I Want to Drink More Food

This is like drinking pumpkin pie!

Larry Swank

Thanks to Christmas Creep, I guess the Christmas season is upon us? Meh. I hate Christmas Creep. Stop trying to sell me Christmas presents and make everyone think that Christmas is about presents and commercialism instead of the birth of our Lord and Savior into this world as a man. But that's not what this blog post is about.

This blog post is about one of the good things about Christmas Creep: the early advent of specialty foods. In this case, specifically, Prairie Farms Old Recipe milk. They've got egg nog, candy cane milk, chocolate cherry, and chocolate mint milk. They're delicious, and each quart comes with a free punch to the arteries. They've also got a pumpkin spice flavor (which I suppose is more a Thanksgiving thing negating my ramble at the beginning of the post, but it stays anyway) which tastes exactly like drinking pumpkin pie. It's like you took a piece of pumpkin pie - just the awesome guts part, not the crust - stuck it in a blender with some milk, and then drank what came out on the other side. It is incredible, and I recommend that you try it immediately.

It got me thinking, though, that we need to have more foods liquefied for our convenience, though. Foods like these:

• Lasagna. It's got cheese in it so the dairy base is already there. It wouldn't be hard to come up with some tangy, smooth drinking lasagna milk. How delicious would that be for a quick lunch, huh? Yes, I'm completely serious. Chug down some milk and get the tangy taste of tomato sauce and some well-spiced sausage as it goes down. Yum.
  
  
• Jell-O. Yeah, I know that such a thing as fruit juice exists, but it's not the same. You know how if you have a chocolate shake and let it melt and then drink it that it tastes similar to - but distinctly different from - chocolate milk? I'm proposing that the same would be true with Jell-O. There's this flavor quality in Jell-O that doesn't exist in real fruit. I chalk it up to what Jell-O is actually made of. In any case, Liquid Jell-O, please. And don't tell me just to make Jell-O and drink it before it hardens. I want to buy this stuff at a Speedway when I'm in a hurry.
  
  
• Brownies and apple pie. I used to work at Steak and Shake when I was in high school, and we were all the time making non-standard shakes for ourselves. Our two favorites were hot fudge brownie shakes and apple pie shakes. We'd make the original desert, heated up and all, and then dump it into the blender with some ice milk to make the best shakes ever. Someone box this up for me.
  
  
• Bologna and eggs. Here's how you make bologna and eggs - scramble some eggs, dump in some fried bologna, and then melt cheese over it before serving. Try it, think about how delicious it is, and then imagine drinking such a concoction. This is one you'd have to serve warm, maybe before bed.
  
  
• Creme brule. This is probably the most reasonable of my suggestions. Take the richest dessert I can think of and liquefy it. Is this so hard? Honestly. I mean, you couldn't set it on fire or burn the top of it or anything, but that's not the point. The point is that I want to drink creme brule. If you've got to burn something to enjoy it, set fire to the carton with a blowtorch after you empty it.
  
  
• Your favorite kids' breakfast cereal. Doesn't matter what it is, this would be a goldmine. You know that the best part of any bowl of cereal is the milk leavins'. Count Chocula is delicious, yeah, but the Count Chocula flavored milk that's left over after you finish the cereal? That's a delicacy. You could ship that stuff east and come back with boat loads of spices and gunpowder if you survived the voyage. We've been to the moon, so why can't I buy milk that tastes like there's been Captain Crunch sitting in it for half an hour? And Frosted Flakes flavored milk? That's the king of milk leavins'. That could replace cow-flavored milk in every American household. You know it's better than normal milk.
  
  
• Bacon. That's right, liquid bacon. This one doesn't need any explanation at all, quite honestly. It's liquid bacon. It'd be delicious. And just think of the potential for it as a topping! Squirt a little liqiud bacon on top of any cheeseburger or on your eggs (or even your bologna and eggs) and you've got an instant party!
  

And yes, I'm completely serious. I'd drink all of that stuff. I'd buy liquid bacon by the case, I'd have a gallon of Frosted Flakes flavored milk in my fridge at all times, and creme brule flavored milk would likely put me in ICU in short order. C'mon, corporate America food producers! Put your chemicals and hormones to good use for once and make something awesome!

About Me

I've never written one of these here [my Facebook page], which is somewhat surprising to me given my tendency to ramble from the fingers ...

Larry Swank

At home, I am a husband to beautiful, Godly woman. I am father to three wonderful children: my princess, my best buddy, and my little ball of joy. I am Mr. Swank, the principal of FortySixTen Academy, for three glorious hours every weekday morning. I am a guy always looking for a game to play with someone. I play Pokemon, because somewhere just under the surface I still have the joy of remembering how to have fun like a child.

At work, I am a web developer. I am a database architect. I am a I'm a graphic designer. I create things that work the way they're supposed to. I am my own worst critic. I come in when I want and work as long as I want, and my non-existent boss is cool with that. I wear fuzzy slippers, and I work literally a foot from where I sleep.

At church, I am a disciple. I am the bass player. I used to be the audio guy, but I graduated, leaving my wife to be the audio babe. I am the webmaster. I make cakes, which are occasionally well decorated. When necessary, I am manual labor, because skill in labor isn't one of my strengths.

Wherever I go, I am a child of God. I am a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth, fully God and fully man, and I profess my faith in Him as my Lord and Savior. Although I often sin, I have been forgiven and made clean by the blood of the Lamb. I am thankful for the victory of Jesus on the cross.

Dangerous

DANGEROUS!

Gabe Sapolsky
as Jimmy Bower
Former Ring of Honor broadcaster

Any of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook might have seen me post that phrase a time or two before. Usually, I post it right as I'm about to drive somewhere. It's the equivalent of Boromir blowing his horn before leaving on a long journey to warn the foes of Gondor that he's about. "I'm on the road, so you stay off if you know what's good for you." That sort of thing.

It originates from old DVDs for the indie wrestling promotion Ring of Honor. The Booker, Gabe Sapolsky, played a character named Jimmy Bower, one of the announcers in the fed's early days. When something especially dangerous would happen - a head drop suplex, a stupid dive through a table, or so on - Bower would belt out with his trademark call of "Dangerous!" It was always my favorite part of any show; partly because something ridiculous was guaranteed to have just happened, but partly because I really like the call. It resonated with me.

I read Wild at Heart by John Eldredge this past week. If you've never read it and are either a man trying to understand yourself better or a woman trying to understand men better, I recommend picking it up, as it's an excellent read. Eldredge talks about what's at the heart of a man - what God has programmed into us from the beginning of His creation - and spends a lot of time pointing out that men are inherently dangerous creatures. We like doing dangerous, adventurous things. We're all, deep down, Likes to Fight Guy.

This has been a remarkable eye opener for me. Three and a half years ago, I made the most dangerous decision of my life. I left a job that gave me a steady (if somewhat meager) paycheck to jump into the wild unknown of entrepreneurship. God blessed that greatly almost immediately, giving me an amazing client I still have the privilege of working with to this day, and has continued to bless that boldness.

Somewhere along the line, though, I lost that. I lost the desire to take risks. I got complacent in my success. I forgot that what made me successful in the first place was the blessing that God gave me for trusting Him and walking forward boldly in that trust.

I'm trying to recapture that now. I'm trying to find the adventurous spirit that He put in me that enabled me to be an entrepreneur in the first place. More importantly, I'm trying to find the path he wants me to walk down in my business now. I'm sure it's going to be risky, but that's the point sometimes. If everything is safe, we can't trust Him.

"For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline."
- 2 Timothy 1:7 (NASB)

Aunt Bethany Should Say Grace

Grace? She passed away thirty years ago.

They want you to say grace. The blessing!

Mae Questel as Aunt Bethany
and William Hickey as Uncle Lewis
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (2009)

I spent the past weekend at a campground in Clay City, working as a volunteer at a Walk to Emmaus Christian retreat. If you have never been on one - and there are Emmaus communities in every state so your location is no excuse - I highly recommend that you go. They're among the most enlightening and enriching spiritual experiences I can imagine having here on this earth.

Getting to work at the Walk, though, that was something different. It rained on us all weekend, for starters, so I spent the weekend walking around in the mud. I was on my feet more than someone clocking in at 232 pound at my height probably should be for the four days. I was routinely one of the last people on the campground to go to bed and one of the first to get up. The first day, it rained so hard as we got set up that I had to change all of my clothes, as they'd all been soaked through. The cinder block cabin I stayed in was, from all appearances, the birthing place of all spiders.

And I would not change any of it. It was, with no exaggeration, the most spiritually fulfilling thing that I've ever done.

I was privileged to spend those days in the company of thirty-three guys seeking to have a deeper walk with their Lord. I was able to serve them in whatever capacity I was needed, and got to see them change from their arrival on Thursday to their departure on Sunday. And, true to His form, God found plenty of time to work in me while He was doing His thing with the acutal Pilgrims. I spent the weekend surrounded by love and filled with the Holy Spirit, and got to expend every ounce of myself in service to my Lord and my fellow man. I honestly don't know how it could get any better than that.

I was unsure what to expect going in. I didn't think it would be nearly as enriching as actually experiencing the walk as a pilgrim was. It turned out to be even more enriching and more meaningful for me, though, which is one of God's little miracles considering how fantastic an experience it was the first time.

Alright, enough gushing. Go to a Walk if you've never been. Work one if you have. The experiences will change your life.

Friday

In a loud voice they sang:
   "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
   to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
   and honor and glory and praise!"

Revelation 5:12 (NIV)

It has been a crazy week. I spent the week sick, but then had to stop being sick when Holli got sick (becuase only one parent can be sick at a time). While still partly sick, I walked around the church's neighborhood on Wednesday, met some of the awesome people in the community we've moved into, and invited them to our block party on Sunday. I busted my tail yesterday at work trying to catch up on what I missed, still not fully well but well enough to sit up, work, and cough occasionally. Today I went to WVIHOP for my weekly set there, and now I'm trying to plow through some more work. Did I mention I started writing songs this week, too?

Yeah, it's been kind of nuts. I don't normally look forward to the end of the workweek like the rest of humanity does, because my days just kind of run together. From where I work, I could make it to my bed and take a nap without the use of my legs. It sort of makes the concept of "going to work" as opposed to "staying home" obsolete, so the weekend just happens to be the part of the week where I don't work, not the part where I don't have a boss yelling at me. I've got more time for the Lord and more time for my family, but it's not like those days are unrecognizable from the rest of the week.

This week, though, I need the rest. I'm pretty much just worn out from the sickness and the post sickness scrambling to catch up, and I need to just relax. I look forward to my Sabbath starting in a few hours.

What's keeping me going right now? Number one, Holli's grooming me, which is awesome. Number two, we sang Revelation Song - my absolute favorite song right now - for like thirty minutes during the set at WVIHOP this morning. Those two things are powering me through the day right now.

Blargh. See y'all next week.

Justice in 140 Characters or Less

That must be weird. Talking about that with a policeman on Twitter.

Brianna Swank

Yesterday, I was going to Wendy's with Holli and Connor for dinner. Holli was driving, because I hate driving and avoid it whenever possible whereas she loves it, so that works for us. We pulled up to a stop light right in front of Honey Creek Mall, where US 41 northbound gets funneled into one lane because of construction, and traffic just stopped. People were inching forward into the intersection, cutting other people off. Those people were in turn then breaking as many traffic laws as possible to wedge between cars and get to their destinations. We sat, with zero exaggeration on my part, for more than fifteen minutes at this light, which is dumb. While we were sitting, of course, we saw a sheriff pull through on his way to get somewhere instead of doing something about the mess.

So I tweeted about it. It's kind of my thing. This morning, when going through Tweetdeck as part of my daily routine, I got a response back from an actual law enforcement officer informing me that it was THPD jurisdiction, not the county's.

I vacillated back and forth on whether or not this was awesome or Big Brother style scary, and I think I'm settled on awesome. The possibilities here are kind of mind boggling, actually. Could Twitter replace 911 in my never-ending request to destroy landlines and run Verizon out of business? Seriously. Think about this:

Just got into a wreck. GPS coords in profile. Send officer, please. #THPD

That is pure, unfiltered awesomeness, my friends. Especially with the total lack of social filter and common sense that so many people have on the internet. Because for every handful of polite tweets like that one we'd have requesting help from our neo-911 system, we'd have one like this.

Just smashed a car and punched the guy. I'm drunk. GPS on tweet. Send cop, idiots. #THPDsucks

Watching more deserving people go to jail for being rude and speaking their mind without the imminent threat of a police officer in their faces would make me happy. And can you imagine an episode of Cops? "We're responding to a tweet in town. Woman said her husband was threatening to pwnz0r her like a n00b." Priceless.

My New Office

I hate your bookshelf.

Holli Swank

I moved some furniture last night. Took a bookshelf out of Connor's bedroom that was housing toys and replaced it with some plastic tubs that serve the same purpose. Then I put that bookshelf, which was a little old and ratty, and put it in our back hallway. It replaced a second, nicer, and somewhat smaller bookshelf, which was just the right size to move into our bedroom. It now houses most of my junk in our bedroom, leaving our other bookshelf back here for Holli's stuff.

I love it, of course, because I've got a place for my stuff which satisfies the part of my brain that craves orderliness. It's also allowed me to reclaim desk space, something I greatly desired. Getting a bunch of my gaming junk off of the desk, where it formerly resided because I had nowhere else for it, has given me tons more breathing room here. It's making working much more enjoyable.

The most unexpected and, quite possibly, most awesome benefit of it, though, is that it's basically given me a little cubicle area to work in. It's fantastic. I can't explain why I love it so much, but I am absolutely enthralled by it. Boxing myself in is, apparently, full of win.