I've moved the blog

I've moved my blog over to Wordpress:
http://jasonpauli.wordpress.com/

I was overcome with jealousy over the layout of a blog I read that I had to do it.

Sorry for the inconvenience

Blog ADD

I'm noticing that I have blog ADD, I have no patience to read long blog posts.

This guy named Abraham has a blog called "22 Words: Exercises in getting to the point (or avoiding it) by saying what I have to say in twenty-two words, not counting titles."

That's a little extreme for me and I don't have the patience to count words like that every time.

So I'm going to try writing blog posts no longer than 5 sentences for a week and see how it goes.

Maybe I'll do something a little longer than 22 words eventually.

1 in 4 teenage girls has an STD

I got the heads up from Kurt. The Wall Street article is here.

Here's a few blurbs:
-One in four American women between the ages of 14 and 19 has a sexually transmitted disease.
-The majority of those cases are infections with strains of a virus, human papillomavirus, that are associated with genital warts and cancer. (I think HPV is the leading cause of cervical cancer - JP)
-Forty percent of the teenage girls reported having sex. Twenty six percent had sexually transmitted infections.
-“What’s surprising about this is just how quickly young adolescent women acquire sexually transmitted diseases once they become sexually active,” Fenton said. “Nearly one in five women will acquire one of these infections within the first year after being sexually active.”

These are all reasons why Diane and I tell girls that have been sexually active that they need to go get tested. Notice "sexually active" - not "had sex". A lot of the STD's are transmitted through touch. If you've been active you need to know what you may have picked up.

Probably not a bad idea for guys too.

Timeline of a retreat cancellation/reschedulation or... The Great Sex Weekend vs. The Quilting Weekend

I actually got word Thursday of the big storm coming from my winterophile friend Dave through his blog. I make fun of him perodically for being a weather nut and being in love with winter but this time it paid off big.

This was the weekend for our "Great Sex Retreat." I read Dave's blog about the approaching storm and starting thinking through alternatives if we needed one. Larry helped get me comfortable with the idea that we'd lose hundreds of dollars on food (our retreat place had already bought it) and talked to our finance guy Bernie about having to swallow it.

I started planning for the best and preparing for the worst. That's the most responsible thing to do in these situations. I had decided Thursday night that if I saw travel warnings being issued on Friday then I'd have to reschedule and call everyone involved.

I was up and on the home computer by 5:30am and got on Accuweather's site. By then every national weather organization had issued a winter storm warning which is when they tell you to only travel if it's absolutely necessary.

The problem was... it didn't look too bad out. All reports said the snow would start falling around 10:00am. That's when A.J., our church tech guy, was supposed to pick up a rental van with me to haul sound gear to the retreat. If I was going to reschedule, I wanted to do it before then so I wouldn't waste another few hundred bucks on the van and have our people stranded up there for who knows how long.

I dropped Mason off at his school at around 8:45am. The snow was falling and the school parking lot was getting iced over. I decided that it was time to call it. I called Larry to stop by his hous to talk about it and let him know my thinking process on the whole thing. He agreed with the call and I went home and got busy first rescheduling and then calling everyone involved to let them know about it.

Bottom line, by late afternoon, in Larry's words, Armageddon was breaking out. It's even worse today. We rescheduled for April 11-13. We'll be sharing the place with a quilting retreat.

The Great Sex Retreat and a quilting retreat in the same place.

Honestly this retreat keeps getting better and better. Now Larry has more innuendos to work with.

In the midst of rescheduling, it looks like we may be able to use their brand spankin' new whiz bang chapel's sound system. So no hauling stuff up in a rental van and no spending hundreds more dollars.

You may be wondering what's happening with the food... Mission Meadows (our great retreat place) is checking with the cook about what can keep for a month until we get there. The rest I'm planning on picking up and using at the church or donating to the Erie City Mission.

Waste not, want not.

I gotta go shovel.

Again.

Mom & Dad, if you read this... I'm having covetous thoughts about you right now.

They're in Florida.

Oh yeah... thanks Dave. I'll rent a tandem bike at Presque Isle for you and I to have a nice picnic lunch on the beach this summer (probably in AUGUST) to thank you.

Online Dating

I have a confession... that right there tells you I'm at least slightly embarrassed by this belief... but I think online dating is a good idea - particularly eHarmony.

If I were single today I think I'd be all over it. I have no idea where and how I'd meet someone today if I were just outta college.

I found out awhile back that Neil Clark Warren, eHarmony's founder is a theologian. He used to be at Fuller. Reader's Digest had an article about him and they asked him a few questions that I thought were insightful...

What's the one essential quality to a successful relationship that most people overlook?

Honesty. I find singles are too forgiving of people who lie to them. They think they won't lie the next time. But liars tend to be liars.

What's the most important of your 29 criteria for compatibility?

Emotional health. No marriage can ever be stronger than the emotional health of the least healthy partner.

Do opposites attract?
I have been the greatest opponent of this because I believe so much in the importance of similarities. The truth is, opposites attract, then they attack.

eHarmony now has an online program for improving your marriage that looks fantastic. You can also check out their 29 compatibility traits in detail.

Next up? Warren wants to help people find life vocations they love and a satisfying place to fulfill it. They're already working on it.

I wonder what they'll name that?

So Much Joy

Diane and I went with Al and Marie to a conference for pastors and their wives. The conference itself was ok. Being with Diane for a few days was awesome. We made some plans, planned for some changes, and worked out together. But the best was getting to know Al & Marie better.

I've known them for a long time but after a few days of getting to REALLY know them, I'd fall on a grenade for them.

And book them an awesomely cheap hotel room.


I've been reconnecting with some friends through facebook. Some go waaaaaay back. I got a hold of my youth pastor's wife from when I was in high school. There's a link to what they've been doing in Nicaragua on the right of this page.

We've got our senior high retreat, The Great Sex Weekend, coming up on March 7-9. Please be praying for it. It's unlike anything I've ever done before. We're going deep spiritually, tying in parents, and looking at it long range.

Pray like crazy for everyone involved. Even now God is on the move.

And that's always dangerous...

Cool new Nooma video being released this week

If you're on facebook you can see the whole thing by clicking on the pic and signing in:
It's about prayer and I really like what he had to say. He packed a lot in there though. I know I need to watch it again, maybe 3 or 4 times to catch it all.

It actually made me think about Diane a lot and how she's been pouring herself into several lives lately. She's been creating and creating can be exhausting.

Warding off seasonal depression

I think every year I age, it feels like I get closer to suffering from full on seasonal depression. To ward this off I bought this necklace about 3 years ago from a jewelry company on Hawaii..

I call it my "Spirit of Hawii" necklace. It wards off seasonal depression. It's worked pretty well for me. Today I had to bust it out. It's working it's magic again. Even though the snow is piling up once again.

And I can't feel my toes...

If you need help like me, the company is called Mauna Kai Hawaii, which, when translated means: "Winter sucks about 2 weeks after Christmas."