Lane Brown @ Chandler Street

I spent several years in the past teaching defensive driving to law breaking citizens. Each session, the first thing I did was find out why they received the ticket that put them in my class.  One thing I discovered after teaching thousands of students, was that no one ever received a ticket unless they were speeding 7+ miles per hour over the limit. Based on that observation I almost always...

My son started driving a couple weeks ago. That is a scary new life step for a parent! Right after he started driving I happened to see a YouTube video of a court case between an 18 year old boy who was racing his car down the highway and killed a woman and her child. What a tragedy! The boy was sentenced to 24 years in prison! I then told my son don't be stupid behind the wheel of a car, it could...

I had a great time at the A&M Football game this weekend. My team is currently on a roll, and when they are doing well, it makes me a pretty happy person.  It must be difficult to be a coach though.  Coaches rarely get to relish in a teams joy and happiness.  Once you get a victory, you get a night to celebrate and then you are focused on your next opponent.  If the next op...

I have had some interesting bosses in my days.  One of my more unique bosses was one I had while in College at Texas A&M University.  I was working in Destruction Restoration where we would help clean out and restore houses that either caught on fire or were in floods.  Early on in this job I had to drive the company van with a trailer attached. My boss asked me if I had ever ba...

The Boy Scouts motto is "Be Prepared".  I was a Boy Scout for about 3 months, actually I was a Webelos Scout, I guess that is the scout for the awkward stage between Cub Scout and Boy Scout. We would go to Kristian Wilkins house every Thursday and Kristian's dad, our Scout Leader, would give us all kinds of history and information for the Beatles, and let us know why they were the greatest ba...

Waiting is no fun! We can really get frustrated while we are waiting. When we are waiting for a table at a restaurant sometimes we start getting upset with the groups that get called before us. We might think, we have been waiting longer than them, or do they even deserve to be seated before us! ;-) Sometimes, we wonder if they called our name and we missed it all together, so we go and ask the ho...

My favorite youth sport program that I put my kids through was the Kilgore Youth Basketball Association. One of the things that made it so great were the two guys that would referee the games.  The moms and dads would try to give the referees grief when they thought they made a bad call, but these guys wouldn't back down and they would give it right back to the loud parents. Their referee sty...

I have had some interesting jobs in my life. The first job I ever applied for I really wanted, it was working with the Gallup Polls. It was $8/hour ($3 over minimum wage at the time!) flexible hours, and all you had to do was call people up and give them a survey. I guess I blew the interview because they didn't want me! I was really disappointed I didn't get the job. It's very frustrating when do...

Does the "IRS" ever call to let you know you are in big trouble? Surprisingly, they typically have a very heavy accent and don't really sound like they are from this country. What is more surprising is they will allow you to pay your penalty with gift cards that they ask you to pick up at your local store. When I have a lot of time on my hands I like to start confessing all sorts of strange crimes...

A Lasting Impression

Have you noticed that some people think they know you, but they really don't. It's hard to truly know folks when we don't spend much time or have a relationship with them. The same is true with Jesus. Many people hold beliefs about Jesus that just are not true. The way we get to know Christ is to search the scriptures themselves. 

My local Academy Sports & Outdoors recently started selling a Whataburger line of clothing!  I was there a couple weeks ago getting Sydni some shoes for athletics and we both saw the Whataburger display when we walked in. Both Sydni and I agreed that I needed to get the Whataburger Hawaiian Shirt. Mary wasn't as thrilled about my new outfit as we were, but this shirt already has turned so...

Remember what it was like to drive somewhere new before Google Maps? My Freshman year of college I was going to see a friend during the Thanksgiving break, and I was following directions written out by hand. My friend's house was about 4 hours away, and it was starting to get dark by the time I was arriving. She lived out in the country and the road I was on started to get more narrow, and then th...

Choosing Peace Over Anger

I feel like I am a decent co-worker. I can get along with most people. But at one of my past jobs, during the Christmas Holidays, I wasn't a very good one. At this company I worked in a department where everyone was so good at giving gifts. I on the other hand wasn't good at it in the least. It was probably a combination of me not thinking about giving gifts to those outside my family, and just be...

Did you get to have birthday parties growing up? Birthday parties were always such a wonderful experience! You got to have Cake and Blue Bell Ice Cream; the only official ice cream acceptable for birthdays! 😉 Your friends get to come over and you get He-Man or Star Wars action figures as presents. This was an incredible celebration for me! Our God loves to celebrate! Our God wants us to get with...

Do you have any odd fears? I have a few! One of my stranger ones is something called Trypophobia, or the fear of clusters of holes! The American Psychiatric Association doesn't officially recognize this as a phobia, and it doesn't truly cause me to suffer in any way, but there is no doubt when I look at things like a lotus lily, I get an uncomfortable feeling within me.   Fear has the ab...

As an Aggie from Texas A&M University we were taught that Aggies never lose. We do however, get outscored (sometimes by a lot) and occasionally we just run out of time! Too often I have watched my team not do enough good, before we ran out of time. Such it is with our lives, we might have every intention to do good in this life, but we get consumed with so many other things that take up our ti...

We don't always like how series finales of our favorite shows end. Often it wasn't what we were expecting to happen. I think this was the case with the show Seinfeld. Jerry and his friends ended up in jail for violating the "Good Samaritan" law. While this cast of actors was often very funny, the writers of the show created these characters to be totally self-absorbed. It really shouldn't have sur...

What do you think when you hear the words "Some Assembly Required"? Typically this comes with a set of instructions that I may or may not follow. Sometimes I follow the instructions, but often I try to figure it out for myself. When I go rogue like this the end result isn't always the greatest. I remember one Christmas Eve I was assembling Barbie's Dream House and there was no way that elevator wa...

Have you ever been inspired by Reality TV? I used to watch a show called "Hoarders". While watching it would think, "I have got to get rid of this junk in my garage/shed/closet." My next thought would be, "Oh, I'll just do it later!" Or, sometimes when I would watch a show called "My 600-lb Life" I would think, "I have got to loose some weight", but then I would also think "I want a bowl of Blue B...

In 5th Grade my family took a vacation to Washington D.C. My father and I were waiting in a long line to go to the top of the Washington Monument when we see Marine 1, which we assumed was carrying President Reagan, flying overhead. My Dad said, "Go run as close as you can and get a picture!" He hands me the camera and I bolt off towards the White House South Lawn. I ran through the crowds and the...

I have been a Dallas Maverick season ticket holder for 16 years. Unfortunately, yesterday my Mavs came up one game short. This year marks the 10 year anniversary of them winning their one and only Championship. I remember watching this momentous occasion on television, since they were playing in Miami. As the final buzzer sounded I remember watching my favorite player Dirk Nowitzki running off int...

Once Mike Brown, the owner of the Cincinnati Bengals, sat in my seat at a wedding reception. Since we share the same last name, he must have seen "Brown" and accidently took my table assignment. Luckily, there were two open seats at my table, so there wasn't really a conflict for space, but Mr. Brown unfortunately had to hear me brag about my Back-to-Back wins as a Fantasy Football General Manager...

I've got a bad habit. I don't like to answer the phone! So if you are a friend of mine and you are reading this you probably know I have denied your call at least a few times. I working on getting better at this, but it's not you it's me. I give equal opportunity when it comes to my phone call denials, so just know it probably has nothing to do with me avoiding you! This bad habit burned me once....