West Cocoa Chat

First, congrats to my blog brothers who are L.A. Angels fans. I’m glad the “evil empire” is now sitting at home counting up their Major League leading salaries! Lot of good it did them.

2nd, my league predictions:
Angels vs. White Sox------------White Sox! (Shoeless Joe can leave the cornfield and RIP.)
Astros vs. Cardinals-------------Cardinals! (As Atlanta has been to many division series, the Astros will take their place as heart-breakers of the League Series.)
Now for a Florida term, “swamped!” When I came back home from Zoe I hit the ground running. My first nine weeks grades had to be in by today (Tuesday) at 4pm. I still had some papers to grade as well as make-up tests.

Yesterday I also received a call from a good friend of mine, Monty, who informed me that his mother in law who is in hospice care, was asking for me. So that meant that I had to pick up Steven from “voluntary” conditioning for the baseball team at 5, take him home, go back to the hospital to visit Barbara, and be back at my school for a 7pm meeting of our school’s “advisory committee.” I had a good visit with Barbara. She and my Mom worked at our Bible Camp together and they both had the gift of love for children.

As for the Zoe Conference, overall I would say that I was a bit disappointed. The worship times were outstanding as was the Michael Card Concert. Seeing Greg and Randy (you had to wait until the afternoon) is always a plus although they were strangely absent from the local guitar stores. (in the morning that is) Brentwood where our hotels were located is a nice place. I enjoyed the rare jog up and down some of their hills.

The Leadership Conference (Thursday and most of Friday) seemed as if it was an after-thought. The classes had very little “meat” and we spent a great deal of time talking about each others’ churches. There are some benefits to such an activity but not at the price of airline tickets, hotel accommodations, and the $150 price tag of the conference itself.

If we go back next year we will probably fly out after school on Thursday and enjoy the “worship” part of the conference. Other than seeing my blog brothers, the other plus was getting to spend some rare time alone with my wife as well as at the conference. The worship time was a big encouragement to her.

So there you have it, lots of work to get ready for the conference, good time for the most part at the conference, and then lots of work upon returning back home. Good to “see” you all again in blog world.

Now for some pictures from Zoe:

Obviously this picture was taken in the afternoon since Randy and Greg are in the picture. You can see my lovely wife Barbara sitting right behind Greg in Woodmont’s “Great Hall.”

This is a picture taken at our hotel restaurant. On the right is our preacher – Don, his wife Brenda, my wife – Barbara, and then one of our worship leaders, Paul. On the left is Ann, my next door neighbor Sally, myself, my fellow elder Jeff, and his wife Therese.