Soldier4him

Captain Spikey

8 Aug 2011

A little while back I was thinking that my home office needed a little more decoration and life, so I bought a small desk fish tank.  It looked really great; had neon LED lights, it was peaceful to hear the water trickling from the pump.  The only downside was that it didn't work with fish!  Every fish I ever put in there died, including a Beta fish.  Well I enjoyed the fishless fish tank for some time, but eventually decided I needed a real animal for my office.

Well, I was in Petsmart and saw the Bearded Dragon and after much goings back and forth in my mind I bought one.  My kids debated and debated over what to call him.  My daughter wanted "Spikey" my son "Spike"; so we settled on "Captain Spikey."  So here we go, we now own a bearded dragon named Captain Spikey.  Oh dear readers don't worry about the commitment, I'm told they only live 10 YEARS!!!! :-o

San Francisco

2 Aug 2011

Yesterday we landed back into Chicago as planned, claimed our bags, tried to be ripped off by Avistar the long term parking company near O'hare, and finally arrived safely back at home.

The wedding in San Francisco was everything that I expected it to be for a wedding that was conducted in the eyes of man and not in the eyes of God.  Additionally, Weddings have that unique ability to bring together family members from all over the country who rarely see each other any other time of the year.  There were quite a few people who I think I've met before, but wasn't sure.  I ended up doing my best to be friendly to everyone I met.  The actual wedding ceremony was only 5 minutes tops, with no personal touch by the one who was officiating.  To his defense he is not a Pastor, Priest, Minister, or anything; just a family friend who I hear works for the city of San Francisco.  I squirmed in my seat as the ceremony progressed.  After this the reception was held just inside the building side left, but as a Christian, it's a little difficult to hang out in a place where people are on the dance floor grinding on each other to some rap song that's talking about sex.  Hey, that's the world for sure and it is what it is.

In other news we were able to sneak away once and visit Fisherman's wharf which is really touristy, but fun nevertheless.  We played in the antique mechanical arcade, ate some seafood, and got to check out the Marina.  It is always cool to me to see the different sailboats that a major Marina like San Francisco has all in one place.

My Last Day Film

Every Friday night my wife and I volunteer on the Navy Base for a Military Ministry sponsored event. This event, called Connection, partners with area local churches to provide home cooked meals for the Sailors and also to give teachings on various topics from: God and the Military, Marriage, and many more. Last night I was told about a short film which was created by The Jesus Film Project. They utilized Global Short Film Network to distribute the following film:

MY LAST DAY

"This 9-minute story, which utilizes dialogue from the original JESUS film, unfolds through the eyes of a criminal who receives the same brutal crucifixion sentence as Christ. My Last Day is a film of regret, forgiveness, and redemption using Japanese-style animation to capture the attention of a new generation."

You can download and watch the film free here: My Last Day

Chicago to San Francisco

28 July 2011

Sitting here in a Starbucks in San Francisco I'm thinking to myself, "Am I really in California??"  Last night my family and I set out to get to Chicago's Ohare airport to travel to California to attend my Sister-in-Law's wedding.  The plan was to ride the commuter train into the city and then ride Chicago's famous "L" blue line train which runs all the way into the airport.  These plans were quickly scrapped as we beheld the driving rain and incredible lightning show out the windshield of the car and received a text alert that the train was stopped due to high winds.  The primary driving force for initially not wanting to drive to Ohare was the ridiculous daily parking rate of $31 a day.  With a little more research on the way to the airport we discovered a company that offers $7 a day parking with shuttle service to the airport.

The drive, parking, and shuttle to the airport were uneventful and went fairly smooth.  The time on deck was 0100 and our flight was for 0700 the next morning.  Being military, we decided to spend the next few hours as the airport USO which is an awesome non-profit organization that supports military members in a variety of ways.  They provided us free food, drink, internet, and entire room with couch and cots for my family to sleep in.  I can not express my thanks enough to the USO as I've used them many times, and will continue to do so in the future.

We flew Virgin America and was generally pleased with all aspects of the airline and flight aside from their luggage handling skills.  As we were sitting in the boarding area waiting to get on the plane we looked out the window just in time to see two pieces of luggage come shooting down a slide and go flying into a puddle on the ground.  Below is the photographic evidence that I snapped upon witnessing this scene.

This baggage scene was witnessed by everyone in the entire gate and after a few people complained to the Virgin attendant at the gate a supervisor went outside to talk to the baggage handler.  Let the following picture be submitted to the court as exhibit B:

I've seen some of the interior pictures of Virgin planes before and they always looked really cool.  My family and I rode coach, but were still pretty happy with the plane and flight.  Here is an interior shot of the Airbus A320 that we flew in.  The LED lights and white plastic seat backs gave the plane a much more modern and clean look then what I was used to.

All total the trip from Chicago to San Francisco went well.