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      Did I ever tell you I went to mass in Vietnamese?  "Mass" is a Catholic Church service, and no, I don't understand Vietnamese. According to my Dad, it didn't matter whether or not I could understand what the priest was saying because I got "special graces" just by being there. That might also explain why I have been to mass in Latin and Spanish. Apparently, special graces are universal (however their powers must have been ...

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     D'oh!  We both love beer. We both were tipping the scales at 239lbs. We both admired Ned Flanders wife's boobies... before she passed away of course.However,  last week, the Homer/Fat Tom coincidences got a little downright eerie. 
      When I found out one of my kid's had a high IQ (a la Lisa Simpson), I immediately wanted to scream, "NERD!" and then have the mailman take a paternity test. Instead, we went the hoity-toity route and checked out some private schools. Maybe it was being in public schools my whole life that made me agree with Homer ...

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     "Hey christian, not cool... You'll never convert me by accosting my family and telling my daughters I'm going to Hell because I have tattoos."  That was the tweet I woke up to this morning.  It was tweeted by @IdStand* and then retweeted by @Lulu* (both names are slightly changed to protect them from Christians that feel they must track them down and "save" them). Between the two of them, they have over 3000 followers on Twitter. 

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     I've got a friend. No honestly, I do. Okay, maybe I don't have any real friends, but I at least have a facebook friend. Like most of my facebook friends, I don't really know this friend all that well. In fact, just like most of my facebook friends, I probably wouldn't be able to pick her out of a crowd in real life. Like all of my facebook friends (and anyone else for that matter), she isn't perfect. In fact, she did a bad, bad thing.
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     Did I ever tell you I scored a 373 on the SAT?  Apparently I spelled my name wrong and they thought the ship I drew wouldn't even fit in a bottle. Wait, that was the ASVAB. I don't know if you remember that one or not, but back in my day it was the test you took that told you your military aptitude. Mine came back with a very ambiguous, "Do NOT join the military. You refuse to be controlled and WILL be court martialed."  I saw through their little shenanigans (and obvious attempt to control me), and ... << MORE >>

     So long suckers!  Adios, goodbye, Elvis has left the building, the cream is out of the twinkie, the jelly is out of the donut, and this blog is no more. Before you cheer and start writing Obama to thank him for this" Change,"  I should probably let you know that is how my last post was going to read. Unfortunately for you, I decided this won't be my last post. But, I've got to admit, it was a close call.
     I guess I owe you an explanation. I basically came full circle. I remember my first ... << MORE >>

     I used to wonder if I would ever be a good enough Christian to get a bumper sticker.  I didn't lose too many nights sleep, before deciding I was good enough for a "Stick it where the Son don't shine!" and "In case of rapture, so long suckers!!!"  Now I realize bumper stickers were so last year.  With today's technology, I've got so much more to worry about... like the dreaded facebook friend request from my pastor. 
     It happened last week, and as you can probably imagine, it was worse than all four of my vasectomies combined!  Talk about being put in a tough spot! If I didn't accept it, I just knew he would call me out in front of the whole congregation with something like, "Now we all need to pray for Tom because HE was the actual person being referenced in the Bible when it says, 'Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.'"  On the other hand, if I accepted, he would know that the halo above my head in church was actually just stolen from my kids Halloween costume (whoops...I mean... Fall Festival costume).  I did what all the smart dudes in MENSA would have done: research.
     I mean how bad could my facebook posts really be anyway? If I'm a Christian not on facebook, I'm sure my facebook statuses wouldn't be too bad... right?  Uhhh... wrong.  I figured I better search my statuses over the past 30 days to see what kind of intellectual, spiritual, and stimulating stuff my pastor could see.  I didn't have to go too far because the last one I posted right before his friend request was, "I like it on the trapeze above the midget juggling the lion."  Hmm... maybe I better keep looking.  Let's see, I called my wife a "grey haired mule" when I wished her a happy birthday.  Although this costed me points with my wife, it probably earned me some honesty points with my pastor because he knows my wife and has to realize that under that hair dye, she could be Bob Barker.    Uh oh... one just a little further back could probably use some explaining.  I thought I was going to lose a bet with my wife's cousin and the loser was going to have to praise the other's masculinity (sounds fruity I know, but it was his idea).  So THAT is why I posted that "Mike is even more manly than RuPaul and that chick with the wiener in The Crying Game combined!"  If nothing else, this ought to test my pastor in the whole non-judgemental and forgiveness thing, right?
     Maybe I was going about it the wrong way, maybe I just needed proof that I was a good family man.  Aha! I think I found it with this post: "My daughter informed us she didn't like Octoberfest.  My wife and I informed her that she was adopted."  My family wasn't there when I  went to Tejas de Brazil and "checked in on the pot where I was trying to make room for more meat"  but that one had to make my Pastor proud with the kids starving in Africa and all.  If that didn't work, I had to go back a full month to find this gem that would make any Pastor proud, "Football is HERE!!! To all my atheist friends, where's your Darwin now???"
     Who was I kidding, I accepted his friend request, put out a quick post that read, "Golly, there aren't enough hours in the day to read my Bible.  Dab gummit!", and resolved to find another church (possibly one that is down with polygamy).  In my mind I had already thrown in the towel so when my team was getting their butt kicked yesterday I updated my status with, "watching this game makes me wish I did drugs (besides Viagra)."  Before I knew it, someone replied, "I always assumed you were more of a Cialis kind of guy."  Who could kid me with love this way, but my very own Pastor.  No need to switch religions (in the words of one wise man, "Why would anyone WANT more than one wife?"), or even churches, as it turns out I'm a good enough Christian for facebook.  Okay, who am I kidding, I'm not a good Christian period.  But I've got Jesus and I AM forgiven!  WooHoo!!!!! 

     Now I know exactly what it is like to do 20 years of hard labor in a Russian prison.  Well maybe not, but at least 7 days with a siberian husky chasing me.  Okay, 5 seconds of a stare-down with a serbian gerbil.  That's right, I made it 72 hours without facebook, twitter, and www.blogbyfattom.com! I know, you, like my wife thought I couldn't make it 4 minutes never mind 48 hours... but I did 72 hours!!!
     Without a doubt, it was the toughest thing I've ever done.  Luckily, she challenged me right before I was going to bed so the first night was relatively... well.. painful.  I woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.  I just had to know if Becky needed help with her mafia wars, if Beth's farm animals needed feeding, or if Mark was racing a gyracon (I don't know what this is, but I know he loves to race it).  I wondered if it was too late to possibly catch a video of Michelle's Bejeweled Blitz game.  That's right... a freaking video of her Bejeweled Blitz game!  My wife had no idea of what she was doing to me.
     I eventually fell back asleep, but when I woke up I was a mess.  Talk about being disoriented!  Usually I have 27 people telling me to be happy because it is Friday or 32 people telling me that life sucks because it is Monday.  I didn't know to be happy or sad so I did what any techno-deprived person would do... I logged onto WebMD.com.  I typed in my symptoms and it quickly became apparent that I was having heroin withdrawals.  I headed straight to a clinic and got some cream for a the hives I was now breaking out in and some methadone. 
     At that point, I had enough.  Not only did I permanently kick a heroin habit I never had, but I needed a fix in a bad way.  I thought maybe a quick glance at twitter would fill me in on what Snoop Dog was doing or if Jason Alexander was still bald.  Maybe it was too risky.  At the very least I could see if I actually had anyone subscribe to this stupid blog, but I knew if that ever actually happened, I would be so giddy that I would never be able to hide it from my wife. 
     I figured that maybe work would distract me, so I headed into the office.  The scary part was that without all the distractions, I had no choice but to actually work.   It was going great until my 4th cup of coffee caught up with me.  My Gosh!  What do you people do on the pot without facebook???  I was lost.  I forgot how to go # 2.  I just sat there looking for anything to do.  I pulled out a switchblade and carved my initials in the stall.  I then started carving a little ditty about a guy from Nantucket, but I ended up singing Jack and Diane.  Oh... I was a mess.  I found a clock, pulled out a calculator, and figured out that I had successfully made it 12 hours.  Yes!!!
     I knew I had one chance to make it the rest of time as I was not going to lose a challenge to my wife... so I locked myself in the closet with a bucket of chicken for the next 36 hours.  Unfortunately, I ate the whole bucket in 3.6 minutes and went into a coma for the next 3 days.  When I woke up, I went on facebook, found out  that there was only 1 more day to Friday, and knew that I made it!  I can now die happy knowing that the animals in farmville will be able to run free again!

     This post is going to be a little different than most.  I'm sure you are thinking, "What? This one is actually going to be funny?" Nope. This post is about people I don't know now, and will probably never meet.  When you consider that, I really have no business even writing this post.  However, this true story is so beautiful, I must tell it.
     This is the story of the Hammitt family and it is a love story.  Matt and Sarah Hammitt, I'm sure were ecstatic when they found out they were going to be parents again.  With two daughters already, Matt had to be beside himself to find out he was going to have a son.  He probably wondered if he would maybe be an athlete some day, or if he would follow his father's footsteps and be a musician.  If you don't recognize his name, you may or may not recognize the band that Matt Hammitt is the lead singer of: Sanctus Real.
     I'm sure fear crept in with their excitement, when an ultrasound revealed that the Hammitts yet to be born son had a rare birth defect that caused him to have an undeveloped heart.  Being Christians, the Hammitts knew that God knit together their baby perfectly in Sarah's womb (Psalm 139:13) and that he had a specific purpose in mind for their son.  What I don't know, but I am curious about, is if at that point they got to meet with the genetics counselor.  My wife and I got this "counseling" when a false positive on an amniocentesis indicated that our perfectly healthy child had a chance of having Down's Syndrome.  The "counseling" was basically, "You should really consider an abortion because your unborn baby might not be perfect."  Afterwards, we found out how common receiving a false positive is... and unfortunately, how many others received this same type of "counseling."  Anyway, I digress, as this story isn't about us, it is about the Hammitts.
      Fast forward to September 9th, 2010, when baby Bowen Hammitt arrived... deformed heart and all.  A lot of tears were shed, prayers said, and an emotional roller coaster ensued as little baby Bowen fought for his life.  Only a few days later, Bowen had his first open heart surgery.  Because of his condition, the nursing staff had to literally pump Bowen's heart for him so the doctor's left his chest open.  So as Matt looked into his son's eyes, when he looked only a couple of inches lower he could see his son's heart. 
     I think of my own kids, and the love they display in their lives.  I think of my Father in Heaven and what he must see in my heart. My love is corrupted, conditional, superficial, and fleeting.  That's just the love in my heart, never mind the anger, fear, insecurities, and all the other junk that creeps in there.  Bowen's heart has none of that, as there is no room in his undeveloped heart for anything but love. 
     Fortunately, Bowen began to improve and the doctor's were able to take him off life support and close his chest.  When his chest was closed, so was the window to his heart.  You and I can only imagine the emotions the Hammitt family must have went through, and I imagine it was during one of these emotional times that Matt's friend told him, "You've seen too much."  Matt's reply was simply that he hadn't seen enough.  Bowen has changed Matt forever.  Little Baby Bowen changed his dad's heart, molded his character, and strengthened his faith. 
     Even as Bowen continues to improve, he and his entire family can use your prayers.  You can also follow their story (and see cute pictures of the little guy) at www.bowensheart.com.