Nothing New Under The Sun

More sad than funny.


... men are without excuse...For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools... They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Biblical Scripture. The Book of Romans. Written over 1951 years ago.
Pray for these pilgrims. Pray they find their way.

30 years and Counting

To celebrate our 30 years of marriage (Sept. 9), Blue Eyes and I decided to join the ranks of the rich and famous for a weekend. We headed over to Palm Beach and spent the weekend at The Breakers.

It was only a 3 hour drive and, Hurricane Ike not withstanding, the weather turn out to be fantastic.




Given our limited budget, we had booked a standard room. When we arrived the lady checking us in announced "We've got good news! To honor your anniversary we've upgraded your room to an ocean front, luxury suite!" Well, we smiled and said thank you very much not knowing what awaited us. We then proceeded to our room. HOLY SHINOLA!! Unbelievable.

View to the left...


And view to the right...


The boudoir....


the sitting room...




and of course the very happy couple...


We later learned the room rents for $1000 a night. YIKES!
After the shock wore off, we headed down to the beach area.
I returned to the room an hour later to get Blue Eyes a bottle of water and found this on the table..


Our good friends had sent us a bottle of champagne with about a dozen chocolate covered strawberries. As you can see I left one for the Mrs....

We went out for dinner Saturday night and spent Sunday lounging around the pool area until it was time to come home. All in all we had a great weekend.

Sunday night Lisa made us our favorite shrimp dinner with cheesecake as our dessert.

Perfect weekend.

I leave you with the card the little guy and his mommy gave us for our anniversary.

Notice the captions on the front of the card and his little note on the inside...

The Gospel According To The One

I try not to post political commentary but this is too funny.
It's not so much blasphemy as it is poking fun at "the One we've been waiting for".

Unconditional Love

Mami in Spanish and mommy in English are pronounced the same. They both mean Mom but the similarities end there. An 51 year old non-Hispanic man will call his mother mommy for maybe the first 7 or 8 years of his life. A Puerto Rican man will call his mother Mami till the day he dies. Mami in Spanish carries a deeper meaning,
The only comparison I can think of is in scripture where Paul talks about
receiving the Spirit of Sonship and now being able to cry Abba Father. I think all Hispanic men have this Mami thing. We're all momma's boys.

When I was 10 I was hit by a car. As I lay there in the middle of the street in a semi-conscience state, I was calling for my Mami. A few of my classmates witnessed the accident. A few weeks later when I returned to school, the kids gave me the hardest time for calling out for my mommy. I was terribly embarrassed but they didn't understand that I was calling for Mami and not my mommy. Big difference.

She left Puerto Rico when she was 16 to live with an aunt in New York city. She made her way to Philadelphia where she met Pop. By the way, Pop is short for Papi which is pronounced Poppy. When Lisa started to talk she called me Papi. It made me feel special. It's similar to Mami in sentiment but that's another blog entry.
Anyway, they married a short time later and I began my pilgrimage the year after. When I was elementary school age, I remember my friends making comments on how young and pretty my mom was. That always made me feel good. When I was nine my mom was only 27. Most of my friend's moms were already well into their thirties.

Mami use to sing all the time around the house. My friends thought that was cool too. So did I. She's always been a worker too. When she retired a few years ago, it was a well deserved break. For many years she worked the 3-midnight shift so she could be with us during the day. During the summer we would stay up and wait for her to come home. Sometimes we'd catch a late movie. We loved the classics like Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte and Imitation of Life. During the summer we all were also heavily involved in Little League. She would take her lunch hour to watch our games.

She was instrumental in supporting me in the two major vocations I choose. When I started getting interested in photography she bought me my first light meter. The instrument was essential in me learning photographic lighting. When I started getting interested in computers she ran out and purchased a Mac for me.

One more story. When I was 11 or so I had a big fight with her. I ran into my room, pulled out a piece of paper and wrote in big letters "Nobody loves me. Especially Mom."
She walked in a short time later and saw my homemade sign. She sat down next to me and wrapped her arms around me. I don't remember what she said but over the years I've come to see how wrong I was. I believe the closest thing to God's unconditional love is the love I continue to experience from my Mami.

I think we sometimes wait too long to express our love to friends and family.
It should happen in the midst of our pilgrimage, not at the end of it during a memorial service.

I love you Mami.

Just Act Natural

Two posts in one night! Watch out!

I'm Still Here

Holy shinola! It's been almost two months. What a summer it's been. The school decided to build a new campus this year so it's been extremely busy getting computers and servers ready for the new building. Short vacation in July in the North Carolina mountains and back to work. We just moved in today and school starts in a week and a half. I'll be back soon.

I leave this for the guys. Tag it style over substance. Substance will always win. Enjoy.

Commercials

I hate commercials.

I might not be able to express the intense, red-hot fire animosity I have for these wastes of time.

I rarely watch live TV. I always DVR it and zip through the commercials.
The rare times I listen to the radio, I change the station when they rear their ugly heads.

Having said that, there are ones that I will rewind and watch over and over again.
I have no clue what they're selling but they crack me up.

I love this kid. "I really underestimated the creepiness".
On the floor LMAO!