Jury Duty Day - part 6

1:00pm - I'm not selected. While somewhat relieved since the judge said it would be a 2 day trial, I am also a little disappointed. It sounded like it would be an interesting case and I would have loved to go through the process. Maybe next time. Gonna go get some lunch - I'm starving!

Jury Duty Day - part 5

12:05pm - Wow. Just finished about 2 hours of jury selection questioning. Got pretty intense and interesting at times. I will find out in a little while if I get selected. They need 6 and there are 30 of us being questioned. Obviously I can't discuss anything about the trial, but it could be a long one. I should know in about 10 minutes if I'm selected.

Jury Duty Day - part 4

9:35am - still on break and still waiting for somthing to happen. The cheery lady just mentioned something about putting in a movie. I think we might be in for a long wait.

Jury Duty - part 3

8:40am - just finished watching the juror orientation video. I think I'm ready to be a juror now. Hey, did you know they don't use the term 'jury foreman' anymore? They now call it 'foreperson.' I guess more PC stuff. We're already on our first 30 minute break. I'm going to go look for some coffee.

Jury Duty Day - part 2

8:05am - The check-in process has begun. A very upbeat young lady just finished giving us our instructions. She's seems too cheery for a county employee.

8:10am - I'm now officially checked in. So far everything has been very organized. Very clear instructions about what I am suppose to do. I appreciate that. So, far I haven't seen anyone I know - however, I am having fun playing the game 'they look like ...' Do you know what I'm talking about?

Jury Duty Day - part 1

Today I am going to attempt to give you somewhat real time updates of my Jury experience...

7:25am: I arrived at the Juror parking lot and get on a bus to the couthouse. So far, very smooth. I'm looking forward to my first ever Jury Duty assignment. Every one is very quiet on the bus, probably because most of them do not want to be here.

7:35am: Arrive at court house and go through security. Now waiting in the Juror room waiting for 8am check-in. Of course - I'm here early.

1,100 Miles of Racing...

And man, am I worn out. But, what a day for racing! Both the Coca-Cola 600 and the Indianapolis 500 in one afternoon/evening. If you enjoy automobile racing, it doesn't get any better this.

In case you're wondering, Scott Dixon won the Indy 500 from the pole position and Kasey Kahne won the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

Frozen Grapes

I love frozen grapes. I remember my mom doing this years ago when I was child. And I still love them. Frozen grapes are the perfect summertime snack. They are so refreshing on a hot and humid summer day. It's healthy and the easiest snack in the world to prepare. If you've never tried frozen grapes, what are you waiting for? Give them a try today. You'll thank me later. By the way, green or red seedless will work, I think red is my favorite.

Reconnecting

Recently I've had the opportunity to reconnect with several old friends from college. The social-networking web application called "Facebook" has been the tool that has aided me the most in all my recent reconnecting. It's been pretty neat to email or talk on the phone with people I have not seen in over 20 years.

I am typically a terrible long distance friend. Staying in touch long distance is something I'm just not very good at keeping up with. I want to better, but it seems like the relationship concerns locally keep me pretty busy. I am trying though to be better at staying in touch with friends who do not live near me. Let see how I do.

Go Raiders!

Macy and I both graduated from Riverdale High School here in Fort Myers. In it's 30+ years of existence, they have never played for a state championship. Today they did. They played for the 4A Florida State Championship in baseball against Jacksonville Bishop Kenny. Unfortunately, they loss (9-3).

Congrats for making it that far Raiders!

Parasailing Update

Here's a local TV news story that ran recently about Parasailing at Ft Myers Beach. The person featured in the article and the video is our very own Neil Newton (mentioned in blog post "2nd Annual Bricker Beach Party")

Click here to see the video and read the article

If you're down at Ft Myers Beach and wanting to parasail, make sure you go to Paradise Parasail and tell Capt Neil Mark sent you.

Very Sad Day

Early yesterday morning, I received a call informing me that Forrest Pollock, pastor of Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, FL had gone missing the day before. Forrest, and his 13 year old son Preston, were flying to Texas, with a brief stop in North Carolina in Forrest's private plane. They left North Carolina early Monday morning and never arrived in Texas. Later it was discovered they had crashed outside of Asheville, NC and neither father or son survived the crash.

I did not know Forrest very well, but was still deeply saddened at the thought of the loss of his church family and his wife and remaining 5 children. My heart has been very heavy thinking about their loss. Please pray for both his family and his church family.

For more information about Forrest Pollock tragic death read the following links:

News Report

Bell Shoals website with information about their pastor.

My pastor, Richard Powell, was good friends with Forrest Pollock. Here are his comments after learning of his friends passing...

He was a wonderful pastor, a Bible-believing and teaching preacher, a loving husband and father - and my friend. Many of you may have gone through things like this when we just say, "This isn't supposed to happen."Pray for God's greatest mercy and grace to comfort Dawn and the children. Pray for Bell Shoals - to balance their shock, grief, and need to minister to their Pastor's family as only God's family could.

Pray!

2nd Annual Bricker Beach Party

Today we had our 2nd annual class beach party down at Ft Myers Beach. Let me begin by giving a huge "THANKS" to Neil, and his company, Paradise Parasail for hosting us again. Once again he provided chairs and umbrellas and an opportunity for anyone who wanted to parasail or ride jet skis. And just like last year - we had a great time.

This year I decided to give parasailing a shot. So, Pamela, who also wanted to go up, rode with me. Having never parasailed before, I have to say it was a lot of fun being up that high and soaring like a bird (that's us taking off in the pic).

The next to soar was Tim, Brent and Brian (see pics of the trio in the slide show below). About halfway into their ride, the boat engine started to overheat, so Capt Neil had to shut her down. You can imagine what happened to the boys hanging in the air. They started to come down pretty quick. Neil calls this a "water landing." The boys called it "crashing into the gulf." Of course they were fine. And it did make for a great story. I'm just glad it wasn't me and Pamela that got to experience the "water landing."

Thanks again to Neil for making this happen and to Pamela for helping coordinate the whole thing.

Oh, I almost forgot, Macy actually went out in the boat with us while everyone was parasailing. This is big for her! Maybe one day we'll even get her up in the air (yeah, right!).

Enjoy some pics from today's fun...

We Are The Champions!

Yesterday was Team Spirit Day at our church. What does that mean? It's a time once a year where all the employees gather together for lunch and then a little fun - usually in the form of a volleyball tournament. I have the honor of being the captain and coach of the Ed Staff team. Last year we went down fast, losing our first two games. Not this year. We won it all! And not only did we win the volleyball tournament, we also won the Team Spirit Award.

Way to go Ed Staff! What an awesome team.

(Pictures to come soon.)

What's For Supper?

You probably don't care what I had for supper tonight, but I'm going to tell you anyway.

I have discovered that people are quite divided over the subject of having traditional breakfast foods for supper. Some love it and some don't. For me...I love it. My mom use to do this when I was growing up every once in a while. It was a treat to get pancakes or waffles with all that syrup, and bacon and eggs for supper. And I still love it. And fortunately, Macy does too.

So tonight, we had whole wheat pancakes and scrambled eggs. Mmmhh good!

Parenting Ain't Easy

We just wrapped up our church's Parent Conference today. Two thoughts are running through my mind...first, I wish everyone who is a parent could have been there, and second, why weren't more parents there? The conference was awesome! Dr Richard Ross spoke three times in a large group setting and we had about 8 other Breakout Sessions conferees could choose to attend. I'm not even a parent and I was so challenged by Dr Ross' messages. I can't imagine what could be more important for a parent then getting some awesome instruction and help in being a better parent.

I also want to take a moment to say what an awesome job our Ed Team did in planning and pulling the conference off. Cary Robinson (our college and young single adult pastor) was our coordinator for this event and he did a great job keeping everyone on the team moving in the right direction. Way to go team!

Here's a link to one of the breakout session leader's website, who's also a member of our church. She liked our Flip This Family conference title so much she took it, tweaked it a little, and now it's the name of her new TV show for parents. Pretty cool. Check it out.