Tonight holds more partying for Nathaniel! I think he will be very confused about the whole Birthday-thing for a while. We have partied for about 2 weeks straight…

We are at my folks house in Twain Harte, CA. Don’t know where that is? That’s OK, most people have no idea…

BTW- We saw an ad for the Apprentice 2 on NBC last night-it was cool! And those were definately the folks we ran into in NYC while we were there. Look for us, come Sept 9th! I think we have a good chance to be on the episode…

I think we are playing more Nertz tonight. I’ll post the scores soon.

Someone I knew from a long time ago was asking me about my job, and one of the first things they asked about was the music style…why is this issue ALWAYS the first thing anyone talks about when discussing churches? Crazy…there is SO much more to a church…people, PLEASE!

Hey- I’m on vacation!

This book (see above) is absolutely amazing! I am only on page 20, but it is just SO profound…I can’t wait to finish it and move on to a couple more books I have by this guy..

We are in Chico visiting Christy’s parents, and I am using a dial-up modem to access the web…ugh. I hate dial-up. I love Cox Cable…enough said. The trip us here was horribly long. No traffic or anything, just lots of crying and stops, etc…and it was HOT and LONG. Thank you McDonalds and whoever created air conditioning…why would I want to live in Northern CA? It’s sooo hot up here? and there is only one Starbucks per town! And some towns don’t even have Starbucks! Sometimes there is MILES between stores. Now THAT’S rediculous!!

I have been getting some good video footage of Nathaniel and Noah. I will undoubtably create a DVD in the fall sometime…and I must say that windows XP is pretty cool. AND if you’re a PC person, if you have XP you can enter the world of iTunes…which is the coolest thing ever! AND if you haven’t seen the new 4G iPod you really should check it out. 12-hour battery life, a click wheel (like the iPod mini), and it’s a $100 cheaper! Now you can get the 20GB iPod for only $299. What a deal!

Read the book above…it’s awesome! I miss my San Diego Nertzing pals! I’m the King!

I’m just finishing Facedown-quite a good little read. I highly recommend it! I also spent some time doing something that I-at the risk of sounding very negative-NEVER do–I just turned on this HIllsongs CD and sang along. I blocked out the world for about 10-15 minutes and just worshipped in song to the Lord. It is something I think I will do more often–it was just what I needed today. “Made Me Glad” and “Through it All” are great songs…

My buddy Chris got me a Logitech cordless optical mouse with seven programmable buttons–it’s so perfect! I just went in and programmed in some of my favorite keystrokes and WHA-LA! PLUS now I can right-click again, instead of control-click…goodbye white-single-button Mac mouse….hello amazing mouse! Thanks Chris!

Nathaniel’s birthday party was yesterday at the park. How fun! We had pizza, cake, and a Spidey-pinata. Nathaniel got a lot of Spider-man stuff, including this mask-and-glove set that makes web-sling sounds and stuff. He got two of them, so he AND Ryli put it on and were running around the park doing all kinds of funny stuff. Don’t worry, though, we got plenty of good footage with the digital camera. Oh yeah, AND when we sang Happy Birthday (probably the worst rendition ever attempted-even worse than when the Coldstone employees sing after recieving a tip) Nathaniel was so disgusted he just gave this horrible look–like “What in the world is THAT!?!?” It was, as the Master Card commercials say – “Priceless”–but don’t worry, we got plenty of good footage…

NERTZ!

Strange game last night. It took us 29 hands to get to 250 points (not a good game). Some of us were not having our best game, and with so many players, people were Nertzing all over the place and the scores went bonkers…it was a tight game for most of it between a few players. The cool thing is, most of the time, it is anyone’s game-all it takes is one hand to really turn the scores…
but here they are…

Doing-fine Daniel: 250
Mighty Mike: 216
Steady Suzie: 177
Cunning Christy: 148
Boasting Brad: 113
Crashing Chris: 74
Erroneousness Erica: 60

Like I said, it was a little weird. Chris usually beats me, so something was wacky…
Adios!

Silence.

I think I can learn a lot from silence. I don’t get enough silence in my life, though. Even now, although the family is sleeping, I still hear the clock ticking and the fan blowing. Bill Hybels said, “Is the ambient noise level of my life low enough for me to hear the whispers of the Lord?”

I am looking forward to vacation. It is the only time of the year I really get to read. I’m not a huge reader by any means, but usually by this time of the year I have five or six books lined up that I want to tackle on vacation. I’ll let you know how they turn out. Although, I can already tell you that you should read FACEDOWN by Matt Redman (it was listed on my Currently Reading a few entries ago). It’s a great book.

Nathaniel is three years old. That makes me older, too…his birthday party is today. It is turning out to be a little bigger than expected-in fact, I need to go finish the cake before work…it’s Spiderman Cake.

I think there may be some Nertzing tonight…

Knowledge is not a catalyst for action. Knowledge is not a motivation for action. Knowledge must be backed by passion, for it is passion that drives you to change your life. Either that, or the fact that remaining the same becomes more painful than the effort it takes to change.

Here’s what I mean–too many Christians sit around “learning” about Christ, but don’t cultivate their personal relationship with HIm, and in turn, they never change (or let Christ change them). In addition, it would be very easy to blaze through whatever books I’m reading in my personal devotions, and walk out the door forgetting what I’ve read…I don’t wish to do that. So I have been on chapter 12 of the Purpose-Driven Life for a while now–here’s what it talkes about….

What is your most important relationship? Spouse? Parents? Kids? Friends?
There is nothing more important than developing a friendship with God–and get this, you are as close to God as you want to be (and so am I). Here’s a couple of tips to developing your relationship with God:

1) Choose to be honest with God.

The first building block of any relationship is honesty. God doesn’t expect us to be perfect, and the Bible is filled with imperfect people who were close friends of God. Heck, even David was called “a man after God’s heart”.

2) Choose to obey God in faith.

Every time we trust Him, we deepen our relationship with Him. We don’t obey Him out of obligation or guilt, but because we love Him. Normally obedience isn’t considered a part of friendship, but with God, we must think about the fact that we are friends of a King.

3) Choose to value what God values.

Friends care about what is important to the other person. To be a friend of God, you must care about people–that’s what God values more than anything else.

4) Desire a friendship with God above anything else.

David, Jacob, Paul–all men who were passionate about desiring to know God better. It is so key.

OK-now comes action…

and next we have NERTZ!

Christy played great the first part of the game. We actually said we would stop @ 10:30 PM, and by that time she was actually in second-and beating me. After some begging by Suzie and I, we played until 11 PM. By that time, Christy was not doing very well at all. So she made me post BOTH sets of scores. (oh yeah, it was a great night for me until ONE HAND WHERE I COULDN’T PLAY ANYTHING BECUASE MY WHOLE STACK WAS DIAMONDS AND THERE WERE’NT ANY DIAMONDS ON THE TABLE. Nevertheless, I got -32 that round, and Mike, who was only about 7 points behind me BLAZED ahead. it was a bummer).

10:30PM

Magnificent Mike: 195
Crazy Christy: 153
Dumb Daniel: 147
Sorry Suzie: 102

I know I already used sorry suzie, but it was so sad.

11PM

Magnamous Mike: 263
Dashing Daniel: 217
Crash-and-burn Christy: 152
Very Sorry Suzie: 134

It was a sad night for Suzie and I…stupid diamonds…
Off to Disneyland!

Another rousing game of Nertz. I think everyone played better this time, especially me. Not to brag or anything–but I WON! Woohoo! So, I would happily post the scores, but Mike yanked the score sheet out of my hand in a fury of anger right before he left. He couldn’t handle it, especially since he lost- and lose, he did! Not just by a little, there was AT LEAST 20-30 points between our scores. You may check his blog just to see what he says about it…

Here’s what I remember of the scores…

Dead-on Daniel – 221
Mediocre Mike – 197
Cool Christy – 174
Shoddy Suzie – 156
Banal Brad – 67

But just a note… Brad Nertzed like 5 times, and he was doing quite well for a long time until he started playing with 18 cards in his Nertz pile. The same goes for Christy. She pulled ahead for a little bit with all the Nertzing she was doing, but in the end, it is the points that win, not the amount of Nertzing you do…better luck next time!

I, Robot was great! Definately one to see in the theatres this summer! Didn’t Leonard Nimoy star in the original? Wasn’t it like an Outer Limits episode, or something? Anyway- great movie! Go see it!

Vacation is coming soon! Disneyland is on Tuesday for Nathaniel’s birthday celebration with Riley! The other party is on Friday! Yipee! He is going to be three years old. Crazy little kid. I love him to death!

Hi- i just got back from Saddleback’s worship conference + festival. I can’t possibly write about the experience adequately at this moment–it wouldn’t possibly do it justice. I will, however, be writing up a report on the events and posting it here for you all to read. It was absolutely incredible!

Currently eating…Kellog’s Frosted Mini-Wheats
except I have to type with only one hand because there are annts on my desk, and I can’t possibly set my cereal down for fear that one will make its way into my bowl…yuck

check back soon

Currently Eating: nothing, and I’m starving…

Sorry my blog has been irregular, it has been a little tighter in the morning time when I have normally been blogging…

FIrst things first-I read most of the Beatitudes today (Matthew 5-7) and for some reason, out of all the amazing stuff you can get out of those verses, I walked away with “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48) And I’m not sure why-but I think it partly because of this whole “standard of excellence” thing that is built into my philosophy of life–that even though no person on this earth will EVER be perfect, no matter what we do, it is still the goal Christ gives to us–it is what we are to strive to do…AND IRONICALLY it has nothing to do with works! It is not about DOing anything. It’s all about the condition of our heart…”be perfect” has nothing to do with how we act BUT Christ-like actions will be a result of a heart that is surrendered to Christ and that is following His will.
So, let your heart be right with God…the never-ending struggle-it’s a DAILY thing (most of the time even more often than that).

OK- NERTZ!

I don’t think I want to post the scores…but I guess I will…it was a sad day for the Semsen household. I made a couple of poor decisions that cost me the game.
Erica was back and was crazy good at the first 3 hands, but then she plummeted, and that’s when I started to make my way to the front. When my score reached 101, I won! I was rejoicing and everyone said, “we can’t stop now!” and coerced me to play, “Just 2 more rounds” in order to “defend my title” and in light of comments like “can’t you handle it??” and things like that…ANYWHO after 2 more rounds i was not winning, so I turned the tables and we all convinced the now-winner to play for another 15 minutes (I was sure by then I could win). It was sad. Chris blazed ahead and knocked me out of the winning…the old addage is right–QUIT WHILE YOU’RE AHEAD!!!!! I cannot emphasize that one enough!
I will have my revenge…………

We’re off to Saddleback for a 4-day conference. I can’t wait! I won’t post for a little bit while we’re there…

Nertz scores:

Crafty Chris: 156
Dumbfounded Daniel:100
Steady Suzie: 85
Massaccred Mike: 73
Cruddy-score Christy: 17
Erring Erica: – 24
Bummed Brad: – 37

Yes, so sad….

Wow-it has been a crazy week. I probably won’t blog very much on Thursdays because I have a 7:30AM meeting every week (and I usually do this at about that time) and for some reason i didn’t get to write anything on Wed either…OH I actually went jogging-that’s why…

We are finally watching Star Trek:DS9 season 6 (like it says up there) and it is good. What a finale last season! Anyway- gotta finish that first episode and see what happens! By the way-buy this kinda stuff on ebay-i saved like fifty bucks! Although- just the other day I went and won an auction for season seven and then got this email from another ebayer who was warning me against sending this seller any money because He had been scamming people. He had scammed her out of money, and a bunch of other people, to. She sent me a bunch of other evidence about him, and I looked into it. This seller was definately abnormal. THANK GOD she emailed me! I didn’t send him a penny, but I did email him and tell him he might want to stop doing this and to get a life…anywho, thanks to the person who warned me-and thanks to all people that care enough about others to go out of their way to help them!

Today was chapter 11 of PDL. I have been going slow in order to soak it all up. I don’t want to read just for the sake of reading, or with the purpose of getting through the book. If I have to read a chapter three times in order to get everything out of it, or in order to put what it talks about into action, so be it.

God wants to be your best friend. Hard to fathom. A couple of things to do to help develop that relationship (in addition to attending church and doing daily devtions–which in and of themselves won’t necessarily get you to best-friend-status with God) is to
1) Have constant conversation with God
in your EVERY activity. Talk to Him and share ALL your life experiences with Him. Man, I need to work on this- and boy–what a difference it would make in my life!!!

2) Meditate on His word ALL day long, every day.
Samuel and David were friends of God and LOVED His word. Meditate is focused thinking. We all know how to do it–it’s the same way of thinking as worrying (thinking about something over and over again). We need to learn and grow from that kind of meditation of scripture.

I love this stuff. See ya!

Nertz scores for July 4th are as follows:

Domineering Daniel – 149
Stupendous Suzie – 111
Cringing Christy – 93
Bottoming out Brad – 70
MIssing-in-Action Mike – 0

I’ve decided that when Mike refuses to play that he automatically forfeits the game and gets a zero. Sorry, all the judges agree…

Currently Eating…SpongeBob Sqaurepants Breakfast Cereal

YUM! I haven’t had sugary cereal in a while…I meant to have my raisin bran before spongebob, but I didn’t. THEN I really didn’t want any raisin bran (the sugar had taken over!).

Ugh! I just found like 3 or 4 spiders by my desk. YUCK! I hate spiders. I killed one, but the other 3 escaped!! WHAT WILL I EVER DO???

I had to go back and read Chapter nine of PDL again. I can’t satnd to read something, and then not put it into practice. The first line was, “The smile of God is the goal of your life” and I could have stopped right there. Even in that one sentance, there is so much to learn. Nevertheless, I didn’t stop there, but I got 5 main points out of the chapter. Five things that make God smile…

God smiles when we:

1) Love Him supremely
2) Trust Him completely
3) Obey Him wholeheartedly
4) Praise & Thank Him continually
5) Use our abilities

There is so much more than just this, too! You’ve gotta read this book (again if you already have!)

Happy vacation Midway Praise Choir!