Aww.. man... No funnel cloud?

As today's thunderstorm passed through the area, I was anticipating the possibility of a tornado. In fact, I was excited.

Some people may think that is at the least strange, and at the most sadistic. However, I wasn't hoping for any type of destruction, I just want to take a photo of a funnel cloud.

My wife and I used to race out of the newspaper everytime there was a fire or storm. Our hearts would race as we headed to the "scene." It was always in hopes of getting that award-winning or at the least, interesting photo.

To this day, I have never gotten a lightning strike or funnel cloud photo. Oh well, maybe next time.

May the Blog Be With You

Now I really feel old

Each year, just prior to the start of school, I would share the Beloit College Mindset list as part of my weekly column. It dawned on me that I hadn't done this in awhile, so today's blog comes straight from them — with a few comments from me of course.

So, if you know a college freshman, this is their mindset.

2011 List

1. What Berlin wall?
2. Humvees, minus the artillery, have always been available to the public.
3. Rush Limbaugh and the “Dittoheads” have always been lambasting liberals.
4. They never “rolled down” a car window.
5. Michael Moore has always been angry and funny.
6. They may confuse the Keating Five with a rock group.
7. They have grown up with bottled water.
8. General Motors has always been working on an electric car.
9. Nelson Mandela has always been free and a force in South Africa.
10. Pete Rose has never played baseball.
11. Rap music has always been mainstream.
12. Religious leaders have always been telling politicians what to do, or else!
13. “Off the hook” has never had anything to do with a telephone.
14. Music has always been “unplugged.”
15. Russia has always had a multi-party political system.
16. Women have always been police chiefs in major cities.
17. They were born the year Harvard Law Review Editor Barack Obama announced he might run for office some day.
18. The NBA season has always gone on and on and on and on.
19. Classmates could include Michelle Wie, Jordin Sparks, and Bart Simpson.
20. Half of them may have been members of the Baby-sitters Club.
21. Eastern Airlines has never “earned their wings” in their lifetime.
22. No one has ever been able to sit down comfortably to a meal of “liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”
23. Wal-Mart has always been a larger retailer than Sears and has always employed more workers than GM.
24. Being “lame” has to do with being dumb or inarticulate, not disabled.
25. Wolf Blitzer has always been serving up the news on CNN.
26. Katie Couric has always had screen cred.
27. Al Gore has always been running for president or thinking about it.
28. They never found a prize in a Coca-Cola “MagiCan.”
29. They were too young to understand Judas Priest’s subliminal messages.
30. When all else fails, the Prozac defense has always been a possibility.
31. Multigrain chips have always provided healthful junk food.
32. They grew up in Wayne’s World.
33. U2 has always been more than a spy plane.
34. They were introduced to Jack Nicholson as “The Joker.”
35. Stadiums, rock tours and sporting events have always had corporate names.
36. American rock groups have always appeared in Moscow.
37. Commercial product placements have been the norm in films and on TV.
38. On Parents’ Day on campus, their folks could be mixing it up with Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz with daughter Zöe, or Kathie Lee and Frank Gifford with son Cody.
39. Fox has always been a major network.
40. They drove their parents crazy with the Beavis and Butt-Head laugh.
41. The “Blue Man Group” has always been everywhere.
42. Women’s studies majors have always been offered on campus.
43. Being a latchkey kid has never been a big deal.
44. Thanks to MySpace and Facebook, autobiography can happen in real time.
45. They learned about JFK from Oliver Stone and Malcolm X from Spike Lee.
46. Most phone calls have never been private.
47. High definition television has always been available.
48. Microbreweries have always been ubiquitous.
49. Virtual reality has always been available when the real thing failed.
50. Smoking has never been allowed in public spaces in France.
51. China has always been more interested in making money than in reeducation.
52. Time has always worked with Warner.
53. Tiananmen Square is a 2008 Olympics venue, not the scene of a massacre.
54. The purchase of ivory has always been banned.
55. MTV has never featured music videos.
56. The space program has never really caught their attention except in disasters.
57. Jerry Springer has always been lowering the level of discourse on TV.
58. They get much more information from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert than from the newspaper.
59. They’re always texting 1 n other.
60. They will encounter roughly equal numbers of female and male professors in the classroom.
61. They never saw Johnny Carson live on television.
62. They have no idea who Rusty Jones was or why he said “goodbye to rusty cars.”
63. Avatars have nothing to do with Hindu deities.
64. Chavez has nothing to do with iceberg lettuce and everything to do with oil.
65. Illinois has been trying to ban smoking since the year they were born.
66. The World Wide Web has been an online tool since they were born.
67. Chronic fatigue syndrome has always been debilitating and controversial.
68. Burma has always been Myanmar.
69. Dilbert has always been ridiculing cubicle culture.
70. Food packaging has always included nutritional labeling.

And here are a few local ones of my own...

I-49 has always run from Shreveport to Lafayette

Arkansas has always been in the SEC

Who is Charlie Mac?

Evangel has always been a football powerhouse

They were seven years old when the CenturyTel (Now CenturyLink) Center opened.

Cowboys? Not Rockin Rodeo?

Feel free to add a few of your own...

May the Blog Be With You.

Diet, Exercise and Fried Chicken

A funny thing about being in my 40s is that I can't seem to lose weight as fast as I did when in my 20s and 30s. Ten years ago, I could drop 20 pounds in just a few weeks by cutting out carbs and playing a little basketball. Not so these days.

The last time I got "serious" about my diet, I went "Atkins" and only lost a few pounds over a couple of weeks. I wasn't pleased and I dropped the diet.

However, my weight has risen once again and I must do something to combat it, and I have agreed not to purchase any pants bigger than what I currently own (Thank God for expandable waistband dress slacks.)

Over the past few months, I have started to exercise — in moderation. I have learned that I can go for an hour on the elliptical machine, if I can zone in on a decent program on TV or podcast on my iPhone.

While I know the exercise is helpful, it won't be enough. I cannot continue to eat what I do and expect to drop any significant weight. Plus, this regimen shouldn't be a means to a weight-loss end. It is about being healthy and living a long (and full life) — nothing more, nothing less.

My problem with diet and exercise (especially diet) it that I love things like fried chicken.

On most diets, you can eat as much chicken as you want — as long as there is no skin... no batter... no oil... etc. You can bake it... grill it... boil it... smoke it... you just can't fry it.

What's the point of chicken if you can't fry it?

Within a 5 mile radius of my office, there is a Cane's, Chick-Fil-A, KFC, Church's, Popeye's, not to mention the plethora of fast food joints that offer chicken on the menu. (Do you know how many a plethora is?)

Yes, some of them serve grilled chicken. I even enjoy grilled chicken every so often.. but it isn't FRIED CHICKEN.

My "need to" and "want to" are not yet fully aligned. I know I need to "be more healthy." However, my "want to" isn't quite on board.

I am working on it though.

May the Blog Be With You.

The problem with looking back

Over the past few weeks, a number of groups have popped up on Facebook with titles such as "You know you grew up in (enter name of city) if..." or "You know you graduated from (enter name of school) if..."


People are flocking to these groups, loving to reminisce about "the good old days." While a lot of this is fun, and has allowed some old friends to reconnect, constantly looking back can be a dangerous thing.


One problem with reminiscing is that our brains tend to filter out some of the bad times. It also enhances the good ones. We forget how much pain was caused when a relationship ended badly, or how someone was almost killed by the poor decisions they (or we) made.


We want to remember the good times. We want to remember all the fun, without any of the consequences.


Many in the church today are potentially guilty of the same thing. They long for the days when preachers looked a certain way, preached a certain way and God moved a certain way.


It is easy to remember our first "real" experience with God, and some of us feel like if we could duplicate that environment, others can experience God the way we did.


It is not bad to review and remember. We all have a heritage and things that took place in our lives that make us who we are today. The danger lies when we want to return to certain times and places and exclude what lies ahead of us, or we try to apply a spiritual formula from our past to our present  and/or future.


Just like when we remember high school or "the good old days," we tend to forget the struggles we had in our early spiritual walk. Maybe God moved in a special way during that time because we really needed Him to move in that way.


This does not mean we are to embrace every "new" thing that shows up on the scene. It also does not mean we reject the past as "in the past." We simply must be careful not to so focus on the past that it hinders our future.


Conversely, we cannot allow the hurts of the past to cripple our future. Yes, some hurts teach us a lesson and keep us safe. For example, when a toddler burns their hand on the stove, they learn the lesson not to touch it.


But some people allow emotional hurts to affect future relationships, both individually and in their spiritual walk. The refuse to let someone "in" out of fear of being hurt again, or they bail at the first sign of trouble or offense.


I think the Apostle Paul was referring to both of these when he said wrote these words to the Phllippians:


Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. — NIV


We all have things, both good and bad, in our pasts. We certainly need to learn from the lessons in life, hold firm to the heritage we have, but also to reach forward to what is ahead of us.


It is hard to run this race when we are constantly looking behind us, or focusing on how a previous race was run.


May the Blog be With You.

Will you be Courageous on September 30?

I used to be an avid moviegoer. When I was in High School, I can remember staying out late for the first showing of various new releases at the theater.

I can't tell you how many times I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark, Top Gun or Good Morning Vietnam. I am sure I lost count at 10 or so.

As I got older and life got busier, I stopped going to movies as much. Sure, I would watch a DVD here and there, but actually venturing to the theater was a rarity.

Well, on Sept. 30, I plan to be at Regal Cinemas in the Boardwalk to be one of the first to watch "Courageous."

The movie is produced by Sherwood Films, a company started by a church in Georgia. You may recognize the names of their other films: Flywheel, Facing the Giants and Fireproof.

It is rare to find a family-fiendly film these days. It is even more rare to find one tat challenges and inspires us as well. This film does both.

I can't wait to watch it, with my two teenage boys. I encourage you to do the same.

May the Blog Be With You...

Are you ready for some football (previews)?

Even though the temperatures don't indicate it, the "boys of fall" will be suiting up and taking the field very soon. In fact, they are already practicing — as if you didn't know that already.

This time of year also means the Bossier Press-Tribune is working on its annual Football Preview. This collaborative effort with our sister newspaper in Minden has become the premier local football section in the area.

This year, we will publish three different previews on three different days. On Wednesday, Aug. 24, it will be the National Football League Preview, with a focus on the Dallas Cowboys and New Orleans Saints.

On Thursday, Aug. 25, we'll publish our College Football Preview, with a focus on LSU and our regional colleges. including La. Tech and Northwestern.

Then on Friday, Aug. 26., it is our Bossier-Webster Prep Football Preview, complete with schedules and team photos.

I am looking forward to this year's edition and the season ahead.. It seems like it has been too long since we last had football.

May the Blog Be With You...

Back from "Off the Face of the Earth"

It seems like forever since I last blogged. To be honest, it has only been a mere 15 months. So much has changed since then. Newspapers are changing as well. It is an exciting and somewhat anxious time for our industry.

In Bossier, things are progressing along. Construction is taking place all over and the economy is still solid. We are very blessed in northwest Louisiana.

In the coming days and weeks, I will share - via this blog - the news of some of the changes with your newspaper, along with exciting plans for the future.

I will also use this space the opine about some of the things you may not know about Bossier Parish, places you may pass (or pass up) everyday.

So, check back often, I hope to have something new for each visit.

May the Blog Be With You.