THE MAJOR’S LIFE BLOG

Greetings My Friends,

It’s a warm and sticky Thursday night aqui en Homestead, and we’ve entered another extended dry period weatherwise with an abundance of clear skies, bright sunshine, and hot temperatures through at least the early part of next week. The chance of rain will be slim to none, but I can never rule out a quick passing shower in July - especially during the late-night and early-morning hours. Get out there and have some fun, but drink plenty of water !

TOMORROW on the big blog everybody’s waitin’ for the grande unveiling of this week’s original ‘Friday Night Blogroll Review’. It’s what’s happenin’ dude at my favourite blogs from my favourite bloggers. Then on Saturday morning be sure to catch my ‘Shenanigans’. You just never know what could possibly happen when I get in my car on a Saturday morning and drive from here to there - wherever there may be. (Food will probably be involved.)

Until we hang out again here on the blog or LIVE and in-person - remember this !

Chris In 1994

It’s a ‘lost’ picture of me from 1994. I found it this morning while looking for something. Check out the ENORMOUS spectacles and the obsolete telephone and computer equipment on my desk !

Good Night Everyone !  Good Night Ela !

I do more before 9 AM on a Saturday morning than many people do all day on Saturday !

I started my Saturday morning bright and early at Homestead’s Oasis Plaza Publix just a couple of minutes after they opened up their doors at 7 AM. Once upon a time I used to be the first person in to the original Towne Square Publix (Useless-One & Campbell Drive) on most Sunday mornings at 7 AM (sometimes on Saturday mornings at the same time). Nowadays a Saturday morning at 7 AM visit to Publix is a rare treat, and a Sunday morning at 7 AM visit is an impossibility (due to my other priorities). I was in and out of Publix with all of my groceries for the next couple of weeks or so in about 45 minutes.

Next on the agenda (after I took all of my groceries home) was Chevron on Homestead’s frantic corner of Useless-One and Campbell Drive. I filled up my car with 10.836 gallons of gas at $4.199 per gallon (an all-new record) for a total cost of $45.50 (another all-new record). It was my first fill-up with gas in 19 days (a few days above my usual running average). I averaged a daily consumption of 0.57 gallons of gas over the past 19 days.

I then went over to Walgreens where I got excellent $ALE DEAL$ on laundry detergent and videotapes (what a combination).

I capped-off my Saturday Morning Shenanigans at Burger King where I picked-up an Enormous Omelet Sandwich, Hash Browns, and Turbo Coffee. Burger King has always been my all-time favourite fast food restaurant for breakfast, and for many years I used to go there at least once or twice per week. This may have been my first or second visit in all of 2008 thus far. I just don’t eat as ‘bad’ as I used to ever since my MASSIVE heart attack and subsequent 9-month coma elevated cholesterol readings and subsequent Lipitor prescription. Eating a Burger King breakfast has now become a once-in-a-long-while occasion. I’ll do it again en Octubre !

And so those - mis amigos - are mis Saturday Morning Shenanigans. I got back home at 9 AM this morning, and now I’m watching television, surfing the web, doing laundry, paying bills, filing paperwork, and other fun stuff like that. This is the day that I’ve been waiting for since … last Saturday !

Have a sensational Saturday everyone !  Make it memorable.

1.  Of all of the regular weekly blog entries that are posted on here this is the one that I look forward to compiling and posting more than any other. This is totally unrehearsed, and I am totally unprepared for it. This is raw, and that’s what makes it so cool. I have absolutely no clue what I plan to blog about for the next 9 items of interest, but I’ll just let my fingers do the talking and watch what happens.

2.  The 10TH season / 9TH summer edition of “Big Brother” on CBS-TV begins this Sunday night at 8 PM EDT / 7 PM CDT. Please don’t bother me while it’s on (three nights a week as usual).

3.  Some days everyone around me is a lousy driver. They either drive too slow in front of me, pull out in front of me, or tailgate me. This was one of those days. I couldn’t wait to get off of the streets.

4.  Everytime I sneak a peek at this book I spend more time in it than I intended. I need to find some time this weekend to intentionally spend a couple of hours with it. It’s what I do for Life Pointe Church. It’s how I serve God and His children here in Homestead.

5.  This afternoon I ordered a medium roast beef sandwich combo (with curly fries and a Sierra Mist) and an apple turnover via the drive-thru at Arby’s in Florida City (where all the food is). That’s what I paid for, and I’ve got the receipt right here to prove it. I got the curly fries, the Sierra Mist, and the apple turnover, but in lieu of the medium roast beef sandwich that I was truly looking forward to devouring I instead got - get this - a REUBEN !  I can dig mistakes like that when they work out in my favour flavour !

6.  Are you tired of all of the rain here in Homestead (nearly 14 inches over the past 22 days) ?  GOOD - I’m forecasting very little to no rain at all for the next 5 to 7 days (until perhaps early next week). Let’s see if I’m right.

7.  The Washington Redskins and The Indianapolis Colts kick-off the 2008 NFL season with the annual Pro Football Hall-Of-Fame Game in Canton Ohio on Sunday August 03RD 2008. That’s only 26 days away. THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKIN’ ABOUT !

8.  I saw my hot new laptop on sale at a Best Buy in Plano Texas last week. The longer I wait the cheaper it gets with more power. Laptops with 4 GB of RAM are pretty much standard nowadays. So are desktops with 8 GB of RAM.

9.  I survived my 5TH cold in 8 months. It lasted 6 days. I kinda knew that I was getting it before I got it, and it was pretty much gone before I realized it. Here’s hoping that I don’t have to be blogging about my 6TH cold in 10 months come Labour Day Weekend !

10.  THIS JUST IN - My brother and his wife (my sister-in-law) now have a cold. My 6-DAY cold ‘peaked’ on its 3RD day. That was my last full day at their house. I felt a little bit better on the 4TH Of July - the day that I left them behind and flew back home. A single contact with my nasty cold germs left behind and it was pretty much all over for the both of them. They’ll probably infect each of their coworkers.

Just because I’m not there doesn’t mean that I can’t do this:

1.  It’s 10 PM EDT in Homestead - and 9 PM CDT here on the River Walk en San Antonio as I begin posting this blog entry, and that makes it a true ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’. Normally these weekly thoughts are compiled and published late on a Tuesday afternoon, but that’s not the case this week. I was busy being a tourist on this particular Tuesday afternoon.

2.  As the 10:30 AM service was just getting started at Life Pointe Church this past Sunday morning me and my brother were just getting started with our 5-hour / 300-mile trek from Allen Texas (north of Dallas) to San Antonio. (We’ll be making the return trip back to Allen on Wednesday afternoon.)

3.  I saw this on a billboard on the President George Bush Turnpike north of Dallas - ‘YOUR WIFE IS HOT !‘ (in big bold letters). Underneath that it read (in much smaller letters) - ‘Better Get That A.C. Fixed’. Now that’s effective advertising that grabbed my (short) attention (span) !

4.  We stopped by my brother’s office in a generic high-rise office building in Dallas to pick up a few items. My immediate observation of the joint - he’s got absolutely no pictures of me in his office. Hopefully this public thought right here will give him a substantial guilt complex that will remind him to go home and retrieve a picture of me so that he can proudly display it in his office.

5.  Parts of I-35 southbound away from Dallas and towards Waco, Austin, and San Antonio kinda sorta reminded me of parts of I-4 westbound away from Orlando and towards Lakeland and Tampa. Central Texas looks a lot like Central Florida in many areas.

6.  We hit 100,000 miles in my brother’s 2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee while driving southbound on I-35, and my brother actually captured the flip-over from 99,999 miles to 100,000 miles on video while driving about 75 MPH in the fast lane and passing an 18-wheeler. (I was slightly terrified during those couple of minutes.)

7.  Me and my brother ate dinner Sunday night at this place in San Antonio about 9 miles from downtown. It’s a place that I’ve been to once before - in October 2003 the last time I was in town. We saw the WWE PPV ‘Night Of Champions’ there.

8.  My brother is an official exhibitor (representing the company that he works for) at the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) 2008 presented by the International Society For Technology In Education (ISTE). Picture the Exponential Conference that we attended up in Orlando this past April but much bigger than that, and instead of Pastors and church staff members it’s teachers and principals.

9.  One of the most popular blog entries of all-time on here was from January 2008. It’s the one where I posted all of those funny names for Chinese restaurants that have ‘Wok’ in its name. Well here’s a new one. Yesterday I enjoyed Lunch at a mall joint known as the ‘Side Wok Cafe’.

10.  I saw “The Happening” Monday afternoon at the movies, and I thought that it was near-perfect (if you’re in to that type of box office entertainment). It was more eye-popping than it was bonechilling. What was even more horrific than the movie itself is the fact that parents actually brought their small school-aged kids into the theatre to watch the movie as well. If you know anything about this movie then you may just agree with me when I refer to those parents as ‘irresponsible’.

It’s the most anticipated blog entry of the week. This is how we roll on a Tuesday night in Homestead Florida !

1.  George Carlin died over the weekend at the age of 71. While I didn’t agree with virtually all of his political viewpoints (as he identified them in public) he was still one of the greatest and funniest comedians in American history as far as I’m concerned. I will miss his LIVE HBO specials every few years.

2.  I ate Chinese Food for Lunch today. I picked it up from Shanghai & Tokyo in Homestead’s Waterstone Plaza. I’m a semi-regular there. They usually give me two fortune cookies to go along with my ‘Lunch Special’. Later tonight I’ll have your special ‘double feature’ edition of ‘The Fortune Cookie Message Of The Week Club’. Don’t miss it !

3.  Earlier today I went to annualcreditreport.com and I printed out three full and complete credit reports for me from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. annualcreditreport.com is the only site that is legally able to give you free copies of your credit report from all three of those credit bureau sites. I did all of this in less than 45 minutes this morning, and I got over 30 pages of important credit information spanning virtually my entire adult life.

4.  I thrive in a hot and humid environment (such as Homestead). I could not live happily ever after in a cold and dry environment - or a hot and dry environment for that matter. It’s hotter in San Antonio (where I’ll be next week) than it is here in Homestead, but it’s less humid over there than it is over here. I’d rather have the extra humidity rather than the higher temperatures.

5.  I’ve become a semi-regular of the new Starbucks in Homestead. The people that work there are now starting to recognize me and my car. So far I have received consistent great service from them - inside as well as via their drive-thru. Let’s hope that it stays that way.

6.  The following 5 things kept me preoccupied for 7 hours yesterday at my Saturn dealership in Cutler Bay:
a.  My iPod Shuffle
b.  The latest edition of ‘Entertainment Weekly‘ (magazine)
c.  The Miami Herald (newspaper)
d.  TV Guide Crosswords & Sudokus
e.  Life Pointe Church follow-up spreadsheet (printed out)

7.  Some people have a chronic addiction to their cell phone. They just can’t stop calling people all over the free nation and sharing their private lives in public via their loud cell phone conversations. No wonder identity theft exists. Remember the good old days when telephone conversations were done in private inside the home ?

8.  Homestead Trivia - How many miles apart are Speedway Boulevard (SW 137TH Avenue) and Krome Avenue (SW 177TH Avenue) ?  The answer - exactly 4.0 miles. In Miami-Dade County each numbered avenue is exactly 0.1 miles apart to the grid. 40 avenues apart = 4.0 miles. It’s that simple my friends !

9.  Me, My Brother, His Wife, & Fuddruckers - That’s the plan for Lunch as soon as I touch down in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex this Saturday. After that we will all go and play a round of minature golf. I totally dig that plan !

10.  Next week your ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’ will come to you LIVE from the River Walk in San Antonio. I’m also planning at least a couple of special editions of ‘The Major’s Walk-A-Thon’. You’re not gonna wanna miss it my friends.

WELCOME to a fresh new week here on the big blog. TODAY - Monday June 23RD 2008 - turned out to be the busiest Monday in the history of this blog. You crazy cats shattered the previous Monday record (set back in April) by a mind-boggling 28.7%, and you did that without me. I didn’t even touch my blog until after the day had officially ended (at 8 PM EDT / 12 AM UTC).

Last week we enjoyed our busiest Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday EVER, and it was also our busiest (Monday to Sunday) week EVER by a whopping 15.5%. Keep on doing your thing on here - reading and commenting. It’s all part of the overall concept of blogging. You are all bloggers, and together we are keeping in touch with each other when we can’t be right next to each other physically. It’s like a ministry of fellowship on here. This is how we take our faith public via modern electronic means in the 21ST Century.

I was at my Saturn dealership in Cutler Bay for nearly 7 hours today waiting on my car as it was getting nearly $1,100 worth of repair work done. Luckily I didn’t pay that much (because there were exactly 3 days remaining with the original 5-year extended warranty for the car). During those 7 hours I scribbled down a few rough notes in preparation for tomorrow’s ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’. It’s the most spontaneous blog entry of the entire week, and you’re not gonna believe some of my thoughts tomorrow. It’s what everyone will be talking about around the salad bar at Ruby Tuesday on Wednesday. Don’t you dare miss it. You won’t regret it pal.

Later this week you may not want to use your cell phone ever again once you see the most SHOCKING ‘Thursday Night Internet Hoax Hall-Of-Shame’ to date !  This is the one that could really frighten you to bits and make you tremble in fear, or it could all be an Internet HOAX !  You decide - Thursday night.

So that’s what I’ve got for you tonight - an obvious ‘Blatant Promotion’ of this blog and all of you who are an important part of it. Without you this wouldn’t be. I’ll catch you all back here tomorrow - same time - same channel. Have a great evening everyone !  Good Night Friends. Good Night Gricelda.

THANK YOU fellow bloggers for making this the biggest Thursday EVER in our history (shattering the previous best Thursday EVER by nearly 5% in total views). Two days ago we enjoyed our biggest Tuesday EVER !

OK friends tomorrow night is the night where everything will be all right. It’s Friday night, so that only means one thing here on the big blog. It’s another exciting edition of the ‘Friday Night Blogroll Review’. It’s where I give back to my fellow bloggers, and highlight my favourite blog entries of this past week from my favourite bloggers in the blogosphere. You won’t want to miss it pal !

Then be sure to stick around for an all-new ‘Saturday Morning Shenanigans’. I’m planning a MASSIVE breakfast somewhere !

Until we hang out again here on the big blog (or LIVE and in-person) remember this:

It’s time for the 20TH edition of the continuing tradition that is - the ‘Thursday Night Internet Hoax Hall-Of-Shame’. I don’t have any cute pictures of MASSIVE cats or dogs that don’t really exist, or fake tornadoes near oil rigs. This one is a total gas - literally. This is the one that everyone will be talking about around the copy machine tomorrow morning:

Subject: FW: Where to buy American Gasoline

WHERE TO BUY AMERICAN GASOLINE. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT TO KNOW. READ ON. 
 
Gas rationing in the 70’s worked even though we grumbled about it.

It might even have been good for us !

Are you aware that the Saudis are boycotting American products ? In addition, they are gouging us on oil prices. Shouldn’t we return the favor ? Can’t we take control of our own destiny and let these giant oil importers know who REALLY generates their profits, their livings ? How about leaving American Dollars in America and reduce the import/export deficit ? An appealing remedy might be to boycott their GAS.

Every time you fill up your car you can avoid putting more money into the coffers of Saudi Arabia. Just purchase gas from companies that don’t import their oil from the Saudis.

Nothing is more frustrating than the feeling that every time I fill up my tank, I’m sending my money to people who I get the impression want me, my family and my friends dead.

The following gas companies import Middle Eastern oil:

Shell…………………………………205,742,000 barrels
Chevron/Texaco…………………144,332,000 barrels
Exxon/Mobil………………………130,082,000 barrels
Marathon/Speedway……………117,740,000 barrels
Amoco……………………………….62,231,000 barrels

And CITGO oil is imported from Venezuela by Dictator Hugo Chavez who hates America and openly avows our economic destruction ! (We pay Chavez’s regime nearly $10 Billion per year in oil revenues !)

The U.S. currently imports 5,517,000 barrels of crude oil per day from OPEC. If you do the math at $100 per barrel, that’s over $550 million PER DAY ($200 BILLION per year !) handed over to OPEC, many of whose members are our confirmed enemies!!!!! It won’t stop here - oil prices could go to $200 a barrel or higher if we keep buying their product.

Here are some large companies that do not import Middle Eastern oil:

Sunoco……………………….0 barrels
Conoco……………………….0 barrels
Sinclair……………………….0 barrels
BP/Phillips…………………..0 barrels
Hess. ………………………..0 barrels
ARC0…………………………0 barrels
Maverick…………………….0 barrels
Flying J. ……………………..0 barrels
Valero………………………..0 barrels
Murphy Oil USA* …………..0   Sold at Wal-Mart, gas is from South Arkansas and fully USA owned and produced. Not only that but they give scholarships to all children in their town who finish high school and are legal US citizens.

All of this information is available from the U.S. Department of Energy and each company is required to state where they get their oil and how much they are importing.

But to have a real impact, we need to reach literally millions of gas buyers. With the help of the internet, it’s really simple to do …

Numerous variants of this Internet hoax have been widely circulating since December 2001. As you’ve already figured out there is very little factual information within this E-Mail.

Read more about it here and here, and when you receive an obvious Internet hoax via your E-Mail Inbox don’t waste your time with it. Hit that {DELETE} key, and be done with it right then and there !

If it’s Tuesday night then look no further than here for a glimpse into what’s happenin’ in my world:

1.  Earlier this afternoon we surpassed the 13,000 mark in total (cumulative) views since this blog’s inception late last November. We keep shattering brand new daily, weekly, and monthly view records on here. I say ‘We’ because without you (reading this) there would be no exciting statistics to write about. Thank You for blogging with me, and for being a part of my Life !

2.  It’s currently raining just a little bit over the Homestead / Florida City area, but there’s a whole bunch of rain (torrential downpours) just to the west of us in the Everglades. We could use several feet of rain - not all at once, but spread out over the next three months or so. The more rain that we receive here in South Florida the less likely hurricanes are to come our way.

3.  Last week I surpassed the 50,000-mile mark in my car, and I was on Homestead’s Speedway Boulevard southbound approaching Campbell Drive when it all went down. It’s the first time in 15 years that I’ve owned a car for its first 50,000 miles. I previously did so in a 1989 Geo Spectrum (my first car here in Homestead).

4.  I enjoyed a MASSIVE Lunch at the White Lion Café this afternoon. It’s the closest that you’ll ever get to fine dining here in Homestead. Last time I ate there I admired Pastor Paul’s fried chicken and mashed potatoes from across the table. This time around I got my own ENORMOUS fried chicken breast - no bones about it. I KNOW THAT’S RIGHT !

5.  I ate Lunch at the White Lion with Marge R. I’ve known her for over 20 years - longer than anyone else (who isn’t related to me) in my entire life / Life. She was telling me all about God back in the late-1980s and throughout the entire 1990s when I wasn’t really interested in Him. She never gave up on me though. She kept on bragging on Him. My Christmas 2006 gift to her ? - It’s when I revealed to her (at Applebee’s of all places) that I’ve been saved by Jesus Christ and reborn. A month later I walked through the front doors of Life Pointe Church for the first time ever. It was my first entrance into any church since the late-1970s when I was in grade school.

6.  Anne J. - I just finished eating yet another MASSIVE slice of birthday cake. I figure that if I eat three more MASSIVE slices between now and Friday then it will be all gone. The cake surprisingly tastes as good now as it did last Wednesday night when you and the crew surprised me with it.

7.  I currently weigh 165.5 pounds. That’s my ideal weight. Can you believe that I actually weighed in the mid-180s back when I was in my early-20s ?  I took all of that excess weight off a few years after that, and I’ve been holding steady ever since. Thank You Jenny Craig !  (Just kidding.)

8.  If I had to give up one of the following 5 devices for an entire year - TV(s), VCR(s), Computer, iPod Shuffle(s), or Cell Phone - then the answer couldn’t be more simple and easy - the cell phone. I typically don’t use my cell phone to make or receive calls (even though it works just fine). I pretty much only use it to send and receive the occasional text message. Other than that it gets little to no use at all. The telephone (standard or cell) is my least-favourite electronic device.

9.  I’m experimenting with homeopathic Murine Ear Drops for Ear Wax Relief. I have a recurring ear wax buildup problem inside my right ear. Sometimes it can get real bad. The worst that it’s ever been in my entire Life was last May in the worst place at the worse time - during the week that I was with my family in The Bahamas to attend my little brother’s wedding. I pretty much could not hear out of my right ear during the entire week. It made for a miserable week.

10.  Forget about the little kid in the candy store - check me out anytime I’m inside an Office Depot or an Office Max !  Let me run loose and buy things !

CHEVRON - I filled up my car with regular 87 octane gasoline this morning at my favourite Chevron on the congested Homestead corner of Useless-One y Campbell Drive (SW 312TH St. / NE 8TH St.). It’s my first fill-up in exactly 14 days, and that’s a few days below my overall average. Typically I can go up to 17 to 19 days before I need to fill-up with gas. I spent $4.069 per gallon of gas (nipping the previous all-time record by a mere penny), and I spent a total of $45.00 for the fill-up (nipping the previous all-time record by a single dollar). KA-CHING !

WALGREENS - The highlight here is that I now have enough Omega-3 Fish Oil (1200 milligrams per softgel) to take me into January 2009 providing that I take one of them per day every day until then. (They had a ‘Buy 1 Get 1 Free’ sale on them this week.) I adore the bargain$. THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKIN’ ‘BOUT, WILLIS !

STARBUCKS - I visited our Homestead Starbucks for the first time ever, and what a quaint little place it is with such a quaint little parking lot and a bustling drive-thru. Recently my friend Phil teased me for only going to Starbucks for the ‘frou-frou designer’ espresso coffees that cost over $4. He told me that I should try out their regular coffees that cost under $2. As is always the case for me at Starbucks I get lost, dazed, confused, and sometimes even dizzy looking at their all-encompassing menu board. (Travis I am not.) In my entire life I can still count on two hands the number of times I have been to Starbucks. Have no fear my dear, for I received excellent customer service from my personal barista behind the counter. She helped me to make a decision on what I really wanted. I got the grande Pike Place Roast ($1.89) with caramel flavour added ($0.30), and also a pastry item. My barista also told me all about the benefits of purchasing a Starbucks card. As it turns out I could have gotten the caramel flavour added free-of-charge if I already had the card. I may get it. The coolest part of this particular Starbucks is that they open for bid-ness at 5:30 AM during the week. I totally dig that since that is a half-hour before I need to be at work. BOO-YAH !

… And those - my friends - are my ‘Saturday Morning Shenanigans’ …

I HEARD THAT !

B U G S - The bugs are back in town here in Homestead due to all of the recent heavy rains. You may be thinking to yourself, ‘Hey - Wait a minute. I live in Homestead. It hasn’t rained since March !’  You may also be thinking to yourself, ‘No doubt. I thought the sky was caving in on us yesterday afternoon. My yard turned into a giant lake !  My new patio furniture was thrown by the funnel cloud into the canal !’ There is rain all around us. Some of us have received a lot of it this past week, and some of us are still living in a dust bowl. Pretty soon all of us will get a lot of rain, and the bugs will flock to Homestead on their Summer break. Get ready to be eaten alive by little itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny mouths with glow-in-the-dark green eyes.

G A S - I filled-up my car this morning with not quite 11 gallons of gas at Chevron on Useless-One at Campbell Drive at the remarkable price of $4.059 per gallon. That’s about 15 to 20 cents per gallon higher than every other gas station in the general vicinity of that Chevron, but I am kinda sorta semi-loyal to Chevron, and I really wanted to use my fresh new Chevron-Texaco credit card this morning for the first time. $4.059 may seem outrageous to a majority of whining and complaining Americans, but $4.059 for the equivalent of a gallon of gas anywhere in Europe is known as ‘the good old days of the 1990s’.

J A V A - Speaking of items that we Americans love to spend a lot of money on - Starbucks in Homestead - not to be confused with Starbucks in Florida City - is OPEN for BUSINESS !  OK calm down Travis. The drive-thru is open for business. The inside of the joint is apparently not quite ready for customer utilization, so you’ll just have to wait a little while longer to sit inside for hours on your wireless Apple Mac.

One final item of interest - Many of the mega-stores and restaurants at the first phase of the Homestead Pavilion shopping, dining, and entertainment complex at Campbell Drive and the Turnpike are expected to make their grand openings between the middle of October and the middle of November - just in time for the NASCAR Championship Series at the Homestead-Miami Speedway and of course the Christmas 2008 shopping season.

Here’s what we’ve learned (or reiterated) over the past several Thursday nights:

• Gas stations are not intentionally cheating us by rigging their gas pumps to deliver less gas to your vehicle than what is indicated.
• Circuit City, Bed Bath And Beyond, and other stores have not filed for bankruptcy, so you can continue to cash in your apparent stack of gift cards for them.
• Pictures don’t lie (unless the’re manipulated), but the stories written around the pictures can be totally bogus. What appeared to be actual inflight pictures of a horrific Boeing 737 mid-air collision at 35,000 feet over South America were actually still-shots of the pilot episode of the ABC-TV series “Lost”.

Here’s another picture. It’s a picture of a guy holding up his adorable cat - his adorable cat that is 5 feet 9 inches in length and weighs a MASSIVE 87 pounds !  Is this feline for real, or could it possibly be - an INTERNET HOAX !

Read more about it.

The legend continues, as we enter the 8TH month of these ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’:

1. Travis sent me an ‘Untwitter’ (an ordinary cell phone text message) shortly before 2 PM from my favourite Chinese restaurant aqui en Homestead. Apparently he’s eatin’ good in the neighbourhood at the Peking House. NICE !

2.  I’m a ‘Law & Order’ type of guy - not the actual TV shows, but the simple Life concept of law and order. I wouldn’t survive in a world of anarchy and chaos.

3.  Just in time for the long Memorial Day holiday weekend - we may actually experience the effects of an extremely rare cold front here in South Florida with cool and gusty northeasterly winds coming straight off of the ocean and afternoon high temperatures struggling to get past the 80°F mark. Look for it (potentially) on Sunday and Memorial Day Monday.

4.  Tomorrow (Wednesday) is the last official day of the 2007-2008 television season. It will forever be remembered as the season that the 100-day writers’ strike interrupted. It also continued a trend in which prime time network television viewership hit all-new record lows.

5.  I have so many exciting ideas floating around in my brain for Life Pointe Church. Some of these ideas will never see the light of the day, but I think that most of them will in some way either sooner or later. I’m not alone. I hang out every Sunday morning with a whole bunch of my friends who serve, praise, worship, and love Him. They have some really cool ideas for their church. These are our future leaders at the LPC. We are going to spread the Kingdom of God here in South Miami-Dade !

6.  You think I’m old-fashioned ?  This morning I personally witnessed a late-50s-something guy (a co-worker of mine) rockin’ an electric typewriter like it’s 1972 !  He felt right at home on that thing !

7.  Speaking of the early-1970s I had two dogs when I was a little kid. Brandy was a German Shepherd, and Girlie was a sheep dog. Brandy was taken away from me in 1973 because she was digging holes underneath the backyard fence, crawling under it, and then running loose and terrorizing the neighbourhood. Girlie was taken away from me in 1975 because I was allegedly not taking care of her - as a 7-year-old. The real reason why she was yanked away from me is because of the impending arrival of my little brother.

8.  The people that complain the loudest about the rising gas prices are usually the people that waste the most gas with their lousy driving habits. Don’t throw stones at the oil man when you live in a glass house.

9.  I would see Neil Diamond LIVE in concert. Go ahead. Make fun of me.

10.  Florida Power & Light should have a roving team of technicians that fix street lights that don’t work properly. If you’re wondering why there are no lights on late at night or early in the morning on selected streets it’s because they may be on all day long instead. Sometimes it takes FPL several months to the greater part of a year to find out about these malfunctioning lights and then correct the problem. You can help them out by reporting these street lights via their official web site.

It’s after 6 PM as I begin this blog entry, and I just got home after 11-hours of service, praise, worship, fellowship, bi-county driving, and Hollywood movie fun. Here’s the skinny McPhinny:

1.  I arrived at the movie theatre at my normal time this morning - 7:20 AM - but that wasn’t early enough to beat Anne J. and Paul H. to the punch. I helped to setup, as we transformed a place of Hollywood movie fun into a place of worship on this glorious Sunday morning. As the Life Pointe Church family began to arrive for the 9 AM service I hit the road Jack.

2.  I got on Florida’s Turnpike at 8:50 AM, and I drove 48.3 miles north up to the heart of Weston Florida. I arrived at InDependence Church a mere 45 minutes later. Their Sunday morning service starts at 10:29 AM; however, their family pretty much straggles in during the first 30 minutes of the service. (It’s not just a Life Pointe tradition - it’s a South Florida tradition.) Their first 30 minutes consists of a long rockin’ Praise & Worship set followed by about a 10-minute intermission. This was my 2ND service at InDependence Church (my first was Presidents’ Day Sunday), and I’m happy to announce that Life Pointe’s Brannon & Taylor have made InDependence their church close to home. They live up in Weston now, and this was their first service there. They still plan to visit Life Pointe occasionally, as Brannon still works at the air base.

3.  We had a special guest speaker at InDependence this week - a guy that trains police departments around the world on truth detection. After he spoke briefly on his profession Pastor Nathan took the stage to wrap-up ‘The Moment Of Truth’ message series (loosely based on the FOX-TV show). This week’s topic - ‘Have You Ever Asked Someone To Lie For You ?’ Lying is hard to do. Telling the truth is easy. You don’t have to think real hard to tell the truth, but when you lie it requires extra brain cells and blood pressure. We always look toward the permissive. What can we get away with ?  If we can get away with it then what else can we get away with ?  It’s a spiraling effect. As believers, followers, and obeyers of Jesus Christ we must be different than what the rest of the world is saying and doing. We must know right from wrong. We must have integrity, truthfulness, and honesty forever. ‘The Moment Of Truth’ is always and forever before God.

Genesis 12:1-20 was this week’s primary Scriptures - ‘The Call Of Abram’ and ‘Abram And Sarai In Egypt’.

4.  I had a fantastic time at InDependence Church this morning. It was well worth the trip. As a 2007 church plant of Life Pointe Church it’s kind of like a reconnaissance mission for me to visit the new and developing church and see how much it has progressed since my last visit. It’s always cool to hear Pastor Nathan speak. Pretty soon I’ll be able to hear him speak on a regular basis - via their church web site - as they place their podcasts online. I’ll also be back LIVE and in-person later this Summer for a follow-up visit. Keep doing your thing up there in Weston. Transform that beautiful manicured city into a place where God is livin’ large and fully in-charge. Expand His Kingdom !  Kick the devil out of the city !

5.  On my return trip southbound I made a pit-stop at the Muvico Paradise 24 in Davie (right along I-75). I’ve always wanted to see a movie at that theatre ever since it opened for business back in the Spring of 1999, and today - over 9 years later - I finally did it. I saw “What Happens In Vegas“. It was fantastic. I laughed hysterically all throughout it, and it wasn’t nearly as dirty as the previous movie that I (unfortunately) saw (in Orlando).

6.  Once I got back home into Homestead I hung out with Travis, Kelly, and Tammy at the Life Pointe offices for a couple of hours. Trav introduced me to “Guitar Hero“, and each time I played it with him I got better at it. I even beat him in one game (barely), but it was a game in which he played it ‘hard’ and I played it ‘easy’. Now my fingers and arms hurt !  After today’s 11-hour adventure I feel like a worn-out 41-year-old rock star. I’m exhausted like that.

Have a great Sunday night everyone !  THANKS for hanging out with me earlier today LIVE and in-person - and / or right here right now on the blog.

This Friday night edition of the ‘Bedtime Stories’ is brought to you by the letter ‘C’, and tonight I’ll be addressing these notable items of interest that all begin with the letter ‘C’ - ‘Cars’, ‘Cats’, and ‘Cholesterol’.

Cars - My 5-year-old car is suddenly a dream to drive in again. Earlier this week I went to Firestone and I bought 4 brand new tires for my car - nice ones too with 70,000-mile warranties. It feels like I’m just gliding along now on a thin strip of air just above the road surface. An oil and filter change, a new air filter, and new wiper blades completed the mini-tune-up. It’s my little birthday present to myself now that I’ve decided to keep this nearly fully-paid-off car for at least several more years.

Cats - 5 cats were part of my life scattered over a 23½-year period ending one year ago tomorrow morning. For many years leading up to Boots’ passing on I pretty much declared that I would go from the animal hospital to the animal shelter in a single morning to get a new cat. That didn’t happen, and it won’t happen at this time or anytime soon. Timing is everything, and in his own way Boots led me to God during his final year with me. Everything happens for a reason, and with God always by my side I will never be lonely again. Alone - Yes. Lonely - Never.

Cholesterol - Lipitor is clinically proven to lower bad cholesterol by 39% to 60% - and that’s exactly what it did to me. After 12 weeks of taking my 10 milligrams dose per day it has effectively plummetted my total cholesterol about 40% from the 220s down to the 130s !  The LDLs, HDLs, and Triglycerides were all in the desirable / optimal ranges. I’m good like that. I’m healthy like that !

And that’s how we roll with tonight’s ‘Bedtime Stories’. Be sure to check out the blog again tomorrow for more fun and surprises, and then on Sunday I’ll be taking the ‘Tossed Salad’ on the road again with a special edition coming to you from InDependence Church in Weston Florida. It’s time to check up on my 3RD-favourite Pastor again (after Travis and Paul), and see how Nathan is progressing up there with his new and developing church.

Have a safe, peaceful, and blessed Friday night everyone, and until we hang out again on the blog or in person remember this:

Have you received this E-Mail ?

Cheating at Gas Pumps

This is a true story, so read it carefully. On April 24, 2008, I stopped at a Kangaroo BP gas station, located at 1325 Main Street, Cartersville, GA. My truck’s gas gage was on 1/4 of a tank. I use the mid-grade, which was priced at $3.71 per gallon. When my tank is at this point, it takes somewhere around 14 gallon’s to fill it up.

When the pump showed 14 gallons had been pumped I began to slow it down, then to my surprise it went to 15, then 16. I even looked under my truck to see if it was being spilled. It was not. Then it showed 17 gallons had been pumped. It stopped at almost 18 gallons. This was very strange to me, since my truck has only an 18 gallon tank. I went on my way a little confused, then on the evening news I heard a report that 1 out of 4 gas stations had calibrated their pumps to show more gas had been pumped than a person actually got.

Here is how to check a pump to see if you are getting the right amount:

Whichever grade you are using, put EXACTLY 10 GALLONS in your tank, then look at the dollar amount, if the dollar amount is not EXACTLY 10 times the price of the fuel you have chosen, then the pumps are rigged. In my case as I said the mid-grade was $3.71 9/10 per gallon, my dollar amount for 10 gallons should have been $37.19. If I had only check the pump. It doesn’t matter where you pump gas, please check the 10 gallon price. If you do find a station that is cheating, contact the Georgia Agriculture Department, and direct your comments to Tommy Irvin, Commissioner. In other states contact proper authorities.

Please don’t delete this until you have sent it to all people in your address book. We need to put a stop to this outrageous cheating of customers. The gas companies are making enough profits at honest rates.

In case you haven’t already figured it out this is another Internet hoax. The key phrases ‘This is a true story’, ’so read it carefully’, and ‘Please don’t delete this until you have sent it to all people in your address book’ are the obvious tip-offs that while there may be a few facts and maybe even some useful tips sprinkled in to the E-Mail here and there for effect it is still an Internet hoax. It is not a true story. It never happened.

Read more about it.

Greetings my friends, and welcome aboard to the Friday night edition of ‘Bedtime Stories’.

Here’s a few ‘quick hits’ for you:

+ Friday May 09TH has become the ‘best day ever’ here on this blog, as we’ve shattered every record in the book for a single day in our history. We shattered the previous Friday record for unique hits by well over 40%, and we beat the previous ‘best day ever’ record by over 10% !

+ This comes hot on the heels following the best Thursday ever !

+ Yesterday’s edition of the ‘Thursday Night Internet Hoax Hall-Of-Shame’ has totally blown up on the Internet. It is expected to become the most-read blog entry ever in our history in just a few more days !

+ It’s Day 4 of my 4TH cold over the past 6 months, and I am now on the road to recovery. I can actually breathe out of both of my nostrils. My voice is still weak, but I expect it to come around to normal by Sunday morning.

+ I worked a long day today - over 9 hours without a lunch break. When I got off of work at 3 PM all I wanted to do was to eat food, so I hopped on Florida’s Turnpike and headed southbound because all of the food is in Florida City. I found it at the Cracker Barrel. While I was waiting for my food I passed the time away by texting a message to LL Phil J’s cell phone. It was an ‘UnTwitter’ message.

+ I watched 3 excellent episodes of “Survivor Micronesia” back-to-back-to-back this afternoon, and now I only have one more remaining (last night’s episode) before I am all caught up. I’ll be able to watch the three-hour season finale extravaganza LIVE this Sunday night starting at 8 PM on CBS-TV !  I’M SAYIN’ !

OK that’s ‘Bedtime Stories’ for you. Be sure to hang out on the blog tomorrow (Saturday) for more fun and surprises !

Have a safe, peaceful, and blessed evening with your loved ones.

Good Night Everyone !  Good Night Kelly !

You know why you’re here:

1.  Some of the best television programming on-the-air is in the form of 30 and 60 second commercials. You know that it’s a great commercial when you pretty much stop what you’re doing whenever it comes on the tube - no matter how many times you’ve already seen it. I’m thinking about the AT&T GoPhone commercial right now that stars Meat Loaf and Tiffany. (NO - The’re not really married in real-life. That’s not really their son either.)

2.  The sight of a large gathering of people applauding President George W. Bush after a speech is a beautiful sight. The concept of everyone respecting The President Of The United States Of America (whoever it is), and treating him or her like you would want to be treated by any other human being is just plain humane. Unfortunately it’s a concept that millions of Americans just don’t understand.

3.  I think that I totally adore eating Kellogg’s Pop Tarts today just as much as I did as a kid back in the 1970s into the 1980s. I think that if you ask me about them again in another 30 years then the answer will probably be the same.

4.  On the other hand back in the 1970s I did not appreciate Chinese food. In fact I didn’t really enjoy eating it on a regular basis until the mid-1990s. Homestead has no shortage of family-owned Chinese restaurants. Everywhere you look - ‘There’s one !’

5.  Homestead also specializes in family-owned Mexican restaurants, and that’s a delicacy that’s even newer to my personal tastes than Chinese food. One day soon I’m going to have Lunch with this cat at a fine Mexican restaurant near my workplace.

6.  If there are just 3 motorists driving along a somewhat secluded portion of highway in Homestead then those 3 motorists would just have to be myself, the slow-poke directly in front of me that’s driving 33 MPH in a 40 MPH zone, and the tail-gater directly behind me that is so close that I can no longer see his or her vehicle anymore via my rear-view mirror. Throw in an extra-special 4TH vehicle that’s rapidly approaching all 3 of us with its high-beams on, and you’ve got a typical Tuesday morning on North Canal Drive in Homestead !

7.  Incidentally Miami-Dade County’s SW 328TH Street is known as ‘North Canal Drive’ for 7½-miles from Homestead Bayfront Park westward to the city limits of Florida City at SW 172ND Avenue. At that exact point SW 328TH Street is renamed ‘Lucy Street’, and it is the dividing line between Homestead (on the north) and Florida City (on the south). It has been that way since the 1940s. If you’re coming out of the Villages Of Homestead then you are making a turn onto ‘North Canal Drive’ - not ‘Lucy Street’.

8.  I had planned to go to Publix this afternoon after work to buy some much-needed groceries, but then I decided against it on the way home because I have way too many things to do - such as compiling and publishing these ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’. It’s all about the sacrifices that I make for you - my loyal and faithful friend of this blog.

9.  I was referred to as ‘Pastor Chris’ a couple of times last week at the Exponential Conference in Orlando. I think it was because in some of the breakout sessions that I attended it was mostly all Pastors (and me). Unlike the Catholic Church Pastors tend to look and dress rather normal - just like you and me.

10.  My fingernails grow so fast. It seems like I just clipped them a few days ago, and now they need clipping again. That’s another 5 minutes out of my busy schedule !

BUYCOTT - BUY ALL of your gas from Citgo.

BOYCOTT - DON’T BUY ANY of your gas from Citgo.

Dueling E-Mails have been in constant circulation over the past couple of years urging you to buy all of your gasoline from Citgo - or urging you to do the complete opposite. There are many different E-Mail variations of both sides of this issue, and in all cases the myriad of reasons given are untrue, exaggerated, or just plain fabricated.

Here’s what we know is true. Citgo is owned by the national oil company of Venezuela. Hugo Chavez is the President of Venezuela. Lots of different oil companies buy their crude oil from Venezuela - including the gas station that you would probably spend your money at in lieu of Citgo - which incidentally has its world headquarters right here in the U.S. - in Houston Texas. Citgo employs some 4,000 people, and they supply some 14,000 independent retailers with gasoline. Boycotting any particular gas station or gas brand only serves to possibly put a tiny economic ding towards the local neighbourhood franchise owner and his or her personal staff of that gas station or gas brand - fellow Americans like you and me - only if you had previously frequented that station or brand on a regular basis. If you don’t want to support the oil companies - both domestic and international - then walk, run, or pedal a bicycle. If you want to buy less gas then drive more responsibly. The fact of the matter is that boycotts (of anything) are virtually irrelevant and produce little to no results - positive or negative. When was the last successful boycott of anything here in the U.S. in our history ?

Read how Snopes explains both sides of this issue.

Good Morning Everyone !  It’s Thursday morning, and it’s the final (half) day of the 2008 New Church Conference - Exponential ‘08 here in Orlando, and I’ve got so many handwritten notes written down that it appears that I’ll be blogging all weekend long - once I return home to the comfort and convenience of my living room and (most importantly) the technology of my high-speed cable Internet connection. Here in Orlando I’ve been sputtering along at roughly 50.6 Kbps (via an old dial-up connection). That’s right. I’m cruising the Internet like it’s 1998 !  My next laptop will have that fancy schmancy new wireless innovation included within it !

OK friends here’s the plan. I’ll be back at home in Homestead later today (early tonight). I’ll post this week’s ‘Thursday Night Internet Hoax Hall-Of-Shame’ first and foremost, and then if I’m still wide awake and have some energy left over I’ll post the first of three ‘Exponential Conference Orlando Tossed Salads’. I’m devoted to posting a single edition for each day of the conference, so you’ll see all of my highlights / takeaways summarized in a way that is most worthy of the coveted (nearly legendary) ‘Tossed Salad’ brand name. I’ve also got to do the ‘Friday Night Blogroll Review’ on Friday night or else a whole bunch of you will begin going through withdrawals. I know that a lot of you regular bloggers post some of your best award-winning material on Thursdays in a dire effort to make it onto the ‘Friday Night Blogroll Review’, so get to it and I’ll get to it as well. Look for that shortly after 4 PM on Friday night.

So that’s what I’ve got for you on this Thursday morning in Orlando. Don’t forget - the regular Thursday night and Friday night features on here plus 3 days - 3 editions of the ‘Tossed Salad’ from the Exponential Conference. It’s all right here on ‘The Major’s Life Blog’ over the next 60 hours. Don’t miss the excitement. You won’t regret it pal. Cool beans.