother but could not get a hold of anyone. So I had the procedure done without anyone in the family knowing about it. It was the loneliness I have felt in a while. So the procedure was done (I will spare you details) and they found nothing in the bladder.



Tuesday I did the CT Scan and got the results yesterday. Nothing was in the kidneys...so I am good. No further testing is needed.



The whole experience, even though some might say I overreacted, brought me to realize my own mortality. The truth is we don't really know how long we are a part of this world. I have been reading about Saddleback's One Month to Live Series (I would be interested in seeing how it was done) and really tried to put that in perspective. What have I done with my life? What have I done for my family? For God? For Friends?



Those days of thinking about what could be happening, really allowed me to enjoy Malachi and Elizabeth a little more. It helped me appreciate my parents and siblings a little more. After this experience it makes me want to really make a difference, to be more involved in my calling, in what God has designed me for.

My day in New Albany

February 15, 2006 was the last day I spent in New Albany, IN as the youth pastor of the First Church of God. That was a sad day for me, I was leaving a place and church that I really loved. For 2 years I have thought about the people and especially the youth that were a part of my life while I was there. I had promised I would return to see them but because of one thing or another was not able to.

Yesterday, I was able to return. I drove down Veterans and was surprised to see new stores and got myself a little lost in the process. I finally made my way to New Albany and stopped by some of the people who meant a lot to me. I spent about 30 mins with each of them, we caught up, laughed, and said our goodbyes. I look forward to stopping by again sometime to see them again. They are saints and I am so thankful I have had the pleasure/honor to meet/befriend them.

After that I played basketball Ben and we got whooped (I only played like 7 mins though). Then we went to Tumbleweed and met Ashley, then called Jay and he came over to meet with us. Unfortunately that is all that came but people are busy and I can understand that.

We took a couple of hours and really caught up.

Side Note: Ben and I tried a buffalo burger from Tumbleweed and its was surprisingly dull. I think the service at Tumbleweed is good but can't say I care much for the food.

It was hard to go back. I always felt that I turned my back on them. I would have almost done anything to stay there. I look forward to the next time we can come to visit and be apart (for just a little while) their lives again.

Kicking out a whole youth group

A couple of weeks ago I was listening to the Simply Youth Ministry Podcast and the discussion came up about kicking out a student. Andy told of his recent experience of telling a youth that he had to home. On the chat room, stories started popping up about other youth pastors experiences.

I have told youth that they couldn't go on trips but had never really asked youth to leave. When I started at the First Church of God in IN, they had some discipline problems within the youth program. A lot of that had to do with organization but it was a problem none the less.

As time went on, the youth group got a little more tamed down. But discipline was still a problem. The first thing we did was split the groups to Junior High and Senior High. That helped because the Senior High was causing some problems because they didn't like being mixed with the Junior High. Some of the Senior High would come on Wednesday to help and that really helped discipline because a lot of the younger ones looked up to them.

As things cooled down some more junior high started coming and the discipline was out of hand again. After about 3 weeks of the lesson taking 4 times as long because I had to stop a hundred times, I had finally had it. The next week we played a game and came to sit down for the lesson. The Junior High was especially hyper and I couldn't even get a sentence out. They were just very loud and obnoxious. I had to yell to get their attention and when I did I went on a spill about how they like to come for games but don't want to take 15 mins to listen and finally said, "I should just stop youth right now and try again next week...I think that is what I am going to do!!!" I told them to go home and if they wanted to come back they needed to straighten up. So I kicked the whole youth group out. I told my Senior Pastor with some MAJOR disapproving looks. He was almost speechless. I felt, and still do, that I did the right thing. Of course you know that Pastor knows best.

The truth was the Junior High liked coming, they liked the socialization and it was a real sign that they did something wrong. I wasn't sure about this until the following day when I ran into some of the youth at Wendy's. They were with their grand parents and they stopped me and said, "I think these boys have something to tell you" and in unison the boys said they were sorry. I apologized for my actions, but was stopped by the grand parents saying that I had done the right thing and next time I had problems to call them.

The next week youth was full with the same kids and I had no problems. Problems came back but were never to that magnitude. After that point I found some of the "leaders" and started eating, and spending time with them. I got them on my side and they helped me with their examples.

Church League Softball

Last night I played on the coed softball team for our church. I played softball at the church I served in Indiana, but they were SERIOUS softball players. I would come early, talk with the team and sit the whole game on the bench. Even the youth would get more opportunity to play. Of course I am not a great softball player by any means but if I go to play a sport I like to play. I mean they wouldn't let me play if we almost had the mercy rule against the other team. So after a year of mistreatment I retired from softball.

I have been going to the church in Frankfort for about a year now and have played on thier basketball team. I decided that I would give softball another try. So out of retirement I have come with my first game yesterday. Again I sat in the dug out but after the 3rd inning I was put in. I got to bat, hoping for a home run and I swung at the first ball. I actually hit the ball and ran because I hit a short grounder. Somehow I was able to get to first base.

Next person up, got a hit and I ran to second. They threw the ball to get me out but somehow it fell a few feet short of me and for some reason I decided to run. As I was running I saw that the short stop and third baseman was halfway between 2nd and 3rd base so I knew if I could outrun them I would make it to 3rd...which I did.

The next batter was up and they hit the ball so I booked it to home for my first run. :)

Of course that was not enough for my friend John Dudinskie. He had to call me and harrass me for almost being beat by a girl at 1st base. If I would have hit a homerun he would have said something about that so I don't really listen to him anymore. :)

I had fun hanging out and actually getting the opportunity to play softball. I sometimes listen to the Bob and Tom show (when they get nasty I turn it) and the song below will sometimes play. I thought it was a clever a comedic song so I thought I would share it with you. There are a couple of minor foul words so if you get offended please don't listen.

Church League Softball Fistfight by Tim Wilson

Malachi's Obsessive Nature

Malachi is 3 going on 4 and I have had the privilege of observing him through these short years. There is one thing that sticks out, he obsesses over most everything and they usually deliver themselves from one thing to another. Not that is unusual for a child but with him its a little excessive I think. Unfortunately I don't know where it comes from...

The most recent one is his little Tigger. He got Tigger as his bed toy from "Santa Clause". He woke up with it at the foot of his bed, He liked it but because Christmas was so piled with presents that he didn't really hold to it for to long. Recently he has reconnected with his Tigger and has decided to take it most everywhere he goes.

Side Note: I LOVE it that he loves his Tigger, he has gotten into Spiderman and The Hulk but for some reason I am not ready for him to be involved with those toys. I guess I am having trouble letting go of his toddler years.

And we're back: He loves his Tigger so much that when he broke he took it to his Daycare so they could fix him. Yesterday was a tragic day. When bedtime came, he wanted his Tigger. Elizabeth and I could not remember when or where we saw Tigger last. We looked under the bed, in the pillows, through the room, in our room, my parents room, the living room, called the last restraunt we went together, and I was even prepared to go to church to see if it had got left there. We could not find Tigger and so Malachi had to go to bed without his favorite toy. (I think he took it quite well, much better than Elizabeth and I)

I was prepared to go to the Disney store and buy another one, but as I was searching for my things prepared to go to work this morning, I looked in one of Elizabeth's bags and found little Tigger with his sown up back. He had spent the night in a bag not to far from us, so this morning we reunited Malachi with Tigger :)

The Weekend

The weekend was actually quite exciting, plus I kind of lied when I said I haven't had much to blog about. I couldn't mention anything because my Mother sometimes reads this blog and what I was doing was a surprise for her birthday.



I have been watching Simply Youth Ministry Podcast Live on http://www.ustream.tv/. While watching/chatting live I saw some really cool things you could do with this website. I mostly was thinking church related but somehow got to thinking about personal things such as live feed from a living room.



My siblings are kind of scattered, (Ohio, Kentucky and Florida), so I decided to call them to see if they can do a live feed. We tested it on Thursday with very bad results. Friday my brother and I spent most of the afternoon testing and it finally worked.

Friday Night we celebrated my Mother's birthday. My sister and her family from Ohio came and we secretly had my brother and sister and their families from Florida on the live feed. They sang Happy Birthday to her as we turned on the computer and showed my mother her surprise. We all talked for most the night and was able to see the babies.

It was a fun time. We also played a little cornhole which I won two rounds of :)

I can see how ustream can be a good tool in ministry and for bringing families together for a short time.

When your mind goes blank...

I really haven't been doing to many updates to this blog. I am not happy about that but life has been busy and busy with typical things. Nothing really new or exciting. I also have writers block and have trouble typing my thoughts in a orderly manner. I do have a couple of post that I have worked on that relate to youth ministry but do not feel confident enough for them to be published yet but hopefully I will release them soon.

I just got done watching the Simply Youth Ministry Podcast for the 2nd time. I watched it live but I sometimes concentrate on the chat and loose a lot of what the cast is saying. It was a pretty good one. Its nice to see people relaxed and having fun. That show has been kind of a blessing, not being in youth ministry has been hard and its nice to listen to people you can relate too. Thanks for the awesome podcast!!!

Whats the deal?

Ever since High School I have had facial hair of some sort. I don't necessarily like it but I dont really like shaving. Every once and a while I go and shave the whole thing off. (I use to have a gotee but after almost 10 yrs decided to grow a full beard) A lot of times I try something different, mostly to be funny.

This was one of those days. I decided to do a different type of cut in which I was going to take it to youth with me just for laughs. My wife hates me clean shaven and loves the gotee so I told her that I would compromise.

When I get out of the bathroom, this is what she saw:

She was not happy to say the least. She really didn't think it was funny. I saw she that she did not approve so I took pictures and shaved it off. I made sure that my blog, facebook, and twitter got these pictures. :)

I tried photoshop Express on some of them, just for looks. I hope you enjoy my temporary face change.

Why change the name of the blog?

I have blogged here and there for several years. My first blog was through livejournal and quit blogging soon after my son was born. I started blogging a couple of years ago on blogger and titled my blog New Life.

New Life was a synopsis of my life at that time. New Life can mean several things but I thought when people saw those words it would give a positive feel to what they were about to read. I had a son, a great wife, and lots of things going well for me and my family.

As time has progressed I left this blog behind to die as my old one has. But this year I had decided (as a New Years Resolution) to write more on my blog and so in 2008 I have blogged more than ever before. This past month I have changed the layout and included some widgets. (next I am going to try and get my blog where it can be read)

As my blog has found new life so have I. As some of you know, I have temporary left full time ministry. Two years ago I left New Albany, IN and one year ago I left Lexington as a part time youth pastor. It was a painful experience because I have a passion for youth, and its been hard to be patient.

My life and my passion took me to a new place....a volunteer. Not as the leader but as a helper, its definitely a new perspective of ministry. To be honest, I would love to lead again but I am not ready so I type here as a volunteer. (I hope to share some of those experiences here, to help Youth Pastors see a different perspective)

I have been in ministry for over 5 years and had lots of experiences as a leader. I am learning new experiences as a volunteer so I am trying to write post on my past and current experiences. Anyone in ministry is a resource and I hope I can be one as well.

Even though Life is still New, I am learning the heart of a volunteer. So this will be a place where you still read about my life but you also might read about my heart. Some post I am working on and should publish soon:

Relational Youth Ministry

Volunteers are a funny thing

Happy Birthday Mom

Today is my Mother's birthday!!! She went to her office and found this from her coworkers. I hope you have a Happy Birthday!!!

World of Warcraft

Right before I moved out of our old apartment, my wife decided to get me a gift. It was Warcraft battle chest. She bought this thinking it was World of Warcraft, which I had been obsessing over for some time. I laughed and took back Warcraft Battle Chest and got World of Warcraft Battle Chest.

I am not a big RPG guy, in fact I kind of hate them. I use to constantly make fun of my younger brother because he loved them. It was mostly the fact that I didn't understand them. To many numbers, to many "rules". Then I went to college and met Mike Sanchez.. Mike and I had lots of things in common, but mostly he likes Ale81 and a friend to Ale8 is a friend to me. He invited me to play Magic. I have heard of magic and all the satanist views around it so I was intrigued to give it a whirl. So I signed up for Magic: The Gathering Online. He hooked me up with the elves pack which was a great start but from the very beginning he whooped up on me. It would take a while before I would gather my first win. At one point there were several people on Magic but the interest has died down some and not even I go on to play anymore. I hope someday we get back just for fun times but now the game lay on my laptop waiting for the next time to open.

After getting hooked on MTGO, I was invited to a release party for the new MTG cards. I forgot what they called them but the point was to pick go through some pack of cards and pick out one card you liked and pass it on. I didn't know what I was doing so I was very vulnerable and like a new guy playing poker was taken advantage off. I think it was double elimination and I was the first one out.

With all that said, I started to enjoy the games because of the interaction that came along with it. We talked, laughed, and beat each other up...well not really but we had fun. When my brother told me that he was playing World of Warcraft I decided that I would like to try it.

I tried playing, with the purchase of the game you were given a month of play time. It was not fun, I was in the process of moving and had no Internet, so playing was difficult because it was usually playing at the local Panera. Nothing can make you feel more like a nerd than playing WoW at Panera!!! With the added frustration of having to type code to respond to a group, person or community I decided that I was not fit for WoW at that particular time.

Months have gone by and I have threatened to play several times but finally bought a game card to try it for 2 months. This past weekend was WoW opportunity for changing my mind. I had previously bought an adapter for my computer that allows my Xbox controller and microphone to be used in the game with the help of switchbade. With the ability to talk rather than type it made the experience more enjoyable. I was able to talk and have fun and at the same time was able to be helped in the game (before I would lose a person and by the time I figured out how to type and get it on the board they were far away from me).

I am starting to have a better understanding of the game and had a lot of fun. Saturday night I went to bed at 1:00 AM which I have not done for some time.

I can see how these games can take up your life. It was past 12 before I ever knew it. I enjoy the game and think it would be a great game on the weekend after Malachi goes to bed. I am excited about playing again although my Xbox was neglected.

My New Toys

I love the xbox and almost all its components. Yes, I did have to send it to get it fixed but I believe its a far superior machine than the other consoles out there. I really love xbox live which is why I bought the messenger kit to help with typing, and just won a xbox visual camera w/ two games.

Of course I know that these items are really not necessary but I had some money to waste and decided to get these because I was interested.

I will probably not get my camera until next week but it will be a joy to use.

ALSO...

I have got a 2 month card for WoW, so I am back at trying WoW for anyone interested!!!