Atlanta Oops

Report on Just Me & the Dog, Day 1-  Took a long nap, watched the Rays game, watched the Cubs game, made chocolate chip cookies.  This may work out after all!  :)

As I have mentioned here before, it seems like a ridiculous number of things have happened to me in Atlanta over the years.  You can flashback to previous posts and hear stories of gang fights, table dancing, roadside barfing, ticket "sculpting" and more.  Today I want to tell you two stories from the Kissimmee years that took place on two separate trips to Atlanta.  Both of them are OOPS Moments, and the first oops is all mine...

We left FUMC-K early one morning and drove to Atlanta, headed up for my annual trip to see the Braves play.  I didn't purchase tickets in advance, and planned on buying tickets at Turner Field.  We pulled up in front of the ballpark, and I began to wheel and deal with some of the locals selling tickets.  I don't remember what year it was, but I do remember that Karen Fry was with me, and she was worried something bad was going to happen to me dealing with such unsavory folks.  I assured her there was nothing to worry about.  I found a guy who had as many tickets as we needed together at a price I liked, and I purchased them.  It was a very simple transaction.  I got back in the van, feeling rather proud of myself.  I began to show the tickets to the kids when I realized something was terribly wrong.  The tickets were not for that night; they were for later that weekend.  I ran back out to find the guy, but he was long gone.  I eventually sold the tickets at a huge loss and we got cheaper seats for the game.  That was my last adventure with scalping tickets.  I also believe that this was the same trip when the van broke down on the way home and we spent several hours at a gas station in Gainesville.  The whole trip was one giant OOPS.

We were back in Atlanta in the summer of 1999.  Chad Deetz (far left) had replaced Jerry Hanbery as my Summer Intern, and was just starting to really feel comfortable in those rather large shoes.  We happened to be in town at the same time as Ozfest, a heavy metal festival headlined by Ozzy Osborne.  We came back to our motel after the game, had some worship time together, and then headed off for bed.  I remember I was rooming with the youngest guys, and Chad was with some of the other guys.  I know for sure he was with Josh Fry and Eric Jakobsen.  Sometimes after midnight I got a call telling me to come to their room, that there was trouble.  I walked to the other side of our floor and discovered that the police had come to their room.  It seems that my guys, led by my intern, had been out on the balcony having a water fight with the girls next door.  The officer had been doing a drive-thru of the motel parking lot and had seen the water war.  Thinking these young people might be in Atlanta for Ozfest, and therefore likely to be on drugs (his thinking, not mine), he came up to the room.  He demanded to see ID, but Josh was only 13 or 14 and had none.  The officer did not believe Josh was that young, since at that age he could already grow a full beard!  We got it all worked out, and I made the guys apologize to the front desk the next morning, which was really funny because the front desk had no idea anything had happened.  It was just a wild night.  Later that summer Chad spent a lot of time lost with the second van while driving around Nashville on our Mission Trip. It is safe to say he earned his stripes that summer, and went on to full time youth ministry as a vocation.  But that night he almost lost a job that didn't really pay anything to begin with...

I hope you can see how doing youth ministry for 28 years made for a very strong prayer life.  :)   Only one month left in my year of blogging, so stay with me.  There is really good stuff still to come!

Because of Jesus,