The K Mills

I write it. You read it. That's it.

What Kevin’s Reading.

Honey: The Gourmet Medicine – Joe Traynor

This is an fascinating account of not only some of the nutritional benefits of honey, but the various medicinal uses for it as well. Putting honey on an open wound? Are they crazy? Actually, they’re not. Honey creates trace amounts of hydrogen peroxide, and as we all know, H202 is nothing short of a medical miracle. This book is a short yet highly informative read.

Just Enough Light for the Step I’m On: Trusting God in the Tough Times – Stormie Omartian

Sometimes we just don’t understand what in the world God is doing in our lives. Tragedies, set-backs, extreme pain – why does God let us experience these things? While some of her answers and anecdotes didn’t satisfy me, for the most part I thought Stormie Omartian was dead on about our need to trust in God’s character more than a specific outcome. Highly recommended!

God’s Chosen Fast – Arthur Wallis

Actually, I can thank my brother Kolby for getting me interested in this. Like most American Christians, I never really thought much about fasting in the Bible. It was something that “other” people did. You know, the people who eat locusts and hang out in itchy clothes? This book helped me better understand what fasting truly is (and more importantly, what it’s NOT.)

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway – Susan Jeffers, Ph. D.

I’d heard about this book for a number of years, but I never sought it out until I found it recently at (any guesses, here?) a book fair. As I’m venturing forth toward a new phase in my life (more on this later?), I find myself feeling the fear that accompanies new growth. Actually, I felt the fear first, then after reading the book I was able to label WHY I felt the fear. She does an EXCELLENT job of deconstructing fear and its origins as well as providing practical solutions. While it’s predictably biased toward psychological solutions without pointing to any spiritual ones, its fairly easy to draw biblical parallels to what she says. Easy to read with a handful of entertaining examples, this is one book I highlighted more than I had expected to.

Staring At The Sky.


This is a picture I took a few weeks ago in Oklahoma. It was an unseasonably warm day, so Kim, Kyler and I decided to go visit one of our favorite parks and carpe diem with the best of them.

Once there, the two of them were determined to walk the trails and explore the woods within. I, on the other hand, was equally determined to lay flat on my back on a park bench and stare at the sky. (Truly, it was a win-win situation for everyone! I think…)

So I plunked down on the bench, got as comfortable as I could, and plugged in some tunes on my MP3 player. Now, for those of you who are crying out in protest that nature should be enjoyed WITHOUT music have obviously never stared at the sky while listening to Hammock’s post-rock drones. With their sweeping guitars, lush orchestration and aggressively tranquil songs, Hammock’s new album, “Raising Your Voice… Trying to Stop an Echo,” is the ideal soundtrack to enjoy your surroundings with minimal distraction.

I liked their original album, “Kenotic,” immensely. So when they released their second one last Fall, I have to admit I had high hopes. Thankfully, they weren’t dashed against the rocks. (Indeed, it’d be more accurate to say they were lulled to sleep on soft, silken pillows, if you’ll accept the cushy analogy…) Good stuff.

Had a great time that day, staring a the sky. I decided to include a photo because there’s a good chance the majority of you reading this don’t see this viewpoint very often. We’re so busy running around creating our own utopias on a horizontal plane that we fail to take the time and focus on the vertical. It’s important to remember there is so much more to life than what we see around us.

So give it a shot. Change your perspective once in a while, and see if it won’t help you look at the rest of your life a little differently.

As for me, I now know that sky-staring can serve as one of the more relaxing activities I engage in. AND – get this – it’s free.

Kevin


Rocky Mountain High.

Today I’m writing from Winter Park, Colorado. Early last week my parents mentioned they hadn’t canceled their timeshare reservation for their condo this week. Thus, either they had to use it or lose it (or pay a heft fee to recycle it, I think). They asked if I was interested in taking a jaunt out here, where we used to take family vacations every spring break and ski the slopes.

After factoring in that Kyler’s Tuesday/Thursday Mother’s Day Out program was going to be on Spring Break this week AND Kim’s parents wanted to see the li’l bugger, I figured I might as well make the trip. Sure, it’s a lot of driving, but it’s a rare opportunity to go to a remote location and have a few days all by yourself.

My twin brother Kolby also came out for the ride, and is staying with Kyler at the Lintons to help do some work around the house and just soak up mountain life. (And I’m glad he did, because it made the 10 hour drive out much, MUCH easier to handle.)

We arrived yesterday afternoon, spent the night and then I drove out here. And now I’m sitting in the bedroom on a comfy chair (this was always my parents’ room, so I never knew HOW comfy it was until now…) writing for my blog. I have a few books to read, some CDs and plenty of free time. There’s just one thing I DON’T have that I had planned on bringing: my MacBook.

Originally I was going to spend the next 4 days working hard on editing the novel my co-author, Patrick Aquilone, and I are writing together. To have so many days of uninterrupted productivity – it was going to be amazingly fantastic.

But as of this writing, it it NOT amazingly fantastic, and that’s for one reason and one reason only.

My MacBook died.

On Saturday night – mere hours before Kolby and I were to leave for the trip – my laptop died a horrible death. (Not as horrible as when my iMac went up in smoke, but horrible enough…) I was in the middle of backing up my hard drive when it seemingly got hung up. Frozen. Kaput.

So I did a hard reset and was aghast to see it reboot to the ominous Flashing Question Mark folder. Translation? It couldn’t find my system folder. The brain. The thing that makes it tick.

Restarting did nothing. Plunking in my TechTool DVD did nothing. Praying over it did nothing. It was gone…

On the plus side, however, I’m pleased to report that I DID back up as recently as Thursday, so all is not lost. It’s also still covered under my extended warranty, so I’ll either get a new hard drive or a new MacBook out of the deal. But on the downside – my MacBook is toast.

Also, my plans for productivity are shot. At least, when it comes to writing the novel. But my plans for reading and seeking God are now pushed to the forefront of my agenda.

So the question that I’m lingering on is this: who made my hard drive crash? Was it Satan somehow, knowing that the novel I’m working on is a Christian epic? (How he’d affect a hard drive, I have no idea.) Or was it God, wanting to remove my distractions and have me pursue this time with Him alone? Or do these things “just happen?”

Regardless of the cause, I believe it was God’s will for this to happen because it happened. Here I am, without a MacBook. But to argue that, wouldn’t I have to say that EVERYTHING that happens is God’s will? The Holocaust? 9/11? People being electrocuted by lightning? Is that a logical conclusion?

I don’t know the answer, people, I’m just putting the question out there. As it stands, I plan to spend a lot of time praying & reading the Bible, so maybe if I have any profound revelations I’ll share them here. :)

Kevin

Book Fair Kills, Part 2.

This is a list of my book fair kills from the end of last month. I had planned on posting them sooner, but I had some editing deadlines to finish before I could get back to blogging… :)
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Fiction:

The Upright Man – Michael Marshall
Abel Baker Charlie – John R. Maxim
The World’s Strangest Mysteries – Rupert Furneaux
The Bible and the Bermuda Triangle – George Johnson, Don Tanner
Atlantis: The Eighth Continent – Charles Berlitz
Atlantis Devil’s Sea - Greg Donnegan
Decipher – Stel Pavlou
The Road to Ruin – Donald E. Westlake
Subterranean – James Rollins (2 copies, to give away)
Sandstorm – James Rollins
Map of Bones – James Rollins
Temple – Matt Reilly (2 copies, to give away)
Ice Station – Matt Reilly
Panic Room – James Ellison
Unacceptable Risk - David Dun
The Black Silent – David Dun
Second Soul - Thomas Sullivan
Dispatch – Bentley Little
Maneaters – Peter Hathaway Capstick
Private Wars – Greg Rucka
Armageddons – Jack Dann & Gardner Dozios
Last On Earth -Book One: The Vanishing – Marilyn Kaye
The Closer – Donn Cortez
Pipsqueak – Brian M. Wiprud
Quietus – Vivian Schilling
The Northeast Kingdom – Peter Collins
Slipt – Alan Dean Foster
Phantoms – Dean Koontz
The Gunslinger – Stephen King

Non-Fiction:

Positive Thinking for Every Day of the Year – Norman Vincent Peale
Positive Imaging – Norman Vincent Peale
The Power of Positive Resistance – Dr. Roy Hicks
God’s Chosen Fast – Arthur Wallis
How to Fast Successfully – Derek Prince
There’s Dynamite In Praise – Don Gossett
Quantum Learning – Bobbi DePorter & Mike Hernacki
Brain Workout – Arthur Winter, M.D., Ruth Winter, M.S.
When I Relax I Feel Guilty - Tim Hansel
The Magic of Believing – Claude Bristol
The Satanic Bible - Anton La Vey
The Believer’s Guide to Spiritual Warfare – Tom White
Breaking Generational Curses & Pulling Down Strongholds – Vito Rallo
To Heaven & Back – Rita Bennett

Now, unless you completely skimmed over that list just now, you probably saw the one book that stuck out as a bizarre pick. The Satanic Bible? Why, oh Kevin, WHY!?! The answer is simple: so no one else could buy it. When I saw that on the table among all the other books, I was shocked. My first instinct was to not touch it, lest… you know… I become ‘infected’ with the sheer evil of it all. But then I thought through what would happen if I simply hid the book among the stacks of books beneath the table. Eventually, someone else would find it and buy it. And that thought? Well, that thought just made me kinda sad.

So I bought it. I bought it and took it home and threw it under my grill, to burn that sucker into cinder when it gets a little warmer outside. Or maybe I’ll shred it. Either way, I just want to render it unreadable. I think I’ll make that one of my goals when I go to Book Fairs in the future – to remove occult books from circulation. It’s one of the more subtle ways I can try to make the world a better place. (And boost the chicken and goat population at the same time! Everybody wins!)

Kevin

Book Fair Kills, Part 1.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s February.

Not only is it the month of love, but this is also the one month of the year when there are not one or two book fairs in the Oklahoma area, but THREE altogether. As I’ve done in the past, I’m going to list the finds (or “kills,” as I like to refer to them, as if I’m a Book Hunter) for your amusement and delight.

Yesterday I attended the first of the three, the Casady Book Fair in central Oklahoma City. It’s one of the smaller book fairs I go to, but always enjoyable. The strange part is when I arrive to wait in line for the preview night, I always see the same 70 people that I saw last year. And the year before. We’re an odd breed, dedicated to finding new books, some for personal enjoyment and others for resale value. I’d say the majority were there to find and resell their nuggets. Me? I’m pickin’ ‘em all for me, baby. (Except for any that I pick up with Kyler or Kim in mind…)

So, without further delay, here’s the list of Kevin’s Kills:

Skeleton Key – Anthony Horowitz

Point Blank – Anthony Horowitz

Stormbreaker – Anthony Horowitz

Picoverse – Robert A. Metzger

Creepers – David Morrell

Vertical Run – Joseph R. Garber (I already own several copies to hand out to friends needing an adrenaline boost. Or like staying up all night reading a book…)

Great Idea! Now What? – Bronson & Lange

Get Anyone to Do Anything – David J. Lieberman, Ph. D.

90 Minutes in Heaven – Don Piper

How To Read A Book – Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren

Thinking On Paper – V. A. Howard & J. H. Barton

Learning to Hear God’s Voice – Herman Riffel

Listening To God – Charles Stanley

7-Day Detox Miracle – Peter Bennett, N.D. & Stephen Barrie, N.D.

Freakonomics – Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

Why Do Men Have Nipples? – Mark Leyner & Billy Goldberg

And that’s it. I’m attending two HUGE book fairs next weekend, so there’s more to come. :) Feel free to shoot me questions or comments if you’re bored.

Kevin

Kevin Is… Super Sperm!

So I’m still alive after my second stint as Bigfoot. To be honest, I was half dead Sunday afternoon when it was over. Walking around a hard parking lot with no foot support aside from a thick pair of socks is surprisingly strenuous on a guy’s legs! Not only was my knee ready to give way (from all the crouching and jumping about), but my calves were MASSIVE from the strain. I had the sexiest calves I’ve seen on anyone, and it’s saying something when a guy drools over his own calves… (not sure what it’s saying, but it says something…)

Also surprising was the fact that I didn’t freeze. My hands were kinda cold at times, but I still sweat like a hairless monkey in a monkey suit. (Wrap THAT around your multiple degrees, punks!)

Anyhow, I had such a good time with it that I wrote some of the staff at LifeChurch.tv offering my services as another mascot for their next sermon series: “Satan’s SexEd.”

Think they’ll go for it?

Kevin

Freezing Bigfoot & Fond Foosball Memories.

I’m sitting in the lobby of the LifeChurch.tv OKC campus, preparing for my second stint as the one and only Bigfoot. It’ll be significantly different than my experience last week, mainly because this time I’ve been asked to walk outside among the parking lots, and it’s something like 38 degrees (F) out there.

Yeah. I’m about to freeze my furry bald butt off.

I’m slightly prepared, though… I have on two layers of t-shirts, brought some wool socks and mittens to wear under the gorilla gloves, and I’ll have a knit cap on my head. Lord only knows if it’ll be sufficient enough to keep my leg hairs from curling in the cold, but we’ll find out.

I’m trying to figure out what else I can write about. Perhaps an update on life?

Kim’s still pregnant, preparing for the big day in late April. We’re still not finding out the gender until the kid pops out, but we’re slowly narrowing down our list of names. I’ve had a dream that it was a girl, but I also feel like God whispered a boy’s name to me one day, so I’m all kinds of confused on what we’re having. (With Kyler I dreamt I received a call from God, telling me Kim was pregnant. And this was a month before we even found out she WAS pregnant!) So, needless to say, I take a lot of stock in my dreams…

Whoops. If you’ll please excuse me, they’ve installed a new foosball table here in the lobby, and I see two grade-schoolers I’d like to stomp on it.

(15 Minutes Later…)

Spanking accomplished. I’ve discovered I’m not that great of a teacher when it comes to foosball. Not that I wouldn’t love to teach what I know, but when I find myself playing someone younger than I, I’m not inclined to “throw the game” and let them win. I play like I always do: all out. To win. To inflict emotional pain and turmoil in the opponent who dared to think they could conquer me and my mad skillz.

Granted, in this situation I pretty much injected myself into a group and beat the snot out of them. Come to think of it, it’s not unlike what a bully does on the school playground. Is that what I’ve become? A foosball bully? Man, I never thought of it that way. Me? A bully?

Sweet.

Nah, just kidding. But it’s an interesting transition, from being the small runt of an adult at 5’6″ to the Big Kahuna at the table.

Since I’m talking about foosball, it’s only proper to give props to the two opponents who have given me a consistently competitive game: Eric and Nate.

When Nate Briley came back from Indonesia back in 2001, he lived with Kim and I (or with Greg) for a few weeks. I only had a cheap, beat-up table at the time that I snagged on eBay, but it was enough to get our adrenaline flowing. After beating him every single game we played, I decided it was time to give him a goal, so I told him I’d pay him $10 if he EVER beat me.

Three games later, he did. 9 to 10. And then he beat me again, and again, and suddenly I was hoping he’d give me the same offer so I could get my money back. And now? Well, even though it’s been years since we’ve played, I’m sure he’d still be able to throw down just as ferociously as he did back then. (You just don’t forget how to slap someone around at foosball, no matter how long it’s been…)

My brother, Eric, is the other worthy contender. Aside from Nate, Eric is the only guy who can beat me and make it look like he’s not even trying. No sweat, no tantrums, no painful screams (at least, not in the first few games…). Just cool, level-headed engineer Eric. He is quite the player, and I can’t help but think having your own quality, full-sized foosball table in your basement might help build up your bag of tricks over the years.

And I think that’s all for now. Wow. I wrote a lot. Here I was just killing time until I donned the suit, but I actually had a lot to say. Or at least a lot to ramble about. Hope you guys enjoyed it!

Kevin

Bigfoot For Christ.


This weekend I had a rare pleasure: dressing up in a gorilla outfit to impersonate Bigfoot. And why, you might ask, would I be dressing up like Bigfoot? Why, because my church asked me to, of course!

The latest sermon series at LifeChurch is Urban Legends, and even though they’re actually addressing the Urban Legends and misconceptions among Christians, they’re embracing the whole theme of legends with marketing material showing images of Bigfoot, aliens, Loch Ness Monster, etc.

So I was the Bigfoot that walked casually across the stage, down the stairs and out the back of the auditorium. (Actually, I walked casually across the stage for the 5:30pm service, then BOLTED down the aisle for the 7:00pm… kind of a hurried lurch, I guess…

It was fun, but incredibly sweaty. Boy, that suit stank! I felt bad for the next guy who donned it for the Sunday morning services. To be honest, I kinda had flashbacks to when I’d dress up at Chuck E. Cheese when I worked at Showbiz Pizza Place in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Except this time I didn’t have some delusional parent handing off their bawling kid, trying to capture the “perfect moment” with their camera. Seriously. All they ended up capturing was evidence of child abuse… and character mouse abuse, I could argue.

The Urban Legends series is fantastic, though. You can stream it or subscribe to their podcasts through iTunes to see what it’s all about. Good, good stuff!

Kevin

Update: Tonight I was asked if I could be Bigfoot again this weekend, wandering the parking lots aimlessly. I immediately said Yes, of course. Wow. I’m thrilled! :) (No, seriously… I’m actually thrilled, here!)

Book Review: Acrobat, By Gonzalo Lira

The Book: Acrobat, by Gonzalo Lira

The Hook: Five young CIA operatives on the run, accused of stealing $60 Million dollars and selling military secrets.

The Thoughts: This book had a great opening, starting off the story with an amazingly fast-paced start. Even the way one of the main characters dies was completely unique, and for a guy who collects books such as “What A Way To Go” and “Strange Deaths,” I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised.

I also really enjoyed the different characters of a team, and the contrast of personalities was stark and memorable. Good dialogue, and the antagonist was refined and nasty. Unfortunately, halfway through the novel I had grown weary of the excessive profanity (needless, one might say), and flipped through the rest of the novel to find out who the “traitor” was. (Thankfully, I was surprised once again.)

Conclusion? An engaging novel that’s sure to keep the spy fan entertained for a few nights, provided they’re more insensitive to profanity than I am. (And the word “poop.”)

Kevin

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