My 2nd Ever Reverse Surprise Party

This past Thursday, August 21st, was my 27th birthday. It was about as boring and uneventful as most of them. Not near as uneventful as my 19th when Jason Palmer convinced everyone that I was lying about it being my birthday, but it was pretty stinking close. But part of the reason why it was so eventful, even though Thursday nights are when my small group from church meets, is because everyone in my small group was eagerly setting me up for a surprise I would never get!

I know as most of you are looking at the title you are saying much like Jleigh Holloway, "So where did you get the idea for this party?" And like I told her, "Well this is actually the 2nd time I have done this." And on that note, a little history lesson:

The year after I graduated from Appalachian and was still living in Boone working with Campus Crusade, I had a party pretty much similar to this one. One day I was sitting around with my roommate Andrew Stover, his then-girlfriend Sheila, and a friend who was rooming with us for a few weeks named Parke Ladd. Sheila asked me, "What should we do for your birthday?" And much like Jay Pop looked at me when I told him the idea a few weeks ago, she said "That's so stupid. You already know it's a surprise." But once I got those three on board I had the best party ever.

Which brings us to the present. So two weeks ago I was watching Michael Phelps swim for 8 golds which made me think, "Hey what was I doing last time Michael Phelps was going for 8 golds in the Olympics? Oh yeah, throwing myself a surprise party." So I quickly got Jay and Torrey Popovich on board and the plans were in the works.

For those of you who don't know the basic concept behind a reverse surprise party, which I'm sure most of you don't since it's worked so well twice now, the idea is that you get someone in on being the "official" planner/inviter. This person or people then convince everyone that they are setting up the birthday boy for a great surprise, while the birthday boy is actually calling all the shots. The first time I did this, the surprise was pretty lame because it was just me jumping out behind everyone yelling, "Surprise!" One thing I always thought was that if I could do that party over I would make a video to set up the surprise. And what do you know, I could do the party all over. And here it is....

At the end, the house seen is the Popovich residence, just a little hint to the guests of where I would appear. And the final clip is me standing in their upstairs loft exactly as I stood when the video hit its conclusion. Sorry for those of you who weren't able to experience the surprise in person, but maybe if I have inspired at least once of you to pull your own surprise party someday, it was all worth it!

Reverse Surprise Party Awards

After my 2nd ever reverse surprise party I had to give some awards for all the great festivities...

MOST LIKELY TO RUIN THE SURPRISE: Lily Grace Holloway, a year old who continually tried to walk up on my hiding spot.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR/ACTRESS: Jay and Torrey Popovich. Thanks for your help guys!

BEST MISSPELLING: Courtney Brady. Though I have to admit, the HAPPY BITHDAY cake was delicious!

BEST SNACK: Jon Davis. I could eat little sausages wrapped in bacon all day long.

BEST SNACK (NON-MEAT DIVISION): Courtney Brady. Hey you don't need an R to be delicious!

WORST TIMING FOR A FACEBOOK MESSAGE EVER: Jennifer Martin with her comment: "hey are you throwing yourself a surprise party again?"

THE REAP WHAT YOU SOW AWARD: Justin Perry. I suppose if you give someone coupons for a Christmas present, you should definitely expect coupons for your birthday present.

BEST SURPRISE: Well since I was the only one who surprised anybody, I guess that award goes to ME!

Adventures in Paris

For those of you who have travelled often you know that some crazy stuff is bound to happen. If only we had known what great adventures lay before us. This is us trapped in an elevator. We were stranded for about 45 minutes. I was loving of it, but some people weren't so much. Greg was definitely not worried, but you wouldn't know it from this picture. And just a word of warning, when a French elevator says weight limit 7 people, 8 people will definitely break it.
This is us (L to R: Jeremy, me, Kelly, Dan) getting ready for a nice leisurely bike ride. On Friday nights in Paris there is a huge bike ride where people meet at this famous hotel and all ride together and police block of all the traffic in all the intersections. The group rides to the Eiffel Tower, takes a 15 minute snack break then comes back to the hotel. Only we were about 3 minutes late for the meeting.......

I've got to be honest I was kinda anxious about not being able to stay with the group. I really didn't want to be riding through the streets without the police escort, especially the way many people drive in Europe. But since the 10 of us from our group were late we didn't really have a choice. Fortunately we had a local worker with us who knew the side streets and could help us catch up the group......
Well believe it or not, we never saw the main group again, but the ride to try to catch them was definitely the funnest bike ride of my life. In trying to catch up with the group we had to take a bunch of sidestreets, but as we got close to the Eiffel Tower then the fun began. The only way to cut across to the Eiffel Tower was to weave between oncoming traffic through 5-6 lines of traffic to cross four or five different streets. So we're crossing the streets and all the girls are screaming bloody murder and I'm laughing my head off cause I've never had so much fun. It was definitely like the old school Nintendo game Paperboy except in the game if you got hit by a car you just had to start over. Unfortunately no one was able to take any pictures while we were dodging cars, but here is a picture of me and Kelly after we crossed one of the streets. And can my boy Greg overexaggerate an injury or what. Dude stepped in this little 4 inch hole and started rolling on the ground like he just got shot in the face. A lot of people actually thought he was playing charades. This is a picture of some volunteer paramedics strapping him into a collapse-able wheelchair. I think he was just faking it to get out of housework once we got home, but he definitely had to play up it to keep the fib going.

Ok, the truth is he already had a sprained ankle and the injury was pretty minor. But because he was rolling on the ground due to the intial pain some people overreacted and got to the paramedics. Then he had to spend the next 5-6 hours getting his ankle poked at by everyone in Paris would had ever considered being a doctor, nurse, EMT, trainer, bank teller, etc. Needless to say, it was a pretty funny situation considering he was only mildly injured.

Cool Stuff around Paris

This is a picture of the guys on our team. Front row (L to R): Jeremy, Greg, David. Back Row (L to R): Dan, Jay, CJ, Dr. Williams.

Here we are playing taboo in the Detriot airport. My team won, of course.

This is the lower-floor cave of this cool French restaurant. The food was great and the atmosphere was obviously pretty cool.
This is apparently Dr. William's favorite pastime because he was asleep probably 3x as much as he was awake.
Here is me and David playing soccer with some kids. Guess which two look like they are playing the hardest (clue: they're tall, white, and American).

I could really get used to some moving sidewalks.
Here are some of us eating sandwiches near the Eiffel Tower. Clockwise from front: Jay, Jeremy, Kelly, Rachel, Dan, Greg, and CJ.


Here is Dan "drinking" from St. Michel's fountain. This trip was definitely all about some weird poses with the local architecture.

Fun in Paris

Here is some of the cool stuff you can do around Paris.
Near the Louvre is a large pool of water. Kids can rent these miniature sailboats that they can push out and watch the wind carry them across to the other side. It was especially cool when two boats would crash into each other!

If you can't read the sign: in Paris gas is 1.589 euros/liter which comes out to about $8/gal so stop complaining.

Every year Paris has a music festival where there are large concerts in places like the Eiffel Tower, but all around the city at various street corners smaller bands would be playing and people would stand around and sing or dance. It was pretty cool. This band specialized in such French classics like "Sweet Home Alabama."
I mean it's not a vacation if you don't eat McDonald's!

These are the coolest port-a-potties on the planet. The doors are machine operated. You press the button to go in and press the handle to come out. If you don't come out in 15 minutes the doors open automatically. And the coolest part, when the door closes after you leave, it isn't just the toilet that flushes, the whole room does!


This was right next to the band in the picture above. Some of us guys were more into this than the singing. I mean it is incredibly breath-taking to see such a sweet ride just sitting there on a random corner unattended. Some of us even discussed stealing it, but we didn't think that would be a good idea on a missions trip. But I think one thing we can all agree on, it is one sweet bike.

Monuments of Paris

These are pictures of some of the cool monuments located around Paris.

This is a picture of Notre Dame ("Our Lady"), probably the most famous church in the world. The artwork and detail on this church is incredible. Though the architecture has often drawn people away from focusing on the Lord it was easy for me to see the good intentions behind them. The huge cavernous ceilings make you feel so small and insignificant. The statues and artwork point to important aspects of Christian history and Biblical teaching. Though it is primarly a tourist location now, I pray may God truly use this place for his purposes!

This is a St. Michel's fountain located near Notre Dame.

This is the Arc de Triomphe. It is a monument dedicated to the French soldiers from the Napoleanic wars. There is also a monument underneath to an unknown soldier from WWI.

Here is the monument: "Ici repose un soldat francais mort pour la partie 1914-1918" meaning basically "Here lies a soldier who died for the country 1914-1918."

This is the Grande Arche. It is kind of a newer version of the Arc de Triomphe. It is a few miles from the Arc de Triomphe, but they perfectly face each other.

This is a huge thumbs up near the Grande Arche. There was lots of interesting statues and pieces of artwork in this area, but this one was definitely the most interesting by far.

For any of you who have any doubt, this is a picture of me. Oh yea, and the Eiffel Tower. Behind the Tower is a large grassy area where lots of young people hang out late at night.

This is Sacre Coeur another famous church in Paris. Sacre Coeur meaning "Sacred Heart" sits atop a huge hill overlooking the city. This church though much like Notre Dame seemed to do a great job of making an intentional effort through various signs and explanations of artwork, statues, etc. of pointing its visitors towards the true reason behind the church.

This is a view of the city from Sacre Coeur.

This is a small section of the Louvre (the whole thing would have taken about 6-7 pictures from where I was standing), one of the most famous museums in the world and home of the original Mona Lisa.

This is Versailles. It is located just west of Paris. These buildings were built primarly by the French kings during the 17th and 18th centuries. This place was definitely one of the nicest places I've ever been. This place was loaded full of gold and jewels all over the place.

While waiting on Greg to purchase tickets for Versailles a few of us made up a coin tossing game to pass the time. And apperently Security thought we were gambling. And just so you know gambling is illegal at national monuments in Paris. Fortunately we were able to communicate we were just goofing off and not gambling. Thank goodness cause I'm too young to die in a French prison!

This is the Hall of Mirrors from inside Versailles. This is just a small picture of the extravagance of the buildings.

The Wonderful Land of Paris

I have finally gotten back from Paris. Well I actually got back Tuesday so for both of you who were waiting anxiously to see this already, I'm sorry. For everyone else, welcome to the present. My 10 days in Paris were an incredible time to see God work and to listen for his direction in my life.

There was a group of 13 of us from Southeastern who went to Paris for the trip. The purpose of our trip was to aid the full-time workers there in the work they are doing with the IMB. The group that we were working with work with North Africans. This allows them to have opportunities to present the gospel to people from 21 unreached people groups that can be more openly conversed with in France, who then would be able to return to their homes and reach their own people more effectively.

Some of the things that we did during our trip was to do surveys, distribute Jesus films, and to put on a "carnival" for young children in a local park. The people groups we were working with are so friendly. And in general the French were so much nicer than they are categorized to be, but a possible reason for this stereotype is likely because they come from a culture were they don't talk to and make eye contact with strangers. In their mindset, and truthfully, it doesn't really serve much of a purpose in most cases to do otherwise anyhow.

We had an opportunity to interact with many great people. Sometimes we were told by Muslims that we should not be there and that we were stirring up trouble which often results from the tension created between devout muslims and those who have rejected what all their friends and family believe. Also since areas which claim to be "Christian" like America broadcast such immorality is it easy to see why devout Muslims who pride themselves in trying to live as pure as possible would have problems with what they believe is Christianity.

The main purpose of our trip was basically to gain contacts for the full-time workers which we did a great job of doing, but we also had one unexpected result. For many Muslims is takes a long time in order to convert to a different religion because for many it requires forsaking everything and everyone in their life. However, on Sunday one of the workers had the opportunity to see God draw a man to himself after only 2 hours! God is so good!

In the next posts will be pictures of France that hopefully can give you a good idea of what went on and some of the cool sights. Thanks again for everyone who prayed for and financially supported our team!

WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?!

My family was probably the last people in the Free World to get an answering machine. My dad said that if the call was really important then they would just keep calling back over and over and over until we were finally home. This strategy left me stranded alone at school one night until 9pm, but we digress. We were also the last people to purchase a cell phone. My dad used to even carry a fake one and carry on fake conversations in Wal-mart. Speaking of computers, if you don't know what DOS is, I know where I can get you one.

Although I have not to the same extent shared in my father's archaic distaste for modern technology, I still have a tendency to lag behind when it comes to the Internet. I remember cursing the day of Page Trimble's birth for using my computer to access Facebook. Okay I was upset, but not that much, but can you seriously not visit with a friend for a few hours and not check your stupid facebook page! But yet, I have been a semi-faithful facebooker for almost 3 years now. Now Mypsace, well somewhere very arid and dry will most likely freeze over before you see me on there.

And now we come to my opinion of the beloved blog. How can I state this without the use of expletives? Hmmm (Note: time spent reading does not adequately reflect time spent thinking). "Why would any person in their right mind in way believe that anyone in all of God's creation could even begin to give a rat's behind what random thoughts pop in their head? Especially those people who spout off their conceited opinion on some likely useless or inconsequential topic. Nobody cares what they think. No one with a life will even know that they have a blog."

I guess that's good enough to sum up my opinion on blogs. But as you (and that you is singular because I don't really assume more than one person will ever see this) are reading this statement I'm sure you are crying, "Stone the hypocrite! Off with his head!" But now I suppose I must offer an explanation......

In just over 2 weeks, from June 14 - June 24, I will be spending time in Paris with a group from Southeastern taking the opportunity to live and share the Gospel while helping the full-time missionaries that are there. So the original purpose of this blog is simply to post info for those who are interested about the interesting events that went down in The City of Lights.

So based upon my history of disdain for blogs this could be the end. Or it could be only the glorious beginning of a magnificient look into the mind of the mindless. Only history will tell, if history ever cares about my stupid blog.