25 Things about Me

My Chinese New Year resolution is to blog better.

This was such a popular (and kinda fun) facebook exercise . . . I thought I would add it to my blog. . .

1. I love all kinds of music. Currently on my computer one would find . . . Instrumental Southern Gospel Hymns on Hammered Dulcimer . . . David Crowder . . . Jimmy Buffett . . . Beethoven . . . Blind Willie Johnson . . . Paul Simon . . . Chris Tomlin . . . Weird Al . . . Andrea Bocelli . . . Jackie Wilson . . . Sam Cook . . . et. al.
   
2. I once drove 2 hours through Eastern Kentucky mountains in a thick fog with my best friend Mike hanging out the passenger window screaming "LEFT!" or "RIGHT!" based on the edge of the road because I couldn't see the road out the windshield. Yeah, it was stupid, but it has given me a great object lesson for what faith really is.
   
3. All of my best stories start, "This one time, Mike and I. . ."
   
4. I love quality satirical comedy.
   
5. I love people who can make me laugh. They are more precious than gold.
   
6. I was a DJ for a Christian rock hour in high school.
   
7. In connection with #5, I once interviewed DeGarmo & Key on their bus after a concert. Doesn't mean much to a lot of people, but I thought it was my finest moment.
   
8. I once stayed up for 54 straight hours (you guessed it . . . with Mike).
   
9. I wanted to be a Nuclear Engineer when I left high school. I finished college with a B.A. in Religion. God is funny sometimes.
   
10. I love to hear my wife sing.
    
11. I think I have learned more about God from my relationship with my children.
    
12. I was born in Detroit and walked to school nine blocks 4 times a day (at 10 blocks, I could have brought my lunch, but rules are rules, so I had to walk home for lunch and back to school).
    
13. I have had a variety of jobs. I have worked in retail electronics. I have detasseled corn. I have worked midnight stock. I have worked in the produce dept of a grocery store. I have set cams in car transmissions on an assembly line. I have been a janitor. Now, I am a professor.
    
14. When I was a kid I thought Ultraman and Speed Racer were the coolest shows on my 5 channels (in Detroit we picked up more than the traditional 3 . . . there were two local stations).
    
15. I never actually passed chapel when I attended William Carey College (we were required to attend, but it didn't figure in the GPA and wasn't required for graduation so I was one of the 50% of Religion majors who never passed).
    
16. I once almost knocked over Benjamin Netanyahu (after my mentor knocked him into me).
    
17. I celebrated Palm Sunday 2008 standing on the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem with a bunch of great students from Shorter College.
    
18. I was a pastor of a small, rural Texas church while I was finishing my Ph.D.
    
19. When I was high school, I told my mother that I didn't want to be a lawyer because I didn't want to go to school that long. Three years later, I then changed my major (my school and my state) and promptly continued in grad school for another 10 years.
    
20. I love to cook.
    
21. I love to buy unusual ties. It doesn't seem to be a rational thing. My ratio of ties to shirts is problem about 10 to 1.
    
22. It is difficult for me to buy things for me. It is VERY easy for me to buy things for others.
    
23. I am a pacifist—not because I think it is more effective or because it is countercultural--mainly because Jesus said to be, and when push came to shove, Jesus was.
    
24. I love meat. However, I am confident, if I had to kill my own meat, I would be a vegetarian.
    
25. I love animals, and if I had another life to live, I would be a marine biologist.