defined by function

I was sitting in my chair this morning when my nose started to run and itch.

Silas was playing on the floor in the living room so I said "Quick Silas, get me a tissue!"

Silas seems to have a runny/snotty nose all the time, so we have him pretty well trained to find and fetch the tissue box, and he's pretty good about letting us wipe his nose and will even blow it himself when he's really snotty.

Well, he jumped up and ran into the kitchen (passing the tissue box, which was on the couch) and brought me back a cloth napkin from the napkin basket.

I said "No no Silas, get me a tissue buddy".

He looked at me quizzically for a second, unfolded the cloth napkin and honked his nose into it quite loudly as if to demonstrate the point that it would serve the same function and I should stop being picky.

Then he patted me on the leg, stuffed the snotty napkin into my hand and went back to playing on the floor.

That's my boy.

Where does it go?

Where has the time gone?

Two years ago today our little guy was born.



Happy Birthday Silas.

I love you buddy.

Random - Manscaping

I couldn't resist playing with Schick's Manscaping tool this morning after seeing Marko's post about it.

Considering my long frustration of having no mustache growing ability what-so-ever, I found this fun and pretty funny.

Oh, and the animation is not only "intriguing and a bit weird"... but also completely freaky.

With that, I give you... Roogles - The biker.




(again, HT to Marko at his blog)

NYWC Nashville - Kick Off

Well... The NYWC Nashville is officially underway. It is nice to be at the conference this time around as a participant and not an exhibitor. I've felt very lazy today, just loafing around Nashville, connecting with old and new friends, and being generally lazy.

This morning Jenn and I wandered down to the convention center after a great breakfast at our hotel. We discovered that we were much to early to officially check in, so we found the LiveWorship booth, and then just went wandering aimlessly down broad street to second street.

There are a scad of great looking restaurants and bars down that way that we would love to pop into for lunch, dinner, or just because while we're here in town. We picked a local place that Jenn's been wanting to visit and had lunch there. It was pretty good. We packed up the left overs and Jenn found someone on the street to give them to on her way back to the convention center. She has a big heart for the homeless, and really wants to find other ways to make connections and do some local outreach while we are here. I admire her compassion, and although I don't see the opportunities as often as she does I'm going to help her do her thing as much as I can while we're here.

The rest of the day Jenn has been in the HERStory pre-conference, and I've been wandering around the area, drinking coffee, reading, writing in my moleskine, and meeting up with old and new friends.

I helped the LiveWorship crew setup the booth while Jenn was in HERStory. We grabbed some dinner at Panera and then some coffee at Starbuck's and now Jenn is back in HERStory and I'm chillin down at the YS Store waiting for the RVCC contingent to arrive.

Tonight we're going to take the exhibit hall by storm, and then catch the late night concert action.

slow lazy day today for me. I'm sure tomorrow will be much more exciting.

For tonight, roogles out.

NYWC - Randomness

Day three of the NYWC - Pittsburgh is winding down now... I'm too tired to put down comprehensive thoughts about the whole day so here's the summary...

Francis Chan's general session was simply amazing. I was so challenged and humbled by his talk that I'm still trying to cope with it.

The exhibit hall was busier today than yesterday, but still not what I would consider swamped.

I did manage to have some really good conversations about LiveWorship with some folks, and also got myself into several other conversations that had nothing to do with Youth ministry.

I met Matthew McNutt and William Hartz both in person today, where-as I had not previously known them outside of blogs and twitter.

Alan and I had lunch at Primanti Brothers and dinner at The Lemon Grass Cafe'.

I missed most of the session tonight with Phyllis Tickle, but by all accounts she nailed it.

The Comedy late night act was very funny.

Here are an assortment of random photos from today...

The booth (with slightly better lighting)



Lunch from Primanti Brothers... Yes, the sandwich has fries and slaw on it.



The sign for a Korean restaurant and sushi bar.. (See next photo)


A close up of the "Warning" sticker in the window of the sushi bar...



Alan and I were unable to determine which of the following might be true...

• Warning, these premises protected by a cat AND a burglar/fire alarm
• Warning, these premises protected by a cat burglar AND a fire alarm
• Warning, these premises protected by a cat AND a burglar AND a fire alarm
• Warning, these premises protected by a cat alarm, a burglar alarm, and a fire alarm

Either way... Cats, burglars, and fires beware.


Uh... yeah... Authorized pensonel only.




This one has no relevance... I just thought it was a cute name for a restaurant.



That's it for me. I'm very tired. Looking forward to seeing what tomorrow brings.

NYWC Pittsburgh - Here we go.

Today was the first day of the National Youthworkers Convention here in Pittsburgh, PA.

I am working the show this time around, helping to run the booth for LiveWorship Software, which a few cool guys I know came up with back in the day...

Alan and I started the morning bright and early by attending some company mandated identity theft training, which we had both previously missed and had to have by law.

It was interesting and informative...

We then proceeded with some crazy gathering up of things, packing (read cramming) the van and split Chillicothe for the great state of Pennsylvania.

Two Sam's Club's, one Olive Garden, one gas station, and a few hours later we were pulling into the David L. Lawrence Convention Center here in Pittsburgh.

It took us a couple of hours to setup the booth, then Alan and I grabbed some dinner at August Henry's across the street from the hotel. I had an amazing pepperoni and cheese stromboli. Amazing I tell you.

The show floor was open from 8:30 - 10:30 pm. Traffic for us was pretty slow, but we did have some good conversations. I love it when avid LiveWorship fans stop by the booth just to tell us they like our product.

Here is a (bad) photo of our booth this year. It looks much better in person, I promise. I will attempt to get better photos tomorrow.




We are right across the aisle from Ugly Mug coffee, who has free samples of great available in their booth... This is either going to be very good for me, or very bad for me before the weekend is out.

While Marko was making his rounds on the show floor he stopped to say "Hey". Always great to run into him.

Looking forward to tracking down and catching up with quite a few more of my twitter friends tomorrow.

Hopefully more to come.

Roogles out.

Called out...

This morning as I was getting ready to pull out of the driveway for work I twittered (tweeted?) as I often do...



This afternoon Corrine (a fellow twitterer, blogger, and Third Day fan) fired this at me...



Love it!

Here was the rest of our exchange...




I wonder if something gave me away... (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.)

Thanks for calling me out Corrine! Made my day!

(ht to Corrine and Twitter)