Just got done typing a post about my recent trip up to Waylan, MI to speak at another Summit event and stay with good friends Andy and Erin Rozendaal, and the blog site temporarily crashed on me.
This is the second or third time this has happened, and I have NO desire to retype all that is lost. Bah. What a lumpy day.
So, in short, I went somewhere this weekend and things happened and I came home. Bah. Today, I hate blogspot. Instead I shall post a poem to fill space:
The Des Moines “International” Airport
You may want to call the police,
Or maybe the CIA,
Or whatever watchdog group may be,
Protecting the US of A.
There’s chance I might be a terrorist,
A chance I might be insane,
At least that’s what I found out last month,
While trying to get on a plane.
When I went through security,
A guard swabbed my laptop case,
Then put the swab into a machine,
A grimace affixed on her face.
I nervously tried to chit-chat,
“How long does it take this thing?”
She said, “Just a few moments and then,
It’ll make a noise that goes ding.”
I made a little joke or two,
She seemed immune to my charm,
Then the machine began to light up,
And out came a piercing alarm.
“That sure doesn’t sound like a ‘ding’”,
“No, it sure doesn’t,” she said,
Then she picked up her walkie-talkie,
And whispered, “I’ve got a code red.”
It’s strange that when this all happened,
I knew that I should stay calm,
But I’ll admit the thought crossed my mind,
“Well, maybe I do have a bomb. . .”
Just maybe Al Qaida changed plans,
To bring about our demise,
And instead of Arab extremists,
They’re targeting white, Irish guys.
Or maybe they got to my wife,
It wouldn’t be hard I guess,
Just catch her on one of my bad days,
When I’d left the bathroom a mess.
This uniformed man stormed over,
Like he was in a bad mood,
“Do you work with explosives?” he asked,
“Just when I eat Mexican food.”
Well, after a thorough pat down,
From a large black guard named Steve,
They told me it’d just been a mistake,
And said I was free to leave.
Yet, as I headed toward my gate,
After gathering my stuff,
That guilty part of me still wondered,
If they didn’t look hard enough.
Yes, that actually happened. It just didn't rhyme at the time like it does now.
Till next time,
Jason
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Can't think of a good title . . .
Went up to emcee a couple of youth rally's in Northwest Iowa and Minny Soda this past weekend.
I met up with ministry partner Mark Elgersma, and his wife Cassi in Albert Lea, MN to car pool the rest of the way to Sioux Falls, SD where we were staying with Mark's wonderful parents Barry and Brenda. Had a great time chatting on the two hour drive with Cassi . . . and I guess Mark was okay to be around too.
The two events I was at were fall youth rally's for the area, and a kind of reunion of sorts for the event I spoke at this summer in Arizona. They brought Tom Tufts (former golf pro, and Christian speaker from Florida) to be the main speaker, and he's a pretty fun guy to hang around with. And when I say "pretty fun guy" I mean "he also likes to give Mark a really hard time" which I always enjoy.
I didn't have a terrible amount of responsibilities this weekend, so I got to do a little more hanging out than usual. I watched the entire Iowa/ISU game. I'm not a huge football fan. In fact, I rarely ever watch sports. But since I went to ISU, this is the one game of the year I always try to catch. Not because I necessarily find it interesting, mind you, I just like to know ahead of time how much razzing I'm going to have to take from Iowa fans if ISU loses. Well . . . it's going to be a long year.
I got to eat lunch with good friend Luke Vander Leest, his wife Carla, and their beautiful kids Derek and Caity (Sp?). I played an extensive game of hide and seek with Derek and I got to see Luke teach two year olds how to sing and dance, so that definately made my weekend.
Also got to chat a bit with Jacklyn Punt who was recovering from the same cold I'd had only days before. Troy and Dawn were there, of course. Dawn was great as always, and I got to punch Troy on stage and get away with it, so that was fantastic.
What else? Bored yet? I am and I lived it. It was more fun than it reads, trust me. Got home about two a.m. on Monday morning, then had to jump out of bed at seven a.m. to paint a day with Andrea's uncle Jere Brummel. How good of a painter am I? Well, Jere didn't curse or fire me on the first day, so that must have meant I wasn't completely awful. Although I did mess up quite a bit.
Okay, next time, I'll just post pictures - they'd probably be more interesting than anything I wrote today.
Till next time,
Jason
I met up with ministry partner Mark Elgersma, and his wife Cassi in Albert Lea, MN to car pool the rest of the way to Sioux Falls, SD where we were staying with Mark's wonderful parents Barry and Brenda. Had a great time chatting on the two hour drive with Cassi . . . and I guess Mark was okay to be around too.
The two events I was at were fall youth rally's for the area, and a kind of reunion of sorts for the event I spoke at this summer in Arizona. They brought Tom Tufts (former golf pro, and Christian speaker from Florida) to be the main speaker, and he's a pretty fun guy to hang around with. And when I say "pretty fun guy" I mean "he also likes to give Mark a really hard time" which I always enjoy.
I didn't have a terrible amount of responsibilities this weekend, so I got to do a little more hanging out than usual. I watched the entire Iowa/ISU game. I'm not a huge football fan. In fact, I rarely ever watch sports. But since I went to ISU, this is the one game of the year I always try to catch. Not because I necessarily find it interesting, mind you, I just like to know ahead of time how much razzing I'm going to have to take from Iowa fans if ISU loses. Well . . . it's going to be a long year.
I got to eat lunch with good friend Luke Vander Leest, his wife Carla, and their beautiful kids Derek and Caity (Sp?). I played an extensive game of hide and seek with Derek and I got to see Luke teach two year olds how to sing and dance, so that definately made my weekend.
Also got to chat a bit with Jacklyn Punt who was recovering from the same cold I'd had only days before. Troy and Dawn were there, of course. Dawn was great as always, and I got to punch Troy on stage and get away with it, so that was fantastic.
What else? Bored yet? I am and I lived it. It was more fun than it reads, trust me. Got home about two a.m. on Monday morning, then had to jump out of bed at seven a.m. to paint a day with Andrea's uncle Jere Brummel. How good of a painter am I? Well, Jere didn't curse or fire me on the first day, so that must have meant I wasn't completely awful. Although I did mess up quite a bit.
Okay, next time, I'll just post pictures - they'd probably be more interesting than anything I wrote today.
Till next time,
Jason
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Long Time No See . . .
Yeah, it's been awhile since I updated. I'm a bad blogger with no other excuse than extreme business, followed by extreme laziness. But here's a list of where I've been as of late:
July - I spoke at Convention in Flagstaff, AZ for about 1,500 high schoolers and adults. Highlights of the trip include getting business manager Mark to do improv, and being flagged for a bomb at the airport (I'll cover that in a bit).
I also emceed and did some improv at Power Connection, the Reformed Church middle schooler event in Maryville, MO. The big highlight of that trip was getting to work with good friend Steve Hydeen from 88 Improv in Omaha, NE.
August - I got to do another Old Time Gospel Show in What Cheer, IA in the What Cheer Opera house. Seriously - this was the most fun I've had all summer. I read poems, and the audience was huge, and they rocked. We laughed, I got to hang out with Chris "Crackers" Bennett again, and I got to hear some great music. What's not to enjoy?
I also spoke for a youth event in Sully, IA. About 100 kids. Mark and Dustin were with me. Highlight? Mark and Dustin were with me.
Coming up, I get to head up to Minny Soda for a little Convention reunion type thing this month, as well as giving the message at 2nd Reformed Pella, and then I head out to Michigan to speak for my good friends in Dorr again.
In October I head to Milwaukee, in November I'm in South Dakota and Des Moines, and then in January I'm pretty pumped to head on up past the border to Canada! That's right, Canada! For the first time in my 30 long years here on earth, I'll be in another country. I'm pretty excited as I've heard a lot of good things about Canada - hockey, Tim Horton's coffee, and uh . . . snow.
So, back to the only part of this post that might be halfway interesting - I set the bomb detector off at the Des Moines "International" Airport. It was a pretty thrilling experience. I was on my way to Flagstaff, when I was pulled aside for a random extra security screening. This essentially means they give you a good frisking and give all your stuff an extra search.
After a security guard swabbed my laptop case, she put the little cotton cloth into a machine (the bomb detector), and we made a little chit chat while she said we had to wait for the little 'ding'. I told her I was a youth director going to speak at a teenage convention. Then the alarm sounded.
I said, "That doesn't sound like a 'ding'."
She said, "No, no it doesn't." She then grabbed her walkie talkie and radioed in a "hit on station six". A large guard came over, asked me if I worked with explosives, gave me my second frisking of the day, and then they sent me on my way.
I have to admit, even though I knew that I didn't have a bomb on me - my mind did go there for a second. Well, maybe I do have a bomb. Maybe someone did slip it into my things while I wasn't looking. I then realized the only person I'd been with all morning had been my wife, so you can bet I'm keeping a pretty close eye on her as of late.
You heard it here first - Al Qaida is now targeting tall, lanky, Irish guys through their wives. Be aware.
Till next time,
Jason
July - I spoke at Convention in Flagstaff, AZ for about 1,500 high schoolers and adults. Highlights of the trip include getting business manager Mark to do improv, and being flagged for a bomb at the airport (I'll cover that in a bit).
I also emceed and did some improv at Power Connection, the Reformed Church middle schooler event in Maryville, MO. The big highlight of that trip was getting to work with good friend Steve Hydeen from 88 Improv in Omaha, NE.
August - I got to do another Old Time Gospel Show in What Cheer, IA in the What Cheer Opera house. Seriously - this was the most fun I've had all summer. I read poems, and the audience was huge, and they rocked. We laughed, I got to hang out with Chris "Crackers" Bennett again, and I got to hear some great music. What's not to enjoy?
I also spoke for a youth event in Sully, IA. About 100 kids. Mark and Dustin were with me. Highlight? Mark and Dustin were with me.
Coming up, I get to head up to Minny Soda for a little Convention reunion type thing this month, as well as giving the message at 2nd Reformed Pella, and then I head out to Michigan to speak for my good friends in Dorr again.
In October I head to Milwaukee, in November I'm in South Dakota and Des Moines, and then in January I'm pretty pumped to head on up past the border to Canada! That's right, Canada! For the first time in my 30 long years here on earth, I'll be in another country. I'm pretty excited as I've heard a lot of good things about Canada - hockey, Tim Horton's coffee, and uh . . . snow.
So, back to the only part of this post that might be halfway interesting - I set the bomb detector off at the Des Moines "International" Airport. It was a pretty thrilling experience. I was on my way to Flagstaff, when I was pulled aside for a random extra security screening. This essentially means they give you a good frisking and give all your stuff an extra search.
After a security guard swabbed my laptop case, she put the little cotton cloth into a machine (the bomb detector), and we made a little chit chat while she said we had to wait for the little 'ding'. I told her I was a youth director going to speak at a teenage convention. Then the alarm sounded.
I said, "That doesn't sound like a 'ding'."
She said, "No, no it doesn't." She then grabbed her walkie talkie and radioed in a "hit on station six". A large guard came over, asked me if I worked with explosives, gave me my second frisking of the day, and then they sent me on my way.
I have to admit, even though I knew that I didn't have a bomb on me - my mind did go there for a second. Well, maybe I do have a bomb. Maybe someone did slip it into my things while I wasn't looking. I then realized the only person I'd been with all morning had been my wife, so you can bet I'm keeping a pretty close eye on her as of late.
You heard it here first - Al Qaida is now targeting tall, lanky, Irish guys through their wives. Be aware.
Till next time,
Jason
Monday, June 05, 2006
The Old Time Gospel Show
I traveled up to Toledo, IA this past weekend to do some comedy/poetry at the historic Wieting Opera House (now movie theater). Unfortunately, I'm still forgetting to take my camera along, so this is the best picture I could find on the internet. But trust me when I say it's a really cool theater on the inside with a real oldfashioned feel.
This is apparently what it looked like in it's heyday though.
A guy by the name of John Finical called me up a couple weeks ago and asked me to do a few shows with his Old Time Gospel Tour. The first of which was this past weekend, the next two are over the first couple weekends in August in North English and What Cheer, IA.
John lined up lots of great acts for the show like Homeword Bound, Bob Mehrer, The MaClain Family (sp?), and a 12 year old madonlin and violin player named Chris "Crackers" Bennett.
In fact, I was the only non-gospel music portion of the evening - which made me a tad nervous. But it ended up being all for naught as the crowd really seemed to enjoy the poems I performed and gave me a great round of applause after it was over.
I've always thought that I'd love to go back to the day when Vaudeville was the main vein of entertainment in the country, and this show on Saturday was probably as close as I'm ever going to get.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Church / Kiwanis / Old Timey Gospel!
Sorry for the late update. I delivered the message a week ago last Sunday for the Bethel Reformed Church youth service in Des Moines, IA. I got hooked up with them through ministry partner Mark Elgersma who's aunt and uncle attend the church.
I had a great time, and they were really receptive, appreciative, and welcoming to me. I used some old photos of my dad's dog Happy from when he was a kid in the message, and talked about Peter and John in Acts 4.
I also did a 6 A.M. breakfast poetry reading for the Knoxville Kiwanis. Yes, that's right. 6 A.M.! It was EARLY. We just bought a new house and we've spent several days moving into it, and we've had a lot of early mornings and late nights, so I was dead tired when I rolled out of the house at 5:30. But the show went all right. I had a great time.
The biggest news, at least to me anyways, is that I was contacted by a fella about doing a series of storytelling/poetry shows as part of something called The Old Time Gospel Show. I guess it's a kind of tour thing where lots of different gospel singers and bands get together and put on a shows around Iowa, and I'll be providing the comedy portion of the evening.
I've been booked for three shows, the first one being this Saturday night, and it would be an understatement to say I'm a little excited. I'll be doing some poetry, storytelling, and a little banjo, so it's going to be about my favorite show of the year.
And in two short weeks I'll be in Sioux Falls, SD for the 2006 SERVE! And I'm super pumped cause Troy asked me back for the 2007 SERVE as well. Now I guess I'm really free to do some crazy stuff this year - like throwing rotten eggs at the crowd, or wearing my spiderman underoos to preach in. I can't wait!
Till next time,
Jason
I had a great time, and they were really receptive, appreciative, and welcoming to me. I used some old photos of my dad's dog Happy from when he was a kid in the message, and talked about Peter and John in Acts 4.
I also did a 6 A.M. breakfast poetry reading for the Knoxville Kiwanis. Yes, that's right. 6 A.M.! It was EARLY. We just bought a new house and we've spent several days moving into it, and we've had a lot of early mornings and late nights, so I was dead tired when I rolled out of the house at 5:30. But the show went all right. I had a great time.
The biggest news, at least to me anyways, is that I was contacted by a fella about doing a series of storytelling/poetry shows as part of something called The Old Time Gospel Show. I guess it's a kind of tour thing where lots of different gospel singers and bands get together and put on a shows around Iowa, and I'll be providing the comedy portion of the evening.
I've been booked for three shows, the first one being this Saturday night, and it would be an understatement to say I'm a little excited. I'll be doing some poetry, storytelling, and a little banjo, so it's going to be about my favorite show of the year.
And in two short weeks I'll be in Sioux Falls, SD for the 2006 SERVE! And I'm super pumped cause Troy asked me back for the 2007 SERVE as well. Now I guess I'm really free to do some crazy stuff this year - like throwing rotten eggs at the crowd, or wearing my spiderman underoos to preach in. I can't wait!
Till next time,
Jason
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
For Dustin!
Here it is! A project I hope to enjoy for a long time with my good friend Dustin!
http://ifihadbeenmacgyver.blogspot.com
http://ifihadbeenmacgyver.blogspot.com
Pella - Chicago - Michigan - Chicago - Pella
Went to Michigan over the weekend, by way of Chicago. I was going to speak at a youth rally in Wayland, MI at Gunn Lake Community Church. For those of you regular readers, it was the one I mentioned a while back that was going to have the praise band ride in on Harley's. You may also remember that I promised to start taking a camera along to take pictures. Well, there were Harley's, and I did bring the camera, but I completely forgot to take any pictures. So in lieu of the pictures I promised to take, I'll be inserting some pics I got from Google image search.
For instance:
The praise band rode in on Harley motorcycles!
Something unique that happened on this trip that was a real treat for me, was that good friend, and ministry partner, Mark Elgersma came along for the ride.
Once again, this is NOT a picture of Mark Elgersma, but it is the first picture that comes up when you type the name "Mark" into the Google image searcher.
We stayed the night in Chicago on Saturday to break up the driving a bit so we wouldn't have to drive the whole way in one day and then get out of the car and speak right away. The most amazing thing about the car ride was that it rained the WHOLE STINKING WAY from the moment I got in the car in Pella, all the way to Chicago, and all the way to Michigan, and it didn't stop until I hit the Iowa border on the way home on Monday.
Once again, this is not the rain we faced, but it is rain none-the-less.
In Chicago, we stayed with Mark's old college roommate Phil, who was a great guy that took us out for some great deep dish pizza, and then on to a real live Chicago Jazz Club. We had a great time.
Then it was on to Michigan on Sunday, and the worship service. Gunn Lake Community Church was just great, and I got a chance to see a few folks I'd worked with before at various times like Cindy, Bill and Pastor Todd.
Once again, this is NOT Cindy, Bill and Todd, but it is the first - yeah, well you get the picture by now.
After the show, which went pretty well, we headed over to visit old SERVE friends Randy and Becky Bennett in Dorr, MI. We had great time talking to them, catching up, and eating some fantastic monkey bread!
Okay, that's just a great picture! And yes, that's actually Randy!
What else? Hmmm, I'm guessing with all the pics this blog has been getting a little long. So I may call it quits here. I'm speaking for Bethany Reformed Church in Des Moines coming up here in May, and I'll be reading some poetry for another Kiwanis group on the 20th. It may be a bit before I update again, but in honor of good friend Dustin coming back from Holland, I will soon be linking to a special treat I'm arranging for Dustin as a welcome home present. Stay tuned!
Till next time,
Jason
For instance:
The praise band rode in on Harley motorcycles!
Something unique that happened on this trip that was a real treat for me, was that good friend, and ministry partner, Mark Elgersma came along for the ride.
Once again, this is NOT a picture of Mark Elgersma, but it is the first picture that comes up when you type the name "Mark" into the Google image searcher.
We stayed the night in Chicago on Saturday to break up the driving a bit so we wouldn't have to drive the whole way in one day and then get out of the car and speak right away. The most amazing thing about the car ride was that it rained the WHOLE STINKING WAY from the moment I got in the car in Pella, all the way to Chicago, and all the way to Michigan, and it didn't stop until I hit the Iowa border on the way home on Monday.
Once again, this is not the rain we faced, but it is rain none-the-less.
In Chicago, we stayed with Mark's old college roommate Phil, who was a great guy that took us out for some great deep dish pizza, and then on to a real live Chicago Jazz Club. We had a great time.
Then it was on to Michigan on Sunday, and the worship service. Gunn Lake Community Church was just great, and I got a chance to see a few folks I'd worked with before at various times like Cindy, Bill and Pastor Todd.
Once again, this is NOT Cindy, Bill and Todd, but it is the first - yeah, well you get the picture by now.
After the show, which went pretty well, we headed over to visit old SERVE friends Randy and Becky Bennett in Dorr, MI. We had great time talking to them, catching up, and eating some fantastic monkey bread!
Okay, that's just a great picture! And yes, that's actually Randy!
What else? Hmmm, I'm guessing with all the pics this blog has been getting a little long. So I may call it quits here. I'm speaking for Bethany Reformed Church in Des Moines coming up here in May, and I'll be reading some poetry for another Kiwanis group on the 20th. It may be a bit before I update again, but in honor of good friend Dustin coming back from Holland, I will soon be linking to a special treat I'm arranging for Dustin as a welcome home present. Stay tuned!
Till next time,
Jason
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Dolph
Did a little stand-up for a Serve Our Youth fundraiser last Friday night. I was the opening act for a guy from Des Moines by the name of Dolph Pulliam who was on the Drake basketball team when they went to the final four in the sixties, and then spent about twenty years as a newscaster in Des Moines for KCCI channel 8. Before he took the stage, I made sure to relate my story about watching him interview my great uncle Johnny at the Iowa State Fair and told him it was the biggest thing that'd ever happened to our family up to that point. He seemed pretty amused at that.
The guy is an amazing speaker. Born in Mississippi with eight (I think) other siblings, his parents died in a car wreck when he was young. He moved to Indiana with an aunt, got into basketball, and the rest is history. It was one of the best talks I've heard in a long time. He was down to earth, funny, and inspiring. The kind of guy who makes me wish I was a far better speaker.
Brother-in-law Kyle went with me to the dinner/fundraiser since Andrea was busy with some youth stuff. The meal was fantastic, and we had a pretty good time entertaining one another. I learned that Kyle is a praise band drummer that secretly loathes most of the music he has to play. I'd have to agree on a lot of points, but he's also a pretty stinking good musician and songwriter when he puts his mind to it, and hopefully it will inspire him to write some of his own music.
I travel to Michigan this weekend to speak at a Youth Rally at Gunn Lake Community Church. Mark Elgersma's riding along with me, and I'm expecting it to be a pretty good time. Hopefully Dolph will have inspired me a bit to bring my own game up a notch.
Till next time,
Jason
And yeah, I should try to take a camera along to finally get some pictures up on this blog.
The guy is an amazing speaker. Born in Mississippi with eight (I think) other siblings, his parents died in a car wreck when he was young. He moved to Indiana with an aunt, got into basketball, and the rest is history. It was one of the best talks I've heard in a long time. He was down to earth, funny, and inspiring. The kind of guy who makes me wish I was a far better speaker.
Brother-in-law Kyle went with me to the dinner/fundraiser since Andrea was busy with some youth stuff. The meal was fantastic, and we had a pretty good time entertaining one another. I learned that Kyle is a praise band drummer that secretly loathes most of the music he has to play. I'd have to agree on a lot of points, but he's also a pretty stinking good musician and songwriter when he puts his mind to it, and hopefully it will inspire him to write some of his own music.
I travel to Michigan this weekend to speak at a Youth Rally at Gunn Lake Community Church. Mark Elgersma's riding along with me, and I'm expecting it to be a pretty good time. Hopefully Dolph will have inspired me a bit to bring my own game up a notch.
Till next time,
Jason
And yeah, I should try to take a camera along to finally get some pictures up on this blog.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
I'm a big chump . . .
I missed a show yesterday. No real excuse really - Andrea and I are trying to put a bid down on a house, and yesterday we had about six hours of unexpected meetings come up. They all had to do with money, lawyers, septics tanks, loans, and other pleasant things. So we both pretty much skipped work for the day and sat through meetings.
Well, about 9 PM last night, a sudden, sickening feeling stabbed into my stomach as I realized that I'd forgotten all about doing a poetry reading in Knoxville, IA over the lunch hour. I'd set it up about two or three weeks ago, and even though it was only a fifteen minute show, as far as I can remember, it's the first show I've ever missed in more than ten years of performing.
Now, granted, there was a show five or six years ago that I missed as well. A young lady called me up and asked me to do some comedy for a class reunion in a certain Iowa town that I won't mention. I agreed, and she said she'd be in touch with me as the date got closer. All the info I had on her was her first name, the date, and the name of the town she was in.
Long story short, she never called me back - until the day after the reunion, when she asked me why I'd missed. I told her she'd given me no real info on the show, her full name, or her phone number, and she'd never called me back. I told her that I had no real desire to drive around the town looking for a reunion on the day of the show, and she quickly apologized for forgetting to call me back. Other than that incident, I don't think I've ever missed a show.
It was something I'd taken quite a bit of pride in, especially after hearing others tell me about how speakers/entertainers had burned them in the past by being late, canceling at the very last minute, or not showing up at all. In fact, I've gone to great lengths to make it to everything I've been booked for.
Once I agreed to speak for a youth retreat on a saturday morning, do a stand-up show five hours away on Saturday night, and then be back at the retreat to speak on Sunday morning. So esstenially, I spoke, jumped in the car and drove five hours, spoke again, did an hour of improv with friends, jumped back in the car around midnight and drove another five hours, got to the retreat, slept for two hours, then got up and spoke.
I agreed once to speak for a huge outdoor worship service in Sioux Falls, SD on a sunday morning. About a month after I'd made the arrangements, my brother announced he was getting married the night before, about six hours away, and wanted me to stand up with him. I agreed, went to the wedding, stayed for the reception, got in the car about 10:30 PM, and got to Sioux Falls at about 5:30 in the morning. I slept for about an hour and a half, and then headed to the service and spoke.
I once got severely sick, had a bad fever, lost my voice and had to spend two days straight out in the sun running a fundraiser for the youth group. And when I say I lost my voice, it was gone. All I had was a thin rasp. I'd agreed to do some stand-up for a seeker service in Des Moines on what was the worst day of my illness, and so for about ten hours before the show I just chugged and chugged cups of hot tea with honey. I made it to the show and performed, although it was what I would consider one of my worst shows ever, but I made the obligation.
So the fact that I missed a show yesterday - a show that was about twenty-five minutes from my apartment - for no other reason than I just forgot, I feel absolutely horrible. I called and apologized profusely, and the lady I talked to was very nice about the whole thing. I promised to make it up to them at any time, and she said that was nice. But I still can't get over the sick feeling. My perfect streak is broken . . .
This Friday night I'm the opening act at a Serve Our Youth fundraiser banquet for Des Moines' own Dolph Pulliam. I'm going to be very early for the show . . .
Till next time,
Jason
Well, about 9 PM last night, a sudden, sickening feeling stabbed into my stomach as I realized that I'd forgotten all about doing a poetry reading in Knoxville, IA over the lunch hour. I'd set it up about two or three weeks ago, and even though it was only a fifteen minute show, as far as I can remember, it's the first show I've ever missed in more than ten years of performing.
Now, granted, there was a show five or six years ago that I missed as well. A young lady called me up and asked me to do some comedy for a class reunion in a certain Iowa town that I won't mention. I agreed, and she said she'd be in touch with me as the date got closer. All the info I had on her was her first name, the date, and the name of the town she was in.
Long story short, she never called me back - until the day after the reunion, when she asked me why I'd missed. I told her she'd given me no real info on the show, her full name, or her phone number, and she'd never called me back. I told her that I had no real desire to drive around the town looking for a reunion on the day of the show, and she quickly apologized for forgetting to call me back. Other than that incident, I don't think I've ever missed a show.
It was something I'd taken quite a bit of pride in, especially after hearing others tell me about how speakers/entertainers had burned them in the past by being late, canceling at the very last minute, or not showing up at all. In fact, I've gone to great lengths to make it to everything I've been booked for.
Once I agreed to speak for a youth retreat on a saturday morning, do a stand-up show five hours away on Saturday night, and then be back at the retreat to speak on Sunday morning. So esstenially, I spoke, jumped in the car and drove five hours, spoke again, did an hour of improv with friends, jumped back in the car around midnight and drove another five hours, got to the retreat, slept for two hours, then got up and spoke.
I agreed once to speak for a huge outdoor worship service in Sioux Falls, SD on a sunday morning. About a month after I'd made the arrangements, my brother announced he was getting married the night before, about six hours away, and wanted me to stand up with him. I agreed, went to the wedding, stayed for the reception, got in the car about 10:30 PM, and got to Sioux Falls at about 5:30 in the morning. I slept for about an hour and a half, and then headed to the service and spoke.
I once got severely sick, had a bad fever, lost my voice and had to spend two days straight out in the sun running a fundraiser for the youth group. And when I say I lost my voice, it was gone. All I had was a thin rasp. I'd agreed to do some stand-up for a seeker service in Des Moines on what was the worst day of my illness, and so for about ten hours before the show I just chugged and chugged cups of hot tea with honey. I made it to the show and performed, although it was what I would consider one of my worst shows ever, but I made the obligation.
So the fact that I missed a show yesterday - a show that was about twenty-five minutes from my apartment - for no other reason than I just forgot, I feel absolutely horrible. I called and apologized profusely, and the lady I talked to was very nice about the whole thing. I promised to make it up to them at any time, and she said that was nice. But I still can't get over the sick feeling. My perfect streak is broken . . .
This Friday night I'm the opening act at a Serve Our Youth fundraiser banquet for Des Moines' own Dolph Pulliam. I'm going to be very early for the show . . .
Till next time,
Jason
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Lazy Blogger!
I admit it. I'm not holding up my end of this blog thing. I've been extremely unmotivated as of late and I can't really tell you why. But after some prodding from good friend Dustin, here's an update on the last few engagements I've been on . . .
1. Kiwanis! I went and read some poetry to a group of Kiwanis here in Pella a couple weeks back over their lunch time meeting. I'm not sure if they were expecting what they got. I think they were used to reports from park and rec commissioners, local ministries, and Pella politicians. What they got was half an hour of pig, dog, and farm poems. I had a great time and it lead to me getting two other shows. One for the Kiwanis in Knoxville (they meet over breakfast . . . oogh) and one for a hospital in Knoxville.
"Fantastic!" is all I'm thinking. I've made no secret that these kinds of shows are my guilty pleasure, and if I could figure out a way to make a living doing them, I would. I've just got to figure out how to get them to pay first . . .
2. Vriendship Villagebochendootch . . . Okay, I don't know how it's spelled, but it's a retirement community here in Pella that's actually called "Frienship Village" but they spell it the Dutch way to confuse Irish poets. I read some poems there too, this time to my ideal audience of 70 to 90 year-old retired folks. I love these shows because they always go the same way. I read poems. They laugh more than they should. We have coffee time afterwards. They ask me two questions in this order - "You're from Prairie City? Who was your grandpa?" I wouldn't have it any other way.
3. Church stuff - I took part in a five part monologue last week in church, and then we did it again this morning at Central college for a Lenten breakfast for the students. It was basically five biblical characters with five different monologues on why they think Christ deserved what he got. I was Judas. Gotta love the bad guy roles.
This Sunday morning I'm in charge of the Sunrise Service sermon. Why do they call it the sunrise service? Yeah, oogh, six a.m. I'm doing it with father-in-law Joe B. again like we did last year. I'm expecting it to be just as much fun.
Coming up,
I do some stand-up next week in Des Moines for a Serve Our Youth banquet. I know, I know, I've said it before, I'm trying to shy away from straight stand-up. But listen! The main speaker for the night is Iowa newscasting legend - Dolph Pulliam! As soon as I heard that, I was on board. Dolph interviewed my great uncle Johnny Taylor way back when about milking cows at the Iowa State Fair. I figure if I can get Dolph to laugh just once, my life will be complete.
I'm also heading to Michigan in a few weeks for a Sunday night youth rally. I don't know much except that Mark Elgersma is going along for the ride, and they emailed and told me that the praise band is riding in on Harley's. It sounded too good to pass up.
Till next time,
Jason
1. Kiwanis! I went and read some poetry to a group of Kiwanis here in Pella a couple weeks back over their lunch time meeting. I'm not sure if they were expecting what they got. I think they were used to reports from park and rec commissioners, local ministries, and Pella politicians. What they got was half an hour of pig, dog, and farm poems. I had a great time and it lead to me getting two other shows. One for the Kiwanis in Knoxville (they meet over breakfast . . . oogh) and one for a hospital in Knoxville.
"Fantastic!" is all I'm thinking. I've made no secret that these kinds of shows are my guilty pleasure, and if I could figure out a way to make a living doing them, I would. I've just got to figure out how to get them to pay first . . .
2. Vriendship Villagebochendootch . . . Okay, I don't know how it's spelled, but it's a retirement community here in Pella that's actually called "Frienship Village" but they spell it the Dutch way to confuse Irish poets. I read some poems there too, this time to my ideal audience of 70 to 90 year-old retired folks. I love these shows because they always go the same way. I read poems. They laugh more than they should. We have coffee time afterwards. They ask me two questions in this order - "You're from Prairie City? Who was your grandpa?" I wouldn't have it any other way.
3. Church stuff - I took part in a five part monologue last week in church, and then we did it again this morning at Central college for a Lenten breakfast for the students. It was basically five biblical characters with five different monologues on why they think Christ deserved what he got. I was Judas. Gotta love the bad guy roles.
This Sunday morning I'm in charge of the Sunrise Service sermon. Why do they call it the sunrise service? Yeah, oogh, six a.m. I'm doing it with father-in-law Joe B. again like we did last year. I'm expecting it to be just as much fun.
Coming up,
I do some stand-up next week in Des Moines for a Serve Our Youth banquet. I know, I know, I've said it before, I'm trying to shy away from straight stand-up. But listen! The main speaker for the night is Iowa newscasting legend - Dolph Pulliam! As soon as I heard that, I was on board. Dolph interviewed my great uncle Johnny Taylor way back when about milking cows at the Iowa State Fair. I figure if I can get Dolph to laugh just once, my life will be complete.
I'm also heading to Michigan in a few weeks for a Sunday night youth rally. I don't know much except that Mark Elgersma is going along for the ride, and they emailed and told me that the praise band is riding in on Harley's. It sounded too good to pass up.
Till next time,
Jason
Friday, March 17, 2006
At least Nathan's funny.
Happy St. Patrick's day everyone.
I'm filling in for the church secretary this week and since it's Friday morning, it's a little slow around the office, so I thought I'd take a moment to blog.
Nothing much to say today. I am, in fact, Irish. And the picture on the left is an authentic painting of my great, great uncle Charley McKain'O'Taylor.
I was thinking the other day about how good this blog is not, and wishing I did cool things on my blog like post pictures of where I've been, and who I saw.
But I realized that I'm usually far to lazy to find the camera before I leave on trips, and even when I have it with me, I'm far too lazy to take any pictures.
So anyway, wishing this blog was more entertaining for you the reader, I've decided to include a story today sent to me by good friend, and rocket scientist, Nathan Kinkaid.
Nathan and I are friends from back in middle school, we went to college together at ISU and were roommates for a better part of it, and we shared a lot of stage time on ISU's sketch comedy group Grandma Mojo's Moonshine Revival.
Nathan now spends most of his time doing cool things like hiking, biking, raising a family, living in California, and thinking up ways to make rockets go "Whooooosh!" up in the sky. But occasionally he'll send me a great tidbit of comedy he's worked up. Sometimes it's a skit, sometimes it's a story - either way it usually makes me laugh.
So, without any permission from Nathan what-so-ever, I present to you his latest story to me - which at least ties into today's theme because the main character has an Irish name. And oh yes, to maintain full disclosure, I did edit one word out of the story for my family readers. Sorry Nathan.
Chancy McLuckyguy and the Ogre
by Nathan Kinkaid, Rocket Scientist, Good Friend, Super Genius, Funny Man
Chancy McLukyguy awoke from his nap to urgent knocking on his door. It was Rolph and Timmy. Chancy arose from his couch and answered the door.
"Why aren't you at the picnic, Chancy?" asked Timmy.
"I flipped my lucky coin, and a nap won over the picnic," explained Chancy.
"Wow, that was lucky," said Rolph, "Cause an ogre showed up at the picnic, and it ate all the jello. Now it's making Mrs. Artlemore eat all the devilled eggs."
"That coin sure never steers you wrong, Chancy. It sure is lucky that a guy with the name 'Chancy McLuckyguy' found it in some black cat poop under a ladder," said Timmy.
"Yeah," said Rolph, "But, oh yeah, we need your help against the ogre."
"You're the only one who could help Mrs. Artlemore now," chimed in Timmy, "We all know she can only hold 50 devilled eggs before she gets violently ill, and the ogre has alread made her eat 17! You have to help us!"
"Well, I'll have to flip my lucky coin," said Chancy, "Heads I start heading down to the picnic and see if I can help, tails I stay here and go back to sleep." Chancy flipped the coin in the air, caught it in his right hand, and slapped it down on the back of his left hand. "Heads," he said, "Let's start heading down to the picnic."
"Yay!" exclaimed Rolph and Timmy, as they followed him out to the street. "Why are you stopping?" they asked.
"Heads I keep going out to the sidewalk, tails I get my mail out of the mailbox and read it." Chancy flipped the coin again. "Heads."
"Yay!" They arrived at the sidewalk by Chancy's street. Chancy stopped again. "Heads I'm going to the video arcade, tails I cross the street to go to the picnic," said Chancy. "Heads. See you guys later."
"No!" said Timmy.
"Please, you have to help us", said Rolph.
"You don't need luck to cross the road," said Timmy, "You can do it without your coin. Please, just once."
"Yeah, just once," implored Rolph, "You don't need luck just to cross the stupid street."
Chancy pondered it. He supposed just this once, he could help out these two idiots. He relented. "Okay," said Chancy, "Let's cross the street."
"Yay!" Chancy turned and stepped out into the street. He was hit by a bus. A bus made entirely of nerf - on the only day it would ever run because buses made entirely of nerf are not very reliable. Chancy bounced over onto the grass on the other side of the street.
"Wow!" said Rolph, "Can you believe how lucky that guy is? Even without his coin, the bus he got he by was made of nerf!"
"That's crazy," said Timmy, "I'll go wake him up." Timmy ran across the street to Chancy. "He's dead!"
"Oh no! I can't believe he got killed by a nerf bus! He should have listened to the coin and not us."
"Where's the coin? We'll need that to defeat the ogre."
"Here it is. Wait! It has too heads! He was never lucky, he was just smart!"
"No way! Now I'm glad he's dead."
"Yeah, we hate smart people here in Dumbville."
"Let's go kick the ogre in the butt. That'll teach him to ruin the Dumbville Town Picnic."
And then the ogre killed everyone in the town by making them eat devilled eggs until they blew up. Those idiots in Dumbville always made way too many devilled eggs.
THE END
till next time,
Jason
Monday, March 13, 2006
Late Night Musings
I found myself driving over night again on Friday, as I often do when I travel to speak, and decided that there are just some things I've grown to expect while driving late at night. Some events just seem to reoccur every time I travel between the hours of midnight and six a.m.
For instance:
1. More nighttime truckers than not choose to travel with the confederate flag emblazoned somewhere on their clothes. I'm not certain on why it's more nighttime truckers than daytime truckers, but during most late night gas station visits, I'm fairly sure the south may rise again.
2. I've never stopped at a rest stop between the hours of midnight and six without seeing at least one biker. Now, granted, the exception to this is during severe winter conditions, but I've even seen a few diehard Harley riders during some rough snow storms.
3. To be a gas station attendant during the graveyard shift requires one to be short some type of body part. Now most of the time, it's just a tooth or two. But I've seen missing hands, arms, legs, eyes, and even one young guy I see on occasion who has no nose! I'm completely serious. I know what you're thinking - "If he doesn't have a nose, how does he smell?" Just awful.
4. If the skies are clear, I will see at least one falling star. What do I wish for? More wishes of course.
5. Coast to Coast AM is the best way to stay awake. There's nothing like staying awake because you've become paranoid that there are aliens or black ops government officials that patrol the highways during early morning hours.
6. As good as Krispy Kreme doughnuts are, they're even better when you can get them delivered fresh at 4 AM as you pass through the right gas station.
7. While driving past the casinos where I-80 meets I-29, I've discovered that they apparently don't suffer from "slow hours". Those places are always hopping.
8. Small children are up way too late. I see at least one or two cars every trip when I stop at a gas station or rest area where they have several elementary aged children awake and running around with enough energy to make you think they'd say it was noon.
I'm thinking this list would seem more complete if it ended at 10, but alas, it's time for me to move on in my day.
till next time,
Jason
For instance:
1. More nighttime truckers than not choose to travel with the confederate flag emblazoned somewhere on their clothes. I'm not certain on why it's more nighttime truckers than daytime truckers, but during most late night gas station visits, I'm fairly sure the south may rise again.
2. I've never stopped at a rest stop between the hours of midnight and six without seeing at least one biker. Now, granted, the exception to this is during severe winter conditions, but I've even seen a few diehard Harley riders during some rough snow storms.
3. To be a gas station attendant during the graveyard shift requires one to be short some type of body part. Now most of the time, it's just a tooth or two. But I've seen missing hands, arms, legs, eyes, and even one young guy I see on occasion who has no nose! I'm completely serious. I know what you're thinking - "If he doesn't have a nose, how does he smell?" Just awful.
4. If the skies are clear, I will see at least one falling star. What do I wish for? More wishes of course.
5. Coast to Coast AM is the best way to stay awake. There's nothing like staying awake because you've become paranoid that there are aliens or black ops government officials that patrol the highways during early morning hours.
6. As good as Krispy Kreme doughnuts are, they're even better when you can get them delivered fresh at 4 AM as you pass through the right gas station.
7. While driving past the casinos where I-80 meets I-29, I've discovered that they apparently don't suffer from "slow hours". Those places are always hopping.
8. Small children are up way too late. I see at least one or two cars every trip when I stop at a gas station or rest area where they have several elementary aged children awake and running around with enough energy to make you think they'd say it was noon.
I'm thinking this list would seem more complete if it ended at 10, but alas, it's time for me to move on in my day.
till next time,
Jason
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
No blog for you!
Yeah, I'm desperately behind in my blogging, but unfortunately in the next ten minutes I have to devote to it this week, you're not going to get very much.
I head off for Orange City, IA in a few hours to do a Wednesday-Friday Spiritual Renewal Week for the Unity Christian High School there with Troy and Dawn. This immediately follows the Renewal Week I did last week here at Pella Christian High School with Troy, Dawn and Mark.
We had a great time last week. It was fun just to have those three at my apartment here in Pella for a change, rather than them always hosting me in Sioux Falls. We laughed, ate a ton, had great talks, and I got the chance to scare the beejeebus out of Troy late one night with one of my new Mexican wrestling masks (the one Nathan got me in LA). So it was a good time.
I should elaborate more, but I wouldn't even know where to start. We led chapels every morning, and then did a big praise and worship service on Wednesday night. We got to visit classes all week (and many prayers go out to God that He never calls me to be a full time teacher - those long days in the classroom wear me out!) and sit in the guidance office to talk to a lot of cool kids. I met some great students with a lot of heartache and a lot of promising futures.
We ate out on Thursday night at El Charro, and, as usual on our ministry trips, Troy promptly grabbed a waiter and told him we had a birthday at our table. Troy does this almost every trip, whether there's a birthday or not. He just thinks it's fun to see the wait staff come out with treats, a song, and a silly hat for the innocent bystander. Usually he picks on the new guy or gal in the group and makes it a surprise - this time he just pointed at me. So I got to wear a sombrero (and Troy got a much smaller one!) and we got some kind of flaky, whip creamy dessert with chocolate. No complaints from me.
Will I update next week after Orange city? More than likely. I'll be filling in for our church secretary Cindy while she's on vacation, so I'll be in front of a computer - no excuses this time.
A big shout out to Dustin who's still enjoying his time in Holland. Make sure you check out his blog on the right. He's living the high life right now, and having a blast. He msn'ed me yesterday and said they're taking a trip to the beaches of Normandy this weekend, and I'm very jealous!
Till next time,
Jason
I head off for Orange City, IA in a few hours to do a Wednesday-Friday Spiritual Renewal Week for the Unity Christian High School there with Troy and Dawn. This immediately follows the Renewal Week I did last week here at Pella Christian High School with Troy, Dawn and Mark.
We had a great time last week. It was fun just to have those three at my apartment here in Pella for a change, rather than them always hosting me in Sioux Falls. We laughed, ate a ton, had great talks, and I got the chance to scare the beejeebus out of Troy late one night with one of my new Mexican wrestling masks (the one Nathan got me in LA). So it was a good time.
I should elaborate more, but I wouldn't even know where to start. We led chapels every morning, and then did a big praise and worship service on Wednesday night. We got to visit classes all week (and many prayers go out to God that He never calls me to be a full time teacher - those long days in the classroom wear me out!) and sit in the guidance office to talk to a lot of cool kids. I met some great students with a lot of heartache and a lot of promising futures.
We ate out on Thursday night at El Charro, and, as usual on our ministry trips, Troy promptly grabbed a waiter and told him we had a birthday at our table. Troy does this almost every trip, whether there's a birthday or not. He just thinks it's fun to see the wait staff come out with treats, a song, and a silly hat for the innocent bystander. Usually he picks on the new guy or gal in the group and makes it a surprise - this time he just pointed at me. So I got to wear a sombrero (and Troy got a much smaller one!) and we got some kind of flaky, whip creamy dessert with chocolate. No complaints from me.
Will I update next week after Orange city? More than likely. I'll be filling in for our church secretary Cindy while she's on vacation, so I'll be in front of a computer - no excuses this time.
A big shout out to Dustin who's still enjoying his time in Holland. Make sure you check out his blog on the right. He's living the high life right now, and having a blast. He msn'ed me yesterday and said they're taking a trip to the beaches of Normandy this weekend, and I'm very jealous!
Till next time,
Jason
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
A little behind. . .
Okay, so more than a few people have said, "When are you going to update your blog already?" As I've said, I try to update after every speaking engagement, and unfortunately I've fallen about three events behind.
So to play catch up a bit - last Monday I went across the street to the First Reformed Church to perform for the "Keen-agers". (Think: Senior Citizen Youth Group)
I've performed for them before, usually crazy stories and songs, and I've always had a great time. Plus, they have always offered me one of my favorite forms of payment - Jaarsma Bakery baked goods.
Well this past Monday was no exception to my string of fun engagements for the group. Plus, I got a little daring and added some four-tenor banjo to mix.
So to play catch up a bit - last Monday I went across the street to the First Reformed Church to perform for the "Keen-agers". (Think: Senior Citizen Youth Group)
I've performed for them before, usually crazy stories and songs, and I've always had a great time. Plus, they have always offered me one of my favorite forms of payment - Jaarsma Bakery baked goods.
Well this past Monday was no exception to my string of fun engagements for the group. Plus, I got a little daring and added some four-tenor banjo to mix.
As most of you know, I inherited my four-string from my Grandpa Kain after he passed and it looks much like the one above, yet much older. I've plucked for several years now, and even written a few goofy songs.
One of those goofy songs got me in a bit of hot water, as you regular blog readers may remember, when I sang it at farmer's gathering in Southern Iowa and had a few lines about how bad pigs smelled. Well, I sang the same song for the Keen-agers, and it went great. They loved it, and a few of them admitted to being hog farmers and agreed that hogs do indeed smell. So I guess I have a little vindication there.
I'll be updating more in the next few days to try and catch up with what's been going on. I speak next week at the Pella Christian High School Spiritual Renewal Week, and the week after that I'm in Orange City, IA for their Renewal Week. Both are crowds I really enjoy, and so for all of you blog desperate complainers (or maybe you just like to complain in general) the next few weeks should be a goldmine for you. That is, if you enjoy reading about semi-pro, banjo playing, Christian/Comedian speaker from Podunk Nowhere, Iowa.
Till next time,
Jason
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Meetings are a drag . . .
I don't care what the meeting's for, I don't want to be there. It could be a meeting to make sure that I get a free ice cream cone everyday for the rest of my life, and I still wouldn't want to be there.
Meetings happen when a group of people get together who all have differing opinions - which invariably means that at least one person in the group will think I'm an idiot. So my solution is to sit quietly and pretend I don't exist. I like to daydream about things - and not just any old thing, I have very specific meeting daydreams.
The first one is great scenes from movies. 99% of the time, it'll be the scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indiana Jones is holding the rocket launcher on the Nazis as they round the bend in the canyon holding the ark and Indy yells, "I'm gonna blow it up Rene!"
Meetings happen when a group of people get together who all have differing opinions - which invariably means that at least one person in the group will think I'm an idiot. So my solution is to sit quietly and pretend I don't exist. I like to daydream about things - and not just any old thing, I have very specific meeting daydreams.
The first one is great scenes from movies. 99% of the time, it'll be the scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indiana Jones is holding the rocket launcher on the Nazis as they round the bend in the canyon holding the ark and Indy yells, "I'm gonna blow it up Rene!"
I've had that daydream since sitting through boring high school classes, and it always makes me immediately yearn to run home and watch the movie. Yet, by the time I get home, the yearning has faded, and I end up watching cartoons.
The other daydream, and the one that currently holds realm in most of my meetings, is remembering great pro wrestling matches that I've seen. Most often, it's the Bret Hart - Steve Austin match from Wrestlmania 13, a true mat classic.
Otherwise it'll be just about anything Ric Flair's been in.
And yet, no matter how quiet and invisible I attempt to be, someone always says, "Jason, you've been so quiet. What do you think?" And then I open my big, dumb gob, and end up regretting it for the rest of my life.
I've got to figure out a way to get out of more meetings . . .
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Making your own fun . . .
I've spent a lot of time on the road over the last five years cramped up with a lot of other people. Besides just speaking, and stand-up, I performed on the Northwestern College summer drama ministry team for two summers, driving around the country in a 15 passenger van for up to 8 or 10 hours a day. I've driven hours upon hours with the Sioux Falls crew, and spent many a night on an air mattress-crowded floor with seven or eight other people. After a while, monotony of travel, lack of sleep, and close quarters on bad beds can make you go a little nutty and get a little tense. I've always taken it upon myself on trips to loosen things up a bit. My main choice of action is the practical joke or dare. So I figured I'd take a moment or two and share some of my favorites from over the last several years - at least the ones that are fit to print.
The Dare / Exploding Cigarette
On one of the drama ministry tours, right in the middle of an extremely long van ride, our group stopped to eat at a McDonald's in the middle of Podunk, Nowhere. I was eating at a table with my wife Andrea, and a good friend Tonya (now Tonya Folkerts).
Dares are always really big with me on gruelling trips. I like to challenge people to crazy things for either small amounts of money, or I'll guarantee them I'll do something even crazier than the challenge I pose. I never plan on winning the bets. Part of the fun is finding a challenge that's crazy, but just easy enough for the participant to accept. Then, not only do they do something crazy, but they get to watch me do something a little nutty too. It can liven the whole group up.
So we're sitting there, and we look out the window, and there are these two teenage girls who can't be more than 14 apiece, sitting outside at a table, smoking cigarettes. After a lengthy conversation over hamburgers about how unappealing these two girls are, I dare Tonya to go outside and bum a cigarette from them. I tell her I'll give her two bucks.
Tonya quickly agrees, but I tell her that's not all. There's a large, round (about a foot in diameter) rubber adverstisment on our table (sticky on one side, with a picture on the other) advertising the new McDonald's milkshake. I tell Tonya she has to peel the ad off the table and wear it on her stomach. She does. We watch. The girls give her a wide-eyed surprised look. And Tonya gets a cigarette.
So now we're in the van, I give Tonya her two bucks, and she says, "Well, I guess I'll throw it away, I don't smoke." That's when the great idea hits. Someone has brought along on the trip these things called "Cigarette Loads". They're basically these little white firecrackers you can hide in the end of cigarettes to make them explode after the person's lit them and puffed. We have several smokers on the trip, and we've been waiting for an opportunity to slip them one, but we can never get our hands on their cigarettes.
So Tonya loads it up, walks over to a smoker on our team named Solomon, explains the teenage girl dare, tells him it was funny but she doesn't smoke, and offers him the cigarette. He kindly accepts and we watch as he walks off a bit from the van and lights up.
Now, these loads are pretty small, so we're not expecting much - maybe a small *pop*. Well, about five seconds into the smoke - BANG - like a black cat going off. Sol drops the cigarette and just backs up like he's been shot. We were laughing so hard from the van and feeling so content at such a string of great jokes.
Frozen Toilet
Another drama ministry trip - we're in Traverse City Michigan over a spring break. The drama team is rehearsing a play on the main stage, and I'm sitting in the empty auditorium watching because I'm not on the trip for drama, just stand-up. So I'm sitting there, bored out of my mind, and sitting next to me is the theater director's son, Joseph.
I lean over to Joseph and ask him if he wants in on something good. He does. I lead him back to our two suites that we're staying in (the guys in one, the girls in the other) and we walk out to the patios. Luckily, we find the girls' patio door open, so we let ourselves in. I tell Joseph to find a bucket of some kind, and he comes back from the kitchen with a big plastic bowl. Michigan is in the middle of this huge snow storm, so we make trips back and forth outside collecting snow - which we then kindly deposit in the girls' toilet until it finally tops off. We pack it down hard, put the bowl back, let ourselves back out the patio door, and head back to the auditorium.
Later in the afternoon when we're all back in our rooms watching TV, we hear a scream from the girls' side. We all rush over and find one of the girls, Crystal, standing in the kitchen in a very panicked state. "What's wrong?" everyone asks. Crystal tells us that when she sat down on the toilet a second ago, something "bit me!"
Well, it was just the snow (now ice) giving her a little frost nip, and the greatest part was, that even though Joseph and I were the only two people on the tour who could have slipped away from the rest of the group, the girls are blaming the other guys in the group. Perfect.
Underwear Ninjas
I ran out of underwear during the middle of the week three years ago at the SERVE project in Sioux Falls, SD. I had come to SERVE in the middle of a summer drama tour, and hadn't had time to do laundry. It was Thursday, we were all tired as all get out, and I decided that instead of tracking down a laundry machine, I'd just buy more underwear.
We head to Walmart, and I grab a pack of boxer briefs. (Which was pretty fun in itself because I'd forgotten what my size is, so Mark Elgersma actually checked the pair I was wearing, while I was wearing it, in the middle of Walmart.)
We get back to the van, me and Mark in the back seat, and Troy Kooima and Dawn Ryswyk in the front seats. Now, I've figured out this little trick that only works with boxer briefs. If you put your head through the waist and one leg so that you're wearing it like a turtle neck with the leg pulled up over your nose, and then take the other leg and bring it down over the top of your head leaving only your eyes open - you look like a ninja.
We (Mark and I) decide we all need to be underwear ninjas, so we hand a pair around to everyone. Dawn quickly removes hers though after Mark and I ponder about whether or not it was the pair I tried on in the store.
Now we're all driving along on our merry way, making up great underwear ninja names for ourselves (Skid-Mark, Blue Flame) when we pull up to a stop light and Dawn points out to Troy (who's driving) that there's a cop on our left.
Troy freaks, because he's a guy who never wears a seatbelt, so he goes, "Oh, crap!" and starts struggling to get his belt on before the cop looks over. Right when Troy snaps it into place, the cop looks, the light turns green, and we take off. Troy lets out a big "Whew!" And Dawn says, "Yeah, I'm really sure he was noticing your seatbelt when you and two other guys in the car ARE WEARING UNDERWEAR ON YOUR HEAD!"
He didn't pull us over, so it must not have been the wierdest thing he'd ever seen.
Till next time,
Jason
The Dare / Exploding Cigarette
On one of the drama ministry tours, right in the middle of an extremely long van ride, our group stopped to eat at a McDonald's in the middle of Podunk, Nowhere. I was eating at a table with my wife Andrea, and a good friend Tonya (now Tonya Folkerts).
Dares are always really big with me on gruelling trips. I like to challenge people to crazy things for either small amounts of money, or I'll guarantee them I'll do something even crazier than the challenge I pose. I never plan on winning the bets. Part of the fun is finding a challenge that's crazy, but just easy enough for the participant to accept. Then, not only do they do something crazy, but they get to watch me do something a little nutty too. It can liven the whole group up.
So we're sitting there, and we look out the window, and there are these two teenage girls who can't be more than 14 apiece, sitting outside at a table, smoking cigarettes. After a lengthy conversation over hamburgers about how unappealing these two girls are, I dare Tonya to go outside and bum a cigarette from them. I tell her I'll give her two bucks.
Tonya quickly agrees, but I tell her that's not all. There's a large, round (about a foot in diameter) rubber adverstisment on our table (sticky on one side, with a picture on the other) advertising the new McDonald's milkshake. I tell Tonya she has to peel the ad off the table and wear it on her stomach. She does. We watch. The girls give her a wide-eyed surprised look. And Tonya gets a cigarette.
So now we're in the van, I give Tonya her two bucks, and she says, "Well, I guess I'll throw it away, I don't smoke." That's when the great idea hits. Someone has brought along on the trip these things called "Cigarette Loads". They're basically these little white firecrackers you can hide in the end of cigarettes to make them explode after the person's lit them and puffed. We have several smokers on the trip, and we've been waiting for an opportunity to slip them one, but we can never get our hands on their cigarettes.
So Tonya loads it up, walks over to a smoker on our team named Solomon, explains the teenage girl dare, tells him it was funny but she doesn't smoke, and offers him the cigarette. He kindly accepts and we watch as he walks off a bit from the van and lights up.
Now, these loads are pretty small, so we're not expecting much - maybe a small *pop*. Well, about five seconds into the smoke - BANG - like a black cat going off. Sol drops the cigarette and just backs up like he's been shot. We were laughing so hard from the van and feeling so content at such a string of great jokes.
Frozen Toilet
Another drama ministry trip - we're in Traverse City Michigan over a spring break. The drama team is rehearsing a play on the main stage, and I'm sitting in the empty auditorium watching because I'm not on the trip for drama, just stand-up. So I'm sitting there, bored out of my mind, and sitting next to me is the theater director's son, Joseph.
I lean over to Joseph and ask him if he wants in on something good. He does. I lead him back to our two suites that we're staying in (the guys in one, the girls in the other) and we walk out to the patios. Luckily, we find the girls' patio door open, so we let ourselves in. I tell Joseph to find a bucket of some kind, and he comes back from the kitchen with a big plastic bowl. Michigan is in the middle of this huge snow storm, so we make trips back and forth outside collecting snow - which we then kindly deposit in the girls' toilet until it finally tops off. We pack it down hard, put the bowl back, let ourselves back out the patio door, and head back to the auditorium.
Later in the afternoon when we're all back in our rooms watching TV, we hear a scream from the girls' side. We all rush over and find one of the girls, Crystal, standing in the kitchen in a very panicked state. "What's wrong?" everyone asks. Crystal tells us that when she sat down on the toilet a second ago, something "bit me!"
Well, it was just the snow (now ice) giving her a little frost nip, and the greatest part was, that even though Joseph and I were the only two people on the tour who could have slipped away from the rest of the group, the girls are blaming the other guys in the group. Perfect.
Underwear Ninjas
I ran out of underwear during the middle of the week three years ago at the SERVE project in Sioux Falls, SD. I had come to SERVE in the middle of a summer drama tour, and hadn't had time to do laundry. It was Thursday, we were all tired as all get out, and I decided that instead of tracking down a laundry machine, I'd just buy more underwear.
We head to Walmart, and I grab a pack of boxer briefs. (Which was pretty fun in itself because I'd forgotten what my size is, so Mark Elgersma actually checked the pair I was wearing, while I was wearing it, in the middle of Walmart.)
We get back to the van, me and Mark in the back seat, and Troy Kooima and Dawn Ryswyk in the front seats. Now, I've figured out this little trick that only works with boxer briefs. If you put your head through the waist and one leg so that you're wearing it like a turtle neck with the leg pulled up over your nose, and then take the other leg and bring it down over the top of your head leaving only your eyes open - you look like a ninja.
We (Mark and I) decide we all need to be underwear ninjas, so we hand a pair around to everyone. Dawn quickly removes hers though after Mark and I ponder about whether or not it was the pair I tried on in the store.
Now we're all driving along on our merry way, making up great underwear ninja names for ourselves (Skid-Mark, Blue Flame) when we pull up to a stop light and Dawn points out to Troy (who's driving) that there's a cop on our left.
Troy freaks, because he's a guy who never wears a seatbelt, so he goes, "Oh, crap!" and starts struggling to get his belt on before the cop looks over. Right when Troy snaps it into place, the cop looks, the light turns green, and we take off. Troy lets out a big "Whew!" And Dawn says, "Yeah, I'm really sure he was noticing your seatbelt when you and two other guys in the car ARE WEARING UNDERWEAR ON YOUR HEAD!"
He didn't pull us over, so it must not have been the wierdest thing he'd ever seen.
Till next time,
Jason
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
The Shortest Distance Between Two Points is Sioux Falls
So I attended and spoke for the Youth Unlimited Summit Conference at Camp Geneva in Michigan this past weekend. It's a conference set up for all the different groups around the world that will be hosting SERVE projects for the coming year. I'm the speaker for the Sioux Falls SERVE site, and last year I had the crew pick me up in Newton, IA on their way out to Holland, MI.
This year, though, I drove the extra five hours of the trip up to Sioux Falls in order to be able to spend an extra day when we got back for a going away party for good friend Dustin Vander Haar as he's headed for the Netherlands tomorrow for four months.
It was a fantastic trip. Too tough to go into detail on everything, so I'm just going to give some highlights of the trip. As I've said before, and I'll say again, the Sioux Falls crew is by far the greatest group of people I've ever had the chance to minstry with. It's non stop fun and laughs the whole time.
"In the bathroom." That was answer you would recieve 99% of the time if you asked the question, "Hey, where's Dustin?" Dustin had a severe cold / stomach flu, so he spent most of time expelling things from his body in the cabin bathroom. It got so bad that Danny Fergen and I ran into town to get him some extra soft toilet paper, extra strength Immodium, and moist towelettes. You can probably imagine how manly we felt walking through the checkout line with those items together. The highlight came on Sunday though, when after finally feeling better, Dustin walked into the bathroom while I was in there, and loudly asked, "Whew! Did you do that?" Well, unbeknownst to Dustin, there was a guy in the stall next to me who quietly answered back, "That was me . . ." We all thought Dustin had a lot of nerve to take offense to someone else after the weekend he'd just gone through.
Roommates So the Youth Unlimited people always mix our crew in with strangers in the cabins. This is not always a good idea due to the fact that we tend to sleep very little, and make a lot of noise at night. Last year, at about 2:30 AM Dan Tenapel and Mark Elgersma came back to the cabin after defeating some Canadians at ping pong and did a victory dance or two in their underwear. This year, Mark laid under / next to my bed in the pitch dark, in his underwear for an unbelievably long time just to try and scare me when I came back from the chapel on Saturday night. After waiting five or ten minutes after I'd laid down, he reached up and smacked me. Unfortunately, rather than being scared, I thought Dustin had fallen out of the bunk above me since he was so sick. Add on top of that the fact that several of us snore, talk in our sleep, or toss and turn, Mark has an interesting nude shower dance, and Dustin stunk up the bathroom for the whole weekend, and you can get a pretty good clue as to who you shouldn't room with if you come to Summit.
"If you're too tired to drive . . . " Another phrase often heard this weekend. You see, when you get all of us together in one van, the driver often feels left out since they have to concentrate on something other than the uproarious laughter coming from the back. In an effort to be included, the various drivers often turn part way around to catch some of the conversations. This often leads to some good back and forth swerving on the road, at which point someone will invariably look up and offer, "If you're too tired to drive, I can take over!"
Dustin has a stinking hammock in his room! I got to spend a good chunk of Monday at Dustin's house before his going away party. And to put it simply, his house rocks my face off. For starters, he's accomplished a childhood dream of mine that my father assured me was impossible - he has a hammock hanging over his bed in his room. I laid in it. We also watched a classic Halloween episode of Macgyver where Mac had to team up with his arch enemy Murdoch on Dustin's fam's 60 inch tv. That was after we played pool on his pool table next to the wet bar / basement kitchen, but before we ate homemade banana bread from his mom . . .
Riding buddies. Mark and I made the last two and a half hours of the trip alone since we picked up his car along the way in Albert Lea. It was late, we were cranky and tired, and we'd been in the van for almost ten hours already. So after about an hour in the car together, Mark decided to count the little white posts that mark every tenth of a mile! And I decided to retaliate by making a really neat little annoying noise with my lips. We quickly made the decision it was time to switch up driving partners for a bit, and since we were way ahead of the van, we pulled over. I got out of the car, grabbed my phone, called the van, and said, "Pull over! We're switching now!" We then found out that the van had caught up to us, passed the exit and were a mile down the road when we called them. Mark and I looked at each other, and decided we were stuck, so we got back in and made it the rest of the way home without killing each other. And you know what? I'm pretty sure it made our friendship stronger. What would have happened if we'd split at the exit? Would we have talked again? Would we have broken up for good? Who would have taken custody of the kids?
Poker game. Me, Dustin, Mark, Jason Baartman, Danny Fergen, Luke Vander Leest, David Fergen, and Troy Kooima all around one table to play cards, laugh and give Dustin a sending off. Then a SERVE conversation with Dustin, Mark and Troy that started at 1 AM and lasted till 3. My sides literally hurt from laughing so hard at the end.
And then there are the things that if I went into them now, not only would this post end up twenty pages long, but I may get in trouble with the law:
Grandma Dawn
Tooth nerves
Underwear running
Mouse hunts
"Two weeks at camp till the bleeding stopped"
And oh yeah, I spoke on Sunday morning too. All in all, I'm charged and ready for a great year with these guys. I speak with David, Danny, Mark and Baartman in February, Troy and Dawn in March, Danny and Mark in April, and the whole crew in June and July. I'm excited. Every trip up there I'm reminded in a big way why I got I'm in ministry. God is huge, friends are fantastic, and big things happen with them.
Till next time,
Jason
This year, though, I drove the extra five hours of the trip up to Sioux Falls in order to be able to spend an extra day when we got back for a going away party for good friend Dustin Vander Haar as he's headed for the Netherlands tomorrow for four months.
It was a fantastic trip. Too tough to go into detail on everything, so I'm just going to give some highlights of the trip. As I've said before, and I'll say again, the Sioux Falls crew is by far the greatest group of people I've ever had the chance to minstry with. It's non stop fun and laughs the whole time.
"In the bathroom." That was answer you would recieve 99% of the time if you asked the question, "Hey, where's Dustin?" Dustin had a severe cold / stomach flu, so he spent most of time expelling things from his body in the cabin bathroom. It got so bad that Danny Fergen and I ran into town to get him some extra soft toilet paper, extra strength Immodium, and moist towelettes. You can probably imagine how manly we felt walking through the checkout line with those items together. The highlight came on Sunday though, when after finally feeling better, Dustin walked into the bathroom while I was in there, and loudly asked, "Whew! Did you do that?" Well, unbeknownst to Dustin, there was a guy in the stall next to me who quietly answered back, "That was me . . ." We all thought Dustin had a lot of nerve to take offense to someone else after the weekend he'd just gone through.
Roommates So the Youth Unlimited people always mix our crew in with strangers in the cabins. This is not always a good idea due to the fact that we tend to sleep very little, and make a lot of noise at night. Last year, at about 2:30 AM Dan Tenapel and Mark Elgersma came back to the cabin after defeating some Canadians at ping pong and did a victory dance or two in their underwear. This year, Mark laid under / next to my bed in the pitch dark, in his underwear for an unbelievably long time just to try and scare me when I came back from the chapel on Saturday night. After waiting five or ten minutes after I'd laid down, he reached up and smacked me. Unfortunately, rather than being scared, I thought Dustin had fallen out of the bunk above me since he was so sick. Add on top of that the fact that several of us snore, talk in our sleep, or toss and turn, Mark has an interesting nude shower dance, and Dustin stunk up the bathroom for the whole weekend, and you can get a pretty good clue as to who you shouldn't room with if you come to Summit.
"If you're too tired to drive . . . " Another phrase often heard this weekend. You see, when you get all of us together in one van, the driver often feels left out since they have to concentrate on something other than the uproarious laughter coming from the back. In an effort to be included, the various drivers often turn part way around to catch some of the conversations. This often leads to some good back and forth swerving on the road, at which point someone will invariably look up and offer, "If you're too tired to drive, I can take over!"
Dustin has a stinking hammock in his room! I got to spend a good chunk of Monday at Dustin's house before his going away party. And to put it simply, his house rocks my face off. For starters, he's accomplished a childhood dream of mine that my father assured me was impossible - he has a hammock hanging over his bed in his room. I laid in it. We also watched a classic Halloween episode of Macgyver where Mac had to team up with his arch enemy Murdoch on Dustin's fam's 60 inch tv. That was after we played pool on his pool table next to the wet bar / basement kitchen, but before we ate homemade banana bread from his mom . . .
Riding buddies. Mark and I made the last two and a half hours of the trip alone since we picked up his car along the way in Albert Lea. It was late, we were cranky and tired, and we'd been in the van for almost ten hours already. So after about an hour in the car together, Mark decided to count the little white posts that mark every tenth of a mile! And I decided to retaliate by making a really neat little annoying noise with my lips. We quickly made the decision it was time to switch up driving partners for a bit, and since we were way ahead of the van, we pulled over. I got out of the car, grabbed my phone, called the van, and said, "Pull over! We're switching now!" We then found out that the van had caught up to us, passed the exit and were a mile down the road when we called them. Mark and I looked at each other, and decided we were stuck, so we got back in and made it the rest of the way home without killing each other. And you know what? I'm pretty sure it made our friendship stronger. What would have happened if we'd split at the exit? Would we have talked again? Would we have broken up for good? Who would have taken custody of the kids?
Poker game. Me, Dustin, Mark, Jason Baartman, Danny Fergen, Luke Vander Leest, David Fergen, and Troy Kooima all around one table to play cards, laugh and give Dustin a sending off. Then a SERVE conversation with Dustin, Mark and Troy that started at 1 AM and lasted till 3. My sides literally hurt from laughing so hard at the end.
And then there are the things that if I went into them now, not only would this post end up twenty pages long, but I may get in trouble with the law:
Grandma Dawn
Tooth nerves
Underwear running
Mouse hunts
"Two weeks at camp till the bleeding stopped"
And oh yeah, I spoke on Sunday morning too. All in all, I'm charged and ready for a great year with these guys. I speak with David, Danny, Mark and Baartman in February, Troy and Dawn in March, Danny and Mark in April, and the whole crew in June and July. I'm excited. Every trip up there I'm reminded in a big way why I got I'm in ministry. God is huge, friends are fantastic, and big things happen with them.
Till next time,
Jason
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Happy New Year
I usually get VERY nervous before I speak. Usually it's only bad for a few hours before I go on, but if the speaking engagement is big or important, I can get pretty nervous for up to several days before hand. Fortunately, I seem to have found a cure.
I was asked to give the Christmas morning message here at the 2nd Reformed Church, and I initially got very nervous. I would be up in front of the whole congregation (the home crowd is always more nerve wracking) and I knew that I'd have family there. So the nerves started up about a week and a half before I even had to speak.
I had the severe stomach butterflies, lack of sleep, and an inability to think about anything other than the message so early, that I feared this Christmas holiday would be marred by my agreement to speak.
Then I got the flu.
Not just any flu - but the real bad, horribly nauseous, I fainted on the way to the bathroom, couldn't eat, bad headache, really tired, in the bathroom every fifteen minutes for five days kind of flu. And thankfully, during the whole time that I was either sitting on (or hunched over) the toilet, I wasn't nervous in the least. I lost five pounds, got some loopy pills from the Doctor, and took many naps on the cool bathroom linoleum, but I wasn't nervous one bit.
I also didn't put much time in on the sermon either. In fact, most of it was written between the hours of 5 and 9 AM while I laid on the bathroom floor on Friday the 23rd. Saturday the 24th, I started to feel a little better, and I was probably 75% on Sunday morning when I actually had to give the message. And it went really well. Brother-in-law Kyle played a shepherd for me, and I got a lot of really great comments from the congregation. So I don't have to worry about hanging my head as I walk the hallowed halls of 2nd Reformed.
Then on Christmas day, Andrea came down with the same thing and it lasted three days for her.
Yet, despite the illness, Andrea and I had a great Christmas / New Year. We saw all the family. Got great loot. And my brother Jon and his wife Amy gave us our first nephew on December 29th. They were very gracious when we showed up to wait in the hospital all day for the baby to be born, and they even let us come into the room to see him get his first bottle and blood test. His name is Noah Warren Taylor, he's extremely cute, and we're excited to have a new family member!
We also hosted three different New Year's Eve celebrations this year. We started early on the 30th with good friends Mike and Susie Rottink - playing cards till three AM. Then on the 31st we added California friends Nathan and Dina Kinkaid with their beautiful babe Haley and my brother Chris unit 3 AM. And then on the first, Pella friends Jennie and her fiance Tracy joined us for 90's Trivial Pursuit and Apples to Apples until 4 AM. We actually went through every single card in the Apples game - which is no small feat if you know how the game is played.
All in all, it was one of the best holidays in memories regardless of the flu, and as you can guess, Andrea and I are having a little trouble getting back on a "normal" sleeping schedule after three late nights.
I'm very excited for an upcoming trip to Michigan at the end of next week with the Sioux Falls crew. We're attending a SERVE team retreat for all the sights around the country and I have to give a commissioning message. I'll hopefully have an update on that event soon.
Till next time,
Jason
I was asked to give the Christmas morning message here at the 2nd Reformed Church, and I initially got very nervous. I would be up in front of the whole congregation (the home crowd is always more nerve wracking) and I knew that I'd have family there. So the nerves started up about a week and a half before I even had to speak.
I had the severe stomach butterflies, lack of sleep, and an inability to think about anything other than the message so early, that I feared this Christmas holiday would be marred by my agreement to speak.
Then I got the flu.
Not just any flu - but the real bad, horribly nauseous, I fainted on the way to the bathroom, couldn't eat, bad headache, really tired, in the bathroom every fifteen minutes for five days kind of flu. And thankfully, during the whole time that I was either sitting on (or hunched over) the toilet, I wasn't nervous in the least. I lost five pounds, got some loopy pills from the Doctor, and took many naps on the cool bathroom linoleum, but I wasn't nervous one bit.
I also didn't put much time in on the sermon either. In fact, most of it was written between the hours of 5 and 9 AM while I laid on the bathroom floor on Friday the 23rd. Saturday the 24th, I started to feel a little better, and I was probably 75% on Sunday morning when I actually had to give the message. And it went really well. Brother-in-law Kyle played a shepherd for me, and I got a lot of really great comments from the congregation. So I don't have to worry about hanging my head as I walk the hallowed halls of 2nd Reformed.
Then on Christmas day, Andrea came down with the same thing and it lasted three days for her.
Yet, despite the illness, Andrea and I had a great Christmas / New Year. We saw all the family. Got great loot. And my brother Jon and his wife Amy gave us our first nephew on December 29th. They were very gracious when we showed up to wait in the hospital all day for the baby to be born, and they even let us come into the room to see him get his first bottle and blood test. His name is Noah Warren Taylor, he's extremely cute, and we're excited to have a new family member!
We also hosted three different New Year's Eve celebrations this year. We started early on the 30th with good friends Mike and Susie Rottink - playing cards till three AM. Then on the 31st we added California friends Nathan and Dina Kinkaid with their beautiful babe Haley and my brother Chris unit 3 AM. And then on the first, Pella friends Jennie and her fiance Tracy joined us for 90's Trivial Pursuit and Apples to Apples until 4 AM. We actually went through every single card in the Apples game - which is no small feat if you know how the game is played.
All in all, it was one of the best holidays in memories regardless of the flu, and as you can guess, Andrea and I are having a little trouble getting back on a "normal" sleeping schedule after three late nights.
I'm very excited for an upcoming trip to Michigan at the end of next week with the Sioux Falls crew. We're attending a SERVE team retreat for all the sights around the country and I have to give a commissioning message. I'll hopefully have an update on that event soon.
Till next time,
Jason
Monday, December 19, 2005
Things Not to Do on a Sunday Night . . .
1. Shave your head.
And that's pretty much the whole list. I let Andrea shear my golden locks last night, and I have a feeling that my head doesn't look all that good right now. Or maybe I'm just misinterpreting everyone's initial reaction of, "It'll grow back!" the wrong way.
So I performed some poetry at the Jaarsma Bakery Christmas party on Saturday night. I had a great time, ate some great food, and I got to do what I love the most - read some crazy poems. I didn't think the new Christmas poems I posted earlier last week went over all that well, but the poems about dying pigs, escaping cows, and puking children went over very well as usual.
I, and my newly shaved head, will be presenting the Christmas morning message here at the 2nd Reformed Church this coming Sunday morning. I'm kind of looking forward to it, and kind of not. I always think that speaking in front of family jinxes me into a bad message, but on the other hand, speaking in front of brother-in-law Kyle usually goes really well. So we'll see which of the two superstitions holds true on Sunday morning. 2nd is typically a traditional worship style church, and for my message, I'm going to be speaking in a more non-traditional way as I do when I travel to camps and conventions, so I'm a little nervous about that. But it's Christmas! So no matter how it goes, it'll still more than likely be a great day.
And hey, I just had a thought! I got a Donald Trump wig on the internet a few months back for our Apprentice Over-nighter for our middle school youth. Perhaps I can wear that till the hair comes back . . .
till next time,
Jason
And that's pretty much the whole list. I let Andrea shear my golden locks last night, and I have a feeling that my head doesn't look all that good right now. Or maybe I'm just misinterpreting everyone's initial reaction of, "It'll grow back!" the wrong way.
So I performed some poetry at the Jaarsma Bakery Christmas party on Saturday night. I had a great time, ate some great food, and I got to do what I love the most - read some crazy poems. I didn't think the new Christmas poems I posted earlier last week went over all that well, but the poems about dying pigs, escaping cows, and puking children went over very well as usual.
I, and my newly shaved head, will be presenting the Christmas morning message here at the 2nd Reformed Church this coming Sunday morning. I'm kind of looking forward to it, and kind of not. I always think that speaking in front of family jinxes me into a bad message, but on the other hand, speaking in front of brother-in-law Kyle usually goes really well. So we'll see which of the two superstitions holds true on Sunday morning. 2nd is typically a traditional worship style church, and for my message, I'm going to be speaking in a more non-traditional way as I do when I travel to camps and conventions, so I'm a little nervous about that. But it's Christmas! So no matter how it goes, it'll still more than likely be a great day.
And hey, I just had a thought! I got a Donald Trump wig on the internet a few months back for our Apprentice Over-nighter for our middle school youth. Perhaps I can wear that till the hair comes back . . .
till next time,
Jason
Monday, December 12, 2005
Christmas Poemetry
Hello all,
Unfortunately, my improv show for Omaha this weekend didn't work out, so I have no update on that. But since I'm doing a poetry reading for the Jaarsma Bakery Christmas party this weekend, I thought I'd give you a little sampling of some of the new material I'll be trying out. And go easy on me, they may not be completely edited yet. Enjoy!
Sledding
In the winter when it would snow,
We knew the best spot we could go,
To have a blast and get our fill
of winter sledding was our hill.
It had to be a mile long,
As we’d climb up we’d sing a song,
Promoting lots of Christmas cheer,
And hiding any trace of fear.
Behind we’d drag the toboggan,
Proclaiming we’d have lots of fun,
And boasting who would go down first,
And which of us would wreck the worst.
You see our hill was quite well known,
Of making other children groan,
When they took one look at our slope,
Their little hearts just couldn’t cope.
It angled forty-five degrees,
Complet’ly covered with large trees,
Which if by chance you made it through,
An icy pond awaited you.
And then of course we’d pack and stamp,
Large mounds of snow to use as ramps,
So we could brag that we would fly,
That ol’ toboggan ten feet high.
But when we’d get up to the top,
We’d always take a breath and stop,
As we felt our stomach’s sinking,
Wond’ring what we had been thinking.
Then my brother’d say, “Go, ahead!”
And I’d say, “No, you go instead!”
And then our little brother’d cry,
“Oh please Lord! I don’t wanna die!”
So once we thought that we’d all go,
And we’d all sit right in a row,
And if bad fate was to befall,
It’d happen to us one and all.
And so we sat from old to young,
And onto both the sides we hung,
Now I was fearless for this stunt,
Since I had padding back and front.
Then down that hill we really flew,
Not knowing for sure what to do,
As that first ramp was coming near,
And we did not know how to steer.
And so we all just held on tight,
As the toboggan took to flight,
Then we watched squirrels run and hide,
As past there branches we did glide.
And when we finally came down,
We bounced a few times on the ground,
My younger brother lost his grip,
And he fell off ending his trip.
We pinballed off a tree or two,
And so that’s when I really knew,
I should have known without the pain,
Our sledding trips were all insane.
But soon we left the trees behind,
And we were sure that we would find,
That the pond ice was really thick,
And we’d slide over really quick.
But when we hit, we heard a crack,
And thinking now, as I look back,
We should have know the ice was thin,
We sure knew it when we fell in.
As we climbed out all sopping wet,
I don’t think that I will forget,
My younger brother’s little face,
As he giggled at our disgrace.
And as we stood there he did tease,
“I bet your shorts are gonna freeze!”
Our mouths too frozen to respond,
So we just tossed him in the pond.
Last Minute Shopper
Cousin Doug looked so forlorned,
As he came that Christmas day,
All his presents unadorned,
In the normal Christmas way.
Pretty paper was not used,
Nor were bows or Christmas tags,
We were all a bit confused,
As he gave out plastic bags.
“Merry Christmas!” he cried out,
“May these holidays bring cheer!”
But I think we all had doubt,
That he really seemed sincere.
Opening my gift from Doug,
As I wondered what it held,
I pulled out a coffee mug,
And some peanuts that’d been shelled.
Dad was next to open his,
He got some motor oil,
And a new can of cheese wiz,
Both wrapped up in tin foil.
He said, “Thanks, that’s really neat,”
And my mom was next to go,
She got air soles for her feet,
And two tickets from lotto.
As my brother opened next,
He pulled out some loaves of bread,
And he seemed a bit perplexed,
Cause, “Ah, hah!” was all he said.
We thought Grandma’s was the best,
Or at least the most bizarre,
Doug gave her a leather vest,
With the logo of NASCAR.
“I have something I should say,”
Doug spoke with hesitation,
“I bought all your gifts today,
“They came from the gas station.”
“What? I’m shocked, how can that be?”
Grandma said as if aghast,
“My new vest fits perfectly!”
And the awkward moment passed.
Our Fort
When winter came we’d build a fort,
Then standing on it we’d exhort,
About how tight we’d packed our snow,
And how well we’d repel our foes.
And then the kids across the way,
Would chant back how they’d ruin our day,
They said their fort was ten feet high,
They said their’s reached up to the sky.
We said their fort was pitiful,
We said we’d crush it like a bull,
With our snowballs ready to go,
We would yell out to let them know,
“We packed them with some rocks and dirt,
And when they hit they’ll really hurt.”
So they yelled back that they weren’t scared,
And they yelled back they hardly cared.
They said their snowballs were packed tight,
They said they froze theirs overnight.
“For our attack,” they said, “Prepare!
You challenge us?” they said, ‘How dare!’”
And so right quick we’d answer back,
“How dare you threaten with attack!”
We’d say, “Your scared to face our wrath!”
We’d yell, “It will be a bloodbath!”
They’d say, “Our snowballs pack a sting!
They’re packed tighter than anything!”
We’ve packed each with a rabid mouse,
That we’ll bombard onto your house
And though it was a great big lie,
It almost made my brother cry,
And so then we’d begin our fight,
To prove our worth and prove our might.
Then the snowballs would start to fly,
And with war calls we’d start to cry,
My brother took one in the face,
My other brother took his place.
Then I nailed two with my barrage,
And they go hide in their garage.
And then we had them two on one,
And it was really getting fun!
Our last foe crouched down in shear fear,
And he flashed us a little sneer.
And just when we’re about to win,
My mom calls out, “Time to come in!”
And that’s when I made my mistake,
And a lucky shot my foe did take.
“Oh come on mom, more time,” I said,
As I looked back and raised my head,
And then I heard a whis’ling near,
And felt an ice ball strike my ear.
And as I laid there in the snow,
My brother took a mighty blow,
So that was that, we had been beat,
And they had used my mom to cheat.
And so we trudged our way back in,
So someday we could fight again.
till next time,
Jason
Unfortunately, my improv show for Omaha this weekend didn't work out, so I have no update on that. But since I'm doing a poetry reading for the Jaarsma Bakery Christmas party this weekend, I thought I'd give you a little sampling of some of the new material I'll be trying out. And go easy on me, they may not be completely edited yet. Enjoy!
Sledding
In the winter when it would snow,
We knew the best spot we could go,
To have a blast and get our fill
of winter sledding was our hill.
It had to be a mile long,
As we’d climb up we’d sing a song,
Promoting lots of Christmas cheer,
And hiding any trace of fear.
Behind we’d drag the toboggan,
Proclaiming we’d have lots of fun,
And boasting who would go down first,
And which of us would wreck the worst.
You see our hill was quite well known,
Of making other children groan,
When they took one look at our slope,
Their little hearts just couldn’t cope.
It angled forty-five degrees,
Complet’ly covered with large trees,
Which if by chance you made it through,
An icy pond awaited you.
And then of course we’d pack and stamp,
Large mounds of snow to use as ramps,
So we could brag that we would fly,
That ol’ toboggan ten feet high.
But when we’d get up to the top,
We’d always take a breath and stop,
As we felt our stomach’s sinking,
Wond’ring what we had been thinking.
Then my brother’d say, “Go, ahead!”
And I’d say, “No, you go instead!”
And then our little brother’d cry,
“Oh please Lord! I don’t wanna die!”
So once we thought that we’d all go,
And we’d all sit right in a row,
And if bad fate was to befall,
It’d happen to us one and all.
And so we sat from old to young,
And onto both the sides we hung,
Now I was fearless for this stunt,
Since I had padding back and front.
Then down that hill we really flew,
Not knowing for sure what to do,
As that first ramp was coming near,
And we did not know how to steer.
And so we all just held on tight,
As the toboggan took to flight,
Then we watched squirrels run and hide,
As past there branches we did glide.
And when we finally came down,
We bounced a few times on the ground,
My younger brother lost his grip,
And he fell off ending his trip.
We pinballed off a tree or two,
And so that’s when I really knew,
I should have known without the pain,
Our sledding trips were all insane.
But soon we left the trees behind,
And we were sure that we would find,
That the pond ice was really thick,
And we’d slide over really quick.
But when we hit, we heard a crack,
And thinking now, as I look back,
We should have know the ice was thin,
We sure knew it when we fell in.
As we climbed out all sopping wet,
I don’t think that I will forget,
My younger brother’s little face,
As he giggled at our disgrace.
And as we stood there he did tease,
“I bet your shorts are gonna freeze!”
Our mouths too frozen to respond,
So we just tossed him in the pond.
Last Minute Shopper
Cousin Doug looked so forlorned,
As he came that Christmas day,
All his presents unadorned,
In the normal Christmas way.
Pretty paper was not used,
Nor were bows or Christmas tags,
We were all a bit confused,
As he gave out plastic bags.
“Merry Christmas!” he cried out,
“May these holidays bring cheer!”
But I think we all had doubt,
That he really seemed sincere.
Opening my gift from Doug,
As I wondered what it held,
I pulled out a coffee mug,
And some peanuts that’d been shelled.
Dad was next to open his,
He got some motor oil,
And a new can of cheese wiz,
Both wrapped up in tin foil.
He said, “Thanks, that’s really neat,”
And my mom was next to go,
She got air soles for her feet,
And two tickets from lotto.
As my brother opened next,
He pulled out some loaves of bread,
And he seemed a bit perplexed,
Cause, “Ah, hah!” was all he said.
We thought Grandma’s was the best,
Or at least the most bizarre,
Doug gave her a leather vest,
With the logo of NASCAR.
“I have something I should say,”
Doug spoke with hesitation,
“I bought all your gifts today,
“They came from the gas station.”
“What? I’m shocked, how can that be?”
Grandma said as if aghast,
“My new vest fits perfectly!”
And the awkward moment passed.
Our Fort
When winter came we’d build a fort,
Then standing on it we’d exhort,
About how tight we’d packed our snow,
And how well we’d repel our foes.
And then the kids across the way,
Would chant back how they’d ruin our day,
They said their fort was ten feet high,
They said their’s reached up to the sky.
We said their fort was pitiful,
We said we’d crush it like a bull,
With our snowballs ready to go,
We would yell out to let them know,
“We packed them with some rocks and dirt,
And when they hit they’ll really hurt.”
So they yelled back that they weren’t scared,
And they yelled back they hardly cared.
They said their snowballs were packed tight,
They said they froze theirs overnight.
“For our attack,” they said, “Prepare!
You challenge us?” they said, ‘How dare!’”
And so right quick we’d answer back,
“How dare you threaten with attack!”
We’d say, “Your scared to face our wrath!”
We’d yell, “It will be a bloodbath!”
They’d say, “Our snowballs pack a sting!
They’re packed tighter than anything!”
We’ve packed each with a rabid mouse,
That we’ll bombard onto your house
And though it was a great big lie,
It almost made my brother cry,
And so then we’d begin our fight,
To prove our worth and prove our might.
Then the snowballs would start to fly,
And with war calls we’d start to cry,
My brother took one in the face,
My other brother took his place.
Then I nailed two with my barrage,
And they go hide in their garage.
And then we had them two on one,
And it was really getting fun!
Our last foe crouched down in shear fear,
And he flashed us a little sneer.
And just when we’re about to win,
My mom calls out, “Time to come in!”
And that’s when I made my mistake,
And a lucky shot my foe did take.
“Oh come on mom, more time,” I said,
As I looked back and raised my head,
And then I heard a whis’ling near,
And felt an ice ball strike my ear.
And as I laid there in the snow,
My brother took a mighty blow,
So that was that, we had been beat,
And they had used my mom to cheat.
And so we trudged our way back in,
So someday we could fight again.
till next time,
Jason
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