Yesterday I was doing a little research. I have a phone appointment in a week with someone who is attending our church and has left her Catholic roots. In the past, Church was always a "thing" to do…and not really enjoyed. But now she and her family look forward to coming to Gateway every week and they are growing in their relationship with Christ. She has two kids and she in a bit of a precarious spot. They know they’re in the right place here at Gateway, but due to her deep rooted past, she’s really nervous about not having her kids observe the sacraments (ie. Confirmation, Communion etc…). It’s just that part of letting go, but still being concerned with the "what if I’m wrong… am I screwing up my kids’ eternity?

So, I was doing a little research and I came across this web site.

You go St. Ignatius!

I don’t know if this is an effort of the Catholic Church to better engage with what is culturally relevant, or just an opportunity for some who are Catholic that want to show their faith in a relevant way. I give them props for making the effort. If I was Catholic, I’d be all over the brown "Sacred Heart of Jesus" Tee or the "Romantic Catholic" hoodie.

Bellow are images of some of my favorites. Oh and if I saw someone wearing the St. Francis shirt with the rope around the waist, I can’t say I wouldn’t laugh at them. Oh, and I’m kinda cracking up at the "today I’ll stay pure" shirt that is printed backwards to remind you to stay pure when you see it in the mirror.

Last week I wrote a post entitled two truths and a lie. It was fun to see what you guys thought was the lie. Well, here goes. Since each of them have a bit of a story behind them, I’ll tell that too. I’m sure you’re not going to let me get way with not telling you about the cobra or the staple.

Okay, truth number 1: When I was 17 years old I was on a mission trip in India. I was there for two months. After the first month, the 7 or 8 of us that were there for the full summer took a quick little vacation to Madras (no longer called Madras I think). One day while there, we rented mopeds. It was near the end of the day and I was bringing the moped back into town. We had just finished watching a Cobra and mongoose fight and it was starting to get dark. As I was driving down the road, I saw a squiggly line in the road. I got a little nervous as to what it might be. As I got closer, my fear was confirmed, it was a snake. Since I had a girl riding on the back of my bike, I was afraid to run over it… I just didn’t want to get that close to a potentially deadly snake. So I swerved. By swerving, I wrecked the bike and we tumbled off right toward the snake. As I got my bearings, I found the snake. It was a few feet away from me. It’s head popped up and the signature hood flared out… yes it was a cobra. I had been told earlier that if bitten by a cobra, fatality within minutes is almost certain. Just at that moment, a friend pulled up to help us (he didn’t know “why” we wrecked). Unknowingly he pulled up right next to the cobra and the snake began climbing up the wheel of his bike and up the handle bars. We shouted at him to get off the bike just in time. Several locals who observed this whole thing came to the rescue. They grabbed the snake from behind the head, killed it and set it on fire. I was a little shocked and a little bloodied from wrecking only wearing sandals, shorts and a tank top. But, I was alive. I have a really gross story about later that night that involved my wound, bedbugs and a shower, but I’ll save that for when we meet in person.

Truth number 2: A few years later I was in college. I went to a Christian college and no drinking was involved, I promise. It was late at night and a bunch of guys were in the dorm just joking around. Then I thought of something funny to liven the mood even more. I had seen someone do something really fun with a staple gun. You know how when you pull the trigger on a staple gun, it makes the loud pop even if it is not loaded. I watched these guys take pieces of paper and “fake staple” them to their foreheads. They took paper, put a staple in it and put some sticky tape on the back. They would stick the paper (sticky side to their head) and staple (with no staple in the gun) it to their head. With the staple sound, it was really funny. I ran to my dorm room, grabbed an index card, a stapler (I didn’t have a staple gun) and some tape. I did this little trick for my friends and they thought it was pretty funny. They wanted me to do it for another friend who was in his room studying. However, they also noticed that it wasn’t very believable as after I “stapled” the card to my head, there wasn’t a staple ” in” the card. So, before I did my stunt for my other friend, I ran back to my room, loaded the stapler and put a staple in the card so at least it would look like I had stapled it to my head. I quickly ran to my friends room and said, “Hey, I gotta show you something.” I then proceeded to “staple” the card to my forehead (mind you, I wasn’t gentle either since it was a trick.) It didn’t take me very long to notice the error in my plan. When I put the staple in the card, I had forgotten to take the staples out of the stapler. Yup, I put an actual staple in my head. It didn’t really hurt that bad and the ends didn’t close in on itself, so I didn’t have to work to hard to remove it. I did have two little marks on my head for the next few days. My pride was hurt more than my head.

My Lie: This past December I was at Disney. The shuttle was set to take off while we were there. We found a good place to sit and wait. But it never happened. There was an issue, so it didn’t take off.

Well,that’s it. Thanks everyone for playing!

At camp this week we’ve been talking about the armor of God. In one of our activities we were talking about the belt of truth and in association, we played the game, two truths and a lie. Here’s a chance for you to get to know me a little better. Here were my two truths and a lie:

• Last December I was in Orlando and from a distance I saw the space shuttle launch.
• Several years ago I was in a moped accident trying to avoid a cobra in the road and ended up spilling over only about 3 feet from the deadly snake.
• In college, I accidentally stapled an index card to my forehead.

Which one do you think is the lie? Post your guesses in the comments, or any question if you want me to elaborate. I’ll post the answer over the weekend.

Okay a few more silly things from camp today:

• I’ve made a new friend. The Colton kid I talked about earlier… his name is actually Collin. He’s my new buddy. Tonight we had an extra long "fun hour" talent show. Colton was sitting right beside me and noticed I had a pimple on my arm… yeah, I’m sure you wanted to know this. As any kid would, Colton looks at me and asks, "what’s that?" I tell him it’s a pimple. He looks at me with a funny face and then pulls my sleeve up a little more to inspect for more pimples. He begins counting freckles, blemishes or whatever else he can find on that arm and then to the next. He talked a good bit about my arm muscles and asked how I got them (really, I haven’t lifted any weights since high school). He then starts picking through my hair. He asks why I use gel. He then finds a mole (not like the ugly protruding type, but the skin spot type) under my hair (which isn’t easy right now as my hair hasn’t been cut in 7 weeks). He then spends the next 15 minutes (honestly) picking through my hair looking for more moles or birthmarks. On one or two occasions, he asks if I have lice (scary). Other counselors walk by giving me funny looks. I shrug and say, "he’s counting my moles." Yeah, I think Collin and I are going too be good friends for a very long time.
• Oh, my bed. This is what you get when you get to camp late. I got the last bed. Yes, the kid who sleeps above me (my buddy Collin) is only 4 feet tall. I; however, must squeeze into a tiny compartment to sleep every night. I look like Shrek trying to fit in this thing.

man I love kids. They do and say the funniest things. If you can put up with the unlimited energy, you’ll laugh your face off. Oh, and if you can put up with the constant touching. I would say that if I’m with kids for any amount of time, I’ll have at least one kid in contact with me for 68% of the time. Yeah, a shy kid is pretty rare.

Okay, so I’m hanging out with this one kid in the pool. He’s really fun to throw because he is so light. Here is our conversation:

Me: dude, how much do you weigh?
Colton: 54 pounds.
me: man, my son is just a year old and he weighs like 28 pounds
Colton: yeah, but I’m still 15 pounds heavier.
me: but he’s only one, you’re seven
Colton: (without missing a beat) yeah, but I haven’t been exercising lately.

Suicides.

Yeah, I remember back in the day. I was an artist. Nothing like a good ol’ suicide. There are several boys in my cabin that obviously have been taught this sacred art and I have been graced to taste their creations.

Before I leave you with this earth-shattering post, I thought I’d share a technique I’ve never known about. On of my boys told me that he fills up his cup by playing the song/rhythm of Beethoven’s 5th on the soda machine.That song will produce a very specific suicide flavor, different form one made by another song or a a standard "equal parts" suicide.

What song would you use? I think I’d use the theme song to McGyver. What about you?

You can read more about this famous drink mixture here. The best phrase used to describe this in my book is this: "It’s not bad… it’s not good either."

Many moons ago I wrote this post.

For once, I thought I was going to be the early adopter of something. I guess compared to a lot of people, I am an early adopter on a lot of things in the tech world. However, I didn’t start using Twitter until 6 weeks ago (although my friend Matt talked it about a year ago) and I haven’t even tried Jott yet (but I plan to, I promise). When I heard about bacn, I started dropping it into my conversations (bad idea, if people question your geekieness already, they certainly will after you use the term bacn when talking about email) and even blogged about it. Then… nothing. I’ve heard very little about bacn since then. On the podcast I listen to regularly, I hear it on occasion (and they don’t explain what it is which shows that at least in their circle, the term has been adopted).

However, today I was very pleased. I found this article on "Learning to Speak like a Generation Millennial." The very first word in this article that was added to the 2008 Cultural Dictionary (you don’t have to point out that the list is in alphabetical order) is none other than… BACN! Woo hoo! I guess I’m not spending enough time with Generation Millennial.

I’m sure there is someone out there thinking this in their head right now, "Kenny, how do I become an early adopter?"

Yes, you too can become an early adopter of Bacn. Here is how:

• If you run a blog, write a post this week and sneak in the word bacn. You can write an entire post about it if you want, but to prove your early adoptive-ness, just use it in a sentence. Link your use of the word "bacn" to this web post so it will show up as a track back in the comments.
• If you don’t run a blog, see if you can find the term bacn being used somewhere on the web. If you do, send a link in the comments.

All of those who participate (I have my expectation set at one participant right now… am I the optimist or what?) I will bestow upon you the title of "Grand Bacn Early Adopter." I might even make you a certificate for you to hang on your wall. No, I don’t have that much time on my hands… so it is special!

Okay, probably one of the most embarrassing things happened tonight. I’ve been hanging out at Orange with an old friend… a youth pastor I served with several years ago. Like many youth pastors, he’s a little crazy and not afraid to make a little noise.

Well, for the first two sessions we sat up high and in the back. For the third session I sat with my youth pastor friend and some others in the front on the far left-hand side of the stage. So, were were pretty close to those on the stage. They were good seats.

Well, Reggie was making some general announcements and then he threw a t-shirt out to the crowd directly in front of him. At that very moment, the YP friend sitting right next to me yelled as loud as he could “Hey Reggie!” He was trying to get his attention to get a freebie thrown in his direction. Since we were so close, he heard, turned to us and said “Yes?” I don’t think he immediately understood. At that moment, the band started playing the old batman theme. Reggie turned around to the band and signaled for them to stop… it wasn’t time for that.

Yeah. My friend yelling at Reggie and him responding confused the band into thinking it was their signal to start the song for a segment that wasn’t supposed to happen for another 10 minutes or so. I think I turned 10 shades of red and shrunk down in my seat.

So, on behalf of my friend, I’m so sorry. Next time my friend has a urge to yell at the person on stage, I’ll knock him in the back of the head!

It’s 2:00 AM. I just finished watching Ice Princess. My third time. Zack and Cody are next followed by Hannah Montana.

I’d call it research, but that’d be a lie. I love this stuff!

My confession: Every now and again I Google my name. Don’t you?

I did a web search several years ago and I’d come up reviews that I had done for various resources. Then about 4 or 5 years ago there was a Kenny Conley in Boston who went to trial for police brutality. It caused quite the uproar in the city as people were sporting “Justice for Kenny Conley” bumper stickers. Actually, my admin from a previous church got one for me. Since I began working for churches with a bigger web presence, I started to show up on those pages in a general name search. Now that I’m blogging, my name is much more likely to come up in a web search. However, I just came across my favorite link, the reason why I wrote this vanity post at all. It shows the “brokenness” of the web in it’s purest form.

Click here to see the page!

A few years ago I spoke at the adult service. The talk was titled “How do we guide our children spiritually. It was made available as a podcast with links to the church web site. The mp3 is no longer there, but this page shows the links. Obviously, mp3’s are indexed and spidered just as all other things on the Internet. This page in particular has me grouped with my peers; Kenny G, Kenny Rogers and Kenny Loggins. This site is also “THE PLACE” to get Kenny Conley - How Do We Guide Our Children Spiritually for your phone. My absolute favorite though - Click here for sexy videos of Kenny Conley - How Do We Guide Our Children Spiritually. Yes, you have arrived to internet stardom when you have a free sexy video online.

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