Yesterday I found 30 Bills on my doorstep! WOW! I mean who gets 30 Bills in one day? How special are we? So far this has been an interesting month, but 30 Bills?! I mean really, who would do such a thing? Apparently people who love us.

Thanks Bill and Jennita. And Sue and Keith. And Jessi and Paul.

You see, this month Martina and I will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary and our daughter Jessica has created a campaign to celebrate 30 years of blessings with 30 days of love. So far this month she or one of her henchmen has managed to deliver a gift or note every day. On the first we received a plant from Sue and Keith. Hanging from the plant were 30 days worth of affirmations and declarations of love from our dear friends, one for each day. Thanks Guys.

From Jessi and Paul we have received, 2 cards, one list of 30 “Schraderisms” a “Dirty 30 Party” box, the contents of which shall remained undisclosed, 30 Hershy’s Kisses, and 30 pink carnations.

Then yesterday Martina discovered a card and packet of photos from the Tibbetts on our front doorstep. The card made us feel loved by our friends. When I looked at the photos I became quite perplexed. You see, the top one was a great shot of Bill and Jennita and I figured cool, they dug up some pictures of all of us doing stuff together. So I continue to look through the pictures, the next one is Bill, so is the one after that, and the next, and the next…. you get the idea. Bill is in every photo. Now I’m really confused. I wonder did they grab the wrong package of pictures? I’m self-centered enough to think that if you’re going to give me a bunch of pictures as an expression of love, shouldn’t I be in at least one of them? Today Martina noticed that there were exactly 30 pictures of Bill or 30 Bills. Cool! Still don’t know what it means. Little help here!

So I’ve been getting some pushback from a few folks about the long delay between posts here at the Captain’s Logbook. Well what can I say? It’s been a busy 35 days and sometimes it’s hard to remember you are supposed to draining the swamp when you are up to your ass in alligators! I actually started a post back during our recent IE ice age but ran into technical difficulties. I wanted to post some pictures of icicles that Martina took, but my WordPress interface wouldn’t let me post thumbnails. I haven’t had time to figure out what the issue is yet. OK, Enough whining!

Christmas – Christmas was great! I have some great photos of me (the world’s biggest kid) playing with my brand new Lego crane that Jessi and Paul gave me. There is also my rockin LGB train set that was my present from Martina, mom and my mother in law. The LGB train was a 30 year old Christmas wish come true. We got to hang with the kids and play with Adelaide so it was a good time.

The Living Desert – On Dec 29^th we took a road trip out to Palm Desert to visit the Living Desert Botanical Gardens. Why you ask, because they happen to have one of the largest displays of LGB trains in the world. Now that I am a proud member of the LGB family I felt compelled to complete a pilgrimage before the end of the year. It was our first outing with the new camera and oh how I love my Canon! That thing is awesome! I took hundreds of photos of big trains and lots of videos too. Oh yeah there’s a couple of shots of a cheetah and a giraffe or two as well. I think there might even be a picture of Martina.

New Years – Very laid back, no party, just channel surfing until midnight then off to bed.

Jonathan – Jonathan got home from Iraq safe and sound on Jan 9th. He had 2 weeks off so my mom paid for a ticket so he could come home and visit. We picked him up at the airport on the 13^th and dropped him off again on the 21^st. It was great to see him again and I am very grateful to all of you for your prayers. When I hugged him at the airport it was like hugging a concrete post, the boy is buff! Nothing like having a lot of spare time and nothing to do but lift weights, sorta like prison except in prison the guards aren’t tossing mortar shells at you every other night or so.

He came to church with us Sunday and I think he was a little embarrassed by the number of people, many of whom he did not know, that greeted him with variations of “So this is who I’ve been praying for, awesome to meet you.”  Jon is back in FL at his permanent duty station now. Don’t know if he will have to go back again.

House Of Blues – We went to the House of Blues Gospel Brunch last Sunday to celebrate BrandiShine’s birthday. Can’t say that I am a true fan of Gospel music but we still had a great time and loved being there with everybody.

Church – Church continues to be busy as we got back into the swing of things after the holidays. Mindie, one of our small group members went off to Las Vegas with the JC’s Girls and she was sorely missed by all of us, especially Colin, her husband. If you’ve ever gotten a drink at the Coffee Cart first service chances are it was Colin that made it for you. Anyway, it was very kewl to have Mindie back with us and to hear about all the different ways God was working at the porn convention.

Okay, that’s it for now – hopefully it won’t be another month until the next post.

Last Saturday after the Christmas Boat Parade we took the boat out for a little sailing and hopefully whale watching. Unfortunately I  guess we were a little early because we didn’t see any marine life this trip out. Oh well the sailing was a lot of fun though. Out of the 12 crew invited only Jake and Beca were brave enough to face the elements with us. Here is a little video I put together to give you a taste for what its like. Be gentle its my first time using iMovie and trying to post a video to the web.

Enjoy!

Last Friday Martina and I took 25 friends out on Cest La Vie, the biggest boat in our club, for a “3 hour tour.” It was our annual adventure on the bay for the Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade.

OMG, I think every boat in Newport was out Friday night. It was chaos. Think 405 freeway, rush hour, no lines marking lanes and people parking in the middle of the road, at night. Yikes! However this year was the most stress-free for me because this boat has an electric anchor winch so I just parked us in the anchorage and we watched the parade from there. No worries. Except for the 40 foot cabin cruiser that nearly (missed us by 2 feet) backed into us.

Anyway, I’ve waited so long to post because I’ve been waiting patiently for my friend Daniel over at Snap Photography to post his pictures from the evening. Cruise over there and take a look. His photo’s are great!

We had a total of 27 people out of 31 invited on a 44 foot boat. I originally wanted to invite 40 but when I called the club and talked to the owner he really didn’t think that was too wise. He mumbled something about being really topheavy. I then got a vision of 40 people all rushing to the same side of the boat at once….oops. I’m glad I listened to him because with anymore people on board I think we would have been overcrowded. Not unsafe, just too many elbows and knees for the available cubic feet.

 I hope our club gets a 60 footer before next year! Either that or I’m gonna have to book more than one night, there are SO many more friends that I want to invite!

Actually it’s OUR story since Martina and I come as a package.

Anyway, Miss Janie (look! I learned a new trick, the logbook now comes with links) posted on her blog her stroy on how she wound up at Sandals church. Several others posted their own stories in her comments. So I thought I’d share our story here.

Before Sandals, Tina and I attended just 2 churches in 26 years as Christians. The first was the Pentecostal church in Germany where Martina was saved. The second was Harvest. We started attending Harvest right after we moved to Riverside in 1983.  We were both very involved and well plugged in at both churches. However over time the rat-race kinda crept in and by the time 2001 rolled around we had pretty much stagnated in our christian walk. By then we were only going to church sporadically and I was struggling with the idea that nobody seemed to care, or even notice.

By then Jessi and Paul were dating and looking for a church of their own. Martina had heard of Sandals from a girlfriend so she suggested it to Jessi. They went and loved it! One Sunday I suggested to Martina that we probably  ought to check the place out, you know to make sure the kids weren’t getting into some kind of cult. I mean really, what kind of name is Sandals anyway?

So we went. It was sometime in the summer of 01, they were still meeting at VCC. My first impression wasn’t really all that great; hated the worship (my issue, not Los’s), thought the message was good but too short, didn’t understand the slogan. “Real with ourselves, others, and God” what the heck is that supposed to mean? It sounded like a bunch of  burned out hippies trying to be profound. We vacillated between Harvest and Sandals for several months, and if during this time you had asked me why I was coming to Sandals the honest answer would have been “Because it’s convenient” I could do my duty and soothe my conscience in an hour!  Eventually we went back to Harvest.

If you are sensing that I struggle with negativity and that change is not my friend you are correct, but Nathan has been working with me and I’m getting better.

Fast  forward to the spring of 2002. I don’t remember the specifics of the conversation but somehow Sandals came up and I opined that the services were just too short to be “real” church. Jessica informed me that now that Sandals was meeting in the CBU gym and able to have a morning as well as an evening service the services were longer and the sermons not so abbreviated. Intrigued, we decided to give Sandals another go.

The second time around Martina and I were struck by the vitality and energy of the church. We wondered if mayby there wasn’t a place for us at Sandals. Being “slightly” older, we wondered if God might use us the way a grizzled vetran helps to steady the eager but raw recruit. So we continued to attend, and fell in love. As we got to know people we began to understand the vision – Being Real – what a concept.

As for the worship, that was all my issue, it wasn’t too loud, after all I’m a boomer, loud music is great. I just didn’t know ANY of the songs and they were all too fast for me to get my lips around. Then it happened, I found the “Passion: One Day Live” CD at the Harvest bookstore. OMG these are the songs we sing at Sandals! They must be okay!  Once the worship songs at Sandals got the “Harvest Seal of Approval” I was okay with them. Yep, I can be that shallow.

3 things happened that year that cemented us to the Sandals community; we met Jim and Ronda Gilbert at the “Endless Summer” party, we attended the 1st marriage getaway and talked Matt and Tammy’s ears off while waiting for our breakfast to arrive, and we were put in Nathan and Danielle’s small group.

So far it has been an extraordinary journey and I can hardly wait to see where God will lead this great church next.

Reminiscing

Since DJRickyG and Denise C. recently took us all on a trip down memory lane I’ve been thinking about things from my youth. So here are a few of my rememberies…

G.I. Joe – Not the wimpy little 3 inch figure from the 80’s I’m talking about 12 inches of All American Fighting Hero baby! I had 7 or 8 of the things along with a platoon’s worth of combat gear and vehicles. Then my mom gave it all away to my second or third cousins when I joined the Air Force. Arrrrrrgh!!!

1964 Cherry Red Mustang – My first car. It originally belonged to my brother. When he wanted something newer, my parents bought it from him and I “bought” it from them for $400.00. I think I even made a few payments. Then my mom sold it after I joined the Air Force.

“This concludes our broadcast day” Can anyone else remember when there were only 13 channels on the TV dial (And only half worked in any given city.)? And that TV used to go off the air at midnight? They actually used to play the National Anthem at the end of the day. Today the station would probably get sued for “offending” someone by daring to play that jingoist anthem to American imperialism.

                         The noon siren. When was the last time you had to duck and cover  for a civil defense drill.

Yep, that’s right our great and brilliant leaders thought we would survive a nuclear blast by hiding under our desks!

Here’s your change sir.At McDonalds you could get a cheeseburger, fries, a small drink and something really remarkable…change from your dollar.

“E ticket ride” The admission to Disneyland was $5.00…but all that got you was into the park. All of the attractions took individual tickets ranked from A to E. E being the best and reserved for the Bobsleds and other good rides. In 1972, when minimum wage was $1.65/hr., an adult 15 ticket book (which included admission) cost $5.95

Here’s the breakdown: A-10¢ (1), B-25¢ (2), C-40¢ (3), D-70¢ (4), E-85¢ (5)

Children of the Day - Come to the Waters, first christian song I ever heard, waaaaaay back in the day.

So that’s a sample of what’s stuck in my brain, what’s cluttering up your mental closet?