Why Are We Always Longing For Something More?

Why are we always longing for something more? I think C.S. Lewis puts it well here.

"We talk about a universal experience as with surprise. Why is that? We look at somebody and say, my how you've grown or we say, my how time flies. That would be as strange as a fish complaining about how wet the water is.

Unless of course it was meant to live on dry land."

To go along with that one, from 2 Corinthians 5

"1Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, 3because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come."

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16 billion pixel image of Da Vinci's The Last Supper

For all you artists out there. This article stood out to me because of my "Blog-Father" and artist Randy Elrod.

"You won't need to go to Italy any more to get a close-up view of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece The Last Supper: you can now get an intimate look at it through a 16-billion-pixel image that has been posted on the internet."
For full article click here.

And if you just want to check it out yourself click on the image below. Pretty cool!!

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Funny Commercial

Here's a commercial I saw the other day while watching the hockey game. I'm not sure if it's because I don't watch much TV, but commercials seem funnier to me lately. Below is a prime example. It's a commercial for a Canadian Sub shop. Enjoy!

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Detroit Marathon Photos and Live Audio Commentary

Thanks to everyone for all of your kind words. And special thanks to my cousin Sue and her husband Nick and family for hosting me for the Detroit Marathon.

If you saw my last post which my lovely wife put up for me you would have seen my time. I am really happy with how I did. I didn't really go into this race with high hopes. I hoped I would finish it somewhere around my last time and if I could beat it, it would be a bonus.

Anyway, as promised, below are some pictures that I took WHILE running. I also had an audio voice recorder with me during the run. So if you want to get a feel of a marathon without actually running one you can listen through my experience (condensed down to 30 minutes) and get the idea. Feel free to skip through if you want. I did my best to try and convey some of the interesting things I saw, how I was feeling and stuff about a marathon you wouldn't know if you've never run one or been to one. Like trying to stop yourself from crying when sitting down just beyond the finish line about to talk to your wife on the phone. Some of the pictures below correspond to the commentary so you can flip back to here to see the pics I'm talking about if you want. It was a pretty cool race! We started in Detroit and ran over the Ambassador Bridge into Canada then through the Detroit Windsor Tunnel back into Detroit. Supposedly the only underwater mile that's part of a race in the world. We eventually ran onto an island where the Detroit Indy races take place. We also ran past Tiger Stadium and Joe Louis Arena home of the Detroit Tigers and the Detroit Red Wings respectively. There was lots to see.

I hope you enjoy it. I had a great time!!

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Detroit Marathon Results

Glenn asked me (his wife) to post the results of today's marathon for him. Also, he had a voice recorder and camera with him on this run, so stay tuned for that in the next day or two!

His results step by step are:
7.4 Miles - 0:57:10
Half-marathon - 1:43:06
17.4 Miles - 2:14:24
Marathaon - 3:31:37 (chip time) 3:32:29 (gun time)

Glenn ranked 48th in his age/sex category (of 317) and 464th overall (of 3819).

Congrats on running your best ever marathon, babe!

Sherri

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Pre Detroit Marathon Report

So Sunday will be my 4th marathon. I'm looking forward to it. I'm running the Detroit Free Press Marathon. This marathon runs over the Ambassador Bridge into Canada and then back through the Detroit Windsor Tunnel back to the U.S. Here's a link to my first post about it with more info.

Below is a graph of my weekly totals for running since the beginning of May, or just after my last marathon. I think I maxed around the right time. Hopefully it wasn't too early.


My goal for this marathon is to just feel strong throughout the whole thing. I want to finish in decent time but mostly I don't want to feel crummy for the last 5 or 6 miles. My plan was to run 30 miles two weeks ago but it just didn't happen. When I'm on the road it's hard to squeeze in a 4-5 hour run. At least I ran 26.2 in warm humid weather then set up our gear for a show then played a concert. So maybe that equals almost 30 miles.

For time, I don't think I'll be cutting another 40 minutes off my previous race time but I would love to beat my Nashville time of 3:40. 3:30 would be amazing but I might be pushing it to do that. No promises here. I always train with walking breaks but in order to gain some time and speed I think I'll eliminate most of them for the race. My rule will be, if I need a break I can walk for 1 minute only and any break has to be separated by at least 9 minutes of running. I need rules like that while I run or else everything just gets loose and I fall apart mentally.

I'll be running with a camera and maybe even a voice recorder so I can document the whole thing in a fun way. Hopefully it'll help give you a feel for what a marathon is like.

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Apple Crisp Recipe

On the weekend Sherri and I decided we would do a family outing to a nearby apple farm. We went to Myers Apple Farm in Copetown Ontario. It was a beautiful morning and we arrived early enough that we didn't have to deal with it being too busy.

I'm always looking for MacIntosh apples so when we got there I asked but they were past their season. So we went out and started looking at the other apple trees. I eventually found the Mac rows and decided it would be worth while to scavenge them. Sure enough we were able to get more than we needed from what was left over in the trees.

We've already had apple pie once and last night I decided it was time for an apple crisp. I also decided to improvise a recipe since I wanted to make the apple crisp with Red River Cereal in it. (I think this cereal can only be found in Canada. Sorry.) So here's my made up recipe. I think it was quite fantastic if I do say so myself! Crispy, a little cake-y and also apple-y. Yummy!

Red River Apple Crisp

Topping
1/2 cup Red River Cereal
3/4 cup boiling water

1 cup Oats
1&1/2 cups flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 tsp cinnamon

Apples
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp flour
1 tsp all spice

4-8 apples cut into thin slices (enough to almost fill 2 litre corning ware dish)

Directions
Add boiling water to Red River Cereal and soak for 20-30 minutes. Drain off excess water. Add oats, flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda butter and cinnamon. Stir together well. Should look like a sort of paste.

Pre heat oven to 350

Slice apples and place in bowl. Add brown sugar flour and all spice. Mix thoroughly. Place apple mixture into 2 litre corning ware dish or something equivalent. Spread topping onto apples covering all of them. Add a little cinnamon and wheat germ on the top to garnish.

Place in oven for 1 hour. Enjoy!!

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3 and a Half Year Old Drummer

Recently my wife Sherri posted a little video of our son playing drums on her facebook page and it has been quite popular so I thought I'd record a new video this morning and post it here and on youtube so even more people can watch it.

You'll notice a little tower of lego right in front of me in the video. Jonah set that up to be his "tom/crash cymbal mic".

You'll also notice his cool glasses. It took some convincing to get him to wear those. Basically I told him that Erin (a downhere wife and one of Jonah's favorite people) would be watching this video. That did it. He put them on happily!

He's even starting to get the kick drum happening in time! Can you tell I'm a proud Daddy?!

GL

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Inbox Zero

So I'm on a new kick now thanks to my record label; keeping my email inbox at zero. Not letting any of them slip by me without some action taking place is the new goal. And having an inbox that says zero instead of 5,692 is the reward. Plus people get responses to their emails sent to me!!

Anyway, check out this video. It's gives a really great practical way to get your e-life in order.

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Difficult Run

I did a great run a few days ago in Thousand Oaks California. It was a 15 miler but a 15 miler that was all on a trail and had many many many hills. It was a tough run but very fun. I thought I'd play with the GPS information a little bit to show you a little more bout the run. First here's the elevation from that run. This will give you a good idea of the hills.


This next image is a picture from Google Earth. I took the info from my Garmin Forerunner and with some help from GPS Visualizer I was able to overlay the run on a 3D map. It looks great. I was able to fly over the whole run!! Here's a shot from just the first 3 or 4 miles. This definitely gives you a better idea of what the hills looked like.

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Lee Strobel - The Case For The Real Jesus

We (downhere) just got back from a 4 day trip to California where we played 4 nights in a row. We played Elk Grove, Thousand Oaks, Exeter and Irvine. The last night, in Irvine, was for an event with Lee Strobel and his new book The Case for the Real Jesus. If you don't know our music well then you may not know we have a song called The Real Jesus which Lee quoted right at the beginning of chapter 1.

I'm about half way through the book and so far it is great. Lee basically takes the reader through 6 different challenges of who Jesus is and talks to experts to get to the truth behind those challenges. The six challenges are:

Challenge #1
"Scholars are uncovering a radically different jesus in ancient documents just as credible as the four gospels."

Challenge #2
"The Bible's portrait of Jesus can't be trusted because the church tampered with the text."

Challenge #3
"New explanations have refuted Jesus' resurrection."

Challenge #4
"Christianity's beliefs about Jesus were copied from pagan religions."

Challenge #5
"Jesus was an imposter who failed to fulfill the messianic prophesies."

Challenge #6
People should be free to pick and choose what to believe about Jesus."

So if you've ever wondered about any of those topics pick up this book. Lee does a great job of taking some of what the experts said and making it more understandable for joes like us.

Also at his website www.leestrobel.com he has a ton of videos where lots of great questions are discussed. When I went there today to check it out the most viewed video was this one.

Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God? Three Cannot Be One















What a great resource!

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