John C Woolsey, LEED AP » Friends

Yard Update | Another Patio Set

John — Fri, 29 May 2009 21:37:42 +0000

We have a track record of getting stuff from friends when they move away, and this time is no different. Vince and Tami are moving to Austin, TX and they can’t/won’t take everything with them because the truck is only so big. Since their patio set doesn’t fit in the truck so well, it will now grace my ‘observation deck’ in fond memory of the times we have had in the yard with the Marottes.

It seems a little empty to post a yard update while dear friends are so few days from moving away but I suppose its how things are. We move, we grow, we get new jobs, we have kids, those kids grow and go to school and so on and so forth. Change is constant and completely unstoppable.

Like so many times before, my yard teaches me something about life. Posting a ‘Yard Update’ is just a reminder to me that my work in this town is far from done, in fact apparently its just begun. Vince and Tami didn’t have a big enough yard for their vision and have redone it enough to realize that. Now they are going off to Texas to find a new yard to work on.

Outdoor dining

Tucked up against the euc

This Weekend Was BUSY

John — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:05:51 +0000

The work week was definately rushed and that transitioned straight into a nice high-paced weekend. The only casualty turned out to be our camera. Christy took off to grab lunch for everyone and I guess the camera was on the roof of the car. Therefore – - we have no pictures of this awesome weekend.

Here’s the rundown:

Friday

Write 2 Phase 1 audit reports
Drag out all the lawn tools I have and dig up the dirt around the sprinkler manifold because there seems to be a leak

Saturday

7a – Clean out concrete ditch on side of property with Brent
7:30a – Pick up 1.5 yards of 3/4″ gravel from RCP
8a – Shovel with Brent, Kyle & Jeff and coordinate who is coming when to help
9a – Pick up another 1.5 yards of 3/4″ gravel from RCP
9:30a – Shovel with Same guys + Brandon and Brent A
10a – Dismantle fence to my backyard on the West side of the house
10:30a – start cutting down the first of 2 palm trees
11a – Pick up another 1.5 yards of 3/4″ gravel from RCP
11:30a – move palm branches to back yard and roll palm trunks back
12p – Christy went to grab sandwiches for the remaining crew while we clear the rest of the trees
12:30p – Pick up another 1.5 yards of 3/4″ gravel from RCP
1p – Shovel gravel with Brent D and the kids
1:30p – Check out the mt. bike track Vince and Brent A. are digging in my back yard….
2:30p – Sort out tools so everyone gets what they came with back home
4p – put up the fence again so that the dog can’t get out.
5p – Take a shower
6p – finish writing my teaching message for Sunday!!!! Yikes!
11p – Print 2 copies of my message and create message slides
12a – Go to bed……

Sunday

7a – get up and head to church
10:30a – lay down the message for church
12p – my parents come up to see Casey and bring dinner
2p – dig some post holes for the gate posts (for my new RV access)
4p – Paint the bottom of the posts so I can sink them in concrete around lunch time Monday
5p – Sit on the couch with Casey
9p – zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

If you didn’t make it over this weekend…you missed out!

Seasons tend to turn

John — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 05:53:23 +0000

Around here the weather is warming as winter breaks and the seasons change. I look at my back yard on this February 4th afternoon and the wind is blowing a little as a response to weather patterns far away. Temperature and pressure changes hundreds of miles away are blowing leaves around in my yard. Some are being turned over and don’t go far. Others are picked up and are blown out of sight.

And so it is with our lives.

While the wind turned my family over but didn’t carry us far some dear friends of ours have got the wind rustling up beneath them and it just might carry them out of the back yard.

Vince and Tami are taking their first steps to planting a church. They have some people and some places in mind but are keeping it to the inner circle for now.

What they know now is the wind is blowing and its about to get under them. To see whats happening with them you can always check in on them HERE but if you want to help them get their start follow THIS LINK.

A Big Night

John — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 06:01:16 +0000

Tonight is a night to remember, Trisha & Liam got hitched at what will surely be remembered as a great wedding. Christy and I just got home (10:58p at the writing of this post) and we are ready to crash. We have church in the morning but the time spent was awesome. These two are a neat couple, Christy and I have known Trisha well for ever and have recently gotten to know Liam better since they have been dating. I was also honored to be the officiant at their wedding. For the record, it was my first wedding and it was such a privilege to be a part of it.

Best of luck to you guys, Christy and I think you are great together and Liam, we are so happy you came into Trisha’s life. You guys are going to do well!

Yard Update | I Know, I Know

John — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:48:43 +0000

I promise, I do think about other thing other than my yard and have in fact been thinking about something I should be doing with this blog in light of the new baby that is on its way. That being said, the reason I keep writing about my yard isn’t because I want to bore you, but because I have become very involved. Do you know that I have taken to spending my daytime office work at the patio table outside so that I can be closer to the lawn!? I wonder if it will be like that when the baby is here, setting up a computer in his/her room so I can be close… I digress. Take a look at these pictures. In the last couple of days the lawn has really greened up. I decided to put a gallery up instead of just one picture because there is a ton of life out back, and I thought I would share some of it with you. Not only will I be holding Boccie tournaments out there but I think a movie night out there might be in order with the neighbors.

Ok, I promise next time I won’t even mention my yard.

Still Slow on the Blogging Front

John — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:53:27 +0000

I am finding that lately blogging is not taking the priority that I would like it to. For those of you following and waiting for the next installment of Church Admin I am still brewing the next topic which is Team Communication. I have been dragging my feet to write this one because over the last month or so God has been showing me that we are not doing it as well as we could. In fact, its still a major stumbling block for us as I am sure it is for any decentralized church with no office. Having said that, its only fair to mention that I tend to feel spun out when things start getting ugly and I haven’t felt like I have all the tires on the road for a while. But rest assured, as we have addressed some of our team communication issues we have also discovered some good solutions that I will share here.

Having said its time to share: We just had a short staff retreat to San Elijo State Beach in San Diego Sun-Tuesday. It was fun to hang out with the guys and ride our bikes all around and eat out of the deli at the Seaside Market in Cardiff. We stopped in Escondido on the way down to grab the RV. I really love that thing, its as old as me and everything still works thanks to the attention and care my dad tends to give every vehicle he owns. We had a couple of great discussions about Vince’s passion – communication; or as I call it out-of-house communication. I will share some of the ideas as part of the Church Admin series.

Where is your favorite place to camp in a tent or in an RV? Growing up I always went with my family to camp outside of Southern California. The harder it is to get where you are going the more secluded it’s going to be and we liked it like that. I would love to check out some new places and see what Southern California camping has to offer.

The Last Birthday Celebration

John — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 19:09:00 +0000

Last night we had our last birthday celebration for Christy’s 30th. We went out with her oldest sister and her husband and they took us to The Shout House in Downtown San Diego. It was fun, its a bar with a few musicians that perform improv’ requests from the audience. The main theme is dueling pianos and they have a lot of fun with the crowd. Even more so as the night goes on the crowd has had some time to marinate in various liquors. Christy put in a request for Eye of the Tiger and they got her up on stage to do the Rocky montage, shadow boxing and jumping rope. Then they sang happy birthday for her and gave her a couple of bumper stickers.

It was a fun night and I would recommend to anybody that is into musical improv’ and is comfortable with a little debauchery. I do suggest that if you go you keep in mind that the later it gets the crazier people get.

Ride | Glorious Trail

John — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 00:58:17 +0000

Yesterday I managed to set aside a few hours to head up into the mountains to the Northwest of Murrieta with Vince, Nick and Donny. They are the mountains that separate our town from the Orange County. Just take the Ortega Highway west out of Lake Elsinore and you will get there. We found a few fantastic trails on GeoLadders that we used to find our way up there. The one we took yesterday was the San Juan Trail. We went down only so we used my truck to get to the trail head and Nick’s truck was at the bottom. It did take longer than I would have liked but it will make for a great Saturday morning ride with all the guys.

If you want to check out the Google Earth file I made click here and open the file with Google Earth. Make sure when you open Google Earth that the Time Line range is wide open.

Halloween | A Little Bit Different Approach

John — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 23:16:32 +0000

For those of you that don’t recognize this, its my front yard. Last night was the first time I have been home on a Halloween night in at least 5 years. I am normally at some Christian Halloween alternative event because I am working or hanging out with friends with kids. This year, I knew that none of those things were going to happen and Christy was working so I had to come up with something. I could find somewhere to go, turn off all the lights and hang out in my office, or I could put myself out there and meet the neighborhood. So, in a last minute decision I ran off to my local Wal Mart to find a DVD of Charlie Brown’s Great Pumpkin (a Halloween classic).

As I walked into Wal Mart I thought I had no chance of finding the video but just as I was giving up and starting to head for the door, it caught my eye. Sitting there all by itself was the 3-disc holiday set. So, I grabbed it and headed for the candy isle, only to find obscene masses moving through the sugar stuffed isle. I side-stepped my way through the crowd and grabbed a few bags of my favorite candy and on the way to the register grabbed a king-size bed sheet.

I ran home and strung up a clothes line from the top of my bay window to the end of the garage and clipped the sheet to it. I dragged all my technology out including one borrowed church projector. It was going to be a Charlie Brown night in my front yard. I had my coffee table out with almost a dozen chairs, a big brown bag full of candy and a carne asada burrito.

I just started the movie and hung out with my burrito as kids and parents alike came to see what was going on. I did get a chance to meet a few new people that moved in down the street and of course my immediate neighbors came to hang for a little bit.

All in all, it was a great time and it was a perfect example of how I should live out my faith on a day that normally seems incompatible with it.

Xtreme Boy | Remember This Guy?

John — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 20:19:58 +0000

This last weekend was Emily’s birthday and Christy and I went to dinner with them and a few of their friends on Sunday. During the course of the discussion Xtreme Boy came up. So, I decided to do a little HD cleaning and post the videos that I had on my computer.

Extreme Trampoline