A cartoon for addicts.

ht to my dad for this cartoon...

Hmm, a new Harvest Festival event?

I wonder if my boss would approve of this feature at our church:

What can you do with pumpkins? The list is not all that long. You can make pumpkin pies and breads, carve jack-o'-lanterns or use them to decorate your front porch.

Or you can send them hurling into the autumn sky at 400 mph with a 30,000-pound cannon.

It's pumpkin-chucking season!

Probably not. But still a fun idea.

The single pastor.

This afternoon, one of the junior high students in our school made this comment to me:

"I can't believe you're not married," she said.

"Um, OK...why's that?" I replied.

"Because you're such a cool guy."

Kinda made me laugh when I got back into my office, thinking about what an early adolescent (or younger) kid thinks about who gets married, why people marry, how easy it must be the find the right person to marry. Gave me a chuckle and a smile.

I'd like to apologize: Volume 2

It's Thursday, which means it's time to get something off my chest. And I'm not just talking about the salsa I dripped on myself last night! This week, I offer my apologies:

* To Sanjaya, for not voting for you.
* To true "American Idol" fans, for rooting for Sanjaya.
* To my brain cells, for watching "American Idol."
* To Kurt Johnston, for secretly orchestrating the whole "America's Top Pastor" debacle.
* To customers at Wal-Mart last week, who may have seen me walking around in a pair of far-too-holey jeans.
* To Dani, Gabriel and Sal, for making them eat the disgusting candy bars last night.
* To the fine folks at Mizu sushi, for being a little too intimidated by some of the sushi they were serving yesterday.
* To the federal and state governments, for being a last-minute filer once again this year.
* To my friends at Simply Youth Ministry, for taking far too long on a certain project.
* To Jennifer Gomez, for proving that some people WILL buy stuff for me at Starbuck's and pay for it.
* To Tyler Gillespie, for my jokes.
* To the rest of humanity, for my jokes.
* To Isabelle Read, for making her cry last night with our video testimony from a guy who passed away last week.* To "The Apprentice" and "Survivor," for no longer really caring.
* To "The Deadliest Catch," for missing an episode.
* To Round Table Pizza, for being very upset the other night when none of the local stores would deliver me a pizza, even though my house MUST be in someone's territory, thus forcing me to buy pizza from (yuck!) Domino's instead.
* To you, dear reader, for once again making it to the end of my weekly apologies.

Rob has issues: Volume 1.

Today is Tax Day. Thanks to the quirks of the calendar and the holiday schedule in Washington, D.C., the deadline has been extended to Tuesday. And I'm grateful.

I don't owe anything to the feds or state this year. In fact, I'll be getting by largest tax refunds ever. That's pretty cool. Especially with the long list of "high-priority" items needed in my life. A new iPod. Patio furniture. Dues to my denomination's district. Ya know. The biggies.

This weekend I went into panic mode. I couldn't find my W2s. Or my forms from the last few years. Or the forms for this year. Ugh! So, first I went and bought software to do my taxes this year. Then I dug through my room. I found the W2s. Cool. Then I found a folder marked "2005 Taxes." Awesome. Oops. Files are missing. I hunted some more. Found old taxes. From the 1990s. Eventually, I did find all the "missing" elements that I needed.

Here's the funniest-yet-most-pathetic part of the whole story. I don't throw things away. It's a disease, an illness, an ailment. I keep stuff. And by "stuff" I mean all my federal and state forms going back to 1992. The first year I filed on my own. While in college. Yes folks, I have my complete history of tax filings still in my possession.

Rob has issues.

I like my Moleskine notebooks, dangit.

On a recent episode of the Simply Youth Ministry podcast, our esteemed friend Josh Griffin made a critical comment about people who walk around with little Moleskine notebooks to jot down their thoughts and ideas and inspirations.

I, my friends, am such a person. I write in mine. I give them as gifts to family. I think they're really quite convenient and cool.

Why mention it in my blog? Because today, I came across one of my notebooks that I thought had been "lost." Turns out it was just misplaced.

But it jogged my memory on Josh's comment.

And gave me a great idea on a birthday gift for later this year. :)

Chris Sligh, 4Him and American Idol.

Sounds like the opening line to an old Johnny Carson "Carnac the Magnificent" skit. Sorry kids, probably too old of a reference for ya.

So, I'm scanning through websites today and came across a news article about Chris Sligh getting bumped off "American Idol." Gotta be honest: I really don't care about the show, even though I've watched more of this season than all the other seasons combined. But I know Sligh has gotten lots of attention in Christian circles because he's a worship leader at his church.

This article pointed out that Sligh used to attend the ultraconservartivehyperfundamentalist (pretend you're speaking German on that one) Christian school Bob Jones University. Apparently, Sligh got kicked out for "attending a contemporary Christian concert featuring the group 4Him."

You're kidding, right? 4Him is still around?

Oh, and you're kidding about the college kickin' him out for such a silly "offense," right? Negatory, says the story. It's true.

This is crazy on multiple levels. First, 4Him hasn't had a "hit" song since at least the 1990s or so. Second, Sligh is the long-lost half-brother to Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons; this is absolute fact. Third, why is a 28-year-old singer/worship leader listening to drivel like 4Him? Fourth, Bob Jones kicking out a student for attending a concert like that makes my own alma mater look like a bastion of liberal hedonism. Back in the 1990s, Evangel College actually HOSTED a couple of concerts by 4Him. Crazy.

Well, I'm going public with my prediction. Sanjaya is gonna win "American Idol" this year. He has the support of all the non-fans, and they will bring about the show's demise.

Ain't democracy great?

Gotta love junior-highers.

Get a load of this:

Holtsville, N.Y. (AP) -- Some Long Island eighth graders apparently got an early start on April Fool's Day pranks on Friday, when they handed out doughnuts laced with laxatives to classmates, school officials said.

There were no apparent injuries, although ambulances were dispatched to the Sequoya Middle School as a precaution, a spokeswoman for the Sachem School District said.

"Approximately 18 students ate the doughnuts," the district said in a statement. "Although the students are feeling well, the school is taking precautionary measures."

Police were investigating and parents were been informed about the situation. Classes proceeded as usual, but parents were given the option to pick up their children.

The district said it would take "appropriate disciplinary action."

Yosemite Tales: #3 story from my trip.

Here is the third-funniest story from my five-day adventure in Yosemite National Park.

Apparently, the forces that control weather in Yosemite like to play with my mind.

A year ago, I visited at the end of March, beginning of April. It snowed on me -- on April Fool's Day.

Two months ago, I visited, expecting wintry weather. It was spring-like.

This week, I returned, unsure of what I'd get. It rained. It was cold. Oh, and it snowed. Again. Two straight years. Trips near the end of March. And snow.

It'd been years since I had slept in a tent while it was raining. Oh yes, did I fail to mention that I was REALLY camping? Wild. Rain turned into snow, as Monday night turned into Tuesday morning. I got up around 6:30AM and went walking around, taking a few dozen photos of the beauty.

The snow melted as the day went along, but fresh snow kept falling. Later in the afternoon, lots of snow fell but very little stuck. By the end of the day, there was almost no evidence of the snow. But it was still a pretty sight.

Hmm. March 2008...Yosemite, anyone?

Yosemite Tales: #2 story from my trip.

Here's the second best story from my five-day adventure in Yosemite National Park:

On Wednesday afternoon, I was sitting at my campsite preparing a healthy lunch of peanut butter and jelly. I even had some bread. As I'm completing this work of culinary genius, some forestry folks walk through and say they're going to be cutting down a couple of dead trees they had missed the week before.

Awesome. Cheap entertainment for my lunch.

This forestry person -- ranger? official? chainsaw handler? -- takes her chainsaw and begins to cut away at this huge tree. Only when I look closely do I agree with their assessment that yes, this tree is dead. Kinda like the ones right outside our youth warehouse.

She's working away, doing her thing, and after a number of minutes, she turns off the chainsaw and grabs an old-fashioned axe. She takes the backside of the axe and begins whacking away at the wedge she placed in the tree. One. Two. Three. She checks her angle. Four. Five. Six. The tree starts to sway. Seven. Crack. I watch as this huge tree begins to fall.

Have you ever heard the sound of a tree falling in the forest? Well, since I was there, I can tell you that it DOES make a noise when people are around. First was the crack of the actual tree. Then came the collision with the branches of the nearby trees as it fell. And finally came dual thuds, as the middle of the tree hit a large boulder, and the rest of the tree hit the open ground.

Awesome. Wish I had videotaped it. But then they might have suspected me of being some kind of ecoterrorist. I look the part, of course. Especially after going nearly three weeks without shavin' the beard.

Yosemite Tales: #1 story from my trip.

Here's the best story from my five-day adventure in Yosemite:

I've been driving for more than 17 years. In that time, I've had just one accident; it happened three months after I got my license.

I've had two silly tickets: one, in Berkeley, for parking along a street on the street-sweeping day; and two, also in Berkeley, for parking in a tow-away zone, and getting my car towed. Ooops.

I've never been caught speeding. I've never gotten a speeding ticket.

Things changed Tuesday: I got pulled over for speeding. In Yosemite. Yes, Yosemite.

They're doing some road work in Yosemite right now, so a stretch of road that's normally one-way now handles two-way traffic. That change has brought the speed limit DOWN from 35MPH to an astonishingly slow 25MPH.

Tuesday afternoon, I was driving this stretch of road. I came around a corner. There sat a park ranger vehicle staring straight at me. As I passed him, I saw in my rear-view mirror that he had turned around and was following me. A minute later, the lights went on.

He checked out my license, proof of insurance and registration -- though that one took a while to find in my glove compartment -- and walked back to his vehicle. I sat there, waiting. I was chuckling to myself, because he told me I was driving 36 in a 25 zone...even though the zone NORMALLY is a 35 zone.

Mr Park Ranger returned to my vehicle, handed me my documents, and told me he was letting me go with just a verbal warning. I thanked him, and then he let me go on my merry way -- but not without asking why I had completely different addresses on my driver license, my proof of insurance and my registration. Easy, I explained. License: old, old address. Insurance: current home. Reg: old apartment where I was living when I renewed my reg last year.

He chuckled and let me drive away.

But not without putting the fear of God in me. Since Tuesday, I don't think I've driven more than 5MPH above any speed limit I've seen. Hey, I like having a nearly perfect driving record -- and the insurance rates that come with it!

DOD: Discovery of the Day

I proudly own a Treo 700p smartphone that is apparently smarter than many other cell phones out there. When daylight saving time began, a simple reboot switched the device to the correct time. I love my smartphone.

However, having a smartphone does not necessarily make ME smart. Today's Discovery of the Day comes to me via my buddy Jeremy Anderson. He owns a Treo 650, and we were talking today about the beauty of texting. I made a comment about copying and pasting a text message for multiple people, and he told me that I could send the same message to lots of people at once, without the copy-paste method.

Really?

Duh, yes. I've seen the semicolon appear after I type the name or number of a new person to text. I know what semicolons and commas mean in the world of email and messaging. But it never occurred to me I could send just one message to lots of people at once.

Some of you need to stop laughing at me right now, because of how obvious this DOD was. But it was still a discovery for me.