The Fans of FAN Day

Sometimes our church, Valleydale Church (an sbc fellowship), has some bad ideas.  Sometimes they throw some things out there, and we all sit back and say, "Wow.  That didn't work, did it?"

And then again, sometimes our church, Valleydale Church (an sbc fellowship), has some great ideas.  Some ideas, that when put forth are just knocked out of the ballpark.  And FAN Day was one of them...

FAN stands for "Friends And Neighbors" Day, where we could invite... well, our friends and neighbors... to come out to our church, Valleydale Church (an sbc fellowship), get to know us, get to know our pastor, and see what we have to offer... namely, Jesus, but there's more too.

Siran Stacy spoke at our church.  He's a former star for the University of Alabama--incidentally, they have 13 national championships, just in case you didn't know--in the years '89 to '91, and hails from Geneva, Alabama, which is 8 miles from my own home in Samson, Alabama.

In late 2007, he was driving a van with his wife and kids, and was struck by a drunk driver.  The drunk driver was killed, as was Stacy's wife, and four of his five children.   Stacy and his daughter Shelley survived, after both spent time in a coma.

When Siran Stacy hit that stage, you knew Jesus was up in this hizzy.  I mean, Siran brought it.  Let's be clear, I like Calvin Kelly... he's been my pastor for 12 years, really the only true pastor I've ever known--mine own church history is another blog for another day--but every now and then, a little color on our stage is great.  Maybe once a month or two, toss up some Antjuan Marsh, or let's catch Voddie Bochum as he's coming through town...

Anyway, Siran was a dynamic speaker, preaching on how God dealt with Ezekiel in the Old Testament, and relating it to how he dealt with his own losses.

And afterwards, we all went out to our tailgate parties.  Each Sunday School Life Connection had a little parcel of the parking lot, and each was responsible for grilling and serving up their own food, putting out their own chairs and tables, and making it as tailgatey as possible. 

I told one of the higher ups in our church, Valleydale Church (an sbc fellowship), that next year we need to present a trophy to the best tailgate presentation, maybe keep that trophy in the church with class names engraved on it year after year.  And of course, I only say that because of what we had....

We had Justin Fisher, about seven grills, a bunch of experienced grillers grilling on those grills, banana pudding, some little chocolate brownie balls that I had about fourteen of, all 9 of Chad & Amanda Campbell's kids, a tent, cornhole, Willis in a green The U shirt, an RV and Heather Whitley.  We win.

Here are some pictures from FAN Day.




Here is Mr. Steven Ray's Day and Mrs. Steven Ray's Mom, helping set up the big, fat buffet of cholesterol, sugar and high fructose corn syrup, along with the ribs and lettuce.  We rule.




Sitting and waiting to eat, The Freckled (re)Becca.  Her beau, Bobowen, is around here somewhere.



Jonathan Taylor, preparing the roast beast, the roast beast for the Valleydale Church
(an sbc fellowship) Tailgate feast.



The Lovely Steph Leann and our friend Heather, who's husband is away this weekend on drill and keeping our
country safe.  U-S-A!  U-S-A!



Tootie Watkins, with his gloves on, cooking up some burgers, while others, including
Steven Ray, gnaws on some ribs



I'm sure that the pastors and leaders of the church stopped by several booths, but we had a ton of people who
aren't in our own Life Connection class stop by ours.   Again, this lends to the assumption that we, in fact, had
the best set up.  I will say there was a circus tent that had a "JESUS FOR HEISMAN" sign, but in order to one-up
them, we went out and got Alissa Thornell.  We win again.



When Justin Fisher rolls down the halls of Valleydale Church (an sbc fellowship), little Will Fisher will run
out to meet him, and he will yell, and I quote, "Daddy!  Daddy!  Daddy!  Daddy!  Daddy!  Daddy!"  I can only
hope that Campbell Isaiah will dig his dad as much as Will Fisher digs his old man.  Little Will puts his hand
on Daddy JustFish's chair, and this is how they roll.



Calah Ray, correctly pronounced Cah-lah Rah, shows the excitement, yet exhaustion of the day



Jon Taylor and Heather Whitley view the food options, while again, Steven Ray looks on in the background.  I
think he was searching out the camera.

 


Emmy Turnbow, making a Not Emmy Turnbow Safe Face of Disapproval at her maler half, Jason


If you are on Facebook, you can search me up and look at all the pictures from FAN Day... I'm keeping them available for "Everyone" to see for a few days, then I'll take 'em down to "Friends Only" viewing.  Then you'll have to be my friend to see them... Membership has its privileges.

Orange Beach Retreated

Here it is, Monday night, after another weekend of Dave's Adventures... this time, the adventure was down at Orange Beach, Ala/Florida, for a weekend couples retreat with Stephanie and some people from our Sunday Sch... er, Life Connection class.

Some friends of ours have access to a few condos down at the beach, and we ended up staying at the Spanish Key condo resort type thingy... it was awesome.  Our hosts were already down there, and in Steph's dad's Yukon was myself, Tommy McLeod, Amy McLeod and James & Jessica Hawbaker.




Very close behind us was Willis & Meredith Watkins and Brett & Lindsay Mims. Anyway, the Yukon and the people inside all stopped for a fantastic dinner, then arrived late... the Lattas, the McLeods, the Hawbakers and the 2 Dollars stayed up in the $3 million dollar condo... the Mims and the Watkins were regulated to the condo that cost a mere $990K. Shame.

Anyway, it was the weekend of the great mullet toss... yeah, when I heard of it from Matt Latta, I thought of tossing hair too. No, actually, they toss fish. Mullets, specifically. Really, its just an excuse to get blasted and throw seafood to the wind... and there was alot of wind. A lot alot. It was windy pretty much all day Saturday...

For those of you who didn't go, I won't bore you with the details, because I don't have many--for whatever reason, I woke up feeling blah on Saturday morning... you ever do that? Wake up not really sick, or with a keep-you-from-standing-straight migraine... just feeling... eeech? Yeah, that was me. It didn't help that everything I ate, I threw up about an hour after it. Stephanie and Jessica went shopping, while most everyone else just hung out, went to the beach, went down the road to another condo that featured a lazy river type deal--which I heard was funny, because it was so windy that the wind stopped your float from going anywhere after a certain time.
Spent much of the day watching the NFL Draft, and in typical guy fashion, everyone wanted to know where Brodie went... Willis', the Miami fan of the bunch, was feeling pretty dejected (especially after someone had said "You know what I think of when I hear the word "Miami"? 1992.") until finally, Seattle picked up Kelly Jennings with the 31st pick. The mild surprise was that Reggie Bush went second to Mario Williams (Scott's blog makes good points) but I wasn't shocked... rumor has it that Reggie was a hold-out threat, and that the Texans had said they were'nt going to fool with it. Matter of fact, the Saints apparently grilled Reg's agent to get him to confirm that he would NOT hold out, or they wouldnt take him.
The draft also led to a fun discussion of names after D'Brickashaw Ferguson was taken by New York... what if we all put D's in the front of our names? D'Matt? D'Steph? D'avid? Yeah, it was funny then. Maybe it was just funny to me because I had just finished yakking my graham crackers. Either way, the name comes from the book The Thorn Birds. Not too bad... at first, I thought it was from the cheeseball mini-series in the 80s, The Thorn Birds... which led me to think "D'Brickashaw is better than Chamberlain, I guess."
Anyway, we ate dinner at The Oyster Bar, which had the best coconut shrimp I'd ever had. Of course, I could only eat two pieces and about two crab claws, because my stomach was very queasy... don't feel bad, though--I'd take a day of feeling eeh at the beach than a day of feeling pretty darn good in Birmingham.

Someone gave me a nausea pill, which helped me feel better later, we all stayed up and played Catch Phrase (more on that in a minute)

Sunday morning, the girls and a few guys cooked breakfast, James led a small devotion which was great, and we packed up and headed home. I could have done for another few days there, especially since I feel I only got half my Saturday's worth. It was still nice, though.

Highlights from the weekend included:
--Busting out the iPod for its first road trip. On the way back, we all created a playlist which included Jennifer Knapp, Billy Joel, Vertical Horizon, Amy Grant, Hootie and dialogue from The Big Lebowski. Good times all around. --The aforementioned Catch Phrase, which when James described a clue as "Something you do after you pee", Matt replied, loudly, "Shake it"
--Also the aforementioned Catch Phrase, which when James described a clue as "From Russia, three words", I yelled out "Mail Order Bride". Much to the room's bewilderment, I was right.
--The clash of wit from James Hawbaker and Tommy McLeod, two of the driest humorists I know, with a splash of Willis' goofy humor thrown in the mix

And so, today, I started on Starbucks' 280 location as their Assistant Manager. New crew, new location, new everything. I did bookwork this morning, then went behind the bar... its amazing how a store can be selling the same product, yet be so different. The set up is different, the style is different, the routine is different... not better, not worse, just different.

I'll be there for what they are telling me is the next six months, though Josh, the manager, is kinda predicting about two to three before they yank me out and give me a store. Who knows.

I've got Starbucks Open Forum tomorrow night at the Hoover Met, which is a big meeting of all the area partners. We'll eat, frolic, make merry, watch baseball and most will drink (not coffee, mind you). Anyway, I mention this only because after tomorrow night, plus opening on Wednesday morning, I won't have American Idol up until at least Wednesday afternoon. Just so you know.

Man I wish I had some more of the coconut shrimp.

Harry Potter & the Hammer of MC

So, this week has been a blur.

I'm currently listening to live365.com's online 90s station, which is fabuloso, and hearing the great sounds of MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This".

Today was Habitat for Humanity for our Sunday School class... my wife left last night to go to Crestview, Florida, for a baby shower for one of her old-school best friends and there are three reasons I didnt go...
1) I had a drama project I HAD to get done this weekend
2) I hated to miss Habitat
3) Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince

Now, truthbetold, I would have foregone #2 & #3, but #1 was unavoidable--so whilest I was doing #1, 2 & 3 were byproducts of the weekend...

(Timmy T's "Ill B Ur Everything"... how hard is it to write the words "be" and "your", and put an apostrophe in "Ill"?)

Last night I went to Barnes & Noble to get a "wristband" so I could pick up my Harry Potter book at 12:01am. I'm a nerd. Anyway, they had two bands--yellow for those who had ordered ahead of time, and orange for those who hadn't... I got a yellow, with the number 79 on it. They would give out books for those numbers first, then those in the orange bands could get their books.

Its really quite silly, to be honest--I'm re-reading the other Harry Potter books as is, and I'm only half through Goblet of Fire, so I really won't even get to the new one until at least next week, so I could have bought it anytime... but I had to be there. However, that didnt stop me from flipping through it to which I discovered three things that made me "holy crap!"... 1) a major, major, MAJOR death--I sort of expected a death, but only slightly suspected this one, and was shocked at how it happened... 2) who the half-blood prince is--shocking... and 3) Harry gets a girlfriend! And I'm so pleased. I flipped out when I read Order of the Phoenix to discover Harry's first kiss (with Cho Chang, natch) but his woman this time is not Cho.

I love the Travelocity Roaming Gnome... "my creedo is, less for the room, more for that mini-bah"

So after I got my book (79th in line, got it around 12:20 or so) I headed to IHOP to have some late breakfast... got home around 115 am, and then like an igmo, stayed up until 415am reading Goblet of Fire.

(Keith Sweat's "I'll Give All My Love"... he's the early 90s R. Kelly, only without all the underage minor stuff)

Today was Habitat for Humanity, which I mentioned. Our Sunday School class is a "newly/nearly married" class, which Steph and I both love, and Tiffiany Shaw set up a one-day service project for us... included in this event were Tebe & Tiffiany, James & Jessica, Willis & Meredith and myself (remember, Steph is still in Crestview). Anyway, we moved mud, painted a concrete wall and made an ill-fated attempt at pouring concrete.

So following the Habitat project, smelling like something extraordinarily foul, I came to my in-laws place to use their cd burner to get a powerpoint presentation for dinner theater next week. And I forgot the music that goes to it... so whilest I didth the presentation, I'll have to burn it later.

I did take a shower, but I didnt have any shampoo, I had to use some freaky Spiderman foam soap, and though I brought new shorts and a shirt, I have on the same boxers. Very foul. I feel foul.

("Been Around the World" by Puff Daddy & the Family, feat. the Notorious BIG and Mase. Its never "with so & so", its always "feat." Strange.)

So my decision at this very moment, sitting in front of the Campbell's computer at their bungalow in Greystone is... do I go home, await the late return of my lovely wife, all the while read Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire, in anticipation of reading Order of the Phoenix, which pumps me up for Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince.

Or, do I go home, re-shower complete with shampoo and new boxer shorts (and also new socks--my shoes & socks are gross, and I have to drive barefoot) and head over to Tebe & Tiff's house for an impromptu night of games and such?

("Pony" by Genuwine. No, not Genuine... its Genuwine. Don't even get me started)

And in other news, I have all the money needed for NEW YORK CITY!!!

And that's a wrap for today.

(3)