Chef Gordan Ramsay is going to have a live cook along on December 15th, 9pm Eastern. He provides a list of the ingredients you’ll need to cook along, and promises that you’ll be able to have some great dishes ready at the end of the hour. Pretty cool. Except, of course, for the fact that the food will be ready at 10pm Eastern. I usually eat dinner earlier than that! 
You can check it out on http://www.fox.com/cookalong .
I’m a big fan of Alton Brown, and these three videos will show you all you need to know to deep fry your turkey, and to do it safely! And, more than likely, it’ll be delicious. I know I’m going to try it this year, for the first time. Hoping for the best!
Have you ever deep fried your turkey? (Try to move past how awkward that question sounds.) How was it? Worth the hassel? Any pointers? And, if you’ve been inspired to try it this year, let me know how it turns out!
This is an excerpt from Warren Wiersbe’s Be Mature, a study of the book of James:
Outlook determines outcome, and attitude determines action. God tells us to expect trials. It is not “if you fall into various testings” but “when you fall into various testings.” The believer who expects his Christian life to be easy is in for a shock. Jesus warned His Disciples, “In the world ye shall have tribulation” (John 16:33). Paul told his converts that “we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).
Because we are God’s “scattered people” and not God’s “sheltered people,” we must experience trials. We cannot always expect everything to go our way. Some trials come simply because we are human–sickness, accidents, disappointments, even seeming tragedies. Other trials come because we are Christians. Peter emphasized this in his first letter: “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you” (1 Peter 4:12). Satan fights us, the world opposes us, and this makes for a life of battle.
The phrase “fall into” does not suggest a stupid accident. Translate it “encounter, come across.” A Christian certainly should not manufacture trials. The Greek word translated “divers” means “various, varicolored.” Peter used the same word in 1 Peter 1:6–”Ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.” The trials of life are not all alike; they are like variegated yarn that the weaver uses to make a beautiful rug. God arranges and mixes the colors and experiences of life. The final product is a beautiful thing for His glory.
It’s not often that we think of times of trouble, or tribulation, as a beautiful thing. But, here, we see Wiersbe showing just how the “stuff” that we might be going through can be thought of as a beautiful thing, indeed. A time of growing, and testing. A time that God is using to perhaps prepare us for the future. A time that you may be able to use as an illustration as you minister to some one in the future. A time that will produce a “beautiful thing for His glory.” Not an easy lesson for us to learn, but one that we need to understand, nonetheless.
So, I’ve crashed and burned with the whole blogging thing lately. I really liked blogging what we were learning on our journey through the Bible. Not sure why I stopped? But, I did.
I think what I’d like to do is to is to use this blog for, well, random stuff. Could be some posts on leadership. Could be some posts on cool electronic gadgets being released. Could be some posts on what the family is up to around here. Could be just about anything! And, maybe we’ll even have some guest bloggers along the way!
I think I may even update the appearance of this bad boy, while I’m at it! The summer is coming to an end; so, as the seasons change, so shall the blog! Thanks for stopping by, and we’ll chat again, soon!
Bible Study Magazine and Eternal Perspective Ministries are giving away 40 signed copies of Randy Alcorn’s book, Heaven. Not only that, but they’re also giving away five subscriptions to Bible Study Magazine and a copy of their Bible Study Library software! Enter to win on the Bible Study Magazine Randy Alcorn page, then take a look at all the cool tools they have to take your Bible study to the next level!
I can’t be positive, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t safe. Last year, at the end of the mowing season, I, uh, well, I kind of hit something with the mower, which immediately caused the mower to start vibrating like crazy. Oh, stink, I thought, I must’ve bent the blade. So, I went to the local Lowe’s, and picked up a new blade. I got out the tools and put the new blade on the mower. Um, yeah. Still shaking.
Here it is the beginning of the new mowing season. And, I realize that I have a broken mower. Hey. No worries! I’ve a back up mower that we got from the father-in-law when he passed. Right. Off we go to fire up the stand by mower. I put the handle back on, pulled the pull cord to attach to the handle, and it was rather tight. Hmmm. Pulled it again. Yeah. The things pretty much frozen. Apparently, it wasn’t happy that it’s been sitting the bench for so long.
So, back to the other mower we go. Top off the fuel. Fire ‘er up. The thing is vibrating like a – well – like something that vibrates A LOT!! But, it got the job done. Uh. Half the job, anyway. Had to stop to let the blood flow into my hands again, as they were going numb from the vibration. I can’t be positive, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t safe.
No, this isn’t a post about accounting, or math, or anything like that. Well, there are some numbers to speak of, that would be the number of Israelite people, and their different camps as they prepared to enter the promised land. Once again, we see that God is a god of order.
In the first several chapters we see a counting of the different tribes, and arrangements are made to put them into an order for, not only when they were encamped, but also for when they were on the move. We also learn which tribes are in charge of which duties pertaining to the care of the tabernacle. The instructions given to Moses are detailed and specific. Love that. I’m a guy who’s been accused more than once of being too particular about certain details, but here I get affirmation of this spiritual trait!
Moving forward, as we were reading the last part of the book, Moses is reviewing their journey from Egypt and all that they’ve overcome to get to be where they are – preparing to enter the promised land. We couldn’t help but liken it to a football coach telling his team about all of the hard work and struggles that they’ve overcome, and that they are about to take on another challenge, but they are more than able to do it because the God they serve – the God we serve – is a BIG God! The road ahead won’t be easy, but He is more than able to bring them (and us) through whatever may come ahead. Love that! Love the message of Numbers. Believe it!
I
The beach is coming to Twitter! That’s right, just in time for spring, Myrtle Beach Hotels is headed to popular social media site Twitter to offer one lucky winner a $1,000 gift certificate valid at one of our oceanfront hotels along the Grand Strand of Myrtle Beach.
Join our Twitter Beach Bash, March 24 from 8:30-10 p.m. EST for a night of prizes, trivia and fun all revolving around Myrtle Beach. During the bash, we’ll give away a host of prizes, including restaurant gift certificates, beach towels, golf rounds, tickets to local attractions and more if you can answer our questions about Myrtle Beach Hotels correctly. We’ll select prize winners randomly from those who submit the correct answer within the allotted time.
We will randomly draw a winner for our Grand Prize $1000 gift certificate for accommodations at any of our Myrtle Beach Hotels resorts. You can enter the contest – starting now – as many times as you’d like in any of the following ways:
* Answer a prize question correctly during the Twitter Beach Bash, March 24 8:30-10 p.m. EST (2 entries per correct answer)
* Recruit a person to become a fan of the Caribbean Beach Resort or Breakers Resort Facebook pages. Simply post to the wall of the page which new fan you recruited. (1 entry per fan recruited)
* Tweet about the Beach Bash and link to this page. Post the link to your tweet on one of the above Facebook Pages. (1 entry for every tweet)
* Write a blog post about the Beach Bash and link to this page. Post the link to your post on one of the above Facebook Pages. (1 entry per blog post)
* Post a video on YouTube and/or the Caribbean Beach Resort or Breakers Resort Facebook pages tagged “MBBeachBash” describing why you deserve the $1000 gift certificate (5 entries per unique video)
To participate in the fun on March 24, please use #BeachBash whenever you “tweet” and follow all tweets with that same label. We recommend using TweetGrid.com/party, which allows you to more easily follow the #BeachBash action in real time and saves you from having to type #BeachBash with every tweet.
This should be the last e-mail forward I post for awhile (unless I get a really funny one).
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YOU KNOW YOU ARE LIVING IN 2009 when…
1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.
2. You haven’t played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don’t have e-mail addresses.
6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.
7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.
8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn’t have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.
10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.
11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )
12. You’re reading this and nodding and laughing.
1 3. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.
14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.
15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn’t a #9 on this list.
AND NOW U R LAUGHING AT YOURSELF
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What other weird things do you catch yourself doing? We have a set of keys on the keyboard that we have to press at work to bring up our employee site. I’ve caught myself doing that at home. Or, I’ve put my employee number and password into different sites on occasion. They didn’t work. So, how about you?
I received this e-mail the other day, and it cracked me up, so I thought I’d share it with all of you. Leave a comment of any other things that you can think of!
-Gary
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THE SPOILED UNDER-30 CROWD!!!
If you are 30 or older you will think this is hilarious!!!!
When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up, what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning
… Uphill… barefoot…
BOTH ways
Yadda, yadda, yadda
And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it
and how easy they’ve got it! But now that… I’m over the ripe old age of thirty, I can’t help but look around and notice the youth of today.
You’ve got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don’t know how good you’ve got it! I mean, when I was a kid we didn’t have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalogue!!
There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter, with a pen!
…Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!
There were no MP3’s or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself!
Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ’d usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!
We didn’t have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that’s it!
And we didn’t have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your Bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn’t know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!
We didn’t have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! with games like ‘Space Invaders’ and ‘asteroids’. Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your Imagination!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen! Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!
You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on TV! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your butt and walk over to the TV to change the Channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I’m saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little ^&%$#(!
And we didn’t have microwaves; if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove. Imagine that!
That’s exactly what I’m talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You’re spoiled. You guys wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back in 1980!
Regards,
The over 30 Crowd
(Send this to someone you’d like to make smile, whether they are under 30 or not.)
