A Church Divided

Image: churchgraphics.blogspot.com

Last Sunday, my church had a big party celebrating the retirement of our senior pastor. There were tears and laughter, as we had a full church for service and then a full room for the meal afterwards. It was bittersweet, especially since Pastor Mark has been Emily's pastor her whole life.

And now, our church will get an interim senior pastor and we will start the call process. May not seem like a big deal but for me, it brings up bad memories. Because when I was not all the much older than Emily, this exact situation tore the church I grew up in apart.

When my parents moved to Holland when I was fairly young, we joined Peace Lutheran Church. It was a great church that my family loved. But the senior pastor was getting older and finally when I was in high school (I think), he retired.

The new pastor that was called was very different. He introduced a lot of pomp and circumstance that we had never had before into the services and in general left a bad taste in people's mouth. I wasn't very privy to the ins and outs, but I do remember my mom saying that she was just angry all the time going to church because of the new pastor.

Enough people agreed with my parents, which caused the church to split in half. The people who left, including my family, left the ELCA (one of types of Lutherans) and formed a brand new Missouri synod church called Christ Our Savior.

Starting a brand new church is really hard. I'm sure it was more stressful on my parents and the other adults, but as a young person it just felt strange. We had no home for a while because we had to rent space before we could raise enough money to build a new building. And one we had a space, it took a while for it to feel church-y and home-like.

And there was quite a bit of drama that sounded the 2nd church as well, having to do with different pastors and the like. I don't remember a lot of the details because it was years ago.

In the end, I have a very uneasy feeling. I hope that my current church is able to find a pastor that fits in well with our congregation. We've been lucky to have Pastor Mark for 22 years, and now there is unfortunately a big hole. I pray for my community because I don't want to go through having a church divided again.

ConCarolinas 2018

I love ConCarolinas, it's one of my favorites cons to go to. Todd doesn't like it because there aren't enough people he wants to get autographs from, though he did consider having me go on Sunday to get Adam Copland's (aka Edge from WWE) autograph. In the end, Emily and I just went for Saturday.

Like at SC Comicon, Emily and I were cosplaying as Pikachu (her) and Anna from Frozen (me). My choice of costume was pretty much because it's the most comfortable to make the two hour drive to Charlotte.

We got there around 9:30 so we had time to get our badges and head to the dealer's room. Since the dealer's room didn't open until 10 we hung around in the hallway talking to the SCA folks. They told me that there was a chapter of the SCA in Asheville and how to go about contacting them. I've been interested in the SCA for years, but it always all seemed overwhelming. But I did send an email and joined the local chapter's Facebook page. I've been to a couple of fighting practices, and hope to actually suit up and fight next time. But I digress.

Once the dealer's room opened, Emily hemmed and hawed about what she wanted to spend her money on. And then she saw that one of the booths had a tiny kitty that you could hold for a dollar - it was for an animal shelter. So I paid a dollar and she went into cat heaven.

After her cat time was done, she ended up buying some Pokemon cards. One was a big set that the

guy had discounted because the packaging was torn. It was a really good deal.

We left the dealer's room to go play D&D. The game we were scheduled to play in was for higher level players, but there weren't enough people signed up who had high enough characters. So one of the DM's ran a different game. It was two adults (including me) and then three kids. The other two kids were Emily's age and it made for a really fun game.

Emily played a wizard and at one point in the game, she put a rock to sleep. She was very proud of that. We ended up killing the rock as well.

From there, we took another swing around the dealer's room, and I paid so I could cuddle the kitty. Emily petted the kitty as I held him, and was in kitty heaven again. We also took a picture with the Ghostmobile that they had outside. Just as we went out there, the sky opened up and we got a little wet. Someone was nice enough to take our picture despite the rain.

We had some time before my friend Mikey's show was going to start so we went to see Valentine Wolfe play. I hadn't heard them before, but they were really good. Lots of dark, gothy rock that was really awesome.

Once they were done playing, we moved up to the front row since that's where Emily wanted to sit and listened to Mikey's concert. He always puts on such a great show!

After that, we were tired so we headed home. It was a lot of fun but I definitely want to stay the whole weekend next year. It makes for a very long day with four hours on the road.

SC Comicon 2018

I was really excited to see that Cary Elwes was coming to a nearby con in Greenville, SC but since it was right after Lexington Comic Con I didn't think we'd be able to go. But my wonderful husband surprised me by buying a photo op with Cary Elwes at SC Comicon for my birthday.

Cary Elwes is an awesome actor. My favorite role he's done is Westley from The Princess Bride mostly because that is one of my all time favorite movies. He doesn't do a lot of conventions either so I really wanted to meet him.

Since I work on Saturdays, it was easy for me and Emily to go on Sunday (sadly Todd had to work). But my Sunday School teaching partner was out of town that weekend, so I had to teach Sunday

School first. Since I wanted to get down to the con as quickly as possible because Emily also had youth group that night, Em and I wore our costumes to church.

I was Anna from Frozen so it was just a fancier dress than I usually wear to church and Emily was clad in her Pikachu costume. The kids in Sunday School thought it was a little funny. But once Sunday School was done, we got in the car and headed to Greenville.

Once we got there, we went straight to Cary Elwes' booth. We had to get a ticket showing we had bought a photo op to get in line and his booth was completely closed off so no passerby's could see him.

We didn't have to wait too long, and finally we got inside for our picture. He talked to us for several minutes and was very sweet, especially to Emily, as we talked about The Princess Bride. 

After we got our picture, I ran into several people I knew and chatted with them. Emily spent the money she had brought on Pokemon cards, and then we got some pictures with cosplayers. Batman, Boba Fett and some Ghostbusters!

We took off after that, since Emily needed to change before youth group. But it was a fun afternoon!

The Death of Movie Pass (Updated 8/1/18)

Another Update! Yesterday, I got an email from Movie Pass with a kind of apology about how things were going. Mostly they said that they were going to start reducing the movies that were available to see - like with Mission: Impossible, as they adjust the business model.

Yesterday, when I opened my Movie Pass app, it said that there were no available showings for the rest of the day... at 5 pm in the afternoon. It's 2:30 pm as I write this, and my local Regal has Hotel Transylvania 3 and The First Purge available to use Movie Pass with. That's it!

It's a far cry from the days of  "See a movie everyday" that got me to subscribe in the first place. Even though there was no mention in this in the email from Movie Pass, they are also raising prices from $9.99 a month to $15 a month.

Yesterday, I canceled my membership through the app. Though we shall see what happens on my billing date if it was actually canceled. I've heard some horror stories online about people having issues canceling the service.

I'm sad to have to cancel but the service just isn't worth it. And for $5 more a month I can do AMC's plan that gets me much more for the money. Though I will probably wait to sign for up that until the end of the year, to see if Regal comes up with their own program.

Update (7/28/18) A few days ago, Movie Pass was all over the news because their service was down due to them having no money. They took out a loan to get it back up and running, but they have to start paying it back early August.

I think their death is possibly going to come next week, if they can't raise the money for the loans. From what I've read on Facebook, pretty much every movie this weekend has a surge charge of $5 and they have the new Mission: Impossible movie blocked so no-one can use Movie Pass to see it.

I still have my subscription because I'm waiting to see how things shake out. But if they keep going the way they are, I'll probably cancel before my next payment due date.

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At the beginning of the year, I wrote a post singing the praises of Movie Pass. Sadly, the company has pretty much killed what was a great service.

Things have been going downhill for a while. Right before Avenger: Infinity War came out, they changed their terms of service so you could only watch a movie once using your Movie Pass. I'm the kind of person who watches movies as often as I can in the theater and honestly being able to do that was a selling point for me to get Movie Pass in the place.

I've never had a problem with my app or the card, but their Facebook page is full of complaints of people having issues with both and not getting any sort of response from their customer support, which isn't good.

So I have just been rolling with it. I don't get to see a ton of movies because my husband works a lot and I can't get a Movie Pass for Emily because you have to be 18 years old or older. I did see a lot when she was in Michigan and it was nice to have the Movie Pass then.

But then Movie Pass rolled out surge pricing. Basically if a movie time has surge pricing they are going to charge you an extra $3 to $4 to see that movie. And that's just for a 2D movie and some of the movies are month old or older. They don't seem to have any rhyme or reason why certain movies are surged.

As you see from the picture above, Hotel Transylvania 3 at 10:45 pm is surged. A kids movie at a not kid friendly time. And people are screaming on the Movie Pass Facebook page about it, as tons of people post pictures of empty movie theaters that they had to pay surge pricing for.

Looking at my app right now, Ocean's 8, The First Purge and Uncle Drew are the only movies at my local Regal that aren't surged. I've been to the movies late on Sundays since I don't work on Mondays, and usually the theater is pretty empty.

Movie Pass's parent company's stocks keep dropping like a rock. When I looked it up right now, they are at 10 cents a share. I can imagine that the company will be folding soon and that this surge pricing is a last ditch effort to keep the door open.

Personally, I refuse to pay surge pricing. I'll use it for movies that don't have surge pricing. Hopefully Regal Theaters will roll out something like AMC's A List where you get to see 3 movies a week of any kind for $20 a month. I'd honestly just switch to AMC but the closest AMC theater is 26 minutes away and I don't think they have recliner seats. But if Regal were to do something like this, I'd cancel Movie Pass right now.

It's probably a moot point anyway. Movie Pass has done things in such a way that has gotten it so much bad will from the public that nothing they will do will probably keep them in business. So pour one out for Movie Pass. It was great while it lasted!

Lexington Comic Con - Sunday & Final Thoughts!

This is the 3rd and last post in this series, click here to start at the beginning!
We got our stuff packed up and into the car before we headed back to the con for a bit on Sunday. We had a long drive home in front of us, but Todd wanted to get more autographs and Emily wanted to check out the game room.

We got to the con again before it opened and we got in line. We were much closer to the front of the line than we had been the day before. As soon as they let us in, Emily and I headed to the game room

A very nice young man asked us what game we wanted to play. Emily said "Munchkin" but that needs 3 or more players so he joined us for two games of Marvel Munchkin. It was a fun game though a little different than the normal Munchkin. We had a good time and once we finished up, Todd was waiting for us.

We did one more loop around the dealer's room and then headed out since we had a five hour drive back to NC.

It was a very fun con. The layout that resulted in the crowding could be better. It also was a really bad idea to put some vendor booths right in the middle of the autograph area. That help keep things crowded.

I'm glad that we left early on Saturday because reading the comments on their FB page, it got crazy busy in the afternoon.

But we had a wonderful time and it was well worth going. If they have a decent guest list next year, we will probably return!

Lexington Comic Con 2018 - Saturday!

This is the 2nd post in this series, click here to start at the beginning!

We got up bright and early on Saturday because we wanted to be to the con before the doors opened. There was already a line just to get into the convention areas so we got in line. Sadly none of the food places were open so we didn't get breakfast.

Once the doors opened, we got in pretty fast. We did have to go through metal detectors, which slowed things down a little. We booked it over to the autograph room and got in line for Chuck Norris.

His was a prepaid, so we just had to show the ticket from when Todd paid for the autograph online. The line was long but it moved fast. Chuck Norris was super nice, shook our hands and talked to us for a minute. He was sweet to Emily which is always a plus in my book.

From there, we got more autographs. We met Ric Flair who was also super nice. It was great to see Dragon Con last year for health issues. We saw Pauly Shore but opted not to get his autograph.

him after he had to cancel his appearance at

We met Lou Diamond Phillips and got a picture with him which was awesome. The same for Rey Mysterio who is only a tiny bit taller than I am. It was starting to get really crowded so Emily and I went off to go see the Powerpuff Girls panel.

Before we went to the panel though, we stopped and got some snack food because Emily spent the entire time we were in the autograph section complaining she was dying of hunger. We took our food and found seats in the back and ate while we waited for the panel to start.

It had the voice actors for the original three Powerpuff Girls plus the voice actor who played the Professor. It was a great panel especially since they would launch into different voices they did as they talked about it.

After that, we met up with Todd and got the heck out of there. It was starting to be beyond crowded and we were all hungry. Todd had found a BBQ place online when he was looking at things in Lexington, so we headed there.

It was called Red State BBQ and it was a hole in the wall kind of place. But the food was so good. Emily got BBQ nachos and it was huge so we ended up having to take it back to the hotel with us. We were all stuffed when we got done.

We headed back to the hotel and went swimming for a long time. Todd joined us this time which made Emily very happy. Once we were done, we went to the nearby convenience store for some snacks.

The rest of the evening we just vegged in our room watching "Ghost Adventures" on TV while Emily played with her toys. I read all the complaints about the overcrowding at the con and the insanity with the crowds that had happened after we left.

All in all, we had a great day, partly because we left the con before the crowds reached their peak.

Up Next - Sunday and Final Thoughts!

The Build A Bear Kerfuffle

Emily at Build A Bear a few years ago

We are a family who loves stuffed animals. I was never a doll person as a kid but I loved my stuffies. I still even have my Pooh Bear from when I was a kid. Emily and Todd both share this love, so we have made many, many trips to Build A Bear Workshop over the years.

I was vaguely interested in the "Pay Your Age" promotion they had going on. It wasn't something I was able to do though because Emily is still in Michigan with her grandparents. I didn't have to work yesterday and I wasn't feeling great, so I watched the whole thing unfold on the internet.

After promoting the hell of it on social media, I'm not sure why Build A Bear wasn't prepared for the onslaught of people. Especially because parents love a great deal since kids and their toys are expensive.

I'm a reader of comments when something like this explodes and it was interesting to read them yesterday. People were pissed, and that's putting it mildly. The amount of people who felt Build A Bear owed them something was astounding. And the people who waited in line for hours, the longest time I saw was eight hours, was crazy.

In the end, Build A Bear closed their stores because of safety concerns and then they sent everyone in the club (including me) a coupon for $15 off. I thought that was pretty awesome because now Emily can go and get a new bear once she gets home. And since she's 9, it will probably be close to the "Pay Your Age" price.

I learned that is is better to sit on the sidelines and watch than battle the crowds. And in this case, everyone wins because the $15 off is quite generous since some of the bears are less than $15.

Did any of you go to Build A Bear yesterday? Tell your story in the comments!