Billy Con Carne

Hello, my name is Billy and I wore a speedo.
Wait. Is that really how I want to start this one? With a speedo?
Eh, why not? Hopefully you have had breakfast already and the speedo images that are sure to rifle through your mental checklist session won't be completely disturbing. Thats right y'all! I had me a speedo and I did, in fact,
once upon a time, lo these many years ago, actually wear it in public. In high school to be exact. Of course, at the time, I actually had a body that was able to pull off the look. Not buff mind you, but not my current physical state.
I rocked the speedo and I am not ashamed to admit it.
No, really, I'm not. If I had a picture of me back then, ensconced in said speedo, I would post it. Oh yeah, you heard me right! I would. But, alas, the proof of my courage under polyester has been lost to the sands of time or something like that (that's my story and I'm sticking to it...). But that's not what this post was about.
Well, at least, not directly. Some of you that have been following along the last year or so know that I have been working out. Exercising. Warring against evil incarnate. That's right, I'm talking about man boobs and the dun lop. What's the dun lop? That's when you belly dun loped over your belt.
(Hey, I didn't make the joke, I'm only repeating so put that rotten tomato down...)
And part of this inexorable march towards the ultimate victory (that being what I have termed the Aqua man body - more on that later)has been fueled by outright victory on the plains of McDonald's, where the once mighty Big Mac now lies ruined, covered in its own special sauce. And also on the oceans of soda, where the sunken, rusted hulks of Coca-Cola cans lie crushed beneath gallons and gallons of fresh water. Put that in your slurpee and drink it!
I have also started to cook more and more. Most of it is pretty edible. Especially chili. Which brings me to the whole point of this exercise.
Chili con Carne.

Heres what you need:

2 lbs of ground beef (85-15% lean-fat ration is pretty good)
1 green pepper - diced
1 red pepper - diced
1 Vidalia onion (the purple one) - diced
1 yellow or white onion (small) - diced
2 cans of beans (Red, kidney, black or chili) - not diced
2 cans of tomato sauce - if it's diced you're already in trouble
2 cans of Rotel chili and tomatoes (mild or hot, up to you)
1 tbsp Fresh Cilantro, chopped
1 tbsp Dried Oregano (Yeah. oregano... not the stuff you try and pass off as oregano)
1 tbsp Garlic powder (no, Garlic salt doesn't count)
1 tbsp Ground Black pepper
1 tbsp Cayenne pepper
1 tbsp Crushed red pepper
2 tbsp Chili powder
1 tsp Cumin powder
1/2 tsp Salt
3 cups Water

In case you haven't noticed, it's pretty spicy so feel free to adjust the condiments to your level of wussyness, okay sunshine? Basically you are going to brown the ground beef in a large sauce pan or whatever you normally use for soups. A note for all the single guys that might read this:

When I say soup, I am not referring Ramen, Campell's, Cup O' Noodles, etc... I mean, actualy homemade soup. No, you can't microwave this dish into existence. It requires ACTUAL cooking so you might want to turnthe X Box off for a little while there, Sparky.
One other thing, a used hungry man tray is not cookware, neither is the aluminum tray you get from the local Chinese restaurant.

Okay, moving on.
Whilst browning the bovine, over medium to medium high heat, its a good idea to add the salt, ground black pepper, garlic and oregano. Helps the flavoryness meet the meatyness and get all nice and romance novel on you.
Good times.
Okay, once the meat is nice and cooked, you are going to want to drain it. Fight the urge. This you must not do if you used lean meat. In fact, unless you bought the 80%-20% (meat to fat ratio) you should just skip the whole draining the fat thing since there isn't all that much fat left in the pot. Add the green and red peppers, both onions and the cilantro to the meat. Stir that up for a couple of minutes and savor the flavor.
Smells good don't it?
Okay, once the flavors are one a first name basis and in that honeymoon afterglow, you can go ahead and introduce the kids. Toss in the beans and chili and tomato and the water and whatever is left from the menu list I have neglected to mention.
Got all that? Good.
Lower the heat so that it simmers covered for about 20 minutes or so. You want to reduce it a little. Simmer uncovered for another ten minutes and serve with either
white rice or corn chips or tortillas.
It also plays nice with sour cream and sharp cheddar cheese.
Enjoy.
At no time should you be wearing a speedo while cooking or eating this dish. Other have tried and failed, much to their chagrin and the outright glee of plastic reconstruction surgeons.
You have been warned.

Commute My Sentence

Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
- Ecclesiastes 1:10 (NIV)

I am loving the morning drives. The traffic, the drama, the comedy. I'm convinced morning commutes could become the next great reality show. Not that I'm advocating that. No. Reality TV is the world's latest, greatest oxymoron. First of all, it's not real, okay? Let's just set the record straight. I won't go as far as to call it Wrestling fake
(that's a whole other blog topic in and of it's self...) but it's what industry insiders like to call unscripted.

un·script·ed Pronunciation[uhn-skrip-tid]
–adjective
1. not scripted; lacking a script: an unscripted idea for a movie.
2. Informal. that has not been planned for or anticipated: an unscripted interruption of the speech.
[Origin: 1940–45; un-1 + script + -ed2]
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

And it's not really TV is it? It's more like digital voyeurism. We get to watch things that, to be perfectly honest, is the exact same sort of thing we go through in our own lives and find incredibly boring. But if the same thing was happening to someone and there is a camera crew involved, it's suddenly television?
Wow.
There really is nothing new under the sun. (See the above scripture...)
Either way, unscripted, fake, the figment of an editor's mind, whatever, I think you get the gist of my reality based sentiments. Filming driving would be better TV than watching past their prime B-List movie stars train to be real cops, lose weight, become frat buddies, selecting you future wife or husband from 30 perfect strangers or stuffing diametrically opposed people – geeks, freaks, atheists and the Amish, they are all fair game, right? - into the same room (why not add gasoline and matches?) and turning the cameras on.
That’s all yesterday’s drama.
Now you get the edge of your seat drama right on the way to work watching a woman in a giant yellow Hummer putting her eye shadow on at seventy miles an hour in heavy traffic.
Of course she can get away with it.
Its a hummer for crying out loud, who’s going to stop her? Besides, hitting a mini cooper at seventy miles an hour would be like running over an empty can of Mountain Dew.
Bug meets windshield.
Oh yeah. I'm smiling just thinking about it.
I really miss Chips...
If we could just get a station wagon to cut her off while simultaneously signaling right and changing lanes left, you'd get one of those spectacular ChIP's-esque car crash scenes were like a Winnebago goes somersaulting through the California sky.
Except I have no Winnebago and I don't live in California.
You could even have a scene were some local law enforcement officer snarls morning traffic simply by being there. Don't get me wrong; personally, I have great affinity for members of law enforcement. They risk their lives every single day by putting it on the line. And in doing so, they also cause massive commuter headaches simply by doing any one of the following:

• Getting on the freeway. As soon as other drivers see Smokey Bear, brake lights go on like telephone switchboard lines during the last five minutes of the season finale of American Idol.

• Sitting in the median. Sure they need a break too, but isn't that what donut shops are for? (Okay. Maybe the donut joke is passé but there are smoothie joints and McBurger places they can go and take five at. Why the median? Why rush hour? Why are they parked next to each other in opposite directions? At the very least it’s unseemly. )

• Pulling a U-Turn across two lanes of traffic. Did Officer Poncherello get lost? (Don't let me get started on Chips...) Did Car 54 figure out where they were? If we can't pull a Uey, why do they? Badge and a gun, man, that’s all there is to it.

Still, they make things interesting. I haven’t even gotten to how brave people get behind the wheel, screaming obscenities that you wouldn’t say to Hitler if he was in the same room you.
Well, you still might go off Adolph and I probably would too but you certainly wouldn’t kiss your Mom with that mouth would you?
I’ve been there, done that. Frustration and anger were my constant companions on the way to work.
Now, I am slightly mellower.
(Mellow... Mello... Mellower... Is that even a word?)
Okay. I’m trying to be mellower. And sometimes, I actually am.
A little prayer goes a long way. Driving to work is becoming less and less a prison sentence and more of an opportunity to find time alone to reflect on what God’s doing in my life or just enjoy the silence.
( I keep the windows up…)
And I occasionally smile at the driver yakking on the phone, drinking his latte, and straddling the lanes.
A State Trooper just snuck in behind him.
It’s great television I tell you.

The Morning Traffic Report

"Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?"
- Matthew 6: 26,27 (NIV)

Even after I wrote that long schpiel yesterday morning about how much I am going to trust God and what a difference Jesus is making in my life, it takes all of fifteen minutes to get hammered again. This is a never ending experience. You live and learn, as the saying goes. I left the house just barely holding on, really wanting to feel God move in my life.
Like right now, God.
Hello? Are you even listening?
I am standing here, foot tapping incessantly, glaring at my watch wondering where in the world are my miracles.
Nice. Perfect. What a great example you are to your kids.
"See how Daddy is so patient?"
I want to kick my own butt sometimes. Let me relate what happened to me after I finished my morning blog. I spent some time on my face this morning, just laying out my fears on God. We are broke. I took a 15k pay cut (not including bonuses) and that basically translates to a $600 shortage in income every single month. To top things off, I am driving 80 miles a day round trip with another $7 tacked on in tolls. Lots going on.
Scared yet?
Yeah. Me too. You know I am just digging all of this. Can't you just see the happy-go-lucky, Kum Ba Ya grin on my face?
Have I mentioned the month or so that I was out of work? So, in addition to the financial shortfall, we are behind in everything - car, mortgage, bills, food, etc.
I think our cell phones are going to get cut in the next day or so. Which wouldn't be such a bad thing, except that it's the only phones we have.
We are completely dependent on God at this point to make ends meet.
The kids have been put on the school bus to come home which I am considering a personal failure as father right about now. I have never left the care of my kids to anyone I didn't trust and here I am trusting the three most important people in my life to a stranger. My youngest daughter nearly had a fit when we said they were going to take the bus to school too. She started to cry. I felt like crap on a stick.
I have literally cried my way to work the last week or so dealing with all this.
Some tough guy right?
So this morning, aggravated, stuck in about ten miles of traffic, about ready to start screaming at God - "MIRACLES, MIRACLES, I NEED MIRACLES!", I pull up to the toll both with the last 75 cents I have in my pocket already dreading the drive home without the toll money to make it go faster. The smell of exhaust fumes wash over me as I lower the window.
"The guy in the car in front of you said have a Blessed day"
"Excuse me?"
"The car in front of you paid your toll."
What? Seriously? Someone else paid my toll?
That, of course, wouldn't be the first time someone paid for something for which I was responsible would it?
I thought of the cross, of redemption.
Jesus.
They say a dollar doesn't go far these days. They, who ever they are, are probably right. But I think that 75 cents can buy a moment of clarity on an expressway when you least expect it.
I drove away, tears streaming down my face.
I don't know if that guy in the pink shirt in the white sedan knows how much that gesture meant to me but I prayed that God would bless him a thousand fold for that simple act of kindness.
Wow. God will provide.
Always.

How Now Brown Cow?

The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
- Isaiah 58:11

In case you missed it in my last blog post, I am now working. I am working at a Christian company doing my web thing.
Awesome. Great. Fantastico!
But can I be honest?
I’m terrified, sick to my stomach with worry. I don’t want to be that way, I just am. See, I believe that God led me to this company and I am, by divine intervention, at the place I am supposed to be.
But to do that I took a pay cut.
A big one.
How much?
I’m afraid to tell you. You might think me mad. I know I have had similar thoughts. I have to be crazy, one fry short of a happy meal, elevator don’t go to the top no mo’. The world will tell you that money is everything, that having material possessions is the key to happiness.
It’s not.
You can have money and be perfectly miserable. You can have material possessions and still feel empty inside. I know. I have been down that road. I cry out to God on a daily basis to meet my needs because I am staring at the edge of the abyss. On one side I see nothing but financial disaster. If there is no such thing as the Devil then who is filling my mind with images of poverty and hunger and disaster?
Right, I have a very creative imagination, I freely admit that. But there is a spiritual dimension to this world that exists.
So I know he’s there and I know that the fear and trepidation I feel are being fed from him.
Whoa, hold on there Cowboy… Devil? Seriously?
Yeah, Devil, I said it.
See, old pointy ears knows what I am afraid of and he has stepped up his game of late, pressing his advantage, such that it is. Sure he reminds me of all the things I’ve done in my life (and it takes him a long time to go through it all, let me tell you…) but I have accepted my past and the forgiveness that comes with salvation.
Yes. Salvation. You heard me right.
Don’t go yet. I know, you think you can hear a sermon coming right? No sermon. This is just a me story. I’m sharing.
Only one bible verse, honest. There might be an alter call but seeing as I have no alter to come to and this is on the web, we’ll go with the honor system for now.
So I am saved (according to the bible) and that means I don’t need to worry about my past deeds. Good, ‘cuz rehashing the mistakes I’ve made could take a while. But I am saved, redeemed and happy about it.
But I still have life to live, bills to pay and all that. How does this all equate? Okay, because I believe doesn’t mean that my life suddenly has become church hymns and sermons, healthy doses of Kum Ba Ya.
Nope. I still got the same old hang ups, fears, concerns and pitfalls. The difference now is that I am aware of a God that doesn’t want me to go through the rough times alone. He never said it wouldn’t rain, just that he’s the shelter in the storm.
Footprints in the sand.
Ever read that? (For those of you that said no, click here )
So I am still concerned about my finances and what I am doing with my life at the moment but I believe that its part of the plan God has for my life. Jesus promised peace of mind if you have faith (see John 14:27).
That’s the next step for me, hanging on, having faith. Believing in something bigger than my own corner of existence and seeing what God does with my faith.
I’ll be back to let you know how God moved to help me cover my bills (which at last count was close to 2k in arrears). Maybe all of this is happening so that you would see a practical example of how Jesus provides for his own.
I don’t know how my needs will be met, only that they will be.
Trust me, you’ll be impressed. I know I always am.