Last week Mrs. McBride emailed me about coming to speak to you the Sunday before July 4th, it brought back a memory from 10 years ago that is very special to me.

I got to spend July 4th 2002 here at Camp Mac. It was the first summer in 12 years that I hadn’t spent time at Camp Mac as either a counselor or a camper. It was also the first July 4th after 9-11. A few days earlier, my editor at the student newspaper at the University of Mississippi asked me to write a column about what July 4th meant to me.

Up to that point, I had spent nearly half of the July 4th holidays in my lifetime at Camp Mac, so the topic came easily and I wrote this column which tells the story of the wonderful celebration all of you have to look forward to this week. A few days later I was here and was able to share the column with Mr. and Mrs. McBride, one of the proudest moments of my life.

But when that celebration starts early in the morning on Wednesday and continues throughout the day, I hope that you’ll take time to think just how much of a privilege it is to live in the United States of America.

There is no greater example of that privilege than right here, right now. Gathered here in this beautiful setting, we come to reflect in the name of God.

The book of Matthew, in chapter 18 verse 20, Jesus says “..Where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them.”

Now here we are, 250 of us gathered in his name openly hearing the word of God. That is a right guaranteed to us by the first amendment of the constitution and no one can take it away.

And of course it’s not just here, when it’s time for canteen, all of you will be able to freely join together and enjoy another wonderful American tradition – An ice-cold Coke. And doesn’t that sound nice right about now?

If you look around here, pretty much everything that makes it great to be an American can be found right here at Camp Mac, every single day.

In the morning, you wake up and attend flag-raising before spending four hours riding a horse, shooting a rifle, playing capture the flag or water skiing. Then there are the electives like roping, archery, putt-putt golf and fishing. Night rec? I saw that you still have College Night, college football is a tradition so very American.

Just a few minutes ago, how many state flags were represented? 12? There are probably that many different denominations sitting here right now. You represent the rich diversity of this country.

It’s almost like the McBrides looked around and said “Okay, what are the absolute best parts about being an American and how can we fit it all into this piece of land at the base of Cheaha Mountain?”

I have no idea how, but they did it.

And it’s not just the activities everyday. It’s the lifelong friendships you build with people you didn’t know three weeks ago. It’s shaking hands and doing ra-ras after league games even if the other team just beat you. It’s coming here every afternoon and taking 10 minutes to reflect on what a wonderful day you just had.

For me, it’s impossible to see the red, white and blue and not think about Camp Mac Green.

You have to think that the founding fathers would be pretty proud of a place like this.

Woven into the fabric of this land is a strong foundation in the belief of God and I believe no matter what religion you choose, living a life that glorifies God makes you, those around you and your country stronger.

Now, I know it’s summer so I don’t want to hit you with too much American History, but the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence, which was adopted on July 4, 1776, 236 years ago says..

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Now that’s a lot of really heavy English, and it’s July and this isn’t school, so let me translate it a bit. What the founding fathers were saying is that there are three things that they felt were guaranteed to man by his creator, these were life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And no one could take those things away.

Now did you hear the word creator? What do you think that means?  God right?

And we can’t forget what the founding fathers said about these rights given to us by our creator. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That sounds pretty great right? I’m pretty sure everything I need is summed up right there. We’re free to go about our lives and do what makes us happy whether it’s playing baseball or the guitar.

These rights were given to us by our creator.

Ronald Reagan, who most of you are too young to remember as a President, once said

“If we ever forget that we’re one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.”

In book of Psalm, Chapter 33, verse 12 reads “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage! The Lord looks down from heaven;     he sees all the children of man; from where he sits enthroned he looks out  on all the inhabitants of the earth, he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds.”

Kind of gives a whole new meaning to “He’s got the whole world in his hands right?”

So what can we all do to serve God and country?

Matthew Chapter 23, verses 11-12 says “The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

In one of the greatest quotes from a President ever, John F. Kennedy summed up what the Bible said when spoke the famous words “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

So you may be thinking to yourself, what can I do?

It’s a simple answer really, you can keep this country great by serving God who gave us those rights I just talked about.

Live the life the Bible tells us to live.

Praise God, Go to Church, Respect your parents, don’t lie, cheat or steal, Share with those in need. Pray. Say please. Be thankful you live in a country so great as the United States of America.

I’ll close before prayer with a quote from President Lyndon Johnson, who said in his State of the Union address in 1965…

“This, then, is the state of the union: free and restless, growing and full of hope. So it was in the beginning. So it shall always be, while God is willing, and we are strong enough to keep the faith.”

Thank you all so much for listening, let’s pray.

The reality is that you’re never going to be done. There’s always more work. New initiatives, new customers, new competition, new technology, new ideas.

You’ve got to find a time and place when you can leave tomorrow’s work for tomorrow and GO THE EFF HOME.

A good day’s work – (37signals).

Google Fiber in Kansas City Makes Hollywood Nervous – Businessweek.

INTERNET! This is the most important link you will read today. Thanks to Lifehacker.com I have found the single best way to cook steakhouse-style filet mignon using a little bit of time and even less effort.

This revelation came thanks to finding a new method of cooking steak and a co-worker telling me about a “Valentine’s Day Special” at New York Butcher Shoppe in Cahaba Heights. That special was two filets, two stuffed potatoes, salad and bread for $35.

Here’s how I did it:

1. Put your wrapped steaks in the freezer for an hour
2. When you’re ready to cook, preheat the oven to 225
3. Take a cast iron skillet (I bought a Lodge pre-seasoned 12-inch) and put on high heat for at least 8-10 minutes.
4. Remove steaks from freezer, unwrap and season both sides with salt and pepper (NY Butcher included a special seasoning)
5. Put a small layer of high smoke point oil (I used peanut oil) on the skillet. Immediately put one steak on the skillet for one minute to sear one side (Use a press if you have one to even the sear)
6. Remove steak from skillet and put in rimmed baking pan, seared side up. (Repeat with as many steaks as you have)
7. Insert baking pan in oven, cook to desired doneness. (I went with medium and cooked them at 225 for 30 minutes and bumped it up to 275 for 13 more)
8. Once cooked to desired temp, remove from oven and let sit under a foil tent for 5-10 minutes.

This was, without a doubt, the singlest best steak I have ever cooked. The meat quality and seasoning had a lot to do with it, but the flavor and doneness were as perfect as I have ever cooked. Seriously, I’m not trying to oversell this. This was as good a filet as I have ever had in restaurant.

The texture, temperature and juiciness were perfect. The steak was cooked to perfect medium throughout.

Cook steak exactly like this.

Some notes: I have an electric oven and set it at 8/9 for high heat. When you put the steak on, it’s going to get a little smokey but if you’ve used the right oil it won’t flare up. It’s not a thick smoke and most range vents should be able to handle it. Only sear one side. Let it cook for the full 30 minutes before you test the temp. I suggest a instant-read digital thermometer.

This would be great if you were cooking for a lot of people as the steaks could be seared one-by-one and then cooked easily in the oven while you tend to other things.

Not a sanctuary, for sure.

We decided to re-do it, but on the cheap. We managed to do it for less than $500.

Walls

Behr Premium Plus Ultra – Primer and Paint  Color: Anonymous  - Thanks Lifehacker!

Millie did two coats with a simple roller and it looks fantastic.

Furniture

We had ugly, but matching, furniture from Ikea that just needed a little update. I tried to follow these directions but couldn’t get my hands on the Benjamin Moore paint. I used Sherwin Williams latex paint instead. The big boost was the primer. Not having to sand made it much easier. We added some new hardware from Home Depot.

The bed was a gift from my dad. We did the same thing with the primer and paint.

Overall it looks great. It’s not super smooth as in the pictures from the directions, but it’s pretty close.

Extras

We found the comforter and shams from J.C. Penny. The comforter is Liz Claiborne and was originally $250, but marked down to $75. The shams are the same and were originally $50, but marked down to $15. Millie found the curtains. Two panels and the rod were $100 total.

Total Cost

All told, we spent $210 at JC Penny and about $230 at Home Depot and Sherwin Williams for the paint and supplies. The hardware for the bedside tables and dresser was about $20.

I took a bite before I took a picture. It was that good.

There were two football games yesterday. They represented 66% of the remaining football games this year (The Pro Bowl does not count.)

Football needed to be celebrated. I’d been waiting to try this since I saw it randomly on Pinterest (not just for the ladies!)

It is dead simple: Chicken breasts, buffalo sauce, ranch dressing mix, pepper jack cheese. the result is  Buffalo Ranch Chicken Sandwiches.

Directions:

Put frozen chicken breasts (I used four) in a crock pot. Pour entire 16 oz. bottle of Texas Pete’s Buffalo sauce over top of chicken. Open ranch dressing mix. Cover chicken with mix. Turn crock pot on low, cook for six hours.

After six hours, remove chicken from crock pot and shred (you’ll be shocked at how easy it is.) Turn crock pot to warm and put chicken back in the simmer sauce four at least 45 minutes to let it soak up the sauce.

Toast some sandwich rolls and put pepper jack cheese on them. Add any other fixins you see fit to the roll and add the chicken and enjoy.

Very tender, very good sandwich and very easy to make!

Source: My Kitchen Apron

The finished product. Damn good.

Another day, another Pinterest recipe. This time it’s the bacon, cheddar, ranch pull.

Ingredients:

1 loaf of sourdough bread (round kind)

1 6-8 slices sharp cheddar cheese

1 Tbps Hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix

1 packet bacon crumbles (I used Publix brand)

1/2 cup butter, melted.

Directions:

Pre-Oven

Pre-heat oven to 350

With a bread knife (I don’t have a good one), slice the sourdough in a grid pattern, left to right, up and down. Do not slice all the way through, just a little bit off the bottom of the bread.

Sprinkle the bacon crumbles over the bread, making sure the bacon gets in the slots you’ve made in the bread.

Break cheddar slices in half and insert them into the slots as well.

Mixed ranch mix and melted butter and drizzle over bread.

Wrap in foil, bake on a cookie sheet for 15 minutes.

Unwrap from foil, return to oven for 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

Source: PlainChicken.com

I had been wanting to try homemade pizza crust with some of the Fat Tire we bought in Chattanooga, so I googled a recipe for fast beer pizza crust.

The Dough

• 4 5 cups flour (More on this)
• 2 teaspoons instant yeast
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups room-temperature beer (Which is 12 oz, why not just say that?)
• Williams-Sonoma pizza seasoning (Awesome to have it go in the mix)

I used Fat Tire for the beer, which is awesome. I put all of this into our stand mixer with the dough hook and let it go for about 3 minutes.

Some notes:

The recipe calls for four cups of flour, use at least five. The dough was very sticky when it came out of the mixer and I kept adding flour until I got it not sticky. So, add more flour.

Once it’s finished, glaze a small bowl with olive oil, put the dough in, cover and let rise for 90 minutes-2 hours.

Cook the pizza for 3 minutes without toppings, add toppings, return to oven.

Before we start…If you make any sort of pizza at home, be it Digornio or something like this, you need a pizza stone. Pizza stones distribute heat more evenly, give your pizza a flat surface to cook on and are just all around awesome to have.

The ingredients for the pizza were:

• Sliced zucchini – Sauted with pepper and olive oil
• Mount Olive roasted red peppers, sliced into strips
• Fresh mozzarella, sliced thin
• Spinach – Sauteed for about 30 seconds (it wilts on its own in the oven)
• Kraft Mexican shredded cheese
• Shaved parmesan
• Dei Fratellia Pizza Sauce

Pro Tip:
When rolling out dough for a pizza I’ve found that yellow corn meal is much better than flour for making sure the dough doesn’t stick to your surface. Flour on the bottom of the pizza has a burnt chalky taste when it comes out of the oven, but I can’t taste the cornmeal after the pizza has been cooked.

Cooking

• Put pizza stone in oven, preheat to 500 degrees
• Roll dough into circle, curl edges for a crust, press dough to desired thickness (We use a pizza peel for easy transfer to the pizza stone, but I’ve read where parchment paper works as well?)
• Put your sauce on and put the pizza in the oven for about 2-3 minutes.
• Remove pizza, apply rest of toppings, return to oven
• Bake for 8-10 minutes until the crust is as crunchy/chewy as you would like
• Remove, let the pizza hang out for about 2 minutes, slice, eat, enjoy.

This pizza was amazing. The crust was just that, crusty with a nice chewy inside. The ingredients worked together perfectly. Definitely will make this again.

It tastes as good as it looks.

Research has shown that setting goals that include changing habits, such as not drinking soft drinks, go much further in bringing about change than setting a static goal, such as losing 10 pounds.

By not drinking a sugar-laden Coke, one can easily ditch 10 pounds in a year, but by simply saying “I’m going to lost 10 pounds,” with no plan in place, there is a much greater chance at failure. Also, one could easily achieve 10 pounds of weight loss in the first six weeks of the year, then abandon that goal and gain the weight back just as quickly.

So to that end, I have several goals that I hope to meet by way of resolving to take action in several areas.

Goal 1 – Personal Fitness

Actions:

• Go to the gym on Tuesday and Thursday mornings for strength training
• Go to the gym on Monday and Wednesday afternoons for cardiovascular work (and some weekends)
• Limit alcohol intake to no more than 1 drink per night and non-consecutive nights during the week
• Dine out no more than one lunch and two dinners each week
• Bring lunch to work at least four times per week

Desired Outcome – There is no set goal here, e.g. lose weight, in the above goal. Simply put, if I do the above on a consistent basis I will be much healthier than I am 365 days from now.

Goal 2 – Personal Development

Actions:

• Read (not on the web) for 45 minutes at least four times a week
• Limit TV time to no more than 80 consecutive minutes during the week
• Write a new blog post at least once per week

Desired Outcome – I want to limit my screen time away from the office and reading more or writing can help with that. Outside of an advanced degree, reading is the best way I can further my education. When I do write, I fully intend to gather source material beforehand and disconnect from the web to maintain focus.

Goal 3 – Give Back

Actions:

• Join and attend church services at least once per month
• Volunteer at least eight hours per month

Desired Outcome – There are hundreds of excuses why we haven’t joined a church since we’ve been married, and it’s one I think we both want to change in the coming year. I think weekly services or bible study could absolutely serve as a time of re-centering and re-focusing on goals. There was a time in my life when I volunteered several weekends per month. I want to get back to that. So much has been given to me, and I feel like I haven’t given anything back in many, many years aside from a quick donation online. It’s time to give back with some sweat equity.
Goal 4 – Odds and Ends

Actions:

• Stop biting my fingernails – I do this, a lot. It’s gross, I need to stop
• Listen more – I’m getting better at this
• Stop trying to one-up – My story is not always best, if others are wrong on inconsequential things, I need to let it go
• TBD