I'm a big music fan, but I can't say that I've ever been a major fan of a lot of music made before I was born.  Now you may think that makes me kind of a shallow music fan, but if you ask anyone who knows me they could easily prove to you that that isn't the case.  I have a deep appreciation for all kinds and genres of music, except swing and ska because they aren't real genres of music, just dreck.  To get to the point though, something that one of those groups making music before I was born wrote deals exactly with what I'm thinking right now.  Simon and Garfunkel performed a song called "I am a Rock" (written by Paul Simon) in which Paul Simon essentially espoused the idea that he had no need for friendship or love because they had the potential to cause pain, and he was perfectly content, alone, in his own hermetically sealed world.

Well, let me be the first to say - or at least one to say - that Paul Simon, although a gifted song writer, is not a great sociologist.  I've tried the whole "I am a rock, I am an island" thing before, and it's not all it's cracked up to be.  We all need friends.  We all need a support group of some kind.  We were never created to be all alone.  God created us to live in realtionship with him, within a family, within a church family, within a community.  The move to Swift Current has been a good one overall, but it has had its drawbacks too.  The church and community are great to live in, but making friends here certainly hasn't been easy.  I'm not so naive as to think a person can make best friends overnight, but it's been a year and a bit now, and I don't feel I'm much farther along in the process than I was a year and a bit ago.

I'll restate it again so there's no confusion, we love being here, but not having any real close friends or family here is not easy; especially on days off.  So to my friends and family, you know who you are, know you are loved and missed, and here's to hoping for another day off or long weekend soon when I can see some of you again.

Well, there isn't going to be a lot of substance here.  I'm starting to get tired, but I wanted to make sure I got this off my chest and into your collective conscious before I forget it.

I love my job.  We got youth started again tonight with a game of Mission Impossible with the youth group from Trailview.  It was a really good time.  You'd think that the thought that I won't have another Friday night off for the next 10 months would be kind of depressing, but in reality it's pretty exciting.  I enjoy spending time with the kids and having a part in helping them sort through and set their direction in life.  Ya, it gets tiring sometimes, but all in all a job that includes taking care of myself spiritually, helping other people, loving other people, playing games with kids and preaching every few weeks is a pretty sweet gig.  For the most part it doesn't even feel like work.  Obviously there is no perfect church or perfect job, but I think this is about as much as I had hoped for coming into it.  Fourteen months in now, I love my job.

I love coaching football.  Unfortunately, the Swift Plumbing and Heating Golden Gophers got their tails handed to  them in our first game last week, but with a few new defensive wrinkles thrown in this week I'm hoping for better results.  Either way, I love working with the kids, teaching them new skills, and acting like a real football coach even though it's small town minor pee-wee football.  I may not be Buddy Ryan yet, but I'm working on it.

 So at the possibility of losing all my credibility as a real sports fan, I feel the need to come out into the open and announce to the world my love for watching tennis.  I enjoy playing the sport too, but I love to watch tennis; men's or women's.

I've been loving watching the US Open for the past week and a half.  Some of the matches have been great to watch, even though my favourite player of all time, Goran Ivanisevic, retired a number of years ago.  Good old Goran, the perfect combination of size, speed, and power . . . and an awesome name to go along with it of course.

Anyways, it's been great husband/wife time for Jenn and I too because she loves watching tennis too.  There aren't a ton of things that Jenn and I both love watching on TV, so when one of the tennis Grand Slams rolls around it's good viewing for us both for two weeks.  The US Open is especially good because they actually play the matches at reasonable viewing hours because they are playing in North America instead of crazy places like England, France, or Australia.

Well, now that I've got that off my chest, I hope you can all accept me for who I am.  Here's to hoping that anyone other than a Williams sister or Roger Federer wins in the end.