ladies and gentlemen,

i now officially have a new home! ok, not like a real home but a new home for the blog! i’m so pumped up. i’ve been doing some work in the background for the past couple of weeks and now i’ve got it to where i don’t mind showing it off. don’t worry, all your favorite posts will remain – you’ll still get your weekly “wednesday WHAT??” and “friday four”.

so please don’t leave me! change all your bookmarks and RSS readers to http://www.ecrosblog.com.

go check it out now!

1. checked my weight this morning – gained 2 pounds from last week. however, I usually weigh myself when I get out of the shower on friday morning but this morning i forgot and so i weighed myself after i already had all my work clothes on. so, there could be a few extra pound attributed to clothing in the scales this week… 225.5 lbs.

2. yes, this here blog is getting a makeover. i’m not quite finished with it yet and i don’t really know if i’ll ever be finished with tweaking it and getting it just right but i’m changing up the layout and kind of doing my own thing.

3. read this today and i think the “C”hurch could learn a lot from Apple in this context.

4. this Sunday at Freedom is our 1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY! to say that the staff is jacked up would be an understatement. if you are coming this Sunday, be early and bring people with you. trust me, you do not want to miss out on what God is going to do this Sunday and neither do your friends!

it took me a while to find this story. i guess there just isn’t any news out there that is “wednesday WHAT??” worthy… bummer.

Rare goat accidentally hangs itself in Canada zoo

this makes me laugh… i’m not real sure why, but it does.

i don’t think Gary Lamb has ever been in front of Ed Young on anything, but apparently, Gary Lamb’s blog is rated higher than Young’s according to churchrelevance.com. to check out all 60 of the Top Rated Church blogs, click here.

1. weight this week – 223.5 lbs. i gained a pound. bummer. guess I need to work a little harder next week. hello motivation.

2. MOVIE REVIEW – The Great Debaters
one of Denzel Washington’s greatest movies. this movie takes place in 1935 in a little town in Texas. Denzel’s character, Tolson, is a debate team coach at an all-black school – Wiley College. He leads and coaches them to an undefeated season against other “Negro” colleges in the state and even a victory over all-white Oklahoma City University on a “neutral” site. the team eventually receives and offer to debate Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. the team is thrown for a loop when the topic of debate is changed on them 48 hours prior to the debate. the little Wiley College team defeats the NCAA Champion Harvard debate team as their coach looks on.

there are a lot of twists and turns and expected scenes in a movie that takes place during segregation in the south so be prepared. don’t worry, i didn’t spoil the movie. you can tell they are going to win. plus, if Denzel is your coach, you’re gonna win. especially if your “coach” is directing the movie.

3. Callie has been making me smoothies for breakfast with our Magic Bullet and i’m loving them! don’t ask me what she puts in there because i’m not real sure. all I know is that it tastes good!

4. Freedom Church is continuing to DOMINATE this Sunday! 10:30am Barber Middle School. AND… Freedom Generation Sunday night at 6:00pm! my main man, Tyler Orr, spoke at my alma mater, Kennesaw Mountain High School at their FCA this morning and I’ve heard it was good. Make sure you get your middle school and high school students out to Barber Middle School this Sunday night for Freedom Generation! it gonna be zoppity!

i’m pretty shocked by this one. i really don’t know what to say about it. the following is a video clip so you may need to let it buffer and pre-load a little before you start watching, depending on your connection speed.

Woman auctions her virginity

i’ve got to admit, it’s pretty funny when the anchor shows the pictures of the three “leading bidders” but all-around, it’s a pretty sad story. watch the video to find out how much money the auction is worth.

(note: the anchor switches stories at the 1:18 mark in the clip so you can stop watching there)

i signed up for netflix yesterday. 2-week free trial.

right now in my queue i have The Great Debaters and The Italian Job on the way to my house. left in the queue is The Usual Suspects, Double Jeopardy, and the original Ocean’s Eleven.

hopefully, this will allow me to ramp up my movie review portion of this blog. seeing as how i’ve only reviewed like one movie, it can’t really get any worse – it HAS to get better. right?

so after church yesterday (and after a trip to loved/hated Wal-Mart), Callie and i had lunch and sat down to watch a show called “The Principal’s Office“. if you haven’t seen this show or heard of it yet, let me set the stage for you.

basically, camera crews follow around principals and educators at high schools across the country. they sit in the principal’s office when the principal brings kids into their office to give them punishment. it’s actually a pretty funny show.

yesterday i saw a girl ride to school (in Texas) on a horse. i saw a guy wear his spurs to the same school and the principal made him take them off. i saw one principal at a school in Arkansas speak of administering corporal punishment – they followed one kid who decided he would take 3 licks with a paddle instead of saturday school. (for those of you that want to fire up your email editor right now – don’t. go back, reread the previous sentence. the KID DECIDED to take 3 licks with a paddle. it was HIS OPTION. don’t email me – don’t email the school. you’ll waste your time)

all in all, it was a pretty good show. good enough to make me miss my Sunday afternoon nap. if you get truTV, you should check it out. if you don’t, you can go here and check out the website.

1. my dad bought a new car last week. he called me up Saturday night because he was out of town and told me, “So, I bought a new car today.” so as of right now, my dad owns 5 vehicles. throw in mine and Callie’s car, our driveway looks like a car lot.

good news is, we’re taking dad’s old car to my grandfather this weekend. he’s giving dad a little cash for it so i guess it all works out.

2. Callie and i bought tickets to see Jon McLaughlin last night. he’s going to be at Vinyl on January 22 and tickets are only $10. if you like some good singin and a very talented pianist (i like using that word), grab a ticket for this show. seriously, it’s good stuff.

3. Freedom Church continues to DOMINATE this Sunday at Barber Middle School. last week, the band kicked things off with “We Will Rock You” by Queen and this Sunday, they are taking it up another notch. Seriously, you don’t want to miss it!

4. ok, here it is. the moment i’ve been dreading but most of you have been waiting for. today is the first official weigh in for my NYR. this morning, using Callie’s Weight Watchers digital scale, i weighed in at a whopping 222.5 lbs. i unofficially weighed myself last week and i was hovering around 226 lbs so it appears like i’m making progress.

for those of you that don’t remember, my goal is to be a size 36 waist by February 15 and keep going and get down to a 34 in. waist by March 1, 2009. i don’t have a “goal weight” – i just want to weight however much i need to to be able to wear size 34 in pants again.

i saw this on twitter this morning from a pastor in Cartersville. it makes me sick. hence the title of this post, “yuck.”

some of the quotes in this thing are ridiculous:

spokesman for Larry Flynt (Hustler publisher) said “The porn industry has been hurt by the downturn like everyone else and they are going to ask for $5 billion.”

$5 BILLION FOR THE PORN INDUSTRY?!?!!!?!!!??! that’s insane!

Larry Flynt said in his statement, “People are too depressed [because of the economy] to be sexually active… This is very unhealthy as a nation. American can do without cars and such but they cannot do without sex.” he goes on to say, “With all this economic misery and people losing all that money, sex is the farthest thing from their mind. It’s time for congress to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America. The only way they can do this is by supporting the adult industry and doing it quickly.”

as a (newly) married man, that whole thing about being too depressed to be sexually active is absolutely absurd. oh, and in addition, congress should have no business rejuvenating anything sexual in America. for the porn industry to ask for $5 billion dollars because of the recession is ridiculous. yet, most people don’t even bat and eye at it!

oh, $5 Billion to the adult industry? no problem!

what if the Southern Baptist Convention or an association of Churches, or even better yet THE CHURCH wanted money from congress to help bail them out, the ACLU and every atheist organization would be all over that like the way i put that Chick-fil-A sauce on those nuggets – LOADED!

i can’t believe some people. if you want to read the whole story for yourself, click on the image of the story above.