Praise the Lord! Robin’s hernia repair surgery went very well today. The surgery was at 7am and she was out and in recovery by 9am. She was put in an observation room until tomorrow. Thanks mom, for being there for her this morning and waiting with me until she was out of surgery and her room. When I left at 4:30pm she was a little more coherent and getting a bit hungry. The doctor said that she should not be lifting anything heavy for about 6 to 8 weeks. We will keep a
n eye on her to make sure that happens. Again, Praise God!
On a more somber note, I have not mentioned that my mom has been diagnosed with lung cancer. She is taking it pretty well, that I can tell over the phone. Please be praying for her. Also, my sister’s stomach ailments have finally been diagnosed. Her doctor has prescribed some medication and she hopes to be better in a few weeks. PTL! My Ninnie is out of the hospital, she was having some dementia problems and her bladder was really acting up again. She will be staying in a nursing home for a few weeks.
Author Archives: barrydean
Let the healing begin
One of life’s best days
As promised I have pictures from graduation. It was a great day. I arrived at the audi
torium around 8am. I met and congratulated some of my classmates. We filed out of the basement by rows and seated ourselves for the commencement at 9am. The commencement began at promptly 9:30am. The speakers were pretty good and the whole ceremony finished in about two hours. They called each graduate by name and if they were graduating with honors. The highlight of the morning was of course walking across the stage with my mock diploma. After the ceremony we went to mom Venus’ apartment clubhouse for a post-graduation party. The party was fun and we had quite a few folks turn out. Click on picture to right to see more.
Goin’ to California
Today I finalized plans to attend the 2006 Shepherds’ Conference in Sun Valley, California(can you say it like Ahhhnold). Woo Hoo!! The conference is a church leadership conferen
ce hosted by Grace Community Church. The church pastored by none other than John MacArthur Jr. The conference is March 1st to March 5th. I am so humbled and encouraged by the fact that I was invited to go by our senior pastor. It is such a God thing, no doubt. There are about 16 of us going as a group. I am looking forward to the training and growth I know I will get at this conference. I do not know what God has in store for me, but His promise is for my benefit and His glory. I will be following up with additional posts about the conference as the plans unfold.
Oh yeah. Today I also picked up my cap and gown for my graduation ceremony which is this Saturday. I’ll post some pics of it after.
The Friday Factor
I have been reading some blogs about the guest appearance of Bill O’Reilly on The Late Show with David Letterman. I have also been hearing some clips of it on talk radio, so I went out on the Net to see if I could find the whole segment. I found the following link takes you to the whole segment with Bill O’Reilly. January 3rd with Bill O’Reilly. When the video starts notice that Letterman stirs the guests coffee with his pencil. Later in the segment you will see O’Reilly take a drink from the cup. I hope you will also notice the way David Letterman tries to instigate O’Reilly into losing his composure. But O’Reilly doesn’t. Also notice the way Letterman tries to argue with O’Reilly. He uses subjective opinion opposed to O’Reilly’s objective opinion. Letterman also changes the subject on a couple of occasions. Letterman is just not even in the same class to debate O’Reilly. It is my opinion that Bill O’Reilly does a wonderful job as a guest in a hostile environment. Let me know what you think and post a comment.
I am also posting a picture on Robin’s Mazda 3 after she got it back from the body shop. The dealership body shop did not complete the driver door. Whenever it is shut, it sounds like a tin can, opposed to the other 3 passenger doors. I think they forgot to put in the door insulation or something. It sure is hard to find great service anymore. I am also posting a good picture of our moose, Roscoe P. Coltrane. Please click on the picture to see the larger version.
Music to my ears
I haven’t posted anything for awhile so I will talk about a rock band that I am just now getting into, Dream Theater. They have been around since the early 90’s and are still recordin
g today. Their music is characterized as progressive metal. They appeal to my sense of music like that of Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I am posting a link to one of their tracks from the album Images And words. The clip is called Surrounded. Click on the album cover to the right. Enjoy!
Update 1/14/06 – I have since learned about music licenses and I have changed the link to be a clip of the same song. Sorry Mom, you should be able to play it now and maybe this album cover is not as scary as the Scenes From A Memory cover. 
Happy New Year
Welcome to the beginning of a new year. Happy New Year 2006!! I pray everyone had a joyful time bringing in the new year. My wife Robin and I spent it with friends from church. It was a very joyful time. We ate chili and had some delicious deserts. We also had awesome conversation, and played dominos into the night. We brought in the new year traveling home. New Years day was fairly uneventful. We went to church, worshipped the Lord in song. Pastor Pat spoke on Matthew 18:15-20, The Four Steps For Church Purity, a very challenging part of scripture. Today I bottled my first batch of home brewed beer. I will add the link of my 
home brew kit to my favorite links list. Today one of my favorite college teams will be playing football in the Fiesta Bowl. The Ohio State University Buckeyes vs. Notre Dame. Go Bucks!! I will post the score later.
The day after
I haven’t posted anything in awhile. I have been busy. The season does that to you. It has been a good busy, not the typical life is flying by me busy. I have been thoroughly enjoying it these past few days. Christmas Eve, my wife, daughter, one my sons, and I went to the Christmas eve service at church. It was a very blessed time of worship and celebration. We had a candle light service which was very traditional. We all went over to my wife’s sisters house for feasting and gift exchange. Two of our other sons met us there. We had an excellent time of enjoying each others company. It was one of the best times I’ve had there. My local mom gave me a
home brewery kit so I can make my own beer. It was very cool. Christmas day we went to church again since this year Christmas is on a Sunday. Our pastor preached about four different perspective of the birth of Jesus. It was very thought provoking, as always. After, at home, we feasted on Mexican eggs, sausage, bacon, and non-alcoholic mimosas. We opened gifts afterwards, and everything became a blur. I am posting a photo stream to record the event. Later that evening we went over to a friends home and had more treats and some good conversation. Today we did some running around town. We dropped off my wife’s car to have the body damage fixed. The details of the reason for that will be in the next post along with some before pictures.
Click on the picture above to go to the Christmas photo stream at Flickr.
Three days until Christmas
Only three more shopping days until Christmas. My shopping is basically done. It is a tough job since all I really need to focus on is the shopping for my lovely wife. I will be doing the traditional last minute shopping in the next couple of days, but that will be mostly stocking stuffers.
I wanted to update the blog to let everyone know that my wife is doing fine. She went to the doctor and he told her that he is 99% sure that her condition was caused by the amount of caffeine she had for that day, plus the espresso on the way home. She is back to her normal silly self and baking up a storm for Christmas. PTL!!
Getting Wet
PTL, three young saints were baptized Sunday evening at church. I was privileged to be a participant in the event. Our associate pastor asked me to help him with the baptisms and to do the closing prayer after. It is an honor to serve my church and ultimately my Lord. It is also a blessing to see folks obedient in following the Lord in baptism.
As a side note please pray for my wife as she had a weird experience Sunday night on the way home. We stopped for Starbucks and she had a red eye, which is coffee with one shot of espresso. We stopped at Walmart after that and she started to get a bit fuzzy in her vision. By the time she got home she couldn’t think very clearly at all. She was muttering about not remembering a word that describes knowing something without having to be told about it. She was not seeing correctly and had some numb sensations in her right hand and in her mouth. She has an appointment to see our doctor this today.
Upon This Rawk 
