h1

Pick Me Up

November 10, 2009

So I hadn’t been to my own blog in a long time, let alone many of my former sources of entertainment.  Life in general and Jack Sandel have been keeping me plenty busy (not to be confused with JackSandel.com…which hasn’t seen much of my time either).  However, something caught my eye tonight and I wandered over to one of my former favorites, Today’s Big Thing, a video site.  This was one they posted a few days ago.  Nothing deep but it made me smile and caught me at a good time.

Then I hopped on over to good ol’ ChrisSandel.com and saw that, while I haven’t visited the site in a few months, it appears as if I posted a few days ago.  I think I must have predated a post a long, long time ago thinking I’d use in on Halloween.  I wonder if I have a stockpile of other old posts coming up.  I guess I’ll have to check back and see.  Or I suppose I could come up with some new fun stuff of my own.  We’ll see.

 

h1

Happy Halloween

October 31, 2009

halloweencostumes

h1

Like Umm…

September 21, 2009

Like, umm…like, I’m thinking you should stick to tackling people.  The PR stuff might not be your thing.

h1

Keeping Up

June 29, 2009

I’ve been away from my blog for quite some time but I haven’t been totally incommunicado.  There has been a lot going on with family and ministry but I have been posting to a number of different places.

Don’t take this post as me abandoning the blog.  I still hope to post.  But I realized I should probably let everyone know how you can keep up with me since I’m actually posting quite a bit.  I update Twitter especially often so if you want to know what I had for dinner or what I’m up to with Jack, check there.

h1

Our Art Art Hour

June 29, 2009

Well it’s been over a month since I posted so this one is going to be a doosey…or, more fittingly, it’ll be something completely random. 

h1

Seven Deadly Sins… of Sangamon County

May 27, 2009

YSMarko announced yesterday that he’d be backing away from his blog for a while.   I’ll miss his daily insights into ministry and other fun stuff but I’m guessing I’ll still highlight a few things he’s posted about in the coming weeks.  One post in particular I got a kick out of was this one about a geographical map of the seven deadly sins

Some university students looked at data relevant to each of the seven deadly sins and then created maps, by county, representing how significant each sin rated.  Upon perusing the image gallery of each map I noticed a disturbing trend.  Sangamon County, my current place of residence, shows up pretty significantly in envy, wrath and pride.  Take a look below and you’ll see a dark spot right in the middle of Illinois for each. 

7-envy

Envy was calculated using the total number of thefts — robbery, burglary, larceny and stolen cars.

7-wrath

Wrathwas calculated by comparing the total number of violent crimes — murder, assault and rape — reported to the FBI per capita.

7-pride

And pride, lastly, is most important. The root of all sins, in this study, is the aggregate of all data. Vought and his Kansas colleagues combined all data from the six other sins and averaged it into an overview of all evil.

h1

Not-Photoshop

May 25, 2009

I’m a big fan of photoshop.  From the first time I discovered the most basic version that came with our scanner during my Jr. High years, I’ve loved the program.  I remember experimenting with it at home and beginning to try my hand at graphic design.  It is amazing the graphic possibilities that open up with one simple program. 

As photoshop has become more well known, it has become nearly impossible to tell what is real and what is edited.  We almost assume that anything amazing has to be edited.  But here are 15 incredible images that look altered but aren’t.  I guarantee that they were much, much more difficult to shoot but it’s cool to think they’re all natural.

not-photoshop

h1

Awkward Family Photos

May 25, 2009

awkward

I recently ran across this blog dedicated entirely to awkward family photos.  It’s pretty funny because we’ve all been there.  What would a holiday be without a family gathering where you try to wrangle everyone into a picture before a grandparent falls asleep, a baby pukes all over himself or someone finally can’t take it any more and goes to the bathroom?  There are lots of good ones (and a few lame ones too) but her are a couple of my favorites.

I can’t tell if this family was just unfortunate or if they are really, really dysfunctional.  I mean like horror movie dysfunctional.  I couldn’t help but notice that the dad is a minister so maybe this is what our family will look like in 20 years.  Or may be not.  I would never wear those shorts.

awkward-choke

And this is my overall favorite.  I busted up laughing when I saw it.  If you’ve been to Jack’s blog you know that we are a pretty photo happy family but if you ever see me in a donkey costume on all fours just to help make Jack look cute please grab me and slap some sense into me.  If I ever wear a poo costume it sure won’t look like that.

awkward-poo

h1

Against All Odds

May 24, 2009

Boy, oh boy.  It is tough to keep up one blog post a day but when you start adding more blogs it becomes really tough.  Most of my attention for the last three months has been on my baby boy and helping him with his blog.  I figure why post funny pictures and videos of other people when I can do it about my own family.

I found a few minutes this afternoon though so I thought I’d post about a fun part of my week.  Several weeks ago my friend, and fellow West Side staff member Jessica, put together a little American Idol contest.  Several other staff members and I put in our picks for the top ten and the order they they’d be eliminated.  (You can see all of my pick on a previous post if you want to know exactly what I picked.)

The thing is, I don’t watch Idol.  I really never have.  I just like contests and I think Jessica is awesome so I thought I’d throw in a few picks and see what happened.  I figured the worst that could happen is I’d make a fool of myself…and I gave up on trying to keep from looking foolish a long, long time ago. 

Well this week I won our American Idol contest!  That’s right, after viewing one song from each contestant I made some off the cuff picks and picked Kris Allen to win it all.  There have been many jokes but I promise I didn’t even realize his name was the same as mine (only spelled like a girl) until after I made the pick.  I really did think he’d win. 

So if you’re in the office at all this week and you smell something, it is probably coming from my office it isn’t the usual smell off Jr. High boy B.O.  No, that is the sweet smell of victory mixed with the scent of the fresh cookies that Jessica promised to bake me as a prize.  MMMmmmm… I like to win.   And I like chocloate chips.  Doesn’t get any better than this (especially since I didn’t have to watch a girly show like American Idol).

idolwinner

h1

Reason #47 I Love Jr. High Ministry

May 22, 2009

My friend Jessica, our Early Childhood Minister, sent me this video.  It is yet another reason I am made for Jr. High ministry and not children’s ministry.  In Jr. High I’m the one asking the crazy questions and forcing the kids to struggle to answer.  If elementary school kids started asking me these questions I’d probably make up some crazy answers just to mess with them.  Probably good that I stick with student ministry.

PS – Everything is cuter with a British accent…unless it is fake and spoken by one of my siblings.  Then it drives me crazy.