Galveston

We had a great time today at the beach in Galveston, TX. We got really sandy and a little sunburned. But doesn't that go with the whole experience anyway.

We went with some really great friends of ours that we only get to visit with maybe a few times a year. They are the Muirs. John is a band director and former colleague (and roommate as well) and Shannon is a friend from high school that is such a blessing to Lissa. It's always fun to be with them because there is no pretense. They "get" us like no other people do. And we usually talk music and politics which always is just fun to do.

But I digress ....

We did silly things in the sand like make castles and homes for hermit crabs. Peter's favorite game was to watch me spend lots of effort on building a sand mold of a tower or little turtle figurine and then immediatey say "Ohhhh!" and step on it ala Gonzilla back in the day. (Fortunately they were small molds.) Then I covered my legs in sandy mud and caught some waves in the choppy .... umm .... "sea" at Galveston. It was a PHUNN time had by all.

Then we were able to clean off at the public showers, pack the kids in the car, drive down the Seawall and gawk at the subtle changes that are present since Hurricane Ike a year ago and make our way back to my mother's home in Conroe. It was a great day!

-waxler

I thought I was hip....

Well, I decided yesterday to try Twittering ....... or Tweeting ...... or Twitting ....... or whatever it is. I thought, "I know enough people that I could keep a conversation with and they would love to hear the pithy things that I thought about throughout the day". But alas it seems to not be so.

I signed up at 11:00PM last night and began the process of finding friends in which I could follow. I was excited to find people that I know well and are also friends in Facebook. Then there were the really cool people like Marc Driscoll, Matt Chandler and even John Piper himself (Piper seems to usually send encouraging words to his followers). I also started to follow Newt Gingrich (who might be our next president and I could be in on it from the beginning). It all seemed really promising for my getting into a world that I would normally have avoided for months to come when it becomes the only way to communicate in our world. After all, even John McCain is Twitting now..... surely I could do the same.

I figured that those that I was following would get a message that says that this guy they know was following them and then they would follow me too. Surely that's how this works. After a full day (22 hours in) of following these friends, I have only one follower. But, that one follower is merely my favorite band who are only following me so they can post on my account from their phones while on tour. Me and 22,500 others. Oh, and there were two guys that I don't even know.

Not really what I expected.

I refuse to send any notes to anyone else to say, "Please follow me and make me feel better. Help me become hip and a part of the right group. That will give me a place in the world that I want to be in." If I have to get in this way, then I guess I'm just not supposed to be that cool.

So, I'm going to give another 12 hours or so and then give up. Twittering is not for me. At least not at this time. Someday, it might be the "way" to communicate. But, I can say that I experienced it, tried it out, discovered what it was like. I learned that people (at least my age) don't really Twit all day long; they just do it about as often as they update on Facebook. Huh!

I say all this not out of complete depression, but rather out of simple observation. God has put me in my place and has given me the friends that I have. As hard as I work, I cannot become someone that I am not. I've been given the friends that I have and my job is to show Christ to them in whatever way I can each time I communicate with them (by whatever means). Maybe Twittering is not the means I need to use. I do have alot of friends on Facebook and love to hear from them and their posts. (Of course, I don't get alot of people reacting to my pithy things there either, but I'll let that issue go for now.) At least I know that people are reading my pithy posts there too.

On a positive note: I am looooving my new iPhone. It is the most wonderful invention in the world. I am more organized and much more relaxed about the things that I need to get done. This will truly be the way that people communicate in the near future, and I am glad to be on the upswing of that one.

waxler