What if you were a missionary?

What if you were a missionary, and you had stepped off the plane in some foreign country and you couldn’t speak their language?

What if there was a segment of the world that had never heard anything from the Bible because no one had transformed it to their language?

There is an organization that spends tremendous amounts of time to transfering God’s word to their native toungue so they may hear God’s word and find salvation through his word. It’s called The Seed Company.

They are attempting to have God’s word in every language in this generation. We got to hear from a couple of their representatives today at our church service, and they showed this video that really touched my heart.

Rangers Set For Historic Season – Just Ask Them

From Deadspin.com

Hope springs eternal at Spring Training. But in Rangers camp, someone appears to have spiked the Gatorade with Prozac. Because players are throwing out pie-in-the-sky predictions like no one’s business.

Just so we’re clear, this is a team that probably overperformed last year, and still missed out on the playoffs. So last week when Josh Hamilton predicted 96 wins, it turned a few heads. Really, adding Rich Harden and Chris Ray is going to give you a shot at homefield advantage through the playoffs?

But now that individual players have begun to weigh in with their own predictions, it starts to make sense. Hambone says to expect a full season from him, rather than the 89 games he played in last year. Add to that a 30-30 year from Nelson Cruz:

Asked if he was capable of having a 30-homer, 30-steal season, Cruz wholeheartedly said he was. Then, when asked if he cared to guarantee it, he thought for a moment before saying he would, in fact, become the second Ranger in as many years to join the 30-30 club.

That sounds like a lot to ask, but then you consider the fact that Cruz won’t even lead the team in stolen bases, not by a long shot.

Earlier in camp, I asked [Gary] Pettis what he thought was a realistic range of steals for [Julio] Borbon to reach in his first full season in the majors.

Pettis said he’d be disappointed if Borbon failed to reach 30.

“He ought to be disappointed if I don’t get to 50,” Borbon said.

Other things the Rangers will accomplish in 2010:

•Become the first team to send all 25 players to the All-Star Game.
•Go 161-1, but only out of humility.
•Start a home run conga line, like in that Bugs Bunny cartoon.
•Cure cancer.
•Make C.J. Wilson’s Twitter more entertaining than Ozzie Guillen’s.
•Fit Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s name comfortably on a uniform.

Hamilton ‘ready,’ expects 96 wins [MLB.com]
Morning briefing: Nelson Cruz’s bold guarantee, the Tao of “B” games and, um, Lady Antebellum [Dallas Morning News]
Could Julio Borbon break Texas Rangers’ steal record? [Dallas Morning News]

How are ya?

This and that part deaux

And Boom Goes the Dynamite, Part two

I am humbled

I am humbled and feel blessed that I (along with 20,000 fellow work associates in north Texas), get to work volunteering in the north Texas community this coming year.

The timing of our team volunteering in the community is great because of the upcoming Super Bowl 45 that will be here in 2011. Much to do, and much to plan for. Cutting edge volunteering for such organizations as Slant 45, and many others to help the citizens of our community. We have plans this year to join up with the United Way and many other great organizations to Walk For the Homeless, the Susan B. Koman Foundation and many others.

I can’t wait to get started.

The Write of Passage

Today marks an important day on your yearly calendars. Spring training gets started in baseball and for the Texas Rangers, all pitchers and catchers have to report to spring training in Surprise Arizona today.

Yes, this makes it official. Spring is on the way, and it renews my interest in writing again. Since we last wrote something, the Saints have won the Super Bowl (as I predicted they would [smile]), Daytona has been run, and the Winter Olympics have started. Where have I been? Having a tremndous amount of writer’s cramp. I know, the best way to beat writer’s cramp is to just sit down and start writing, but I couldn’t think of anything to just sit down and write about. But I digress.

This seems like the longest winter ever, but with the announcement of baseball’s spring training, it hit me like a gigantic clock, it’s time to start writing again. Time to think about going to Ranger games, and Airhogs games, and time to start planing to be outside again!! Heck, I’m even on board with going to see my college team play!

Baseball. Oh, they most certainly will come Ray. It’s baseball that’s stood the test of time. And I can’t wait to write about it and everything else that is baseball.

El Fenix Restaurant, A Dallas – Fort Worth Tradition

The year was 1965 and our family had a tradition of going to El Fenix for a great time with the family and great times.

The food was the original Tex-Mex and the Margaritas flowed freely. Some of my best family memories included a night at El Fenix restaurant.

Fast forward to 2010. My friend Kristi and I decided to have a special evening at El Fenix on Hwy 183 in Irving. Our hostess was Dianna. I ordered the tortilla soup and Kristi had the San Luis dinner.

As we waited for dinner, I was enjoying the glass of red wine and looking at the old pictures on the wall surrounding our booth. There was a picture of a very young Roger Staubach and Bob Lilly at a Dallas El Fenix. The picture brought a flood of memories of my family talking about those great Cowboys teams of yesteryear.

Those were the days right? Life was so easy then, the memories were all so good then as well. Then, our meal came. Dianna was so nice and made sure everything was perfect for us. I really appreciated her sense of caring to make sure we had a great dining experience. It was totally awesome.

When I asked Dianna for our check at the end of our meal, I asked to speak to her manager, who’s name is Bernardo. I explained to Bernardo how great Dianna was and how much we appreciated her serving us. She went above and beyond the call of duty to make certain our meal was perfect.

I don’t know how far in space this blog goes, but if you are reading this, and want a great dining experience, go to El Fenix. You will not regret it. It’s a perfect tradition.

Thursday Snow 2/11/2010

Just an amazing day for snow in north Texas.

When it snows in Texas, it’s a pretty big deal

Uh oh, don’t look now, but it’s gonna be pretty bad weather-wise here in north Texas tomorrow. A big chance we will see a couple of inches of snow. That may not seem like much compared to a couple of feet of snow in Philly, but to us Texans, it’s a pretty big deal.

As most of the country knows, we can’t drive on the stuff. We may be pretty good at football, but snow? Forget about it. Why is that? The reason we can’t drive on snow worth a darn is because we are used to driving 55 MPH in school zones. We have lots of ground to cover so we are always speeding. You can’t (or aren’t supposed to) drive 85 in snow.

We Texans think when it snows that it’s an automatic day off from work and school. No wonder yankees laugh at us. It’s pretty rare when it snows here so when we do get snow, it’s like a state holiday.

Oh well. The Saints won the Super Bowl, and Fat Tuesday is next Tuesday. Maybe it will warm up by then.

Danica does good

Bobby Gerhart‘s record-setting sixth victory at Daytona International Speedway was overshadowed by the successful stock car debut of IndyCar star Danica Patrick, who finished sixth Saturday in the crash-filled ARCA race.

She bumped fenders with Nelson Piquet Jr. and spun out through the infield grass on lap 54, costing her any hopes of a victory.

But she passed several cars in the closing laps of the ARCA season opener, and got as high as fifth with three laps left.

“It was a lot of fun,” Patrick said. “I bumped from the side. I bumped from the front. I got bumped from the back. I learned a lot, and I had so much fun in a race car today. So I can’t wait to do it again.”

I predict Danica going to be great at this Nascar thingy.